Chapter 1: An Enigmatic Woman

20 May 2009
S.A. Renegade

Akane busts into the Narumi Detective Agency

Ahh, the capital. Feels like home. And the Narumi Detective Agency. Feels even more like home. Cut the Gordian knot! We get treated to a nice FMV of Narumi making some toast. I love that guy. we need more FMVs of Narumi doing everyday things. And Raidou, as always, stands by with his arms crossed being a total badass. "Break time is whenever you feel like it." Could there possibly be a better boss than Narumi? I don't think so. It's a joy to work for the guy.

After a while Akane busts into the office and begs to you take her missing person case. I love the expressions Narumi makes. He asks you whether we should take the case or not. Just answer whatever you want. Narumi thinks we shouldn't take it but as soon as Akane shows him how much she's willing to pay, he gets all excited. Haha, I love it. You receive Dahn's photo and it's your job to find him. It's time to do some good old detective legwork!

Before going out, let's save our game. Now, remember this is King Mode! So let's take it easy and enjoy this, shall we? You can go up to the roof of the building before heading out if you want, and talk to Gouto there. Let's check out our inventory as well! Hmm, seems we have 2500 yen, 4 medicines, and 2 Jin Dan. Not bad, not bad. Check Gouto's notebook while you're at it and read the entry he made on Dahn. The notebook is useful to know more or less where you are in the story and to understand what's going on, but it's also fun to read because of Gouto's informal style.

First time at Tsukudo-Cho

Items:
-Ox Bezoar
-Medicine
-Jin Dan
-Four Wind Tiles
-Anti-Mind x2

Now it's time to start the game proper! Remember to explore thoroughly and talk to every single person you can. It's not necessarily useful to do so, but it's fun.

Right as you go out the door, you'll see an item lying on the floor. Pick it up to obtain an Ox Bezoar. If you try to leave Tsukudo-Cho Gouto doesn't let you, so let's take care of everything here. You can also visit the Konnou-Ya shop, but the prices are pretty outrageous for our budget right now, so don't buy anything.

Head west from the Narumi Detective Agency through the alleyway and then turn south to find to find another item on the ground. This one's a Medicine. Once you have that head on over to the big street Kamishiro-Zaka. Make sure to talk to the suspicious maid near the south end of the street. Give her directions to the detective agency. Turns out she's actually a demon. Specifically an Ippon-Datara. He gives you your first sidequest. It's a pretty important one too. Let's go back to the detective agency and accept it. Even though it's a sidequest, this is one you're forced to complete. And really, this is King Mode, so it's best that we complete ALL of the sidequests, ok?

Once you accept that quest, you can leave for Shinoda! Excellent. But before we do that, let's get the items we missed. Go back to where you met the Ippon-Datara. Head west from there towards the dock. There's an item on the floor there slightly concealed by the tree. It's a Jin Dan. Next, head east from there past the assembly hall. Hug the side of the wall where the river is and you'll find an item completely hidden by the tree. It's a Four Wind Tiles! Hmm, I wonder what that's for. Keep going till you get to the dead end. There's an Anti-Mind x2 there.

Well that about covers it. The only place we haven't gone to is the Tamonten Shrine. But let's leave that for later. First let's head over to Shinoda and complete our first sidequest! You can try to exit towards the north and go to the Daidouji Mansion but unfortunately the gate is closed. Sucks. I liked that house. Go out through any of the other exits and take the streetcar to Shinoda.

First time at Dark Tsukudo-Cho to fulfill Victor's Lab Rats request

Items:
-Medicine x2
-Life Stone x3
-Anti-Poison x2
-Jin Dan
-Onyx
-Ox Bezoar

Demons:
-Pyro Onmoraki
-Skill Pixie
-Frost Preta
-Volt Koropokkur
-Fury Slime

Alright! Our first dungeon! About time. We don't have any demons yet, so remember to negotiate with a demon whenever you find a new one. I suggest getting all of demons in this area. Except the ones you can't negotiate with, obviously.

First though, head up to the save point. When you get near you'll get a cutscene with Victor. When Victor asks you if you'll help him test the Tesseract Box, answer that you will. After a few more words, Victor will leave and you'll receive the Smoked Salmon. Case closed! Damn, that was easy! You can now also teleport to the Gouma-Den from a save point at will.

Anyway, a noob would just leave now that that's over with. But you're not a noob are you?! Good. Let's explore this entire dungeon and see what we can find. Remember to save your game first!

These enemies take about half your HP with one spell if you don't block so be careful. Remember to heal at the Gouma-Den after every battle if your health is low. It doesn't matter if you have to backtrack. In fact, it's good if you have to! Means more exp! Remember that this is King Mode. The more excuses we have to backtrack and get extra exp, the better. However, we also don't want to waste money if we don't have to. So as soon as you are able, recruit a Pixie and have her heal you with Dia.

