Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne HardType (COMPLETE)

I guess I could share this I'm currently doing this mod in playthrough to my acknowledge this is the only mod for this game, I must also say that I'm not a pro with this game in fact I only complete one time (on Hard True Demon Ending tough) this year and I absolutly love it, this mod was looking really good and it pick my interest I started record my fight with the bosses might as well doing the full playthrough.

Link to the Hack and list of change : https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3299/ 
Credit to Zombero for this mod.

Few things to note :
-Since Zombero rebalance Physical and Magical build for the Demi-Fiend (Pierce working with Magic spell and not only physical skill) I decide to go for a Magical Build as in the original outside of Tornado and Debuff I didn't use magic that much.
-A new feature of this mod are battle in Full Kagutsuchi we can now encounter now some more powerfull, I was originally planning to record them but up to now they didn't last long enough and weren't that hard so I will only record them if I think they are worth showing.
-And of course I will go on Hard and for the True Demon Ending

So now we can start :

And we start with a classic of Atlus an intro that last long tough not even near as long as the Persona game (looking at you Persona 4) where we watch the end of the world and our main Character get transform in a demon by some mysterious blond child and we also got our first magatama.
First thing to note we can now see what skills the magatama will give we can also notice that Marogareh our first magatama as some new skill such as Deathtouch and Dark Might, so we start exploring our first dungeon..... just to be teleport to a mysterious place where we will face our first fight notice that we can die quite easily in these fight, also we get a chest with 2 Medicine just in case.

The tutorial fight are as follow :
-2 Will'o Wisp (we can do nothing but attacking so yeah just put the auto mod and prey that we don't miss) aftre this fight we can heal for free with Dr Dark
-Shikigami (on the Vanilla it was a Preta which could easily killed us in one turn with a Critical hit, it's less hard here tough I suggest using medicine if he uses Zio and hoping he doesn't spam Zio)
-Kodama + Will'o Wisp (Optionnal but I suggest doing it to get LV3 instead of LV2 at the end of this sequence, there's a chest behind that give you a Maragi Rock)
-2 Kodamas (I just one shot them with a Maragi Rock since they are weak to Fire)

After that officially begin wisit our first area the Shinjuku Hospital :

Not many thing to mention here we get our first demon which is a Pixie (that we should keep), and progress through the dungeon, I recruit some Demons along the road such as Kodama, Will'O Wisp, Preta and also very importantly Shikigami. I also got very lucky I was mashing dialog and accidently agree to let Pixie change one of her it turns out she changed Dia into Media so yeah really usefull at this point of the game (normally I think the first Demon that have access to Media is Inugami which is a LV13 demon and he learns it at LV14), Shikigami is important for the boss and also later he will learn Tarukaja.

Forneus

As for the MC since we don't have access to Magic skill (Deathtouch don't come directly) at this point I give points toward Strength and Vitality, anyway I make my way to the boss which is Forneus :

As expected he isn't that tough since he is weak to Electric attack Shikigami and Pixie can use Zio, I had to use Tarunda tough cause he hit hard for my LV, also use Rakunda with Pixie to speed up the fight, after some HP lost he uses Mabufu which Pixie take care with Media, we can also see one change once a target is Shock or Freeze we can only do one physical attack (guaranteed crit) before he retaliates.

After the boss we get the Magatam Wadatsumi I have grind a lot to transform Pixie into High Pixie and also get a Hua Po (worth notice random 3 Hua Po can be hard to deal with), also learn Ice Breath and start focusing on Magic for MC, I also face the Full Kagutsuchi fight which is against Slime with Hua Po being able to cast Agi it's not hard.

On the way for Shinjuku to Shibuya I got my Hand on a Zhen, I also go to Yoyogi Park and convince Pixie (or High Pixie) to stay with us, Yoyogi park is full of Pixies so I recruit a second one (High Pixie doesn't count as Pixie), full Kagutsuchi fight is against one Pixie then 2 Pixie and 1 High Pixie not hard.

On to Shibuya first I bought the Shiranui Magatama (just got enough money for it), shibuya's Full Kagutsuchi is against a Choronzon fortunatly we have Wing Buffet with High Pixie and Choronzon is weak against Force, unfortunatly I don't recall my fusion exactly but I know I fuse a Lilim with Pixie and Preta I think (I got here with Sukukaja and Agi), Shibuya random enconter aren't hard, Also got a mini-boss fight with a Nekomata but unfortunatly for her she's weak against Zio so we can exploit that quite easily. Then I encounter Chiaki on the club and return on the terminal where Hijiri has made his way, he then sent us to the Amala Network.

I suggest saving before going to the Amala Network cause you can't get out of it once you enter until you get to Ginza.

The random encounter aren't hard by themselves but on the long run many consecutive fight can be scary as I might be short on healing option, most encounter are against Erthrys and/or Aeros, Erthrys aren't that hard with Wing Buffet but Aeros can be really annoying as they are resistant I can charm them with Lilim but he doesn't work often, we also can't recruit this guys unfortunatly, the Full Kagutsuchi Fight is against 2 Shiisa they are annoying if they does War Cry but are to Fire so Fire Breath with MC, Agi with Hua Po and Lilim make them a lot more manageable.

Anyway I make my way to the boss (there's a save point and a Free Healing Room just before him thank god) which is Specter :

Specter 1

This can be a tough one as my most usefull demon for this which are Shikigami (for Tarukaja and Tarunda) and Zhen (for War Cry) are weak to Fire, the first part with 6 specter is tough my goeal is to get 2 Sukukaja and 2 Tarukaja and Killed at least one specter before they merged into the big one since only my MC can void Fire (I could have use Hua Po but she doesn't have usefull skill at the time) so I need to rely on dodging with Sukukajas and also Tarunda on them, they resist magic so I'm better attacking physically for now.

Once they merged I make Zhen entering the battle and make him use War Cry to reduce his damage and have Lilim use 2 Rakunda and High Pixie on support then I dismiss everyone and solo him with my MC with 2 Rakunda and 2 Tarukaja Deathtouch drain 100 damage which make my MC unkilleable (unless he crits with his regular attacks) this way I make sure my Demons receive XP and don't die.

We have a little scene in the Labyrinthe of Amala where an old man give us a Candelabrum.

Now we are in Ginza and I will grind..... a lot cause the next boss is scary and I don't to fuck around with him.

So a little summary :
-I go to the Underground passway of Ginza to the Manikin place.
-I return to Ginza and Fuse Inugami (with Cadenza), Choronzon (got him with Rakukaja) and Minakata
-The grinding sport for XP is the water in which the Manikin leaves we fought Isora and Forneus in it Isora are easy with Fire Breath + Fire Boost on MC, Fire Breath on Inugami and Agi then Fire Breath with Choronzon, Minakata make short work of Forneus with Zionga
-Then I go for a bill and beat a Troll (can be tough but I didn't have many trouble with him)
-Buy some stuff at Jewelry in exchange for Gems
-Buy the Magatama Hifumi at the Manikin vendor (very important)

I did LVUP to LV19 with my MC, I also try to recruit Angel and Jack Frost but didn't have luck with them OH well.
And now it's time to face one of the most infamous Difficulty Spike in the J-RPG genre, the Legendary noob-killer Matador :

Matador

Well no need to say that this is a tough fight, Matador isn't really different than vanilla aside of the fact that he uses Dervish instead of Mazan a Force spell that reduce Evasion (thank god it's not Accuracy) to sum up my strat for this fight :

-My MC is equipped with the Magatama Hifumi to void Dervish making him lose turns and preventing him to get more turn because of Inugami and Choronzon, at first he does nothing then will heal Inugami MP with a Chakra and once all the buff are set he is my main Damage Dealer with Fire Breath + Fire Boost.
-Inugami is on support with Media and Cadenza (buff Magic I use Fog Breath with him and deal some Damage with Death or Feral Bite when it's possible.
-Choronzon buff with 2 Rakukaja, debuff with one 1 Sukunda and secondary healer with Media
-Minakata put Rakunda (he can emove them with Dekunda but since Minakata is first to act my MC will still be able to take advantage of the Rakunda) and attack physically (I should have try Zionga but I wasn't sure if Matador had a resistance to it).

Well the fight got badly at the end (that freaking Double Taunt goddammit) in fact after this recorded fight I got killed in a random and have to fight him all over again, but my second fight got better (only Inugami died) and I was able to reach the terminal to save, I didn't continue after that so for now I stop here.

Hey, nice vids!  I like the storyline behind them, too.  Dismissing the demons for Spectre's final phase is an interesting strat.  I suppose Deathtouch could make the MC a solo machine against some bosses who lack buffs/debuffs/dekaja/dekunda.

By the way, I uploaded v1.5 to romhacking.net yesterday.  This version just adds some new bugfixes.

I think Deathtouch would probably lack power later also just a quick note for Matador maybe Scald would have been a better skill for fighting him as it does good damage (not as much as 2 Hit Fire Breath tough but scald is more constant) to him and reduce his physical attack power almost forcing him to use Dekunda (so no Rakunda) and losing a turn in the process so it's worth noting.

Thanks I will take the update, currently I'm on my way to Ikebukuro but kind of struggle with the Random in underground passagway (specially the Blobs with Zanma (when they get the First Turn) and the Chatterskull with Last Resort (Last Resort is almost a guaranteed Game Over at this point)).

Well some progress tonight, make it to Ikebukuro I was planning to get Uzume but then I remember that Uzume is Weak to Thunder which for the upcoming boss is really bad so I will do it after Thor. Now I get to the Jewelry at Ginza and coviniently I have the requirement to buy a Great Chakra and a Balm of Rising (the first one is the most important, second one is for safety just in case, also Inugami has evolve into Makami.

We enter the Mantra Headquarters then watch our dear friend Isamu get beaten by Thor (how the hell did he survive that actually), then we get arrested and like every J-RPG in the world it's Jail Time well this time it's actually simple.... in how it works but not easy to do we have to do a boss rush so as follow with the strat :

-Orthrus : The thing with this guy is he uses only Fire Elemental attack and occasionnaly Stun Claw (it's rare tough) he has Agilao, Maragion and Hell Fire but it doesn't matter I just equip the Magatama Shiranui and for demon I use Makami, Choronzon and Flaemis and so we have a full team completly immune to fire making this guy almost free (I could have use War Cry tough for safety as Stun Claw on a MC is a One-Shot if he gets a Critical) after that I just spam ice Breath with MC and Attack with the other.

-Yaksini : Well a little more tricky she spams the hell out of Force spell (Zanma, Mazanma and Tornado) and also occasionnaly use her Normal Attack my MC with the Magatama Hifumi (fortunatly they let us modify our set up between each fight) is the only one that can Void Force, so what I do ? I solo her... Kind of I start the fight with my MC and Minataka, Minataka role her is to give us 2 Tarukaja and put 2 Rakunda on Yaksini then I dismiss him (if Yaksini doesn't kill him before), and then just like Specter the fight is almost free her Force spell do nothing and her Normal Attack isn't enough to kill me while Deathtouch deal enough damage to fully heal us so it just a matter of time (except if he get a Critical on her Normal Attack but I actually never see her crit with her normal so I assume it's pretty rare.

