Shadow Hearts: From the New World Boss FAQ Version 2.0 - 19 March 2006 Written by: transience (see end for email) --- Table of Contents 1.) Introduction 2.) Copyright Information 3.) Version History 4.) Notes / Strategies 5.) Boss List 6.) Boss FAQ 7.) Credits and Thanks 8.) Contacting --- 1.) Introduction: I wrote a Boss FAQ for SH1 and had planned to for 2.. except that 2 was ridiculously easy. After getting killed by the last boss in 3 without getting a turn, I decided a Boss FAQ was in order. Here's the format I'll be using (yoinked from my SH1 Boss FAQ) I.) Deep One (monster name, of course) Location: Chelsea (where you encounter this boss) HP: 242 (How many HP boss has.) MP: 42 (ditto.) Class: dark (What elemental class the boss is. For a more detailed explanation of classes, see section IV.) Party/Levels: Shania (4) (What levels I'm at. Until the optional sidequests at the end, I'm going through this game at a pretty low level, so chances are you'll be on a higher level than me. I try to keep myself low so I can figure out good strategies on low levels, for you daring people among us. Difficulty: 1/5 (Obviously, how difficult the boss is. Here's how I judge difficulty): 1/5 - It takes a lot of badness for a boss to get a 1. A 1 means you can't possibly lose, or is a scene fight. 2/5 - Easy boss. Nothing unusual - use the usual strategies you would vs. any normal boss. 3/5 - Be cautious. Shouldn't be difficult as long as you don't mess up. 4/5 - Death is possible here. Learn the boss's attacks (or read this FAQ) and heal lots. 5/5 - Difficult. You'll need to prepare for this boss before the fight starts. Strategy: Like, attack. And stuff. (Strategy for killing the boss. Obvious.) --- 2.) Copyright Information: This FAQ is copyrighted (2005-6) to me, myself and I, luke yagnow. If you want to use this FAQ on your site or elsewhere, drop me an email and I'm sure I won't care. I'd just like to know. If you do host this FAQ, you may not change as much as a comma in it. If touched, altered, or posted without permission, your mickey mouse kung fu will be no match for my superior fighting style, if you know what I mean. --- 3.) Version History v1.0 (2 August 2005) - Began this FAQ. v2.0 (19 March 2006) - most of the update is thanks to the English version. Names changed, a couple new strategies, etc. --- 4.) Notes / Strategies Just a couple quick notes pertaining to general strategy, classes, etc: - What class you are / the enemy is depends on how much damage will be taken/dealt. Here's how classes work: Earth <-> Wind Water <-> Fire Light <-> Dark Here's a list of your characters' classes: Johnny: Neutral Shania: Dark Natan: Wind Frank: Light Mao: Water Hilda: Earth Ricardo: Fire Conclusion: if you're fighting a boss that is of the Water class, Mao would inflict and take less damage than usual while Ricardo would inflict and take more. - All characters are interchangable, though I use Shania and Johnny the most. After that, who you use is pretty much up to you - I used Mao and Natan this game, but they're hardly needed. The consensus party seems to be Johnny, Shania, Ricardo and Hilda - but it's up to you. No party will really hinder you. 5.) Boss List - if you're worried about Spoilers, skip over this part. (you can search these) I.) Deep One II.) Igornak III.) Tatanka IV.) Ronwei V.) Procyon VI.) La Sirene VII.) Malice Edna VIII.) Jeb Niglas IX.) Kerufe X.) Killer / Daoros XI.) Delget XII.) Killer XIII.) Tamaris XIV.) Malice Killer XV.) Malice Gilbert XVI.) Malice Unbral / Lady --- Optional Bosses: XVII.) Dana XVIII.) Tirawa XIX.) Mudopkan XX.) Jonin XXI.) Sushi Men's Place XXII.) Golden Tinny XXIII.) Envious Jealousy --- 6.) Boss FAQ I.) Deep One Location: Chelsea HP: 160 MP: 82 Class: Water Party/Levels: Shania (4) Difficulty: 1/5 Strategy: This guy is a pushover. Just attack physically and you'll win. If you miss a ring or something and your stock gauge gets up high enough, use a double attack. Not much to say about this guy. You should kill him in four turns. II.) Igornak HP: 500 MP: 125 Class: Dark Party/Levels: Johnny (6), Shania (6), Natan (6), Frank (6) Difficulty: 2/5 Strategy: This guy is pretty easy. He inflicts poison on you, but