Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne MC Only / Hard Difficulty / TDE Challenge Real Abbreviated Table of Contents Sort of Thing 1. Introduction a. What this is b. What this is not 2. Rules 3. General Advice a. Skills b. MC Set-Up c. MC Set-Up Example 4. Walkthrough a. Shinjuku Medical Center b. Yoyogi Park and Shibuya c. Amala Network d. Great Underpass of Ginza e. Ginza f. Assembly of Nihilo g. Kabukicho Prison h. Ikebukuro Tunnel i. Asakusa and the Obelisk j. Interlude (optional bosses) k. Amala Network Revisited l. Yoyogi Park m. Amala Temple n. Mifunashiro o. Yurakucho and Diet Building Part 1 p. Candelabra Fiends and Other Optional Bosses q. The Amala Labrynth r. Diet Building Part 2 s. Tower of Kagutsuchi Part 1 t. Bandou Shrine u. Tower of Kagutsuchi Part 2 5. Credits What this is: This will give you the rules for the challenge, at least as far as I see them. This will provide you advice to explot what you can for this challenge. This will give you targetted information to get you through certain parts of the game, and advice on how I feel it is best to tackle particular bosses. This will also give you advice on what I think are more useful skills, and which are junk, at least where this challenge is concerned. And so on, and so forth. What this is not: This is not an actual walkthrough, or anything approximating one. There are already several excellent walkthroughs on GameFAQs, and they cover the nuts and bolts of the game itself rather nicely. This won't tell you where to go, beyond suggesting an order to doing things when you have options. This won't tell you how to find each magatama, won't map your way through levels, or tell you how to defeat most enemies. Rules: 1a. You may only use the Main Character in combat. 1b. You must play on Hard difficulty. 1c. You must take all the necessary actions to achieve the True Demon Ending. 2a. You are permitted to have a full roster of demons, if you so desire, but as per (1a), you may never summon them into combat or your active party for any reason. There are situations in this challenge where a demon will be required to proceed further. So long as you don't use the demon to help you in combat, I see no particular reason to restrict you from having them tag along as inactive party members. 2b. You may use said roster of "inactive" demons however you wish. Feel free to use them for healing or other useful non-combat spells. Cash is hard enough to come by and keep in this challenge, so having a cost-effective means of doing certain things is quite advisable. 3. You may not INITIATE conversations with demons in combat or take any other proactive recruiting actions, at any time, for any reason. On the other hand, if a demon initiates a coversation with you, or starts begging for its life, you are free to take whatever actions you feel appropriate. In fact, if the demon offers its servitude during the course of THESE conversations, you may indulge your inner tyrant and accept your new slave. Nice and simple, right? Then lets move on. General Advice: 1. Do this challenge on a "new game plus" playthrough, with certain preparations being made in the previous playthrough. Completing the Demonic Compendium is a significant help, as it will halve summoning costs -- and you'll need to summon at some point. Completing the gravestone challenges in a previous playthrough is even more strongly recommended -- while it is possible to complete this challenge without an extra press turn icon, I wouldn't want to attempt it. In fact, that would be a separate guide which I will not write -- I'll assume you have access to the extra press turn after the appropriate time, and write strategy accordingly. 2. Plan your skill progression in advance -- a section below will cover this in significantly more detail. Having the right skills at the right times is even more important than your level, in most cases. 3. Use items as opposed to your own spells whenever possible. The limiting factor on items is having them in your inventory, whereas all spells cost you MP -- and MP is very finite for much of the challenge. Even better, items work even if you're silenced. Another advantage to items is that you can use them in quantity as a substitute for a particular spell, saving you a slot for another skill you might find more useful. 4. When upgrading your attributes, your first focus should be on Strength -- something along the lines of two-thirds of your level-up points would be suggested at least until Strength surpasses thirty. You're going to be using a lot of physical attacks in this challenge, especially your "normal" attack, and that damage is dependent on your Strength and level. After Strength, its a matter of opinion which of the remaining stats to concentrate on -- Vitality means HP, Magic means magical damage and MP, while Agility affects your accuracy and dodge. 5. If you can afford it, abuse the Lucky Ticket system at Item Shops. You want to use it to accumulate Incenses to increase your stats faster than just one point per level. 6. Until you reach a point where you'll need multiple immunities and/or resistances to deal with particular bosses, use your magatama to alter your resistances and stay away from skills -- your skill slots are too precious to waste. Simply keep an eye on your XP until level-up, to ensure you don't accidentally trigger learning a skill at the wrong time. 7. Know where your "best" grinding spots are, so you can return to them as you need. Some suggested grinding spots will be mentioned throughout the walkthrough below, but these won't be the only candidates by any means. A good grinding spot is somewhere you can score a goodly amount of XP in a short period of time, a place you can farm important items, or somewhere you can make cash quickly for shop purchases. In addition, a good grinding spot will have a save point in easy reach for frequent use, because its all too easy to die in this challenge. A Fountain of Life to recharge yourself and your stock demons would also be handy. Skills: Your MC must be a jack-of-all-trades, going solo and all. You'll want to be able to heal, cast necessary buffs and de-buffs, as well as deal both physical and magical damage. In addition, you will need to have various defensive (read, Voids and the like) skills at certain times for specific bosses. In addition, there are some utility skills that its nice to have around. First, the skills you'll want hanging around on roster demons to help you through the game. Riberama / Estoma: Its always nice to manipulate the encounter rate where possible. Riberama is your best friend when you're grinding for levels (for skills), cash, or items. So long as you can handle potential waves of demons coming after you without a pause, this will speed up the process a great deal. Estoma is somewhat less effective, since it won't do you any good if your levels are equal to or below that of the demons in the area. Provided your levels are sufficient, however, Estoma will serve you well when you want to swiftly move through an area and you're obliged to walk.... such as speeding through a dungeon to reach its Boss. Liftoma / Lightoma: Not a whole lot of areas require one or the other, but Light Balls and Float Balls can take a chunk out of your bankroll. If you can get a demon to cast the spell for you, its all the better for you. Particularly since one demon might be able to cast the spell a dozen or more times before needing to recharge its MP. Healing in General: A roster demon who can cast Dia or Diarama is particularly helpful for between battles, moreso if they can do it a number of times before