Sometimes I get so bored in turn-based boss battles I wander off and play on the internet in the middle of them
July 9, 2012
12:00 am
That seems about gaudy enough. Maybe it could use more pastel rainbow gradients and lens flare.
Oh, and if you’re going to be at San Diego Comic Con this week, come meet me at the Womanthology panel or table signing and I’ll sketch beefy men for you! Or keep an eye out for that Comedian costume (I’ll probably be wearing it Saturday)
Eh, seems they will have to find a way to turn off the laser off on top of reverting the bishonen virus XD
And yeah, recursive ultimate form is awesome and impressive the first time, but it kind of get annoying after a few more games overusing this ^^
It’s the videogaming equivalent of the Double Shyamalan
Rule about JRPGs: While prettier the villain is more naked the final form will be.
I’m the final boss!
NO I’m the final boss!
Shove it bastard I’m the final boss!
^feels kind of like this
Wow, this one’s so on time that it might be early!
Choking out the pseudo-astral superbeing is certainly a pragmatic approach that I could stand to see more of. Great job at the pretentious boss design with the straps and oh-so-symbolic wings. I also dig Mr. Fish still lasering in the background.
Well, I’ll be. Never expected to see you here.
But yes, very accurate portrayal of any sane person’s reaction to a tertiary boss form.
Well everyone knows the Ultimate Ultimate form goes down in one “special atack.” If throttling him isn’t a special attack, nothing is.
What about suplexing?
Or Piledriving?
Or a roundhouse to the face?
I expect his special to be like some sort of dual wielded gatling laser…
He could just “moon tiara magic”nthe bastard again,
Straps? No. Even better. Look closer. THOSE ARE ZIPPERS XD
The Scott Pilgrim game spoofed just this sort of boss fight. Was awesome.
Oh man, I love the Commander’s face in the last panel.
“WHY WON’T YOU JUST STAY DOWN?” XDDDDDDDD
Exactly. See? This is why i hate the “Ultimate ULTIMATE form” crap. It’s just a plot hax, imho.
It’s even worse when the “Ultimate form” is the same as the non-ultimate form, except that you have to sit through a cut-scene where the boss refills their health.
I’m looking at YOU Jedi Academy.
It’s even worse when the final FINAL boss is a hilarious anticlimax that the game expects you to take seriously.
I’m looking at YOU, Final Fantasy X.
Only thing I hate about “ultimate ultimate ultimate” is how it makes no damn sense to go back to pretty after turning into some kind of hellspawn. Either get prettier with every stage or get uglier with every stage, then at least it makes some sense progression-wise.
With FFX, the boss can’t kill you, and its only attack hurts itsself as well, and its vulnerable to every status ailment, and if you are doing max damage, it dies in one hit, that boss was SUPPOSED to be a joke
As far as the ugly/pretty thing, there was an article on tvtropes for that…hm…
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BishonenLine
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BishonenLine
In an attempt to save you from reading that article, I will summarize the main point: They can’t make a boss more ugly with each form, or you’ll get stuck on the Flying Potato Squid when adding more tentacles and eyestalks doesn’t really make it look more impressive.
The Ultimate Ultimate form still looks visually impressive, but is easier to draw and suggests that “NOTHING IS THE SAME ANY MORE THIS IS THE ULTIMATE ULTIMATE FINAL BOSS FIGHT NOW” etcaetera etcaetera.
Pity the same hasn’t applied to Nemesis via Resident Evil
The problem is, when the hideous form is destroyed only for them to emerge even more powerful and prettier to boot, what was the point of choosing to use a power that mutated and disfigured them so horribly in the first place? And if increasing their unstable power the first time disfigured them, why would increasing even more revert them back? They should have either saved the monster form for last, or skipped it entirely.
It’s kinda like…well, turning into the monster is -getting- the power, and then turning back after that is refining the power so that it works in a humanoid shape. Compressing it. Making it better. Or something.
What I have collected is that the true final form is a surprise to the boss himself pretty often. Something along the lines of their mortal ugly monstrous form being destroyed and their pure ultimate power condensing into that pretty sparkly form. Whether that is stupid or not, well, it depends how it was handled…
I myself am a fan of pretty winged ultimate bosses, but that is just a personal guilty pleasure and usually those are handled really badly, so I understand the dislike. But sometimes a good, long, exhausting final battle where the boss just doesn’t die and new nasty powers emerge every time it resurrects itself is the perfect way to end a game.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I interpret this 90% of the time. The monstrosity is the “flesh”, and once that’s gone what’s left, the pretty phase, is the “spirit”. Whether or not that’s worth a third form is up to individual beliefs, but that’s how I look at this trend.
The gooey, supercharged antagonist core, if you will.