In any case, move west from the save point into a small alleyway to find a blue crystal. It's Medicine x2. Next head to the dock to find another crystal. This one has Life Stone x3. Now walk north from the save point. You'll find a dragon's jaw that doesn't let you through, so you'll have to take the long way around. You should run into a second save point. Use it, then walk out into the main street. You'll see Nakisawame in front of the Tamonten Shrine and two blue crystals beside her. Grab 'em both. They contain Anti-Poison x2 and a Jin Dan. Nakisawame here can heal you and restore your MAG, but frankly 600 yen and 6 yen per MAG point is highway robbery so I'd say fuck her. You're better off just going back to the detective agency and taking a nap, or better yet, get into some more fights and fight intelligently to restore your MAG by absorbing it from enemies.

If, like me, you've already hit level 8, pay a visit to the Gouma-Den and fuse an Onmoraki with a Preta to create a Wind Angel. You'll need her to finish exploring the rest of this place. Go back to the start of the dungeon, and move east from the Ushigome-Gaeri bride all the way to the dead end to find a current of wind. Summon your Angel and use her Kamikaze skill on the wind. You'll be blown elsewhere.

Right off the bat you'll see a blue crystal in front of you. Open if to get an Onyx. Then you'll see another one nearby. This one has an Ox Bezoar. That's about it for this dungeon. Run back to the second save point.

Once your MAG and health is looking good, go save and then go back and talk to the Inugami. He'll talk so crap and then challenge you to a fight.

---Boss: Pagan Inugami---
My level: 8

This guy isn't a threat. He's frail to fire, so have an Onmoraki ready and spam him with Agi. Better yet, have two demons with Agi and have them both spam him. His strike has pretty much no cue, so stand him front of him and hold block, and let your demons damage him with fire. He's not that strong though so if he does hit you it's not the end of the world. Just keep blocking and only attack once the Agi puts him into frail stun. Make sure to watch out for his Pulinpa. Whenever you see the cue for it, just keep blocking but also hide your demons so they don't get confused. Then resume the attack once the Pulinpa effect is off the arena. Don't jump the gun though. It can hit your demons if you stop hiding them too soon. Don't bother using Fire Bullet. It doesn't really do enough damage to be worth it. Other than that he shouldn't pose any problems.

---

Afterwards, Inugami begs you to let him be your demon. It's a good deal, and it's good to be merciful, so accept. Anyway, we're done with this dungeon now! Let's get back to Tsukudo-Cho and continue with the main adventure.

Meeting the mysterious young blonde man at the Tamonten Shrine

Did you know that Devil Summoner 1 had a perpetual typo here in that the Tamonten Shrine was always spelled as Tamonten Srhine? Just something interesting to note. Looks like they fixed it though. Could you imagine if they hadn't? Anyways. Go into the shrine to meet the young blonde man for the first time. Show him Dahn's photo. He tells you he's seen Dahn over at Fukagawa-Cho, so that's where we're heading. Onward!

First time at Fukagawa-Cho

Items:
-Ox Bezoar
-Scoring Sticks
-Wood Ornament
-Anti-Mute
-Fubuki Sake
-Old Underwear

Before you enter Fukagawa-Cho proper, check out the right side of the map. There's an item lying there. It's an Ox Bezoar.

You're supposed to go talk to Satake at the Daikoku-Yu bathhouse, but before we do that, let's explore this entire place and talk to all the people. Cross the Daikoku Bridge and take a turn north. Check out the corner here. There's an item concealed by some flags. It's a, uh, Scoring Sticks? I guess? Some Mahjong shit I dunno. If you try to exit north and go to the Red Light District, some asshole doesn't let you through because of some harmless quake that happened. Oh well.

Keep going east past the showroom. There's a Wood Ornament on the ground here. Go through the door to the south. Down here you'll find an Anti-Mute on the right hand side. Take note of the fence on the left side. There's a hole here. Unfortunately it would seem that we aren't able to go through there yet. So let's keep going. Walk into the empty lot and grab the item in the corner. It's a Fubuki Sake. Keep going west past the empty lot and then north at the first opportunity to find an Old Underwear!

And that's it for Fukagawa-Cho. Head back to the entrance and into the bathhouse. Talk to Satake. Show him Dahn's Photo. He can help you but wants the Smoked Salmon Victor gave you in exchange. Whatever, who cares. Give it to him. He says to go over to Mannen-Cho and ask this Tatsumi character about Dahn. So we're back out into the streets. Get out of Fukagawa-Cho and go to Mannen-Cho over on the left side of the district.

First time at Mannen-Cho

Items:
-Jin Dan
-Muscle Drink
-Twig
-Frost Steel
-Number Tiles
-Tatsumi's Hair
-Mansaku Sake
-Ox Bezoar
-St Incense
-Dainty Snack (hidden!)

Alright this place is pretty damn big. And it's full of crossdressers offending my senses! Gah! If you try to go into the first house on the left side, the lady asks you for a password. We don't have it yet, so we'll come back later. Instead, go into the house on the right side. Inside you'll find a Jin Dan lying on the floor. Go back out, go north, west when you get to the fork, then north when you get to the next fork. You can go into the house on the left side here but there ain't nothing in it! What a waste of space. If you keep going north, you can go into two houses on either side, but in both you'll be driven out by a timid woman and an uptight man. Bah.

