Trails To Azure (Geofront Patch): Final Boss+Ending

Nightmare First Playthrough
Setups shown in the beginning and explained below.
Note: I did end up swapping one of the Passionate Rogues out on Randy for True Gladiator Belt because the Mariabell fight takes too long without it.

From Zero to Azure, the journey ends.
I've been putting off recording this for a long time (a year! How time flies!) and for good reason. This was a beast of a video to record and splice together. I wish I had done this shortly after beating the game like I did with Zero; I felt proud for solving each of these fights then and my run of them would have definitely been cleaner with the game being fresher. I say 'solving' because each of these 3 final battles on this difficulty presents its own unique problem that has to be tackled right. The fights are very deliberate in their challenge, which is somewhat problematic in that nothing else in the game is remotely so demanding, save for winning Sigmund's timed fight but that's optional. However, it does make the final boss truly unforgettable and I think the feeling you get of overcoming the barrier this fight presents is worth the polarizing jump in difficulty.

With Zero getting an official release in a couple months and Azure coming next year, I hope more people come to enjoy this duology. Enormous thanks to Falcom for making this great game in the first place and to the Geofront team for both the translation and for making an XSEED quality release of it.
To be continued...into Reverie.




Timestamps & Strategy

20:27 Mariabell: Having good sources of physical and artes damage is important in these fights specifically because of this boss. On my first run, what had become my standard party of Elie, Lloyd, Tio, and Wazy got stonewalled because it was so ATS dependent. Mariabell has high magic resistance, high speed, summons a shitton of adds that will make a mess of the already unconventional battlefield, and can shuffle your position. So, Randy comes off the bench to complete the classic SSS roster. He has one job in this fight and one job only, nuke the hell out of the opposition with Berserker, war cry, and do it again. You want to maximize his STR with Force, Ruby Gem, and a Passionate Rogue and to give him the True Gladiator Belt to get to 200CP more readily. Use Stamina Steak or your casters to buff his STR and SPD and keep him healthy (unlike what I did where I still attempted offensive casting, which, when buffed, does OKAY damage but nothing compared to what Randy can dish). Also, deploy Zero Field earlier than I did (thankfully they made her S craft survivable since it attacks the entire field). Giving Lloyd Axe lets him contribute on the physical side with crit damage and allows you to use its master arte to boost Randy's damage even more, though it does make him a sitting duck as casting negates evasion. A good strategy is to use it, S-break with Randy, then S-break with Lloyd to cancel his casting. Mariabell and her summons have little to pierce Lloyd's evasion here so him taking aggro is ideal. Aura Rain 2 is your panic button if things go south.

40:42 Azure Demiourgos Phase 1: The Azure Arbitrator. In this phase, its health is relatively low, but that's because if any of its minions are left alive it will turn back time and heal itself proportional to the number that survived, respawn them, and repeat the process. So the minions have to be killed before it can. Once you figure this out, winning isn't too difficult. Abuse raging spin and crash bomb and follow with S Crafts. Note: The minions will recast their barriers if you don't kill them quickly and if they get a turn on low health they'll be absorbed which will cause the boss to turn back time when their HP drops to 0. Unfortunate that Berserker came JUST short of wiping all 4, but it does show that effect off.

51:46 Azure Demiourgos Phase 2: Used too many items on my first run, hence the cut. So, you have 4 new summons to deal with, the boss instantly vanishes you if you deal too much damage to it at once, and each of its moves are wide-hitting, high dmg AOEs, how do you win this? Well, there is one move it has that isn't so deadly. If anyone is casting during its turn, Demiourgos will spend its turn canceling your artes instead of actually attacking. As long as you have an accessory that blocks mute, you can split your casters apart and still get your spells off since it can only cancel a set radius while neutering its arsenal. Learning this method of manipulating the AI was so gratifying, like a good SMT3 or DDS boss. Also, getting vanished can be worth the burst damage of a buffed S Craft. Sometimes it will cast Argent Ark, which is why the party wide A-Reflect can be useful for massive return damage that it can't vanish counter. Sadly, it didn't happen here. As the background gets red it's preparing a move that will full vanish your party and instantly end the fight, when that happens that's your cue to pop burst and put an end to the azure deity.