that shouldn't be a problem. Use combo and double as much as you can to make this fight go quicker. If you double with Frank, make sure to hit him up before you use his huge star attack. I've finished this guy off with him only getting one turn. III.) Tatanka Location: Grand Canyon HP: 200 MP: 102 Class: Light Party/Levels: Shania (8) Difficulty: 2/5 Strategy: Tatanka is a Shania-only fight. Fuse into Thunder Bird and watch its stock gauge closely. If its stock gauge is more than half full, I'd suggest hitting it with a hard hit to stop you from getting doubled. You can double it if you want, but that will leave you open to being hit and/or doubled yourself. Double works best if you're able to kill it with the second hit. Not too hard of a fight, but if you let yourself get doubled it will smash you with spells. Watch your SP as well. IV.) Ronwei Location: Alcatraz HP: 700 MP: 256 Class: Fire Party/Levels: Johnny (9), Shania (10), Mao (10), Natan (9) Difficulty: 3/5 Strategy: Ronwei starts out with one full stock gauge, so hard hit him to fix that. Fuse into Thunder Bird or Ta Tanka with Shania and start using your stock gauge to combo him. Ronwei's attacks and spells also use hard hit, so you're not going to get much of a chance to combo after the first round. If Ronwei gets a chance to double, you're going to be in critical hit points at least. Johnny's second skill (if you have it) will help to keep Ronwei's stock gauge low, but you shouldn't need it. His other ability casts seal on everyone, so thera items may be in order. V.) Procyon Location: Roswell HP: 1110 MP: 300 Class: Earth Party/Levels: Johnny (11), Shania (11), Mao (11), Hilda (11) Difficulty: 3/5 Strategy: Just like Mecha Lord in SH2, physical attacks will do 0, so it's all magic on this fight. Just like Mecha Lord in SH2, this dude's got a multihit gun attack, only this one does a bunch of ring effects. He also paralyzes, so be ready for that. Pocket Watches are nice, but far from necessary. Other than that, Procyon isn't gonna do much, but he's pretty quick so be careful. If you've levelled Ta Tanka enough to know Arc Sage, use it. Hilda's one skill (thorn whip) is great here, as are all magical skills that do hard hit. You're likely going to run out of MP and SP (especially on Johnny), so use your lesser magic characters to drop items all over the place. This fight isn't hard but it's easy to run out of MP or SP and then get mauled. As long as you avoid double, you'll be good here. VI.) La Sirene Location: Carribean Ship HP: 300 MP: 168 Class: Light Party/Levels: Shania (13) Difficulty: 2/5 Strategy: La Sirene is another Shania-only fight. She's not hard, but she does do fake ring so bring a pocket watch. Her other attacks are pretty basic - barrier to up SDef, physical attack, yada yada. She starts out with 1 stock, so hard hit her and do the same throughout the fight to make you sure you don't get doubled. I'd suggest doubling her when she's about to die and only then. I use Thunder Bird, but Tatanka should do fine as well. If you're lucky, you won't even need to heal; fake ring is the only thing that could mess you up in this fight. VII.) Malice Edna Location: Las Vegas HP: 1670 MP: 404 Class: Water Party/Levels: Ricardo (16), Shania (16), Johnny (15), Mao (16) Difficulty: 2/5 Strategy: You have Arc Cure. Use it. Edna's attacks include Black Hole (50-70 damage to an area), Hail Dust (similar), mental break to all, and sage to up her Black Hole damage. If you have Red Nova, use it - not only is it fire-classed but it also hard hits, so you don't have to worry about her double attack. Either Arc Rage or Arc Gale will be good here, depending on your preference. She isn't especially hard as long as you keep your HP high enough. VIII.) Jeb Niglas HP: 2020 MP: 382 Class: Light Party/Levels: Johnny (16), Shania (18), Mao (18), Natan (17) Difficulty: 4/5 Strategy: This thing's sexy. Jeb attacks with Bright Oracle (about 100 to an area), Seal to all (this sucks), a hard hitting physical attack for 100+, Barrier, and Wipeout, which is similar to Bright Oracle. If you've got any Bell Bracelets, equip them on whoever has Arc Cure. it's not especially necessary, though. Arc Heal also