And I’m going to make an RPG where it initially seems like that, the big bad (the more common term is main villain and TVT ruined my vocabulary) appears throghout the game, appearing a typical white-haired prettyboy (I know) and goes all one-winged angel (I know it should be “ultimate form”) twice in the final battle until he gets into bishounen line in the third form…
And then I’ll subvert (I know) it by making him have a FOURTH FORM that is ugly again. Then he’ll go into bigger and uglier eldritch abomination (I know) levels and the 9001st form will be giant, universe-wide centuple-pair of golden wings and in their core, there’s a familiar-looking half-naked prettyboy… that must be killed by slicing off his wings.
With a small knife.
That, up to that point, was THE most useless weapon you had and every shopkeeper told you that if you sold it to them, you could get everything for free. Including Megalixirs.
UGGHH. I liked FFX, but I agree, that last set of battles was stupid. If you HAVE to put autoselfrez on the entire team because the last fight involves opening one-shot-kills, you did something fucking stupid.
Stupid Bahamut. I hadn’t even USED you since I made Yuna into a death machine.
I like 3 phase boss fights for the tradition aspect (things coming in threes) but I really hate false-sells. Pace the phases correctly, don’t LIE about this being the last one – I’d rather the game didn’t try to hint at all over lying about the ultimate form nonsense.
Do something original! Have the phases be changes in the environment, or “For this phase, boss + minions!” or whatever. Although with JRPGs it’s now getting predictable enough that a monstrous form immediately signals the final prettyboy shape in phase three, so I guess that’s “honest” even when they call Phase 2 the “ultimate” :P
I wonder how much of that is a translation problem.
At least in Tales of Vesperia, the tertiary form is a surprise to everyone. It’s also optional, but not doing it makes after/the second playthrough far less fun.
I don’t know how well it was done in other tales games but i always enjoyed the final boss in tales of symphonia. And the effect beating the mini bosses in the last area could have on it.
from Japanese, not really. That’s just bad dubbing for ya.
sources: I actually study Japanese, damn it.
re: Derp – ah, Vesperia. Even THEY make the last form/boss glowy-ethereal.
Don’t play Dragon Quest V Chapters of the Chosen then. The final boss has unlocked the secret of evolution and he’s constantly changing. I think he has like… five forms? More? But he doesn’t magically become pretty either, he actually goes from pretty to monstrous and stays there, getting worse.
The Legend of Dragoon is a valid example. The final boss has five or six forms, each completely different, while changing the background and music through long cutscenes between each form.
Which is a bit boring in your second playthrough, but still fitting and satisfying, since he’s recreating the world from the big bang to present while you fight.
The fact that Mr. Fish is in the background still firing the Hyper Beam is so perfect.
shouldnt he hae run out of pp by now and e using struggle or something?
He hasn’t stopped using it, so it’d just be one pp.
He’s been kinda pent up.
I ask myself that same question during boss fights. Especially final boss fights.
Especially Final Fantasy final boss battles.. Horrid flashbacks to FF13.
You play way too little RPGs. I’m already used to it.
“JUST two forms? Meh.”
I love how Mr Fish is still wrecking the place in the background :)
Aw! Missed opportunity! The best choking onomatopoeia is ” GACKT!” Btw, I LOVE this comic, dude :D
obligatory rimshot for you!
I so know how the commander feel. i think Lavos was my first experience with the final bad guy having more then two forms lavos or the profound darkness one.
When I battled Xemnas on Kingdom Hearts 2, that was exactly how I felt.
Hey, at least that boss battle was really easy if you had a decent Keyblade.
Easy, but still annoying.
You play way too little RPGs. I�m already used to it.
�JUST two forms? Meh.�
Lots of zippers, angel and demon wings. Yup, got everything right again.
Don’t forget “glowing” and “Barbie-nekkid” (though he’s got drapes around him in the US release).
Seems about right. And I think the Commander speaks for everyone, too.
The bulging fish-eye look on Gackt’s face sealed it for me. And yes, I have to agree with Hannah that the ideal choking sound should indeed be “gackt!”.
Not sure if this has already been mentioned in the past few strips, but it would be hilarious to imagine the real-life Gackt being inspired by his MGDMT self in terms of costume ideas for future shows. They would need a huge stage for a fat blob-monster suit (complete with animatronics for limbs?), that’s for sure…
Use moon tiara magic again! I’m sure it’ll work this time!
BREATHE, MR. FISH. BREATHE!
It makes you wonder how they’ll turn that off.
His turn has to end eventually… right?
Does Mr. Fish know when his turn ends? He is brain damaged.
He’s going to run out of PP eventually.
PP Only runs out if Mr. Fish ends the turn. Hyper Beam’s a 2 stage move. Attack/End/Recharge if it didn’t kill next turn
Assuming it doesn’t count as one Hyperbeam.
If that is all one hyperbeam he’s going to have to recharge for a week.
