Update 18: Primal Judgement
I’m back from vacation, and it’s time to dunk on this pile of garbage once again. We do get a confirmation prompt here, but what we’re about to enter is a sham of a bossfight that is almost impossible to lose even on Extreme.
So you might be asking, “If the idiots in Goldpaw use dice to decide everything, why the hell don’t they just roll and be done with it instead of having a long, pointless cutscene that is stacked onto 45+ minutes of solid cutscene with very minor gameplay interruptions?”
The answer is because Level 5 hates me, and by extension you.
Yeah, this isn’t totally just going to be a repeat of the last… how many cutscenes were there with the rigged dice? I want to say three.
Roland finds his purple suit that I’m pretty sure he discarded back at the beginning of the game. I should mention that I’m fairly certain we can unlock his suit as an outfit for him… but not until the very end of the game. Don’t ask me why he has it in the story if he can’t use it in battle: my guess is because Level 5 really wanted everyone to just forget the whole isekai anime thing.
: “Because this is a court of law.”
I don’t know why Roland even bothers playing along.
: “Further, I will show that he distributed devices among his accomplices which were used to carry out deception on a grand scale through the manipulation of dice rolls.”
: “I do not, have not, and will never engage in dishonest practices of any kind, and to accuse me of such is to defame my character and call my good name into question!”
: “Perhaps you will permit those present to withhold judgment on the matter of your innocence until I have presented my proof?”
There’s a reason that Wright x Layton was absolutely the worst Phoenix Wright game, and that’s because Level 5 wrote it… at least, I’m pretty sure. Phoenix’s part in that was the only redeeming factor for what was otherwise trash.
Roland offers up the signed “I DID IT” letter.
: “B- What is the meaning of this!?”
Roland steals one of Phoenix’s poses which pisses me off because he is not even half the goddamn character Phoenix is. Phoenix Wright would’ve had this shit resolved two hours ago.
: “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the prosecution’s key exhibit: written instructions for the assembly of manipulable dice, clearly signed by Master Pugnacius.”
: “Only that my prior outburst was merely an expression of shock at the brazenness of this shameless act! I have never seen this document in my life!”
: “To stoop to the fabrication of evidence is a pitiful tactic indeed! It is a forgery, plain and simple.”
I’d also like to mention that the second worst Ace Attorney game was the one to use evidence fabrication as a plot point. At least Capcom clearly regretted ever making Apollo Justice a thing and gave him the whole Raiden treatment in Dual Destinies.
: “Why don’t we let Lady Luck be the judge of that?”
: “By all means.”
So here is my entire problem with this scene. One, it’s a repeat of a scene we’ve seen twice already.
Two, it’s something we’ve seen already that is being tacked on to what is now well over an hour of solid cutscene.
Several seconds of the die jumping around later…
How absolutely none of the spectators surrounding the trial haven’t seen the remotes yet is beyond me.
Your brains! Something is wrong with your brains!
: “The prosecution was able to visit the place where these devices are manufactured, and to procure one for its own purposes - namely the demonstration of this fraud.”
Pugnacius does the only thing he can do - begins banishing himself to the shadow realm.
What’s that up in the sky? I’ll tell you what it is - a blatant Final Fantasy 14 ripoff. Pugnacius has just summoned his Primal, because that is EXACTLY what the Kingmakers are.
: “It’s their Kingmaker - Longfang!”
: “He doesn’t look happy…”
Honestly, this is the part that made me question the entire purpose of the Kingmakers. If they’re not supposed to be anywhere near the city, what the hell is the point of their existence? You’d think that they’d be the equivalent of a nuclear deterrent, but… yeah.
You know, just once I’d like to see a story where the vizier isn’t evil.
I was honestly hoping that this guy was just going to rip Pugnacius’s heart out of his chest. This is Not-Lahabrea’s true form, with an outfit that looks so dumb that even Organization XIII would probably question it.
Seriously though, how does he even move with that stupid snake headpiece?
Longfang Discount Gamera is not pleased with this turn of events.
I feel like somebody should just put Longfang out of its misery. It’s so dumb-looking.
Evil Green Man makes a ball out of Pugnacius’s kingsbond and teleports away while smirking, because of course he does.
Meanwhile, Pugnacius is super fucking dead.
Oh, and Longfang is still here.
What you can’t see is Roland, who is now wearing a chef hat and basting Evan with a light gravy.
Sin number 38: how does a quadrupedal dragon bake anything? It doesn’t even have thumbs! This has been the CinemaSins presentation of Ni no Kuni 2.
We’ve been sent to The Fiddy Zone an “inter-dimensional dimension” to either kill Longfang or die.
: “What!? Then we have to stop Longfang!”
I’m also not sure if I pointed this out, but Evan somehow knows a hell of a lot about Longfang for a kid who didn’t know much about Goldpaw when they first got there.
: “BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! RIP! MAIM! TEAR!”
So yes, not only is there a term for out-of-control kingmakers, but apparently it’s so common that even Batu knows it. Makes you wonder how often this happens.
Boy Sampson then goes on about how we should hit the glowing goddamn weakpoint. There’s even not one but TWO tutorials about this. I’ll spare you.
If you’ve played FF14, you’re probably thinking “Wait, isn’t this just the Ifrit fight?” and you are absolutely right because that is exactly what it is, only more dumbed-down. Longfang starts the fight in the lava, outside of weapon range.
He’ll then get mad and start shitting out rocks from the lava pool. Ifrit does this exact thing in FF14 only they’re giant metal spikes.
Unlike Ifrit, we could theoretically do this battle without ever hitting any of the rocks - they’re destroyable once they hit the ground.
Each Kingmaker fight also has “higmakers” that hide in the boss’s destructible garbage. They can unleash a special ability (just like regular higgledies) once there’s enough of them around. For this fight, we could actually ignore them completely.
Since we have nothing better to do before Longfang opens up his weak point, I spent a few seconds smashing rocks to get higmakers so I could show off what they do.
Eventually, Longfang starts smashing the ground for no reason, opening up his weakpoint.
I remembered to turn the game back to Normal difficulty, so the party actually does pretty good damage against him.
Hitting his weakpoint enough causes Longfang to fall over, which opens up a second weakpoint: his face. Here, you can see Batu critting for over 400 damage.
I managed to get about 2/3 of Longfang’s health depleted in one cycle, which causes him to start his second phase: making giant geysers of flame sprout from the ground. They’re pretty harmless, though they will light people on fire if they get caught.
After a few more rock cycles, we have enough higmakers to use their special ability…
Said ability is completely worthless. The falling rocks are simple to dodge and don’t hit that hard. It would’ve been better to just keep rushing the weakpoint.
One more cycle, and Longfang is done for.
Next time, we’ll see what happens to Niall’s forest… and start the worst part of Ni no Kuni 2. Probably.