Chapter 38: Animata Tears - “No matter how far you traveled, you couldn't escape senseless death.“
And guess who’s got some free time in... fucking forever? Geez. Maybe it’s a bit odd to be doing updates/walkthru-esque posts for a mobage that EoS’d, but still. Completing it is just principle.
38-1 Even the Animata was crying.
This chapter begins with a history lesson, of sorts. Or a recap.
The events of these last two screenshots can be seen in chapter 33.
The king of Oxsecia continued to long for
revenge on the Animata, the cause of
calamities which befell his planet and people.
To that end, he was willing to sacrifice
even his own daughter. This spurred him on
further and further until he was spinning out of control.
Those with unquenchable thirst for revenge
against the Animata in their hearts joined
forces and spent a numbing amount of time
wandering the dark universe, hunting down
and destroying every last Animata.
Which brings us to the current day.
You were riding on an Animata. Palpa and
Pepropé held hands together as it carried
them safely through space.
Humans, Beastfolk, Lizardfolk, Stonefolk,
Wild Beast, Machine, Celestials...
Every race had come together to travel through space.
They went to each of their home planets,
minds full of uncertainty about their
continued existence... Their hopes and
expectations for a new world began to
flicker and fade.
Then, out of nowhere, one day...
The pain of loss struck them, and they
began to cry.
“Why are we all crying...?”
“I don't know... I'm just so sad... It feels
like my heart's been ripped to shreds...”
“I know what this is. This is goodbye...
to our lives...”
So, there’ll be a few new enemies to fight in this chapter.
The Animata’s sorrow and grief, physically manifested.
The AOE effect of the Sorrow’s Demoralize skill is perhaps a bit noteworthy. If you can’t, for whatever reason, kill it in one hit, then that’s something to be aware of?
The last battle has the story’s first instance of a kinetic trap, though they are present against some bosses like Shin’en and the Primordial Dragon King. These move around the field in a set pattern, and coming into contact with them while moving causes damage.
38-2 The Animata took control once again.
Overtaking the Animata, as well as
all those inside it, the grief turned to
thought... and began to control the Animata.
Palpa and Pepropé were overcome
with an unimaginable heartache so
intense that they passed out... and
the Animata took control once again.
I don’t exactly remember why, but I decided to bring in Rikken and a majority-Sword team. Anyway, there are four battles against Animata Sorrows and Tears.
38-3 It felt like all of time had melded together.
I immediately fall back on my usual team, partly because of these new enemies.
Recalling the enemies from chapter 7 or some of the Hunting Zone enemies, Resilience means these enemies are less vulnerable to physical attacks than magical ones. In effect, this usually means they miss.
38-4 The hyperspace engulfed the Animata.
The hyperspace engulfed the Animata,
extending its feelers to ensnare her.
Pictured: Sayu carrying the rest of the party through this with her magic, since the waves of this part are five battles against Wigglers and Squirmers, as well as a boss with similar mechanics. You can clear this with only one mage, sure, but regardless a majority-physical team isn’t the greatest, for this reason.
So, let’s tackle this with a proper team, AKA one that is magic-heavy. The odd links in these are Zafitte^, who again is my healer (and also gets Levitate on everyone), while Andelucia is my mover, though she is a spellsword (or given her weapon, spellspear?) and can still hurt the enemies.
Really, any mage with great AOE spells is excellent.
The boss, Quiverer, follows the same Resilience gimmick as the enemies before, but pincering is strongly discouraged by its 6x multiplier Counterattack.
Indirect damage is the way to go here – pincer the adds and damage Quiverer through ways such as splash damage from AOE spells, or Magic Bombs. Quiverer resummons adds, so there’s no concern over killing off the initial adds and making the fight harder for yourself. Finally, it has a 20% chance of dropping any of the four Helixes, so there’s another way of getting those.
38-5 You were struck with déjà vu.
In a change of pace, we move away from physical-evasive enemies onto fiery mages. Half of my party are Ice-users; in a cool change of pace, I’m bringing A’merpact and Gigojago, since at the time I was still leveling up Piz’fer.
A rust-colored planet loomed before you.
The Animata was delighted, as if she had
reached her destination.
There was no telling whether this planet
could sustain life, and yet the Animata
brought you there.
There, you found a society of living,
sentient boulders. It was a Golem planet.
Naturally, they were hostile to you.
Like all sentient creatures, they had tribal
instinct which predisposed them very
negatively towards outsiders.
You were struck with deja vu.
“Hey... Isn't this kinda similar?”
“It's almost exactly like our world...”
“Maybe this planet is... on its way out...?”
Golem magicians! They’re of the same race as Iskar, Kir’ue, and so forth. They’re not too tough to fight, especially when pincering them vertically more often than not means you can avoid their attacks.
The other notable enemy are the Golem Warriors, who only have that one attack. Thinking about it now, it sure is a nice thing that these guys never got added to the Pact of Fellowship to “clutter” it up.
The final fight has a kinetic trap (you can see it over Gigojago) here that moves in a fixed diagonal pattern.
38-6 The King of the Golems arrived.
There’s only one battle here, but it has a gimmick that can make it otherwise impossible to beat. Bring an adventurer who can use Ice attacks, or, if you’re somehow lacking in those (which you shouldn’t, because Leviathan is farmable), an Ice otomo.
There are four different enemies here: the Golem Magicians and Warriors seen before are back, but there are some Golem Sentries, as well as the boss, Jag.