Hehe, I like that instead of a Christ pose, he gets a Caduceus pose while resurrecting.
Yes! HOLY F*CK! Strangle the sh*t out of that guy! Common physics ya’ll! I wanted to choke the crap out of Sephiroth and every other anime BS king bad guy. Because you know, can’t breath then that’s it.
I also would have accepted drowning him in the toilet (Or in this case the eyewash station)
ED SPAWNS CHICKADEES
RING A BELL, MAITRE D’S
ED SPAWNS CHICKADEES
RING A BELL, MAITRE D’S
Bells, frogs, big cherries
Peter Pan, magic cheese
SEPHIROTH!
Heh, that’s awesome.
Here’s the version that I sing that has ruined my husband’s love for this song
HELP US PEKINESE
JINGLE BELL, BATMAN’S FEET
HELP US PEKINESE
JINGLE BELL, BATMAN’S FEET
SEPHIROTH!!
Can’t you just aim Mr. Fish at Gackt? If Jared can’t do it then maybe the Commander can.
Commander badass taps into his inner MoJ and pulls his face back enough to give his arms extra torque for strangling. If you ask how this works or why would he have inner powers of 2 women with the gift of repulsing folks with their anatomy well… it’s magic.
I knew big and ugly couldn’t be the real final form, I immediately thought of Freeza from DBZ getting more and more big and ugly and finally his strongest level being the most androgynous when we first saw that horrible thing two weeks ago. Also this guy is starting to remind me of Seymour Guado, he can’t just die like a decent person would.
Seymour! That’s his name! I kept trying to think of “that guy with the blue hair you had to kill like five goddamn times.”
If I don’t remember Seymour, what else don’t I remember about FFX? A replay is in order, methinks.
Yes. The whole Seymour/Yuna sequence. *shudder* So much stupid. Why could I not just push the “There’s like nine of us and one of you. Go fuck yourself” button at some point?
I fukken giggled so hard at this one. Props LP.
No don’t you will go mad! Trust me I played it. Also, you will be tempted to obtain the ultimate wepons but don’t or you will be sucked in.
I wanted to grab him by his blue hair and shove his head so far up his ass that a malboro would vomit at the sight of him!
When I see that last panel all I can think of is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS383gEdb_g
and crack up XD
My response would have been:
“WHY WON’T YOU JUST SHUT UP!?!?!”
Because when I’m fighting the bad guy, I’m more about killing them so they just shut the f**k up.
…I wish we could do that in actual turn-based RPGs….
Good, good! Now toss him into Mr. Fish’s lasers and kill this fool!
He made your daughter cry, Commander! No mercy!
Oh man, different wings and everything.
All he’s missing is a sword of light with bat wings on the hilt. That he doesn’t use at all in battle.
That sword is standard issue. It’s contractual that all Three-Form Bosses have one with a blade at least the length of their body + half, if their Ultimate Ultimate form is somewhat angelic and bishi. Sephiroth carried one throughout the whole game, same with Dante’s brother, Virgil. While those two used their swords, if the Ultimate Ultimate Bishi Form with Sword accessory is only seen for that phase of the fight, they don’t actually have to use it.
I mean, most of the time they’ll have light swords floating around them or something, I think. Like at least four of five of them.
Commander used Strangle!
It’s… holy shit that IS effective oh my God poor Gackt look at his eyes!!
Manly Strength is super effective against EVERY type, except Manly Strength, Dragon, and Brando. Gackt isn’t the Manly Strength type, Dragon, or Brando. And he has 3 types right now.
Really sucks to be him, don’t it?
Which 3?
zipper type pointless extended fight type and gay ass glowing neked dude with pointless wings type
I stand by the idea that Mr. Fish will eat that blob in the background.
Maybe commander has to beat him in a walk off or something. Get truly in touch with his inner manga man before he defeats Gackt. Or he’ll just keep strangling him. That works too.
I vote “just keep strangling him”. Very therapeutic.
Thirded.
Toss in a headbutt or six and I think we’ve got a sale.
Shouldn’t the ultimate ultimate form have even more fabulous angel wings?
Saving that for his ULTIMATE ultimate ultimate form
Dear god no!
Say Uncle!!! XD
Coela, you can never have enough lens flare.
And Commander’s expression in the last panel is my exact reaction to every three-form boss ever. Worse when they get a cheating move that kills your whole party and you have to sit through all three forms again.
Just as bad is the cheating move that false swipes everybody and heals him for half. You just know he’s going to run over and smack most of you before you can heal them all.