And then the Big Boy himself Thor well time to set The Great Chakra is for recover all my MP to be full Heal against Thor, Balm of Rising was in case Minataka dies against Yaksini, so my team is Minataka (very important as he is the only one who can Repel Thunder), Makami and Choronzon, my plan is to use 2 Rakunda on him with Minataka, 1 Fog Breath with my MC, 2 Cadenza with Makami and 2 Rakukaja with Choronzon I had to use a Bead Chain for safety, I don't use War Cry yet just in case he use Dekunda later, if he uses Mazio or Mazionga he will lose turns thanks to Minataka, however Attack, Zionga and Mjolnir can be scary has they are single targeted if he attacks my MC twice he will kill him and there isn't really much I can do about that (Mjolnir does 160 damage with 2 Rakukaja so I don't think War Cry would to prevents him for being able to 2 Shot my MC) if he uses Dekunda then I War Cry for safety and reuse Fog Breath and 2 Rakunda but he doesn't use Dekunda often compare to Matador in fact in my Recorded fight he didn't use it at all.

Video upcoming.

The next fight will be scary I still haven't try him we will see how it goes.

Well here the video for the Mantra fight :

Mantra's Trial

After that I fuse Uzume and did try Dante and.... for now I honnestly don't know how I'm gonna beat him, the first phase is actually fairly easy but when he starts spamming Provocation things completly get out of control as his Rebellion can one-shot me if I'm fully debuff and he loves that moves and that moves Crits..... a lot so YEAH I'm gonna see what I can do about him.

EDIT :

Dante 1

So I manage to beat Dante at the end but this is a scary fight Dante is basically like Matador but more Aggresive and with no way to make him lose press-turn so wa have to deal with it, unfortunatly Dante can 2 Shot almost any members I have, I had to buy again Choronzon why ?? Well because he is the only demon I ever have that both resist Physical and have Rakukaja so anyway Dante is in 2 phase :

-Phase 1 : During this phase Dante will mostly spam Rebellion, and almost everytime you Debuff his offense or his Defense he will use Holy Star (He seems to be more careless when he is only affected by agility debuff well I suppose he is right as his Rebellion cannot miss anyway) also his Ebony and Ivory now reduce the Defense and Evasion of their Target and he crits a LOT and I mean a lot.

For this phase I start with Choronzon, Minakata and Makami on the first Minakata use Sukukaja, Makami use Cadenza, My MC use Scald (which debuff his attack which will most likely force him to use Holy Star (sometimes it doesn't work tough but very rare) and Choronzon use Rakukaja after that on the next turn Minakata will use Tarukaja, Makami will probably heal with Media (or use Deathtouch if he has been the only target), My MC will use Scald and Choronzon use the second Rakukaja. Once all the buff are set I act on this order :
-Minakata : Pass
-Makami : Rakunda
-MC : Chill (the reason I use it is because it is powerfull enough and cost only 7 MP plus he can Freeze Dante (altough it's very rare))
-Choronzon : Pass
-Minakata : Zionga
-Makami : Media/Deathtouch

By following this order I make almost sure that he will use Holy Star (which he will have only up to 2 offensive turns instead of a maximum of 4) + this allow me to take advantage of the Rakunda to deal more Damage with my MC and Minakata and it assure me that he will have Rakunda for the second phase, unfortunatly there is random part sometime he will just not use Holy Star and go on the full offensive (which is dangerous 4 Rebellion in the face is scary considering only 2 are enough to kill one of my party member (except Choronzon)), also if he uses E and I I need to do a Rakukaja with Choronzon.

-Phase 2 : Now he get 2 new moves Bullet-Time which is not very damagin but can Panic you which is really bad, and Provocation which is Taunt but that restores his MP so basically a completly free Taunt unlike Matador tough he will never use this move 2 time in a row but will attack directly after. The bad news is of course you will take more Damage there is a good news however as long as you're defense is not fully debuff he will always do Provocation + Attack what this means it means that he will not use Holy Star as long as you keep you defense up and so you can debuff him.

So now my plan is to replace Minakata by Uzume because Uzume has Rakukaja which give 2 Demons with Rakukaja and so I can fully remove his Provocation, then I use Scald to reduce his physical attacks, and a second Rakunda with Makami, then I try to finish him as quickly as possible with my MC's Tornado (can deal over 600 with 2 Makakaja and 2 Rakunda and if it hits twice) unfortunaltly he still can 2-shot any of my Demons and so near the end he killed Uzume with 2 Rebellions fortunatly he hadn't much HP left and so by spamming Tornado and Feral Bite with Makami I barely manage to kill him before the Game Over.

Well shall we continue so after that tough fight against Dante, I go see Gozzu-Tennoh which I decline the offer but hey he still increase the number of demon I can carry by 2 so it's nice, I also manage to recruit a Mononufu as well as these Birds right before Gozzuh-Tennoh (by the way they can be pretty annoying), then I go to the Assembly of Nihilo, this place isn't to complex the random encounter are actually really annoying especially since they love putting you in formation where one Demon Void the Element in which the other is weak, they aren't tough but they surely make you lose time and ressources.

I manage to get a Dis I did various Fusion I admit that I have trouble remembering them all so sorry if I made mistake anyway I fuse :

-I fuse Dis and Flaemis and sacrifice a Kodama (that I had since the Shinjuku Hospital the little had goes up to LV18) to make a Koppa at LV23 normally if I don't mistaken he will all his skills and evolve on the next LVUP manage to get him with Agilao, Cadenza and Tetraja
-I fuse Uzume and Minakata to get Kikure-Hime got her with Tarukaja, Rakukaja, Rakunda, Zio (didn't manage to get Zionga cause the RNG sucks) and Media but turn out I got really luchy I let change one skill on one of her LV and she changes Diarama into Mediarama
-Fuse also Choronzon with the Bird to get Raiju got him with Rakukaja
-And finally I fuse Makami and Mononufu to get Zouchou with Focus, Fog Breath and Rakunda.

As for battle Nihilo Full Kagutsuchi Fight was fun basically Makami can be tough as he has no weakness and Fog Breath can be annoying but he summons Inugamis which are weak to Force making Tornado useful, the Inugami can be annoying tough with Media and Rakunda.
As for the "Kilpa" semi-bosses well :

-Eligor is easy just buff the team, debuff him and just spam Zio spells also Tornado with the MC to dispose of the vermin he summons (Dis, Yaka or Incubus)

-Berith have some Fire Resistance the Succubus are annoying and can put you to sleep, Berith himself is weak to Ice so Chill of the MC work very well.

-3 Kaïwan well they are immune to Magic so gonna go physical which is against my build for the MC but OH well, 2 Tarukaja, 1 Fog Breath and a Koppa that spam Tetraja (as Kaïwan loves to spam Death spell) and we attack him normally Zouchou with Focus + Brutal Slash hits hard.

And then we got to the actual Boss which is Ose :

Ose

Well in all honnestly make it to this without losing to much HP and MP is harder than the actual fight against Ose. The difficulty of Ose will depend of one factor weither he uses Dekunda or not it's possible he will never use Dekunda during the all fight which make him extremely easy, if he uses Dekunda it will make thing a little hard but either way Ose is really easy compare to Matador or Dante just keep him debuff and buff yourself and hit him with everything you've got with a healer, watchout for Tetrakarn and Makakarn however, so overall not an Hard Fight I would say it's one of the easiest boss in the vanilla so YEAH (well I guess he is just here to distract us while Hikawa go away I suppose.

So that's it for nom next up will maybe (if I can beat him) be a fight against a famous skeletton Priest that we all love for how good he is in Vanilla.

EDIT : Well here we go for Daisoujou I actually completly forgot that he was already available before Assembly of Nihilo but oh well.

Daisoujou

He still doesn't have either Dekunda nor Dekaja which makes him a rather easy fight, with War Cry and 2 Rakukaja Meditation does really low damage (around 30HP and 10-15MP) so the first phase is basically a Buff and Debuff and then attack him don't forget to put a Tetraja Rock tough, for the second phase he starts using Mamudoon and Mahamaon so I replace Kikuri-Hime with Koppa because Koppa has Tetraja which is extremely usefull for this fight the rest of my member keep attacking, in the Final Phase he start using Starttle (his own version of Dragon Eye basically) and Preach, Preach is really annoying and so that why I try to finish him off ASAP before it gets out of control (freaking Charm).

Well after Daisoujou I just go try Hell Biker with the same set up and..... I just completly get reckt dammit, after trying a few time I decide to skip him and go to Kabukicho Prison, start the Kabukicho and I recruit Naga (and I realise that Drain Attack could be really now that it gives 100% of the Damage to HP (that could be fun to use with focus)), and then I say screw that I want to beat this Biker now, so I just got to have a good team so long story short :

-I had a Oni that was completly useless to me so I use him to do a Fusion and sacrifice a Aquans that I have since my first arrive at Ginza to get Momonufu at LV25.
-Then I got to the lowest part of the first kalpa ennemies are dangerous but I can exploit their weaknesses and use buff/debuff to beat them and if I am low on MP I can use the Ladies to teleport back on the entrance and fully healed

So I got Momonufu lo LVUP and then he learns all his skills and evolve into Arabaki, Arabaki will be really good and so time to beat down the Ghost Rid.... I mean Hell Biker.

Hell Biker

Got to say this is without any questions my Luckiest fight against this guy, honnestly in my first run in Vanilla he was the Hardest Fiend for me if you try to fight him as soon as he is available and without grinding, here he is still scary.
Basically this can get me a Game Over at anytime to attack my MC and then do Hell Spin, with this he can basically kill me on the very first turn (trust this happens a lot), so basically this is the only thing really scary here as I make sure to counter anything else as follow 

-Karasu repel Force so he Repels Hell Exaust making him lose turns
-Arahabaki Void Physical so he voids his normal Attack and Hell Spin (really important as Hell Spin seems to have a good crit rate)
-My MC has the Magatama Shiranui to Void Fire so that he can Void Scald that Hell Biker use in the last phase.

So unless he does his regular physical attack on someone else than Arahabaki or Dekunda everything he does will make him lose turns.

As for actions :

-Karasu buff with 2 Tarukaja then attack
-Kikure-Hime is the healer (Mediarama) and when there is no need to heal she uses Rakunda
-My MC attacks with Chill (Hell Biker nullifie Fire and Resist Force so Chill is my best option here).
-Arabaki attack with Focus then Lunge

EDIT : So after Hell Biker back to the buisness and we do the Kabukicho Prison a dungeon that I am honnestly not a fan off altough it's design is interesting.

For the dungeons what I recommend is just complete it get until the last save point just before Mizushi and making to have activate the shortcuts then save go back to a town to heal and come back and go straight to the boss.

As for the encounter the most dangerous ennemies here are the Naga, Mizushi and Pisaca all are weak to fire so the spell Scald is really useful here, as for the other the Raiju are weak to force so Tornado will make short work of them, Yaka and Preta aren't dangerous anymore at this point of the game.

The Full Kagutsuchi Fight is against a Cai-Zhi he is not as tough as Makami tough really he use Ice attack but his most dangerous move is Hell Thrust however some Rakunda, Tarukaja and Tornado will kill him pretty fast.

As for the boss :

Mizuchi

No need to say that after Hell Biker Mizuchi is a joke in fact in Vanilla I consider him to be the easiest boss of the game and it's still the case here, the only annoying thing is Mirage being able to inflict Panic but even that isn't a problem as Kikuri-Hime has Me Patra and she just learn Anti-Ailments through LVUP, so just have to fully buff myself and debuff then attacks with Scald with my MC, Agilao with Karasu and regular attack with Kikuri-Hime and Naga.

