Game:

Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon X (2010)

Duration: 5:28

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7

-No damage
-No Items
-Unknown

As boring as this fight is, this is the first fight in some time that had me sitting on the edge of my chair, and I honestly didn't expect that sort of thing at this point in the run. Frickin' Undine...If you don't have the convenience to throw onion rings as Momo and can't do much in the combo department, getting close as the Trouvère becomes ugly pretty damn fast.

Where to begin...The Trouvère costume has four Artes that deal damage. Gohouren deals two hits in quick succession, but leaves Mel open afterwards due to its healing effect. Amatsuhen packs quite a punch and hits twice, though the hitboxes are rather strict since they're located at the tip of the staff / mic stand. The latter also goes for Keisai which only hits once and has a chance of inflicting the slow ailment on your enemies. Finally, the only Arcane Arte Gorinsai Uranori unleashes a nice little combo on the enemy and has the lightning attribute, coming in handy against Undine.

The good thing about these four moves is that some of them combo nicely into each other; Amatsuhen, Keisai and Gorinsai Uranori allow for some good damage output. The bad thing is that after Undine goes below 50% HP, her idle time gets so ridiculously low that almost everything exceeding one single Arte becomes risky as fuck. Heck, Gorinsai Uranori is already risky by default; if you use it without doing a backstep after the Arte ends and Undine decides to use her shield move or the attack where she hits you with the hilt of her sword, you WILL get hit. And if she does not use one of those two moves, you basically need to prepared for a spell by jumping backwards right after the backstep, with Ice needles and Aqua Cannon (?) being two nasty possibilities. While above 50%, this is perfectly dodgeable in 100% of all cases; below, Undine gets this condescending Arte that makes her shoot three consecutive waves of water at you by snipping her fingers. If she uses that after Gorinsai Uranori, you're screwed, so that move becomes very unsafe. That's why the greatest portion of the fight consists of a hit'n'run strategy with me trying to be prepared for all the possible shit she can throw at you. It's not that difficult on first sight, but if you can only safely land one hit / Arte after most of her moves, you see how this gets funny.

Aside from the offensive means, the Trouvère also has some status dances, but unfortunately, they are rather impractical here. For all the offensive ones that can inflict status ailments like Seal, Paralyze, or Sleep, you need to be near the enemy for them to work, and even if you get extremely lucky and Undine decides to stand right next to you checking out your mic stand for god-knows-how-long, she will interrupt you in almost all cases. Plus, there's a good chance of them not working at all. Kageashi Rhythm increases Mel's own movement speed and works anywhere on the field. This makes it more likely to work, but it's still never (!) guaranteed to be free from interruptions. On top of that, I don't even find the speed boost advantageous for this costume; as mentioned before, some hitboxes are rather finicky, and since speed / agility manipulation alters how hitboxes work, I find spacing the Artes more difficult with the speed increase. And to dodge Undine's onslaughts, you don't even need it, so...

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