My experience with multiple-form bosses is limited to Diablo 3….and in the God of War series, but aside from the Barbarian king, changes in the bosses form were you tearing off bits of him. Diablo 3 seemed to handle it pretty well….you confront Belial, and he shows a form vaguely similar to a human before siccing his minions on you. Once the minions are dead, he engages in combat personally, and once he’s almost dead, he goes to his ‘true form’ at full health. This changes the background scenery dramatically, and his form doesn’t even pretend to be human. Once you kill that form, he’s dead and the background reverts to normal….no ‘ultimate ultimate form’ BS. Then there’s Diablo himself, who teleports you into a realm of terror when he’s halfway through his health. You have to fight a shadow of Diablo (with comparable heath) and many shadows of yourself to get out and finish off Diablo. Makes me think I dodged a bullet by having no interest in JRPGs….
FF12 end game boss fight the game had a auto attack feature that woul help ya with your guys so i kicked it on for the man char after the 2nd form of the final boss wnet to go make a sandwhich and some chips came back to watch the death throes of the 3rd form boss and he end credits with my sandwhich talk about good timing i thought id still be watching the back and forth for the 2nd boss
After persona 3’s final boss had 13 forms every other final boss seems to short.
Wow, called the final pretty form.
I always wondered why after killing the towering second form the heroes simply didn’t throttle the scrawny final form. You can lift a aeroplane wing that you call a sword but you can’t crush a windpipe, makes no sense.
It’s like comparing a T-800 to a T-1000, it’s smaller, sleeker, faster, and more efficient.
You also can’t choke a T-1000, with it being made of liquid metal and all.
You can strangle liquid metal.
B-but… knife hands.
You can block knife hands
Dragon Quest VII had a nice variant of this for the final boss: He had the initial beautiful form, the demonic true form, and then two more forms that consisted of him starting to melt because you were beating him that badly.
Could definitively use a couple of lens flares I believe.
Nice work otherwise though!
Loving how Mr. Fish is still Hyper Beaming away back there. I’m guessing that when the Commander beats Gackt, the castle will collapse, as usual — although it will be Mr. Fish’s fault, for punching so many holes in it. Load-bearing boss!
Nope, the antivenon will be located in the back, hidden behind the eye-wash station, he’ll collect enough for the entire crew back home (“Forgetting” Jared), THEN the castle will start to collapse.
Also, did anyone notice the U.U.Gackt is the same color as the fish lasers?
This was amazing
The strangle-face is hilarious!
Should have brought a flamethrower.
You know, after all that time fighting just to get to the guy, I really don’t blame him for just throttling him. When in doubt, go back to your basics.
The best part is Mr Fish is still firing none stop. Can’t count how many times I have been pissed off to see yet another form after a hard battle. The worst one was in Breath of Fire 4, as you don’t get a chance to heal between fights, so it is nearly impossible to see the good ending without cheating.
Who was it who called “One Winged Angel” on the last one?
95% of the readership.
I don’t think any of us get bonus points for this one.
I like how people here (apparently including the author) seem to have bought about everything from Final Fantasy I-XX over Persona to Kingdom Hearts, which really is Final Fantasy I-XII and some 13-year-old-girls hewn through the meat-grinder,…and then complain that they get, what they’ve bought.
Really. If you play ANY of those games, you WANT five stage boss fights. Don’t be ashamed, if that’s your taste.
Also: I once read that everything from Japan is basically the same, because the Japanese actually enjoy comparing different takes on an archetype, where as we not-Japanese enjoy things that – let’s face it – have been there before as well – but try to hide that fact!
I like how people get personally offended when I make fun of video games I’ve played.
I thought he was joking…
I like how he assumes I bought them when I actually just pirated them on the Net.
You certainly don’t hold back any punches, that and with the attitude towards jRPGs today (highly negative), it’s too easy to assume that you hate them.
Poking fun at things you like is just a natural progression.
Look at the manly men in the comic. They’re all comic exaggerations of super-macho stereotypes. The idea that there’s an agency to help over-manly men makes fun of them enough on its own. But unless someone has a gun to Coela’s head when she goes to make the strip, it’s probably safe to assume that she’s a fan of the characters that she continues to draw week after week after week.
I like how people think nobody is allowed to like a thing as a whole while recognizing that certain aspects of that thing are actually kind of ridiculous and silly and fun to make jokes about.
I like the subtle racism. Please tell us more about The Japanese.
As an RPG expert, I can say a few things.
KH- pretty gulty of too many boss forms.
Tales- They’re fond of multiple form bosses but there’s no real touting of being “ultimate” with any of them.
FF- The Multi-form boss matter mainly came about with VII as other final bosses only had one form (I don’t count that tower before Kefka any of his forms)
Persona- Not too big on multiple form bosses, though P3’s boss had phases to fight through, but they were attack lists, not form changes.
Dragon quest was certainly guilty of it before final fantasy made it “fashionable”
Now, now, I don’t think IX had any extra boss forms save for Kuja. But let’s face it, you only fight him twice or so and at two different points of the game. There’s an ultimate boss, true, but it’s not even an multi-form of Kuja.