Been a long time that I haven't update this my bad, quite alot happen since last post, after beating Mizuchi I started explore Ikebukuro Tunnel we have 4 optionnal bosses here which are the Onis, the Random encounter can be annoying specially Saruta-whatever (can't remember his name) if he appears and got the first turn this can easily cause a game over with Dragon Eye, Focus and Hell Thrust on MC, other mobs are annoying such as Mothman which can Panic are team, the full Kagutsuchi encounter is against Sarasvati she starts by using Dragon Eye and Mute everyone which is troublesome since I go for a Magic Build fortunatly her main other attack is Dervish which is worthless if I have Karasu in my team and she is weak to Fire.

Anyway this tunnel isn't to complex it's not to hard figure it out the Oni are optionnal but we are gonna fight them now cause why not, so here we go :

Kin-Ki

In all honnestly this guy is the toughest for me there is no pattern, he can use Dekunda, he uses Buff and Debuff and he hits like a truck also unless he is frozen physical attack are useless against him, fortunatly he doesn't use Dekunda to often so fully Debuffing is a viable option, since he uses only Physical attacks Arahabaki is basically complete invincible in this fight and will make him lose turns, so I had to maintain the buff and Debuff and attack him with Tornado with my MC, Agilao with Karasu and Zionga with Raiju, when he starts using Dragon Eye I recommend to try to finish him off ASAP cause at this point this can go wrong really easily.

Sui-Ki

This is easily the easiest of the 4 cause he doesn't use either Dekunda, Buffs or Debuffs he has a weakness to Fire, once again Arahabaki is unkillable here cause he is immune to Physical and Repel Ice which are Sui-Ki only way to attack, my MC has the Miasma magatama to Void Ice, so just fully debuff him and buff ourselves and we just hit him with Fire thanks to MC's Scald and Karasu's Agilao.

Fuu-Ki

Can be dangerous in the end if he decide to spam his physical attacks, unfortunatly can't bring Arahabaki this time because he is weak to Force which is Fuu-Ki main way to attack however Karasu and MC are immune to it so in the end his magicks aren't that dangerous which is why I don't bother countering his Cadenzas, he is weak to Elec so I use Raja Naga has the main Damage dealer with Zionga (can't use Raiju cause he is to weak and is weak to Force so he will die way to fast), Karasu and MC are secondary Damage with Agilao and Chill and Kikuri-Hime is the healer, I got unlucky at the end tough.

So only one left unfortunatly I had to grind for this one cause I wasn't able to beat him with the current party and you really need Dekunda for him, I did go to Asakusa (because enter from Asakusa is closer to Ongyo-Ki than the other one) so I make Matador to get Dekunda and then fuse a Okuninushi with Dekunda by sacrificing Matador (cause Matador stat are kinda low at this point) also since I get to LV41 I fuse Kikuri-Hime and Erthrys to get Kushinada basically a better version of Kikuri-Hime, also Karasu evolves into Kurama tough we will not see him in action for Ongyo-Ki.

The best spot to grind at this point for me is the beginning of the second Kalpa here you can encounter Phantom and the purple specter (don't remember his name) both are weak against Force so with Matador's Dervish, Karasu's Zanma and after he evolves Kurama's Tornado, my MC's Tornado and some Tarukaja and Rakunda they are easy to defeat and give good amount of EXP.

Anyway so after this we go to Ongyo-Ki before entering this fight make absolutly sure you are in Full Kagutsuchi otherwise unless you are really overlevel or very lucky I don't know if you can beat this fight :

Ongyo-Ki

Well this fight is long the thing here is he creates 3 clones of himself right at the beginning and you have which one is the real..... unless you are on full kagutsuchi in which case the real one will have a shadow at his feet, that really helps cause if he get's turn while having his 3 clones this can be really dangerous as he will be able Dekunda but also strong physical attacks, agilao and Mudoon so YEAH we don't want that. Instead we are going to loop him (kind of) but we start by using War Cry and Fog Breath (no use decreasing his defense) and use a tetraja rock.

The goal is to hit the real one at least once and the when he use Replicate again he will always use Dragon Eye and perform action in this order :
-Debilitate
-Rakukaja
-Megido
-Replicate

So to counter Debilitate we use Dekunda cause reapplying everything would require several turns, to counter Rakukaja I use Dekaja however in order to do some Damage I decide to use Dekaja every time he does it twice so my turns in order after Ongyo-Ki's turn :

-Kushinada : Mediarama
-Okuninushi : Dekunda
-Raja Naga : Hell Thrust on the real one
-MC : Tornado

If there is need for Dekaja then :

-Kushinada : Mediarama
-Okuninushi : Dekunda
-Raja Naga : Dekaja
-MC : Chill on the real one

This strat globaly is very safe however 2 things can go wrong :

-If I ever miss the real one then things can go wrong as you can see at the end of the video thank god I had dish enough damage to be able to kill him fast.
-Sometime he will not use Replicate but instead will try to attack Stasis Blade can Bind one my character if he Bind Kushinada this could turn out bad (he can also Mudoon which Kushinada is weak to but this is why I put Tetraja Rock at the beginning and I had 2 left)

Anyway long fight but overall no that hard with the correct set up.

After Ongyu-Ki I return to Asakusa and then decide to complete the Second kalpa it did go pretty tough the encounter can be tough (especially if we get ambushed) and so at the end Lucifer teach us more about Hikawa and then we encounter are next fiends which will be the 4 Riders, then I wanted to go to Shibuya and guess what that White Rider doesn't want to wait any longer and he appears right on the Terminal, well this is bad news cause my team is kinda tired and the bastard doesn't want to let me go no matter how many time I reload my save. OH well it seems he doesn't give me any other choice fortunatly I have some consumables so I recover MP the best I can (and try to keep as much as possible for the actual fight) and brace myself for White Rider

Fortunatly he isn't the worst fiend to defeat (I'm looking forward for Red Rider actually) but he can be tricky, White Rider doesn't use Dekunda but he uses Dekaja right at the beginning he summons 2 Virtue at his side fortunatly they can be turn to stone which them harmless however that prevents for using AoE attacks, the one which will turn them to Stone is Arahabaki with Stone Gaze (yes I keep that skill on him just for this fight ^^) and use War Cry with my MC, Tetraja with Kurama and Tarukaja (to increase the odd of White Rider losing a turn with Dekaja) once everything is settle I can attack his main attack are his bow, God's Bow and Prominence, Prominence is Fire Elemental so Arahabaki is weak to it so he killed Arahabaki with but that actually good cause I can bring Okuninushi which is resistant to Fire and Void Expel so here the goal :

-Kurama is trying to maintain Tarukaja to maximize Damage if White Rider don't use Dekaja and I have 2 Tarukaja the I attack with Zanma
-Kushinada is the healer and use Tarukaja if no need for heal and Pass if no need for her
-Okuninushi deals Damage with Focus + Attack
-MC use Chill to attack White Rider

If White Rider uses God's Bow on anyone else other than Okuninushi then I reput Tetraja, once Whiter Rider is beaten you can kill off the Virtues with whatever you want.

White Rider

EDIT : Well I redo the fight against White Rider because let's face it Stoning the Virtue can be consider cheesing the fight I originally did it because at wasn't at full-life, but by reloading my save I finally manage to escape him and go to a Fountain to fully heal myself.

So without Stoning the Virtues the best way for me is to fully debuff him (War Cry, Fog Breath and 2 Rakunda) then I use my MC and Kurama and they both spam Tornado, Tornado can deal good damage to White Rider but also since the Vitues are weak to it it gives me more turns, however the draw back is I have to make absolutly sure to kill either both Virtues or neither as killing one is bad because then both White Rider and Virtues will have 2 turns to attack each, without Stoning the Virtue I also a need Dekunda as the Virtue use Rakunda a LOT of time, Prominence after 2 Rakunda is actually the most dangerous thing here, also if I kill both Virtue then White Rider will use Dragon Eye but the lose to turns to summon them back which means he will have only one turn to actually attack.

The other benefits of killing the Virtue over and over is it gives quite a lot of EXP and Macca at the end I actually won over 10k of both at the end of my fight which is really nice.

White Rider (No Stone Gaze)

Can I suggest putting Stone Gaze as a Curse type for instance instead of Death and then immune the Virtues to it because it definitly make the fight a lot easier also same thing for Red Rider's Power I suppose.

Ikebukuro Underpass could definitely use some toning down.  It was the hardest area in vanilla and that just gets amplified here.   I have given it one round of toning down, but it's still pretty brutal.

Ose

Yeah the general concensus seems to be that Ose is too easy right now.  Daisoujou, too.  Both these guys could use some tuning up.  Maybe Mizuchi, too, though I'm not as bothered by him being a bit weak...

White Rider (No Stone Gaze)

Eh, I kinda like how Stone Gaze is useful here.  I even added the Medusa Eye item (which can be acquired at Rag's Jewelry) to make it so you don't even have to learn the skill.  This is more or less the intended way to do the fight, though it can still be beaten without it.

Well yes Ose could be made harder I think, I think Daisoujou should have either Dekaja or Dekunda and some more powerfull attack or buffs himself for more diversity he is kind of a Joke after Matador and Dante to be honnest.

The ikebukuro Underpass is a hard part yeah especially if you haven't done the second kalpa at this point (which can be really tough to at this point), speaking of the second Kalpa I forgot to mention I have incedentally get a Full Kagutsuchi Encounter in it and it happens to be Hell Biker he was a little harder cause he has more turn thanks to Beast's Eye tough he didn't use Dekunda I don't know if I was lucky but anyway I manage to beat him I just didn't record him cause I wasn't expecting him, I wonder if he can be fight again.

Also just after White Rider I fought the Red Rider, I honnestly was expecting a really hard fight as he was the hardest Rider in Vanilla for me, maybe I was overprepare because he turns out to be quite an easy fight :

Red Rider

Well my strat was to be able to counter his attacks so why I have this teams as such Arahabaki void his Terrorblade, Raja Naga void his Bolt Storm, my MC has the Murakumo Magatama to halves his terrorblade damage, my only issue was ih he confuse Kushinada which happen one time but I manage to recover, also the Power's Hamaon but they prefer to use Tarukaja (which I debuff with Dekaja) so my Main Damage Dealer are my MC whith (this attack is perfect for this fight it deals decent damage, target only one ennemy and inflct a Sukunda effect which can make Red Rider losing a turn using Dekunda) and Arahabaki.

And I have then go through the Obelisk the dungeon can be tough especially soome Encounter the Full Kagutsuchi Fight against Kurama has been face several time ^^, and yeah these puzzles and then I fought the Moirae Sisters :

Moirae Sisters

Well unlike Red Rider I actually wasn't expecting much for them but they turn out to be quite tough, Clotho and Lachesis are the worst here Lachesis just keeps buffing them and debuffing me and use Makakarn, Clotho is there healeuse and has both Dekunda and Dekaja, Atropos is really by far the least dangerous of the three and should be save for last, I basically go all out at the beginning to kill one of them as fast as possible which happens to be Lachesis I had to recover after that but slowly but surely I kill Clotho first and once Atropose is alone she is no threat at all.