Go back south all the way and keep going through the place. There are some cops blocking the way to the east here. Across from them there's a house. You can go in, but this one's empty too! What the hell! Directly north of this house there's another one though, and this one does have something inside it, so go in and grab it. It's a Muscle Drink. Go back out. If you keep walking north you'll get a cutscene with Osamu Kogure and his son Kenta. After the cutscene, talk to them a second time, and show them Dahn's photo. He'll give you the password to the gambling parlor so you can go kick the shit out of that Tatsumi! The password's super-chilled cider. But we're not done exploring, so we'll leave the gambling parlor for last.

Go to the well above the violent chicken. There's something inside it but only a frost order demon can get it. You should have a Preta. Summon it and make him climb down the well. He'll come back with a twig. Now, south across from the well there's another house you can go into. Here you'll find a Frost Steel. Go back out. If you try to go further north Gouto won't let you. So it's time to go back to the entrance of Mannen-Cho. Before we go into the gambling parlor, go north and then west at the fork. Keep going. Along the way you'll find a house you can't get into because the door's jammed on the left side, and another one on the right side where you'll get driven out by a hypocrite. Across from the hypocrite's house there's a house you can go into though. But, uh, it's empty aside from some homo crossdresser. So you might just want to skip that particular house.

Keep going north and you'll find some more asshole cops blocking the way. You can get into the abandoned temple here though. Check out the bottom right hand side of it. There's an item here almost completely hidden by the hedge. It's a Number Tiles.

That about covers it for now! Head on over to the gamblin' parlor and give the lady the password. It's super-chilled cider, but if you're anything like me, you can't resist saying giga-sweet pie and getting thrown out. Ahem, anyways. Now you can get through. The gamblin' parlor's the house on the bottom, but before that let's pay a visit to the top house. What? There's nothing here? What IS it with all these bullshit empty houses? Whatever, let's get into that parlor.

There'll be 4 people here. Goro Tatsumi's the one you're after. He's the one who looks like the biggest prick in the house. Yeah, that one. Show 'im the photo. He says he won't tell you shit unless you play a coin toss game with him. You can choose heads or tails, but it doesn't matter what you choose, you can't win. He's got too much luck. Just give up. He'll look at the photo again and recognize Dahn. Then immediately deny everything. He won't tell you the truth willingly, so we'll have to use a pagan order demon to read his mind. If you've been following this guide you should have Inugami from back in Dark Tsukudo-Cho. Summon him and use Mind Read on Tatsumi. Looks like he's thinking about some insect. Talk to him again and ask about it. He'll get all scared and run away. What a pussy. Chase after him!

But no, we can take our sweet time. If you'll notice, you can now use Mind Read on people! That'll be fun. Try it out on the meaningful smile man over there. In fact, try it out on everyone. After that go out. You'll see Tatsumi run into the hypocrite's house. If you go in, the hypocrite will just drive you out. Seriously? Come on! Raidou Kuzunoha defeated by some fat good for nothing loser? Couldn't he just shove him out of the way and go through? Jesus. Apparently not. Looks like you'll have to do this the convoluted way. Transform into Tatsumi with a skill order demon's transform ability. Gouto will do the work for you by bringing you a lock of Tatsumi's hair, so you don't have to do anything. You should have a Pixie. Transform into Tatsumi with L1. Now you can go through unhindered.

Go through the houses and over to the place with the violent chicken. Go south from there, and you'll notice the cops have left their old post and you can now check out that part of town you couldn't before. Go east through the path, then north the first chance you get into a house. Go all the way in and through the door. Inside you'll find a Mansaku Sake. Go back out into the street again, and go south into the foreground when you see some doors in front of the screen. There's nothing in this house, but you can actually keep walking south and out into a backyard. There's an Ox Bezoar on the ground here. More importantly, check out the well. Send your Preta or whatever frost order demon you have into it. He'll come back with an St Incense! Excellent! Don't give incenses to your demons. Eat them all yourself. Yeah that's right. EAT IT!

Get back out into the street. There are two other houses to the north. The middle one doesn't have anything, but the third one you can go inside. Seems there's nothing here, right? Yeah, you might think that. But wait! Bust out a Volt order demon like Koropokkur and use its inspect ability. You'll find a hidden item! Nifty huh? It's a Dainty Snack. Go back out and keep heading east to the dock. You'll find that bitch Tatsumi trapped like a rat. Raidou moves in to kick his ass but WHAT? Slips on a banana peel? You have GOT to be kidding me. Damn that Tatsumi's luck! He'll run away again. Go back to the place with the violent chicken and you'll see him run into a crossdresser's house. Go inside, but it's too dark to see anything. You have the option of going left, right or straight but it doesn't really matter what you do. Tatsumi has too much luck and will escape again.