Jag himself isn’t too bad...
...But the Golem Sentries can be quite annoying with their buffing the defenses of adjacent allies.
You’ll get this little message whenever Jag is hit by ice magic. Anyway, he’ll always take 2 turns to act, so that gives you time to clear out the Golem adds. Leviathan, Piz’fer, and A’merpact (and their recodes, but that’s a given) come in handy for their AOE attacks.
Gigojago is useful for doing some more ice damage, but for also generating Anti-Fire Capsules alongside Piz’fer and A’merpact.
Jag will say this once you’ve depleted his health, but this is where things can be a bit of a rude surprise: when reduced to 1 HP, if you don’t have any way of doing ice damage, he’ll keep on remaining at 1HP, effectively softlocking the fight.
I don’t know of a lot of scenarios where you wouldn’t want to bring at least one Ice mage along here – I guess I could see it happening if you run a solid all-physical team, or you brought along Lunar attackers instead.
But, all that aside, the crew manages to get through to him.
38-7 You stood at the door.
We move away from the Fire enemies to regular ones, so I went back to my mostly-physical party.
“I knew it. There’s an Animata on this planet.”
“That’s why our Animata brought us here, isn’t it?”
“That would explain the tears, right?”
“She wants us to… help her friend?”
“Do machines even feel sympathy? Well… I guess there was the whole thing with Proto…”
The silence was suffocating. That suffocation led to anxiety, which led to chatter.
And then you arrived at your destination. It was nostalgic.
You were overcome with a longing for home. You stood at the door separating you from the room in which the life breeder lay dormant.
“Do we need a key?”
“Last time, when Peprope was with us, the key he had transformed into a fearsome monster…”
“Really? How’d he open the door, then?”
“It takes spirit and determination to prove one’s right of passage. Maybe that thought is the key we need to open the door.”
That monster up there moved to around where Olber^ was and used Breath Attack.
Neither are too odd out of the ordinary, though they don’t particularly have any weaknesses or resistances to be aware of.
The last stage is mostly notable for there being a kinetic trap.
38-8 This is the Maker…?
There are four battles, three of which are against the Harriers and Devourers.
The last battle introduces the boss, Reaver. It actually has quite a set of nasty skills, partly because of the range on them.
First order of things is, of course, taking out the adds. Reaver will go down its skills in order – so it’ll use Life Drain, Row and Absorb Skill Rate, Row. Then it’ll use Breath Attack and move. Then it will use Life Drain/Absorb Skill Rate, Cross.
At times, you’ll see Reaver begin to glow. What you want to do is move any of your mages out of the pincers and/or their chains, because it will absorb magic, which just isn’t fun for anyone.
And here’s Life Drain in effect. Everyone was at full health, by the by: according to the wiki, Life Drain has a 4x damage multiplier, so there you have it.
The cycle repeats itself, so as long as you keep an eye out on pincer positions and don’t blast it with magic during its absorption phase, you’ll be fine.
38-9 It hasn’t… eaten anyone…
The life breeder in the core of your planet had been full of corpses.
But this one was different.
It hadn’t sacrificed a single life. To maintain the planet, it had consumed only “faith” in the purest sense. As for why… it probably had something to do with Jag’s royal leadership, among other things.
But now it had reached its limit…
We get introduced to a new enemy.
Demoralize - That’s it. That’s all it does.
The rest of the battles are just against these Wisprats and Devourers. Were these things just lying within the Animata, or the room beyond the door?
38-10 They were all crying.
The Animata had created the ideal utopia.
She wanted not to steal, but to create lives.
But ironically, this meant going against her true nature.
The Animata consume life and sentience,
and thereby maintain the planets.
This one was surely the only one who had
fought against her instincts. Jag felt it was
quite similar to a king who sacrificed his own
interests to the people's benefit.
The old Animata awoke.
But it was too late.
“We'll look after your children, Your Highness.”
“I see... I suppose there was no other way...”
“I have received all of the memories recorded by your Animata.”
“Memories...?”
“Yes. This was a truly wonderful planet, wasn't it?”
“But even the most wonderful planets have to meet their end someday... so long as Animata exist.”
“...Perhaps we need a new world.”
“A new world, huh...”
Those were the last words.
The Old Animata shed all her tears, and her
heartbeat stopped.
There are four battles to go through; the first three are against varying groups of Wisprats, Devourers, and Harriers.
Interestingly, the storyline pretty much says that the entire time the party was fighting, the old Animata was, in a sense, awakening much like her peers had. The difference was that she was using her own emotions as fuel to make the journey.
Synergy Wave: inflicts 2x non-elemental and 2x character-weapon damage; 2x power knockback.
Synergy Wave!: inflicts 6x non-elemental and 6x character-weapon damage; 3x power knockback.
So… I didn’t take many notes on this boss. It’s literally one of the few that I didn’t get anything detailed on, and the Terra Battle wiki only lists its skill data, in terms of boss-details. But I don’t really recall the boss being too tough…?
First order of business is killing the two Wisprats to open up some breathing space. I had the fortune of being positioned in a way that I could get the ball rolling the first turn with a triple pincer. Barrier makes the Synergy Wave a non-issue.
The kinetic trap might’ve been a hassle, though. It definitely floated around the general field.
It also resummons adds after a while. The damage was from Synergy Wave!, I believe.
But a few taps and pincers take it out in due time.
And so the old Animata’s story draws to a tragic close.