depleting their magic reserves. Its also nice to have a roster demon who can handle status effects, as to save money on items that would do the same. Now, skills for the MC for this challenge. Counter / Retaliate / Avenge / Physical Repel: The first three of these skills are worth a permanent slot on your MC for this challenge. Anytime you can do "free" damage without having to consume an action is a good thing. Furthermore, Retaliate does half again as much damage as your normal physical attack, and Avenge does double, or roughly the same amount of damage as Freikugel. Physical Repel, on the other hand, is almost completely useless. The magatama this skill comes on already nulls everything short of Almighty attacks, and there's no particular gain to having Physical Repel when you're grinding for your last few levels. Because the handful of bosses you'd face after gaining this skill have Physical/Almighty attacks (which ignores Physical Repel) anyhow, you're better off having Avenge to deal damage in return. The benefits are worth one of your precious skill slots. Focus / Pierce: Both of these are keeper skills as well, and for obvious reasons. You're going to do most of your damage by physical means throughout the game, and anything that helps you do so more effectively is good. Pierce is golden towards the end of the game... both bosses and random encounters will have varying levels of physical resistance, and save for the rare example of a demon who repels physical, you'll have no problem mowing them down. Earmark one slot for Focus early, and one more for Pierce down the line. Dia / Diarama / Diarahan: Early in the game, Dia is your skill of choice to heal in battle, with healing items somewhat uncommon to find after battle and hideously expensive in the stores. Diarama serves you well through the middle of the game as a budget healer, and Diarahan is your choice for late in the game when you need to keep yourself at maximum health as often as possible with minimal use of turns. This is absolutely worth a skill slot, although you can get away with overwriting Diarahan at the end of the game and depending on Beads for the final two boss fights. Try to stay away from the all-target healing spells if you can, unless you need it as a short-term fix because you overwrote the single-target spell for a particular fight. The extra MP cost is a waste, moreso when resources such as MP are scarce. De-Buffs: War Cry is mandatory for boss fights starting from about the middle of the game on. Many of the bosses hit incredibly hard, and its all coming your way since there's nothing to distract it from your MC. Fog Breath is useful for much of the game, but it will gradually become less effective as you advance -- late game bosses are liable to hit you even if their agility is minimized and yours is maximized. Taunt is too dangerous to use, given it amps up your enemy's attack. And because most of the bosses have Dekunda (and will use it), de-buffs such as Rakunda and Tarunda have less value, in light of the number of castings it takes to see a significant benefit. Buffs: Rakukaja is your friend, for all the same reasons as War Cry. Sukukaja follows many of the same rules as Fog Breath with one caveat -- enemy dodge seems to be increased on Hard, but a single Sukukaja (and no other modifiers) seems to mitigate this to a large degree. The attack buffs are of less use, not only because most bosses have Dekaja (and will use it), but you have to attack sometime, and casting umpteen buffs takes time away from dealing damage. Magic Attack Skills: Before Pierce, you'll want a way to deal magical damage, as to deal with those demons who are resistant or immune to physical damage. Ice and Electricity skills are slightly better, given the chance to freeze or shock an opponent, but any magical attack will do in most situations. Don't blow through the magatama to learn all of them too quickly, since you'll want to switch up from time to time in order to handle certain bosses or areas of the game. If you can afford an extra slot, the Boost to your magical attack of choice can be helpful to increase damage. Once Freikugel becomes available, however, you can use it in place of any magical attack. Physical Attack Skills: One good physical attack skill can be handy to keep around, but its not absolutely necessary. Assuming you use one, take your pick from all the available skills. Skills with a bonus to critical hit rate should rank higher on your list. Freikugel trumps everything else, however, given its combination of attack power, critical rate, and Almighty damage.... you just can't learn it until very late in the game. Voids, Etc.: Except for particular situations where you must cover multiple areas, skill slots are simply too scarce to devote to additional Voids and Resistances. You can survive most of the game (and all of the grinding) simply through proper use of magatama to cover a particular area of concern. For those bosses that I feel its necessary to have additional protection, I'll mention it in the text with that particular fight. MC Set-Up: The best advice I can give you is to meticulously plan which skills you want for each portion of the game. By doing so, you can efficiently plan your MC's progress and minimize the number of wasted skills thrown out. Furthermore, you're well advised to start this process at Kagutsuchi and Lucifer, and then work your way backwards from there. Get out some scratch paper (standard looseleaf notebook paper is good for this), and divide it up into a massive table or grid. Eight rows represent your eight skill slots, and you could add another one below all this to note things such as desired magatama for a fight or level/attribute tragets. Make one column for each boss or boss set -- you could put Orthrus, Yaksini, and Thor together since you fight them consecutively without a chance to do more than switch magatama -- and label them for bosses in the order you intend to fight them. Keep in mind that you CAN manipulate this order to some degree, particularly with the candelabra fiends. Now, start from Kagutsuchi/Lucifer, and figure out which skills you want for that battle. Then go to the previous boss, figuring out which skills you might not need or might not have access to based on the available magatama at the time of the fight. If you're going to retain a skill across multiple fights, I'd advise you to keep it in the same row of your grid, so that a quick glance will let you know not to touch said skill. By the time you're done, you'll have a flowchart of skills to work from in planning your advancement. A couple of things to keep in mind, however. * Minimize the number of skills you'll have to change from fight to fight. This will help to reduce the amount of grinding you need to do, and it will also reduce the number of skills you throw away. * Try and make older, "lesser" skills work for you as long as possible. No reason to upgrade from Dia to Diarama until you really need the boost, and the same to Life Stones or Diarahan. * Try and make use of the earlier skills on magatama as much as possible. You can always grind for a level or three to learn a needed skill left on one, but you can't go back and re-learn the skill later in the game when it might be helpful. MC Set-Up Example: Lets take this to a specific point, using the advice above and fighting bosses in the order of the walkthrough below. We decide that we want the following skills for the fight with Lucifer: War Cry, Rakukaja, Diarahan, Freikugel, Pierce, Focus, Avenge, Endure. So lets pencil those into the column for Lucy and Kagutsuchi and make notes