works. Start the fight off by doing as much magic as you can, since that's likely the only time you're going to be able to. This includes stat-ups like Arc Gale or Arc Rage; Arc Gale to be safe or Arc Rage to end it fast. As long as you're not in a position where you're having trouble healing, the first half of the fight is pretty easy. This is usually only a problem if your Arc Curer is sealed. For the second half, Jeb will put barrier up. Barrier just makes things longer and now you'll have to deal with your characters having low SP. Trying to finish the boss off with a big combo doesn't seem to work so well and ends up with him doubling the hell out of you. Hard hit him whenever you need to, cause double usually means that whoever's being hit is dead. You can't really kill Jeb fast, so don't try. As long as you stay on top of your healing / your SP / his stock gauge, you're going to be just fine. It's very easy to fall behind though, and if you do, good luck. IX.) Kerufe Location: Machupichu HP: 2380 MP: 474 Class: Earth Party/Levels: Johnny (21), Mao (21), Natan (20), Ricardo (20) Difficulty: 4/5 Strategy: No Shania for this fight. Is this a problem? Kind of. Kerufe likes poison, he'll cast it on everyone. This isn't a problem, but if he does it again, it's D. Poison to everyone, and that's a serious problem. Bring Arc Heal to this fight if you can. Mao's second skill is also a lifesaver. Kerufe has a weakness to both phys. def. down and s. def down, so equip some ring items and see if you can lower them. If you're successful, combos will be very nice. Spells like Red Nova that do hard hit are nice to have here too. Kerufe also casts Gale, which means he might get a billion turns in a row if you're not careful. You can counter this with your own Arc Gale if you so choose, as the crest can be found in this dungeon. Kerufe's physical attack is nasty - 160 or so damage that can inflict slow. His last spell is "pre-ignition", a five hit, 100 damage area spell. Once you know Kerufe's attacks, how to fight him is pretty obvious. Once you've got your poison sorted out and your Arc Gale on, whittle down his HP. If you combine Arc Rage with P. Def down, this will go rather quick. The hardest part about Kelfi is when you're slowed, he's Galed and you're running low on SP. You end up treading water and it sucks. It's not the hardest fight in the world, just don't let him get several turns in a row on you or else you're screwed. X.) Killer / Daoros Location: Vilcabamba Killer: HP: 1450 MP: 222 Class: Fire Daoros: HP: 1250 MP: 264 Class: Water Party/Levels: Johnny (24), Shania (23), Mao (24), Natan (23) Difficulty: 5/5 Strategy: This fight is the first fight that I consider to be nasty. Since there's two targets in this fight, it's very likely that you will get comboed/doubled unless you keep your eye on them. As soon as you possibly can, cast Arc Gale. This will help you keep up with them. Use your hard hitting attacks and spells to remove any of the stock gauge they have. They're going to do the same and they'll beat the living hell out of you if you don't do this first. Killer uses a lot of fire magic and a nasty 20-hit physical attack; the snail uses a lot of physical attacks, casts Arc Shield and casts Apathy to all. Killer also lowers your physical attack. The best way to fight this fight is to be ultra-careful. You have to heal like mad, lower stock, cast stat-ups and still do damage. It would be nice to focus on one guy, but I usually attack the one with the higher stock gauge so they can't double me. I try and kill the snail first, but ignoring Killer is just dumb. I flip between Fusions for Shania - Thunder Bird for Arc Gale / her hard hitting spells and La Sirene for resurrection and higher defence. Ideally, you'll be able to get them both with a single magic attack and combo them to hell, but this isn't easy to do. If you've got Johnny's second ability, you can steal stock from them since you're likely to have apathy for the duration of the snail's life. Just make sure you've got Arc Gale going on for the entire fight and watch their stock gauges and you should survive. (alternative strategy: if you're having real trouble, equip poison ring items