Blizzard of Faith & Revenge: Walkthrough

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Blizzard of Faith & Revenge: Walkthrough

Disclaimer

Until someone is kind enough to put up some translations, I'm playing this game blind.

That means I don't understand any kind of Chinese (only English and some Spanish), so I'm gonna be off on many,many things.

So don't give me grief unless you willing to do something about it!

Well, here we go!

The Beginning

After stumbling through the text boxes, I see a magnificent picture of what the game fortold. (And let me tell you, it looks promising!)

So anyway, from what I can tell, Marisa, Alice, Flandre, and Patchouli are having a tea party.

(As an added bonus, if you don't know who they were, each time a character speaks, you get a info page of them. Genius! Now if I can read Chinese or get a English patch, I'd be happy.)

Then, Reimu comes in and tells Marisa... something.

It must've been upsetting because anger signs are all over their chat boxes!

Just now Keine comes in and distracts us , then Mokou distracts Keine + us as well...

(I'm sorry, texts boxes give me only so much... so I'm using my imagination, which isn't very imaginative at the moment.)

Wait... Marisa was called a NEET

Wow... that is a LOT of text. I really wish I can read it...For now, I find myself mashing the enter button...

In my mashing fury, I ran through a decision box...

At least they don't look too upset...

Umm... I guess I got some money ( $ 500) 5 red and blue potions,flowers and... some mushrooms?

Weird, the title screen popped up... with more text. Yay.

Whew!

I can move now!

So let's go up and find... Reimu, who has a shop, and Keine, who has nothing important to say...

I leave, head south, and... NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More text!

Time for more mashing... WHAT THE CHICKEN!?!

I must've missed something, because I'm fighting Mokou!

(Explanation: The setting of the game is at summer, but for some reason snow is still falling. Marisa & her harem opened up some detective agency in the Hakurei Shrine, but they have been getting no customers and Reimu wants some sort of repayment as rent, so she decides to send Marisa and co. off to investigate the snow because she's too lazy to do it herself (and also because it's really cold). Before they set out, however, Mokou and Keine pay a visit to be Marisa's first customer, because Mokou's "fiery core" is stolen, and she of course immediately names Kaguya as a suspect. Marisa demands some sort of registration fee, to which Mokou decides to leave Keine behind to Reimu, to which Marisa agrees. (Mokou wants to keep Reimu as a hostage while Marisa wants to keep Keine as a hostage. Some cooperation huh?) Anyways, Mokou decides to tag along too even though she can't really fight without her fiery core.

Outside the shrine Reimu explains the two "dimension wells" - the red one is used to forge stuff while the green one heals the party. Mokou then decides that every RPG needs a combat tutorial, so she offers herself as an opponent.)

Characters

Marisa

• Strength:Pretty average in the best sense of the word.

• Weakness:...And average in the worst sense...

• Notes: A versatile member that isn't tricky to use and only gets better as you go along!

Flandre

• Strength: Powerful and has a multi hit, single target default attack! Also a tanker!

• Weakness: Spells are waaaaay expensive and a bad magic stat. Also lacks multi-target move in the beginning (requiring you to spend money to buy one for her).

• Notes: If you want a nuker, Flandre is your missile, er, girl.! She'll get the job done, but it'll cost you... in mp of course...

Alice

• Strength: Fast, large array of support spells and attacks that cause debuffs, also has a multi hit all target default attack!

• Weakness: Attacks don't tend to do a lot of damage. Also squishy.

• Notes: Her debuffs can really shine in random battles. In boss battles she's not as useful, although her high speed faciliates her to be a fast item user, and she gets a fairly cheap single-revive skill early, which can save you money and effort on obtaining Games of Life.

Patchouli

• Strength: Fairly powerful spells, healing spells, high resistance to elements make her deceptively long lasting in boss battles, healing spells, lots of SP, healing spells, has a bugged spell that cost no SP and drains SP from enemies, and did I mention healing spells?

• Weakness: Vulnerable to non-elemental attacks, low speed.

• Notes: The healer of the team. She can dish out the damage too when she needs to, but for the most part she'll be busy healing everyone in boss battles. Even though she has low HP, high affinity means that often you'd find after some huge attack, patchy's the only one left standing. Just keep her status free so she can concentrate on help your other members stand on their feet again.

Boss Battle

Mokou

File:Vs Mokou.png

Recommended Level: 1

Strategy: Well, the way I see it is using Alice to heal, and nuke with everyone else... That's it...

After more text,Patchouli learns a new spell, and there are two pools of... stuff.

The left one heals you while the one on the right combines/alchemys your items.

I head down, (even more text) and find treasure!

Items in the Area

Red Potion

Quantity:2

Who can use it:Anyone

Advice:Use in Boss Fights!

Blue Potion +

Quantity:1

Who can use it:Anyone

Advice:Use in Boss Fights/Out of Mp!

Mushroom

Quantity:10

What it's used for: Alchemy ingredient

Advice: Wait for that important item you dream of before using it

Jar of...Something

Quantity:10

What it's used for: Alchemy ingredient

Advice: Wait for that important item you dream of before using it

On the way, I found some pretty nasty enemies...

On another note, good place to grind if you so wish.

Bestiary

Kedema

Recommended Level:1 

Strategy: If you are facing a team of, like say 5, it's a tough battle starting out... 
Attack with your best spells and hope for the best! 

Green Kedema

Recommended Level:1 

Strategy: Only noticeable is it being green and a little meaner than the other Kedemas...

?

Recommended Level:1 

Strategy: Wow. Pretty tough if you are just starting out! Same logic applies. Nuke!

A Functional Walkthrough

This should be enough for people who don't speak Chinese to play the game, albeit not experience it fully. Please also remember to read Blizzard of Faith & Revenge: Gameplay and Blizzard of Faith & Revenge: Miscellaneous for some explanations not covered here.

Mission 1 - Ice Fairy of the Lake

• Southwest of Hakurei Shrine is Mystia's shop. You can buy several spells for everyone, but the only really worthy purchase is Midnight Chorus Master (the one that costs 600) on Marisa and maybe Alice. Patchouli gets a spell that does the same thing (puts every enemy to sleep) and Flandre's crappy magic stat doesn't do the spell justice. Moonlight does very weak damage on anyone except Patchy (who has Agni Shine already); Firefly Phenomenon hurts and poisons everyone including allies; Gassing garden simply isn't useful enough to justify its price tag. Mystia will stock up additional spellcards as you clear missions (generally ones used by the bosses you battled), so check back every so often should you wish.
• Northwest of Hakurei Shrine is Human Village, where you can slightly upgrade everyone's equipment (although your limited finance will also limit what you can upgrade). Explore the village as well - in Keine's school the guy on the topright has a math problem for you. Answer it (hint: note all the numbers in the middle row are even) for some forgable materials. In one of the house northwest there will be a mysterious girl whom starts a sidequest for Alice. Tewi is in Tenshi's item shop and has a minigame for you; you can't win it and she'll take 100 yuan every time you lose, so don't bother with it for now. Buy a Supernatural Border -Water- from Tenshi if you want, for the next boss fight.
• There's an airship entrance north of human village (head east first, then look for the exit northwest). At the entrance point for every airship, there's a random chance that Murasa will show up nearby, and talking to her initiates a fight. While you don't get Game Over for losing here, you won't be ready to fight back for a good while, so just ignore her when you see her.
• Once you're done with both locations, head west to the Forest of Magic. You can find both Alice and Marisa's house once you head in a little, and can sleep on the bed for recovery. Also, if you talked to the girl in the Human Village Alice will find four of her dolls missing. You can find one right outside the house when you get the sidequest.
• Head North towards Misty Lake. Note the shining crystals, they can recover the party's HP/SP but most of them are single use. Make your way through the lotus leaves (no hard puzzles), but don't head north past the signpost. The crystal past the stationary enemy (3 blue dolls) is NOT single use, so recover yourself before heading to the center to face Cirno. She's not hard at all; Alice's Little Legion can take off about 1/4-1/5 of her HP if it hits, and Marisa's Non-directional Laser (if you got it already) does the same. Watch out for her Perfect Freeze, however - it hits one member for unimpressive damage, but it can freeze the target, which can't be cured with any items or spells you have right now. Diamond Blizzard hits the entire party for about 300-400 damage and can be ignored for the most part, especially if you have Supernatural Border Water.
• MAKE SURE YOU CHOOSE OPTION #2 AFTER FIGHTING CIRNO OR YOU WILL MISS OUT ON ONE SIDEQUEST AND SUBSEQUENTLY CAN'T OPEN UP EXTRA CONTENTS. The option you should choose is 先在周围就近调查一下 (hang around and investigate first).
• After you're done with the next few maps, you'll automatically be back at the Misty Lake's center. Loot the treasure chests around the place. You'll also find Alice's second doll here.

Mission 2 - Diminishing Faith

• Note that this route is based on the "correct" choice of hanging around the lake first. If you chose the first option you will fight Sanae midway instead of Momiji/Aya, and Kanako instead of Suwako. However, like I said, you will miss out on sidequests.
• From Misty Lake, backtrack all the way to east of Human Village (they got new stocks, by the way, check them out if you want. You'll probably want one or two Supernatural Border Wood for Aya), and go northeast to ascend the Youkai Mountain.
• Youkai Mountain itself is fairly straight forward, again. Halfway through the mountain, you will have to fight Momiji. She's not too hard - she got a few sword moves, but they are mostly single target. Beat her down with all you got.
• You'll find Alice's third doll the screen after.
• (As a side note, the area between the two caves are the best place to level for you for a while. 5 frogs are worth 175 exp, and one NDL handily weakens them to the point where you can kill them with regular attacks. Each NDL costs a 30 Yuan potion to perform, and the frogs drop 75 Yuan plus the occasional Stardusts, so potion costs are more or less offset.)
• Atop the mountain before you head past the bridge, you will have to fight Aya as well. She spends her first turn speeding herself up with Wind God Hidden Among Tree Leaves, then proceed to dismantle you with Tengu Fall Wind that does 1000+ to everyone. She can also use Wind of the Red Leaf Fan for a massive 28 hit combo on one character. Both attacks are wood-elemental so the supernatural border really helps out. It also helps if you're level 13 so Patchouli can efficiently heal with Green Storm, but if you put most of your bonus on speed you shouldn't really need to be that high level.
• At the top of the mountain you'll fight Suwako. Your goal here is not to defeat her, but survive a number of rounds. She can use Froggy Brave the Elements to summon seven frogs, and attack with Moriya's Iron Ring and Mishaguji-sama, which do about 400/800 damage to everyone respectively. You can lower that amount by defending, although you do want to wipe out any frogs she summon with NDL and have Patchy heal occasionally. After surviving a number of round the fight will automatically be over.
• Some conversation (and hilarity) will ensue. Sidequest 3 will also automatically be done. In any case, your next goal is Eientei. Sidequests 4-7 are also open to you (again, provided you chose the second option, or you won't be able to do 4-5) to be done at your leisure.