underneath that we're going to ingest Masakado, and get ourselves to level 127. Next we'll start going backwards. We can pencil in Masakado as our magatama of choice for as far back as we'll have access to him. Since the earliest we can obtain him is after fighting Ahriman and completing the Bandou Shrine, we can fill in Masakado for Noah, Thor, and Baal Avatar as well. We can start carrying skills backwards as well -- take Freikugel as our first example. The earliest we can access Freikugel is after Ahriman, but before the Bandou Shrine, so we can carry the skill as far back as the four bosses there. Since Freikugel is a useful skill for all those fights, feel free to carry it back the entire distance, before leaving the row in previous columns blank. If we follow this example for Endure, we'll note that this skill is mandatory for the fight with Trumpeter. Therefore, if we're going to have Endure for Lucifer, we'll have to carry this skill back a significantly greater distance. You can carry it further than that if you'd like, so long as the magatama is available and your level sufficient, but you might want that slot for something else before then. Keeping in mind all the advisories I've mentioned above, you can create a thorough grid or flowchart to carry you through each phase of this challenge. MC Only / Hard Difficulty / TDE Challenge Semi-Walkthrough and Highlights: Shinjuku Medical Center (post-Conception) Make sure you save as soon as you have the option. When you gain your first level in the "training labrynth", put the point into Vitality. I know what I said above above about concentrating on Strength, but the extra HP will make all the difference in surviving the fight against the pair of Preta coming up. Since this is Hard Difficulty, Feral Claw isn't going to miss all that often. Rather, its going to critical at an alarming rate. Be sure to grab the Maragi Rock while you're here, because it will be needed in the main hospital before too long. Use Dr. Dark to heal after each battle, just to be safe. Once you're out of the "training labrynth", head back and save again. Grab Pixie, send her back into storage in your roster (you can use her healing between combat, but may not use her in combat), and head over to fight the three Preta who have the key to the annex. The Maragi Rock will enable you to kill one Preta with your follow-up attack, and you're strong enough (at full health) that you should be able to survive the other two. Let Pixie heal you after the fight, make your way back to the save point, and do so. Your first grinding area is that stretch of corridor between the save point and the healer. Save often, because its all too easy to get wiped out by a group of demons. You'll want to gain a few levels, enough that you can survive several fights -- you want to collect all the items lying about, make your way over to the other save point and healer, and accumulate several Medicines (Life Stones aren't worth using until you have close to 200 HP at full health). Since you'll be without help, you'll want to gain several lessons before you're ready to leave the hospital -- I fought my way to level 9 before I went further, but use your own judgment and experience here. You'll want to save the Mazio Rock you find for the battle with Forneus -- if you get lucky when you use it, he'll be shocked and your follow-up attack will critical hit as well. Past that, the boss is a battle of attrition. Ideally, you'll be able to take at least two hits before you have to burn a Medicine, so alternate between healing and attacking and he should go down. Save before you leave the hospital, just in case -- your next save point is a goodly distance away. Yoyogi Park/Shibuya There's little point in cashing Pixie in for the Ankh magatama at Yoyogi Park. While magatama are insanely expensive on Hard Difficulty, the return isn't worth it. Using Pixie to heal yourself between combat is better for your budget than having Dia available extra-early, not to mention that cashing her in for Uber-Pixie late in the game is also worthwhile -- at least for the purpose of opening doors in the Fifth Kalpa. Assuming you can afford it, purchase Iyomante and Shiranui from the Junk Shop in Shibuya. Yoyogi Park is probably the superior location when it comes to grinding, but its lack of a save point is a significant drawback, moreso given how dangerous overland travel can be this early. Revival Beads can be sold for spare cash, since they have no useful purpose to you in a solo challenge. Fire Breath and Ice Breath are your first magic attacks -- pair them with Boost skills when you can. Iyomante (Void Mind) is your magatama of choice once you feel confident enough in your abilities to take on Nekomata. In fact, Iyomante is going to be your friend for a good portion of the game, since skills like Marin Karin and Panic Voice can ruin you. Personally, this was my magatama of choice if I didn't feel a pressing need to have another one equipped for resistance or skill learning purposes. Amala Network Your grinding spot of choice here is the lower save point. You've got a free healer right around the corner to take care of that need. Try and collect several Garnet gems while you're down here, for Dekaja Rocks and Tetraja Rocks later on. Fire Breath + Fire Boost / Ice Breath + Ice Boost is your method to try and mow down groups. The issue with the upper save point as a grinding spot is Chronozon. His absorbing Ice isn't a concern, but Stone Gaze is an immediate Game Over if it connects. I'd suggest wearing Iyomante as you grind here, because Aeros has Marin Karin. Level 20 is a reasonable goal to shoot for at this point, although it will be a time-consuming process to get that high -- XP from monsters in the Network degrades seriously as you level up. That being said, Counter is available at level 20, and its among the most valuble skills in this challenge. Naturally, your magatama of choice for battling Spectre is Shiranui (Void Fire). Its very difficult to take down any of the Spectres before they merge, but feel free to try if you want to. Provided you have learned Counter, your strategy for this fight is to play defense through a combination of healing and de-buff spells, with Counter and the odd physical attack as your damage dealers. Great Underpass of Ginza Your grinding spot of choice here will be in the water between the save point and the Junk Shop. If you have equipped Wadatsumi to void Ice, you can use Fire Boost + Fire Breath to mow down groups of Isora (use physical attacks on single Isora -- so long as you can hit for more damage in a single attack than they can heal, you'll stay ahead of the game without blowing MP). When your health and magic run low, you can use the save point to teleport to Shibuya for healing, since there are no demons on the ledges of this part of the Underpass. If you haven't done so already, learn Counter for the fight with Matador. Also, make sure you learn Focus. You'll also want to have healing resources available, whether from items or by learning Dia. Whatever you do, however, do NOT learn Anti-Fire, either now or in the forseeable future. You will need Anti-Fire much further down the line for a specific fight, and absolutely cannot afford to burn it yet. After a lot of trial and error and much consideration, your magatama of choice for fighting Matador is Kamudo (resist Physical) rather than Hifumi (Void Force). Mazan is going to annoy you, but its unlikely to kill you outright. Taunt + Focus + Andalucia, on the other hand, will kill you if you aren't prepared for it. Once again, you will be playing defense against Matador. Don't