Give chase once more. You'll see him run, and go up a ladder up onto a house's roof. You'll corner him for the third time. Honestly, at this point I thought the roof was going to crumble beneath Raidou's feet. But nah, instead some masked men show up to save his bacon. They ask you if you're searching for someone. There's no reason to lie to them. After all, you're Raidou Kuzunoha. These red necks don't scare you! Well, they'll cast an illusion spell on you. The Fukorutsubo.

Trapped in the Fukorutsubo

Items:
-Life Stone
-Anti-Mind

Demons:
-Wind Poltergeist
-Skill Pixie
-Fury Slime
-Frost Preta
-Fury Obariyon
-Pyro Onmoraki
-Volt Koropokkur

Looks like we're in our second dungeon now! Fun. And it even uses the music from Devil Summoner 1's final dungeon. Nice. Right in front of you you'll see the save point. Walk over there and save before doing anything else. To the right you'll see a soul. Talk to him and he gives you the tip about this place. Basically, depending on which side you enter a room from, barriers appear to block you or not. For example, if you keep going north from that soul, you'll get to a room/intersection and you'll see there are 3 barriers blocking your way, so you can't advance any further. What you have to do is go back to the save point and take the left path on the fork, and enter that same room but from the left side.

Once you do that, you'll see that the north barrier is gone (as well as the west one, obviously. That's where you came in from). So head north. You'll see Nakisawame here. But who needs her. Wait a second though. Instead of going forward, go back south to the previous intersection you just went in from. If you do this, you'll see that the east barrier that was previously there is now gone. Awesome. Let's check out what's there. Oh, just a blue crystal with a Life Stone. Oh well. Go back, and you'll find that now there are barriers to the north and west. You'll have to go back all the way and enter this same room from the left side again. Go north to Nakisawame and this time keep going.

You'll enter another one of those intersections from the right side. There's a barrier to the north, but that's it. Don't go south as we've already been there. Just keep going west. Here you'll find a dead end with a blue crystal containing an Anti-Mind. Go back to the previous room. Now the north barrier is gone and you can save at the dragon cave there. Up next is the boss. Do what you gotta do to restore your HP and MAG. I like to use dia and hitting enemy weaknesses to restore MAG but that's just me.

---Boss: Soldier Bug Jiromaru---
My level: 11

This guy can easily kill you if you're not careful. His tackle takes off over 100 HP and can stun you, and his hopper attack is even more dangerous. Fortunately all of his attacks have cues. The trick here is to play it safe. He's frail to fire, so bring in an Onmoraki or any other demon who knows Agi. If you have Maragi by now, that's even better since it stuns him for longer. You can fuse a Pyro Enku and level him up once to learn that. It's not strictly necessary though. In any case, set both of your demons to spam Agi or Maragi at him. You, on the other hand, will not be attacking quite as much. You'll mostly be on the lookout for the cues that indicate when Jiromaru will use an attack. Stay right on Jiromaru's face (so he'll attack you rather than your demons, who can't block). You can slash him a few times if you're feeling risky, but mostly the only time you'll go into combos is when one of your demons' Agi puts him into frail stun. Keep your finger on the block button when he's not stunned and be ready to hide your demons when you see a cue that he'll attack. He has three attacks. Scratch is the least dangerous one and only hits what is in front of Jiromaru, so if your demons happen to be behind him when he uses this, there is no need to hide them. Just keep blocking. His tackle is far more dangerous though and seems to have somewhat unpredictable area of effect, so just to be safe I'd say always hide your demons when you see this coming. Again, you should also block. It has a much longer cue than scratch, but it's too hard to dodge and there's no need to make the gamble when blocking decreases the damage to about 15. Finally, when you see him jump into the air, hide your demons and run away. Just make sure you keep running, don't get snagged in the arena boundaries, and you'll avoid his hopper attack. He seems to come down much faster than he used to in normal mode. But yeah, that's all. If you play it safe like I say, you shouldn't have to heal.

---

After the battle the damn rednecks will steal your luck. Sucks, but that's the way it goes. The cowards will split, the Fukorutsubo will fade away, and you'll be back in Mannen-Cho. Unfortunately your bad luck will cause the fiend Binbou-gami to appear. You'll be pulled into battle. And even more unfortunately, you can't win because your luck is so bad that all your attacks will whiff. We have no choice but to sit down and wait for the battle to end automatically. After that you'll get the first mysterious cutscene and then you'll be back at the Narumi Detective Agency.

First investigational meeting at the Narumi Detective Agency

Narumi will ask you to have an investigational meeting. Sounds fun. If you choose to postpone it, you get to save your game, which is nifty but Narumi won't let you out of the office until you get the meeting over with. So save, and once you're ready get the meeting started. Narumi'll ask you some easy questions throughout. The answers are obvious, and sadly, giving the wrong answers doesn't give you any funny dialogue. So just get it over with. Your next order of business is to pay Akane a visit at Narita's mansion in Kasumidai.

Take the train to Kasumidai and enter the Narita mansion. Talk to the butler and say you're looking for Akane. You'll get a cutscene with Narita and Akane. After that, talk to Akane again and interrogate the shit out of her. Once that's done go back to the detective agency. Before you go in, Kenta will stop you. He'll beg you to look for his dad who disappeared and gives you a croquette as payment? Not good enough, kid. Anyway, go into the detective agency, and Narumi tells you Tae wants to talk to you. She's hanging out over at the Shin Sekai soda joint in Ginza-Cho so now we'll have to beat feet over there.