Now I'm trying to beat Black Rider.

EDIT : Alright I've defeated Black Rider well he was tricky because he goes completly against my MC Build as I don't want to kill the Legion and my only single target spell is Chill which is an Ice spell so Black Rider absorbs it (They are weak Thunder tough so I believe that if one has at least 1 or 2 Demons that have an AoE Elec spell that deals good damage it might possible to do the same strat as I did for White Rider without stone gaze meaning exploiting the hell out of the Legion's weakness (using AoE or Random spell to damage the Rider at the same time) to gain more turns but I couldn't do that) so I had to use a more Defensive strat here.

He doesn't have Dekunda nor Dekaja so my goal at the beginning is using Fog Breath with Kurama, Rakukaja with Kushinada, Sukukaja with Hanuman and War Cry with my MC I have to hope that he miss someone (or does Glacial Blast and hit my MC which void it) and hope the Legion doesn't do a Critical with Tempest.

Then I replace Kurama with Daisoujou finish to buff myself (Rakukaja and Sukukaja takes priority) and then here what I do :

-Kushinada and Daisoujou are support I mainly use Daisoujou Prayer and pass with Kushinada if Daisoujou needs to recover MP then I use Kushinada's Mediarama and use Meditation with Daisoujou
-Hanuman is my main Damage Dealer with Focus + Brutal Slash he deals really high damage
-My MC role is to make sure that there attack is at the lowest possible by using War Cry, i have to get a balance between using War Cry and Mana Drain to manage my MP

If done correctly Black Rider should never have a second turn (cause after 2 Tarukaja from the Legion he will hit a lot harder) as Soul Divide is Void by Daisoujou, Glacial Blast void by my MC and I should have at least one party member to dodge his attacks, the scariest thing that can happen tough if he use Glacial Blast and it hits one of my demon twice this can be dangerous because if the Legion attack after and hit the demon with Tempest (this nearly happen with Kushinada at the beginning of the fight thank she dodges the Tempest) also if Glacial Blast froze someone and the Legion attack him afterward which will give a guaranteed Critical Hit.

Also yeah Arahabaki would have been perfect for this fight (as he repel Ice and void physical) but I didn't hae him along so overall the hardest part of this fight to set things up at the beginning after that unless a really bad luck the fight should be safe.

Black Rider

Well after that I continue the story the Amala network represent no problem whatsoever the fight are the same as the first room of the Second Kalpa so I'm use to them and have the means to defeat them easily and the dungeons is relatively short, so I go straight for the end where we encounter a really old friend which is Specter who wants a rematch.

I'm gonna say that despite the fact that he void all element (I think) so my magic is useless here the fight is really easy I think this one should be buff a little.
Anyway the thing is Specter try to steal our MP to then use Megido however he doesn't have Dekaja and will use Dekunda only one time in the entire fight, so Fog Breath and 2 Sukukaja makes it very likely that we will dodge his attacks, with 2 Rakukaja and War Cry his Megido deals only 80-90 damage which is really low not to mention that of my character will most likely dodge it making him waste a turn (if he wasn't for that I admit that taking multiple Megido would be scary), as for Damage Hanuman deals it with Focus + Brutal Slash (if he lands a Critical he can one-shot one of the Specter) and for a change Kushinada attack with Poison Arrow which suprisingly good Damage and has a fair amount of chance to crit so it's good to weakned the remaining specters Daisoujou is the healer and my MC is basically useless in this fight ^^, when 4 Specters or less remain one of them will use Dekunda (tough fun fact if the one that try to use it doesn't have enough MP none of the other will try to cast it so no Dekunda at all) which really isn't bad at all just War Cry and 2 Rakunda and proceed at this point the fight is almost free.

Specter 2

I also try Mara but right now I don't think I can beat him I have to deal 4500 damage in 1 turn (or 2 if I get lucky) which is out my reach for now as he resists magic making the fight almost impossible to win so I will save him for later.

Alright some update well after Specter 2 and getting my ass kicked by Mara I decide to just continue after some event we face the last of the Rider which is Pale Rider.

Pale Rider

Before anyone say so YEAH I know this isn't the best strat far from it ^^ the best strat would have been to focus on the Pale Rider and do a similar strat than for the Black Rider but I wanted to have some fun and get as much EXP as I could from this fight which is why I go for attack the Loas.

Anyway he doesn't have Dekunda nor Dekaja however he probably as the best minions out of all the Riders the Loa are actually in my opinion the real threat of this fight they can do all sort of things including :
-Debilitate (which is problematic especially if they decide to spam it)
-Maragidyne 
-Dormina (which the Rider can follow up with Eternal Rest)
-Venom Bite deals good damage and can inflict Poison (which the Rider can follow with Pestilence for Insta-Kill)

Pale Rider can use Blight to inflict poison, Mabufudyne (which actually hurts), Pestilence which deals almighty Damage and Eternal Rest

My strat as alway is to make sure to make him lose turns :
-I had to recall Arahabaki because he is just great as he void Physical and Repel Ice he honnestly is just here to tank and occcasionnaly attacks with Focus + Lunge and apply Rakunda and Sukukaja
-My MC is equip with the Gehenna magatama to Drain Fire he is a main source of Damage with prominence
-White Rider void Fire and Dormina, God's Bow with just one Tarukaja can one-shot a Loa giving us more turn as they are weak to Expel which is his main purpose here
-Kushinada is here in place of Daisoujou because she has Rakukaja (which I need otherwise my MC cannot survive Mabufudyne and Arahabaki can't survive Maragidyne) she is prime healer with Mediarama and Armita and buffs with Tarukaja and Rakukaja
-I use Kurama at the beginning for Fog Breath

So my strat is to first fully debuff him and fully buff myself then take advantage of the Loa's weakness which is possible thanks to White Rider's God's Bow to get more turn then use Prominence as a source of Damage (with only one Loa Prominence will hit The Pale Rider for sure and it hits for 600-700 damage per hit) all while making sure to constantly be fully buffs 
Unfortunatly the fight is inconsistent due to the Loa they can fuck things up if they decide to spam Debilitate and also if they manage to inflict poison without losing turns so the Pale Rider can take advantage of it.

The good thing with killing a lot of Loa is it give us a lot of EXP and Macca at the end which will cut off some future grinding.

After that I go to the third Kalpa and do all the puzzle with Dante unfortunatly fighting him now is way to inconsistent for my taste so i decide to go back as fortunatly we don't have to do all the chase section with Dante once it's done (and as long as we don't defeat Dante there will be no random encounter in these areas), anyway since I'm at it I decide to give another shot to Mara.

Mara

Well from the look of it I don't think killing with magic is possible at this point of the game as it have a high resistance to magic (except almighty) and so magic does crap damage, and the thing is we have to kill him in 2 turns at best (if we got lucky if not he will just use Diarahan instantly), so I already had Hanuman and I have to make a second good physical Damage dealer I use okununinushi that I fuse with Erthrys to make Mikazushi with Focus then I fuse Mikazushi with another Erthrys to make Jiroku with Focus (he already has Stasis Blade to attack) and so here my second physical Damage Dealer, so Mara has Dekaja but fortunatly barely even use it the toughest part is to actually survive the first turn if Mara decide spam Hades Blast he can wipe out my entire party pretty easily and Dismal Turn hurst a lot (tough Daisoujou void it so that's good, my MC can survive it, Hanuman to thanks to Endure and I use White Rider to tank the first turn then swap him out with Jiroku), after the first turn I debuff him with War Cry, 2 Sukunda and 2 Rakunda then I buff myself (Rakukaja and Sukukaja in priority) while healing with Daisoujou hoping that my member will dodge if he uses Hades Wave and I focus with hanuman and Jiroku.

Once all is set I go all out with Hanuman's Brutal Slash, Jiroku's Stasis blade, Daisoujou's Meditation (if there is no need to heal) and MC's Prominence unfortunatly that's not enough to kill him so I have to hope he doesn't use Diarahan on the next turn (if he does it's most likely a reset), on the next I should be able to kill him by using Focus and Brutal Slash with Hanuman.

Alright after this to pass Dante with safety I decide to grind and makes Hanuman evolves into Wu Kong why ? Because Void Physical and he is more usefull than Arahabaki and physical is the only type of attack I couldn't counter against Dante.

Dante 2nd encounter

Well much like Mara the first turn is the most Dangerous one as if he goes for anyone but Wu Kong with Rebellion he can easily kill the target, fortunatly he uses Bullet Time a lot during the first phase which will make him lose turns because of Wu Kong, unfortunatly Bullet Time can make Kurama Panic and it's possible would just withdrew from the fight if that happen which is troublesome, anyway after the first turn my goal is to apply Tarukaja and Rakukaja (I found Sukukaja to not be usefull in this fight as every attack of Dante (except his normal attack which he barely uses) can't be dodge at all) then I tdeals damage with Zandyne, Focus + Brutal Slash and Prominence for Daisoujou he mostly is the healer but I try to get a Rakunda if i get the chance tough on the first phase he will use Holy Star alot.

The second phase begins and it's an easy one Dante get 2 new moves Whirlwind (which reduce accuracy) and Roundtrip (which reduce Evade) however thanks to Kurama Draining Force and my MC equip with the Narukami Magatama who void Elec these 2 moves will make him lose turn and he loves to use them and with 2 Rakukaja they don't deal that much damage so I can take the risk to apply Rakunda as he doesn't use Holy Star however I try deal as much damage as possible as fast as possible as after a certain time he will start using Provoke and I want to avoid that if possible.

Then the last phase Dante keep all his moves and he can use Holy Star again (altough not as often as possible) he gain his last attack Showtime which is almighty and deals a lot of damage despite the 2 Rakukaja and cannot be dodge it is possible that he kill us if he uses Showtime and follow with Rebellion on MC which nearly happen at the end (thank god it wasn't a critical) so at this point I just try to kill ASAP before he gets the time to kill me be aware tough that he has his own version of Endure which will allow him to survive one fatal attack (even if it's a multi-hit attack), so overall a really fun fight not to hard if well prepared but still a decent challenge.

I stopped here for now next time I will go to Yoyogi park and confront Sakahagi.

Well lot of stuff so first off before getting to yoyogi park I do all kind of stuff to get Amaterasu I get her at LV59 and with Nigi Mitama I gave her the Fire Boost skill then I level up her to LV60 and she learns all of her skill the most important one being Debilitate I think Amaterasu and Loa are the earliest possible way to learn Debilitate but Amaterasu is more usefull because she also learn Prayer and is immune to Death and Expel, anyway go to Yoyogi I recruit a Titania and a Setenta on the way to Sakahagi Setenta isn't that usefull but Titania will have her use later and so I make my way to yoyogi park (a rather annoying dungeon by the way) didn't get the Full Kagutsuchi encounter tough and so I encounter Sakahagi and he summons some ally at his side :

Grimekhala + Sakahagi

Well this is basically 2 boss in the row so here we go :

-Grimekhala : He is the first immune to Physical we fight which isn't a problem as we hit like a truc the only annoying thing here is Panic and he can hit quite hard, also debuf are useless he just spam Dekunda, so I just fully buff myself, Wu kong void physical and Daisoujou void Pani Voice so that give us to possible way to make him lose turn Amaterasu and MC just beat the shit out of him with Prominence.

