Crossing the bridge between dreams and reality - Let's Play Eternal Sonata!

[Cadenza]

Verse 7-5: Broken Balance

Hello and welcome back to Eternal Sonata! Last time the party continued exploring Double Reed Tower, taking both paths up to the top of the East Tower and battling the foes therein. Having defeated all four bosses of the tower, we once more join Frederic and the gang as they climb back down for a fourth time:

♪♪~ Spiral Twister

It’s a long way back down, so let’s not waste any time.

♪♪~ Leap the Precipice

Just like with the West Tower in the previous update, now that both bosses of the East Tower have been defeated the battlefield is much darker overall (save for the blue circle in the center).

This is Zodiac, the special Polka learned last time; it’s the dark version of Roundel, and it means we can finally replace Shade Comet as her secondary dark special.

♪♪~ Well Done

Frederic: “Let us rejoice, for now.”

Usually I avoid encounters when I’m going back down the towers, but this time I make sure to fight everything on the way down, so Frederic can learn this. It will be extremely useful in the battle against Waltz, trust me.

It’s pretty cool watching the endless sandfall as you descend the tower.

Back on the ground floor, we descend to the base once again…

Only to find something very different than last time we were here.

The sandfall from both towers are accumulating here, creating a pathway for us to walk to the center of the base…

Where we find a staircase, which seems to also be made of the falling sand.

We start climbing…

And find a teleporter at the top.

Allegretto: “It looks like we can get to the top floor from here. What should we do?”

Nothing for it but to take it, of course.

Some extreme "the final confrontation is imminent" energy being given off by this room.

The game hands us a free Spade Clover. Now then, before we walk through that big, ominous door, let’s talk party setup.

Jazz will be at the front, wearing the Crimson Brooch so he can chew through Waltz’s HP as fast as possible. To mitigate the Burst effect, he’ll also be wearing the Peace Earring, and I swap the Lech Armor over to him as well. His high HP should also help.

Frederic has the Werewolf Choker so that he can build Echoes and unleash a fully-charged Phantom Pain as often as possible. The Power Ring is so that his melee combos pack more of a punch.

Polka has the Recovery Orb so she can stay relatively healthy. She’ll be firing off Blossom Shower as needed, and making use of the Pocket Watch to build Echoes when she gets the chance. Also, I think she deserves some payback for Waltz knocking her unconscious before the first time we fought him.

Now then, let’s go.

As we get closer to the door, we can see that sand is falling down both sides of it, and an unknown script is flowing down both the columns and the floor.

The door opens ponderously slowly; it takes a full five seconds.

This is it – Waltz and Legato are just ahead. I have no idea what any of that stuff in the background is, but it looks pretty cool.

Let’s not keep them waiting any longer.

 

[Cadenza]

click to watch the cutscene (recommended viewing)

♪♪~ Strategy

Forget that, where the hell did you get the throne? Has it been sitting here this whole time??

Waltz: “Oh, really? I’m not getting away?”
*He has a good laugh at this.*
Waltz: “Why would I need to run away from you? I have incredible power at my disposal. You’re the ones who should be trying to run. Wouldn’t you agree, Legato?”

I’ll take that as a “yes.”

Jazz: “Dammit, this is bad. He’s already adapted to his new body.”
Waltz: “Of course, I have no intention of allowing you to get away.”

Polka: “Like the mineral powder! It’s so dangerous! How could you actually let the people of Forte use something so terrible?”
Waltz: “Terrible? Why, whatever do you mean? It was entirely for the sake of my subjects that I developed the most effective medicine possible.”

Waltz: “Well, these things do happen. The fact of the matter is, we cannot achieve widespread happiness without a little sacrifice.”

*Waltz starts absentmindedly looking at the ring on his finger.*
Waltz: “Why should that matter? The powder heals illness, does it not? And nothing in this world comes without a price. Besides, no one is forcing them to take it. They have a choice in the matter. The only reason my subjects choose to buy mineral powder is because they want it.”

*He chuckles.*
Waltz: “Haven’t you heard that ignorance is a sin? We never once said anything about the mineral powder being harmless, did we?”

Falsetto: “We’ve had enough of your stonewalling! The only thing that you wanted was to build an army of super soldiers.”

Waltz: “Oh yes, Andantino. With the way you try to influence people, you’re really not so different from us. You knew you needed power to defeat me. So, in order to achieve your goal, you betrayed your own country. To Baroque.”
Jazz: “You’re wrong; we’re nothing like you. We’re trying to save the people of Forte, who are suffering from your mineral powder.”

Waltz: “Let’s dispense with all the grandstanding, shall we? Be honest with yourself, fearless leader of Andantino. You only want revenge.”
Falsetto: “You’re wrong! That has nothing to do with it!”

Y’all, Count Waltz is so smug in this cutscene.

Waltz: “The only difference between us is the self-righteous sense of justice you have. Actually, you’re a lot worse than I am.”
*He chuckles again.*

A valid question, I think, considering everything that’s happened. You never do find out Waltz’s motivation in the original game.

Polka: “But how will… how will doing that possibly make you feel more alive?”
*The music fades out.*
Waltz: “I’m sorry, do you disapprove? Perhaps you’d like to share with us your life’s purpose?”

♪♪~ Your Circumstances

Waltz: “You poor, poor thing. You’re the one who uses magic, aren’t you? Don’t fret, dear, you’re not alone. In fact, all human beings are fragile. Especially those who lack power. They die quite easily. And when you die, it’s over. There’s just no meaning to it.”

Waltz: “When you die you disappear, and eventually, you’re forgotten. Nothing of you remains. Humans are so unfeeling that way. That’s why I must have power. Enough absolute power to carve my existence into the very fabric of this world. As long as I have that….”
*The music fades out.*

Waltz: “What?”
Allegretto: “It’s pretty pathetic, actually. The thing you want most out of life is something you can only get after you’re already dead.”

Waltz: “Such a fool. I don’t care about vague, fleeting memories.”

Allegretto: “Man. There really is just no getting through to you, is there, pal?”

You know, if this were anyone else, Allegretto’s speech might have actually worked.

But this is Waltz we’re talking about.

 

[Cadenza]

♪♪~ Pressure

incredibly difficult boss fight time! (recommended viewing)

♪♪~ Broken Balance

Boss: Count Waltz (rematch), Ruined Body
HP (Waltz): 755,000
HP (Ruined Body): 1,178,780 (Xbox 360)/884,000 (PS3)
Exp total: 400,000 (Xbox 360)/267,500 (PS3)
Gold: 0 (Xbox 360)/5,000 (PS3)
This is about to get very very bad, isn’t it: Why yes, yes it is.