When you go into Shin Sekai, remember to talk to the owner. He'll forward case files he's received to the Narumi Detective Agency, which means now you can solve some sidequests. Well, no time like the present! Forget Tae. We gots some sidequests to do! Check out the case files section, complete the quests you've unlocked, and then come back here. Most of them you just have to give a specific item. For now there's only one that's an actual quest. And that's what we're doing next!

Ghost Driver

According to the case information, the ghost car is over at Dark Tsukudo-Cho. So head on over there.

Before we keep going, let's talk. You've probably encountered the four horsemen of the apocalypse several times by now. Considering that the horsemen are around level 60, you're not supposed to defeat them at this point. And for ones such as the White Rider, whose unavoidable attack does more damage than your max HP even while blocking, you literally cannot defeat them. However, there is an exception. The Black Rider's unavoidable attack does not instantly kill you if you block it. This makes him beatable even though you're very low level. Of course, he's only technically beatable. You're still obviously not supposed to beat him so early on. But if you wanna be a renegade like me and you're willing to fight a battle you're not supposed to win, read on and good luck.

---Boss: Fiend Black Rider---
My level: 11

You're not supposed to win this fight at such a low level, and it shows. The damage you do to Black Rider with your sword is pitiful. On the other hand, one solid hit from him and it's over for you. This is going to be a very long battle. It took me 45 minutes. Furthermore, Black Rider isn't frail to any of the elements, so that's out of the question. The consequence of this is that you WILL run out of MAG in this battle, and once you do, the only way to replenish it will be to rely solely on strikes while you let it naturally regenerate excruciatingly slowly.

Stock up on medicines before the fight. 10 should do it, but make it 20 just to be safe. And even more than that never hurt anyone.

Bring in the demon with the highest Ma you have. Have him set to attack Black Rider with any of the four basic elemental spells. This is the best way to damage him, because each spell should do around 50 damage. That's a lot compared to your sword and gun, which do like 1 damage.

So this demon's spell will be your big guns. However, don't just leave your demon unattended and let it do its own thing. Not only because it can easily set it up to get one-shotted by Black Rider, but also because MAG consumption is a serious problem throughout this fight, and you don't want your demon to miss. You have to make every spell count. This is why you should only have the demon with the highest Ma using a spell. Set the other demon to strike. You're going to be doing some serious babysitting throughout this fight when it comes to your demons. You should keep them hidden at all times and ONLY bring them out when it's absolutely 100% safe to attack.

That goes for you as well. Only attack Black Rider when it's 100% safe to do so. This only happens during two situations. First of all, when you see him cast Mudo. When you see that, that's your cue that Black Rider is about to go into a loop where he casts Mudo, teleports, casts it again, and does this about 5 times or so. This is one of the two situations where you and your demons can safely attack him. While he's readying the Mudo spell, run to his side with your demons, unhide them, and start slashing at him and let your main demon hit him with a spell ONCE (twice is too risky. It's likely to miss and that's wasted MAG. If you have your demon set to spamming the spell, hide them after it uses it so that it won't use it a second time). The Mudo should NEVER hit you if you're at Black Rider's side when he casts it. Also, if you're lucky, your sword strikes will cause him to flinch and you can get a second, sometimes even a third combo on him.

The second situation in which you can attack him safely is when he uses Begin Starvation. This move leaves him vulnerable for a long time if he misses with it, and he should. Every time. Unless you seriously screw up. No, really, you shouldn't get hit with this move even once. It's the easiest one to avoid, and getting hit by it is too devastating since it halves your MAG. The cue is pretty easy to see. Black Rider will teleport, and then not do anything at all for a second. Then he'll use Begin Starvation. But even if you don't see it, it's still very hard to get hit by it if you just keep moving at all time. In any case, when you see him doing that attack, that's the cue that tells you he's about to go into a loop where he uses Begin Starvation, teleports, then does it again and repeats this about 5 times or so. What you're supposed to do is avoid it by running, and while he's in the middle of the move, run up to his side, or preferably his backside, unhide your demons, and start slashing him before he finishes using the move and keep on attacking him during the recovery (though, again, only permit your main demon to use its spell once). Make sure your demons are very close to Black Rider before you unhide them if you're going to attack him while Begin Starvation is still onscreen, because if they're not, there's a small chance that the demon set to strike will stupidly waltz right in front of Black Rider and get killed.