bother de-buffing him, because he has Dekunda, and he will re-cast Red Capote if you go for Fog Breath and/or Sukunda. Your first priority is to stay as fully healed as possible. Beyond that, you're looking for Counter to do most of your damage, boosted by Focus where possible. A nice aspect to Counter is that it will always hit, regardless of your agility and that of Matador. If your Focus is up and you don't have to heal, Fire Breath is probably your best bet. If it misses, you're only out 9 MP and your Focus is intact. If it hits, you'll do a nice chunk of damage (maybe twice) and your Focus is intact. Only near the end of the fight when Matador starts using Taunt should you think about manual physical attacks. Run to a save point as soon as you're done with Matador. Probably backwards, but if you're in reasonable health and have restoratives to work with, you might be able to make it forward to the next one. Either way, don't take chances. First Kalpa (interlude) The only purpose to heading into the First Kalpa this early is to pick up the extra press turn. Amala is not a good place to grind -- no save point, healing is fiendishly expensive, and too many demons will come at you with Death skills to make it worthwhile. Until you get a magatama that offers immunity to Death attacks, you don't want to be in Amala any more than absolutely necessary. Ginza This isn't an ideal locale to grind, because you have to leave yourself exposed in one way or another. There are demons who will try and charm or panic you, but there are also demons here who hit incredibly hard. On the upside, you have all the facilities necessary for grinding, and the Junk Shop sells elemental attack stones -- expensive, but useful for farming Lucky Tickets and to have for upcoming boss fights. You'll need the paraphenalia and whatnot to survive the upcoming boss fights in the Mantra HQ. Shiranui is your magatama of choice for Orthrus, and Ice Breath your preferred mode of attack if you haven't already forgotten it. Hifumi is your magatama of choice for Yaksini, and this is a good spot to have a couple of Mazio Rocks if you can afford them. Kamudo is your magatama of choice for Thor, and this is a good battle to work on the de-buffs -- Thor will cast Dekunda on occasion, but the more you can do to tilt the playing field in your favor, the better. You'll want to make a sidetrip into Amala before you fight Dante. The treasure room on the east side of the second floor has a mystical chest with two Opals inside. Presuming you have a surplus of Turquoise from earlier, you can hit Rag's Jewelry and trade for a pair of Attack Mirrors. Your magatama of choice for Dante is Kamudo. Concentrate on healing, and let Focus + Counter do its job. You can use those Attack Mirrors I suggested to reflect Dante's attacks back at him at opportune times to help things along. There's absolutely no reason to fight Daisoujou at present, so stay well away from him and move on. Assembly of Nihilo If you can level up enough to make Estoma effective, this is one of those areas that makes it a good idea. Otherwise, you're going to fight a number of enemies with Death-based attacks who can end your game in a hurry. Beyond that, you're going to want to bring a fair amount of restoratives with you, because its a long dungeon and a longer walk if you have to teleport out to heal and then come back. Your magatama of choice for Ose is Kamudo, naturally, because he'll come at you with physical attacks. De-buffs are of marginal use, because he has Dekunda and will use it. On the upside, you'll get Anathema when you're done with him, and the Death protection it provides makes it possible for you to begin to explore Amala -- especially to loot the treasure from the First Kalpa. You should have enough strength by now to fetch Gaea from the Mantra HQ's basement, so go ahead and get it. You can't unlock any of its skills, yet, but the Strength and Vitality bonuses can be helpful in some boss fights. Kabuchiko Prison Bypass the fight with Hell Biker for now as well. You'll craft a skill-set for a boss a bit later on that will work nicely for Hell Biker (albeit with a different magatama equipped), so you might as well wait until then. You've got two choices for the fight with Mizuchi. You can ingest Wadatsumi to nullify his Ice attacks, and take your chances with confusion. Or, you can ingest Iyomante and take your chances with Ice attacks. Its a case of picking your poison, regardless. Fire attacks are useful, and you can throw up some de-buffs (I'd suggest Fog Breath) to help even though he will use Dekunda. If you got with Iyomante, you could learn Anti-Ice for this particular fight if you feel its truly necessary. Ikebukuro Tunnel If you haven't picked up demons to cast Liftoma and Lightoma by now, this would be a good time -- you'll need both in this tunnel. Badb Catha (on the roof of Mantra HQ) can handle the former. Watch out for Death casters in the tunnel. Once again, we'll bypass the bosses here. They're somewhat optional, and you have no present need for the magatama you'll win at the end. In addition, you're not really strong enough to take them on solo at this stage. Asakusa and the Obelisk First things first, a new "best" grinding spot for you. The hallway leading down to where the Collector Manikin will set up shop is blocked, but you've got a little stretch there to wander back and forth. Its a reasonable spot to make some cash and XP, plus its a short walk to the Fountain of Life and your save point. Be prepared with Death protection, since you'll see Mudo magic and Stone Gaze, and otherwise you should be alright. You've got an overworld trek to get to the Assembly of Nihilo's back door. If you've got Anathema on, definitely take it off before you start -- the overworld is chock full of Divine-class demons after all, and they love their Hama skills. The Obelisk can be a bit of a pain to climb up, both because its quite a hike and because your master terminal is all the way back at the Assembly's back door. The Obelisk is inhabited not only by Nihilo's legion of Death-casting types, but also with demons who will play with Mind-based attacks to boot. The Moirae Sisters individually aren't all that difficult, and so long as you're sufficiently levelled ought to go down reasonably quickly. The battle with the Moirae Sisters (as a team) is the first spot where you'll have to radically alter your approach and strategy to something you otherwise wouldn't do in a normal playthrough. If you've planned ahead like I've suggested, and glanced through this walkthrough, you shouldn't have very many slots you "must" leave untouched for the remainder of this game, and its time to take advantage of that by manipulating our MC's skill-set in specific ways by grabbing some skills for short-term use. First, an overview of how the Moirae Sisters behave. If any of them are injured, Clotho is extremely likely to cast healing magic -- although she will toss in the random Dekunda if you're using War Cry to dampen her magic. If they're all at full health, Clotho has several ways to annoy you, including Mind magic. Lachesis is going to focus on support magic, with Rakukaja and Makakaja being of great concern to you for how they'll limit your damage and amp up Clotho's healing. Atropos will exclusively use attack magic of all four elemental types. Given the lack of weaknesses to explot for extra press turns, you're probably wondering how you can keep yourself alive and beat down the girls at the same time. In the end, the answer happens to be a very simple one -- if you neuter Atropos by eliminating her ability to deal