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Part XXX: The Horizon We Sought
Another important update as the 30th, eh? Seems to be a thing with me. Continuing where we left off at Innominat...
So I had wanted to turn the difficulty to Chaos for being thematically appropriate to our party and the setting, you know, but I'll just put it this way: the first of the final battles is *extremely* difficult on Chaos and I just don't have a party prepared for it. Simple as that. But let's push on for now...
Top of the world
I can feel him... Innominat is just up ahead.
Finally, time to repay my debt.
...You just like saying that, don't you?
Ah! You saw right through me!
Oh come on, it wasn't hard. Nobody here is gonna do anything for anyone but themselves.
I can't deny that.
Your wheel is yours alone to hold.
Answer
Sorry to keep you waiting, Gentle Shepherd! The Lord of Calamity and friends are here to see you!
I can't wait to strike down the world's greatest swordsman.
You picked a fight with the Aifread pirate crew! Now we're here to finish it!
Lord Artorius, I follow my own will now. And I'm going to stop you!
*slams sword into the ground*
Do you really believe that Will without Reason can break it?
Your sword is strong. But...it's still only a weapon, just like ours.
Why don't you test that theory. With your life, of course.
Ever since you hit me, I've had this really annoying feeling in my chest. But I can't figure out what it is.
Then I'll just have to hit you again and see if that helps.
Hm... I'm sure I'll feel better after I eat you.
I finally have an answer to your question. "Why do you think that birds fly?" Birds fly because they want to fly. They don't need a reason. Even if their wings may snap and doom them to die. They don't fly for anyone's benefit. They don't fly because they were ordered to. *steps forward*
...So, that's your answer.
Yes. Because that's who I am.
You were always like this... That sort of foolishness is what creates the daemons, and plunges the world into tragedy and despair.
Then you drive the daemons out! Isn't that right, Shepherd Artorius?!
*everyone pauses*
If you want to kill us, you'd better finish the job! Because if you don't...
I'm going to devour you!
So surprisingly, this fight is actually really hard. I mean, you might guess that from the outset, because Artorius and Innominat are our most powerful enemies and when we've taken them on individually, it didn't go well either time. But together, well. You'd expect this fight to be difficult, but I'd argue it's one of the hardest storyline fights in the entire series. You usually expect the most difficult content in Tales games to be in optional content, but here we are, regardless.
90% of your fights here will begin roughly the same way. Artorius will begin by charging at you and Innominat will begin by casting something at you, usually Insubstantiality.
If Innominat does start off with Insubstantiality, this is usually how your party will look in approximately 3 seconds, at least on Chaos.
I did learn in one of my attempts it's basically to sidestep (or backstep, more safely) both of this spell's hits (if you're on top of one of the orbs when they spawn, and when they explode). But yeah...this is a very dangerous thing to do. Innominat doesn't actually have a huge variety of spells, but he does have the most powerful ones, including Meteor Storm (at least from my experience on this playthrough, he very rarely uses this, and only below 50% HP). This is a very bad thing for you, because he'll only draw from that small pool, so you can easily get into a situation where he uses Insubstantiality a lot and it's really difficult to interrupt him because Artorius is on your ass so much.
As one very small bone the game throws you for this fight, both of our adversaries have special Downed states where they're immobile for what seems like longer than the usual enemy, and you'll know they're in this state because Artorius goes down on one knee or Innominat is like this. It doesn't help *that* much, but it's something.
More helpful is the fact Artorius is weak to Earth and Innominat is weak to Fire, but the kid does have resistance to Physical-type attacks, so that'll definitely neuter a lot of the damage you can do against him. Quickly, at least.
I would strongly advise playing as Velvet here and abusing the hell out of her therion form, using its invincibility to keep up in Innominat's grill. Part of the problem, though, is because Innominat is a ?-type enemy, what Break Soul she uses is random. Sometimes you'll get a lame one that's only a couple hits, other times you'll get the best ones like that one here, where she slashes in a cloud a whole bunch, or Discord, where she uses her claw hand to rend through an enemy (Artorius is a Person-type enemy, so she'll always use this against him). The more hits you can get on Innominat while he's casting, the easier it is to interrupt him (he has an 10 Iron Stances).