Incidentally, you should go ahead and listen to the boss theme linked above; I named the update after it for a reason!

Waltz: “You’ll lose, and be nothing once more!”

Jazz: “So, the time has come at last.”

Welcome to the hardest main story battle in the game. Either one of these bosses would be dangerous on their own, but having to fight both of them at once is a nightmare. I’m actually amazed it only took me one attempt when I recorded the footage for Chapter 7, although it was extremely close in a few places.

Some quick notes about the battlefield before we move on to the fight itself; it’s almost entirely in light, except for a V-shaped shadow at the top. Ruined Body also casts a big enough shadow that you’ll almost certainly be using your dark specials if attacking it, unless you have Shining Body like Frederic does, or you attack it directly from the front, which is a bad idea anyway.

Waltz has the same moveset from the last time we fought him, and he’s still fast enough that he’ll sometimes get two turns in a row.

Ruined Body’s basic attack involves slowly hunching itself over and clawing at you. The guard timing is surprisingly tight for such a slow attack, and it can knock you down if you don’t block it.

Its special attacks are much deadlier, and it almost always uses one at the end of its turn, especially Blood Sink. It hits everyone in a large AoE around the boss, and always lowers the affected characters’ ATK slightly, even if you successfully guard against it. It’s not a huge decrease – you’d have to get hit by Blood Sink a lot to start seeing a detrimental effect on your damage output – but it still hurts a lot.

Just like the fight against Ogre King and Wicked Shrub in Xylophone Tower, it’s in your best interest to take advantage of when Waltz and Ruined Body can both be hit at the same time, the better to rack up Echoes quickly. Time to blast Waltz with Phantom Pain!

Frederic: “Believe what you see and die!”

Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Phantom Pain is flat-out one of the best specials in the game; it hits a single target five times, deals huge damage with a full Echo Meter, and lowers the opponent’s DEF by 10 points with each hit. There was a bug in the original version of the game where it would increase the opponent’s ATK by 10, making it effectively worthless; I’m very glad this has been fixed for the PS3 port.

Any turn where Waltz uses Harsh Torment or Aure Dominium are effectively breather turns; it won’t happen often, but it’ll give you a chance to recover and reposition your party when it does.

Oh, also, Ruined Body kind of cheats a little! Any time it starts winding up for one of its specials it can reposition itself wherever it wants, regardless of whether or not there’s any time left in its Action Gauge.

Waltz and Ruined Body work together distressingly well; Waltz tends to focus on one target at a time (except for when he uses Apocalypse Fall), while Ruined Body blasts the whole party and wears them down for Waltz to finish off, like here. You should bring along a lot of revival items, and it’s highly recommended to use at least one character with a healing special.

 

[Cadenza]

If a character does get knocked out, drop everything and get them back on their feet as soon as possible; you’re really going to need the entire party to win this fight, at least until one of the bosses is down for the count.

Oh that’s bad; I was trying to use the Very Odd Chocolate on Waltz to take some of the sting out of his attacks, but it targeted Ruined Body instead, and it got blocked. Hooray for being a complete waste of an item!

Polka’s Blossom Shower is really a godsend in this battle; it can bring your party back into fighting shape even if the Echo Meter is only partially full.

Of course, the two bosses can just as easily bring your HP right back down to dangerous levels. Purgatory can hit everyone in a horizontal line in front of Ruined Body for pretty sizable damage, although it doesn’t hurt as much as Blood Sink.

Okay, this is very bad. Waltz just blasted Frederic and Polka, and only Jazz is left standing with critical HP levels.

I use the single Goddess Bouquet I brought along to get them back up, and then run over behind Ruined Body to hopefully draw its attention away from them. I’ve already used the Diamond Clover I packed at this point, so my only hope of not immediately dying again is to block absolutely everything Waltz throws out next turn.

Success! Y’all, I was this close to a full party wipe, and if I had panicked it would have been all over.

And hey, the decoy strategy even worked! Provoked is an attack that Ruined Body will only use rarely; it just leans over to chomp on the target once, that’s about it.

From there the fight evens out a little. I move Polka over to fight the Ruined Body so that Waltz doesn’t attack her, and keep him busy with Frederic and Jazz. The former is still sending out fully charged Phantom Pain blasts as often as possible, and the latter is making use of the wide range of his specials to hit both bosses as much as I can.

Eventually, Waltz goes down to Jazz’s combos! It’s hard to tell, but you can just glimpse him through Ruined Body’s arm. (In hindsight the overhead camera view would have let me see this better, but I didn’t think to use it.) It’s up for debate which boss is preferable to take out first; Ruined Body has lower defenses and is an easier target, but Waltz has less HP and is far faster. I prefer to defeat Waltz first, but there isn’t a wrong answer, since the fight gets much easier once one of them goes down.

Make no mistake, though, the fight isn’t quite free at this point; Ruined Body still has a couple tricks up its sleeve. Mortal Cleave is its most powerful single-target attack, and it’s about as strong as Blood Sink if you fail to block it.

Now that we don’t have to concentrate so much on keeping everyone healthy, the party is free to wail on Ruined Body as much as they want.

When it uses Regenerate, that’s your cue that Ruined Body is nearly defeated; it will heal the boss for 23,700 HP on each of its turns, but it doesn’t last long, and it can only use this move once. (Note also the “Get Regenrate” message; the wiki only says this typo is present in the original game, but clearly it’s here in the PS3 port as well.)

Jazz: “Burn away to nothing!”

Finally, Jazz initiates the last Harmony Chain of the battle, and Frederic deals the final blow with one more Phantom Pain.

♪♪~ Well Done

Jazz: “Last man standing is the winner!”

We did it! We defeated the toughest main story bosses in the game and got a whole truckload of exp out of it, as well as a new weapon for Allegretto. Frederic actually gained two levels from this battle!

 

[Cadenza]

♪♪~ Repeated Tide

click to watch the rest of this update

*Waltz struggles to crawl forward; as he does, he looks over at Legato:*

*Suddenly, he begins to laugh maniacally.*

*He starts shakily getting to his feet and turns back toward his throne:*

Allegretto: “Hey! What are you doing?!”