and physically attack Daoros. If it connects, you can just focus on healing until it dies.) XI.) Delget Location: Aito Cave HP: 3000 MP: 510 Class: Wind Levels: Johnny (27), Shania (26), Mao (27), Natan (27) Difficulty: 4/5 Strategy: Delget's annoying thing is a petrify to all attack. The good news about petrification: his rock attack won't hurt you. The bad news? His physical attack will instakill you. The worse news: when 75% of your party is petrified, his stock gauge is going up like you won't believe. There's a good chance he'll petrify you and then double you, possibly killing you right there. Any petrification protection you can find is good, especially on whoever has Arc Heal (or, if you've got it, Mao's second skill). Pocket watches are also very, very nice. He also has a nice physical attack that includes fast ring and a nasty earth-based area attack. This is a broken record, but cast Arc Gale. Once you've done this, hard hit the boss. Because his physical attack hits so hard, I also cast Arc Shield. From there, the only thing you have to worry about is his petrify attack (which is a huge worry). Mao is hella useful here thanks to his status-clearing ability, which will heal both fast ring and petrification. Once you've gotten this far, it's just a matter of slowly taking his HP down. Arc Rage is nice for doing this, but with Arc Gale and Shield it's almost too much, especially since his Petrify attack will negate status ailments. When you've gotten his HP below half, he'll use energy charge. This will likely kill one of your party members, so just be ready to heal. When you get him down to about 800, a nice big combo will finish him. XII.) Killer Location: Uyuni Salt Mine HP: 3600 MP: 562 Class: Fire Party/Levels: Johnny, Shania, Mao, Natan (30) Difficulty: 3/5 Strategy: Killer starts with two stocks, so do something about that. Killer's physical attack causes instant death, so all the leonardo's bears you have will be a good idea. La Sirene's resurrection, like always, is extremely helpful. He still has his 20 hit knife attack, and that does over 200 damage. His other attack is red gravity, a nasty fire area spell that does hard hit. Start the fight off casting Arc Gale. You're likely going to need to re-cast it thanks to all the death Killer will be doing, but it's worth the extra turns. The death attack actually isn't the nastiest part, it's the Red Gravity that will do 200-250 to an area. If this hits two or three party members, it's not fun to recover from. This fight is easier than the previous couple you've done. Killer hits hard, but he's not as fast as others and doesn't cast any stat-up spells... at least not for a while. Eventually he'll cast Gale, and that sucks. When this happens, you -have- to keep yourself in constant Arc Gale mode or else you're going to have trouble finding the turns to deal damage. Arc Rage is really nice in this fight, it seems like it doubles your attack and makes the fight go a lot quicker. When you've got him under 1000 HP, put together a four person combo and he'll be done before you know it. He's weak against P. Atk Down, so try that out. XIII.) Tamaris Location: Garland Residence HP: 3900 MP: 666 Class: Light Levels: Johnny (33), Natan (33), Shania (32), Mao (33) Difficulty: 2/5 Strategy: Tamaris is one sexy mother. His status ailment of choice is panic - he has an attack that casts panic on all. Tatanka's Howling spell will come in handy in this fight, or you may want to use Arc Heal / Mao's second ability. His physical attack hurts and his area spell (Bright Decide) just sucks. He doesn't really have anything else that's of interest. As usual, use Arc Gale. he seems to counter Arc Gale with Barrier, which doesn't make much sense but whatever. He also seems to counter Arc Rage with Shield. The tradeoff for Arc Gale is definitely worth it, so don't be worried about him upping SDef - you can just physically maul him, anyway. When he's almost dead, he'll "sneeze" a character out of battle, just like the boss of Queen's Garden in SH2. This is the only time where the fight gets hard. Therefore, you want to finish Tamaris off with a big combo so he doesn't get a chance to do this. Fuse into