damage, you will have enough actions to beat down Clotho, at which point the combat becomes child's play. So this is what I recommend: Learn Void Fire, Void Force, and Void Ice, and go into the battle equipping the Narukami magatama (Void Elec). This makes you completely immune to all elemental attacks, which means you shouldn't take any damage so long as you Dekaja Lachesis' support magic now and again and keep Clotho in some state of hurt. Therefore, fetch yourself a bunch of Dekaja Rocks, as to drop one on the sisters when their defense and magic get too high. War Cry can also be helpful for this fight, to knock down their magic from the start and drop it further without burning a Dekaja Rock if their defenses aren't high enough to justify blowing an item. Your first turn of combat should be War Cry and then an attack on Clotho (to make sure she spends her turn healing). If you have both press turns handy from not needing to de-buff, power up with Focus and then hit Clotho with your normal attack. Since you'll be at least Level 45 for the skills you'll have learned, you likely deal enough damage to keep ahead of Clotho's ability to heal. Once Clotho goes down, focus on Lachesis next. Once you're down to just Atropos, feel free to set the game on auto-battle and raid the fridge or something. Interlude We're prepared enough now to go back and hit the Fiends we skipped over. Keep Void Fire and Void Force for the battle with Hell Biker, and equip a magatama that resists physical attacks. Hell Biker has both Dekunda and Dekaja, but those void skills you're still holding will keep the damage he can do to you to a minimum, and physical resistance will cut it further. You may wish to invest in some Tetraja Rocks for the fight with Daisoujou. I'm told he has Dekunda, even if I've never seen him use it, so its safe to say you can de-buff him to your heart's content. If you've started learning buffs from Djed, feel free to tack those on as well. You can completely clear the First Kalpa at this stage, and even start into the Second Kalpa. If you invest in a supply of Smoke Balls, I'd suggest going through the cursed zone for the cash -- magatama are fiendishly expensive will continue to increase in cost. Just don't go down and view the cut-scene at the entrance to the Third Kalpa, because we need to keep the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse sealed away until later. We'll unlock them we're good and ready to face them, but that's not for a while yet. Do not go past Void Ice on the Miasma magatama at this point. You want to hold Glacial Blast for as long as possible, to have for a boss further down the line, and Drain Ice after that is necessary for a different boss battle -- alas, one before the fight where we want the attack magic. The longer we can put off having to set aside a slot for Glacial Blast, however, the better off we'll be. Amala Network Revisited Nothing much to say about the dungeon. If you need to grind for a level or two, find a good spot with a save point and one of Amala's free healers. Be sure to farm enough healing items before you enter the Network to handle any necessary healing during the boss battle with Spectre, because its strongly advised to run your MP down to zero before you enter -- otherwise Mana Drain + Megido is going to be a royal pain in the rear. Beyond those preparations, a magatama with physical resistance is your best bet to reduce damage even further, particularly if the Spectres start using self-destruction tactics. Yoyogi Park The Eastern Plaza by the save point is the best spot you'll have for a long, long time to farm all sorts of restorative items. The demons inside Yoyogi Park can be a handful if you're underleveled or underpowered, as there isn't a perfect magatama for defense given the breadth of demon attack types. Girimekhala can be a pain, because he's the first boss you'll fight in this game where you're restricted only to magic. I strongly recommend Iyomante (Void Mind) as your preferred magatama, because the the boss' mind-based attacks can be a pain -- you should have sufficient HP and defense at this point to stand up to almost anything else he throws at you and heal afterwards. Girimekhala will use Dekunda frequently, but he can't do anything about buffs you cast on yourself, which will come in handy for when Sakahagi comes out to play. Sakahagi is a pushover, especially if you've boosted your own stats. If you still have Void Ice hanging around on your MC, you can put on a magatama that makes you immune to Death and take on Black Frost at this point. If you don't have Void Ice, don't worry about it too much -- I've already mentioned we'll need Drain Ice later on, and we can always fight Black Frost around the same time. I'll assume the worst, that Void Ice is gone, so the tips for Black Frost is further down this FAQ. You can answer Aradia however you wish. It won't have an impact on anything we're worried about. Amala Temple We're going to get our last run at Spectre before we get this far. No Dekunda or Dekaja in this battle, but Spectre can summon more copies of himself that will not be affected by any de-buffs you've already thrown up. A wounded Spectre is likely to use Last Resort, so pump yourself up and try to take down a Spectre in one turn whenever possible. Throwing up Focus on a previous turn and then attacking twice on the following turn is one way to expedite things. The courtyards between the three Amala Temples is my preferred grinding spot from now until we get well into the final dungeon. So long as Kagutsuchi isn't at 8/8 or 0/8, you'll run into Oberon, Troll, Virtue, Dominion, and Sparna. Gundari would be my magatama of choice while grinding here (Hama magic is unlikely to kill you at this point, and Violet Flash can't kill you unless you're weak to Expel), but Hifumi can make do in a pinch -- Sparna's Zandyne is the biggest damage threat among this batch of enemies. The XP and cash is reasonable, and you can stockpile gems for Attack Mirrors, of which we will need plenty down the line. Make sure you have a magic attack or two to bring with you as you wander through the Temples. A handful of the demons you'll run into will be physically immune, so you'll need a way of dealing with them. Pick up the Blessed Fan when you get to the area where it hangs around -- a re-usable Mahama isn't a bad thing, and can take care of some enemy demons quickly and easily. Aciel isn't too terribly difficult. You'll want to bring several Attack Mirrors with you, because you'll want one up to catch the follow-up to Sol Niger. Otherwise, I'd suggest a physical-resist magatama for the battle itself, and he'll go down in rather straightforward fashion even with his resistances to all damage types. Albion can be a royal pain, given his summoned helpers and the variety of magical attacks and resistances you'll have to put up with. I'd strongly suggest Sukukaja at the very least, because a high dodge is going to help you in this fight. You've got to take down Albion and his minions all around the same time to prevent them from re-summoning one another, so keep track of their HP (Albion 2700, helpers 1300 each) and try to work them down to a suitably low point. If you're packing a target-all physical skill, Focus and that skill can be your coup de grace. Skadi is immune to physical attacks, so its another battle of magic for you. She has both Dekunda and Dekaja, and while she isn't meticulous about using them, she will throw them out there once in a while. Sticking to War Cry to tamp down her attack power, and reasonable buffs on yourself is probably the way to go. If you've got