♪♪~ Pursuit

*The music abruptly stops as Waltz and Legato are engulfed in a massive explosion and the screen flashes white.*

With this, Waltz and Legato are truly gone, having blown themselves up and leaving only a strange portal behind. We could, if we wanted, walk through that portal to the endgame…

But immediately after the cutscene ends, the game drops this curious item into our inventory. We’re very close to the end of the game, but in a way, we’re also only just getting started. Next update we’ll start looking at Eternal Sonata’s optional content, whatever that might entail.

Next time: ???

 

[Cadenza]

I don't think an update is happening this week - it took me longer than I thought it would to record footage for the next section of the game, which means it's going to take a hot minute to get all the screenshots I need. Plus GDQ is happening this week! So until then, here is some art of Count Waltz:

The purple color scheme plus the star motif is a pretty good combination, I think.

 

[Cadenza]

Hey everybody. I figure a status update on the state of the LP is probably a good idea, since it's been a bit over a month since the last update. First, I'm not abandoning this thread; I've never left an LP unfinished, and I'm not about to start now, especially not for one of my favorite games. I don't want there to be any doubt about this - I will finish this thread, even if it takes me longer than I initially thought it would.

But I won't lie, the past month has been hard. Being on lockdown for so long is getting to me; I'm normally pretty introverted, but even I miss being able to spend time with literally anybody else besides my roommates. I've also noticed that I'm starting to get more easily irritable than I usually am, which I really don't like. I've been trying to distract myself by replaying Final Fantasy X over the past few weeks; this is the first time I'm actually doing all of the endgame content, which I probably wouldn't bother with under normal circumstances, but it's been nice to zone out to the grind.

On top of this, the next section of Eternal Sonata we'll be covering is very repetitive; it's fine to play through and record footage of, but it's been difficult to write about and make it sound interesting. I've done my best, but I'm pretty resigned to the fact that it'll still probably bore some people. But I'd rather have a few updates of tedium than leave the thread unfinished, so I'm going to push through it as quickly as I can. To that end, the current plan is to post the next update this Friday, then post the next several updates every few days or so after that until we're done with this section of the game. Then we can move on to the fun stuff!

I hope I haven't lost any readers from inactivity, and that you'll join me as I try and pick up where we left off. See you then!

 

[Mogri]

I'm still here! Take as much time as you need.

 

[yama]

I'm enjoying this.

 

[Violentvixen]

I am totally cool with shorter/smaller updates for repetitive sections if that helps you out!

 

[Cadenza]

Thanks, all! I appreciate it.

Tomorrow's update will be about the usual size, but the next several afterwards will be smaller. See you then!

 

[Cadenza]

Verse VIII-I: The Purgatorial Labyrinth, Part One

Hello and welcome back to Eternal Sonata! Last time the party reached the apex of Double Reed Tower, confronted Count Waltz and Legato, and defeated them both. Enraged at this loss, Waltz ordered Legato to “destroy the world,” and Legato blew them both up in a massive explosion, leaving behind a strange portal:

♪♪~ Spiral Twister

As I said last time, we could step through the portal to the end of the game, if we wanted. But, if you’ll recall…

The game also gave us this right after the battle. This is your hint that there’s something to be found in the Noise Dunes, although I’m not sure how you’re supposed to extrapolate from there that you need to exit-wrap in a certain area four times in a row. Maybe a given player, knowing from this item that they can find the Hero’s Gate somewhere in the desert, will just keep trying. But it’s pretty well-hidden, regardless.

♪♪~ Where We End Up

In any case, we’ve already seen the Hero’s Gate back before we knew what it was called, so I’ll just head back there offscreen and save y’all having to see a couple minutes of back-tracking.

Right, let’s see about opening this thing.

Allegretto: “Could this emblem be….”

Allegretto: “It opened. I wonder what’s on the other side.”

The music fades out, and a heavenly choir can be heard as the door slowly, loudly creaks open. If we were playing the Xbox 360 version of the game, we’d get an achievement just for opening the door. Now then, let’s see what’s waiting for us through the doorway.

♪♪~ The Unreasonable Theory

A very strange place, indeed. The various pillars and walkways are suspended in a black void, and strange walls of water continuously ripple off in the distance. And right near the entrance, standing on the emblem of the Heaven’s Mirror flower…

Is a familiar face.

click to watch the cutscene

♪♪~ No music

Falsetto: “This can’t be! What’s going on?!”
Viola: “Didn’t you die?”
Salsa: “Are you… a ghost?”
*Claves lowers her head for a moment.*

*brief awkward silence*
Claves: “Just kidding. Did I scare you? Sorry, Salsa.”
Allegretto: “That’s not it, it’s just….”
Claves: “Yes, I know.”

♪♪~ A Faint Light Grasped in the Hand

Claves: “I heard the sound of my soul being separated from my body, then everything went dark. I heard nothing, and I couldn’t speak.”

*She takes a few steps forward.*
Claves: “And then I screamed out: ‘Let me see him! Let me see him!’ And I just kept screaming. Then, somehow, I was able to come back. When I came to, I was standing here. My spirit and body were reunited.”
Jazz: “So, does that mean you’ve returned to life?”

Claves: “The impact of reentering this world broke my soul and scattered its pieces throughout this labyrinth. I have braved the labyrinth many times attempting to restore it, but I….”
Jazz: “Don’t worry. I promise we’ll get your soul back. Right, Allegretto?”
Allegretto: “Yeah, that’s right! I’m sure we can bring Claves back to life!”
*Everyone nods.*

After being gone for more than half the game, Claves is now back in the party, and we have our goal for the foreseeable future: descend to the bottom of Mysterious Unison and find all the scattered pieces of Claves’s soul along the way.

She has some new equipment to help survive this place, but is otherwise identical to how we left her back in Chapter 3. If you had accidentally left an accessory on Claves when she left the party, this is when you would get it back; luckily nothing you’d have at that point would have been especially valuable!

Before we proceed onward, let’s see what happens if we leave without having reassembled Claves’s soul:

♪♪~ No music

Falsetto: “What’s wrong, Claves?”
Claves: “My soul and body are not yet in complete unison. If I were to leave as I am now, I would turn to dust.”
Falsetto: “Why?”
Viola: “We’re all destined to return to dust some day.”

So we can’t leave with her right now, but we can go resupply back at Elegy of the Moon if needed. We then see this upon returning:

Okay, now let’s see just how big this dungeon is.

Heading northeast from the entrance brings us to the Well of Souls, which will act as our main hub for the dungeon; from here we can teleport to any basement level we’ve previously reached. The save point at the entrance is the only one in Unison, so it’s important to come back and save after every floor.