Awaker, D. Combo, do whatever you need to do to get it over with. It's the only tricky part of the fight, really. Laslty, Tamaris has a weird weakness - Blood Loss. Equip it and you have a small chance of doing insane (3/4 current HP) damage. XIV.) Malice Killer Location: The Gate HP: 4200 MP: 703 Class: Fire Party/Levels: Shania (46), Natan (43), Mao (44), Johnny (46) Difficulty: 3/5 if equipped properly (note: at this point, you can go do an absolute crapload of sidequests if you so choose. I didn't my first time through, but the second time through I did, so I'm of a much higher level. They aren't necessary for beating these bosses (though the last boss may have something to say about that), but that's the reason my level will jump at this point.) Strategy: Malice Killer's physical attack does death and he has an ability that does Seal to all. If you try fighting him without death protection, you're going to have some trouble. I suggest buying four leonardo's bears and one or two bell bracelets for your healers. Once you've done this, Malice Killer ain't bad. He's got a good amount of stock, so remove that first. Once you've got that set, Arc Gale like usual. Killer's physical attack is not bad at all if you know how to abuse it. He's weak to Phys. Def Down, so equip a ring accessory that does that and hit him with it. If the damage is down and the death is nullified, Killer is pretty simple. His dangerous attack is Red Crest, which hits a large area and lowers your phys. attack. Once Killer's physical attack is tamed, cast Arc Rage. If you get hit with phys. def down, you can cast Arc Heal if needed. This only makes the fight longer, anyway. When he gets low, he'll use Energy Charge, so make sure his physical attack is lowered at this point and your HP is high. As long as you come equipped and can survive Red Crest, this fight isn't bad at all. It's tough to pull a combo off because he's always lowering your stock, so you'll have to kill him 200 damage at a time. XV.) Malice Gilbert Location: The Gate HP: 4700 MP: 812 Class: Dark Party/Levels: Shania (47), Natan (44), Mao (45), Johnny (47) Difficulty: 4/5 (note: I'm not going to bother writing up a strategy for those Malice Soakers you fight; if you can take out Malice Killer, you can take those things out with ease. Just don't use special attacks. P-Def down works too. Okay, I guess I did write a strategy. Oh well.) Strategy: Malice Gilbert is actually a little hard. He has a 15-hit, chain attack called Deep Grudge that he often tries to combo with Evil Crest. This will likely kill a party member, so be careful. Arc Gale will likely stop this from happening, but still, be careful. Gilbert's physical attack does SP lowering, and he casts Panic on all, so have Tatanka's Howling spell ready. Panic to all makes this fight quite annoying. It's up to you whether you want to heal Panic or not - he's going to do it again, but healing it might be a good idea anyway. You can lower his S. Atk using Ring Accessories, which will lower his Evil Crest damage by a lot. (note: Evil Crest hits the ground, meaning it will miss Thunder Bird.) Arc Rage is good for doing lots of damage, and Arc Shield for lowering his huge physical attack. After that, it's pretty simple - heal, heal SP, stat-up, and attack. Be sure not to ignore your SP - the first time I fought this fight, I won it with three guys at 1 SP. It's very easy to fall behind. XVI.) Lady / Malice unbral Location: The Gate Lady: HP: 2800 MP: 999 Class: Neutral Malice Unbral: HP: 7200 MP: 999 Class: Neutral Party/Levels: Shania (48), Natan (46), Mao (47), Johnny (48) Difficulty: Variable; if you don't do any sidequests, this is hard as hell; if you have, this can be quite easy. Strategy: Okay, first of all: please don't email me asking how to beat this guy. When I first fought this guy, I was level 41 and died before ever getting a turn. On low levels, s/he is very, very difficult. I nicknamed her/it "the Brick Wall", and the name seems to have stuck. With that said, here's how the fight works: you can not hurt Lady until the big blob thing is dead. She is invincible. Therefore, you're going to get pummeled with attacks from two guys at once. Lady auto-removes stat-ups, so don't even try that. On normal levels, this is a very long, drawn-out fight. Here's a summary of their attacks: - zeal steal - the same as Johnny's second ability, steals 100% stock from one character and gives 50% to her and 50% to the blob thing; - ring abnormality - fast/reverse ring to all; - calamity gaze - 10 hit attack that chains, approx. 