Current Progress: Check page 2 for my progress.

Shinjuku Medical Center I just got past all the stuff you have to do alone anyway, so I'm starting here. I met up with the pixie and put her in my stock so she's not in any fights. Not going to touch her at all for healing or anything. I would drop her off, but without her it would be impossible to get through the 5th Kalpa has you need another demon to open the door. I'll have to boost her str with Incense though since I'm not allowed to use her in battle. I already took down the three pretas with the access card alone on the first try. I got lucky with some criticals, though. The first thing I'm going to do is get a few levels and build up some Agility and HP. I'm hanging around the first save point and the healing room so I'll have free healing right now. I'm going to use Marogareh to build up some strength when I level as well. There's a 1/8 chance of a Str up, I think. If I don't get it, I'll just use the load option from the menu and try again. Battles here are tough and I've already died more times than not because I'm getting attacked by groups of 4 at a time and I can only take 2 Feral Claw attacks before I go down. I've died roughly 10 times now. I'll start keeping track. Pretas keep getting first attack. 11. Leveled. Nevermind. Back attacked by Pretas. That's 12. 13. If an enemy fails his contact attempt, he should lose his turn like we players do. No, I refuse to give you a life stone. 14. Now I'm actually level 4. Saved and everything. I added to Ag again. 15. 16. 17.

Tokyo - Dec. 3, 2004 Ok, I'm outside now. Forneus was easy and I took him out on my first try. I was level 9 at the time. I went to save and then I died so I leveled once and killed him again. Did even better the second time. I just got to Yoyogi Park and I'm level 11 now. I did learn Ice Breath before I left, though.

Yoyogi Park - Dec. 3, 2004 When I arrived at Yoyogi Park, I decided to keep the fairy instead of trading her for the Ankh magatama just in case I need to use her to get through the 5th Kalpa. (there are doors there that are only openable with demons in your stock.) So, that means I'll need 6000 Macca (If I'm not mistaken) to purchase Ankh later on in the Ginza underpass.

Shibuya - Dec. 3, 2004 3:02 AM cst When I got to Shibuya, I had enough money from fighting and finding that I was able to purchase Shiranui for 9000 macca from Heeho, the Jack Frost. I purchased about 5 Medicines as well for a total of 1500 Macca. Then I gathered the treasure and talked to Chiaki at the club. In the process I learned Fire Breath, which is helping out more than Ice Breath around these parts. Ice Breath can freeze enemies, but that's kind of useless when I'm alone. Fire Breath is a bit stronger and I can get Fire Boost earlier than I can get Ice Boost, so it all works out. I'll fight some here for a few levels and enough Macca to purchase Iyomante (6000 Macca.) Oh and at my current power, Nekomatas take 4 hits to kill. I killed them before I purchased Iyomante, so they weren't terribly difficult, but if I were to do this again, I'd wait to kill them until after I got Iyomante. Lately I've been boosting my Agility in hopes of making myself harder to hit. It seems to be working. The greath thing is that I never miss with my normal attacks so I can always count on them. Breath attacks and Berserk very rarely miss and usually hit multiple times. Lunge still misses enough to make it unreliable, however. Lately, I stuck a few points in Luck. Hopefully I'll see more criticals in the future. I think more criticals and more dodges for more press turns would be good. Well, I'm off to the Amala Network.

Amala Network - Dec. 3, 2004 11:40 PM cst - 15 Hours Ah.. I'm somewhere in the Amala Network right now. I didn't think I'd have as much trouble with this place as I am having. I've been here for about 3 or so hours trying to get through this place. Specter is kicking my ass. Chorozon is a problem demon. Erthys and Aeros aren't so bad, though. I'me certainly glad I saved up and purchased Iyomante and Shiranui in Shibuya. I'd be even harder if I hadn't. I the moment I'm level 15 and I think I'm going to have to go up a few more levels before I can take on Specter.

Dec. 4, 2004 12:10 AM cst A good thing about being here is that the elementals/seirei drop 100 Macca each. It's better than anything else I've seen so far and they turn up very often. If fact, most battles are comprised of only elementals here. Erthys fall pretty quickly to my Fire Breath if they are alone. Otherwise Choronzon screws the whole thing up because he absorbs fire. Aeros are harder, but they use Marin Karin which is voided by Iyomante so that's good for me. They are still tough, especially when Erthys uses Raku-kaja on them. Choronzon's Stone Gaze doesn't hit too often, but when it does, it's game over. Unfortunately, I have no access to force magic, which would really help me out right now. I also found a Bead Chain recently and since they are not going to do anything better than a Bead for me, I'm going to pawn it off at the next shop for 5000 Macca.