Mission 3 Princess's Impossible Requests

• First, you want to prepare for the journey - if you are going to finish Alice's Doll quest (I don't recommend it until at least level 18), you will need four lily necklaces (百合项链）, or 3 if you have the Book of Painting under the Sun （太阳下的素描本） (which blocks all status). if you don't have the book, you'll also need a aquamarine necklace （水蓝项链）. An additional one can help too. Also, it might be worth it to spend 3000 yuan to get Flandre Aya's Tengu Fall Wind, as she doesn't get a cost-efficient multi-targetting move for a while.
• The entrance to bamboo forest is located in the map south of Alice and Marisa's houses. When you enter the map, inspect the big signpost and a familiar BGM should play - Contra stage 1. This is a hint on how to navigate through the forest - use the Konami Code. Each exit has a signpost which corresponds to a key and you have to follow them. Unfortunately, the signposts are all in Chinese, so this is the order: 上上下下左右左右BABA.
• On the fifth map you will find Alice's last doll on the northwest end. Upon reclaiming the doll, however, you will be teleported to a strange place, and small Alice will show up and face you. She has three attacks - Doll Flame which damages all battlers (including herself) and inflicts Poison, Doll Seal which inflicts confuse, and Doll Manipulation which also inflicts confuse and is extremely strong. You'll need confusion protection on everyone, and then systematically whittle down her HP. She's not quite as durable as possessed Sanae, but she still takes a while to go down and her attacks will take a toll on you in the mean time, especially if she decides to use Doll Manipulation multiple times in a row. For defeating her you obtain another accessory that protected against instant death as well as increases resistance to other ailments, and another unknown spell card.
• Keep heading through the forest, but before you exit the 10th screen, equip berserk protection on Patchouli (small Alice's accessory isn't good enough for the job) and maybe Alice too, and save. As soon as you head to the next screen, you'll be ambushed by a bunch of rabbits. Defeat them with whatever (they do VERY little damage), and Reisen will show up to do battle with you. She only has two attacks - Invisible Full Moon which damages all and cause Berserk (very reliably), and Tele-mesmerism which damages a single target and cause Sleep. She seems to favor the former and only uses the latter when she's low on HP. Anyways, as long as you have berserk protection on Patchouli you should be fine, as you can just have her heal every round (Reisen's attacks aren't particularly damaging) while Marisa and Flandre dismantle Reisen automatically. Just hope Reisen doesn't sleep Patchouli with Tele-mesmerism or you'll be in trouble. Keeping Alice out of berserk is also helpful as she can refill Patchy's SP and lift sleep when needed, and her spells are much more powerful than her normal attack (even when berserked).
• When you're done with Reisen, you'll automatically enter Eientei and engage in a conversation with Eirin and Kaguya. Long story short, you now have to solve five new impossible requests by collecting them:
  • Zanbakudou
  • Miyuki's life-sized GK
  • Suikataro's stationery set
  • Chizuru's sexy pillow
  • Kaguya doesn't say anything about the last one
• So yeah. Once all the conversation is done, the group decides that when you think Zanbakudou, you think Youmu's swords, so they will be paying her a visit next.
• (Unrelated note: I'm still in tears laughing from the previous conversation. Two Otakus arguing with each other referencing otaku stuff in general all the time, while everyone else does nothing except constantly throwing tsukkomi around, all to the BGM of Fun Fun Fun Dayo in Lucky Star - and then you have those "impossible requests". It's just too much...)

Mission 4 - "Artifact" War in the Netherworld

• The entrance to Netherworld is located just southwest of Alice's house.
• Leveling Spot: In the first map on the route to Netherworld, there are two groups of monsters that contain five Kedemas (the third group you come across, and the one near the recovery crystal on bottom right). These kedemas are worth almost 1000 exp, and while they are strong monsters, Alice's house is nearby for fast recovery. Their money drop is somewhat poor, though. Fighting through the next part of the game is a pain due to lack of recovery crystals, so I'd recommend you train a lot here and avoid encounters for the next leg of the game.
• You'll want to have multiple sets of status protection before heading out. Two Phoenix Necklaces (凤凰项链) (3 if you have only done one of Alice's doll sidequest or Sanae's sidequest, 4 if you haven't done either), three Angel Necklaces (天使项链) (4 if you haven't done Sanae's sidequest), and three aquamarine necklaces (4 if you haven't done Sanae's sidequest). There are some additional necklaces in chests along the way, but you might not find them, so this is to stay safe.
• Also, you may want to train until you're at least level 25 or so and have a good stock before heading off. You'll have to go through a lot of maps and fight a lot of bosses, and you don't want to find out midway through the quest that you're lacking in resources of powers, as it'll be a long walk back.
• You'll have to go through a loooong string of maps with nothing interesting in between to go to the Netherworld. There's only one fork in the way - when you first arrive in the Garden of the Sun, head left. After about 20 maps of snowy forests you'll finally arrive before the gate. Before heading up, have aquamarine necklaces (and the book Sanae dropped) equipped on everyone.
• At the gate the Prismrivers will show up and fight you. Lunasa and Lyrica don't have anything too harmful but Merlin's attack can cause Berserk, hence the aquamarine necklaces. Zap them with your strongest multi-target skills and they'll go down soon enough.
• In the next map, go right and you'll find Youmu. Obviously she won't give you her swords so you'll have to fight her for them. Youmu has a very strong single target skill that can often KO a character in one hit, but is otherwise unremarkable. Defeat her and you'll get her swords.
• Once you defeat Youmu, you'll be able to access the building. Before entering, however, keep a seperate save and equip Angel Necklaces and Sanae's book on everyone, you'll see Yuyuko chasing her "food" (aka Wriggle, Rumia, Mystia and Medicine), somehow not caring the fact that Medicine is the embodiment of poison. Oh well. Since you're in her snacks' way, they'll attack you. The biggest threat in this battle is Mystia, who can use Midnight Chorus Master to reliably to put everyone to sleep. If you don't have full anti-sleep coverage, she'll need to go down first. Otherwise, zap them with your strongest spells and don't worry too much about healing - they aren't powerful at all.
• Once you're done, equip Phoenix Necklaces (and Alice and Sanae's accessory) on everyone, then enter the back room. Marisa will comment that they got what they wanted already, so they should head off now, but suddenly Mokou has an inspiration. Doesn't Yuyuko look just like Miyuki? (I think she looks more like Yukari actually, but it's close enough I guess) She then gets the bright idea of having Alice make the Miyuki GK using Yuyuko as a model. Yuyuko wants dragon dishes for compensation, but Marisa and co decides that violent beatdown is a more suitable reward for her instead. You'll have to fight both Youmu and Yuyuko, but Youmu is under Weaken as you yoinked her favourite swords away. Do away with her first, then concentrate on Yuyuko. She'll start the battle by using Gensokyo's Netherworld Geyser to power herself up, then zap you with various multi-target spells. In fact, Resurrection Butterfly 80% Reflowering is a massive 71 hit combo on everyone! If you don't have high magic defense you'll have problems surviving it, but if your armor is completely up to date you'll take minimum damage. Anyways, as long as Youmu isn't around any more when she starts blasting you with that (and Flawless Nirvana apparently, though I haven't seen it) you should be fine.
• With two impossible requests solves, Mokou starts thinking about the next two. Alice should be able to do something to make a stationery set and a pillow, so they just need models - since Chizuru's a kitsune, we'll have to find Ran, and for Suikataro we'll have to settle with Suika for similarity of name (if nothing else). However, since nobody knows how to enter Yukari's gaps or find Suika except maybe Reimu, we'll talk to her first and see what she can do.

Mission 5 - Embarassing Pillow

• In terms of items, there's nothing much you need to prepare for. However, you'll definitely want to be at a decent level, 32-33 or so, before entering the gap. You won't be able to exit once you're in, and the monsters inside are very tough.
• Now that you defeated Yuyuko, Mystia's shop will be attended by a pet crow instead. Mystia herself will randomly show up in the house south of Human Village, and will sell you two special spell cards at a hefty price of 50000 each: Peerless Wind God and First Category Perpetual Motion Device (only if you defeated Yukari). Peerless Wind God doubles your speed and is extremely broken, while FCPMD is just a really strong attack. It's unlikely that you can afford either at the moment, though.
• As soon as you enter the Hakurei Shrine, Marisa and co. will notice that something is wrong. They enter to find that Reimu's practice at summoning Gods went slightly awry - instead of just practicing the ritual as she intended, she ends up actually summoning Hina, Minoriko, and for some reason Nitori too. They aren't too happy about the summoning either, and since you just entered in time Reimu dumps the fight on you. The MoF Small Fry team isn't very different from Mystia's small fry team, and they don't have any dangerous attacks, so just use multi-target moves like Master Spark to bring them down quickly.
• Once you're done, Reimu will agree to send you to the gap, and asks you to talk to her when ready. You can still buy border cards (for forging) by choosing the third option. Once you're all prepared (keep a seperate savefile!), talk to her and choose the first option three times and she'll let you in the locked door nearby, as well as giving you a Fake Fantasy Heaven, which you'll need for Yukari. Take the teleporter to enter the gap.
• The gap is one confusing maze. You can try to walk this without a walkthrough, but it'll take you forever, so this is how you get out of it: At the first fork, turn left and follow the path. At the end you'll see a signpost and four teleporters lined up in a row. Ignore the teleporters, and instead position yourself one square left of the signpost and head up. You'll pass through a secret passage to the other side - go around the teleporter and head for the next map.
• In this map, there are four teleporters to the right and you have to step on all of them from bottom to up. The blue chest on top will ask you if you want to open it, and if you do you have to fight four random encounters in succession. Feel free to go all out on the encounters - you'll get a chance to restock items soon. Once you're done with all four, you'll receive an accessory that sets permanent Strengthen, so give it to either Alice or Flan. Once you stepped on all four teleporters in order, step on the second one from the bottom again and you'll arrive at a new screen.
• The box to the left sells you items. I don't know why either. Anyways, just follow the path and take the teleporter in the end. You'll be at the entrance of a map that is structured exactly like the first map - go back to the signpost again and step on the far left teleporter this time. Another map for you to follow the path and step on the teleporter. You'll be back at the entrance again. Just get off the entry teleporter and step on it again to arrive at a new screen. Follow the path and you'll be in Yukari's house. Save before entering, of course.
• Once you entered, you'll engage in a hilarious conversation with Ran and Chen. Yukari soon pops out and orders Ran to attack you. She'll use Dakini's Heavenly Possession to speed herself up at the beginning, but her attacks don't really hurt that much. Easy boss.
• Once she's down, Yukari will attack you personally (flanked by both Ran and Chen). Ran is the same as last fight, and Chen will do a bunch of attacks with little effect. Yukari herself, however, has some dangerous tricks. Amongst other attacks, First Category Perpetual Motion Device is basically can instant kill on one person, doing about 8000 damage. Balance of Silence and Motion freezes everyone (there's no necklace to prevent that, although Sanae's Sketchbook can block it). Also, she can cast a barrier on herself that automatically counters magic attacks (the first time she does this Patchouli will comment on it). I don't know exactly what she'll do if you hit her with magic while the barrier is up (I didn't really want to try), but you can break it by using a physical spell card (the one that are noted by a red card instead of blue card on the spell card selection screen) or failing that, a physical attack. You'll want to take out Ran first, as her attacks, while not overly strong, can easily be the last straw while you're recovering from a strong hit from Yukari. Chen can be safely ignored and taken out by collateral damage from Master Spark and the like. Keep the hurting on Yukari after that, but note that when she gets down to about 10-20% HP or so, she'll say that she should be getting serious now. This is your cue to whip out Fake Fantasy Heaven （伪 幻想天生）, which puts Prayer (think Reraise) on everyone. The next attack you land on Yukari will cause her to counter with Profound Danmaku Bounded Barrier, doing about 100000 damage to everyone, so you'll need that Prayer status to survive. There's no more surprise after that, so take out her last legging of HP and win the fight.
• Once you're done, you get a fanservice CG for Ran, and the third item you need. Loot the place first, then save and restock (you'll immediately be thrust into a boss fight when you exit the gap, so you'll want to be prepared). Train a bit too if you want (the crystal in Yukari's room is non-perishable). Once you're done, talk to Yukari to leave the gap.
• Training Spot: Just outside Yukari's house, there are four groups of monster running about. Two of them consist of a white doll and six kedemas and are worth 2700 exp each. It's a fairly tough fight as the doll has some really annoying attacks (including one that heals and revives all allies), but there's a reusable crystal nearby anyways.

