Octopath Traveler Final Boss – Galdera

Posted on August 30, 2020 by japannewbie

(This article contains mild Octopath Traveler spoilers including images of the true final boss, and tips to defeat him.)

The true final boss in Octopath Traveler will not be easy for the casual, or even mildly fanatic, gamer. In fact, if you find it easy, you’re truly something and I am in awe at your gaming skillz.

It took me about 42 million tries to win, and I have bene playing turn-based RPGs since the original Final Fantasy on the NES. You don’t have to fight this hidden true final boss. If you can suppress your desire to do all there is to do in this game — just quit! Save your sanity! However, if you’re like me and just can’t stop, then I hope these tips help.

Thankfully, Octopath Traveler has such an interesting job and ability system that I didn’t mind the countless party reconfigurations and trial and error (and… OK… internet research…) that it took to finally win. I’m normally not a completionist… but I 100 percented this game. My tips on how to survive the final fight may not be optimal, but they worked for me.

Galdera Phase 2 — Smashing that disgusting eye is not enough… Galdera phase 2!

Don’t Leave Home Without these Passive Skills
Saving Grace / 回復限界突破
BP Eater / BPイーター
Divine Aura / 天使の加減
Fortitude / 火事場の馬鹿力
Surpassing Power / ダメージ限界突破
Second Serving / おかわり
Patience / ラストアクト
Eye for an Eye / 反撃

Saving Grace allows your characters to be healed beyond their limits and have up to 9,999 HP. Everybody needs this. When a party member goes down revive them with an Olive of Life and they will pop back up with 9999 HP ready to go!

BP Eater will make your boosted BP attacks do extra damage. By extra I mean thousands of points of extra damage. Give this to whoever you plan to have use their divine skills to dish it out. For me, this was my Warmaster (Haaint), Thief (Therion), and Fighter (Olberic). I probably should have also given it to my Sorcerer, but I mainly used their magic for multiple hits to “break” the boss.

Divine Aura will give you a 25% chance to take no damage from an enemy’s attack. Since the boss is going to hit you a million times spread across four characters, that 1 in 4 chance will add up — no matter how unlucky you are in real life. Give it to as many characters as you can.

Fortitude will allow you deal more damage the lower your HP gets. If you can manage to line up your Warmaster with 1 HP, full BP, BP Eater, Fortitude, and Surpassing Power, you’re going to deal a ton of damage. This was my key to consistently defeating Galdera phase 1.

Surpassing Power allows you to deal more than 9999 damage. It should be paired with BP Eater like peanut butter and jelly, and you should put it on any character you expect to be dishing out heavy damage.

Second Serving will cause your character to attack twice 50% of the time when performing a regular attack. This should be on your characters that have the Double Hatchet. (There are two Double Hatchets to be found in the game.) If your BP is maxed out and you unleash with the Double Hatchet and Second Serving, there is a chance you’ll hit the enemy something like 12 times! Break that armor!

Patience will allow your character to act again at the end of the turn 25% of the time. Bonus round! Put this on as many characters as possible. You can use that extra turn to slip in that final attack to break, or to do housekeeping things like apply BP or SP potions.

Eye for an Eye let’s you counter attack when damaged by a physical attack 50% of the time, and pairs well with your characters that have the Double Hatchet. Sometimes those unplanned extra hits can trigger a “break” and get you out of a pinch.

See the Fandom Octopath Traveler page for a full list of all the support skills.

Take the Time, Set it Up
If you can get your WarMaster down to 1 HP, full BP, the Fortitude passive skill, and the enemy is broken, and you have reduced the enemies armor, then you’ve set yourself up for a big hit. All this may seem like chasing a unicorn, but getting the setup right will be the difference between a 10,000 damage attack and a 40,000 damage attack. Most of the time you’ll be able to get some mix or resemblance of this set up. Work for it, even if it means defending sometimes to delay your attackers turn until the time is right.

Attack when Broken for Maximum Damage
When possible, save your big divine skill attacks for when the boss is broken. You’ll do much more damage than when they are not broken.

Double Hatchet
The double hatchet hits twice with each attack. This is useful for quickly breaking enemies. The eye on phase 1 is weak to axe. Considering giving the Eye for an Eye ability and the Second Serving ability to the characters who have this equipped for some extra damage.

How should I split up my party?
This is the set up that worked for me, but there can be many variations. Notes on effective passive skills are at the beginning of this article.

Galdera Phase 1:
Main Strategy: Massive Area Damage – Reflective Veil to survive Galdera’s lightning attack

In this phase you need to destroy all of the souls at once to expose the eye, and then focus on keeping the eye broken as long as possible while dealing as much damage as possible. In this phase the boss has 500,000 hit points, versus only 150,000 in phase 2.

It will take a while to wear him down. If you unleash a big attack and one of those souls happens to survive, and god forbid if one regenerates, be sure to wear the healthy one down so you can finally wreck them all at the same time. The eyeball can unleash a lightning attack that will hit all of your characters at the same time. If you have a chance, apply Reflective Veil to bounce that crap back.

This is how I set up my party and what their main roles were:

H’aanit / Warmaster: Used the Warmaster’s divine skill to wreck everything.

Alfyn / Warrior: Used Double Tomahawk to break the eye. Used his concoctions to give everyone BP — this is hugely important. Used warrior divine skill to dish mega targeted damage to a single soul in case one got out of sync.

Ophelia / Thief: Used the thief divine skill for dealing damage to all of the souls simultaneously. Using cleric’s divine skill on the sorcerer was useful for repeating her magic to increase hits to make her breaks even more effective. Thief’s Armor Corrosive was also helpful, but the Full Enfeeblement NPC from Noblecourt duplicates that.