Anyway, those are the two situations which are most beneficial to you. However, Black Rider has some other attacks. Attacks which are not as beneficial to you. His two physical attacks are extremely dangerous. His strike has a VERY short cue and is quite deadly. However, you should never be close to him if he's not using Mudo or Begin Starvation, so you should never get hit by this. If you see him teleport near you, roll away immediately just in case he's about to use his strike. The other physical attack he has is Mad Rush, and this one is even more deadly. It has a longer cue than the strike. You shouldn't be near him when he's readying it. To avoid Mad Rush, simply run to the side or roll to the side before he uses it. Remember that when you see him use either of these two physical attacks, that's your cue that he's about to go into a loop where he keeps doing physical attacks about 10 times or so. Just something to keep in mind. Slashing him during this process is NOT safe. Don't try it. And keep your demons hidden. If you want to damage him a little during this, you can shoot him with your gun after he whiffs every strike and Mad Rush. You should get about 7 damage per clip. If you do it right. But be careful.

Finally, Black Rider's arena-encompassing attack is Soul Balance. This attack has a very long and obvious cue in that you get a message saying "Black Rider is preparing for something." Soul Balance takes off half your HP if you block it. However, you can also get off scot free from it! When you see the message that Black Rider is preparing for something, don't stay grounded in place. Rather run just a little bit in any direction and THEN go into block stance. There's a good chance that Soul Balance will miss you completely. There's also a chance that it'll hit you anyway though, but don't worry. Just heal yourself afterwards.

Speaking of healing, use medicines for your healing purposes. Never use Dia unless you absolutely have to. Remember that MAG is a serious problem in this fight, and you want to use as much of that MAG as possible to damage Black Rider.

Also, Black Rider uses Luck Roulette of the Dragon regularly throughout the fight to confer a variety of bad luck effects on you. These can range from pretty bad (Raidou's attacks will whiff, and cannot use items), to somewhat bad (Enemies hate you, demons may get lost), to virtually inconsequential (order sealed). Just deal with it. There's nothing you can do about it anyway. Remember that when Black Rider is angry at you, he won't flinch, and his attacks will do more damage so be careful. Also, don't summon a demon when demons may get lost is in effect. When cannot use items in effect, you'll have to rely on Dia. Which brings me to my next point:

You WILL run out of MAG in this fight. When you do, set both your demons to strike and switch to damaging Black Rider with only physical attacks while your MAG very slowly recuperates. However, just in case cannot use items comes up on the luck roulette of the dragon, stop using magic attacks when you're down to about 20 MAG or so. This gives you the opportunity to be able to use Dia a couple times if you have to heal when you can't use items.

Well, that's about it. It'll be a long and arduous fight, but if you follow this strategy you'll wittle him down eventually. After the battle, he gives you so much exp that I went from level 11 to level 17. I really didn't want that much exp, but oh well.

---

Anyway, now that we've kicked Black Rider's ass, let's take care of that ghost car. Head over to the place where you fought Inugami. You remember where that is, don't you? 'course you do. Head north from there until you hear an engine sound. Then you'll be thrust into combat.

---Boss: Volt Rumored Oboroguruma---
My level: 17

This guy isn't too strong, but you're on a 3 minute timer, so you have to do a lot of damage to him and kill him before time runs out. He's frail to wind, so what you want to do is have two demons who know Zan (or even better, Mazan) constantly using it on him. If you want to have even more chances to frail stun him, throw Wind Sword into the mix. Remember, Poltergeist learns that if you level it up once. If you're at least level 13, you can fuse an Obariyon and a Sandman to form a Wind Moh Shuvuu. This is a pretty nice demon to have for this fight because not only does she have Zan, but she absorbs Oboroguruma's electric attacks, giving you extra MAG with which to unleash your attacks!

Oboroguruma only has two attacks: Mazio, and a rush attack. If you have Moh Shuvuu, just block the Mazio when you see the cue, but don't hide your demons so that she can drain it and give you extra MAG. Don't worry about the other demon dying. Getting MAG is more important. If you don't have a demon who can absorb Mazio, then go ahead and hide them.

Stay on Oboroguruma's face so that he's more inclined to attack you and leaves your demons free to spam him with Zan. Keep your finger on the block button and combo him once immediately after he uses an attack during his recovery. This will usually cause him to go into frail stun and you can get some more hits on him and replenish your MAG. Once he recovers from stun, go back to blocking because he's about to attack.

Keep doing this and he should go down before the 3 minutes are up.

---

Welp, now that that's taken care of, it's time to get back to the main adventure. Go back to Shin Sekai and see what Tae has to say. Ask her about Tatsumi. She says she has questions too, and "ladies first". Wait a minute, aren't you supposed to be all about sexual equality and all that shit? Haha, feminists advocating equality only when it benefits them, just like in real life! Well played, Atlus. Anyway, looks like people are being spirited away at Mannen-Cho. Ask her about it. She says Tatsumi's disappeared but hasn't left Mannen-Cho. We know why. Leave Shin Sekai. You will encounter the blonde young man. Just in case Tae's clues weren't obvious enough for you, he comes and spells it out that Tatsumi's in Dark Mannen-Cho. Thanks man, we totally didn't know that. If you walk back into Shin Sekai you'll find the blonde man there. He doesn't say anything special but it's interesting that he decided to go hang out there rather than just disappear. In any case, we're going to the dark realm now.