Mission 6 - Alcoholic-Taro

• Not much to say about this one. As soon as you leave the gap you'll enter a fight with Suika. She has a bunch of multi-hitting attacks, but they are neither strong nor associated with any annoying status. She does absorb fire though, so don't use any fire attacks on her, especially Laevatein. Just use any attacks that aren't fire-elemental and you'll be fine. Time to head back to Kaguya's mansion.

Mission 7 - Final Request

• Sidequest 8 is available.
• If you have done Sidequest 1/2 (Alice's dolls), talk to the girl on the northwest house and she'll offer to sell you an accessory for 10k. It grants Mag up on the wearer and can be resold for 12.5k even if you don't want it, although you have to have enough money or she won't offer it again.
• Ran and Chen will randomly appear near the stairs outside Moriya Shrine. You can receive a bunch of stuff from Chen. Youmu will also randomly appear near the two wells outside Hakurei Shrine, and you can receive 15 Starfish Rocks from her. Finally, Wriggle randomly appears in the room on Youkai Mountain with 4 chests, and you can receive some Boundary between Form and Emptiness from her.
• Simply head back to Eientei. Turns out that the last request from Kaguya is for Mokou to cosplay as something. Lots of fantasy CGs ensue, but in the end Mokou has a grand idea. For some reason it involves you fighting Eirin. Eirin has a couple multi-target attacks that are middlish in strength, but you can skip them by draining her of all SP (Rain of Phlogiston), after which she'll simply spam Hourai Elixir on herself, which heals her for about 180-200k HP but doesn't heal her SP at all, so if you can outdamage her you should be able to kill her without taking more than one attack.
• You then get to see Mokou's cosplaying. Kaguya is satisfied enough with it to show you the origin of the incident. Our next destination is the forgotten mountain beyond the Misty Lakes.

Mission 8 - Icy Warmth

• For preparation, some borders for water and fire will do, although they don't really help out very much. You may also want to have at least 10 Game of Rising for mass revive, as you'll get KO'd a lot in the boss fights of this section. (Sidequest 8 provides you with 10, and you can forge more from the red well if you want.) Also, if you feel your level is too low (40 is good enough for the quest, really), do your training in Yukari's gap, because the next dungeon features mostly groups that only give 2000 exp.
• Once you feel you're ready, head for Misty Lake and go to where you fought Cirno last time. The barriers surrounded the path that goes further are gone. You'll be walking a different set of maps from before (if you chose the correct option after defeating Cirno for the first time), with chests and monsters. Just follow the path, collecting chests as you go. There's a chance you'll see Sanae right before the Ice Fire Dungeon, and she'll give you 34 Icy Soul Rocks.
• The Ice Fire Dungeon is pretty complex, but less so than the gap. The exit is always in the ice dungeon, but generally you have to go back and forth to do certain things to reach the next floor. These are what you should do on each floor:
  • On floor 1, simply head over to the fire dungeon using the magic circle and flip two switches. Head back to the ice dungeon and descend.
  • On floor 2, head to the fire dungeon and go down the staircase to the upper left. Follow the path on the short passage and you'll emerge on the right side. Flip the switch. Then, head back to the ice dungeon and do the same. Now head back to the fire dungeon and flip the switch again. Head back to the ice dungeon and a bridge should appear on bottom right for you to reach the stairway to next floor.
  • On floor 3, head for the fire dungeon and kill the monsters that guard the doorway above. Then go back to the ice dungeon and do the same, so you can head through to the next floor.
  • On floor 4, head for the fire dungeon and kill all the blue kedemas. Once you do a dialog box will pop up: "You hear something shatter!" Head back to the ice dungeon and head for the next floor.
  • On floor 5, find the magic circle for the fire dungeon and go all the way to bottom right to step on a switch. Then, head back to the ice dungeon and do the same. Head back to the fire dungeon one more time to find another switch directly to the upper right of the circle. Go around the map to collect all the treasures (there are 4), and head back to the ice dungeon and do the same. Now, go find the exit to the north. Before leaving, however, you'll see another circle surrounded by a bunch of recovery crystals. Save and enter the circle to fight a Dual-Elemental Butterfly.
• The butterfly has two forms, an ice form and a fire form, and it can switch in between at will by using Ice/Fire Reversal, after which it will immediately charge for another spell. In fire form it will use Scorching Inferno Butterfly to inflict Ignite on all characters (Sanae's sketchbook, as usual, blocks it), after which it will use Double Flaming Danmaku which will hit a character, for lethal damage if the character is ignited. In Ice form it will simply use either Icy Charge or Shadowfrost, both multi-target spells that tend to freeze anyone who isn't frozen, and kill anyone who is. Make sure Patchy has Sanae's sketchbook equipped, and hope she stays in fire form as much as possible. it's pretty annoying to be constantly reviving everyone, but as long as Patchy's always up and standing you should be fine. After the battle two chests will appear, one of which contains 10 Purest Sources of Fire, which cures Freeze on everyone but also inflicts 500 damage. You'll probably end up using a few of those for the next boss fight.
• Exit the cavern when you're done and make absolute sure you pick up the next chest outside, which contains a Frostspeak Necklace that blocks freezing. This will reduce your frustration for the next fight significantly. Simply follow the path and you'll fight the next set of bosses - Cirno and Letty. (As an aside, the BGM for the fight is awesome)
• Cirno is the main attacker of the fight, with Freezing Blizzard that damages and freezes all characters, and Minus K, a single target attack that is powerful enough to kill anyone that's frozen, and maybe even when they're not (especially if it's Alice). Letty will occasionally whip out Lingering Cold and Flower Withering for some very minor water damage, but her main role in battle is to use Frost Sadness, which restores some 700k-1m HP to Cirno. It's nearly impossible to outdamage this healing, so you will have to take down Letty first. Once she's down, Cirno will use Lasting Regrets, which powers herself up as well as allowing her to use the very powerful Aurora Ice Explosion, which does a ton of damage (Patchouli and Flandre are the only ones who can survive it consistently) and paralyzes any survivors. Since your only SP draining attack doesn't work on her you'll just have to bear it, but she's not that fast so you should have plenty of time to revive and patch up everyone. As long as your level is high enough (Marisa's Blazing Star works wonder in this fight, so does Flan's Laevatein), you shouldn't have too much trouble felling them.
• Cirno will tell you that the person behind all this is Rinnosuke, so it's time to pay him a visit. Do collect the chests in the area though. The one that is seemingly unreachable can be obtained by going down on slightly left of the lone tree on the right side and contains 10k yuan, and you can also find a bunch of forge materials plus formula for tier 7 wepaon/armor on the right side.

Mission 9 - Conspiracy behind the blizzard

• Mystia (or rather, her crow)'s shop will now have Astronomical Entombing on sale for 25k. It is probably the second best spell in the game (losing only to Peerless Wind God, but useful in a much more variety of situations), with the ability to drain SP of almost any boss to nothing (and all the SP goes to you as well!). It makes your characters very self sustainable without having to use items in randoms, and locks most bosses in SP recovery mode only to have their SP drained all over again soon after. Get it for every character as soon as possible; you'll need it for the difficulties of post-story side-quests.
• Sidequest 9 is available. It's a good source of experience so be sure to get it out of the way.
• There's not much else to do, so just prepare a bunch of items and head north from Human Village. Enter the house on top left and get inside to face Rinnosuke.
• At the beginning of the fight Rinnosuke will generally open with Lewisite (minor damage and almost guaranteed poison). He can also use BZ (somewhat stronger damage with chance to caust incapacitate, which lowers MaxSP), Charged Ion Radiation (extremely high damage to all, pretty much Patchy's the only one who can survive it consistently), Octanitrocubane which cause very high damage to a single target (it probably won't kill Patchy or damage anyone with really high defense though). Also, like Orin, Rinnosuke can immediately charge for another spell after using SP Conversion. Finally, at lower HP he starts to throw 235-Fission (read: nukes) around. It cause really high damage and has a chance to poison, but it also takes a long time to charge so you should be able to defend against it. While his attacks are survivable, he has 7.5m HP and very high defenses, so stick with attacks with high base power like Blazing Star and Laevatain. Alice (when not helping out the party with items and stuff) can also use Dolls in Sea to damage him, although it won't do a lot of damage. It'll take a while and a bunch of items, but eventually he'll go down.
• After the battle, you will face a choice again. Choosing the second option （就这样吧） will end the game with a bad ending, while choosing the first option will continue the game. Make sure you loot all the chests in the room to the left. Also, the shelves in that room will prompt you for a password - which is 1228 (a reference to Ace Attorney), and will reward you with a bunch of stat boosters.
• At this point your mission is to simply get the kotatsu you got after the fight to Reimu. However there are a few sidequests that have opened up, and you'll probably need the experience (and items) to even think about doing the post-game mission, so be sure to check them out.

Sidequest 4/5 - Secret Passage and the Betrayal of Kochiya

• This sidequest is NOT available if you did not choose to hang around and investigate after defeating Cirno.
• It is recommended that you get to a minimum of level 18 or so before challenging this sidequest, with a healthy amount of SP restoratives. I personally went at level 14 and had to expend every single SP restoring item I had.
• Head back up to Moriya Shrine. Keep a seperate save file at this point, as you will be unable to exit the sidequest soon after.
• At the first intersection outside the shrine, head left. There is a different looking brick on the floor, stand on it and press Confirm. A well will appear. Inspect it to enter the passage.
• Head forth and you'll see Kanako torturing Sanae. Lots of conversation ensues, and you'll eventually have to fight Aya and Momiji. Their stats haven't changed since your last skirmish. Do everything in your power to beat down Aya to not get too many Tengu Fall Wind down your throat, then deal with Momiji at your leisure.
• Once you're done, head left and you'll exit into the shrine. There are some monsters (formation of four yellow dolls). They're fairly strong but there's a multi-use restore crystal near the entrance, so they shouldn't be a problem.
• Once you exit the shrine, you'll have to fight a KANAKO GUNDAM (yes really). At higher levels you should be fine, though if you're at the low level I was, it's not a fun fight as the gundam has crapload of HP, and its Particle Beam and Positron Cannon are practically ensured 1 hit kills against anyone (Flandre might survive a Positron Cannon if one of its hits misses). It can also use some multiple attacking moves but they aren't too strong (although Phase Disrupter can inflict silence).
• When you're done, you'll soon have to fight Possessed Sanae. She lacks the 1 hit kill moves that the gundam have, but is easily twice as resilient, and has a few mean multi-attacking tricks up her sleeve - Moriya's Iron Ring is back and slightly stronger; Roaring Sea's Wrath and Holy Salvation does really high damage (close to 2000); and Eternally Bright Night drains SP, which is bad for you as this is a battle of endurance for the most part. There's not much to this fight - if you got the resources, you win; otherwise you lose. I hope you kept a seperate save file.
• You'll receive an accessory that blocks all status except downed, and the key item Sanae's Hair Accessory for completing all this, which you can either sell for a handy sum of 12.5k (not recommended) or use to teach a party member (that isn't Flandre) Star Ritual to Call the Godly Winds, which is a (very slow) spell that refills all SP and inflicts Mag up for caster. I recommend giving it to Marisa, as Patchouli (the party healer) generally can't afford to waste almost a turn's worth of time charging for the spell, while too many of Alice's spells are physical based, limiting the use of Mag Up.