However, to access any of that we have to fight this dragon first. Let’s not keep it waiting.

 

[Cadenza]

click to watch the boss fight

♪♪~ Opposition Resignation

Boss: Mercurius
HP: 240,600 (Xbox 360)/511,000 (PS3)
Exp: 49,999 (Xbox 360)/12,200 (PS3)
Gold: 0

Claves: “Let’s see how you do.”

This isn’t really a challenging battle, nor is it meant to be, even with Claves’s severely under-leveled self in the active party.

Mercurius has the standard dragon moveset: stomps, Lash Tail for anyone behind it, Suffocating Blow for an AoE, and Incinerate for characters in front of it. Really the hardest part of the battle is keeping Claves alive; to that end I give her the Peace Earring and Recovery Orb, both of which she’ll be wearing for the next several updates until she catches up.

Falsetto: “Don’t underestimate me!”

The boss isn’t going to stand up to more than a couple Harmony Chains at most, and the battle doesn’t last very long.

♪♪~ Well Done

Falsetto: “Hm. That was perfect!”

With that out of the way, we can actually start exploring the dungeon now.

And, more importantly, we’ve reached the highest Party Level!

The most immediate benefit of this is that our Item Set has reached its maximum capacity of 50 points. This lets you load up on pretty much whatever items you want, but keep in mind that you can only have up to 25 of the same item in the Set regardless of point value.

♪♪~ The Unreasonable Theory

With preparations out of the way, we can finally start dungeon crawling.

Spoiler: The Unreasonable Theory

I love how dissonant this theme is; it’s not quite atonal like the theme for Lento Cemetery, but it’s easily the most unsettling dungeon music in the game. The choir especially does a lot of heavy lifting in selling the atmosphere of the place; it sounds to me like the music is communicating that you really shouldn’t be here.

Basement level 1 is a nice teal. The whole dungeon is presented in this slanted top-down view, so to make it easy to follow along I’ll try to stick to the four cardinal directions as much as possible. To that end, we go north…

And immediately run into the boss we just fought, now downgraded to standard enemy.

♪♪~ Leap the Precipice

The battlefield for Mysterious Unison is very large and almost entirely in darkness, save for the lampposts in the four corners and the center. If you get unlucky with enemy spawn positions you might have to spend a character’s entire turn just running to the nearest opponent; the Speed Shoes are a good solution to this if you’re really having trouble.

The Mercurius is the same as its boss form, just with downgraded stats, so I’ll use this opportunity to go over Party Level 6.

Now that we’ve reached this milestone, we can use up to six special attacks in a single Harmony Chain. The Echo Meter no longer resets with each special in the chain, letting you build it back up to full very easily; in addition, our Echo count now carries over between battles, potentially letting you start a fight with a full meter. All these factors combined will let us put out truly absurd amounts of damage.

However, there is one drawback: now whenever we initiate a Harmony Chain, the command buttons will randomly rotate, potentially leading to layouts like the one featured above. This forces you to really pay attention to what buttons you’re pushing, especially since pressing the wrong one in the middle of a chain immediately ends it. Thankfully, the Square button never rotates so you always have access to your items, and the commands reset after each battle.

♪♪~ Well Done

Polka: “Perfect!”

Soon after arriving on this floor, Polka becomes our first character to learn her final special! We’ll be gaining a lot of levels in this place, Claves especially – she’ll be caught up to the rest of the party in no time. I’ll go over Terra Externa later; for now we’ll get back to dungeon-crawling.

The first room of basement level 1 is a four-way intersection. We want to head west from here.

In the next room we follow the path as it curves back to the north…

Which leads to a T-intersection. We’ll go west first.

This leads us to Viola’s ultimate weapon! We’ll be finding most of the party’s ultimate equipment in this dungeon, and some of it is just silly in how powerful it is.

Back at the T-intersection, we’ll head north. Note that the Mercurius is no longer here; the enemies in Mysterious Unison are unique in that they only respawn if you leave and reenter whatever floor you’re on. This makes navigating without an in-game map slightly easier.

North of the previous room, we follow the path east…

Which brings us to another T-intersection. We want to go north first…

To find the first Soul Shard. There are seven of these in all; three of them are found in chests like this, three are won from boss fights on certain floors, and one is… well, it’s a special case.

 

[Cadenza]

Back at the T-intersection, we go east and then follow the path south.

♪♪~ Well Done

Beat: “All right!”

Along the way, Beat learns his final special, which I’ll cover later. (The wiki lists Beat as learning it at level 50 for the PS3 port, which is plainly not the case.)

We continue along the path, which curves west…

Then south, then west again.

This brings us to another four-way intersection; there aren’t any more treasures on this floor, so we’ll proceed north.

This brings us to the teleporter leading to the next floor. Note the room name; most of the screens in Mysterious Unison have unhelpful nonsense names like this, which makes navigating the dungeon more difficult than it already is. I strongly recommend any potential future players to look up a map of this dungeon so they don’t wind up lost for hours, which is a real possibility if you don’t already know the place well, or want to map out the place yourself.

Anyway, we’ve reached basement level 2, which is back to the default white color scheme. This is the game’s way of telling you that there’s something special on this particular floor, although what that is remains to be seen.

Heading north from the teleporter brings us to a T-intersection and a new enemy.

♪♪~ Leap the Precipice

Roaming Pirates are the final variant of the pirate enemy; why they’re here in a mysterious labyrinth in the afterlife is not a question I can answer. They have low HP for this point in the game, but high attack power; you don’t want them to stick around for long, especially if they use Rising Power to put Burst on themselves.

While I’m here, I can show off Dimensional Turn, which Jazz learned back in Double Reed Tower. It’s the dark version of Plasma Chains and is thus incredibly situational, but somehow I found the perfect circumstances in which to use it. I tend to stick to Jazz’s other specials, but hey, I guess you have options if you find yourself sandwiched between two enemies a lot.

Claves: “Hey, pretty good!”

Roaming Pirates give slightly more exp than Mercurius, which is good for leveling up. Beast Meteor was originally the last special Claves learned, at level 68, a level you likely won’t reach before the very end of the dungeon. For the PS3 port, the developers moved around several of Claves’s more powerful specials so she learns them sooner, probably to make her more immediately useful when you first start descending through Mysterious Unison.

As for the special itself, Beast Meteor is one of Claves’s most powerful attacks even at this level, and it has infinite range, giving her some long-distance utility. It can also hit multiple enemies, but the AoE is pretty small so it won’t happen often. Once she’s caught up to the rest of the party, using Beast Meteor at the beginning of a fully charged Harmony Chain can easily let you hit the damage cap (for the curious, it’s 99,999).