Oh, but if you are planning on keeping up a full party and still managing Innominat, better hope Artorius doesn't get bored and go after you. Basically, to beat this fight on Chaos, you need a much higher-leveled party than I have, much better equipment, and more than a little luck. In addition to Velvet, you also need someone very fast, like Rokurou, going after Innominat with you, because your success or failure basically entirely hinges on how many spells the kid can fire.
Not talking about this kinda luck, though, where I got KO'd by Insubstantiality, revived because of the dish I have set up, then immediately KO'd again. Again, if the kid starts spamming it, this fight becomes unmanageable very quickly.
On the attempt where I finally succeeded, I finally managed to pull off a 6-Mystic Arte combo, including the appearance of Laphicet and Rokurou's level 3 Mystic Arte. Pretty pretty pleased with myself for that one. I mostly did this to stop a cast of *that* spell but hey, while I'm here.
Innominat's Break Soul, Annihilation Beam, is pretty pathetic, honestly. He'll fly up into the air and fire beams downwards like that. Very easy to dodge and the animation lasts for a while, so that's a merciful few seconds that are easily taken advantage of by just running underneath him, even if he started it while you were directly in front of him.
Innominat was *this* close to defeat when he used his Mystic Arte, which, honestly, I'm alright with, at least having it on-camera like this.
Once the Nameless Empyrean has been humbled, this fight becomes sooooo much easier, it's not even funny. Artorius, while a powerful enemy on his own merits, is so unable to handle a group at your power level. Doesn't have any long-range or devastating AOE capabilities, much like Shigure's biggest weakness in our final battle with him. Really, he was mostly a threat because he'd cover the real power behind this duo. This fight is more or less a boss fight against Innominat with Artorius providing little more than a meat shield in comparison.
He, of course, has a Mystic Arte, much like we saw the last time we fought. Savage Wolf Fury is, much like Lostfon Drive, straight-up from a previous Tales game. In this case, Tales of Vesperia, where it served as Yuri's first Mystic Arte. Well, it has the same name, but Yuri's version involved slashing the target numerous times from different directions (he'd dash around to different angles to continue slashing), followed by a dash-through and exploding the target to finish the animation. The sword rain to start the attack here, too, also was not in Tales of Vesperia. If you used Savage Wolf Fury to defeat the final boss of Vesperia (it had to land the killing blow), you'd get a slightly different animation, but that, too, is also not Artorius' take on this technique.
When I was attempting this fight on Chaos, more than once Artorius would start the fight by using this on the first target within reach, usually Rokurou. Might be a change on Intense because he only used it below 50% HP, but yes, as far as I know on Chaos, he can use this at any time. Well, within reason. I think the AI's Mystic Artes work on an invisible cooldown, so you'll definitely not see anything completely wacky like a boss spamming a Mystic Arte. Absurd to even think.
But yes, as I mentioned, Velvet is very good at opening Artorius up to devastating Power Combos, so even though he has quite a bit of HP, it'll probably go down a lot faster than Innominat's did. Basically, he does nothing that should catch you completely off-guard, unlike Innominat's warping around or debilitating spells.
The ■■ ■■ Light
*heals Velvet*
He's the reason, right there. *dashes at the party* I'll take care of you!
*gets in-between the two*
Stand aside, Velvet!
Not happening! *slashes at him*
*slashes him from behind*
*knocked away* Huh...? Velvet...? Why...do you have my comb...?
That was...the comb that Laphi gave me. Not you, Innominat.
O-Of course... I'm Innominat, now reborn, and you're the Lord of Calamity.
...
...Aah... Artorius, I'm hungry.
*steps forward toward Innominat*
My stomach is empty... My chest is empty... My body is empty, too... I'm... *buckles over* It hurts... It hurts so much...
It looks like we won't be able to harvest "despair" by eating you anymore. Well, then. Birds must fly, because they possess strong wings. Mankind must be suppressed, because it possesses great sin. Malevolence, tragedy, war, anger, tears, even love must all be suppressed. With the grace of my beating wings, I will grant humanity the tranquility it deserves.
!
*gasps*
Innominat's armatus!
Now! With the full might of my armatus... I shall suppress all creation!
The party has a little discussion amongst themselves about how Artorius, seemingly the paragon of reason, was filled with despair himself. There's certainly any number of reasons why, but we've got bigger problems than pondering the path he's walked to this moment.