250-300 damage to all; - hex erupt / cataract- 10 hit attack to a large area; - crimson raid - one character, approx. 300 damage; - entrance - magic damage + 125% for one turn; - cure (+ 720 hp); - malice dirge - 10 hits, 150-300 damage (usually used with double/combo) First of all, make sure you have a combination of pocket watches and crucifixes equipped. Lady's ring status spell is an absolute killer otherwise. Surprisingly, she doesn't do any other status ailments.. though I guess her auto-remove status is bad enough as it is. The first half of this fight is pretty self-explanatory: be uber-careful and heal like hell. Use all the healing items you have and keep everyone's HP over 400. Keep hard hitting Malice unbral so he can't double you, because if he does you're likely dead. Continue doing this until Malice unbral is at about 4,000 HP. This is the trickiest part of the fight right here - when Malice unbral's HP goes under 3600, Lady will cast Entrance, which will up the next attack's magic power by 125%. Before you get this far, heal your HP and SP as high as you can - use Ta Tanka's Howling spell. Once you've got enough HP and SP, hit him below 3600 and guard, using the second option to resist magic. Calamity Gaze will do upwards of 600 damage, 300 (and 10 SP) if you're guarding. If you survive this, start resurrecting the ones who didn't survive and be careful of a double attack from unbral. Once the whole entrance thing is over, go back to your old strategy, likely healing whatever SP you lost. Lady won't use entrance again, though she will use Cure when Unbral is nearing death (approx. 1500 HP). I've only seen her do it once, though, just like Entrance. When unbral is getting near death, feel free to pummel it with keys. Once you've killed Unbral, this fight is essentially over. Lady will use Malice Dirge (not sure what this translates to), which does 350 or so to all. Choose attack and the fight will be over. --- OPTIONAL BOSSES XVII.) Dana Location: Dollhouse HP: 5000 MP: 868 Class: Water Party/Levels: Ricardo (38), Johnny (43), Shania (43), Mao (43) Difficulty: 3/5 Strategy: Just like Delget, Dana does Petrify to all. Either buy four Mirror Bracelets or find some Crucifixes - you can try equipping only your Arc Heal character with a Mirror Bracelet, but she moves so fast that you're liable to get squashed. Dana's physical attack is pretty strong, about 300 to a character. Dana's other attacks: Hail Crest, which hits an area and lowers your evade, Black Hole and "dying", a physical attack that will hit you to 1 if it doesn't kill you. Dana's weakness is magic, and you can exploit this really badly. Equip someone with a S. Def Down ring item and hit Dana. Then cast Arc Surge. From there, cast Fire Magic as much as you can - mine do 300+ a shot. Continue doing this until she's low on HP - when she is, he'll cast Surge, which is obviously bad news. Hurry and set up a big combo and she should be dead. I can do 2000 damage with a big combo and Arc Surge, so you can probably pre-empt the surge. If Arc Surge or Gale runs out, be sure to re-cast it and you'll kill her in no time. XVIII.) Tirawa Location: Garvoy Valley HP: 2100 MP: 999 Class: Neutral Party/Levels: Johnny, Shania (45) Difficulty: 4/5 First, erase the word "Tirawa" and replace it with "Seraphic Radiance" or "Dark Seraphim". That's what you're fighting here. Tirawa starts off the fight using a hard hitting physical attack and "Shining Zephyr", which is the exact same as For Tomorrow. When you've knocked him to half HP (1050), he'll use "Sanlittobell", which is the same as For Everyone. The first thing to do is to cast Arc Shield with Johnny and Arc Gale with Shania. If Tirawa has enough stock to do a double, hard hit him. Once you've healed and cast your status ups, attack with Shania and heal with Johnny, watching