♪♪~ The Unreasonable Theory

Moving on, we head east from the T-intersection and follow the path south.

“ATK +180
Cane that pursues infinite possibilities. The never-ending universe that lies within man.”

This leads us to a new weapon for Serenade with a very flowery description.

Back at the T-intersection, we go west this time, then follow the path south once more.

This takes us to an area where the path curves west and then back south in the same area, which you can just barely see in the left edge of the screenshot above.

Salsa: “I just know I’m gettin’ taller!”
Viola: “Hey, this is nothin’!”
Falsetto: “I mustn’t hesitate!”

Along the way, several characters learn new specials in quick succession; Salsa and Falsetto each have one more to go, but Viola has just learned her last special.

 

[Cadenza]

Let’s look at a few more specials while I’m here. New Moon Bind is the dark version of March’s Full Moon Bind, with a chance of inflicting Slow instead of Stop. This special is more likely to stick than Full Moon Bind, making it more useful than the latter, especially against tougher enemies.

Deadly Circle is the light version of Deadly Orbit and works the same way: not the best for damage but great for building Echoes. You really only need one of them equipped at a time, and unless you’re having Salsa wear a Brilliant Brooch it’s probably better to stick with Deadly Orbit, since you’re fighting in the dark most of the time anyway.

Terra Externa is the dark version of Pure Geyser; it hits every enemy on the battlefield but has reduced power to compensate. Strangely, Terra Externa seems to be bugged, and it won’t always hit every enemy if you use it in a Harmony Chain, which is an unfortunate flaw that hampers its effectiveness even more.

Continuing on, we reach another T-intersection, and head south.

“ATK +160, Slow
A massive gauntlet worn by Thor when he wielded his hammer.”

This leads to a new weapon for Falsetto, which, while much more powerful than Tyr’s Left Arm, is very costly to use; the battlefield for Mysterious Unison is simply too big to be able to move around effectively under permanent Slow status.

Back at the T-intersection, we move east this time, then follow the path south.

♪♪~ Well Done

Allegretto: “Haha! All right!”
Serenade: “I will protect Prince Crescendo!”
Crescendo: “Grant me the power to protect my people!”

Another small avalanche of new specials, which these three characters are now done learning.

Continuing onward, we follow the path east…

Then arrive at another T-intersection, where we want to continue going east. But before we do…

Even more specials to look at! (This barrage of special coverage will slow down considerably after this update, I promise.) Full Barrage is a light special that has infinite range, can hit multiple enemies, and hits said enemies three times; it’s one of Viola’s best attacks, and combined with Hawk Eye or a charged Echo Meter (or both) it can wreak serious havoc.

Death Chasm is the dark version of Shadow Beam, dealing a single hit for massive damage; as such it’s best used at the start of a Harmony Chain for maximum effectiveness. Under such conditions, it can pretty easily hit the damage cap at higher levels.

Sky Fire is a light special that only hits once, but has infinite range and a huge blast radius, making it great for crowd control. It’s Beat’s most powerful attack by a fair margin.

Bloody Plume is the dark version of Allegretto’s Starlight Blast, hitting an enemy eight times (potentially multiple enemies if they’re close enough together); it’s one of the strongest specials in the game, and the final hit can easily reach the damage cap at higher levels.

♪♪~ The Unreasonable Theory

Going east from the T-intersection, we follow the path north…

Which brings us to another T-intersection.

Heading north from there brings us to a new weapon for March. She and Salsa are special in that they technically get two ultimate weapons, one normal and one with a high light/dark bonus; this is March’s standard ultimate weapon and is quite useful.

From the chest, we backtrack to the previous T-intersection and head north this time.

We then follow the path east, and it turns back north offscreen.

Frederic: “Let us celebrate, and be satisfied!”
Claves: “Hey, pretty good!”

Two more specials for the road; let’s look a few more of them before we finish up this floor. (Claves originally learned Aiatar Horn at level 22, but it was swapped around with Obsidian Needle for the PS3 port.)

 

[Cadenza]

Throne of Thorns is a light special for Serenade; it hits four times, has infinite range, and is the only one of Serenade’s specials that can hit multiple enemies. It’s also monstrously powerful, especially with a full Echo Meter.

Chaos Bolt is the dark version of Crescendo’s Galactic Nebula, but where the latter is rather weak, the former is incredibly strong (one of the strongest specials in the game, in fact); with a full Echo Meter you can hit the damage cap quite easily at higher levels.

Tri-Clementia is tied with Blossom Shower for best healing special in the game; Blossom Shower is stronger, but Tri-Clementia has a faster casting time, letting you use it two or three times in a single turn. It also has infinite range and affects the whole party.

Finally, Aiatar Horn is a dark special for Claves; it hits one time for massive damage, and only works at melee range. It doesn’t have quite as much utility as Beast Meteor, but it’s still pretty powerful. It’s not wise to have both specials equipped – you won’t build many Echoes that way – so pick whichever one you prefer.

We’ve reached the teleporter to the next floor, but it’s guarded by a boss. I decide to use a party of Viola, Serenade, and Claves. Viola keeps the Flare Head and puts on the Spell Book for stronger specials; Serenade gets the Power Ring and Werewolf Choker; and Claves still has the Peace Earring and Recovery Orb.

boss fight time!

♪♪~ Opposition Resignation

Boss: Deep Lurker
HP: 912,840 (Xbox 360)/865,000 (PS3)
Exp: 600,000 (Xbox 360)/275,000 (PS3)
Gold: 0

Viola: “Well, are you ready or what? Let’s get started.”

The Deep Lurker is a palette swap of the Root Lurker we fought in the Mandolin Church Catacombs back in Chapter 5. It has the same set of tricks but with much higher stats to make up for it; however, we shouldn’t have much trouble with this party, even though Claves hasn’t caught up to everyone else yet.

Its standard attacks hurt a lot and are tough to guard against, and its body ram can potentially hit the whole party if you aren’t careful.

Fatal Bite is a three-hit attack that carries a chance of knockdown, but it’s pretty easy to guard against. Voyage to Pain is a much bigger problem; it can hit multiple characters in a line, deals a lot of damage unguarded, and can reach you from anywhere on the battlefield. It likes to follow this up with either Nasty Roar or Peek-a-Boo while you’re still turned around; the former is an AoE attack, and the latter can inflict Passive.