Welcome to the final boss of Tales of Berseria. As I alluded to earlier, this fight is much easier than the previous battle, but it's not a pushover by any means. Artorius' mobility and attack range has increased since the last fight, and he swings his gigantic new sword around with all the grace and subtlety of a double-decker bus. There's not really any "best" way to approach him, because nearly all of his attacks hit all around him.
With the exception of Illusory Force, his Break Soul. You remember that one Break Soul of Velvet's where she just slashes forward in front of her in a cloud-like thing? Illusory Force is kinda like that. After a short wind-up, he'll swing the sword forward and create a little vortex right in front of him, slashing the target(s) repeatedly for little individual damage, but lots of hits. It's not the most deadly attack in the world, but unlike many previous bosses (maybe all of them, I dunno), he'll use this at any moment in the fight, not just before he falls below a certain HP threshold. This attack only hits right in front of him (and maybe a little to his right), so you can easily get behind him or to the side with a full Power Charge to potentially open a combo.
Think the threshold this time is below 75% HP. Appropriately cool-looking, I would think. This is the other problem with Illusory Force, in that it has so many hits, he's basically guaranteed to use his Mystic Arte after successfully striking someone with it, if the AI is eligible to use their Mystic Arte again.
Interestingly, Armatized Artorius still counts as a Person-type enemy, so Velvet is, again, very appropriate to use here, both in terms of story and gameplay.
Didn't think I'd pull off that brutal of a combo against this guy. He broke out of this combo by just using one of his "Nope" Break Souls, which is both of them, but hey, 100+ is 100+. And then shortly after this I got a 93 hit combo.
Dang. It would have been so cool if this finished him off. I didn't do any grinding after Part XXIX ended, so Velvet and Eizen still don't have their full Mystic Artes line-up.
Uhhhh, if anyone asks, I beat him, playing as Velvet. Watching the video back, I honestly can't say if Eizen did it or I, but there's not enough evidence to me to say either way.
Life and death
Let us settle this here and now, Lord of Calamity.
*runs at him* Shepherdddddddd!
I swear... I will finish this! *knocked back after more sparring* I will devour all this hatred!
Not done yet! *rushes again*
Stop struggling!
Give up your fight! I will end the world's sadness! I HAVE to end it!
Arthur's Forgotten Maxim! *headbutts Artorius*
"Don't despair... NO MATTER WHAT!"
Spoken...like a true hero...
It's what you told me once, long ago.
On the day...of the Opening... Velvet... The Arthur you knew died that day. It was always there, in the back of my mind. "If only it hadn't been Celica and my son who were killed that day. If only it had been you two instead..."
...I thought the same thing. So many times. If it had been us, then I know... I know you would have fought to save the world for us.
It's true... I wanted to save everyone...
Such...a pity...
Goodbye...
It's over.
I'm hungry. I'm hungry. ...hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry...
No, it's not over yet!
Nngh...! His power is running wild!
No one is keeping his power in check anymore! This is bad...
*begins running* We still have time to kill him!
Wait! I'll do it.
I endured it all...! Even though I was scared! Even though it hurt!
I know.
I drank that gross medicine! I stopped myself from doing what I wanted to do, eating what I wanted to eat! I tried so hard... Why won't you give me this?! I hate you! I hate you, Velvet!
Laphicet... You tried really hard. But you don't have to fight anymore.
It's time for us to rest, Laphi.
Ah... Aaah... Vel...vet...
Velvet, what are you doing?!
So that's it... Velvet will let Innominat devour her forever, with her forever devouring him in return. She will seal him while keeping him alive. An infinite contradiction, a perpetual cycle of destruction.
Velvet, you can't!
*opens eyes* You and I are part of Innominat, Phi. If he dies, both of us will die too. I dug my own grave. But... But you...
*runs toward them* I don't care about myself! I'm not scared of dying, as long as I'm with you!
Good. Then die. But only after eating. Living. Doing everything you want in life.
*gasps*
I really am horrible, aren't I? Just a selfish failure of a human being. But despite all that, you still saved me. With your unwavering kindness and strength.
I didn't do anything... Velvet, you were the one who--
Phi, you must have seen it during our travels. Humans spend their lives in constant struggle... That's why they end up making so many mistakes. *looks at Artorius* Even my poor brother... That's why I'm asking this of you... Please, live. I was the cause of so much chaos and destruction... Help the world I ruined. Help people like me. Help the weak. This is...my last, selfish request.