Tirawa's stock gauge the whole time. If you get a chance, cast Arc Rage. These stat-ups will run out, so when you're approaching your fifth turn get ready to do it all over again. You should be able to slowly lower Tirawa's HP. When he hits 1050 HP, he's going to cast Sanlittobell, and that will make this fight infinitely harder due to more speed, higher attack, higher defence, etc. When he's at about 1100, make sure Arc Rage is on and use a key. If you hit it, you should be able to kill Tirawa before he gets to the next stage. If you miss, Sanlittobelli won't instantly kill you, but you have to hurry or else he will. If you've used your keys or don't want to use them, just get a few more levels doing other sidequests and you'll be all set. XIX.) Mudopkan Location: Ghiana HP: 5000 MP: 611 Class: Light Party/Levels: Natan (38), Mao (42), Shania (41), Johnny (42) Difficulty: 2/5 Strategy: Natan's final UMA casts Fake Ring, Up Ring and Random ring to all. Pocket Watches and/or Arc Heal will fix this. His other attacks are a nasty physical attack and two area attacks: Clear Crest (which causes SDef Down) and Pre-Ignition. He also casts Gale and cures for 700 when low on health. Mudopkan is weak vs. PDef Down, so hit him with that, Arc Rage, and start wailing away. He's not incredibly fast, but after Gale he might be too fast for you, so cast Arc Gale if you need to. The main thing to be worried about is his Clear Crest and being doubled - his stock gauge seems to fill up fast. Stay up with your healing and stat-buffing and this is not a hard fight. XX.) The Jonin Location: Ninja Village HP: 900 MP: 108 Class: Earth Party/Levels: Frank (42) Difficulty: 3/5 Strategy: This guy hits hard on lower levels. If you haven't been using Frank, he could kill you pretty quick. The first thing you'll want is a Shield stella - that will lower the damage he does to you. You can use stuff like Rage and Gale if you like as well, but that's kind of overkill since you only have it for five turns. Watch his stock gauge and keep Shield up as long as possible. Ideally you'll have a Cure All stella equipped, but Thera Roots / Rhizomes will do. You should be able to beat him before you run out of SP. XXI.) Sushi Men's Place Location: Rio De Janiero Party/Levels: All, ranging from 43 to 51 Similar to the Man Festival in SH2, Sushi Men's Place is a whole bunch of one-on-one mini-bosses that you have to fight consecutively. If you don't know what's coming, you're likely to get mauled in these fights. After doing the initial five fights (these aren't hard), you'll get the chance to save and then have individual fights with your seven characters in this order: Natan - death Shania - SP lowering Ricardo - Slow Frank - Fickle / Petite Ring Mao - Seal Johnny - Multiple - Paralysis / Venom Hilda - death The following equipment I consider to be absolutely essential if you want to win these fights: Natan - Leonardo's Bear Johnny - Crucifix / Rosary Hilda - Leonardo's Bear The following is not needed, but highly recommended: Ricardo - Gale spell Frank - pocket watch Hilda - Rage spell you can protect against the rest if you want, but they're really not needed. Assuming you're equipped right, the hardest fight is probably Ricardo's, because the enemy casts Gale and then slows you. Cast Gale on your first turn and be really careful or you'll get rocked. All the others are relatively easy depending on what level you are. Hilda's, on the other hand... Q The Great HP: 900 MP: 458 Class: Wind Party/Level: Hilda (43) First of all, you'll get a choice of what form you want to fight in. I highly suggest the first option, the Fat Mask, so you can utilize Grand Slam. The difficulty of this fight depends on if you use Hilda regularly or not. Q will Energy Charge and then use a seventh key on his seventh turn, so you have to kill him before then. His attacks include Grand Slam, a physical attack, and a Wind attack that inflicts P. Def Down. The best way to kill him before the seventh turn is to cast Rage and use keys. On 43, I've managed to do kill him using just one third key - if you've got an extra couple of levels, you won't even need to. Just heal when he attacks and use Grand Slam to lower