Fortunately for us, we can hit the boss just as hard, thanks to our newly powered-up Harmony Chains. And with Viola putting Hawk Eye on the Deep Lurker and harrying it with arrows, it won’t stand up very long at all.

Also, incredibly, I actually manage to land a counterattack! I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever successfully countered a boss, and it was incredibly hype.

Viola: “Trample them down with horseshoes of solid steel!”

Shortly after landing the counter, Viola initiates the battle-ending Harmony Chain, and Serenade lands the final blow.

♪♪~ Well Done

Viola: “Don’t get mad at me!”

We get another Soul Shard for our efforts, and the way to the next floor is open.

I think this is a good place to stop for now; we’ve barely scratched the surface of Mysterious Unison, and we’ll be spending the next several updates descending to the very bottom.

Next time: Descending further into the Mysterious Unison.

 

[Cadenza]

Doing a bit of catching up with this installment of:

Glossary of Musical Terms

Xylophone – A percussion instrument consisting of a series of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. They’re similar in construction to modern orchestral marimbas, but are much smaller, and you use harder mallets to play them. The sound produced when striking one of the bars fades much faster, as well.

Trio/Quartet/Quintet – An ensemble of three/four/five musicians, for any combination of instruments.

Double reed – Both a family of woodwind instruments and the type of reed used to produce sound in those instruments; instead of channeling air against one piece of cane which vibrates against the mouthpiece, a double reed has two pieces of cane vibrating against each other.

 

[Cadenza]

Verse VIII-II: The Purgatorial Labyrinth, Part Two

Hello and welcome back to Eternal Sonata! Last time the party returned to the Hero’s Gate located in the Noise Dunes oasis and opened it with the Hero’s Crest. Once inside, they soon found Claves, miraculously returned to mortal existence but not quite brought back to life; in order to fully resurrect her, they’ll have to descend to the deepest depths of the Mysterious Unison labyrinth and find all seven shards of her soul scattered therein.

♪♪~ The Unreasonable Theory

We’re going to cover a lot of ground today, so make yourself comfortable. For now we begin in basement level 3, which is a rather sickly shade of yellow.

Going south from the teleporter leads to a T-intersection, where we will continue heading south for now.

“ATK +175
A miraculous weapon that revolutionized the battlefield. Also known as the Morning Star.”

This lets us grab a new mace for Crescendo.

Back at the T-intersection we head east, then follow the path south.

From there we curve west and further south…

East around the bend…

And reach the teleporter to the next floor. It might seem weird that we’ve already made so much progress, but it’ll make sense later.

In any case, we descend to basement level 4, which is sort of a Mountain Dew-ish shade of green.

We start out by heading north from the teleporter, then following the path east.

From there we curve north for a while, then go east some more.

After that we curve back south, then east…

And south again.

♪♪~ Well Done

Jazz: “Anything can be cut!”
March: “Haha!”

Along the way we learn a couple new specials; more on these later.

Continuing on, we come to another T-intersection; we’ll go west first.

This puts us on a path to a new Score Piece, the first one we’ve found this entire chapter.

Back at the T-intersection, we go south this time and follow the path west and back south.

From there we continue west.

Soon we reach the teleporter…

 

[Cadenza]

Which takes us back to basement level 3. Basement levels 3 and 4 are interconnected, and we’ll have to go back and forth between them a few times to descend lower into the labyrinth; in fact, you can’t even warp to basement level 4 from the entrance, which is a pain if you miss any items. Luckily there are only three chests between the two floors, and we’ve already found two of them, plus the correct path is actually pretty straightforward.

Moving on, we head north from the teleporter and follow the path east.

We then curve north and follow the path to a T-intersection; we want to keep going north first.

From there we follow the path west...

Then north and west again in a Z-pattern…

Until we reach the end of the line and find another Soul Shard. That makes three out of seven.

Back at the T-intersection, we take the western path this time.

We go straight west, then follow the path south.

The path curves back east, then south again…

Until we reach another teleporter.

Back on basement level 4, in a new section we couldn’t reach previously.

There’s only the one path north, so we follow it to another teleporter…

And reach basement level 5, which is a nice royal blue.

Heading west from the teleporter brings us to a T-intersection and a new enemy; let’s take a look.

♪♪~ Leap the Precipice

The Perfect Melon is a new variant on the Empty-type enemies we last saw much earlier in the game, and they’re incredibly dangerous if you let them stick around for any length of time. They have very high attack power – higher than the Mercurius and the Roaming Pirates – and several deadly attacks, including An Tournant, a six-hit combo that affects anyone in range. They also have Battu, a three-hit spin attack that can cause knockdown, and they can heal allies with Repairer for exactly 72,100 HP. Luckily their defenses are lacking and they don’t have much HP for this point in the game, so as long as you keep up the pressure they shouldn’t be too difficult to handle.

They also rarely drop Saint’s Mirrors, which, as a reminder, will revive all KO’ed characters and fully heal them, and they only cost 2 points to put into the Item Set. Aside from finding one at the fortuneteller’s hut near the Cello Tree, this is the only way to get Saint’s Mirrors, as they can’t be bought at any shop. The item drop rate is generous enough that you’re bound to pick up at least two or three of them as you make your way through Unison, so don’t worry about farming Perfect Melons for hours hoping to find just one.

While I’m here, let’s look at those specials we learned earlier. Geo Blade is the dark version of Jazz’s Heat Blade; it hits seven times and covers a wide radius, and it’s pretty powerful to boot. Very useful here in particular, since you’ll be fighting in the dark most of the time. Jazz originally learned this move at level 27, but it was swapped around with Maelstrom for the PS3 port.

Luna Stream is a light special for March, and is sort of the sister move to Salsa’s Corona Stream; it hits four times, with the final hit being able to damage multiple enemies in front of March.

 

[Cadenza]

♪♪~ The Unreasonable Theory

Continuing on, we head west from the T-intersection.

From there the path goes northwest in a Z-pattern, then curves back north.

This leads to another T-intersection, where we want to head west.

Doing so immediately takes us to yet another T-intersection; from here we’ll go south.

This takes us to Athena’s Tear, an accessory that increases the wearer’s DEF by 30 points. This is actually better for some of our characters than the Peace Earring, which increases the wearer’s DEF by 10% of their max instead of a flat number.

New accessory in hand, we backtrack to the T-intersection before this one, and head north.

We are then immediately met with a four-way intersection; we’ll keep going north.