-Sakahagi : Well little twist he actually try to put a fight this time also the beginning was a mistake on my part I shoul've War Cry him on the beginning anyway he doesn't have Dekunda so just fully debuff him, he has Dekaja however he has very low MP and so will probably use it like only one time in the entire fight his Mazionga actually hurt, once he has no MP he starts attacking the twist is he has both Attack All AND Pierce and he also has a big Critical Hit rate the thing is if he manages to attack 4 time in the row he might kill fortunatly Amaterasu has a little skill called Tetrakarn that make the fight a lot easier.

And after and plot scene we doesn't waste any time and proceed to the next opennent which is a Fiend the Mother Harlot

Mother Harlot

Well this what I call an intense fight took me 3 days to take down this bitch maybe I was underlevel I dunno anyway the thing with this fight there is a lot of thing to watchout for :

-Thunder attack with Maziodyne and Bolt Storm
-Debuff with Taunt and Babylon Goblet
-Statut effect (and the worst one which are Charm and Panic)
-Attack All
-Dragon Eye
-Dekunda
-And her most annoying attack Death Lust which is an "everything in one" type of attack it deals great Damage, it heals her, it's almighty and it can inflict Charm very nasty move right there

My main issue here is there is many thing to handle also I don't have any valuable demons that Void Electricity so that is a problem and since the Focus damage of Attack all always goes to the MC I don't have any choice but using a Resist Phys magatama anyway the thing we have to keep track of is that every 4 turns she will use Dragon Eye so that give us 4 turns to deal the maximum damage possible as such my main goal at the beginning is to fully buff myself with Rakukaja and Sukukaja in priority then by the time I'm done I probably have the time to deal some damage and apply at leats 1 Rakunda.

The Dragon Eye turns are basically were the fight can either go wrong or go well during the first phase she will use them every 4 Turns Dragon Eye gives her 5 action in total the first will always be Dekunda and Focus and 3 other are random, this is basically that the randomness here we absolutly don't want her to use Taunt and even less 2 time in the row, however there is also the possibility she uses Death Lust and Babylon Goblet which inflict respectively Charm and Panic troublesome especially if it hits Amaterasu and the MC which the 2 that can heal them, the best thing that could happen is that she uses attack all or if we dodge one of her other attack.

Outside of the Dragon Eye turn what I do is I apply Rakunda and 1 Debilitate with paravati and Amaterasu and then damage her in fact of my turn goes like this :
-Wu Kong : pass
-Parvati : Agidyne
-Amaterasu : Prominence
-MC : Prominence (I was trying Glacial Blast at the beginning cause if we Froze her Wu Kong can get some Damage but that never happen cause Luck is never on my side on video game so I just say fuck it)
-Wu kong : Pass
-Parvati : Mediarama

That is my best way to get damage of course if she uses Taunt I have to use 2 Rakukaja and if he use babylon Goblet I have to use Sukukaja if she inflict Statut effect I have to either Prayer with Amaterasu or Sacred Water with MC but unfortunatly if both get hit that can cause a Game over actually other than that and her Dragon Eye she is actually manageable Wu kong serve for only tanking Attack All and reapply buffs, then comes the Desesperate Phase.

She now will use Dragon Eye every 2 turns she will not bother with Dekunda at this point she will start using a Taunt a lot more which is actually really bad in fact an easy to die here is that if she does 2 Taunt in a row and either Death Lust or Maziodyne before Attack all it will most likely kill the MC and gives us game over so basically at this point every 2 turns is a possible game over so my best is to try to keep her on 2 Rakunda try to survive the best you can and pray that your characters dodge as much as possible and can finish her off as quick as possible because at this point you don't have any control over this fight and she can kill you whenever she feels like it, you can actually see in the video that it was fucking close (I actually was hesitate to give up this attempt this attempt when she manages to kill Amaterasu and use Dekunda just after fortunatly she had no HP left).

So YEAH a really intense fight here the hardest so far and a very good one altough I maintain that there maybe to much randomness in it but I guess that's my fault for trying to get her now and refuse to keep her for later XD.

Anyway after that we goes for some other plot sequence then fight another optionnal boss which is Black Frost.

Black Frost

Well I made a mistake since I wasn't using Force skill anymore I decide to give them up on my MC to get a Physical attack (since I got a high luck it can comes handy for critical hit and when magic isn't good) and buff which left me with Ice and Fire spell except both of them doesn't work on Black Frost so yeah big mistake here ^^, and since he has a extremely good resistant to physical then my only way get Damage was using White Rider which has Zandyne and Force Boost (I could've use Kurama but right now he doesn't have enough HP to survive anything and White Rider's resistant to Fire is way more usefull).

Anyway the only hard part is the mamudoon at the beginning I make Legion her cause he Repel it, Amaterasu is immune to it so that's good, Wu kong isn't immune but can survive thanks to Endure so I just have to hope it miss the miss the MC after that it's just a matter of setting things up I want Amaterasu to use 2 Debilitate, swap Legion for Daisoujou and then Amaterasu for White Rider then fully buff everyone and then Damage him with White Rider's Zandyne and Daisoujou's Meditation while healing if needed all of that while my MC keeps the Tetraja up in case of Mamudoon with tetraja Rock.

Once the second phase begins he stop using Mamudoon and start using Maragidyne which we don't care since White Rider nullify it overall we don't want him to get 2 actions cause let's admit he hurts like a truck even with 2 Rakukaja and 2 Tarunda so at this point there is only to way for him to kill me if he uses Bufudyne instead of Mabufudyne or Glacial Blast and doesn't target the MC and if his Berserk doesn't hit Wu Kong and nobody dodge it both are unlikely so unless really bad luck the fight is really easy.

So after that I made a lot of work at the cathedral I won't over the entire process but basically I use my Amaterasu made some Fusion and end up with an Ara Mitama that has both Debilitate AND Prayer so basically I can now learn these 2 skills to whatever Demon I wish for some Maccas tough this process cost me some money, so I couldn't afford to buy again Amaterasu but we have a beautiful Titania and she is good cause she has a quite high magic, she directly a good offensive spell with Glacial Blast, she repel Expel and Death and Resist Magic with 6 slot to fills so YEAH I give her both Debilitate and Prayer and I also use a nigi mitama to give her Ice boost and buff her magic stats so yeah.

Then I get to the Amala network and face Specter 3 I actually didn't record it because I don't think it was interesting cause I didn't really fight them i just fully buff myself then I was just War Crying them and use Hassohoppa with Wu Kong to make them use their Last Resort I think I kill the maximum possible so that's 20000 EXP and 10000 Macca easy fight they just use Dekaja one time.

Well let's continue so after Specter 3 we begin the Amala temple however before that since I get to the third to go seek Black Frost don't know if I'm gonna use but hey he is basically free so why not, and get a deathstone so time to fuse my personal favorite rider which is the Black Rider by fusing Titania and Pisaca and so I manage to get him with Life Drain, Debilitate and Prayer he starts with Glacial Blast a good spell actually and I manage to give him Ice Boost with a Nigi Mitama.

So anyway I start with the red temple, the red temple is actually for me the best grinding spot at this point of the game seriously the mobs are really easy to defeat (not to mention the most powerfull of them are weak to Ice) and each fight can gives over a thousand EXP and as much Macca, in Vanilla I remember having grind here a lot and it's still viable here just go to the save point, save, use Riberama and enjoy ^^. So anyway this temple is straightforward for a dungeon it's just a try and error to progress to the boss which is Skadi.

Skadi

Basically Black Rider make this fight easy by Draining Ice so her new move Nifelheim is powerfull but since it's AoE and Black Rider Drain it she loses all her turns. In fact I might have made Black Rider a little to OP for this point I mean Life Drain + Prayer + Debilitate but hey don't blame me if the game allow that Anyway she Void Ice and Physical so my best damage dealer here are Parvati with Aragidyn and MC with Prominence. Wu Kong is here to buff at the beginning and because he void Physical a funny thing is that in my test prior to this record she was spamming Earthquake for the entire first phase but here she didn't use it at all funny, tough in both case this fight is still very easy. So basically just buff yourself debuff her heals with Black Rider damage her with Parvati and MC if she uses 2 Tarukaja that mean she will use Earthquake on the next turn so War Cry her and watch Eathquake fail on Wu kong and then continue the fight normally (by the way Eathquake does around 200 damage and can inflict Stun not that is matter because we have prayer anyway). At one point she will use both Dekunda and Dekaja no problem tough just reapply the buff she will then start to use Dragon Eye however here attacks at this point aren't threatning heck if she uses Nifelheim directly she will just lose all of her turns thanks to Black Rider. So Yeah really easy boss.

So after that I go back to Asakusa to heal and make a new companion by fusing Wu Kong and White Rider I got Odin Odin will be a good Jack of all trick as when he will learn Maziodyne he will be able to exploit a lot of Element and with Focus and Deathbound he is a good physical hitter and also manage to give him Mazandyne to allow him to exploit Force and Life surge to make him more tanky, so after I go to the Black Temple which really is the easiest to go through but is the one with the most annoying mobs but we go quickly to the boss and he is arguably the most dangerous of the 3.

Aciel

Aciel here is mainly a physical dude however odly he is resistant to magic and take half Damage from so we want to attack him with physical which is why Odin will be are main source of Damage. He can randomly use Dekunda so be prepare to reapply the debuff at anytime a little change is that in the original his Dragon Eye turn a spam of mana Drain here he spam Hell Fang which has a really high Critical Hit rate then after that his next turn will be Sol Niger which now reduce our HP to 100 and removes buff and chain with a Regular attack which can actually be dangerous but overall his weakness is that his accuracy is pretty low so he misses a lot. So basically just keep the buffs and debuff max out let Odin do the job of dealing damage with Focus + Deathbound and the other character more as support.

So now for the last Temple which is the White Temple I don't have many things to say about this temple much like the Red one it's a matter of try and error until reaching the boss, the mobs are fairly easy but some void physical so be aware of that as for the boss.

Albion

Well this one is a little tricky as we have to kill his last minion at the same time otherwise if we kill the minions he will resummon them and if we kill the minion will revive him, we have to kill them both, each of the minions drain an element and are weak to the opposite as such :

-The Black one is weak to fire and drain ice
-The Green is weak to thunder and drain force
-The Red is weak to Ice and drain Fire
-The Yellow is weak to force and drain thunder

Albion himself Void physical attack now unlike in Vanilla and has no weakness, so the doesn't have Dekunda or Dekaja so maxing buff and debuff like always, since my MC and Black Rider have AoE elemental spell I can't use them at the beginning I had to get rid of one of them with single targetted spell Odin and Parvati will does that by spamming Aragidyne on the Black One once he is done the MC and Black Rider can go to the offensive with Glacial Blast and Odin attack the Red One with Bufudyne at this point Parvati is on the support, I proceed until only one minion remains, once there is only one minion left I try to get both the minion and Albion at Critical health which can be seen by their stance once that done I go for the kill by basically hit with everything I've got.

I make a miscalculation tough and had to kill the minion however I realise that could be a really a good source of EXP and Macca as that I realise by comparing with GranBenja video that each time you killed the minion you get over 4000 EXP and Macca more so basically with a team that could manage his MP it would be possible to kill the minions over and over to increase the EXP and Macca earned at the end of the fight.