But maybe it’s because it wasn’t a Nomura directed game…not hating on the guy or bashing him, he’s cool and I do enjoy the FF series that he’s helped create.
I’m not sure what point Nomura took the reigns but it was definitely after Sakaguchi (the original FF producer) left. FFXI was game very much in the spirit of the older games.
I’m guessing Mr. Fish will continue hyper beaming until he actually hits an enemy. So far collateral damage from surrounding environment. I suppose it’ll turn off when Commander throws Ghact into the beam.
That’s a very good point.
The Commander has finally broken out of that generic blank bishonen stare! THE CURSE IS BREAKING!
I was afraid that going on vacation might make me miss the Commander’s victory, but the ultimate-ultimate-ultimate rule has come to my rescue.
I’m guessing he’s got an Ultimate Ultimate Ultimate form after this?
My comment gets funnier when you go and try to google it. Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V, you will understand…
my god i like a good boss but if the change ther formse more then 3 times i get made ase hell i mean realy die already !!!
Ultimate Gackt 2’s design is nice, but I think you shoulda made some sorta bullshit magically runic script for his ribbon things, that’s what I see more often then not.
Of course, the design you chose is much more simple and less time consuming.
Great job though!
By Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts reckoning, its appropriate he’s rocking zippers all over his body.
Those are zippers? I thought they were ribbons or straps or something. Wouldn’t it be counterintuitive to have your flesh zipped together? That’d be easy an easy weakness to exploit
It’d be hilarious if he had to activate yet another form just to break free from the Commander’s grip.
Holy cheese, I feel the same way when I play those kind of games, I just start screaming.
Called it! Bishonen Line has been crossed!
On Saturday night, A Comedian Lives In San Diego. Somebody Knows Why. Out There, Somebody Knows.
Ah, that last panel – looks like Commander has truly leveled up enough to negate the effects of that “fukken Barbie-doll face” and show the proper level of angriness.
As for an “only” 1- or 2-form final boss, yeah, there haven’t been too many of those around recently. FF12 had three fights, though the first was against the penultimate boss. Golden Sun’s fond of 2-fers, though Lost Age could be considered a 1-battle 3-form due to its mechanics. And then there’s Persona 3… fourteen consecutive patterns within one fight followed by one more can’t-lose-if-you-try formality (like FF7).
And Gackt-III? I’d vote to make him Mr. Fish Food.
You made a mistake with that form that you should have learned from the other Gankt. You gave it a throat.
Other than Persona 3 I think the end guy that has the most forms was the final one in Kingdom Hearts 2 with 5 and Kefka with 4 before that.
Kingdom Hearts 1 had like… 8, didn’t it? Including the ‘rescue your partners from those…. pustules or whatever they were’ sequences?
Kefka shouldn’t really count as forms since their more lika faces (?). I mean, it kind of turns into some sort of tower…
Hrkjflg indeed. Just spent about two minutes trying to actually articulate that. I guess it’s easier with bugged-out glowing eyes.
By the way, I keep seeing Persona (3) comparisons in the comments. What the hell arcana would this even be?
How many times have you asked that of a final boss?
The more Gackt annoys B, the more his porcelain doll face cracks.
Maybe the cure really is just beating Gackt within an inch of his life.
Magnificent.
I wounder if the Commander’s raw rage will now break through his balefully-bishie-polymorph?
I gotta admit, I’m a sucker for the multi-formed bosses, but it has been done to death recently.
Silly Commander! Three “Final Ultimate” forms is the absolute MINIMUM for final RPG battles!
But yeah, it does get old, and something I’d like to see changed in RPGs. Rather than a bunch of gimmicky slightly challenging fights in a row, just make one really really tough fight. With a save point right between the inevitable super-long cutscene and the fight itself.
HRKJFLG… sounds like keyboard molestation to me. c:
Actually, those keys are pretty close to each other. I wonder, if I turn on allcaps and bash my head on the keyboard…..
YHBBTGY6B JH
U7Y8U7Y8UI78JNHUU7Y6
How’s it look?
At least the Commander doesn’t have to fight the bonus boss for that one sword whose only use would be against said bonus boss because to even beat him you’d have to be able to basically one hit kill the final boss.
From bondage belts to Zippers!
I totally called that when Mashed Potato Gackt first showed up xD
Also a ridiculously oversized weapon.
Haha, I beat Final Fantasy X on the phone. Evidently it was worth 100 hours of phone conversation.
How did I NOT see this coming!? Maybe it’s because I expected this guy to die pathetically. Whatever. I’m guessing we won’t know he’s dead until Commander has choked him to death and becomes beefy again. XD CHOKING A DARK ANGEL! WHO’DA THUNK IT!? XD
I don’t know why, but this comic reminds me of the FF7 final battle with Sephiroth. Now this is what a Nomura drawn final boss should look like.