Sidequest 6/7 - Returning Books

• This sidequest is available as soon as you're done with Mission 2. Go to the top-right house in Human Village. Turns out this previously vacant house is Akyu's house, and she asks you to collect various books that were borrowed by villagers for her.
• There are three books to be found in the village:
  • Talk to the armor seller. She'll return you a book.
  • Talk to the girl on the second floor of the weapon/armor shop. She'll return you another book.
  • Talk to the old guy pacing in the lobby of the village elder's house (the really big one on the left side). He'll return you the final book.
• Once you have all three, go back to Akyu and she'll tell you there's another book to collect, and it was borrowed by Renko, who decided to run off to search for some underground ruins. Patchouli mentions that it should be near Misty Lake.
• Head all the way back to the entrance to Misty Lake. You'll see Renko trying to get in a cave that's blocked off by snow. Parsee appears and scares her a little, and the party intervenes to fight Parsee. She's a joke compared to Kanako-gundam and Possessed Sanae. Her attacks do about 600-700 damage at best and her HP is low. You should be able to defeat her without using up too much resources.
• Marisa and Mokou will proceed to "convince" Renko to return the book. Take it back to Akyu. You'll receive one of the four Unknown Spell Cards for your troubles.

Sidequest 8 - Exorcise of alcoholics

• This sidequest is available after defeating Suika. Talk to the elder of human village, who will inform you that there's an oni running amok in the village lately, but as of this moment she has been "sealed" in the second floor of the village alcoholic, so of course it's Marisa and company's job to actually do away with the oni.
• Go to the second floor of the house just right of the elder's house and you'll find Yuugi, who's drinking herself silly. You'll automatically get thrust in a fight. Yuugi has more HP than Suika, but her attacks in general are weaker. Irremovable Shackle does unimpressive damage and inflicts slow (put Sanae's paintbook on Patchy to counter), and Hell's Wheel of Pain does zero damage to anyone with decent defense. Storm on Mt. Ooe is the only attack she has that can actually damage you, but the figure is usually in the 1000-2000 range and easily recoverable. At low HP, however, she'll start using Knockout in Three Steps, which will likely KO a character (although it has a long charge time, meaning you can anticipate it and use defend instead). The only surprise in this fight comes when Yuugi's HP is low enough where she'll use Red Horned Triple Speed (hmm...), where then she'll launch three attacks in quick succession (essentially she'll start charging for the attacks right after launching one, although the charge time hasn't changed), which can be bad if she uses multiple Storm on Mt. Ooe. You can disrupt her flow by depleting her SP with Patchy's Rain of Phlogiston, though, causing her to waste her attacks on SP Refill instead. Anyways, as long as you can outlast her triple attack, she's easy. You'll get an accessory that sets Permanent haste on the wearer, and talking to the elder afterwards yield a bunch of top-quality healing items.
• While at this point the sidequest is officially done, if you revisit the cellar you will find Suika (if you don't see her, leave and enter a few times until she appears). Talking to her will initiate another battle with her. She has the same stats as before, so it shouldn't be a problem.
• After defeating Suika, leave and reenter the cellar (a few times if you need) and you'll find Suika and Yuugi together. Talk to one of them and you get to fight them both! This is quite a bit tougher than their solo fights, because if Yuugi decides to use Storm on Mt. Ooe a lot you'll have problem outhealing the damage caused by both of them. Also, if you see Suika spends a long time charging, Defend, as she's charging for Pandemonium, which when combined with Mt. Ooe is basically a total party kill. Take out Suika first (she has lower HP so it shouldn't be a problem even if you just spam multitarget moves like Spark and ATWTBN), as once you do the fight becomes a lot simpler again. There's no real quest reward for beating them again, although you do get another permahaste accessory and two Hourai Elixirs from their deathdrops, and a bunch of experience plus money.

Sidequest 9 - Retaliation of Human Village

• This sidequest is available after defeating Cirno and Letty. Talk to the elder of human village (again). A villager will run in and inform you that a bunch of Youkai are attacking the village. You will automatically to find six... er, five youkai (and one god) in the town square. They quickly scatter off, so you have to hunt them down one by one.
• In the map right of the village, you can find Shizuha near the entrance to Youkai Mountain. Her attack Falling Leaves of Madness can cause sleep, so if you aren't using Astronomical Entombing you should equip Angel Necklaces to counter. She (and all the other small fries) have only 1m HP, so she should die very quickly.
• In the house on the same map you will find Kisume. She's probably the only one of them that can actually give you trouble, owing to her high defenses and immunity to all elements. Flandre and Patchouli can't even scratch her without having any SC from Mystia, so Marisa's Blazing Star (and to a lesser extent, Alice's Dolls in Sea) are all you got. You also can't drain SP from her, and her card Well Bucket-dropping Monster causes paralyze, so you may want to equip Vitality Necklaces (活力项链) to counter. Still, 1m HP means she'll die to six Blazing Stars or so.
• Near the entrance to Hakurei Shrine you'll find Kogasa. Her attack Umbrella Halo causes silence, and she's fully vulnerable to Astronomical Entombing. Moving on...
• In the unnamed house where Mystia can appear, you'll find Nazrin. Rare Metal Detector causes Guard Off. Yawn.
• On the map where Mystia's shop is located you'll find Yameme. Unexplained Fever causes poison and for some reason seems extra incompatible with Flandre. Whatever.
• Near the bottom left of the map just before Magical Forest you'll find Ichirin. Heavenly Net Sandbag causes Guard Off again. This is the last of the six you have to fight, so yay.
• Heal at Hakurei Shrine and save before entering the village, for as soon as you do you will have to fight Orin, who is a full fledged boss. At the beginning she'll only use "The Needles of Yore and the Vengeful Spirits in Pain" (causes silence) and Blazing Wheel, although you'll quickly notice that if you try to drain her SP she gets to charge for a spell as soon as she uses SP conversion. Still, if you have Astronomical Entombing it's helpful to at least waste her time. A bit into the fight she'll start using Vengeful Cat Spirit's Erratic Step, which sets haste and allows her to charge another spell immediately (and doesn't cost SP to boot); luckily she seems to be rather stupid about it and tends to use it multiple times in succession for some reason. Finally, she'll eventually start using Rekindling of Dead Ashes, a nasty spell that damages, sets ignite (allowing Blazing Wheel to start KOing people left and right), and drains a lot of HP to herself. Treat her like you did with the fire butterfly and you should be fine.

Sidequest SWR - Kidnapping in the Village and Fantasy Quadraple Sword

• This sidequest is available after defeating Rinnosuke, but before giving the kotatsu to Reimu. Talk to Keine in her school to start the quest, but save beforehand as you will not be able to access the item shop during the quest. (Well technically you can run all the way to the gap to repot but that's juts inconvinient...)
• In preparation, all four party members should either have very high HP (beyond 7000/8000 to be safe) and Vitality Necklaces, or Astronomical Entombing. Obviously getting the latter is easier.
• Once ready, head for the item shop. Tenshi will be missing, and an automatic cutscene will start during which Iku appears and inform our lovely protagonists a horrible plan being formed by Tenshi. However, she doesn't seem to trust them enough to solve the crisis, as she opts to attack instead.
• Iku's opening move is likely Thunder God Shot. Unfortunately for you, it's an attack that is strong enough to have a decent chance to totally wipe out a totally healthy party (at level high 40s) in one shot, and almost guaranteed paralysis on anyone who survives. Aisde from that, she can also use Light Dragon's Sigh which WILL KO its target (thankfully it only targets a single character), and Dragon Palace's Messenger Swimming Shot which does lower multi-targetting damage but can also paralyze. Unless you have the level to take the hits, you're probably going to need to make sure her SP bar is empty almost all the time. She uses SP conversion to recover SP, which means she can charge for a spell right after, and her spells are fast enough that it's likely too late to charge for Entombing after she recovers her SP, so you'll have to try and make sure a character's ready to use entombing as soon as she starts charging for SP conversion. A few things to keep in mind - Defend allows the character to receive their next turn twice as quickly, and Marisa's Blazing Star also allows her to receive her next turn slightly faster, so take advantage of those situations. If you mess up and she uses Thunder God Shot, you're likely dead, so be careful.
• Once she's down, heal at Keine's house and head for the house at center north (the one with the locked door). Mokou will abuse her newly-recovered power to blast open the door, and you'll find Tenshi inside, as well as a battle.
• Again, for Tenshi you're looking to keep her SP bar empty to minimize pain. Messing up dosn't cost you as severely though, as Tenshi's multitarget spell Sword of Meteorological Revelation doesn't kill your party outright, although Sword of the Justness of Heaven's Way is still likely a KO on any non-defending character. However, once her HP is low she will try to charge for State of Desirelessness and Thoughtlessness, which raises her defenses. After that she will start using Scarlet Weather Rhapsody of All Humankind, which WILL KO your party no matter what you do. However, both spells take so long to charge it shouldn't be a problem to get in an Entombing in time. 12m HP takes a LONG while to whittle down, but this is a far less dangerous fight than Iku's.
• Some illogical cutscenes will ensue. The next time you talk to Tenshi she will give you two Hourai Elixirs - kind of a crappy reward for the work involved, but not only your party have gained some 75000 exp, you should now understand how to keep bosses from moving by SP draining. You'll need to use this strategy to survive (or at least trivialize) future post-game bosses.