some Attack Mirrors handy, using them when Skadi is about to use Earthquake makes a lot of sense. Do whatever you want to Hijiri -- we're headed for TDE. Mifunashiro You'll need your magic attacks while descending into Mifunashiro, because some of the Yosuga demons running about are physical-immune. Otherwise, there isn't much to say about the trip inbound. For purposes of the ending, your response to Chiaki doesn't matter, but agree with her because we'd much rather fight Futomimi. He's significantly easier to deal with than the triumvarite of Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. Futomimi isn't a pushover, but the fight shouldn't pose you any particular problems. Your magatama of choice for this fight is anything with physical resistance, because the manikin doesn't have anything other than physical attacks. So long as you keep yourself healed, there's no reason you should lose. Yurakucho Station and Diet Building Part 1 Bypass Trumpeter for now, we're not yet equipped to fight him. He's one of those bosses that takes specific preparation for, not to mention that we'll want to be at a much higher level before we fight him. Once past him, make your way through the tunnels towards the Diet Building. You're dealing with Shijima demons again, as we did at the Obelisk and the Assembly before that, so a magatama that voids Death is advisable for the journey. Do take time out to donate a demon to the mining spirit. You can come back later on to pick up the Kimon Stone, which we'll want down the line. Surt is not too terribly difficult, so long as you have ingested Gehenna for the fight to drain Fire. I won't go as far as to claim you can hit auto-battle and get a snack, but its not hard to stay on top of this battle. Surt will use Dekunda a fair amount, but he also has a difficult time dealing excessive amounts of damage to you with the given set-up. Work your way through the Diet Building's western wing, making your way up to the second floor and back around. Instead of going to fight Mada, head back to the save point (unlock the door on your way out to make the return trip faster), and teleport out. This is a logical point to step away from the main storyline, fight all the "optional" bosses out there that can be found, and then descend through Amala to the bottom. Not only will Pierce help a lot for the Diet Building's next two bosses, but you're probably strong enough to take on the "optional" bosses with the right set of skills. Candelabra Fiends and Other Bosses The first challenge is to tackle the four Oni, much easier now that you've got some levels and skills underneath you that make the job easier. For Kin-Ki, you'll want a physical-resist magatama and a ready supply of Dekaja Rocks. Kin-Ki has Dekunda, but not Dekaja, so you can also use Sukukaja buff your agility and keep him from hitting you as often. Rakukaja is also an idea to counteract Rakunda. He's very resistant to physical attacks, so use your best magical attacks if you have them to speed things up. Sui-Ki is much easier to deal with. Miasma would be your magatama of choice, because he'll throw a lot of Ice attacks your way. He has neither Dekunda nor Dekaja, so you can buff and de-buff to your heart's content. Finally, he has a weakness to Fire. Fuu-Ki also has neither Dekunda nor Dekaja. Hifumi or Gundari would be your magatama of choice, to deal with his frequent Force attacks, although he will come at you with physical attacks a fair amount as well. If you've got Electricity-based attacks, that's your best bet, not only for the damage but because it will occasionally put him into a state of shock -- which is your cue to critical hit him to death with physical attacks. Abuse the Full Kagutsuchi trick for the fight with Ongyo-Ki, and bring several Dekaja Rocks to this fight. Buff yourself up (he has Dekunda but not Dekaja), and so long as you keep dispelling his illusion he'll spend many of his turns buffing himself and restoring his dopplegangers. You'll either want a physical-resistant magatama, or you could go with a Void Death magatama for when he throws out Mudoon. The next order of business is to unlock the Riders, which means making our way down through Amala to the Third Kalpa's entrance. You'll want to be wary of Hresvelgr on the bottom floor of the Second Kalpa, but otherwise you should be capable of handling anything lurking about. If you use Estoma to repel demons, you probably won't even encounter anything until you get down near the warp zone to the Third Kalpa. Any magatama that provides immunity to Expel is your magatama of choice for White Rider. White Rider's Virtue friends are weak to Force attacks, which points to magical attacks of that element to rack up extra actions. If you don't have Wind Cutter or Tornado, you can always purchase a number of Mazan Rocks and use them. Two reasonable options present themselves for Red Rider. Iyomante is the simpler one, but will leave you depending on Focus and counter-attacks to deal the bulk of your damage while you heal. Alternately, you can pull Void Mind off of Murakamo and equip a physical-resistant magatama so long as it doesn't leave you weak to Force or Electricity. Red Rider will summon a pair of Power to help him out, and they'll work hard to buff his stats. Dekaja Rocks or War Cry is strongly suggested to keep their attack down. You'll be playing defense for a considerable part of this fight, but that's nothing too difficult at this stage. Black Rider is a different sort of animal, because he's the only one of the four who doesn't have Dekunda. Therefore, a significant part of this battle is putting up de-buffs once he gets his minions summoned, particularly War Cry and Fog Breath. His Legions will throw up Makakaja, so you'll want to keep an eye on his magic levels, but otherwise he isn't too threatening. Djed is probably your magatama of choice, as to block Soul Divide if he goes that route, and any attack type other than Fire should do the trick. If you leave the Legions until the end, you can always knock them out with the Blessed Fan. Mother Harlot is next in line. She's immune to physical attacks, so it will again be a battle of magic. If you had Void Mind for the fight with Red Rider, you'll want to keep it for this fight and go with either Narukami to nullify electricity or another magatama to blunt her physical attacks. So long as you stay away from Electricity magic, she shouldn't be all that difficult either. If you've retrieved the Kimon Stone by now, Bishamon is a piece of cake. Gehenna will be your magatama of choice, and you'll want to use War Cry and Rakukaja to blunt the damage he'll deal with his attacks, especially when he goes Focus + Hasso-Happa. Ice attacks would be your preferred route, with Glacial Blast suggesting itself. You'll want the skill behind it (Drain Ice) shortly anyhow, so there's no reason not to learn it. Just keep in mind you'll probably want Glacial Blast for the re-match with Bishamon much further down the road when you're swapping skills in and out. So this brings us to Pale Rider, who is among the most aggravating bosses under the terms and conditions of a solo challenge. Its not so much that Pale Rider himself is all that difficult, but his friends the Loa will make your life miserable if you let them -- Debilitate is bad, Last Resort is worse. Creative strategy will still trump all, however, and the best way to keep the Loa from doing too much to bother you is to never let them act. So how do we go about turn-killing Pale Rider every time he acts? First, you'll want a large number of Attack Mirrors, with two dozen or so your suggested