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It's time for Hikari's penultimate chapter on his journey to restore the Kingdom of Ku to nobility. Or is he bringing a sense of noble purpose to the place for the first time in its history? Accounts probably differ. In any case, he's our hero, and we're cheering on him, and hoping that childhood friend and erstwhile ally Rai Mei will happily help out in distant Stormhail.
Naturally, things don't go entirely as planned. Or even halfway. We'll guide you through Hikari's final 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Octopath Traveler 2 challenge on the road before the road to Ku. Tip: bring a coat.
Town Phase: Stormhail
If you've been to Stormhail previously, you may have noticed that it was formerly impossible to cross the bridge in its northern screen. There were barricades set up to block player travel toward Castle Mei, even if you've done all of Temenos' story here. Those barricades are now gone from this point forward in the game.
Naturally, our destination is thus the bridge. Spend some time healing and picking the party you'll favor for an upcoming dungeon before you head there, because though the chapter is flashback-heavy and laden with plenty of cutscenes, the actual gameplay portions will go rather swiftly from hereon out, dropping you straight into a dungeon situation not long after.
When you're ready, head to the north screen, and veer east in an attempt to cross the bridge. Hikari will request an audience with Rai Mei, but Kunzo, her loyal liege, will instead challenge him to battle. He's weak to Daggers, Axes, and Lightning, with five Shield Points and not a ton of HP. Focus on him, wailing with whatever you've got. He's hardly a full-fledged boss, though he'll take several rounds to bring down.
Taking down Kunzo doesn't do as much to alleviate Hikari's precarious position as he had hoped. Rai Mei blasts the bridge with her awe-inspiring power, but rather than our hero's tale ending in ignominy, we'll soon find that he's been imprisoned. Kunzo will be more keen on hearing Hikari's proposal than his mistress, it seems. For now, it's flashback time.
Flashback Phase: Ku Castle
Not only will these scenes serve the purpose of establishing more about Hikari and Rai Mei's shared past, but there's a neat little narrative trick; Hikari is going to learn his first and most prominently displayed Learned Skill from Rai Mei's father, Jin Mei, during a playable battle here. You'll need to use Path Action 'Challenge' to formally duel the man.
Jin Mei is merely weak to Swords and Polearms, both of which you'll have access to as young Hikari. Just thwack him thrice whilst building BP. You'll recognize his Hachimonjigiri skill, as it will soon be yours. Repeat this process a few times to finish the fight.
Dungeon Phase: Castle Mei
Castle Mei is split, broadly, into two major screens: the first screen followed by East Tower. You're traveling in a near-entirely linear route in both, though East Tower will sometimes obscure you - and treasure chests - a bit more dubiously through clever tricks of wall placement and heavy snows.
While we won't dedicate a ton of text to this as it follows the Octopath norm of not being a complicated maze by any stretch of the imagination, we will say the experience gains here are pretty substantial. Locating a save point and running around during nighttime with 'Blessing of Darkness' from Throné here gave us multiple level-ups wit𝐆hin a half an hour.
You'll likely note from our screenshots at times that we never exactly struggled with leveling. But we maintained a secondary file with lower levels to check the relative challenge of hte game's boss battles, and this was one of the few spots we found ourselves happily grinding to keep up.
Boss Phase: Rai Mei
Rai Mei comes with two Clan Mei Swordsmen, both of whom we strongly suggest you destroy ASAP. Rai Mei's Shield Points cannot be shattered while they're around. She may summon more as the battle goes on; we're not certain, but we're looking into it. In any case, there's no room to make this fight ten times as tough trying to eliminate the main target without breaking her.
The Swordsmen are weak to Polearms, Bows, Fire, and Darkness. Unload on them with Osvald's multi-target Fire spell if you've got it. With them out of the way, note that Rai Mei's weaknesses include Daggers, Wind, Ice, and Darkness, but they'll shift to Swords, Polearms, Fire, and Light at multiple points. Rai Mei switches between these two separate sets of weaknesses at will.
This is a curse but also a blessing. It means you won't need as specific a party to lower her Shield Points throughout the fight. It also means, of course, that you'll need to be on your toes about it. When her health is low, Rai Mei's number of attacks per round will increase, so swap your own strategy to accommodate this issue with moves like Hunter's 'Leg Trap' and Hikari's own 'Vengeful Blade'. Start conserving BP to unleash more mass𒆙ive blows on her.