“ATK +170, Increase speed by 10%.
Weapon that holds the spirit of Nagul. It is said to lead the wielder to the correct path.”

Following the path from there eventually leads to a new weapon for Beat, which is a straight upgrade over the Cerberus Canine he’d been using up to this point.

Back at the four-way intersection, we head west this time.

We immediately come to another T-intersection, where we want to turn north.

Following the path from there leads to another T-intersection; I’m telling y’all, this place is a nightmare to navigate without a map. Anyway, from here we’ll head north again.

This takes us to the teleporter to the next floor!

Basement level 6 is back to the standard white, which means something is afoot on this floor.

Going west from the teleporter leads to a T-intersection and- hey, is that a spirit? I didn’t think anyone else was here besides Claves. Let’s go see what’s up.

 

[Cadenza]

You could say that, yeah.

Mute: “On the next floor, no matter how far you go, you just come back to where you were. Why don’t you just give up and play with me? So, honey, do you want a shower first or do you want dinner?”

Uh???? What an astoundingly weird question to ask here, of all places. I guess dinner?

Mute: “All right. Then we’ll fill you up first.”

Oh, we’ve been looking for those! Surely it can’t be that expensive-

Excuse me?! This is the maximum amount of money you can carry, if you were wondering, and in the entire time we’ve played the game up to this point we’ve amassed maybe 300K gold, most of which has come from this dungeon and Double Reed Tower. There’s got to be some way of getting money faster than we have been, otherwise we’d have to grind for dozens of hours to afford this Soul Shard. We’ll have to come back here later.

Kindly piss off, thank you very much. You’re not the one trying to resurrect a friend here!

If you do select the shower option, you can pay 10,000 gold to have Mute fully heal your party, which is neat I guess, but wholly unnecessary.

If we go north from where Mute is, we find an empty chest, which is probably where they found the Soul Shard in the first place. Nice attention to detail!

There’s nothing else on this floor, so we’ll go east from the T-intersection and take the teleporter.

Basement level 7 is a nice golden color.

This floor has the potential to be either very short or very long, depending on how fast you catch on to its gimmick and how quickly you find the exit. There are no chests or enemies to worry about, so you can focus entirely on navigation.

To demonstrate what the deal with this floor is, I’m going to purposely go the wrong direction for a bit; specifically, we’ll go west from the first four-way intersection and south at the next.

This spits us out on a path at the far north end of the floor. Mute’s comment earlier was a hint for this: each path loops around and leads to the opposite side of the floor (so going all the way north leads back south, and all the way east leads you west, and vice versa). You can follow along with this handy map if you need a reference point.

There’s no need for us to stick around longer than absolutely necessary, so I’ll just take the shortest path to the exit that I know. From the starting four-way intersection, we’ll head east two screens…

Then south…

Which leads to a T-intersection at the north end of the floor. From here we’ll go east…

Then head north at the next four-way intersection…

And we’ve reached the exit!

I think this is a good stopping point for now; we made a lot of progress today, but there’s still quite a bit of dungeon to crawl through.

Next time: Descending even further into Mysterious Unison.

 

[Mogri]

It looks like you're not forced to use Claves here. Is there any incentive to do so? She's pretty seriously behind everyone else, right?

 

[Cadenza]

She's behind the rest of the party currently, but she catches up very quickly, especially if you put her in the active party - in fact she'll be caught up to everyone else in the very next update. If you'd rather not use her immediately, she'll get enough passive experience to be more survivable by the time you reach about where we are as of the end of this update.

I haven't went into much detail about the full capabilities of each character - I was planning on saving it for a later post - but Claves is very good. Obsidian Needle is both powerful and lets her build Echoes pretty well, and Beast Meteor (as well as its light equivalent that we'll learn later) deals huge damage and gives her some long-range utility; additionally, several of her specials have been changed to be learned at lower levels for the PS3 port, making it more viable to use her early on in Unison. Once we find her ultimate weapon later in the dungeon she'll be even better at building Echoes. Additionally, at higher levels she'll have the highest ATK stat of all the female characters and the second-highest SPD in the game, just behind Serenade.

She's a bit like a more extreme version of evolving a Magikarp into a Gyrados in Pokemon - not that great at first, but very deadly if you stick with her. (There is probably a better example of this character archetype in RPG's, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.)

 

[Cadenza]

Verse VIII-III: The Purgatorial Labyrinth, Part Three

Hello and welcome back to Eternal Sonata! Last time the party made their way through several floors of Mysterious Unison and found a few Soul Shards, including one that we have to buy from a spirit for an astronomical amount of gold. We’ll worry about that later; for now we’ll keep descending through the labyrinth.

♪♪~ The Unreasonable Theory

Today we’re starting out on basement level 8, in all its magenta glory.

Going west from the teleporter brings us to a T-intersection. We want to head east from here, but before we do, let’s take a look at that new enemy.

♪♪~ Leap the Precipice

The Ryuuguu is the final variant of scorpion enemy. Their main method of attack is to swipe at you with their claws before finishing their turn with Jowl Slicer, which can cause knockdown unguarded. They can also close the distance on a character with Grease Wheel, but they almost never use this, and they move very slowly otherwise, making it easy to maneuver around them.

They also drop outrageous amounts of gold. Suddenly our money problems don’t seem so daunting!

“DEF +136
A magical coat that has no ties to reality.”

Anyway, going east from the T-intersection leads to the Nil Coat, which I believe is the best piece of light armor in the game; I give it to Polka.

Back at the T-intersection, we head north and arrive at a four-way intersection; we want to go east from here.

♪♪~ Well Done

Frederic: “Let us celebrate, and be satisfied!”

As we do, Frederic learns his final special attack! More on this later.

Going east from the four-way intersection leads to a teleporter that takes us to basement level 9, which is quite purple. Floors 8 and 9 are interconnected like floors 3 and 4 were, but in a far more complex way, with many more branching paths and teleporters to keep track of.

Heading south from the teleporter leads to a T-intersection, where we want to go west.

“ATK +180, MAG +5
The heavens appear above in this beautiful umbrella. Has very high attack power.”

Going north at another T-intersection leads to a new weapon for Polka, which is very nice indeed. The Azure Umbrella has been buffed for the PS3 port, having seven more points of ATK and a MAG increase that wasn’t in the original game.

Back at the original T-intersection, we go east and then follow the path north.

Salsa: “I’m more fabulous every second!”
Falsetto: “I’m gonna keep on fighting!”

