One last foe for us to fight, then we're done here.
...Really enjoying that megaphone, huh?
I donno why, but it speaks to me.
Our map for the final zone of the Illusory Capital. Dracoprisms join the random encounter squads, Criminal Dragons appear on the field, and Dragonlords serve as the Bloom walls.
The first chest on the path leads to 5 Hypnos Crystals, but the chest behind this guy...
Yup! There actually is a Saint's Ring in the game itself without having to get all five EX Skills, you just have to wait until all the way here to get it. Still nice to have. I mean, it's +10. That's a lot of number. The final chest contains a Dragon Egg.
...But these guys were endgame guys anyway. Criminal Dragon Vs have 323 Attack and 8200 HP, mind, they're very big, but if you've gotten this far, you can take them.
Final tally—the gang gained 19 levels across this way. Level 80 is plenty for our final opponent.
Like I mentioned, dragons respawn when you enter the Illusory Capital—you're gonna have to chew through this Dragonlord on the way no matter what.
We'll be bringing Richter, Youka, and Satsuki—equipped with Daggers—into the last battle. I personally believe that in 2020, Destroyer/Trickster/Hacker is the best party. Satsuki's endgame power was limited against Niara by using bullets, you see. I've removed her weighted training guns for True Ultimate Satsuki. You can call this a Satsuki that's ascended beyond the level of a normal Satsuki.
Anyway I crumpabomb this guy
I should mention one off-ilter thing. The game doesn't save after this fight or anything, so this is the one fight where using Sacrifice is a genuine tactic. It deals 40% max HP damage, so if you get the boss down to that point and nuke your Trickster you get off scot-free... aside from them not being in the cutscene after the fight. However, this is a strategy for clowns and I will not be doing it.
Let's roll.
...How long has it been since then? I don't know. I don't know, but all I can think about—
...Why are you here?
To be honest, I don't know. This isn't really happening, but... Maybe, eventually, we'll meet in the real world, too.
VFD... no, Chisa—!
A terrible presence... is ripping me apart at the seams. My body... is screaming to consume you. Please! You have to stop it! That's—my only hope—!
Takehaya... I'm... not strong enough to face you. There's no doubt you would kill me. So... guys?
Even knowing this isn't real, it's horribly tragic. I'm sorry, Takehaya.
I'm gonna do my best, man.
You're an idiot to the end, Take.
Then, let's do this...
Murakumo Unit 13!
First of all: You should click on that link. Takehaya's battle theme is an absolute banger.
Here we are, folks: the big man himself. Dragoner Takehaya is easily the strongest opponent in the entire game, with multiple phases, unparalleled offense (330 ATK and 310 MAT), and an absolutely gadzookling 50,000 HP. He's got no weaknesses, and has the best set of status resistances in the game. No matter your team, beating him is going to require pulling out all the stops—and it's not like you have anything else to pull them out on, so go hog wild!
We're going to need to be as cautious as possible. He was already incredibly powerful as a human!
We throw up not only Defense Booster, but Parry Shield, because Takehaya always starts the fight with...
...SKY, a twelve-hit random-target move. Parry Shield at max level is a 35% reduction, and Defense Booster a 20%, so you can imagine the kind of havoc an unbuffed party would take from this move.
Alright, Take, gimme your best shot!
Careful what you wish for, Fudoji!
It's worth mentioning that Takehaya even has twice the critical hit rate on his regular attacks of every other enemy. You know, for fun.
Hrk—! What the hell is—?
Satsuki! Sound off!
HERE WE GO
ONE
TWO
Great work! Keep going next time!
C'mon, you can give me better than that!
Fine! I know better than to target you!
OW
Double Javelin is actually a random-hit, Richter just got unlucky. However, it can also inflict a Bleed rider for 43~53 damage, and Richter missed that, so good for him?
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
and some healing.
70%. It has a 70% crit rate at max level. That's 70% that you'll get an extra turn off of Venom Boost. Just wanted to say that.
You two keep going! I've got this one!
Takehaya has a consistent pattern for 11 turns in each of his phases. As such, you can guarantee he'll use SKY on his first, fourth, seventh, and tenth turns. His second, sixth, ninth, and eleventh will be two attacks, and his first, third, and eighth will be an attack and Double Javelin. Once you phase him over, this pattern resets to the first turn—his second phase is the same, but with skills we'll see later in the place of SKY and Double Javelin. He can also heal on the first turn of a phase for 2992 HP. As such, I'm intentionally playing somewhat defensively here to rack up Venom Boosts in his first phase.
SIX
Pow!
The number is climbing. Higher. Faster.
You're pretty good!
See? There's the Bleed rider.