Searching for Tatsumi at Dark Mannen-Cho

Items:
-Arashi Sake (hidden!)
-Balm of Life
-Jin Dan
-Amethyst
-Medicine
-Anti-Mind
-Turquoise
-Asuka Mirror
-Bead

Demons:
-Wind Poltergeist
-Pyro Enku
-Fury Slime
-Volt Agathion
-Wind Angel
-Skill Pixie
-Pyro Onmoraki
-Volt Koropokkur
-Fury Obariyon
-Fury Nezha
-Pagan Sandman

Right off the bat you'll see a save point. Use it. Walk west and you'll immediately encounter Tatsumi. Well that was easy. Except he'll use his luck to summon some gimp Pretas and throw them at you. The Preta Forms are stronger than regular ones, but they're still Pretas. Use either fire skills or electric skills and you should have no problem at all dispatching them.

Afterwards Tatsumi runs away. What a pussy. Anyway, walk north from right where you're standing after this and you'll go into a house. At first there seems to be nothing here, but call out a volt order demon and use its inspect ability! You'll find a hidden item in the same place where you found one in Mannen-Cho. It's an Arashi Sake. Get back out into the street and continue walking west. The next house to the north has nothing in it, but the one to the south does. Go in, and go through it out into the backyard with a well. Send a frost order demon into the well, and you'll obtain a Balm of Life. Nice.

Go back out into the street. The next house to the north has a dude in it, but if you keep going past him and go through the door north of him, you'll find a blue crystal inside. It has a Jin Dan. Get out and keep going west. You'll find yet another dude and a blue crystal nearby. But the crystal's behind a dragon's jaw so you can't get it right now. We'll get there later. You can get inside the house right beside the man, but there's nothing there. Same goes for the one directly above that. Keep walking north and you'll run into Tatsumi again. He'll summon his Preta Forms and you'll have to fight again. Take care of them the same way you did last time. This time he also brings out an Enku Form. Use ice attacks against it. After you've dealt with these easy enemies Tatsumi will run away again. What a pussy.

Moving on, dragon's jaws don't let you progress either north or west through the northermost house. To the east you'll see a well. Send a frost order demon down it and it'll come back with an Amethyst. You'll see an Angel and a wind current. You'll need to use a Wind order demon's kamikaze skill on the wind current in order to advance. Don't worry about the house south of the angel. There's nothing there. Anyway, you'll be blown away to the gambling parlor. What I'd like to know is how you went through the fucking roof. There's another sap here. Talk to him and read his mind. Go out east and you'll find another save point. Go ahead and use it, then keep moving east out into the street. Go into the house on the right side and you'll find a blue crystal with a medicine inside it.

Head back out and go north, then left at the fork. An Enku Form and Preta Forms will appear. They're still as weak as ever, so just end their misery. Technically there's also a Nezha in there, but it's weak too.

During your stay in this dungeon, you're likely to run into the next horseman of the apocalypse. If you defeated Black Rider earlier, then you are probably strong enough to take on the next one. Mind you, you're not supposed to, but you can win if you really want to. I ran into Red Rider here and defeated him, netting myself 2 levels. If you want to see the strategy for defeating him, check out the 4 horsemen section.

In any case, keep going past the place where you fought those Preta/Enku Forms and you'll see a save point in the distance. You can't get to it yet though since there's a dragon's jaw blocking the way. Go east past the hypocrite's house. You'll find a lone Onmoraki here. He's in possession of an issue of Demon's Digest! Ask him for permission to read a few articles. There's nothing there we don't already know but it's fun to read. Keep walking east past the next house and you'll find a wind current. Before using it, though, head south to find the blue crystal we couldn't get to earlier because of the dragon's jaw. It has an Anti-Mind. Go back to the wind current and use kamikaze on it to get blown elsewhere.

Head north and go up the ladder to the roof where you once cornered Tatsumi in the real world. Jump to the other house's roof to get a blue crystal with a Turquoise in it, then go back. West of where you ended up after jumping into this area is a wind current that takes you back to the start of the dungeon. We don't really need it. Go back and this time go south. Past a poltergeist is a strength wall. You'll need a fury order demon to destroy it. If you don't have one just walk around this area and get into battles, you should eventually get into a fight with an Obariyon and you can recruit it for this purpose.

Past the rock wall is a save point and Victor's fake maid. He's here to tell you that Victor now has Sword Alchemy available at the Gouma-Den! Excellent! Visit the Gouma-Den right now and make the strongest weapon you can. Generally speaking I'd recommend going with sword types since sword type skills are the most common, but it's up to you. Spears don't seem all that great, and axes are the strongest type if you don't count skills. Chances are you'll only be able to make a Bizen-Osafune. The costs for sword alchemy are obscene. This is why you shouldn't waste money on stuff like Nakisawame or items.

Once you're done keep going. You'll run into a hungry Preta Form. It'll ask you if you don't care about a stranger like him starving. Let's be honest here, people. Regarding this guy starving my care meter is: | That's right, it's just a line. Anyway right before you can kick this guy's ass you slip on a banana peel. Bullshit man. But nah, turns out this Preta Form is Osamu. The croquette he steals from you reminds him of his son and he returns to human form.