Sidequest LLS - Exploring Mugenkan

• This sidequest is available after defeating Rinnosuke. It doesn't have a trigger as it really isn't a quest - rather, Mugenkan opens after defeating Rinnosuke. It is recommended that your characters are all at least level 50 before entering, as it would take forever to defeat the monsters inside (all of them have at least 1m HP) without ultimate skills.
• From Garden of the Sun, simply head up as much as possible to enter Mugenkan. The fountain in the lobby is free healing, but the monsters around the lobby are tough and actually give slightly less experience than the tried and true white doll+6 kedema group in the gap (as well as about half as much money), so don't bother training around here.
• There are three doors heading up. Head through the middle first. Follow the path and collect all the chests you see until you hit a dead end, then go back the way you come. Now, head through the door on the right.
• Again, follow the path until you hit a music room. There's an additional room on the right side for another treasure chest. After you collect it, just start heading all the way to the left (the large room has a total of nine treasure chests, so make sure you get them all - but the monsters in that room will actively chase you) until you can't any more. Save before heading up.
• As soon as you hit the stage in the next room, a cutscene will occur where some weird thing comes out and asks you if you want to watch a play. If you choose no you will have to fight her; if you choose yes you will get to watch a scene. Depending on your choices after you'll either have to fight her anyways, or fight Snow White. The MC is the tougher of the two, possessing a bunch of multi-targetting skills, of which Piercing Burst Shot is strongest and can probably KO a character or two, but she gives 10k more experience than Snow White, whose multi-targetting skills are weaker (although comes with annoying statuses like Freeze and confusion), but has a single target skill Pure White Cross that can probably kill a character 4-5 times over. Whatever. Keep them SP drained and they shouldn't give too much trouble.
• After the fight, simply head up a map. The next map has a whole bunch of chests, and the formations inside give the best experience so far. However, those guys are tough (all having 1.5m HP) and there's no reusable crystals nearby. Anyways, save again before inspecting the door, which prompts if you want to open the door. Select yes to get in another boss fight.
• Your next opponent Slave Girl is another tough one. Humiliation from Depth of Hell is like Thunder God Shot, with extremely high damage, and chance to paralyze, poison, slow, and even inflict KO anyways on any survivors, plus it heals herself for some minuscule HP. Aside from that, Lonely Abyss of Abuse does less damage but also pretty much drains your characters of all their SP, and Gaze of Desire also does some strong damage to all your party members. Also, every so often she can use Following of Slave to summon a random encounter monster, complicating the fight. As with Iku, keep her controlled via Astronomical Entombing as you don't want to see any of her attacks except Gaze of Desire. When a monster appears, don't bother draining their SP (the monsters can all use SP conversion, and it refills SP for ALL enemies which makes SP draining timing even harder) - just take them out via collateral damage with your level 50 skills. Slave Girl has 11m HP, which means the fight will drag on for a while, but if you're careful with SP draining you shouldn't have too much trouble with the fight.
• Once she's down, you will be able to access the final room of the mansion. Collect the chests and make a seperate save, then touch the stone door. Select yes and Marisa will be dragged into a nightmare.
• Inside the nightmare, only Alice will be with you, but there are no random encounters anyways so it doesn't really matter. The green chest in the room contains a poisoned bottle which you can use to end the nightmare immediately, but you will forfeit the reward of this part so it's not really recommended. Anyways, for this part you generally have to trigger a conversation for the next trigger to be available, so when I mention "a conversation should occur" or something similar, make sure it actually occurs before going for the next part.
• Exit the room and head far left. Inspect the fireplace for a conversation. Now, head through the door to the right. Go around the doll to find a teddy bear on the table - or rather, two halves of a teddy bear on the table. Talk to the head of the teddy bear and choose help him (something like 帮他). You will receive a Purple Flame.
• Leave the room and head through the door to the right. There are some red bottles on the upper right corner, inspect them to obtain Red Wine Bottle. Head back to the fireplace and inspect it again, then head back to the room where you found the bottles and head through the door on the upper side. Inspect the bottle on the table and you will receive Concentrated Wine. Head back to the fireplace and inspect it to start the fire. Now, head down to the next floor.
• On the next floor, head right. Ignore the first set of doors and head up on the second set. You will see three treasure chests, a conversaion and a choice. Select Back Out (后退), and leave the room without touching the chests. Now, head down through the doorway and you will notice the room is... not normal. A conversation will occur around the entrance. Once you triggered the conversation, head back the door you ignored before (first one on the left side). Inspect the left window, then the statue on the left to hear the left window shatter. Head through the space and walk up the bridge to trigger a conversation about it being broken. Head back and inspect the right statue. You'll receive a plank, so head back to the bridge and use it to get across. Flip the weird switch on the right side and head back to the weird technicolor background room - it should be normal now, so just head straight down until you enter another building.
• In here, head left first. Inspect the crystals and you will be asked to take one. Take the left one (左边的). Head back out, save, and head down this time. The final cutscene will occur, after which you will have to fight your companions in quick succesion. Patchouli can use Rain of Phlogiston for an instant KO on your party members, and if you will remember it doesn't cost SP, so take her out before that happens. Alice and Flandre will use weak spells so they shouldn't be a problem. Finally, another Marisa will show up and do battle with you. Astronomical Entombing won't work on her, and one Earth Light Ray is more or less an instant KO. If you have Peerless Wind God you might stand a chance at taking her out before she takes you out - otherwise you'll have to use an Angel Wing (天使之翼, you should have one from a treasure chest in the ice/fire dungeon) to get yourself Reraise. Anyways, as soon as Marisa? takes enough damage, she'll bust out Blazing Star and KO you in one hit, and that's the end of this sidequest. Provided you actually lasted all the way up til here, you will receive a Zaoli's Hairpiece which doubles the HP of its wearer. Otherwise you get nothing - you won't be able to reattempt the sidequest either way, so reset until you get it right if you must.
• Also, Now that you're done with all this, Rinnosuke will reappear in his store and start selling forge materials. He will sell all the basic ones except Hakurei's Pouch and Peerless Orchids, but the advanced ones you still have to forge on your own. Regardless, if you haven't forged much before this is now a good time to start considering forging.
• (Oh and, no - you don't get to actually fight Yuka (yet) or anyone from LLS (although it can be argued that Slave Girl is actually Elly without her scythe for some reason... maybe). A pity...)

Sidequest SA - Exploring the underground

• Like the sidequest above, this isn't really technically a sidequest. However, you still have to do one more thing before entering the place - first, you must have obtained all four unknown spell cards from previous side quests. After defeating Rinnosuke, one of the chests in his house allows you to combine the four cards into a key at Hakurei's shrine (along with 20 strong border cards). Once you have the card, head to the entrance to Misty Lakes. The signpost near the cave entrance blocked by avalanche will turn into a switch, which will destroy the snow in your way, allowing you to enter.
• The monsters in the underground give very good experience, 8000 exp per monster. However, they are also the toughest random encounters you have met (and that'll be true for a while to come). In fact, most of them are basically bosses you have met before (or will be meeting after)! All of them are standardized to have 5m HP so they will take a long while to go down. Abuse Astronomical Entombing if you don't want to burn 30 pots every fight, and in general treat them like bosses and be cautious. Saving before every fight isn't a bad idea. You can try training on the ones in the second map (using the reusable crystals on first floor if you need), but in all honestly, you can probably kill many, many white doll + kedema * 6 formations the time it takes for you to kill one monster here. Besides, as long as you have Astronomical Entombing on everyone (and perferably Peerless Wind God on at least one character), you should be fine for the most part.
• Simply follow the map. Counting the map with reusable crystal and no monsters as the first map, there are two branch rooms to left and right of the third room with one chest each. The fourth map (the one with weird background) features a stationary monster guarding the exit to that room. Make sure you save before challenging the boss Angela Marjorie.
• Despite being a random boss, and the first one in this dungeon at that, it's a really tough fight, possibly tougher than any you've faced so far (unless you want to count Murasa when you're underleveled). Her attacks Soul Trapped in Statue and Anti-hero's Familiar are strong, but that's not the worst part - after a couple turns she'll start using Soul Spread to summon monsters in the dungeon. You know, the ones with 5m HP and fairly strong attacks? She has FOUR of them to summon, and you probably don't want all five of them shoving some multi-target attacks down your throat which will pretty much kill anything except Patchy under Philosopher's Stone. Also, Angela's SP refilling move Soul to Body recovers SP for her entire team, which is even worse news. Unless your entire party has Peerless Wind God or something, I recommend having Patchy use Philosopher's Stone for this fight, which will render her more or less invincible. The other key you'll need in the fight is Flandre's QED. It's extremely difficult to time it due to its godawful charge time, but at the right timing it can drain the SP bar of the entire opposition field, as well as refilling enough SP for herself that she can use it again immediately after. Marisa, Alice and Patchouli should not even bother attacking with anything except Astronomical Entombing, Peerless Wind God (if you have it) and their ultimate attacks. If you have time, throw items around if you desperately need to, otherwise defend. They'll need to be on full standby mode when Angela uses Soul to Body so you can minimize the amount of attacks that come your way. Don't count on Patchy to heal too much either - she may have to use Astronomical Entombing at any time. Use the free turns you have to throw Immortal Sage's Rumbling around instead. Worst come to worst, everyone except Patchy gets KO'd, and you can try to pull down some minions with Patchy alone then look to revive the rest of the crew. It's a very tough fight that will get you killed many times over, but keep at it - you'll beat her eventually. She'll drop a Fourth Dimension Bag, which allows you to access a bunch of services at any time - Reimu's card store, Human Village's stores, Reimu's well for forging, and Rinnosuke's store. It's a pretty convinient tool, though I'd appreciate it more if it allows you to buy Peerless Wind God any time you want or something. Oh well, nothing is perfect.
• Past the map Angela's in you will find two chests containing Patchy's ultimate weapon and Alice's ultimate armor - Revelations and Guignol Leader's Suit. The former transforms Patchy's normal attack into a special spell that recovers 2250 SP for all party members, while the latter allows Alice to recover 2000 SP after using The Phantom of the Grand Guignol. Very handy items to have around. (I have a feeling that the chests' content might change depending on which ultimate weapon/armor formulas you already know, but you might not want to risk it).
• Note that after this map, all the random encounters will consist of TWO monsters, rather than one. However, armed with Revelations you should be able to handle the encounters easily, especially if one or more of your characters have Peerless Wind God. This is pretty much the best place to train on for a long while to come.
• Anyways, Continue to follow the path. Turn right at the T-junction ahead. The next map has several exits - head right on the upper side first. Go through the up exit and collect the chests, then return. Go through the right exit and collect the chest, then return (don't go through the exit on upper left, as it will teleport you a bit back). Now, head back to the left, head down and then right again. The bottom room is a dead end with chests, while the right exit allows you to move forward.
• At the next T-junction, the right exit is a dead end room with a chest, while going through bottom allows you to move on. Eventually you'll hit a monsterless room with a door that asks you a question. Choose the fourth option (花钱买), and you will receive a Boundary between Form and Emptiness as well as permission to move on.
• In the next map, don't head left (another teleporter). Rather, head up for two chests and head right. Your path will soon be blocked by another stationary monster.
• This boss you fight (Kido Kotegawa) is a cinch compared to the last boss's summon nightmare. It's more or less just standard "keep her SP drained and keep hitting until battle is over". She's pretty fast, though, so you'll have some trouble timing without Peerless Wind God (and even with you'll probably need to make use of Defend). Her attacks aren't overly strong, but they are somewhat difficult to recover from - Nightmare drains SP (and a lot of it); Requiem of Earth Spirits inflicts confusion; Wind of Cemetery Night reduces action gauage and inflicts sleep. Better hope for Foggy Moon and Death's Illusion if you mess up - it's strong but at least it does nothing else. She won't 1HKO you with any of her moves, though, although a confused or sleeping party probably isn't in any condition to fight back after. 16m HP is the highest count you've seen so far, but your levels should be way higher than what you were when you fought the other high HP bosses, so it shouldn't be a problem. The middle chest behind the boss contain formula for the ultimate hats and shoes, while the left and right allows you to choose the forging formula for one ultimate weapon and one ultimate armor respectively. You will get the chance to get the formula for two more ultimate weapons and armors, which combined with the two items you found before makes a full set for everyone. Check the next section for the names and special abilities for all the weapons and armors.
• Eventually you'll come across a map with many doors, each with a question. You have to answer them corectly to pass without problems. The answers are 4444332423 for each question (10 in total).
• Finally, you'll see a map with two staircases. The left one allows you to move on; however, inside are some of the most difficult bosses in the game that puts anything you have seen so far to shame, and you are likely not quite ready for them yet. Furthermore, if you lose inside you will never be able to go in again, so I suggest holding it off for now until you get some resources. The staircase on the right teleports you quite a ways back, so take that for now and leave here. We'll come back and defeat the bosses some other day once and for all.

