Natsume’s journey into the volcano continues. But first, relative success.
I switched to Ranger to do some quests for Lisa and pick up her Friend Card. While leveling up, our area triggered a PSE Burst. My very first! Once PSE Burst happens, holy crap does shit blow up! Monsters spawn in swarms, give more EXP, drop rates skyrocket, and killing more monsters increases the PSE Burst time! It’s unfortunate that I scored 100 points during the PSE Burst, since that ended it prematurely.
I once again entered the City area and had someone join my party. We were too late to finish the 500 Point quest, but there was plenty of grinding going on anyway. Triggering loads of Emergency Codes and wasting swarms of Darkers.
Joined another party and rushed to the boss. Met with less success. The other two were lower level and relied a lot on respawning after death. I laid on the floor for minutes waiting for one of them to res me. I guess they expected me to do the same thing they did. As soon as I did, the entire party spawned at the home ship, ruining the battle for all involved.
I finally managed to clear Koffee’s quest and unlocked the Volcano – Free Area, where this jerk was waiting for me. My first time fighting an ACTUAL DRAGON!! in this game (and I do love my old fashioned dragon raids) and he spawns with a Darker device on him! GAH! It doesn’t help that I only brought a Hunter ally with me.
I thought the Accordion Dragon was tough… this guy is so much worse. Less vulnerable and deals way more damage. Any time you get hit, you pretty much have to eat a ‘mate. So… don’t get hit. Not as easy as it sounds. He barely telegraphs his fire breath, he has a roar that creates flaming geysers all over the field, and he’s constantly moving so you rarely have any opportunity at a clean attack, meaning the temptation to take more risks just to deal damage is high.
I met my unfortunate and pathetic end after it fly up into the sky. I assumed he was being a pussy (and he was). Then I noticed his mouth was glowing. Super attack. I ran toward him figuring I’d be out of range of his fire breath attack. I was right about the fire breath attack. I was wrong about its range. Its range is INSANE. And it killed me in one shot from full health.
Time to level.
One thing I did like was the fact that I got a bunch of Wired Lance drops from that run. I picked up a Photon Art that can only be described in two words: Izuna Drop. Fuck yeah.