minimum. Second, you'll want to learn Drain Ice from Miasma. Finally, equip a Void Death magatama for the fight. Your first action every turn is to throw up an Attack Mirror -- if you need to heal, do that as your second action just to keep the pattern foremost in your mind and in rhythm. By doing this, most of Pale Rider's attacks will work in your favor If he casts Mabufudyne, you'll absorb the spell and he's done. If he tries a normal attack or Blight, it bounces back at him (and even does some damage). Its only when he casts Pestilence that you'll have to deal with his minions, and even then they're just as likely to attempt Venom Bite and end their own turn without further damage. After each turn's use of an Attack Mirror, hit Pale Rider with your strongest attacks if you don't need to heal. Once he's down, there's no reason the Loa should last very long. With the same set-up -- Drain Ice and a Void Death magatama -- Black Frost is a pushover. Refresh your supply of Attack Mirrors, and equip Iyomante to fight Mara. Mara has Dekaja, but not Dekunda, so you'll want to de-buff him as far as capable. Until you've gained control of this fight, you'll want an Attack Mirror each turn to reflect his physical attacks on him, with Iyomante there to keep him from using Mind-based attacks against you. Because he'll cast Diarahan if he's hurt, don't worry about trying to kill him for a while -- you probably can't kill him in one turn at this stage. Rather, force him to burn magic every turn, since his MP total is finite and he'll blow through it very quickly. As soon as his MP hits zero, he's a sitting duck, and that's the time to whack him. Trumpeter takes preparation, and perhaps some grinding as well -- you'll want to be doing as much damage as possible with physical attacks, and your level does boost that. Endure is mandatory for this fight, Divine Shot comes very strongly recommended (Deathbound can do in a pinch if you've already blown Divine Shot), while Fog Breath and Diarahan will make your job significantly easier. Evil Melody will make this fight a time trial -- Endure will let you survive one shot of it, but you're required to down Trumpeter before the second casting. You can choose whichever magatama you like, so long as you don't leave yourself an elemental weakness. If you've still got Drain Ice on you from Black Frost and Pale Rider, Gehenna would suggest itself since you'll have the weakness already covered. You'll want to hit him with Fog Breath, because the first key point in this fight is Trumpeter's follow-up to Evil Melody -- if it does damage, you're done, and you can't depend on it hitting an element you're immune to even if you have multiple paths covered. Past that, you're looking at a steady diet of Focus + Divine Shot and praying for a good number of critical hits. Trumpeter has eleven thousand HP, and you've got to deal roughly 1000 points of damage each turn to bring that down. You'll also want to keep an eye on your HP (percentage) as compared to his, so you can absorb the Holy Melody on when Trumpeter casts it a second time. Its a race, and its not an easy one to win, but this is the method that gives you the best chances. Interspersed Thought From here on out, you're going to want to keep 2x War Cry and 4x Rakukaja up at all times during most boss battles. While bosses from here on out typically have both Dekaja and Dekunda, they aren't always as particular about using them at the first opportunity. With these spells up, you cut damage received to about one-fourth, which will grant you more turns to attack. You may run through long stretches of a fight where you do little but heal and cast support magic, but so long as you have a supply of Chakra Drops to keep your MP up, you'll get around to killing a boss sooner or later. The Amala Labrynth The Third Kalpa is Dante's insane little mini-game. He's actually easier this second time around, because you'll be able to use whichever -kaja spells you've got on the MC to tilt the playing field in your favor. Murakamo is your magatama of choice, here, because it doesn't come with any particular weaknesses to Mind, Force, or Electricity, but it does give you physical resistance. You'll need a little bit of preparation for Beelzebub in terms of skills. You'll want Force Drain (from Gundari) and Void Death (from Satan) as learned skills on your MC. With this, you can go into battle with Adama as your magatama of choice (to repel Electricity). This will take care of instant death attacks, the instant death aspect of Death Flies, and his Force and Electricity magic. Even with all that, our friendly fly king can dish out a ton of damage -- physical attacks, the damage aspect of Death Flies, and Megidolaon are all concerns. Short of a series of critical hits, or your (de-)buff magic not being present, it will be difficult for Beelzebub to kill you in one turn unless you're seriously underleveled or have been neglecting your Vitality. You'll need demons to navigate the Fifth Kalpa if you're looking to plunder it of everything that isn't nailed down. Black Frost, Beelzebub, and Metatron will be required to open particular doors, and any demon whose attributes are above thirty will be needed for others. Pull what you need out of the Compendium, and take it from there. Metatron is Amala's final challenge, and hes a doozy. It makes a lot of sense to learn Void Expel (and replace Void Death) for this fight, and then wear a physical-resistant magatama for the battle itself. Most of this fight plays out in similar fashion to other boss fights. Healing is your first priority, keeping those buffs and de-buffs up comes in a close second. Metatron is more likely to throw in Dekaja and Dekunda than Beelzebub was, but you can often get in a few turns of work before he dispels their effects. Things are very straightforward until our holy warrior busts out Fire of Sinai, because it can deal damage twice in a single attack. Once that stage of the fight rolls around, you want to wrap things up as quickly as possible, before you get unlucky and get killed. You may have to grind for several levels to get through Metatron, but once he's done you'll gain access to Pierce. Diet Building, Part 2 With Pierce, the fight with Mada becomes significantly easier. Iyomante is probably your magatama of choice, here, because his Mind attacks are more dangerous than his physical attacks (you should have the HP by now to withstand them). Mada lacks Dekaja, but he does have Debilitate which is almost as good for him. Mada can also summon a Pazuzu, who will use Mediarama to heal him. They'll lengthen the fight, but you can largely ignore them because they don't have enough magic for more than a few castings apiece. With Pierce in hand, you can play defense and let Avenge do a lot of the heavy lifting when Mada throws Deathbound out there. Make sure you have a supply of Dekaja Rocks for Mot, since he's fond of boosting himself with Makakaja and throwing Megidolaon at you after that. Bolt Storm would be your best bet for dealing damage, but Pierce and your physical attacks will work just fine. Mithra is a pushover, so long as you respect his use of Death and Expel magics. If you've still got Void Expel left from the battle with Metatron, a Void Death magatama can effectively neuter him. If not, Tetraja Rocks should be sufficient to blunt his assault. You can bypass the fight with Samael if you wish, but there's no particular reason to have to do so. Iyomante (again) would be your magatama of choice, because Samael has a nasty little charm attack that can be your undoing. Otherwise, there isn't a whole lot to say here that