Oh Commander, bosses like Gackt don’t go down the first time. They have to “die” several times. That is the point of final bosses.You need to play more turn based combat games. That could have helped you understand how to beat these guys. I think Commander’s company needs at least one FF character (Auron or Lightning) who can balance out Commander’s inability to know how Square Enix games work. I know he has someone who does have some knowledge (Volt) but he never talked about it until this comic. I think at least one FF character could help balance off the group of character in Commander’s Manly company.
After seeing everybody’s comment on FF10’s cop out final boss battle, I have to sort of agree that it was silly. Well at least FF13’s last battle was more fulfilling and could get a chance to kill you if you wind up taking your time. I know, I’ve tried and Orphan can kill you if you take your time in the FINAL final battle.
Maybe Snow? He was pretty manly. Minus the face.
Nah, not really. Auron and Lightning fit the more “manly” category than Snow. He’s sort of a kid at heart.
The only Manly Guy I can think of from Final Fantasy would be Sabin, from VI. Auron is still too bishiesque, and Lightning… She’s just a transvestite Squall.
….Are you fucking kidding me? Auron, bishiesque? Dude, look at his face sometime when you had your eyes checked and are wearing prescription glasses. He is the manliest character in the whole franchise!
Lightning is much more than that. She is Squall done right. Squall got obsessed over Riona when the lesson for him to learn was: “Trust your friends and don’t push them away. They are always there to help you”. Not “become an obsessed woman chaser and forget your friends.”
Lightning was a lone wolf in the beginning that did not think others were going to be useful to her. As time went on, she began to realize that that is not how you should live your life and having the compassion of friends around is what make you strong. She learned the lesson that Squall should have.
Besides, I think Lightning would have a hatred for Gackt for trying to use her and that Gackt could not control her. That could be motivation enough for her to join the Commander. You know what they say: “The enemy of my enemy is my ally.”
It just occurred to me that wouldn’t the Gackt virus affect both men and women? I mean, he looks so sexually androgynous that anything other than a declarative statement from the man would lead to doubt. Then wouldn’t the hypersexualization of females, however few they may be in the comic, also occur? Seems like those two things go hand-in-hand in most J/RPGs :S
Hypersexualisation of women is hardly just an JRPG thing, argurably it’s a video game thing.
But I’m pretty sure Coelasquid just wanted to focus on the bishie stuff.
Oversexualizing women is also a media-in-its-entirety thing
True.
Its not even limited to media, real life is getting oversexualized.
Well, as we know, media has had quite a heavy hand in that.
He should use mr fish’s laser to kill ultimate form
The Commander is channeling Homer Simpson here.
“Why you little-!”
“Ack-ack-Gackt”
I can totally see Gackt going “Eat my shorts!”
I was totally thinking that too.
Hey! I think it’s working! Commander B’s starting to look like his old self again!
For some reason I imagine the crappy anime commander face literally busting off of his head like a shattered glass due to the amount of manly rage pouring through.
Also Thank you CoelaSquid for making amazing comic strips with silliness and bishie prejudice. A guy who can do ridiculous acts of machismo definitely would not look all polished and smooth like a gray’s butt. Indeed, He would be just like Commander Badass.
Also thank you for having a facsimile of a real woman and not a tube-top with legs and beachballs. This is my favorite comic. Keep the AMAZING work up!
P.S. Laser fish, that’s all I really had to say :)
I’m reminded of Psychonauts. That was hell! That was a four stage boss battle, fight the butcher (simple enough) the hardest was the 2nd being an obstacle course, then fighting the Butcher again with evil dad throwing flaming crap at you. And you’d think it’s over at that point right? Hell no you get the ultimate nightmare form of the two. Thank goodness the last one was easy.
I hated the Meat Circus so, SO much. ;o;
Yeah really that whoa level was a final boss to me. And the sad thing is despite that I really hope that Notch’s interest can get the Psychonauts 2 made.
Whoever came up with the Ultimate stage of the final boss was a genius. Those who copied it over and over and over again and wore it out needs to burn for their unoriginality. For once I’d love to get to a boss that I defeat and go through that cut scene that makes you think you’re about to go through another form but the building or whatever falls on them crushing them because they are too big and the building is unstable.
Well there’s Lucien from Fable 2, you go to confront him and then you just shoot him.
Lots of people upset about that, I liked it personally. Lucien after all, was just a man.
A man with super wonder crystals that create ass hard to beat commandants and super laser destroyer sentries, that ending was bullshit.
He was not however special. Anyone could have done what he did with the same resources.
Lucien was not special, he wasn’t of the hero bloodline, he can’t use will, skill or strength. He was just a man, intelligent yes but just a man.
He could have juiced himself with ultra magic crystals.