Anyway, after the cutscene keep walking north and-... what is this shit?! I just killed Red Rider and already the next one wants a piece of me? Jesus. Take it easy you guys. There's enough of me to go around. But yeah. If you've defeated Black Rider and Red Rider like me, you might be able to take on White Rider. Check out the four horsemen section if you want to kill him now.

Anyway, like I was saying before I was RUDELY interrupted... keep walking north, then take a left and you'll find another wind current. Kamikaze on it to get blown even nearer to Tatsumi's location. There's a dragon's jaw blocking our way south, so head the opposite way to find the last blue crystal which houses an Asuka Mirror. You'll see a ladder nearby. Before going up it, though, go past the blue crystal to find another one o' those wells. Send a frost order demon down it to get a Bead. Not bad. Go up the ladder I mentioned earlier, walk down the roof and go down the ladder at the south end. To the right is Nakisawame, who we don't need, and to the right is a dragon cave and just past it Tatsumi. Save your game.

After coming out of the closet and admitting to being a flaming homosexual, Tatsumi gives himself up. Except then you slip on a banana peel. NEW AND ORIGINAL. But then Binbou-Gami appears. He is weakened by Tatsumi's ungodly luck and becomes beatable. Let's do this.

---Boss: Fiend Binbou-Gami---
My level: 22

After dealing with 3 of the 4 horsemen, this guy isn't much of a challenge. He's frail to fire so bring in demons who know Agi, or better yet, Maragi. Ukobach is an easy choice as he comes with Maragi so you can deploy him into this battle immediately after creating him. No need to worry so much though. Seriously, Binbou-Gami is a complete pussy compared to real fiends. Even getting hit by his attacks cleanly without blocking isn't anything worth talking about. Still, no reason to take his attacks. Stand close to him and block while letting both of your demons spam him with Agi/Maragi. You can go ahead and combo him after blocking one of his physical attacks, and this will increase the chances of him going into frail stun.

He also has an annoy tactic (I told you this guy was a pussy) wherein he keeps teleporting all over the place laughing it up. Really not much you can do here other than wait for it to end or let your demons keep using their skills and hope he teleports near you just as one of your demons casts Maragi. Every once in a blue moon he'll cast Mabufu, but I dunno what he hopes to accomplish with it, as the casting time is far too big. Just hide your demons and roll out of the way, or just block it. MAG also isn't a problem since this guy is like a fuckin' MAG factory.

After you get his HP down to half he'll start using his special attack. First off he'll summon a bunch of clouds that throw coins at you. As long as you're not beneath a shadow you shouldn't get hit. There are a lot of good spots to stand in so you don't get hit. I chose the south part border of the arena and just slightly to the right. After that he'll summon some razor wheels. Actually I dunno what they are. They might not have any razors. They're probably some japanese... things. Anyway! These wheels will barrel horizontally through the arena and also go from north to south. Wait until the one closest to you goes past, then immediately roll up to avoid the next one just like I do in the video. Finally a huge coin will fall on top of the arena and smash everything. You have to run to the very center of the arena before it falls and stand in the lit up square to avoid it. Easy.

Lastly, as a last ditch effort he'll try to use Pulinpa. Again, I dunno what he's trying to accomplish with this. The cue is huge, so getting hit with it is pretty hard. As soon as you see him casting it, hide your demons and get away or they'll get confused.

---

Afterwards the dark aura around Mannen-Cho disappears. Confront Tatsumi and ask him about the insect. Tell him who you are and he'll get all scared. Ask him about the masked men and he'll explain that they gave him an insect that can steal people's luck. He'll also mention that "he" was there when they gave him the insect. Show him Dahn's photograph and he'll admit it was Dahn. Then he'll get even more scared because he wasn't supposed to blab and beg you to protect him. Now, I know what you're thinking. Help this assmonger? Fuck 'im. And I agree. Unfortunately you're forced to help him. If you choose not to help him he'll just ask the question again. Just before he's about to completely spill the beans on Dahn's identity though, he dies/disappears. Oh well. At least now we ain't gotta help him.

Second Investigational Meeting at the Narumi Detective Agency

Narumi somehow manages to put together the insect cage with his super powers. Then he calls for the next investigational meeting! Remember that you can decline and save your game before you do it. Which is, uh, marginally useful. Also, remember that if you negotiated with a lot of demons during your foray into Dark Mannen-Cho, you likely got at least one new sidequest. So you can also check your case files during this interlude and see what up dog.

So after you're done with your thangs, get that meeting started. What I love about this second meeting is that unlike the last one, you can get some funny dialogue if you choose the obviously wrong answers. Like if you choose croquette on the first one Narumi goes "Man alive, now you're making me hungry." Haha, so go ahead and choose the two wrong answers. After that the meeting comes to a close. Shortest meeting ever! Afterwards Narumi drops the Tsukigata name. Looks like we're goin' places.

That concludes the first chapter. Fin!

Previous: Prologue | Next: Chapter 2: Assassin's Bloodline

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