Astonishia Story-Addendum: The final showdown (SPOILERS!)

Here we are, back for more 8-bit-lite scrumptiousness. Astonishia Story’s final boss battle deserves a bit more exposure, especially on the strategic side. It can be a tough nut to crack: as I mentioned in my main post, I needed no less than five tries before I finally managed to eradicate this boss duo, and the whole ordeal was so painfully hard and unfair that I seriously contemplated giving up on that final fight and moving on to another game. My desire to quit was further fueled by a misconception that runs rampant on the internet—which I will address and dismantle for good, for it deserves to be buried forever. Despite seemingly having all odds against me, the idea of quitting so close to the end was so dispiriting that I decided to forge ahead until I succeeded—or got the unequivocal, painful confirmation that I couldn’t succeed. In other words, slaughter the bosses or die tryin’. 

So, here we go! We have two bosses to slaughter, but this is in fact a four-act fight. The preliminary phases are at least as important as the fight itself, if not more, so let’s start with them. 

Act 1: Preparations

It’s absolutely crucial to be well-prepared for that final boss fight. It’s so crucial, in fact, that neglecting the necessary preparations will unavoidably lead to a stinging defeat—which is not pleasant, especially if it happens after thirty minutes of arduous fighting. Tried and tested, folks. 

First, let’s talk about levels. There is no mandatory level to beat the bosses like in your traditional 8-bit RPG (think Ys, in which a couple of extra levels would allow you to slaughter easily a boss that previously beat you to a pulp), which is quite ironic given the heavy 8-bit flavour of AS. The very few FAQs available advise a solid Lv. 25, which is the maximum attainable level; however, it’s perfectly possible to tackle that final fight with a slightly weaker team. By the time I reached the bosses, my party members’ levels ranged from Lv.20 to Lv.23 only, but that didn’t hinder me the slightest. The five unsuccessful attempts that I mentioned above were only due to bad luck and strategic adjustments, all matters that I will cover later in this addendum. 

Let’s move on to the equipment. It’s highly recommended to have the sturdiest armours available, as well as the strongest weapons. The game puts you at such a high disadvantage with your foes in this final fight that any modicum of strength is good to take, even though it won’t massively bend the odds in your favour. 

Last but not least are the items. They are clearly the most important part of the preparations, and the most vital of them are the MP-restoring items. The reason is simple: you will need metric piles of MP in that final fight—so much so that you will spend much, much more time replenishing your MP than your health. Yeah, it’s that bad. For a smooth run, I would advocate stocking up on Super Ultra Potions—at least a good 30 of them, and up to 50 if you really want to play it safe. Grilled Eels and Magic Potions can obviously be used too, but they restore so little MP that resorting to them will drag on the fight endlessly. As for the HP-restoring items, 30 King’s Lunch Boxes should be more than enough to cover your needs, especially if you also own less nutritious items such as Meatloaves or Grilled Eels. Having a dozen of Seeds of Life cannot hurt either: resorting to them to revive dead characters instead of using Ylenne’s or Jenas’ reviving spells allows you to save your precious MPs for the eradication of the bosses. Last but not least are two items that could seem minor but are actually tremendously useful in the context of that final fight: the Red Pepper Powder and the Smoke Shell. The first will grant your attacks a welcome boost and thus shorten the fight, while the second will allow you to flee without fail from any random encounter in the final dungeon and thus avoid wasting some precious MP-restoring items on your way to the bosses’ lair. A good 30 of each should be more than enough to assure you a smooth ride. And since the final dungeon that I just mentioned happens to be the second preliminary act of the final boss fight, let’s move on to it with no delay!

Act 2: Fort Ganberg

Fort Ganberg is quite a pleasant place at first sight, with its beautiful purple walls and coppery floors full of antic solemnity and its soothing music. But don’t let that beauty lull you: this is actually a nasty place that can be tricky to navigate, and you will need all your vigilance to make it safely through that antechamber of doom. 

As you’d rightfully expect from a final dungeon, Fort Ganberg is the longest dungeon in the game. It’s not labyrinthine to the point of being nightmarish, though, which is quite a good thing. The difficulty of that dungeon stems rather from the fact that it pits you against annoyingly strong field enemies that are considerably faster or stronger than your party members and/or immune to a vast range of elemental attacks. The encounter rate is fortunately not higher than in any other dungeon, but these random encounters may still be a serious annoyance and considerably slow down your progression as well as deplete your precious stock of MP and HP-restoring items. This is where the Smoke Shell that I mentioned earlier reveals its full potential by conveniently allowing you to skip any unwanted battle. 

Some battles are mandatory, though: Fort Ganberg throws no less than five sub-bosses at your face, which is probably the highest number of these pests that I’ve ever seen in an RPG. These bosses are not particularly tough and shouldn’t be too much of a challenge; however, once again, they pose a threat to your precious stock of healing items. A good way to circumvent that inconvenience is to use the aforementioned Red Pepper Powder to clear these battles faster and use less restoring items. Of course, an even larger stock of restoring items can also do the trick; but at any rate, parsimony regarding the use of these precious items is the key. 

Last but not least, Fort Ganberg has an old-school puzzle in store for you. To open the door to Brimhild’s chamber on the 3^rd floor, you need to visit the library first and probe all the bookshelves in a counterclockwise motion in order to find and read seven chronicles. Once this is done, a sub-boss fight will take place, after which you can proceed to the final fight. It’s time for the epic showdown, folks! 