Primrose / Scholar: Her job was mainly buffing allies by boosting physical and magic attack power. The scholar’s magic was useful to help break. She also brought the NPC named Ogen who can heal your entire party for 9999 HP. Bring him!

Galdera Phase 2:
Main Strategy: Just destroy everything and survive. The parts do not regenerate. Damage! Deal Damage! Survive to fight another day!

Therion / Cleric: His thief divine skill is powerful if you build him for speed. When you need, heal the party up and cast reflective veil.

Olberic / Allpoc: Fighting and healing. Nothing fancy. I gave him the Double Tomahawk to help break.

Cyrus / Runelord: Positive status effects can get canceled during this fight, but if you can slip in a hit with a rune boost every now and then it will help. Second Serving and rune magic go well together.

Teresa / Sorcerer: Magic to break! BP Passer to give Therion the juice he needs to use his divine skill.

That’s all I got! Good luck! If you need to level up near the end of the game you can do so in the Forest of Purgation.

Geesh that fight was rough… Might be fun though. Give it a shot!

Harajuku Circa 2002

Posted on August 21, 2020 by japannewbie

When I was relatively new to Tokyo I visited Harajuku summer 2002. Here’s some photos and memories from that time.

Harajuku is just about a 20 minute stroll from Shibuya. If you plan to visit, just get to Shibuya and you can walk to Harajuku and through Omotesando as well on the same trip.

Takeshita Doori 2002 — Takeshita Street (2002)

Harajuku used to be famous for clothing shops, crepe, and the extreme fashions of the people who hang out there. The vibe has changed a bit since 2002. Nearby Omotesando is a clean fancy street filled with high end shops and fancy restaurants. Harajuku station itself is scheduled to be remodeled and expanded and will no longer be a cute little station resembling a cabin of sorts. I haven’t been in a while, but I’m pretty sure that Takeshita street still gets super crowded. Some things will never change. Probably a much higher percentage of out of foreign tourists now though.

Back in 2002, as soon as I got to the station area I noticed the crazy fashion statements that were mentioned in every Tokyo guide book at the time. The pictures speak for themselves. The locals welcomed the photos, and posed and looked directly into the camera for me.

Harajuku Fashion 2002 - Two girls — Harajuku Fashion 2002

The gathering was organized and set around a specific time. Was it Sunday mornings? Local photographers came out to take pictures, and everyone came out with their suitcases filled with gear for their outfits.

Have you been to Harajuku recently? What’s changed? Is the vibe around the station area and entrance to the park generally the same? Now when I go to Japan I generally go to Osaka, so it’s been a while since I’ve been to Harajuku too see if these folks still come out!

I can’t believe it’s been almost 20 years…

Minoh Beer – Craft Beer from Osaka. And eat some leaves.

Posted on August 2, 2020 by japannewbie

If you’re looking for a quality local craft beer from Osaka you must try Minoh Beer.

Minoh Beer - Weizen — Minoh Beer – the Weizen

Minoh beer is probably the easiest Osaka-based craft beer to find. You might be able to find it in a restaurant or craft beer bar. You can certainly buy it online from their shop, and you can occasionally find it in a random grocery shop. You may also have luck finding it in large cities outside of Osaka as well.

Minoh is a town in Osaka famous for its waterfall and beautiful foliage in the fall. The first time I went to Minoh I didn’t know about Minoh Beer and was mainly going for a nature-filled getaway from the hustle and bustle of Osaka. Some links about Minoh follow this post.

Minoh beer has been around since 1997. It is unique in that it is owned by three sisters. They have a relatively large line of beers and have won many awards. There is a Minoh Beer Warehouse in Minoh where you can tour and buy souvenirs. I haven’t been there… yet.

Here is an image of the Minoh Beer pamphlet (as of Feb 2020). You’ll see a pilsner, a weizen, a pale ale, a stout, a double IPA for their main line. They also have several seasonal offerings, including a Yuzu White for the winter season that I have never tried! Good to see that their product line continues to grow. More images of the pamphlet are at the bottom of this post.

Minoh Beer Pamphlet 2020 — Minoh Beer Pamphlet (Feb 2020)

This time I tried this Billikin Beer from Minoh Beer that I had never had before. It’s a light fruity beer that I think would be delicious on a hot summer day. It’s also the first canned beer from Minoh that I have tried.

Minoh Beer - Billiken Beer — Billikin Beer from Minoh Beer

What else is going on in Minoh?

I was digging through the archives of my old blog and found these words that I wrote about Minoh when I visited in 2005.

One of the local foods available in Minoh is called Momiji Tempura.

Momiji Tempura in Minoh – Deep Fried Leaves

As you probably know Tempura is a way of deep frying lightly breaded foods so that when they are done they have a light brown crust of tasty goodness around them. You can tempura anything from shrimp to ice cream.

In Minoh they push tempura to the limits and throw their famous maple leaves into the mix. Maybe they have too many and are trying to control the population? Beats raking them I guess. Crunch.

Momiji Tempura just tastes like an extra crunchy tempura snack. You can’t really taste the leaves… The Tempura coating is more crunchy than usual tempura. You can pop ’em like potato chips. Fun for the novelty I guess.

Hey. Japanese time. Did you know that the kanji for TEMPURA is really tough? Tough like “soy sauce” and “rose” are tough. Japanese usually write the PURA in Hiragana. 天麩羅！！！ Learn to write this, and dazzle your friends next time you go out for tempura.

On another note of randomness… Apparently momiji trees are normally red, and then when fall comes they turn green. Opposite of most trees. This explains why I could have red momiji leave tempura in April… Fact or fiction?

Back to beer and Minoh related links: