Tokyo Mirage Sessions

Once again, it’s a new longest battle in this playthrough…that’s how you know that it’s a good boss fight.

Challenge rules:
1. EXP may only be earned from forced battles or battles required to complete Side Stories.
Farming EXP from reinforcements is not allowed and the Watchfulness skill is banned.
2. Lunatic difficulty on a New Game.
3. No Incense stat boosters.
4. Carnages may only be upgraded once.
5. Bonuses from the Encore version of the game are allowed.
6. No attack items, buff items, Attack/Magic Mirrors, or Clap Tracks.
7. No use of game-breaking skills such as Pastel Power or Tetra-/Makara- guard/karn.

Gharnef is the last boss of the first half of the final chapter, and he’s one of the hardest in the game. There are several reasons for this, but the most notable are the Sword Spirits and Axe Spirits he summons throughout the battle, which have a lot of HP and are tough to eliminate without a solid approach. The Sword Spirits use Fatal Sword and the Axe Spirits use Mighty Chop, but Gharnef also powers up both with Feral Trance, which doubles their attack power and sets them to self-destruct. On the turn after Feral Trance is used, the Spirits will use Fatal Sword or Mighty Chop, but on their next action they’ll use Shattered Ego, which is an incredibly powerful Almighty attack that sacrifices themselves but results in a party wipe in most situations. While this can be avoided by eliminating the Spirits before they can use it, their respectable bulk often makes that difficult.

Gharnef acts twice per round and begins the battle with Spirit Calling to summon two Sword Spirits, uses Feral Trance on one Sword Spirit in the next round, then uses Feral Trance on the other Sword Spirit two rounds later while using Agidyne for the remainder of his actions. When both of his Spirits have been defeated he’ll use Mind Surge on his next turn to inflict an ailment that drains EP from party members, and depending on his remaining HP, he may also use Imhullu, a powerful party-wide Almighty attack that may inflict Stun. One or two rounds later, he’ll use Spirit Calling again and repeat his sequence, but this time with two Axe Spirits. This isn’t much different until the third time he uses Spirit Calling, which summons a Sword Spirit and an Axe Spirit. In the round following that, he’ll use Feral Trance on both Spirits, which is really scary since it sets up both of them to use Shattered Ego two rounds later. Gharnef also Sessions from either Spirit striking weaknesses with Elfire.

There’s a lot to keep track of in this battle, but the most important part is taking out the Sword and Axe Spirits in a timely manner to avoid Shattered Ego. That’s often pretty difficult to do with an underleveled team, so Touma should use War Cry as soon as Gharnef uses Spirit Calling, and it’s also helpful to have several party members Charged up to ensure that they have enough power to take out the Spirits when necessary. In some cases, Charge also helps maximize the damage dealt to Gharnef during Overkill Sessions, which is important since Gharnef is only weak to Wind and has resistances or immunities to four attacking types, making him one of the most difficult bosses to damage. The resistances of party members is also fairly important; most of them should be using Carnages that resist Fire, but Itsuki and Mamori don’t have that option since a few special Carnages are unavailable in this playthrough. Itsuki has a decent enough Resistance stat to survive even with a Fire weakness, but Mamori struggles here with Gharnef constantly throwing out Agidyne. While weaknesses to the Sword and Axe Spirits are also a consideration, I used Eleonora against the Axe Spirits anyway since she was the best party member to use against those offensively.

With the constantly changing battle dynamics due to the presence of the Spirits, every party member was able to contribute meaningfully here. Touma could use War Cry and Charged attacks, Eleonora and Yashiro could also use strong Charged attacks on the Spirits, Tsubasa and Kiria could heal and attack with Zandyne, and Mamori was useful just for Microwavin’ Heart and Microwavin’ Soul. Overall, this battle had more party member swaps than any other in the playthrough by a large margin. After whittling Gharnef down throughout the battle, once the third set of Spirits was gone I was able to finish him off in just a few rounds with a Charged Full Throttle and a few more attacks. There were few opportunities to attack him directly prior to that since it was often more important to have the attackers Charged up, so up to that point a good deal of damage to Gharnef was from indirect attacks.

This battle would have been a bit easier if I had unlocked the additional physical/magic Endure passives for the party members, but I had chosen not to do so as an additional handicap. With Gharnef gone, there are now only a few more major bosses left before the final boss.