Ginza - Dec. 4, 2004 2:40 AM cst - 17 Hours I finally beat Specter. Once I was able to get rid of one of his initial 6 small specters, he wasn't so much of a problem. I'll put more details of my fight with specter in the boss log when I get to it. I just made it to Ginza and I'm level 17 now. I'm going to go check out the place and see if there are any good items at Rag's. I left the Amala Network with over 15,000 Macca and several gems. :)

Great Underpass of Ginza - Dec. 4, 2004 11:45 PM cst - 20 Hours I'm here. I wrote a post at work but I forgot to send the .txt home. So.. I will add that one tomorrow. I will just say I'm at this place preparing to fight the Troll. Dec. 5, 2004 1:35 AM cst - 22 hours Ok, now that Troll is out of the way, it's on to Matador!! But first, I'm thinking I need to stock up on more Chakra Drops since I only have 4 left and I definitely need to get ahold of more healing. I have 5 Medicines and 3 Life Stones right now. I've also got 6 beads saved up, but those are for boss battles only. I've only got 8000 Macca right now.. that is a far cry from the 18000 I need for the last Magatama being sold here in the manekin hideout, but....! Troll dropped a bead chain and I'm sure there is another bead chain in a mystical chest around here somewhere. That's 10,000 Macca is sales. :) Well.. I'm off to Yoyogi Park to commit genocide on the pixies. Also, you can see the details of my troll battle on the boss page. Dec. 5, 2004 1:05 PM cst - 26 hours Now the moment I've been waiting for... Matador! Let's see how my first battle goes... (fight) Ok - I lost. That's not surprising, though. I didn't fare too poorly, but I'll definetely need to be stronger. I though I had him with War Cry, but he uses Dekunda. Oh well.

Ikebukuro - Dec. 7, 2004 5:20 PM cst - 34 hours And so, I finally beat Matador. There wasn't much too it, but I'm post the details in the Boss section later on. Previously, I did some leveling and spent a decent bit of time just fighting weak enemies for items such as Medicine and Life stone as well as the occassional Chakra Drop and Bead. It's something I had to do since buying a 1800 Macca Chakra Drop is out of the question. But I'm level 28 at this time and I'm about to move on to the Mantra Headquarters. I hope I don't have has much trouble there as I did here. Can you believe I've only gone up four levels in the past eight hours? Damn.

Mantra Headquarters - Dec. 9, 2004 1:10 AM cst - 47 hours Damn that Thor! I made it through the great underpass and into Ikebukuro and tried Thor's trial. He kicked my ass. Since I just got a candelabrum, I decided to hit the first kalpa instead of hanging around Mantra's HQ. I died a lot, but it was good experience and I found a good hang out spot. Good for XP and Macca. After a while I finished the Kalpa and tried to take on Thor again. A lost two or three times, but then I got into a fight where he did not counter my Fog Breaths and War Cries and I defeated him. Other than that, nothing's been going on. Actually have been spending some time analyzing certain aspects of the game. Hey, maybe I'll write a FAQ or something. Dec. 12, 2004 1:05 AM cst - 55 hours STILL haven't killed Dante! Damn him, he's tough. Maybe if I learn Might, it will help... Dec. 13, 2004 2:05 AM cst - 63 hours Killed him! Finally. I'm level fucking 40! And I got lots of incenses from the lucky tickets and it seems like all the work I did didn't help at all. Damn. Well, at least I can walk around now without Dante stopping me. And no, Might didn't help.

Assembly of Nihilo - Dec. 14 2004, 11:00 AM cst - 68 hours Alright, whith Dante out of my way, it's time to head into Matra HQ and talk to the big man. After that, I headed over to the Assembly of Nihilo and ran around in there for a bit. Wasn't very difficult at all considering how much I powered up just to fight Dante. After getting through the puzzle areas, I had to face those three Kaiwans. They were pretty tough. Mudo this, Mudo that. I died several times there. Afterwards, I headed down to floor B15 and took out Ose in one try. After taking care of the Assembly, I headed back to Ikebukuro and the Mantra HQ and triggered the events with Chiaki and Gozu-Tennoh so that I could head to Kabukicho Prison and save Futomimi. But there are two fiends around here. Daisoujou and Hell Biker. Daisoujou is not in an area I have to pass through, so I can avoid him for now. I've fought him several times, but he always ends up getting me with his Mamudoon or Mahamaon attacks. Hell Biker, on the other hand, is blocking the highway to Kabukicho. I can technically bypass him, but I decided to fight anyway. I won, first try. I guess if they don't have insta-kill attacks, they aren't terribly hard. Except Dante. That ass. Well... off to Kabukicho.

Kabukicho Prison - Dec. 14 2004, 3:00 AM cst - 72 hours Kabukicho wasn't very difficult. Especially the Mizuchi (boss version) that was there. Nothing interesting happened. I headed back to Ikebukuro since I decided that I'd really like to finish off Daisoujou before I leave this area or at least give it another shot. Fortunately, I won. :) Well, that's two more candelabrums and I should be able to access the second kalpa now.

Ikebukuro Tunnel & Others - Dec. 21 2004, 4:20 PM cst - 90 hours (roughly) I haven't done very much because I haven't had a lot of time. Basically, I went through the 2nd kalpa and triggered the horsemen event so now those turds are staking out my save points. :( I went through the Ikebukuro Tunnel and made it to Asakusa. I didn't kill the four Oni, though. I'll have to go back and do that. I completed the puzzle game again and decided to write a guide for it, so that took a few days as well. Anyway, that's about where I am right now. Continued on page 2.