So then we watch Isamu get his God of reason and on the next time we will go to Mifunashiro where Chiaki has decide to make a genocide with the manikins.

Alright so some changes  :

-I level up all the way to LV70 I actually wanted to LVUP to LV69 but once I get to LV69 I realise that I could finally learn Magma Axis, so yeah we learn what is probably the best spell for the MC about time
-I got a Atropos by fusing Femme type demon with Erthryses starting with Dakini I'm gonna keep her until she reach LV71 where she will learn Magic Boost
-I fuse again a Titania by sacrifice to get her LV69 (I then LVUP her to LV70 so that she can learn all of her skill mainly Prayer and Mana Surge) for purely personnal reason as she is my personnal favorite demon/persona in the series and my team wouldn't feel complete without so get use to the "Are you ready ?" quote because you're gonna hear it a lot (I actually wouldn't be surprise if I finish the game with her in my main party ), and common a nearly maxed out Magic stat, No weaknesses, Repel Expel and Death, Resist magic, inherant Glacial Blast, Medirahan, Prayer and Mana Surge what's not to ask here and I give her Debilitate and Life Drain

Anyway we continue the game and so our next destination is Mifunashiro where we watch the result of Chiaki's genocide, in my opinion for this point of the game Mifunashiro is the easiest dungeon there is really nothing interesting the Full Kagutsuchi fight is against a Dyonisus....... what ? I have Bufudyne, I have 2 or 3 and myself with Glacial Blast, I have Debilitate so yeah really no threat at all here, so we get to the boss and for once we get to choose our oppenent if we agree with Chiaki's reason we face Futomimi and if we don't agree she summons Angels at us, but I record the 2 fight cause why not.

Futomimi + The Angels

Remember this is only my second playthrough well this is actually the very first time I fight Futomimi and..... goddamn he hits like a truck really Focus + Might and he can one-shot every single demon I have even with 2 Debilitate and 2 rakukaja that isn't resistant to physical this is crazy I had to bring Legion that join me out of nowhere and that I wasn't planning to use anytime but since he is only demon I have left that Void Physical he is kind of needed here, anyway I honnestly don't really have a solid strategy here other than equipe a physical resistant magatama fully debuff him buff yourself and hope he will target Legion as much as possible and your demon will dodge, while bombarding him spell that being said I'm pretty that if I had a team entirely made of Demon that void physical this fight would be a complete joke but where would the fun in that.

As for the angels they are..... pathetically easy I mean WTF ? They seems even less threatning than in Vanilla what happened to Uriel's Beast Eye, where is Raphaël's Makarakarn I mean I have try this fight 3-4 times to see if they could use them but nope nothing, OH well so just equip a Magatama with Void Expel, debuff them and buff unlike Futomimi they don't even have a debuffing move, and the fight is honnestly cakewalk only thing dangerous if if Raphaël attack and get a crit, other than that just focus on Raphaël as he just spamming tetrakarn and since the angle resist magic we don't want that if he don't use Tetrakarn I use Deathbound with Odin and I realise that to late but as you can see at the end of the fight despite having waaay les STR than Mag and having Fire Boost if Deadly Fury crit it deals more damage than Magma Axis so I should have use it.

Anyway between the 2 fight I would definitly recommend fighting the angel they are way easier AND they give more EXP no reason to not fight them unless you really want that Balm of Rising Futomimi drops.

And so Chiaki summons her God of reason which is Baal Avatar and by monologing to herself she unwillingly tell us where is Hikawa and where will he summons his god, so time to go to the Diet building, but on the way to it we encounter the last of the Fiend which is the infamous Trumpeter, I will be honnest my first few tries he just completly reckt me I in fact thought he was impossible for now and was going to skip him until I remember that I could make one demon that could save our ass here I wanted to make him later in a sacrifice fusion so he get more level and more skill but I guess it can't be help so time to make another one member of my final team in Vanilla Yurlungur and he will definitly be extremly usefull against the trumpeter.

The Trumpeter

I actually really like this fight would say it's maybe my favorite fight in the game because here for once no bullshit possible, no luck-base strat, no randomness it's pure analyse, strategy and skill.
Unfortunatly this fight show a very cruel reality in RPG a fight that has no randomness and is almost 100% consistent such as this one ends up being easy once you figure out the good set up and strategy for it.

Anyway he starts directly with Holy Melody then War Cry it's 100% he will always start by these 2 actions so you have no risk of getting killed at the first turrn after that he has a pattern which is as follow :

-3 random turns where he will use physical attack, the Madyne elemental spell or Cadenza it's random
-Evil Melody + Megidolaon
-3 Random Turns
-Holy Melody + Dekaja

Anyway for the preparation :
-You want Yurlungur, Yurlungur is god sent in this fight as he is, to my acknowledge, the only demon that naturally Void every of the 4 element I made him with Life Surge so that he can tank Megidolaon for sure
-For the MC put a magatama that has no weaknesses
-If you have a demon that resist magic like Titania here it's good to have
-In any case you want to put demons that doesn't have elemental weaknesses
-In your stock you should have a demon that is already at low HP it's not mandatory but he will make the beginning of the fight easier
-Have some Revival Bead or a demon with Recarm if possible

So the thing is his elemental hurts like a truck even with 2 Debilitate and 2 Rakukaja he can dish over 500 damage with normal resistance, this is why Yurlungur is so good because you absolutly don't want the trumpeter to cast 2 spells in a row and basically his high make it that any demon with an elemental weakness is useless because they will get one-shot by the element they are weak to, in fact even demons with normal resistance can take over 500 damage at this point, if he uses Cadenza you definitly want to dispel it with a debilitates.
As for dealing with Melodies the thing to know :

-Evil Melody target your party member with the least remaining HP (in proportion to his max HP (a %) not the actual number) it kills the target and it ignore immunity only way to survive it is having Endure
-Holy Melody fully heals anyone (including him) with the least remaining HP

Also if everyone is at full health then the target of the melodies is random, you definitly want to manipulate this so he don't heal himself or kill on of your valuable party member.
So before his fourth turn swap on of your demon with the weakned one in your stock this way the trumpeter will target him for sure, for Holy Melody you can risk a gamble and try to counter it by just not healing before it as he will always follow by dekaja (you'll have to rebuff and priotize Rakukaja), after the first time just revive the dead demon with a Revival Bead (he will be close to death then) and resummon him before the next melody.
You have to keep that the demon you swap will lose all the buffs and this is why I choose Titania since she resist magic she can actually tank the Trumpeter's spell with no need for Rakukaja and so thanks to that I don't need to waste turn rebuffing her.
As for damage our main source of damage here is the MC's Magma Axis probably the best for the main character with 2 Tarukaja and Debilitate it deals 1700 damage but the interesting thing is that it cannot be Repel nor Drain meaning that with Pierce nothing will be able to resist it.

So as I say the trumpeter is really a fight that has no luck involve it's really just pure skill the only thing that can kill you is if you made a big mistake and I actually like that kind of fight cause when I died I know it's entirely my fault and not the game trolling me but at the same time I have to admit that in RPG for a fight like this as long as you know what you're doing he is actually a fairly easy, that's unfortunate but still my personnal favorite boss fight in the game and thank you Zombero to have give him more HP and make the buffs and debuff less powerfull so we actually have to deal with Trumpeter's mechanic multiple time instead of being able to cheesing our way by killing him before he even get the time to use it. 

So next up I will go into the fourth Kalpa see if I can beat Belzebuub if not I will go to the diet building.

Alright so I had a lot of thing to cover here so after beating the Trumpeter I did go fight Beelzebub into fourth Kalpa I actually have to redo all my set up for him I will not go over the all process i just gonna say I made all my demon with Life Surge, I'm so pissed off as myself cause I had succefully made really awesome I had made her with Focus, Void Physical (thanks to Legion) and Prayer for safety and like an idiot I completly forgot to register her before using her in fusion after Beelzebub fight, she learned Elec Repel and Life Surge which are amazing for Beelzebub, I also made CuChulainn because he Repel Force I had to make him with Void Death we will not see him after Beelzebub but he will be usefull for Beelzebub.

Beelzebub

Well I was expecting him to put more of a fight, but OH well after I take 2 hours to set up my team for him so I guess that's the pay off.

Anyway Beelzebub isn't to hard there's actually to efficient ay to beating which basically are all about exploiting is AI the thing with Beelzebub is that if you uses 2 buffs on yourself then he will do the following combo :

-Dekaja + Focus
-Dead Flied + Attack

It's a pretty strong combo because thanks to Dead Flies it's more likely that the target of the Focus Attack will be killed so base we have 2 ways to deal with him as follow :

-We can trap him in a loop by forcing him to use the combo Isak Haha manages to do that but I will not do it because it require to have all the party member to have Void Death and at least resistance to physical and a lot of HP (around 700) which I don't have
-We can stay at +1 in every buff for us and 2 Debilitate for him this way he will never do the combo.

I go for the second at it is more safe as for my team you NEED demon that Void Death don't even try without it because Dead Flies deals almighty damage but also has 100% chance of killing the target so my team :

-MC : With a magatama that Void Death will do the Tarukaja buff and then he is the main Damage Dealer with Magma Axis
-Kali : I manage to get Void Physical on her so that is nice, she learns Life Surge and Elec Repel through Level Up, she is my second damage dealer with Focus + Deathbound and she also has Prayer just in case
-Titania : Repel Death, Resist magic she is prime healer with Mediarahan, and Debilitate use she also suprisingly decent damage with Glacial Blast and Life Drain for MP management
-Cuchulainn : He repel Force, Resist Physical, I put a lot of work to get him with Void Death and Rakukaja (he already has Sukukaja) and Life Surge he is underlevel yes but he is still usefull for applying the buff in case of Silent Prayer (which unfortunatly Beelzebub decide to nout use in this video)

So with that set up Beelzebub's Mazandyne and Maziodyne will do nothing than hitting himself, he also have a new move called Silent Prayer he didn't use it in this video but what you want to do if he does it is Debilitate him 2 times with Titania reapplying Sukukaja and Rakukaja with Cuchulainn and heal with Prayer with Kali (that is the only reason why I keep it on Kali).
The only real threat are Dead Flies and Megidolaon they both deals around 250-300 damage and so if he decides to use them both (or of them 2 times) and nobody dodges it (actually I have the impression that Dead Flies can't be dodge at all in this mod) it can be really bad as only Kali and my MC can survive it for sure but it's rare.
The other thing that pose problem is if he spams Silent Prayer that can be rough for MP management.

In any case Beelzebub resist to everything except Fire so Magma Axis is our main source of damage then despite the fact he resist Physical and Ice Kali's Focus Deathbound and Titania's Glacial Burst does fairly good damage.
So overall not a hard fight if well prepare, I think he deserves a deserve a little buff.
The ending was hilarious tough

So after Beelzebub and a little sidequest to get the Star key we made it to the fifth Kalpa here Dante offer his service and so we hire him for 1 macca, gonna say it now once he gets Son's Oath Dante will be a really good allie in this mod as he has more utility than in Vanilla thanks to some of his attacks gaining a Debuff effect and Son's Oath (and boosting all his attack) giving him Pierce later on.