hasn't already been said about previous boss fights. Tower of Kagutsuchi, Part 1 Make sure to collect the Chakra Elixir from the back entrance to the Obelisk. With this in hand, you can sell off any Chakra Drops lying around for spare cash. Ahriman can be royal pain in the you-know-what if you're not prepared for him. Make sure you have a sufficient variety of skills to use for the first part of the fight, given Ahriman will forbid various things depending on how hurt he is. Once you get into the "real fight", Ahriman becomes much more dangerous. He'll use Dekunda and Dekaja with some frequency, but the attack to watch out for is Apocalypse. Without any modifiers to attack and defense, this attack is capable of doing upwards of 700 points of damage in a single shot, so that's probably the minimum HP level to shoot for. Bypass the fight with Noah, which isn't on the main path up the tower anyhow. The little town around the final major terminal is your goal, not just for Kailish, but because its your optimal grinding point for the remainder of the game. We'll step away from the main storyline again. The Bandou Shrine The Kailish magatama has two skills you'll want, at least for the time being. Freikugel, naturally, is your physical attack of choice for the remainder of the game. Tetrakarn is also suggested for the Shrine bosses, unless you go out and farm several dozen Attack Mirrors to cover that end. Zochouten likes Electricity attacks with the hope of shocking you and then trying to critical hit you to death. Unfortunately for him, he's immune to neither attack. Equip Adama to repel Electricity, cast Tetrakarn every turn, and he can't hurt you. Jikokuten likes Ice attacks with the hope of freezing you and then trying to critical hit you to death. Fortunately for him, he's immune to Ice, but it won't help him very much. Equip Miasma to drain Ice, cast Tetrakarn every turn, and he can't hurt you. Komokuten likes Force attacks and boosted physical attacks. Fortunately for him, he's immune to Force, but it won't help him very much. Equip Gundari to drain Force, cast Tetrakarn every turn, and he can't hurt you. That brings us to Bishamon, who is significantly smarter than his brethren. Bishamon has a tendency to use boosted Fire attacks or boosted physical attacks, but he's also smart enough to change his tactics and has several other annoying spells. Tetrakarn is completely uselss in this battle, as it will simply trigger him to spam Megidolaon. The Gehenna magatama won't help you either, because he won't use Fire attacks if he sees that they are ineffective. He's also got Dekaja, Dekunda, and Debilitate, among other obnoxious abilities. So what's the plan of attack, you ask? If you've got it, Glacial Blast is your damage dealer. Another really useful skill to have is Anti-Fire -- it will halve Fire damage, but Bishamon will consider that result satisfactory and therefore not switch to Megidolaon. A physical-resist magatama will also be necessary, to survive Focus + multiple Tarukaja + Hasso-Happa. You will spend a lot of this fight healing, and many turns throwing Dekaja Rocks -- don't bother much with support magic, as buffs tend to trigger Dekaja and Debilitate, and he'll buff himself faster than you can cut him down to size with War Cry. This set-up will limit the damage he can inflict in one turn, and Glacial Blast can do a lot of damage against his Ice weakness, not to mention the extra press turns you'll rack up this way. Its a long and difficult fight, on par with Metatron and Ahriman, but Bishamon can be beaten if you stick to the script. Once Bishamon falls, go visit Masakados and get his magatama. Needless to say, that's the one you'll want to be using the rest of the game unless you need a skill from somewhere else. Tower of Kagutsuchi, Part 2 Back down to Noah, now that Masakado is in hand. Once Noah starts using Aurora, his physical resistance changes to Repel, so your choices become magical attacks of the proper element or Focus + Pierce + Freikugel. His standard attack can hurt you, as its physical/almighty, but there's little to fear from him. Thor, up near the save point, is even easier. He can't hurt you at all at this stage, so he ought to go down swiftly. Baal Avatar and her minions can't hurt you if you're wearing Masakado, either. Buffs are useless during the middle stage of the fight, since the specialized Ose will simply throw out Dekunda and Dekaja as needed, but its not like you'd really need them for this fight. The minimum recommended level for the last two boss battles is 127, and that assumes maximum stats. This is suggested, because Level 127 and maximum Vitality will max out your HP, which you'll need for Lucifer. You'll also want to get your hands on every big healing item you can, Somas and the like. Kagutsuchi isn't so difficult a battle with the skills you'll be packing. His physical attack does Almighty damage, so that will penetrate your defenses, but the only other big hitter he has is Infinite Light. Assuming you've de-buffed him and buffed yourself, Infinite Light isn't anything to panic over, moreso since he will almost always pass his other press turn after using it (not to mention wasting an entire turn to announce it). He will use Dekunda, and has been known to use it as his other action on an Infinite Light turn, but he should go down easily enough. Lucifer starts out rather tame. Masakado will void out most of his attacks, although his physical attack also does Almighty damage -- it will hurt you, but Avenge will kick in for a counter-attack. He has Dekunda and Dekaja, though he doesn't seem to be as intent on using them as other bosses in the past have been. Concentrate on healing, buffing, and de-buffing, though Fog Breath and Sukukaja are of no practical use -- he's not going to miss, and he is going to score a fair number of critical hits with his normal attack. Let loose with Focus + Freikugel where you get an opening, and you'll steadily chip away at his HP. High King is capable of doing a ton of damage, but is unlikely to kill you unless you've let those attack and defense modifiers lapse. That being said, once he starts using High King it becomes imperative to be fully healed every turn. Root of Evil is his game-buster when you get his HP sufficiently low. If you're lucky, it will only cut your HP in half. If you're really unlucky, it takes away 90% of your HP, which leaves you very vulnerable to follow-up attacks -- a critical hit will likely kill you at this stage. Once he starts bringing out Root of Evil, you'll need to try and finish him as quickly as possible, because its only a matter of time before your luck fails and he kills you. If you've made it through all of this, sit back and enjoy the ending. Pat yourself on the back, too, because you'll deserve it for making it through all of this. Credits To GameFAQs, for being here and for hosting this guide. To the FAQs on SMT: Nocturne that came before this one. One only sees further by standing on the shoulders of giants, and I think its fair to say that I might not have gotten anywhere near as far without such terrific and verbose help beforehand. To the community of readers and writers on the Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne forums. First, for helping me through this challenge when I did it on my own, and providing me suggestions and advice when I ran into roadblocks in doing so. Also, for being a voice of support in pushing me to finally write this guide in a coherent format. To anyone who takes the time to read this. Sure, I could have written this solely for my own edification, but what's the fun in that?