That's... That's not fair!
I'm truly...sorry...
*chomps the apple* ...It's OK! I forgive you! Velvet, I love you!
Thank you.. I...I love you too, Phi...
...
??? For her to seal an Empyrean, all by herself... Humans contain more surprises than I expected.
Relax. These are the four elemental Empyreans.
NOW you show up. Pretty irresponsible, if you ask me.
??? You're mistaken. Without Innominat, the balance of our power will crumble.
??? The elements will clash in violence and ruin. The world will take millennia to recover from the destruction.
No!
??? To save the world from destruction, a new Empyrean is needed. A malak of great strength, and indomitable will.
Hold on a second, Laphicet! You can't just--
Let's hear him out.
??? You are part of Innominat. You're not lacking in strength. But the question here is one of your intent.
??? Just what do you wish for this world? What will you bring unto its denizens?
To give those who dream of flying the time they need to rest their wings! So that in their strength, their weakness...their cruelty, their kindness...
The Future We Believed In
We're really back on the ground. *turns around*
Good grief. Velvet's recklessness rubbed off on him. Hasn't it, Laphicet?
*gasps* Is that really Laphicet? But...how?!
That is his Empyrean form. It's also proof of his determination.
Like an oath?!
Yes. Do I frighten you now Eleanor?
*shakes head* Not at all. You've matured into a fine man.
So was that flame...your true power as an Empyrean?
Daemons, malevolence. Did that fire get rid of it all?
No. I'm still very much a daemon.
The Silver Flame has the power to cleanse a soul of its malevolence, and change a daemon back into a human. But...it doesn't have the power to change people's hearts.
It just gives them another chance at life, isn't that right?
Sorry. Looks like my sins run too deep to fix.
That's fine. It's part of who you are, Rokurou.
You're still a softy, aren't ya?
Well, that's just great. Most of the exorcists are wiped out, but the evil and chaos in people's hearts lives on. Gonna be tough going from here on out folks...
Yes, it will. Even still...
Well said!
The malakhim have free will again. Some may even lend you their aid to help create this ideal future of yours.
I will spread the word. This world is now under the protection of the Empyrean, Laphicet.
Um... Would you mind not calling me that? I don't think it really fits who I am now.
Okay, what should we call you then?
Call me by the name Eleanor gave me. My true name, "One who lives". That's what Laphicet means... Translated into the ancient language...
The never-waking sleep
Life
So as this epilogue video is playing, it'll reveal what became of all the playable cast, sans Velvet and Laphicet (of course), after the events of the ending. In spoiler tags, I'll be putting what happened to the characters after this game, beacuse they are said elsewhere, just not in Berseria itself or in Zestiria. Not really "spoilers" per se, because they either never factor into the overall plot or we've kinda heard it before, but highlight as you see fit.
Nothing more is said of Rokurou's fate. Presumably even daemons have a natural lifespan, and his eventually burned out in-between games. Or he met someone in the wide world even he wasn't a match for. Either way, this is the last we see of him. In this continuity, at least.
Mankind...will go on fighting without end...
...Just as they did.
As Eizen surmised at the end of the Zaveid/Theodora sidequest, he would eventually succumb to all that malevolence and turn into a dragon. Unlike other party members in Berseria, what happens to him after this game, and even his name, survive into Zestiria's day. I shall say nothing more of it now.
People will still spread their wings to seek the horizon...
Eleanor, the "normal" human of the party, eventually takes on the mantle and title of "Shepherd", keeping alive the legacy, but not the methods, of the hero who protects the people from daemons and malevolence and stands against the Lord of Calamity. As for her former superiors, nothing more is said of them, though Melchior, Oscar, Teresa, and Shigure live on, in a sense, as the souls of the four elemental Empyreans. Artorius, however, disappears from the history books.
This world is cruel and unforgiving.
Hey, c'mon.
Even the gods themselves don't know what the future will bring.
Hahahaha!
Despite her total disrespect for Melchior, and her shunning of her adopted family, Magilou continued to live out her days as a Mayvin, presumably via the same method Melchior used to extend his lifespan for hundreds of years. The Mayvins have a special family legacy to consider that will come up in Zestiria, I just wanted to point out that Magilou actually did live on into Zestiria's day, but don't get your hopes up. We absolutely will not be seeing her again.
...in humanity, both strong and weak...