And then after a rather short kalpa I honnestly got straight to the place where Metatron is waiting I can't get the Uber Pixie because I don't have a demon that have enough strength so we will see for that later, as for Metatron like Beelzebub I actually had to completly redo my set up for him it tooks me even more time as i realise that every demon that doesn't have Life Surge (except Dante because he is a badass) doesn't have enough HP to survive Fire of Sinai let alone Megidolaon (especially after Heat Riser) and so i had to make a full team of Demon with Life Surge and Void Expel (which took me sometime I even learn how to grind the fifth Kalpa's Hell vault for money as it gives 12-13k macca each and by the way doing the Hell's Vault muliple and I ended up with 8 Bead of Life really nice) so anyway when all is done here is Metatron.

Metatron

In all honnestly I think this fight is fun but a liitle to long for my taste.
Anyway this guy has 3 changes :
-His normal attack now inflict Mute
-He can use Silent Prayer at the beginning of the fight
-He uses Heat Riser instead of Makakaja Heat Riser is a new skill that gives the equivalent of 2 Tarukaja, 2 Rakukaja and 2 Sukukaja to one target.

So basically this fight is in 3 phases :

Phase 1 : He spams the hell out of Silent Prayer, I use Dante here because his E and I attack now reduce Defense and Evasion which will bait Metatron to use Silent Prayer as well doing Damage, I use the Trumpeter to put Cadenza, Clotho as a healeuse and MC as main damage dealer with Cocytus (as Metatron take half damage of everything else than ice and almighty), during this phase Metatron love to chain Silent Prayer and Megidolaon.
If Dante get a second turn I either use Stinger (as it is almighty so no resistance from Metatron) or Rebellion if Metatron got Frozen by Cocytus.

Phase 2 : I replace Dante with Titania Metatron will now mainly use Heat Riser + Megidolaon he doesn't use Silent Prayer but can use Dekaja and Debilitate but it's rare.
So now I can buff I actually only need Rakukaja on my demons and the rest on my MC so what I do is I use Trumpeter's Heat Riser to fully buff my MC and Rakukaja with Titania, it's faster this way and since most of the time my MC will be the only to do damage no need to buff the other.
The loop here is after Metatron Heat Riser + Megidolaon the Trumpeter use Dekaja, Clotho use Debilitate bringing Metatron at -1, Titania heals and MC does damage occasionnaly I heal with MC with Medirama if I need to recover MP or heal for Mute with the other Demons.

Phase 3 : Now he starts using Fire of Sinai is most dangerous skill it hits randomly with 3 to 5 hits I believe of almighty damage this is actually his only dangerous attack and it make the fight kind of luck base cause he can easily gives a game over if 3 hits hit the MC especially if he follow with megidolaon or if he do a Heat Riser just before.
However in this third phase is way less trigger happy with Heat Riser, Dekunda, Dekaja or Debilitate so it's easier to keeps the buff and debuff, eventually he should fall but it really all depends of Fire of Sinai at this point.

Also yeah you can see the potential glitch I mention in the other topic with Demons using Items.

And now for a little rant of my part because now we get out ticket for fighting Lucifer at the end of the game but we also get Pierce for the MC and now I want to discuss Magma Axis, now I really like that Pierce now work with Magic really that is awesome however combine with Magma Axis new property which is to ignore Repel and now we have a completly unstoppable, I think maybe the goal here was to get an equivalent of Freikugel for Magic Demi-Fiend (as Freikugel is Physical and Almighty so with Pierce it bypass Repel Phys making it unstoppable to at least in Vanilla) but I honnestly didn't like the idea of having a move that no ennemy can resist at all in the first place especially since Magma Axis is available way earlier than Freikugel, cause right now I really don't see any reason to have any other offensive move than Magma Axis except maybe for exploiting weaknesses but my other demon can do that as well for mobs and bosses most of the time don't have weaknesses, so yeah I think Magma Axis is questionnable here but OH well.

Anyway now that the Labyrinth of Kalpa is out of the way let us continue the story and go to the Diet Building and we start quickly with a boss.

Surt

An easy fight but it allow me to showcase some new stuff with this mod :
-Pierce now work also with Magic which allows us to kill Surt with Fire which let face it is the most badass thing ever, also now with Pierce since Magma Axis ignore Repel Magma Axis is now a totally unstoppable spell ^^
-Dante's Son's Oath gives him a 30% boost to all his attack but also gives him Pierce thanks to that since no demon can learn Pierce until LV95 this makes a very good Damage Dealer against foes like Surt that has no weakness and resist Physical

So for Surt just use 2 Rakukaja, Heat Riser on MC and Dante and kill him Magma Axis and Rebellion (also E and I to put Rakunda oddly he didn't use Dekunda this time) and of course put the Gehenna magatama to drain his Fire attack really the only hard thing is that Ragnarok hits really hard.
Just to mention I have some plan to make Surt very later on with specific build that will take me a lot of time to pull off but I think Surt has the potential to be one of the best Demon in the game and I want to test it but this will not happen until a very long time.

So after that we progress to the Diet and we face yet another boss which is Mada.

Mada

Another really easy fight the only thing dangerous here is Hades Blast, he summons some Pazuzus but they are actually helping us than helping him as they can Mazandyne which Skadi Repel and they are weak to Ice which Skadi, Trumpeter and MC can exploit to give us more so just buff yourself, debuff him and hit him with Magma Axis and Dante's Rebellion (Son's Oath is so good ^^), if he summons Pazuzus just some Mabufudyne and Niflheim should do the trick easy boss anyway just be aware of Debilitate.

So after another section we fight yet ANOTHER boss and an infamous one at that are dear old friend Mot.

Mot

I think I'm lucky weither in Vanilla or here I absolutly never witness the infamous Beast Eye spam from him I don't know, anyway some try prior to that I realise that debuffing him is useless he just use Dekunda even worst he is more willing to use Beast Eye if we debuff him, so I didn't bother debuffing him I just buff myself he is weak to Thunder so by using Dante's Roundtrip and Trumpeter's Maziodyne I get more turn I in fact can use 2 Magma Axis with that, if he get schocked I use Rebellion with Dante as it does good damage with Critical, Titania is here for the Rakukaja, Dekaja and Healing when she has nothin else to do I use Life Drain to get some MP back. So overall really easy boss tough I'm lucky that Dante dodge that Tempest at the end that could actually turn out to be bad ^^.

And don't get relax yet cause really soon after you guessed it a boss fight again which is Mithra.

Mithra

OK so what is the deal with that guy ? He is pathetic he is so pathetic that I got carried away and he killed Dante but really he has only one turn so he can't kill use in one turn (specially since we can debuff him and he doesn't have Dekunda), he does use Dragon Eye but he just use Debilitate and Mamudoon everytime and he can continue since Titania Repel Death so he loses is remnant turn so basically just put a team that Void Death debuff him and have some one with Dekunda and you win no problem.

And so we finally reach Hikawa which is about to summon his god of reason, so now we have a choice we either let him continue, by doing so the game will progress and we will skip a boss or we try to stop him and he send his servant Samael to fight us, well we are in an HardType mod we are for fighting bosses and for challenge so no reason not to fight Samael.

Samael

To Samael's credit I think if I had done the Diet Building before completing the Labyrinth of Amala he would have gave me a lot of trouble as he effectivly hurt really hard, his God's Curse is actually really powerfull and he does have both Dekunda and Dekaja, but because of completing he labyrinth of Amala and having to redo my set up for both Beelzebub and Metatron I think I am kind of overlevel for him as my Demon can tank him no problem and even if he uses Dekunda he always follow by Dekaja which means no attack and with my team i can reapply the buff pretty fast. So the only Dangerous part his God's Curse and not because of the Damage since he never attack after it and will always Dragon Eye and then use 4 Rakukaja in the row, but because of the statut effect they can slow me down by binding my MC and Titania at the same time (in which case I swap Dante for another healer, buffing him/her with Heat Riser and have to wait for the Binding to wear off), but still a good boss fight would have screw me if I had do it early, and still a way more interesting boss than all the previous ones in the diet building so yeah.

Anyway that's all for today.

Alright so I have a lot of things to cover today.

So last time we complete the Diet Building and so it's time to start our ascension in the tower of Kagutsuchi.

First I want to mention something I actually manage to solve the money issue thing is as Isak Haha mention in another threads the Labyrinthe of Amala's Hell vault are the key, now there is one that supposdly can give you 40000 Maccas if you do it perfectly but I can't found and by the look of it it seems pretty ridiculous to complete, so instead I would recommend the Vault from the entrance to the 5th Kalpa really this one is really easy to learn it bings around 13000 macca and on top of that you can get items pretty easily and you can even get Beads of Life during my money grinding to get the magatamas I manage to get 11 Beads of Life  just like that (and later for another money grinding in order to get the Grimekhala with Pierce I did get 4 additionnal Beads of Life) so really this vault is awesome.

Anyway one thing I note it seems that the encounter in the tower of Kagutsuchi have been tweaked a little I didn't remember we could encouters Samael, Fuu-Ki, Kin-Ki...etc... I actually manage to recruit a Samael while he was begging for his life, but anyway the encounter can be tough, i manage to also to recruit a Lilith (and using some Mitamas to give her new skills I manage to make her actually pretty good especially for mob fights (Hell Gaze is awesome), actually Trumpeter, Dante and Lilith make the mob way more managable, so in any case after MANY mob fights, some puzzle and a music that stick in your head for ever we get our first boss of Reason which suprisingly is Hikawa (honnestly the first time I play the game I was expecting him to be the last I mean he've been the main antagoniste for a big portion of the game and he has technically way more experience than Isamu and Chiaki) so time to fight Shijima's god Arhiman.

Ahriman

Well he was my favorite boss of reason in the game, I don't know yet about Baal Avatar but at least Arhiman is still a good boss in my opinion however I have one complain which I will talk just in a minute, anyway he is in 2 phases :

-Phase 1 : So this is where he supposdly don't take us seriously and so decide to play a little game with us the rules simple he gives us a restriction if someone don't follow that someone die with an attack calls Hell's Call (it can't be survive (maybe with Endure didn't try it) and the victims cannot even be revive so basically it's lost permanently), the thing with this phase is he hits way harder than in Vanilla and this dangerous, I think the order he establishes the rules are set and depend of his HP but towards the end there is a quite large portion where he forbid us to heal at all, even worst on multiple occasion he forbid us to use spell this is actually very bad as I play a magic build and so I'm not good for physical damage, so ironically because of that the first phase is actually the most dangerous especially toward the end where we can't do anything else than physical attacks, it can't be avoid will get hurt just try cover as much element as you can and hope you don't take too much casualties and damage at the end.

-Phase 2 : The actual hard part of this phase is to actually the transition between phase 1 and this one cause basically it becomes a completly different fight, so the tricky part is to manage to recover the damage get at the end of the first phase, setting up for the second phase all while tanking his attack. But here is my complain this phase is actually easier than the first one all in all Arhiman doesn't deal that much of damage even Apocalypse, his only dangerous attack is Tentacle as it has a very high chance to crit but this is solve by having a demon that Repel Physical like Rangda or the Harlot, add to that the fact that he doesn't have any buff or debuff, he has Dekunda and Dekaja but barely use them and overall once your set the second phase is actually pretty easy to beat.

So overall I like this fight but I think the second phase should have more to offer.

And so we get the first stone to get to Kagutsuchi.

