SRWZ: Nearing the end!
52: Final step to getting the G-Bits. The challenge is to wipe out a map's worth of enemies in three turns, and then deal with another wave after that. It ends up being waaaaaaaaaay easier than it looks because (a) you start at 150 will; and (b) you get a full SP refill afterward. There were a bunch of Moon Race bosses I didn't bother with in the second wave, since they retreat when you smash Gym and there were MAP-spamming Frost Brothers to worry about.
Sadly, the Bits aren't worth much in Ex-Hard, as they cost a third of Garrod's EN and damn near half of Jamil's - and that's EN you want to save for Satellite Cannon. Oh well, at least Tifa's awesome. Oh, and Haman joined before this map and her Quebeley rules face. Good power, great dodge, she's got really high stats and Attack Again - oh, and a 1-7 P TRI with high power. Nice.
53: The final stage of the first ZEUTH path, and the throwdown with both Kazazami and the revived King of Vega. Easy enough. It got interesting when some battleships showed up late and halfway across the map from everything else, but they couldn't actually hurt anything and died without too much fuss once I sent some people over.
54: Hoooooooboy. This is the beginning of Gravionmageddon, and it was a nightmare at the end (viz. my posts from a few days ago). Tons of enemies to fight spread out over the whole map and a five-turn time limit means you can't wait for them to come to you. Gotta rush rush rush, while splitting the force enough to deal with stragglers. Luckily for me Eureka got that 100th Spirit Point that she needs to cast Zeal the turn before she needed to cast it in order to wipe out a wave of Butcher's goons, which saved my ass, but even then I managed to save in battle at just the right time to make the stage into an episode of Kaizo Puzzle Robo. Two bosses left (out of four, and no that wasn't fun to deal with), eight PC squads left to move. One boss at critical HP and one at full (~90K) with a barrier. I have one person left within attack range who can cast Fury. The boss at critical HP will regenerate its life if not killed this turn. After lots of trial and error with attacks and Exhaust, I find the right combination to kill the first and leave the second with ~4000 HP, which allows Baldios to kill it with a critical hit on the counterattack. Yikes.
55: Shockingly, this stage was downright easy once I stopped being stupid. You've got the Frosts and the Gravion big bad, both of whom can massacre you with MAP attacks if you let them. But provided you stay out of the Frosts' way and keep the Gravion dude's morale down, there's nothing particularly threatening here, even on Ex-Hard. Had to let the Turn A and GX enemies retreat instead of killing them for loots, but I took out all the Zeravire in four turns when the SR point is five, so woohoo for me.
Then comes the Zambot finale, and there's no force in heaven or earth that can make that difficult. Maxed out morale, single enemies, one battleship. Whatever.
56: SEED/Zeta finale. OH GOD SO MANY BOSSES. Still working on it, prognosis is for Seven Swell to be very valuable.