his stock gauge since you won't have enough to hard hit. XXII.) Golden Tinny Location: Arkham Pit Fights HP: 10000 MP: 0 Class: Light Party/Levels: it won't matter :) Difficulty: either impossible or impossibly simple Strategy: This dude is nuts. He's just like the Tin Lion from the SH2 trials/pit fights, only this one's got 10,000 HP. After you take one turn, he kind of jumps ahead of you in line, hits you for 10,000+ damage and then double attacks four consecutive times until you're dead. Oh, and you do 0 damage to him. Fun! Of course, there's always a catch. Equip two characters with "Apathy" ring items and two with poison. Apathy will stop him from doubling the hell out of you and poison (and subsequently d. poison) will kill him very fast. Even with these equipped, it's still a matter of luck, since if Apathy doesn't connect you're absolutely dead. XXIII.) Envious Jealousy Location: Purgatory HP: 12000 MP: 999 Class: variable; takes the form of the last character you saved Party/Levels: Johnny (58), Shania (56), Hilda (50), Mao (56) Difficulty: 5/5 Strategy: First of all, some notes about Purgatory: Purgatory is a dungeon you can do once you've collected all 115 snaps; ie, after you've done every sidequest. There are six minibosses, one on each floor of Purgatory, and none are very hard until the last couple. The basic strategy is to get Shania back as soon as possible, then cast her second ability (Sanlittobell). From there, just wail on the bosses and you'll be fine. As for Envious Jealousy, he does the same thing Lady does - removes stat-ups. This makes the fight a lot harder. Envious Jealousy is pretty boring in his attacks - he attacks with crests of every element, which all do 500 damage to an area plus a random status ailment. He also has a hard hitting physical attack that does, you guessed it, 500. If you don't get your HP near full, you're going to die. Hilda is really helpful here. Get Hilda's calories to 100 for mask form. This will make her do huge amounts of damage. This isn't nearly as important as her third skill though, because that heals everyone to full. When he's doing 500 to all, you'll be so glad you have Hilda. The only problem is her speed. If she's not levelled enough or you don't want to use her, Tirawa's first spell will also do. Thera Extracts and Cure All are very nice, too. (XSeed made a mistake in the localization, by the way - Cure all does not heal all. Don't find out the hard way.) Equipment's pretty big here - you need four crucifixes here. There are four in the game - in the last dungeon, in the Dollhouse, in Galvoy, and in Frank's village's Momonga jumping. Get them. Besides that, anything that ups your SDef is a good idea. Anyway, on to the fight. EJ starts out with two stock, so hard hit him as fast as possible. If he doubles, he's going to do four figures of damage, and that's certain death. If you can survive EJ's crest attacks, you can slowly knock his HP down. Fuse into Tirawa and Awaker. If he moves too fast for Hilda to get an all heal in, combo him and heal. Be sure to watch your SP, especially Awaker's. You've probably got a lot of Refines/Extracts, so don't be afraid to use them. You can buy them from Gerard if you need some. When he hits red HP (4000), he'll do my (and everyone's) least favourite attack, Spirit Ward. Spirit Ward is just cheap, it removes a character from battle. At this point, bust out all those keys you've been saving. I took him from 4023 HP to 0 before he ever got a turn. The main thing to watch out for here is his stock, since you might mess up a couple of keys. Don't try to kill him all at once, but definitely do as much damage as you can. He's not terribly hard as long as he doesn't one-hit you. --- VII.) Credits and Thanks - First of all, maskrider is to the Shadow Hearts community as Jesus Christ is to Christianity. His website (http://z-o-g.org) is an indispensible resource that I use practically daily. - LastFencer and tsurara_mai, both of which have helped me with translations and where to go. - #shadowhearts on espernet. - Nautilus/Aruze, for ruling in general. VIII.) Contacting dyschordia242 at yahoo dot com. Strategies are muchly appreciated. Proper English, too.