Sidequest UFO - Hokkai's Seal

• I'm not sure when does this sidequest becomes available, really. Murasa can be seen pretty much as soon as you can access an airship station, but chances are you won't be beating her until post-story. Whatever.
• You might want to have visited the underground for the first two sets of ultimate weapon/armor at least. The final boss for this sidequest is HARD, and having ultimate weapon/armors would greatly lessen your frustration. Alice's Weapon is almost a bare minimum for beating this part. You do get to find two sets inside though, so it's not all bad. Peerless Wind God on everyone helps, too.
• Speaking of ultimate weapon and armors, since you will likely be completing the set here, I'll pick this moment to go through their names and effect:
  • Marisa's weapon, Orreries' Rayquaza (天球仪中的裂空座), allows her normal attack to dispel positive statii from her target. It also allows Blazing Star to recover half of her action gauge and more HP per use.
  • Marisa's Armor, Black and White's Absolute Territory (黑与白的绝对领域), doubles her maxSP.
  • Flandre's Weapon, Flandre Scarlet (魔剑芙兰朵露.S) allows her normal attack to drain HP and SP from her target.
  • Flandre's Armor, Bloody Temple (鲜血神殿), gives Sun and Water resistance (two elements that Flandre is inherently weak to) and immunity to a bunch of debuffs.
  • Alice's Weapon, Down to Zero Doll (回归虚无的零式人形), allows her normal attack to delay from her targets.
  • Patchouli's Armor, Voile the Magic Library (巴瓦鲁图书馆), grants her immunity to basic statii (anything that can be cured by Alice's Healing Doll).
  • And of course, I introduced Alice's armor and Patchy's weapon already in the underground section. You get those for free anyways so there's no point in choosing them.
• In my opinion, the priorities you should pick up the weapons in is Alice's, Marisa's, then Flandre's. Priorities for armor should be Marisa's, Flandre's, and Patchouli's. It doesn't really matter if you aren't fighting the SA crew and/or the developers until you get them all, though, since the other bosses in between are easy. If you do plan on fighting the SA crew and developers with only two sets, then Alice's Weapon is a necessity - armor doesn't matter as much, although I still stand my the opinion that Marisa stands to benefit the most from hers.
• Anyways, go to any airship station (the one near the Human Village is the best due to its small size). Enter the map repeatedly until you see a translucent Murasa near the ship. Talk to her and she'll fight you. If you have done everything in the underground up to the two staircases and/or have your party draped in PWG, Murasa's a joke. Keep her SP drained and have Flandre demolish her with repeated Laevateins. Sink Vortex is annoying with high chance to freeze, so you don't really want her to attack.
• Once you beat her, she will ask you to help her unseal Byakuren. (The plot for this sidequest is more or less on the same thread as UFO, although there are differences.) However, keep in mind you won't be able to leave the sidequest once you enter. You do, however, retain access to any services that the Fourth Dimension Bag would allow you to get, even if you don't have the bag. In other words, get your PWGs before you go in, but don't worry about items or forging. One note: if you got Patchouli her ultimate weapon already, considering buying a physical skill for her, perferably one with a lot of hits. Wind of the Red Leaf Fan should do fine, although if you feel like wasting 50k to get her First Category Perpetual Motion Device I'm not stopping you.
• Once you're ready, talk to Murasa and choose the first option three times to proceed. The ship eventually gets invaded by some unindentified kademas, and you will have to fight them. They are more or less just random encounter material, although you can't SP drain them. Just blast them away with your ultimate skills.
• After the fight, a whole lot more kedamas will enter. Murasa points out that Nue is trying to destroy the core of the ship down below the engine room, and Mokou offers to go there and flush her out while Marisa and co. hold off the kedamas. You get to control Mokou now!
• Simply head through the door and face off Nue. With only one character it's not easy to keep her SP drained, but it's not like you need to with 15000 HP, a skill that cost no SP and drains enough HP to recover you to full. Nue's attacks will at most take out half of Mokou's HP anyways. The only thing to watch out for in the fight is that the core of the ship is also on the same side as Nue, so for every turn simply choose Possessed by Phoenix, then press the left or right arrow so you target Nue, and confirm. You'll be able to beat her in about 10 or so turns.
• Once she's down, the ship will continue to move towards its destination. Pick up the chests in the area and move in with Shou. You will see Byakuren. After all the conversation is done, you will now have to ascend the tower and smash some stone every floor. Byakuren will act as a Fourth Dimension Bag for you, and the crystals are all reusable. Equip Berserk Protection and the sketchbook on Patchy before going up.
• On the first floor you will fight Moonless Guardian. Like its name (weakly) implies, this thing absorbs Moon so neither Astronomical Entombing nor QED works on it. Also it absorbs Rain of Phlogiston as well, so you can't SP drain it. Its attacks aren't strong, though, but Shattered Soul inflicts Berserk. Simply treat this boss like you did with all the ones you beat before you could drain SP, and you should be fine. Two chests here allow you to choose formulas for another ultimate weapon and armor.
• On the second floor you will fight Jade Guardian. Ruthless Flame damages and ignites the entire party, while Translucent Absolute Territory does the same for a single target. At half HP she wil use Split to summon Jade Companion, which is basically an ice version of Jade Guardian. Jade Companion comes with Guard Up at first, though, so dispel it if you have Marisa's wepaon already. Anyways, when Jade Guardian is done before Jade Companion, the latter will start using Frost Ring which will annhiliate the party. You shouldn't see more than a few, if any, attacks though, since they can and should be kept SP drained. Another easy boss...
• On the third floor you will have to fight Mima. Sadly for Mima, this is another easy fight for you if you keep her SP drained. In the beginning she doesn't hit too hard even if she gets to attack, as she tend to favour Quadrple Spark which lags the hell out of the system and only does unimpressive damage. However, at Low HP she will start using Million Spark, which you can't survive at all, so you'll just have to keep her SP drained. 28m HP hits another new record so far, but you should have almost everyone in their ultimate equipments by now, so it really isn't hard.
• On the fourth floor you will have to fight Possessed Shou. Her HP is only 12m (the same amount as the storyless mooks you fought before), but every single one of her attack hits all of you and can do over 10k damage, so it's practically impossible to survive if you let her hit you. Still, if you have PWG on everyone like I do, it shouldn't be too hard. Before heading to the next floor, pick up the formula for your last two ultimate weapon/armor and put Sanae's sketchbook on Patchy if you haven't already. Also, make sure Alice has her ultimate weapon, and put one of the permanent haste accessory that Yuugi dropped on her.
• Finally, on the fifth floor, Myouren awaits you to do battle with. This is a long, hard battle - the main difficulty is the fact that his(?) SP refilling move Water Mirror Lotus doesn't just refill his SP - it gives him the same magic absorbing barrier Yukari once used, so you will have to break it before using Astronomical Entombing, but by the time you break it down, he'll already have gotten his spell off since all of them charge FAST. Nirvana's Cloudy Way in Purple causes sleep; Star Maelstrom reduces action gauge; Magic Milky Way does crapload of damage dispels beneficial status and freezes (this one is really dangerous), Garuda's Light is really strong and also causes incapacitation; Flying Fantastica just KOs a character. At low HP he will then use Shigisan-engi -Light Barrier-, which greatly increases his stats as well as allowing him to charge another spell straight away. Since it's hard to prevent him from casting a spell after he uses Water Mirror Lotus, the best way to go at this is to not allow him to get a turn at all. A hasted Alice with PWG active should be fast enough that Myouren rarely gets a turn, while Marisa and Flandre wail on him with attacks of your choice. You should remember to refresh PWG after using five attacks after the previous PWG, so Alice never spends a turn without it active. If you seek extra safety, consider having Patchouli use Philosopher's Stone, which gives you a great safety net in the fight. Hopefully Myouren never gets to use Light Barrier, or controlling him will be much harder as his speed will go up a lot too.
• Once you defeat Myouren, Byakuren will be freed, and Hokkai in entirety will disappear. Byakuren gives you a scroll which you can use teach a character two skills that greatly increase physical or magical defense for one turn. And thus the sidequest is complete.

