Tales of Eternia- Last EX Boss: Nereid Regulus [NIND/Hardcore Mode]

Описание: No Items, No Death

Easily one of the more ridiculous things I've had to face, so much so that I yielded to the most time consuming and cheesy method I could imagine instead of bothering to deal with his avalanche of unfair insanity. Granted, I probably spent more time fighting the final boss because of it, and through that learned what I previously didn't recognize of the nature of Nereid in my previous playthrough, information which may have helped a bit here. Unlike Shizel, though, Regulus himself is just as dangerous, if not more so, than Nereid that floats above him.

Grab ya nachos.

First of all, Nereid itself, the big BLACK DOOM INCARNATE floating above him which can't be attacked, basically has two functions. It casts spells and uses Soul Shot, its only physical attack. It casts spells like Ground Dasher, Absolute, Shooting Star, basically many of the mid to high tier spells. It can't be stopped from casting, and it's casting when its shoulders light up (unlike Shizel's Nereid which is designed slightly differently and is weaker overall...it may be coincidence that their designs seem male and female oriented respectively-*PURSE-TO-FACE*). Oh, it's probably relevant that it casts instantly, yeah, and it has Summon Pluto, the most ridiculous 80%-screen spell in the game that I will most likely rant about in the next video. Soul Shot is probably more of a general annoyance, as it's bullet hell on a 2D plane. It reaches very far, so far that unless they are on shortcut, it will almost always hit the caster closest to the front-line unit, even if they are as far away as possible. It also has good enough range to sometimes hit the other two, which makes getting ally spells out somewhat of a challenge.

That wouldn't be too bad alone, except for presence of the Hero himself, Regulus, sporting half the HP of Shizel but a more impacting cheapnss. Everything he does has top notch priority, to the point that he can cast his spells mid-combo just because he wants to. Speaking of combos, actually pushing him back with one is a feat difficult to do, as either he or Nereid will kindly interrupt you. His Palm Flash hits all characters in front of him for a good range, meaning casting just gets more and more difficult as he pushes forward, and Keele's Fireball spam just doesn't apply here because Nereid is there to back Regulus up. His various combos/counters like Divine Chaos and Mirage Chain also tend to go on and on leaving you at his mercy until someone assists you. He too casts spells, but it isn't until later in the fight when the real nonsense begins. Megacosmic Strike is a 1-hit KO move that he loves using when near the casters; it occasionally whiffs, but its main function is indeed a KO. He gets another, stronger combo string, and he ups the ante of his spells to the highest tier and Maxwell extensions (casting in conjunction with Nereid).

The worst part of it all is that in order to fight this pair in a fair manner, you need to be relatively low leveled. Relatively in a sense that it helps to fight him RIGHT when you have everything available, which was around this point. Any less and you may have trouble prioritizing; any more and you risk getting stomped further as he levels up with you. Climbing through the dungeon makes you level up a good bit, and climbing just to lose means climbing again for more levels just like Nifelheim, except leveling is a bad thing in this case. I had a backup save, but had to eventually circumvent the climb by using the debug room or risk going insane from that obnoxious dungeon.

Lamely speaking, there's much control in this fight, especially with AI to look after. Fortunately his first "phase" is survivable, and I eventually came up with something to take advantage of that. Eternal Hammer + Omega Seal, like Max's Aqua Spiral vs Sekundes, didn't quite pan out for me, and Max himself surprisingly didn't prove useful thanks to the enemy's teamwork. The only way I figured I could match the guy was keeping up with his insta-casting with that of my own. That being said, I experimented with something beforehand and eventually got this down with enough practice, ending up with these results. One clip went missing but you should be able to understand what happened in it and why it's not too important that it's gone. Not like I'll be going back to re-record it anyway; if you don't believe it was done then _______.

I'm sure I forgot to mention something but there's a lot of small details to fit in the space provided I tend to ramble anyway, so... guess I'll end by saying that town-theme-turned-battle-theme sends me into a spiral of despair upon hearing it now.