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
and some healing
AND ALSO THIS KNIFE
man i hate it when i can't control my dragon strength
Dragon Blood is the telegraph that he's moved to Phase 2.
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
Great work, Satsuki!
Praise means it's go time!
What—what the hell—?!
2954 Poison damage! That's not because of Ragweed Ammo, that's just because of Venom Boost! More! More power!
hims a speepy boy
THIRTEEN
Die! Die! JUST DIE ALREADY!
H-hurk
OH MY GOD ARE YOU ALIVE
Supersonic Spin replaces SKY in Phase 2, and deals approximately ten hundred bajillion gazillion damage. You will not survive Supersonic Spin.
ragweed ammo curses tho lol
Aww, look, that's cute. He thinks he's outpacing my damage over time.
Fourteen...!
DING DING DING WE GOT FIFTEEN BABY THAT'S FIF-TEEN VENOM BOOSTS THERE WE GO AW YEAH
and this shiny rock
5769 damage per turn is the maximum possible Poison damage you can do. Fifteen Venom Boosts is the absolute cap. ...For damage, you can still use it to extend it, but frankly, what the fuck do you need to extend it for???
Stay down! Just stay down!
Knife?
Knife?
Knife?
there ya go mama
So, Double Javelin gets replaced by Thunder Breath, a skill that targets everyone and can inflict a 45% action negation Paralysis and a 33-damage Burn. Once he hits lower health, Takehaya's D R A G O N S T R E N G T H fades and he enters Phase 3, where he starts using all of his moves, and also gets the ability to use Exhaust, which doubles the strength of his next move.
Why am I explaining this now?
Because I just won the fight.
Yeah, Mama, give 'em the Inazuma Kick!
See you later, Take!
Eh, still not as much as Venom Boost.
...nice... work.
And that's all she wrote of 7th Dragon 2020.
Ah... yeah. This is... good. Thanks. Now... I can sleep... as a human.
I don't appreciate all... these incredibly painful poisons, though.
lol sorry bout that dude
No worries, they'll... probably pass.
...One day... let's meet again for real. All of you guys.
...Yeah. I promise. You're my rival. I won't let you go that easily.
...
...Yeah. No matter what I might try to tell myself, there's no way I'd have been strong enough to face Takehaya again then. But... even if 2020 ended with a lot of unfulfilled catharsis, it was still the year I met my closest friends in the world.
It was horrible, and painful, and awful. But in the end... it happened. All of it happened.
...Maybe it's best to look at 2020's end a bit optimistically, even if I know more pain is on the way. Or maybe I won't. I don't know. I guess I'm the only person that can decide that.
----------------------------
When I initially conceived of Sympathy as a project, I figured it was something I'd be able to get done in time to be properly timely—finish the whole thing by the end of 2021. Obviously, that didn't happen.
I've gone through a lot this past year and a half or so. I underestimated the amount of effort a project like this, a proper Let's Play and a story in its own right, would take—and I overestimated my own ability to continue working on this and other projects simultaneously. I wound up suffering from quite a bit of creative burnout, and had to really re-evaluate my own workflow in order to re-orient myself.
I tell people this anecdote fairly frequently, but I never meant to make Sympathy myself at first. Instead, I was simply describing my idea of what happened to Raven and Mio after EO5 to Rea, and she told me I really needed to write it... and the rest was history. The rest of Unit 13, their relationships to the world and cast... it all just kinda sprung from there.
I never expected people to like Sympathy for Chisa Inomiko. I've written a lot of fanfiction in my time, but never anything like this. A lot of it comes from passion for a series that nobody in the West cares about, and a lot of it just comes from my own passion for writing a specific kind of story. Not to mention... well, a lot of people did like LP EO5, and I figured that the core ideas of this story might rain on people's parades.
But people have wound up liking it, and I'm really glad for that. I really, truly love this story, and I'm glad people have been willing to follow along with it for this long, even when I've taken a while to finish even just the first half of it.
Let's Play EO5 was a formative work for me as an author. A lot of my work was... well, while not unseen, not exactly obvious, but it had an impact on me, and it was shortly after that that I started writing properly. Being able to properly write some of the feelings I had about it has been really fun and fulfilling for me.
All of the things that led to Sympathy are pretty crazy and freak occurrences, even down to me becoming the editor on LP EO5 to begin with. But it happened, and here we are. It's been a joy to read everyone talking about the story. I'm a mystery author at heart, you know—we thrive on those sorts of things.
I'm Kinu Nishimura. This was 7th Dragon 2020, a game I love, host to Sympathy for Chisa Inomiko, a story I love.
Thank you for reading to the end of Part 1. At long last, Unit 13 has finally escaped 2020.
I hope it won't be too long before I see you all again.