Sidequest SA continued and Developer's Room

• Go back to the underground and go through all of it again. At the end of the staircases, save on a seperate file (you can't leave after you go in), and go in the left one. Follow the path until you see Satori and the other inhabitants of Palace of Earthen Spirits, and they will challenge you to a battle.
• You're facing four opponents here. Orin and Okuu have about 20m HP, Koishi about 40m or so and Satori 50m. While you might think "crap, I'm going to get ganged up on to death", note that Koishi doesn't attack until she is damaged, and Satori doesn't attack until a certain amount of time passes or if you take down about half of her HP. Orin has the same stuff as before, while Okuu mostly attacks with semi strong multi-attacks and Ten Evil Stars which will KO its target. You shouldn't need to see their attacks in action, though - Give Alice the permahaste accessory, have her PWG up, and just spam normal attack to make sure they never move while Marisa, Flan and Patchy handle the offenses. Sooner or later, everyone except Satori will go down, but note that at low HP Satori will automatically use Philosopher's Stone (Recollection, same for her other spells). The annoying thing about Satori is that her attacks cost no SP, and with Philosopher's Stone on she's fast enough that as soon as Alice stops attacking (sooner or later she'll have to reapply PWG), she will likely get a spell off. None of them should wipe you out in one hit though, save Royal Flare which might stand a chance. If you feel insecure about it, have Patchy use Philosopher's Stone as well, which should allow her to withstand anything that isn't Laevatein, which is single target anyways. Dolls in Sea and Phantom of Grand Guignol can freeze your entire party, however, which is annoying as freeze will also reset PWG. If you still have those fire sources leftover it shouldn't be much more than an annoyance, but if you don't all you can do is have Patchy heal over and over and hope you dethaw before she whips out a lot of Royal Flares. Thankfully, this battle is worth a truckload of exp.
• Afterwards, Satori will open a ladder underground to you. Stand on it and press confirm, and an alarm will sound. Confirm again and choose the first option and you will be able to enter, but you will lose the fourth dimension bag. Reimu will give you one later though, and you can exit the next section any time you wish and come back, so don't worry too much about it.
• Inside is the developer's room. Just go in a little and a bunch of developers will pop out and introduce themselves. After the long, long introduction (it's pretty interestin, but it can't be helped if you can't read it), they will go in the door in the back, and you will be able to.
• In the next room, loot the back rooms for treasure, and open the gateway to exit the place in the computer in the back, which will unlock the door next to it, leading to a hidden map in the Magic Forest you may or may not have visited before. You can come back to this place via that entrance as well any time you wish.
• Talking to the developers intiate a fight with them. You can't battle the girl(?) on top until you beat the other four.
  • Talk to the bottom right guy first as ideolo's arguably the easiest to beat. Note that most of the developers' skills, like Satori's, don't cost SP, and they return to full SP after usage as well, although that's just beneficial to you as you can steal them with Astronomical Entombing. Anyways, Fantasy Sketchbook summons a random character to damage you - pray that it isn't Kaguya, as her attack Life Spring Infinity allows him to charge three spells in succession after, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. His other attacks mostly just damages and inflicts some status. If you're unlucky, Moe Sketchbook's full party confusion or Paint Physics's Instant KO can screw you over, although as long as you have Sanae's sketchbook on Patchy you should be fine - don't forget Revelation's normal attack not only restores SP to party members, but also heals sleep, confusion, and sometimes freeze as well. If you're lucky he'll just use Blunt Sketchbook over and over, which just does some unimpressive damage. Anyways, the strategy here is much the same as Satori's, keep his Action Gauge down with Alice's attacks while everyone else wails on him. At low HP he'll start charging up for Aidodo's Password - it's a stupid attack that takes long time to charge, and ends up asking you for a password (7717, as you would know by inspecting the locker on the far right room in the back), damaging himself if you get it right (if you get it wrong, you lose a bunch of money plus gets a 10k damage attack down your throat). Take advantage of this time interval to put the DPS on him. He has 70m HP which is a lot, but as he lacks any truly dangerous attacks (except a few that can screw you over by chance), it shouldn't take too long or too many tries to beat him. You'll receive Flandre's Fire Emblem after the fight, which allows Laevatein to ignite its target, and Flandre to fire it repeatedly until either she runs out of SP or target to use it on. This will take care of your damage output for the most part, allowing you to challenge the next boss with more ease.
  • Talk to the girl on the left (with Mokou's Sprite) to engage in battle with YuechengMOKO. She has some pretty dangerous attacks, but she's slow so Alice should be able to stun her easily. Also, most of her attacks are single target skills that KO its target (you will not survive Octaple Hades Wing Slash. Ever. Even if you cheat). Also, she has only 30m HP, which is the lowest out of the developers. However, at 12m HP left she will use Uncontrollable Power which greatly enhance her stats, and at 5m HP she will use Completely Uncontrollable Power which allows her to use two new skills - Final Betrayal which KOs your party outright, and Yuecheng time-space recycle which heals herself for about 20m HP. If you are having problem controlling her for some reason, then better hope your damage output is good enough that you can avoid those two skills. Luckily, Flandre with Fire Emblem should handle that part easily, and her low HP does show (I was able to finish her off before the ultra long touhou remix amalgamation BGM theme even looped). You will receive Alice's Rose Doll after the battle, which allows her Reaction of Soul Creation to give herself Reraise. It's honestly a somewhat useless item at the moment as Alice usually has her time full trying to stun bosses and thus needs perma-haste more than anything, but it might be fun to play with once you're in the extra routes where bosses tend to be not as hard.
  • Talk to the guy on the right to engage in battle with Phoenix Wr... I mean, Alphard. While he's not the hardest developer, he's likely the most annoying one. Asteroid Spell Seal, the spell he's guaranteed to open with, inflicts a special stuats that lowers all your party member's MaxHP and maxSP to 1 and 0, respectively, for four turns. He can then follow up with one of his multi-hitting moves for an easy TPK. Counter this by using PWG with everyone on your first turn, and when he eventually get around to use it, just defend with everyone except Alice who should attack (he absorbs whatever element Alice's weapon is, but whatever, the damage is paltry and the action gauge delay part works normally), and hope you keep him controlled before everyone loses the status (after which just throw around Lunar Incense to recover - you should have quite a lot of those buggers from the underground and you will be able to buy them after defeating Ayaya). After that, do the same with him as you would with other bosses - keep him stunned as much as possible with Alice while everyone DPSes (as a bonus, chain-Laevatein sounds sick with the BGM at certain parts). His HP is slightly higher than YuechengMOKO's (40m), but keep in mind that eventually he'll be able to use HD Total Reformat, which can 1HKO your party. It's the only skill here that can't be used with an empty SP gauge though, so take advantage of that. Also, he can use Asteroid Seal after the first round as well, so pray that he doesn't do this while your PWG is down or something. His other attacks (Hold it!, Slash All That's Wrong and Error Prompt) pose no real threat, although his two barrier skill can shut down physical or magic attack until his next turn (which ideally doesn't come until much, much later in the fight), which might hamper your DPSing. You'll receive Final Fantasy after the fight, which allows Marisa's Blazing Star to double her strength and attack power after use, as well as allowing her to fire all her spark skills consecutively after choosing to use Master Spark. It's a pretty good damage booster, so make sure you equip it on for the next boss.
  • Talk to the girl on bottom left to start the battle with ZaoliS. She's probably the hardest of the four - she has either infinite or a VERY large number of SP (not that it matters anyways), and a skill that can 1HKO the entire party which there is nothing you can do to prevent casting other than try and keep her stunned as much as possible and pile up damage in the mean time. Still, with both Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy equipped on their respective owners, your damage should be fine, and she seems a bit slower than the two guys, which means you'll have an easier time controlling her. However, her extremely high HP (80m) means that it's pretty much guaranteed that she'll get off a couple of spells during the fight. Just pray that it's either one of her weaker multi-attacks or her single target KO skills instead of Shining Holy Night (her TPK move). After you win the fight you will receive Cagesong of the Ocean, which allows Patchy's Water Elf to recover the entire party's SP by 2000 as well as boosting her speed and action gauge, and Silent Selene to have Royal Flare chaincast in the end. I'd still not equip it for the final developer, though - you'll want to keep Sanae's sketchbook, and it's not like you'll ever find time to use Water Elf anyways. Might be fun for randoms later on, though, since Royal Flare is usually too slow a spell to cast.
  • Finally, talk to the person on top to start two battles with Ayaya. The first form is pretty easy, with no real threatening attacks and low HP. Do what you did with the other developers to put him down. The second form... well, all I can say is his second form seems slowest of the developers, so Alice should have absolutely no problem keeping him stunned, and you definitely WANT to keep him stunned - not only does he possess a whole bunch of TPK skills, in the middle of the fight he'll use Prelude to Soul Collapse, which means he'll start chaincasting all the skills by the other four developers, and when he does that you're basically dead. Just keep him stunned and take out 80m HP to win. You'll receive Luokeke's Sheet Music after the battle, which allows you to buy Lunar Incenses, Games of Rising, and stat boosters.
• That about wraps up the developers, and all the sidequests in general. Go back to Reimu, MAKE ABSOLUTE SURE THAT YOU KEEP A SEPERATE SAVE HERE (you can only do one extra route per game session), then talk to her and choose the first option twice. After some conversation you will be able to choose an extra route - Option 1 goes for Bamboo Forest; option 2 goes for SDM; option 3 goes for Higan; option 4 goes for True Ending. I recommend getting SDM and Higan out of the way first in either order, then do Bamboo Forest (as otherwise it wouldn't quite make sense), and finally the true ending. Note you can't choose the last option if you chose "easy" difficulty in the beginning, or if you haven't done all sidequests (my condolences to anyone who went against my word about choosing the second option back when after defeating Cirno for the first time...). Regardless of your option, Reimu will give you a fourth dimension bag.

Extra Chapter: Higan - Turnabout Death

• After you chose the chapter, simply exit the house and board the airship, and use the second wheel to go to 冥界 to save you a lot of walking. After you get off, head left and you'll be in Higan. Follow the path until you enter the caves.
• You'll have to walk through three loops of a set of four maps first (Marisa will hang a lampshade on it every loop). On the 13th map, however, you will notice that the ladder going down isn't there any more, and instead there are two pillars around, both of which points to a route that leads you to a veeeeery large maze. Simply head right and down as much as possible until there's only one path to follow, then follow it to see a stationary monster blocking the way. If you've done the underground already you'll probably recognize it. Anyways, High Prosecutor Lilith isn't too hard, just keep her SP drained and wail away. She does have a TPK move though, so try not to mess up. You'll notice in general that if you have finished underground and Byakuren's quest already, the extra chapters are more or less a joke .
• The next map outside features another two chests with ultimate weapon/armor formulas (you shouldn't need them any more if you've done both the underground and Hokkai), as well as some forging materials. Whatever. Follow the path to see a ship. Interact with it to get past the river.
• Immediately you will see a bunch of coloured ghosts, who seems to also want to cross the river (um, you guys are going to the wrong side dude), and wants your help. Refuse and they'll fight you, but it's not really worth it. It's basically a river crossing puzzle, with the drivers being the big ghosts and the small red one, and the restriction being you cannot leave a small ghost with a big one of a different color without having the big one of the same color present. If you want to try and figure it yourself: the game denotes the ghosts as big red(大红), big blue(大蓝), big yellow(大黄), small red(小红), small blue(小蓝), small yellow(小黄), and it will ask you make the following choices: 1st choice asks you which ghost you want to use as the driver to the other side; 2nd choice asks you which ghost you want to bring along; 3rd choice asks you which ghost you want to use as a driver to head back; and 4th choice asks you which ghost you want to bring back with (the last option with a lot of letters mean "go back alone without bringing any ghosts). If you don't feel like figuring it out/playing the game blind, 42 44 43 44 23 23 14 33 22 44 42 44 is a working solution. You'll receive 20000 experience and an Angel Wing for your troubles.
• Keep heading along and you will see Komachi in front of a really big ship. Approach and she'll let you in. Next you'll have to raid the rooms above - there are 10 of them, each with a fight inside. After you finish them all off, the big door farthest up will open, and you need to go in. Yuuka will be waiting for you to do battle with. She's slow and none of her attacks can TPK you, so she's pretty easy, although halfway through the fight she might try to use Fixed Border -Shining Sunflower-, which gives herself some resistance to all elements and halves your maxSP, which might make it harder for you to fire off skills. Her HP is pretty high for the route (although nowhere near as high as the developers), but it shouldn't be a problem for you.
• Once she's down, head back out and go downstairs to find Komachi. She's less durable than Yuuka, but Higan Retour is a TPK move so you'll need to keep her SP drained. Her other attacks inflict stat lowering debuffs and can more or less be ignored. Defeat her and she'll smash the ship. You'll end up on the other side anyways, though.
• Just keep heading straight, ignore the monsters unless you need to level or something, and save before entering the stone door. You'll end up in a court with Shikieiki judging Letty, and Marisa and company butt in. The whole scene is a huge reference to Ace Attorney, but anyways - halfway through the trial you'll have to fight Lily White and Lily Black. Lily White has enough magic defense to nullify Astronomical Entombing, but none of their attacks should even take off half or your HP, so it's still easy. At the end of the trial, you'll have to fight Shiki as well.
• Shikieiki's just another easy fight. Alright, she does get this skill Cleansed Crystal Judgment, which puts something like a Condemned status on you (although you don't actually die after getting condemned - you just get turned into a soul, but having all party member get condemned counts as a game over), but the skill has a ridiculously high charge time, and it's quite easy to keep her SP drained. I'm not really sure what you're supposed to do to counter Cleansed Crystal Judgment because I never got hit by it in the first place, Whatever.
• You'll get to see the Higan ending after that. The game will open up the quest log for you at one point - be sure to check the second highest quest to find a four digit password and remember it.