Act 3: Brimhild

The magnificent and fearless Queen of Elves is a powerful foe that must not be taken lightly. After a bit of exposition, the fight per se will start, pitting you against Brimhild and four of her cronies. Despite being only the first half of the final showdown, this fight against Brimhild is actually the trickiest part of it; and it is so because luck plays a major part in it. This luck factor boils down to a specific attack wielded by the Queen, namely the potent Meteor Attack, which can kill your party members in one single shot. This spell has an uncomfortably wide range, and if Brimhild decides to march on your party and cast it, it’s death time. She doesn’t use it too often, however, so it’s worth taking the risk to approach her and pummel her to death with close range attacks. 

The best strategy for that fight is to concentrate first on Brimhild’s cronies and take them down with long-range attacks. They are particularly weak to Jenas’ Lightning Harken, so it may be a good tactic to devote the young Elf lady solely to the eradication of these meaner foes while the rest of your party gang up on Brimhild. The Queen herself has no major elemental weaknesses, so it’s really a matter of patiently wearing her down and eating away her HP bar while praying that she will not use Meteor Attack. Using some Red Pepper Powder will speed up her demise and lower her chances to do so, so don’t hesitate to resort to it. If you’re out of luck that day and if she does cast the deadly spell after all, chances are high that every party member involved will be eradicated on the spot. If only one or two characters are killed, you can afford to leave them dead and concentrate on Brimhild in order to neutralize her before she can get a chance to cast another Meteor Attack. A couple of dead party members are acceptable casualties for that fight, given that you’ll be given all the time you need to heal them when the second half of the final fight unrolls. And since I’m mentioning this…

Final Act: Kaisirak

This is the home straight, the last obstacle between you and the happy ending. Kaisirak may not look that terrifying at first sight: it’s stuck in place on the upper middle part of the screen and never moves from there, and it only has two attacks. However, the potent efficiency of these attacks makes up for their small number: one of them is 1^st Barrier, which allows the already resistant white dragon to become even more immune to our pathetically weak attacks, and the other is… Heck, you guessed it: it’s the dreaded Meteor Attack. There is simply no way to escape the deadly spell in this fight, which forces you to adopt a completely different strategy. Beating Kaisirak is entirely a matter of range: you must position your characters at a specific spot so that they can be both close enough to use their attacks and far enough to stay out of the Meteor Attack’s range. This is easier said than done, as we’ll see soon.

But before we move further, I have to dispel a serious misconception about that fight, namely the notion that Ylenne’s Hell Fire spell is mandatory to beat Kaisirak. This is simply not true at all. Hell Fire is a hidden bonus spell that has the widest range of all attacks and can cover the whole screen, which makes it tremendously useful against Kaisirak. However, that spell can be found only at the Mage Academy, a place that becomes unreachable in the latter stages of the game. Hell Fire is thus a ‘lost forever’ item that can easily be missed, and to make such a hidden spell mandatory to beat the last boss would be a shocking case of fake difficulty harkening back to the old ’80s adventure games that no game would dare endorse nowadays—not even a shameless 8-bit pastiche like Astonishia Story. 

So indeed, Hell Fire is not mandatory to annihilate Kaisirak. If you don’t have it, three other long-range spells can replace it perfectly: Rudoug’s Chi Attack, Jenas’ Lightning Harken and Ylenne’s Pyra Storm. The safe—and sole— way to proceed is to position these three characters so that their respective spells will just barely reach Kaisirak. Finding the right spot can require some tinkering, but once you find it, you’re on safe ground: you will be just far enough not to be caught in the blazing fury of the Meteor Attack and just close enough to cast your spells. The involved area is quite small, so you must proceed with the uttermost caution: move one square too close to Kaisirak and it will unleash a deadly Meteor Attack on your defenseless characters in retribution for your recklessness.  

With that misconception debunked, here’s a quick strategy walkthrough. You start the fight quite far from Kaisirak, which gives you the opportunity to heal your party and revive fallen characters if necessary. Don’t bother healing Lloyd or Rendalf, though: they don’t play a crucial part in that fight, and it’s actually better to have them dead in order to speed up things. (Akra is not part of that final fight for reasons that I won’t spoil here.) Then, move your party to the middle part of the arena and start crawling carefully upwards while trying to cast spells in order to find the perfect spot to stand on. Do not try to approach Kaisirak from the sides: the Meteor Attack’s horizontal range is much wider than its vertical range, which will lead your party to an unavoidable death. Once you’ve found the correct spot under Kaisirak, take some Red Pepper Powder and start unleashing your spells. You can let Lloyd and Rendalf move closer to Kaisirak and pound it at close range until they are annihilated by the inevitable Meteor Attack; when that happens, don’t make the fatal mistake of trying to revive them and keep attacking at long range from your place of safety. From that point on, it’s just a matter of patience: use some Red Pepper Powder to boost your attacks and replenish your MP when necessary, and you will slowly but surely wear down Kaisirak and ultimately defeat it. Well done, you!

These will be my final words on Astonishia Story. I really loved that game, and I’m certainly going to replay it again sooner or later, especially after having sweated blood to figure out how to emerge victorious from that final showdown. At any rate, I hope this addendum came in handy. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!