Along the way, Salsa and Falsetto both learn their final specials! Originally Falsetto learned Death Chasm last, but for whatever reason it was swapped around with Dragon Blow for the PS3 port.

At the end of the path is a teleporter that takes us to a new section of basement level 8.

 

[Cadenza]

Going north from the teleporter leads to another T-intersection*; we want to go west from here.

*(I bet if you took a shot every time I used the word “T-intersection” you’d be pretty drunk pretty fast.)

Claves: “Every rose has thorns, right?”

Very soon after arriving in the area, Claves learns a new special; let’s give it a look while I’m here, along with the other ones we’ve learned recently.

Dark Nebula is the dark version of Salsa’s Solar Flare; it hits one time for massive damage and has a modest AoE, and as such is best saved for the beginning of a Harmony Chain.

Crimson Blaze is a dark special for Frederic that works similarly to Polka’s Pure Geyser or Terra Externa, in that it automatically hits every enemy on the battlefield but isn’t as strong as some of his other attacks. The key difference is that Crimson Blaze is much faster, letting you use it two or three times in a given turn; it’s also a good move to use at the start of a Harmony Chain to soften up enemies you haven’t gotten to yet.

Dragon Blow is the light version of Falsetto’s Night Fist; it hits twice, with the second hit being able to reach enemies behind the original target.

Finally, Bird Swarm is the light version of Claves’s Beast Meteor, being a single-hit attack that is very powerful and has infinite range. It’s a good replacement for Unicorn Horn, which is the weakest healing move in the game and has long since outlived its usefulness.

♪♪~ The Unreasonable Theory

Anyway, continuing from the T-intersection, we follow the path north.

This leads to a teleporter that brings us to a new area of basement level 9.

Heading south from the teleporter, we arrive at another T-intersection, where we want to go east.

This leads to the Dragon Armor, a nice set of heavy armor that I give to Claves. I can’t pass on her hand-me-down equipment to anyone else, since the Styx’s Veil is a unique piece of armor only she can equip, but all my other heavy armor characters are doing just fine on DEF so it’s not a big deal.

Going west from the T-intersection leads to another teleporter that takes us back to basement level 8.

Heading south from there leads to a four-way intersection, where we want to go west.

This leads to yet another teleporter that takes us back to basement level 9, which we just left like two seconds ago.

Going west from the teleporter, we follow the path north, then east.

This leads to another teleporter, which takes us back to basement level 8 once again. Are you confused yet?

 

[Cadenza]

Heading west from there leads to a T-intersection; we want to go north here.

This leads to – you guessed it – another teleporter that takes us back to basement level 9.

Proceeding north from here leads to another T-intersection; we’ll take the east fork.

We then follow the path south, which leads to another new Score Piece.

Back at the T-intersection, we take the other path north.

We then follow the path east, which leads to another teleporter.

Back on basement level 8, we head east from the teleporter and follow the path south.

Soon we come to another T-intersection; we’ll keep going east for the time being.

“ATK +182
Oriental sword that depicts a flame. It is blessed by the god of war.”

This leads to a new sword for Allegretto.

Back at the T-intersection, we take the path south.

We then follow the path east to another teleporter.

Back on basement level 9, we head north to a T-intersection, and ignore the east path in favor of continuing north.

This leads to another teleporter that takes us back to basement level 8, which I’m pretty sure we literally just left.

Heading east from there takes us to still another T-intersection, where we want to go south.

We then follow the path east and find another Soul Shard!

After this, we backtrack to basement level 9 and take the east path at the T-intersection.

We then follow the path north, and find another teleporter…

Only this one takes us to basement level 10! Thank god. We aren’t going to fully clear this floor today – I think we’ve spent enough time running around taking teleporters as it is – but we will at least be grabbing most of the treasure before calling it a day.

 

[Cadenza]

We’ll start off by heading east from the teleporter to a T-intersection, where we will keep going east for now.

This leads to another T-intersection, where we’ll turn north.

“ATK +196
A weapon forged by a legendary master craftsman. The weapon itself measures the worth of the wielder.”

This leads to another new mace for Crescendo.

Back at the T-intersection, we head east…

Which leads to another T-intersection, where we want to go north again. Basement level 10 is unique in that every dead end that doesn’t have a teleporter has a chest, and there’s some really good stuff to be grabbed here.

Case in point, Frederic’s ultimate weapon! This thing is just cartoonishly good. It even got a slight buff in the PS3 port, being ATK +185 instead of 180 like in the original game.

Back at the most recent T-intersection, we head south.

This leads to another T-intersection, where we head east again.

Once again we come to a three-way split in the path, and once again we want to head north.

The Alfheim is the strongest light-elemental weapon in the game, but the Ruthless is better for general use. Unfortunately Salsa’s ultimate weapons aren’t as good as anyone else’s; she kind of needs the Power Ring to stay on par with everyone else. Still, her specials are pretty strong, and she’s still great at building Echoes.

Anyway, from here we head south.

We then head west and south at the next two intersections.

Arriving at another T-intersection, we keep going south.

This lets us find an absurdly good weapon for Jazz. Having permanent Burst will let him chew through most any enemy, and he has so much HP that he doesn’t especially care about the DEF reduction.

♪♪~ Well Done

Jazz: “Anything can be cut!”

And soon after, Jazz learns his final special! He originally learned this move at level 43, but it was swapped around with Dimensional Turn for the PS3 port. I didn’t get a chance to use it this time, so we’ll look at it next update.

From there, we backtrack to the previous T-intersection before this one and take the western path.

“ATK +180
Sword said to have been born form the breast of the goddess Nemesis.”

We then arrive at another intersection and go south to grab a new rapier for Claves.

That obtained, we go north to a new intersection and head west from there.

This leads to another intersection, where we head south again.

Doing so lets us grab a very good piece of armor for Falsetto, Viola, or Serenade; I give it to Falsetto. I think this is a good place to stop for now; next update we’ll finish grabbing the rest of the treasure on basement level 10 and proceed further into Unison.

Next time: Descending further still into Mysterious Unison.

 

[Mogri]

Did the environment design run out of budget during the final dungeon, or...?

 

[Cadenza]

Good question! I chalk it up to tri-Ace and Tri-Crescendo being sister companies, and tri-Ace has a long history of putting samey-looking bonus dungeons in their games, going at least as far back as the Seraphic Gate in Valkyrie Profile. Or they could have just run out of budget! Who knows, either one seems likely to me.

 

[Mogri]

Oh, this is the bonus dungeon? I missed that somehow. It does explain why enemies are dropping millions of gold, though!