And then we progress the second part of the tower is much like the first one except there is a little "guess the good way" kind of part which can be annoying but I already know it so yeah no problem, and so we get to our second boss of reason, which actually I always found kind of funny that it's actually possible to miss him, continue up to the top of the top of the tower (meaning defeating Baal Avatar) only to realise you've missed one boss and having to backtracking anyway time to face the infamous Noah.

Noah (easy way)
Noah (legit way)

I did 2 videos one where I basically go with a "Screw your rules" type of strat (thanks to Magma Axis + Pierce and Dante having Pierce with almighty attacks like showtime) and one where I follow his rules.

In both cases this boss needs work because really this is a very boring boss fight and it's all come down to one question : Do you have enough HP to survive his attacks or do you not ?
Really this the only thing that matters here since he uses Aurora every single time he has only one turn to actually attack or use Dekunda and so basically it's either you have enough HP to survive his attacks in which case the fight is completly free as long as you have someone with Mediarahan or Prayer, the only thing he can do is hoping we run out of MP but I have the Trumpeter's Holy Melody, 6 Great Chackras and 11 Bead of Life so I really don't think this gonna ever happen, so yeah easy (to the point that it's really barely even possible to die) and boring boss he needs a buff.

So after that we get to a "town I wanna be" where we have merchant, lady of the fountain (who the heck is she by the way ?) and the cathedrale of shadow, so here I purchase my second to last magatama which is Kalasch infamous for giving acces to Freikugel (which I don't really care here since I play a magic build, I'm interest by Heat Riser tough), and so we continue and face a dear old friend of us that we haven't see since a very long time Thor.

Thor

He can actually be very dangerous if he decides to play smart basically the worst thing that can happen is if he decide to use Dekunda, Dekaja, Tarukaja, Focus and Primal Force that can actually hurt very hard other than that as long he isn't to trigger happy on Dekunda and dekaja he isn't to bad, make sure to have at least on character that Drain or Repel Thunder and one that Repel or Drain physical that really help, other than that just try to keep yourself buff, keep him debuff and attack him while healing.

And so now I decided to grind a lot because the thing is pass this point their will be now no more Teleport terminal and so if I need to redo my set I will need to backtrack and the third part of kagutsuchi's tower is actually pretty annoying, so I want to be sure to be able to take down Baal Avatar at least (not sure for Kagutsuchi and Lucifer) but in any case i need to gain some LV to get my strength up to 25 to get the last remaining Magatama which is Gaea, so time to grind and the Tower of kagutsuchi is good for that the battle of tough but they give a bunch of EXP activate Riberama and try to win as much as possible it's actually fairly fast, and so I get Gaea by doing so when I go to the Cathedral of Shadow the man give me the swords of Masakados which will allow me to get to the Bandou Shrine a dungeons where I have to comfront 4 bosses to be able to encounter Masakados and have him lending his stregth to me in the form of a magatama, but the 4 bosses before that :

The 4 Devas and Masakados

Well since I didn't do this quest in my first playthrough this is actually completly new so i commented at the end for my french viewers since it was a blind LP and I didn't know about it (the games has rename Lucifer's Call instead of Nocturne in Europe don't know why), so anyway as for the 4 bosses (considering I don't even know how they were in the vanilla) :

-Zouchou : Use a magatama that Repel Electricity, he is weak to wind so I use Dante's Whirlwind and the MC's Pantha Rei. Just put a Healer with this 2 and someone to debilitate because he uses buffs at the beginning of each turns.

-Bishamon : The hardest one for me not only he has Dekaja (which he will always chain with Debilitate) but he uses a lot of Buff 4 Cadenza into Megidolaon can actually be scary, having a character that Drain or Repel Fire and another that Drain or Repel Physical definitly help, I actually didn't know he was weak to ice until this attempt where I decide to try Glacial Blast with Titania and so Titania is the main (40 Magic + Ice Boost + Heat Rise + 2 Rakunda and she really hurts that guy).
So YEAH to be honnest if you can beat Bishamon you can beat the 3 other as they are joke compare to him.

-Jiroku : The easiest one by far really just bring a demon that Drain or Repel Ice (as for some reason Ice is the only element from which we have no magatama that Drain or Repel it) and the fight is completly free as he always lose all his turn doing a Mabufudyne.

-Koumoku : Equip a Magatama that Drain Force here the main damage dealer are Dante and Lilith with Roundtrip and Maziodyne I use Dante's E and I to cancel his Rakukaja and Titania's Rakukaja to cancel his Rakunda, my MC heals with Mediarahan or Attack with Magma Axis.

And so we get the Masakados magatama and so for those that don't speak french briefly what I am saying is I knew that in vanilla this Magatama Void Everything and I was saying that making it so that it only void Death/Expel and Ailments and Resist to everything else is a good move, I was also saying that I am a little disappointed that Masakados doesn't teach new skills but still an awesome magatama nonetheless.

And the grinding part isn't finish yet remember when I said that I had plan of making Surt with some build as I wanted to test how strong he can be thing Surt has the strongest spell in the game (well at least in Vanilla) which is Ragnarok and so I wanted to test that and here's the result.

I didn't manage to get all the skill I wanted (I wanted to give him Debilitate, Pierce, Life Surge, Soul Drain, Ice Repel I didn't manage to get Debilitate but just getting the 4 other tooks me a long time of reset), Leavateinn act as a special Fire Boost and so despite having 13 points in Magic less than the MC Ragnarok actually does around the same Damage as MC's Magma Axis (maybe I will add some Nigi Mitama to increase his magic a little) and basically Ice Repel cover his weakness, I am quite happy with the result despite certainly not being the best possible we will see him in action next, i will not go over the all process it's basically was very long (just getting Pierce requires Metatron so LV95 with the MC (by the way I know how good Metatron is but I just don't like him at all for some reason so i'm not sure if I'm going to use him) and 200000 macca, I think I'm gonna build some other Demons and they I will go to the end of the game.

And so I'm gonna try Baal Avatar.

Alright so this will be my final post here as I finish so basically after all the grind from the previous post I did go fight Baal Avatar the good news now is I had a LV high enough so that Estoma cancel all possible random enconter so let's go straight to the point and start with Baal Avatar.

Baal Avatar

Out of the 3 bosses of reason this one is definitly my favorite in this mod, there is definitly a lot to watchout for in this fight, between Bael's Bane now working on anybody, Expel attack, Dekunda, Dekaja, buff...etc... however I think her minions should be rework a little because right now they lose to much turn spamming Dekunda and Dekaja and actually barely even attack at all I think a way to fix would be to make so that one of them is a dedicate support (why not giving it Silent Prayer ?) and the other a offensive unit, while Baal is doing kinda both at same time.

Anyway so basically I realise that she was always targetting my Titania with her first Bael's Bane so at first I thought it was because of the position and my theory was wrong but without knowing it I did found the counter to her first Bael's Bane, after this record thanks to willing to make a footage of Dante as a fly I realise she actually always target the demon with the lowest LV possible of course in that with my starting team that was Titania, so then I switch Titania by Pisaca so that Pisaca get morph as he is useless in battle I don't need him, other than that the first phase is easy just buff and debuff and attack.

Then she summons her 2 allies the Ose and Flauros, they will both heals Baal with Diarahan if she takes to much damage, other than that the Ose can use Dekunda, Dragon Eye, Mabufudyne, Maziodyne and Chaos Blade the Flauros can use Dekaja, Maragidyne, Mazandyne and Hassohoppa and Chiaki will start using Heat Riser, so my first target is of course the Ose because we need to prevent them to use Dragon Eye I try the buff and debuff up to make them use Dekunda and Dekaja, the Flauros the one that hit the hardest with Hassohoppa but since he act last and spam Dekaja anyway he often will not even get a turn, so once the Ose is done I then try to alternate between attacking the Flauros and Chiaki the reason for that is since they have lost Dekunda their agility will be lowered and so Chiaki might miss a lot resulting in the Flauros never act and I want to start the third phase with Chiaki having the least possible HP because she can be annoying with Heat Riser spam since she now have Dragon Eye.

So yeah a fun fight it has some flaws but it's really good.

And so after this I go straight for Kagutsuchi and we're gonna fight him right now, so time to fight the Disco ball

Kagutsuchi

Most like Baal Avatar there is some really good change about this fight making the fight way more fun and interesting but I think it's to easy the problem being that for his most powerfull attacks not only they are predictable (first phase he uses Vastly Light when Kagutsuchi is full, second phase he takes one turn speaking some nonsense for preparing the attack) and they consumes 2 turns I think maybe it would be more interesting if they were a little less powerfull but Kagutsuchi gets to act right after them instead of losing all his press-turns.

And as you can see outside of Vastly Light and Infinite Light and when he max out his stats there is nothing threatning at all because we have a way to make him lose all his turns for each element, he just take a while because he has a lot of HP.

And then we fight Lucifer and.....

Lucifer kick my ass

Let just say that we the party I had for fighting kagutsuchi he was completly destroying me and so I had to make a final big grinding session before finally take him down and the result

Lucifer + My conclusion for the mod

I decide to do a commentary at the end for concluding the mod I will write a full conclusion that will be better organise and more precise later.

As for Lucifer I basically had to redo my all team as follow :

-I had to completly rebuild Metatron and Surt so that they both have the skill I want and their weakness are cover, Surt in particular took me a lot of time because I wanted to make him a damage dealer (Ragnarok with Fire Boost being the strongest spell in the game) so I needed Pierce on him, and to cover I needed Force Repel and Ice Repel all of that with Life Surge I swear I spend over an hour of reseting the fusions just for him but I must say I'm happy with the result, as for Metatron it was a little better i wanted Ice Repel, Dekunda and Life Surge I got them all and Cadenza as a nice bonus, I could have LVUP Metatron so he get Heat Riser but I was tire of all the grinding and wanted to fight Lucifer now
-Vishnu is my last addition because he was perfect for this he has Prayer by default and he learns Phys Repel through LVUP and he resists Magic making him an awesome addition to our groupe, I just have to make him with Void Ailments so that he couldn't be inflict with statut effect like Charm or Panic
-For the main character of course the Masakados magatama , as I sayed in the video I learn him Life Surge just for this fight so he could survive, I also learn him Rakukaja and he still have Mediarahan for emergency.

So I don't really much to what I've said about Lucifer in the video, he definitly put up a big fight and he is what a Final Boss should be in any video game, a final boss should be the final test to see if the player can use all the gameplay to his advantage to win the fight and this is definitly the case here :
-He uses all the 4 Elements and also physical attack so the player must be protected against all of them and have enough HP so that every member can survive (everyone has Life Surge)
-He drains MP now so the player must manage his MP and have some MP recovery item
-He resist everything so Pierce is needed
-He has both Dekunda and Dekaja so we must be ready to reapply buff and debuff at anytime
-He has statut effect so we better have a team that can void them
-His Root of Evil now act as an ultime version of Debilitate reducing all our stats by 4 stages therefore we must have the mean to cancel the debuff (Dekunda) and reapply the buff
-And all of that while keep doing him some damage

I made some stupid mistake at some points because I was tire but overall a really fun fight and definitly a very good final boss and a really good conclusion to this mod.

Anyway I will give my final conclusion on another topic but for now this LP and this boss battle is over, for now I will just thanks Zombero for this mod it was a really fun mod to play and I'm looking forward to what will be done with this mod in the future.