How? He was already focusing on draining the power of the three heroes and you thrawted that. Where’s he supposed to pull the crystals from?
Plus he believed you to be dead, so no need for such a contingency to be prepared.
He had 28 years to juice on hyper magic crystal! He could do it to commandants and random mooks and laser firing flying death crystals, but goforbid he use it on himself!
Why should he? Why would he? Considering also that he knows the full effect of what it does. Does he not have minions for those things? Why risk his own mind on it when he needs to be thinking clearly and keeping his eyes on the goal?
Honestly every argument I’ve heard against it just sounds like arguing for a boss battle for the sake of a boss battle, which is lame. A boss battle shouldn’t be there because other games would, that’s hackneyed writting and more then a little forced.
Even if he knew the full effects he was fucking insane and driven toward power when garth, reaver, hammer, theresa, and you kicked his giant giant laser crystals proverbial ass on that beach, and you escaped his tower filled with these things and returned from the fucking grave he should have realized he had no chance in hell of beating you with mooks. That is when he snaps and OD’s on power crystals!
A truly invincible boss eventually loops back to his origin form, making defeat by attrition impossible. Of course, he might have to eat his previous incarnations to self-sustain.
IT’S THE CIRCLE OF LIFE.
God I forgot how much I HATE the Final Bosses of JRPGs.
The final final final final final boss of Final Fantasy 4 made me so mad I divided by zero…
Oh, come on, Final Fantasy IV (at least the snes version, wich I played. I didn’t played the remake) have only one final boss, and zeromus is mostly like the mashed potato form actually XD . And he was actually difficult, unlike the bosses of most of the FF post IX.
Come again? You only fight two forms personally, Golbez and FuSoYa destroying the first and failing horribly against the drcond due to an inability to use the crystal to reveal his true form.
Then you “fight” his second from by using the crystal to reveal his true third form and make him vunerable as you were told it was for. Up until then you hadn’t actually fought Zemus in any real capicity.
Unless your issue is the optional bosses thrown into the remake, they aren’t really final bosses as you don’t need to kill them to finish the game, plus the extra Zemus one wasn’t even canon.
The first JRPG I played was FF8. I’ve never been much into grinding, and was rushing through it for the story, ended up facing off against the final boss with my highest level character being in the low 30’s. Spend half an hour bashing the lady, and feeling pretty impressed with my self beating her when out of no where she drops a SECOND form on me and proceeds to beat me to a pulp…
Needless to say a few days later (and about 50 levels higher) I wasn’t to thrilled to find out that there was a THIRD form…
Y’all don’t seem to know what Hyperbole is and how it is used in a comedic sense. :\
It just cause you said IV. If it had been VII, nobody would have argued.
Or VIII. Four forms? Really?
If you want a final boss with loads of forms try Link’s Awakening; the end boss in that has about ten.
Oh gawd, Kingdom Hearts Boss Battle flash backs. And there is no fking save point!
Make the Commander go Super Sayan Omega Level 7 and Kame Hame Ha that hyper bishie to sparklies.
i would of gone with WHY WONT YOU DIE?!!!
If there is an Ultimate Ultimate Ultimate Gackt form, it should just be Gackt shirtless with a fragment of that power (ex: zippers on body, a wing, mystical glow).
And if there is an Ultimate Ultimate Ultimate Gackt form, the Commander will punt him into Mr. Fish’s gaping energy-blasting maw.
I have felt your pain many, many times, Commander. Right after you destroy the gigantic freaking enemy, you get the ULTIMATE gigantic freaking enemy, and it’s always JUST as your mother is calling you to do something. I’m convinced it’s the biggest Fiendish Plot ever…
Be careful; someone might turn this storyline into a fan game,
Oh… I think, i’m getting used to see the Commander like this.
Does Gackt have a zipper pull? What happens if he’s unzipped?
Covered in zippers!
Well-played. Well-played.
Yep. Choke the shit out of him, headbutt a few times and gut his ass with a boot knife. Ultimate your way outta that, chucklehead.
Shedinja avoided the attack using Wonder Guard!
Ha ha ha ha! That’s so what video game heroes need to do.
Also… Sanyiel?
Yeah… so after seeing Mr. Fish hyper beam blasting for the past couple weeks, its obvious to see that Jared has been feeding him nothing but PP ups.
The magical power of Jiffy Pop. Or should that be Jiffy PPUp?
Of course. The pseudo-symbolic “final boss gets angel wings, a crucified pose and backlighting”. THANK YOU for blasting that tired old cliche.
Don’t get me wrong, wings aren’t BAD when they’re contextually justified (villain actually IS an angel, or a siren/harpie/tengu/whatever), but 99% of the time we get “I can has MacGuffin lol now i r anjel”.
Though for some reason this guy now looks like Lord Gaga from Skyward Sword.
