Summary: 2B and 2P. The second 24 player raid in the YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse series. Yo-Kai Watch returns to Eorzea.
---
Carnivals and Confrontations
-Let’s check on the Dwarf twins, Anogg and Konogg. Sounds like there’s also a dwarf carnival of some kind coming up.
-They’ve been tinkering with the Pod, that boxy NieR drone. I love these two lol.
-The pod grants access to some kind of weaponry, which 2P had talked about. We just need to find a way to get the pod powered up.
-Anogg wants to fully explore this and grab the weaponry, but we have to do this alongside preparing for whatever this dwarf carnival is.
---
We Can Rebuild Her
-It’s a stormy day, but the festival is jolly af! The food looks legit good.
QUQUSHU: “It is indeed my solemn duty to eat my weight in carnival food.” BIG MINNESOTA STATE FAIR MOOD RIGHT THERE
-Anogg and Konogg are maybe the only two party-poopers. They’re more interested in activating this titanic weaponry.
-But the pod is super complicated, so we need to find a way to reactivate 2P. We head back into the Copied Factory to scavenge parts from the one of the creepier parts: a room filled with 9S corpses. (I’m sure this has significance to NieR fans, though I personally haven’t played it.)
-It works! The pod repairs 2P and wakes her up.
---
Everything You Know Is Wrong
-In her hands, the key to this weaponry activates…. And activates an earthquake?
-Holy shit, fighter jets and shit are bombing the village of Komra! These are the crafts that 9S took flight in during the Copied Factory final boss fight.
-A number of blindfolded beings walk up to us. I presume they’re more androids, all dressed in black.
-At least, they WERE, until 2P turned their clothes white. I presume she just hijacked them and turned them into allies somehow.
LOLOL 2P SUDDNELY TURNS AGAINST US. SHE ATTACKS ANOGG, AND THEN ANOTHER 2P SHOWS UP TO FIGHT ON OUR SIDE AGAINST THIS SUDDEN BETRAYAL! This 2P is clad in black.
2P: “Have it your way, then. See this world to its end.” She hops in an aircraft and flies off.
-This new android introduces herself as 2B, here to destroy the androids in white.
---
The Puppets’ Bunker
-The new 24 player raid is now unlocked. I went into it with a friend, both unspoiled. It was AMAZING.
Blind raid running is one of my favorite things in gaming. Learn through observation and lots of dying.
The
part that gave me by far the most trouble was the pod mechanic on the
third boss. It summoned pods that attacked in patterns I couldn’t
understand. I checked afterwards, and it turns out that the pods’
patterns were telegraphed by the text on the monitor above them.
-My
favorite music was the pounding electronic beat from the 3rd boss, a
track I found as “End of the Unknown.” I’ve played that a lot in the
days since.
-There was one hallway which was my favorite
non-boss part of any MMO raid I’ve played. It was this gauntlet that
requires the party to dance between lasers and pink death orbs from
different angles.
-AND THAT FINAL BOSS! That was some Doctor
Who/Clive Barker-style nightmare fuel. The way the emotionless puppets
crawled together into a Bosch painting. And that second phase where they
all formed up into an amalgamated 2P.
(It specifically called to mind the fantastic Barker short story, “In the Hills, the Cities.”)
-The ending was just soul-crushing. We wiped a lot during the raid, but what was worse was NOT wiping. We ran into these stalemates where most of the raid was dead but the remainders fought on rather than resetting the fight.
This led to some super long fights. FFXIV raids give you a hard cap of two hours and so we found ourselves against the final boss. We struggled at first, and our armor was badly damaged, but we were pushing through.
WITH THE BOSS AT <1% HEALTH, TIME RAN OUT. FHDJLSFHDLSFHL
I partly blame myself. I spent precious seconds running to (unsuccessfully) dodge a mechanic I didn’t quite understasnd when I could have cast a few extra spells to kill her off. Arghhhhhh.
-Later that week, my friend and I went back to it. Smooth as BUTTER. No wipes, few deaths, massive improvement in our understanding of the mechanics. We destroyed it in like 30 minutes.
Makes sense. The first attempt was when the raid first dropped. Nobody knew strategies. By the end of the week. Most people had watched a strat video.
Sweet revenge. The 2P amalgamate goes down.
---
-2B was damaged in a battle with the “machine lifeforms.” (I assume that’s a main enemy faction in NieR.)
“The machine lifeforms are weapons created from aliens beyond the stars. As part of YorRHa, my mission is to reclaim the planet from these invaders.”
So 2B is part of the Good Team. 2P is a copy built by the machine lifeforms to fight YorHA.
(I’m still skeptical; big corporations in sci fi are rarely a legit Good Team.)
-I get to head back through the raid and explore it.
-WAIT, “ENTER THE ALIEN SHIP?” The last part of the raid is an alien ship? That’s awesome!
-As I explore, there are more collectable datalogs to provide background.
-Android letters define their purpose. B Is for battle. I wonder what P is for.
-Some logs show machines becoming more human. Having fun, even reconstructing themselves. I wonder if that’s related to 2P, who was that puppet that refashioned itself as a final boss.
The problems of YoRHa laundry.
-One log is a poem of sorts from some unknown writer. Call “Longing”:
“Suffering is born of something.
Sadness is born of something.
Joy is born of something.
Yet I, who was born t give birth, have never known suffering, nor sadness, nor joy.
From what is a soul – a true soul, not a synthetic one – really born?”
-2B asks to speak with 9S afterwards. Anogg and Konogg gathered him up, after all.
-Our next goal will be to revive 9S. But Anogg isn’t doing so hot. I think they feel guilty having pushed so hard to unlock the weaponry that nearly destroyed Komra.
---
Crime and Punishment
-The dwarves of Komra are not happy. They’re giving Anogg and Konogg hell.
-Everyone has differing opinions on whose fault this all is.
-HEEE! I love the dialogue options where I get to choose where the blame lies.
-Not like it matters. 2B shows up to take the blame and defend the twins.
-What’s
next though? I know there’s a whole other tier waiting for us in patch
5.5, but we did just defeat 2P (apparently on the alien ship itself).
What’s next?
-Uh oh. Anogg has fled. She’s feeling guilty, and
the anger of the other dwarves didn’t help. Can’t find her anywhere. I
really hope she’s okay.
-AND KONOGG IS UNUSED TO BEING ALONE, MY HEARTTTT
-God this is SO GOOD. I can’t wait for the final iteration of this raid! Even though that’s probably like half a year away.
---
Random Stuff Around Eorzea
-The Yo-Kai
Watch crossover event is back! I did that first way back in 2017. I
watched an episode of the show after that event, and the main thing I
got from it is that the theme song is an ABSOLUTE BANGER.
Major earworm. I still remember it even now.
The event is mostly a chance to collect some new minions and cosmetic weapons. You get them by doing lots of FATEs in different areas, which is awesome! It makes the zones feel alive.
This also gives the chance to do a bunch of achievement-granting rare FATEs that take a lot of players to succeed in, since the zones are now packed with FATE-running trains.
-Players swarming the Yo-Kai questgiver:
-One intense FATE called “The Eyes Have It.” I had trouble finishing it in the past because of all the adds the boss summons. Turns out the adds just leave you alone if you fight the boss on the edge!
-A FATE to kill Humbaba:
-My favorite weapons from the event, a set of dancer chakrams:
-Some great player names seen recently:
Pietro Maximoff
Lacks Creativity
Chibi Bunnie
Bright Likeadiamond
Sir Nutbutter
Dong-dong Never-die
---
Next time: the Pixie beast tribe quests.