Well, he seems to be breaking through the Plastic Expressionless Anime Face, at least.
He’s doing it Vash The Stampede style, though :P
That last panel reminds me of that scene from one of the Austin Powers movies. Fighting a villain and yelling ‘Why won’t you die?!” at her.
Wait, Gackt sounds like an onomatopoeia for someone being choked… It’s clear as day now! His weakness was right there in his name the whole time! Lucky thing the Commander is a master of solving riddles!
Please don’t put any lens flare on that. I don’t want to have to beat up a Japanese youth.
And let’s not forget that after destroying the final boss’s ultimate ultimate form, their as of yet unmentioned master shows up for the REAL FINAL final boss fight!
FUCK YOU CLOUD OF DARKNESS!
FUCK YOU ZEMUS!
FUCK YOU NECRON!
FUCK YOU YU YEVON!
FUCK YOU ORPHAN!
Good to see the Commander has been able to get some more emotional range out of that porcelain-doll-face.
Or the commander goes Super Sayian 3 on Ultimate Ultimate Gakt. He has the the hair..
Silence! Lest you entice the gods with your ramblings!
(jk) that would be hilarious in the “Oh god no, can’t do it, can’t watch” kind of way
That last panel made this entire arc worthwhile. Thank you.
My favorite part of this one is Mr. Fish blowing a hole in the wall just because.
Anyone else notice that Gackt looks exactly like a Caduceus?
I just caught up on every comic since November. I fukken love you, Coelasquid. Thank you for brightening my days. <3
I heard panel five’s dialogue in Wallace Shawn’s voice.
The final panel’s faces.
Commander going beserk, and Gackt’s eyeballs-popping-out-of-headness.
Yes.
He should toss him in mister fish’s laser.epic fin move
Well that’s anime games for ya.
moe bishie boys all over the place, lots of weird ass wings and leather straps. And there’s always 2-3 forms the protagonist takes whenever you battle him/her in a game.
Guess that’s why I like vesteren games more. I can’tdeal with those thin ass girly boys who hardly have a dick or anything other than sparkle roses around them, urg!
I don’tlike big muscle men either,just a regular guy.
Can’t wait to see how all of this turns out, hahah :)
just waiting for commander to turn back to normal :D
Uhh… Anime games? Are you talking about licensed games made of anime like DB Budokai Tenkaichi, OP Unlimted Cruise or Naruto Ultimate ninja series. Because this genre is JRPG.
Do you know what moe is, anyway?
Also, the term is antagonist, not protagonist.
Vesteren is not a word.
Actually, in the original FFVII, Cloud was quite muscular.
Or are you just trolling?
I wonder what Gackt would say if he ever read this comic’s Arc. O.o
Remember when Gackt managed to start choking the ultimate ultimate form on a Monday? Yeah, those were the days.
Is it me or is the virus wearing out, or is it that the bishi commanders nose been rebroken during the fight?
I think the best thing about this story line is that I haven’t imagined Commander’s voice changing at all. So I just have this pretty boy Commander with his deep gravely voice. It’s pretty much the best things ever.
Just read your view on what makes a manly man (http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/07/12/are-modern-men-manly-enough/he-man-hulks-are-people-too) and wanted to say yours was the only portion of that debate that wasn’t ludicrously silly. Thanks for setting the record straight, hope the article brings you some traffic!
Now all we need is a Manly Ghost Catcher to come out of nowhere trying to stop the bishie virus and grant the Commander a Ghost Catching machine *cough Thermos cough*.
Or…Comm. BA can just punch him with his fists, cause that’s more entertaining, complete with Fishy Lazor in the background, yay!
I think Coelasquid got bored in the middle of this boss battle and went off to Internet. [smiley face that means “this is a joke and I’m happy whenever she gets around to doing her free comic for free as long as it makes her happy” here]
Either that or she’s having scheduling issues. Or technical difficulties. Please stay tuned.
404
It is/was ComicCon, remember? Odds on she just took a week off from drawing, considering how draining conventions can be.
All good points!
I always worry, what with fires, disasters, random events, a lunatic at the Batman opening….
LOL! Best one yet!
Manly guys is still the highlight of my week :p one thing, I’d like to see Oghren featured in the manly guys comics. My argument for this
Capable warrior
“Brazen and Lustful” so it could make for a few interesting strips
He balances being a Grey Warden and a Father, doesn’t just punk out
Lol the bug eyes and the awesomeness of the Commander in one issue! :D Not only that but I sometimes want to do what he’s doing: shaking them around and saying “WHY WON’T YOU DIE!?” or something to that effect! XD
He’s not quite Ed the Undying, but almost halfway there!
Oh, that last panel reaction is just perfect.
As a lifelong fan of video games AND anime/manga (especially shonen) that last panel speaks to me on a spiritual level.