Extra Chapter - SDM: Scarlet Destiny

• After you chose the chapter, head to Misty lakes and head as north as possible. There should be an exit that you couldn't have taken before if you tried by chance - it'll lead to SDM.
• As soon as you approach, you'll have to fight Meiling. She has some powerful skills, but only 5.5m HP, which is almost a complete joke at this point in time. Take her out and watch the scene.
• Keep following the path until eventually, you'll see a door that you can't open. Just keep going right for two screens and check the mirror in the middle. You'll be warped into another room, while a miniboss will chase you down - it's another one that you should recognize from the underground. This one is extremely easy though, with barely more HP than Meiling and attacks that are generally weak. Collect all the chests around the room - one of them contain a key item you need to open the locked door. Go back and unlock it, then proceed.
• Two maps later you'll encounter another big room with a bunch of doors, one of which is locked This is the third floor of the mansion. Head right from the upperside. There's another door here that's locked, and Pathcouli will comment on it. Keep going down to the lobby - there's another door here locked as well, but a bunch of others should be openable. The door at the very upper side leads to the library - collect all the chests inside, and head back to the second locked door (the one Patchouli commented on). You should be able to open it now, so head inside and save. You'll meet Sakuya at the end of the passage and have to fight her. She's not much more difficult than the other two - just keep her SP drained to keep her from firing her high power single target skills on you. Halfway through the fight, however, she'll use Counterflow, which returns her to full health/SP and clears her of all status. Even so, she's not hard. You'll be able to pick up another ultimate weapon/armor formula here if you haven't collected them all yet.
• Go back to the third floor and take the bottom right path this time. Take out the stationary monster guarding the chest in front of the organ (just two monsters you'd see in random encounters), and open the chest. Instead of giving you an item (or opening at all), the game will instead play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at you. Now, go back to the third floor and head through the door that was locked. Keep following the path until you see another organ. Go play twinkle twinkle little star on it (the options that aren't numbers are "next page" and "previous page"), and the door nearby should open. At this point, if Flandre is wearing Fire Emblem, take it off (it'll cause a bug later otherwise), then keep heading through the maps until you see Remilia. At this point Flandre will leave the party while Mokou will join in her place, and you'll have to fight Remilia. She's immune to Moon so Atronomical Entombing won't work on her at all, and while Possessed by Phoenix does work, it's a really slow spell and thus difficult to time. Remilia isn't too hard, though - most of her skills are fairly weak if you have done all the pre-extra sidequests, although if you're still level 55 or something, then I suggest using Alice's weapon to keep her stunned or something.
• After the fight, I suggest equipping the accessory you got from Mugenkan (the one that doubles HP) on Mokou. It will raise her HP to 26250, which gives you a great safety net for the final fight of the chapter. Anyways, go back and walk all the way to the lobby, and open the door that was previously locked. Keep heading the path until you see some jail bars. Save here before entering.
• You'll see Flandre here. You'll first have to fight three groups of her three splits (Four of a Kind). They're easy fights as the Flandre splits only have 2m HP, although most of Mokou's skills won't work on them due to Flan being immune to fire (Xu Fu's Dimension and Possessed by Phoenix will work, though). Once the fake flans are done, the real one will step forward and fight you. She has 40m HP, and immunity to Astronomical Entombing, so don't expect an easy fight. Alice should keep her stunned as much as possible while everyone else goes for damage, and you shouldn't take too many attakcs. Beware, however, that Flandre's Counter Clock and Fate's Wheel of Destruction do a lot of damage, and if Mokou doesn't have the double HP accessory on and Patchy doesn't have Philosopher's Stone used, it can potentially TPK your party. There's no reason not to use Philosopher's Stone anyways (it's the final fight of the route), so you should be fine regardless, but you can also opt to defend when you see Flandre charging up a spell and Mokou can't deplete her SP in time.
• Once you defeat her, the route will end and you will receive another password from the quest log .

Extra Chapter - Bamboo Forest Rhapsody

• Basically, your mission for this route is to go find Mokou and get back the money she should've paid Marisa for having her little trinket found. The whole route is more or less a sneak peek of the final route, and is designed to be more or less a boss rush. It shouldn't be much problem to you, though.
• Go to the Bamboo Forest from either the Magic Forest side or Eientei side. You'll need to go to the sixth map from the Magic Forest side or fifth map from Eientei. When you enter a conversation will occur. Go through the path on the bottom right (you couldn't have gone through it before on mission 3).
• The next few maps have a lot of crystals and lucky rabbits (which restores SP), so you shoudln't have to worry much about running out of items or something. Anyways, the fourth map has forks - the middle and right forks lead to chests, while the left one allows you to move on. Eventually you'll see a stationary monster. Talk to it to engage in a miniboss fight - another two monsters you should've recognized from the underground. Anyways, those guys actually can give you some trouble. At the beginning they're weak, but once you hurt down the one with less HP the other one will go berserk, recover to full HP, and her attacks can potentially (albeit low chance) TPK in one hit. It also gives her an annoying red glow that makes it hard to see when she's charging a spell or not. Still easy to keep SP drained though if you have PWG on.
• You'll see Eirin in the screen after. Talk to her to get teleported to Kaguya's five impossible requests mk. 2, which she's using to guard Mokou for some reason. Whatever. The impossible requests take form in stages with bosses in the end, so I'll just describe them one by one.
• For stage 1 you have a recollection of Misty Lakes. The layout is the same, although the monsters have a high chance at freezing you, so watch out. At the center you will fight Cirno and Letty again. They got an HP boost (14m and 12m respectively), and Cirno no longer uses Eternal Regret when Letty is down. Their attacks are also mostly the same, so watch for the freezing. You can SP drain them, though, unlike your last encounter with them, so it shouldn't be a hard fight.
• Stage 2 is a recollection of Higan. You'll have to walk through one outside map and one set of the four maps loop, and Komachi will be waiting for you on the fourth map. She has the same stats and attacks as the one you faced in Higan route, and can be handled the same way.
• Stage 3 takes place in a Hakurei Shrine-like environment. Just follow the path, but when you go downstairs take the left one. You'll eventually find Reimu. Her high defense nullifies Astronomical Entombing, and even one hit of QED doesn't seem to be enough to remove her SP pool completely, so you'll probably have to take a bunch of attacks from her. Hope she doesn't use Duplex Border too much or at all, as it can potentially TPK. Her other attacks are far less dangerous though. Just PWG up and DPS her like crazy so you don't take too many attacks. Luckily her HP isn't too high.
• Stage 4 takes place in a place you haven't seen before. There's only one path for the maps, so just follow it until the end where you have to fight the Mystic Square crew. Those girls may not have strong attacks, but when four of them pile up on you it can get pretty hard. Keep them stunned until Flandre can QED them, and just spam high power multi attack skills like Marisa's Final Spark (or if you have her accessory, Triple+Final Spark). Also, Sara in the middle is hell hard to damage and her spellcard heals and revives everyone, plus gives her godlike defense for one round, and since that's her only move she'll just keep on using it until you run out of patience. Luckily for you, Final Spark ignores defense, so just spam that until she goes down.
• Stage 5 doesn't have any monsters, and you're just thrust straight into a battle with ??? that looks like Mokou (if you done the final route already, it should be pretty clear who she is...). It's a really annoying fight, as at any given time you'll have 0-2 party members in fear and can't even move, and every so often (when she switches around who is under fear) she'll return to full SP, so it can be difficult to keep her SP drained enough to prevent her from firing spell cards. Fujiyama Sunshower can freeze AND ingite (more often than not it'll just freeze, though); Flaw of Sinner Annihilation Gate damages SP; Evil Man's Death KOs a party member. However, none of them can TPK you, so it's not really a hard fight either. Halfway through the fight she'll use Ignorant Person's World, which changes the background and allows her to use Different Dimension Abyss, which is fairly strong, but still nothing that can kill your characters in one hit. Just heal when you're hit and remember Patchy's Revelation also has a very good chance at removing your party members' freeze status, and you'll be fine.
• Finally, you'll fight Mokou and Keine. Keine is more of a supporter in the fight, with weaker attacks and First Pyramid which buffs herself. However, Three Sacred Treasure dispels positive status which includes PWG, so she needs to be controlled and defeated first, or at least you should damage her enough so she'll transform and lose that skill. She becomes a lot more offensive though, and comes with a skill that heals the party too, but at least you don't have to worry about getting you PWG dispelled. The disadvantage to defeating her outright is that Mokou will then incinerate the entire battlefield, causing your party member to lose HP after every action like poison, which is annoying as hell, but it's not something you can't handle. Mokou on her own doesn't have any difficult quirks, although some of her attacks can ignite and after that, Phoenix Rebirth can be pretty dangerous, but it's nothing you can't handle by SP draining.
• Once you defeat Mokou (whether Keine is alive or not doesn't matter), you'll see the ending and another password.

Extra Route - Final Route

• After choosing the fourth option, just take the ship to Eientei (middle wheel, first option). Immediately you will notice that the entire place is ablaze, and you will have to fight a bunch of Inaba robots from the moon. The annoying part of the fights is that the robots have no SP, so you can't refill your own SP gauge with Astronomical Entombing. These guys are also fairly tough, only a tad weaker than the underground encounters, but you should be able to take them out in a few ultimate attacks.
• Eventually you will automatically go inside Eientei. The place has changed a lot and became a lot bigger now that there's a war going on. Anyways, follow the path and when you're faced with a choice of three doors, head through the middle. The next few maps have a lot of two door forks - generally speaking left is dead end (with treasures) and right allows you to proceed. You will also ocasionally see two rabbits battling each other - you can help the earthling rabbit by taking out the moon rabbit (robots), and receive an extra item as reward. Eventually you will see Tewi being chased by a giant Inaba gundam, and you'll have to help her out. Your opponent (Inaba HX-YS-XII), like the other Inaba robots, don't have SP, so you'll have to refill SP with items, and you can't prevent it from attacking by SP draining. It does have one skill that has a low chance of TPKing you, but otherwise its attacks are generally non-threatening. 12m HP.
• Once you save Tewi, she will offer to open up various doors in Eientei for ultimate weapon/armor formulas. They're all guarded by a miniboss, however, and you should have the entire set already. If you want to challenge them, though:
  • Go back to where the three doors were, and head through the left door first. Follow the path all the way until you see Tewi standing in front of a door. Talk to her and she'll open it for you. Enter (it's Reisen's room) and fight the boss inside. Keep Moon Palace Luyu SP drained and you'll be fine. Collect everything inside.
  • Take the teleporter outside Reisen's room back to the three doors, then head through the right side this time. Again, just follow the path (although there are several doors that lead to treasure rooms) until you hit the end, which is Reisen's room. Talk to tewi to have it opened for you, then head in and beat up the boss and collect everything.
  • Go back through the middle and keep heading through until you see a room with five exits. The one on top middle has treasures inside unguarded, including another weapon/armor formula and the ultimate hat/shoes formula. The two on bottom left and bottom right contain chests as well. When you're done with those, head upper left. Follow the path until the end, talk to tewi and go in the room. Beat up the boss and pick things up. Now you should have a complete set regardless.
• Regardless of whether you have picked up the chests or not, just keep heading up and up right until you encounter a room with narrow, maze-like passages. There's a stationary boss guarding the exit. Yiyu Manzhushahua Inaba has some multi-target skills, of which Shadow Illuion Unlimited Strafe is almost a guaranteed TPK, Make sure to keep her SP drained or have Patchy use Philosopher's Stone and defend whenever you see her charge. At this point, keep another seperate save (different from the one just before choosing extra routes), and enter.
• You will first have to fight three groups of five random encounter monsters. Just blast them all away. At this point, a sentinent robot will jump out and introduce herself as Inaba R-X ZEro Pythagoras F Revised Mk.II, or InabaZ for short. Eirin will propose to hold back her while Kaguya escapes, and you will have to choose to either 1. Go escort Kaguya or 2. Stay and fight with Eirin. As option 1 is longer and leads to the true ending, choose option 2 first so you can get it out of your way.
• If you chose to stay behind, you will simply battle InabaZ. her attacks are fairly strong but have really long charge time, so you can easily keep her SP drained or whatever. If she doest start charging an attack and you don't think you can drain in time, though, defend or you risk getting TPK'd. Once you get her to about half HP (about 30m HP), the battle will end, and she will merge with the Inaba Robots to form Super Inaba.
• The next battle isn't much different from the previous one, and she only got one extra attack (well, two, but the other extra attack is "Short Circuit" and damages only herself). Anyways, the difficulty here is that whenever she's damage she will automatically return to full SP, which makes it much more difficult to time your attacks if you aren't using PWG. Have Patchy use Philosopher's Stone (final battle of the route after all), and let her defend whenever you see Super Inaba charging a skill, and you should generally be able to survive anything she throws at you. It's not an overly time consuming, so don't worry much about it. You'll see the FinalB Ending as well as a password.
• After choosing to escort Kaguya, simply follow the path for a while. All the rabbits in the next few maps will chase you, but as long as you don't tarry too much (all chests are right on your way to the exit), you shouldn't need to engage in any combat. They're the same as the ones inside Eientei in any case. Eventually you will see a rabbit blocking your way, and you'll have to fight Inaba HX-YS-XI Mass Production Model plus four random encounter Inaba Robots. It has slightly lower HP than XII (in fact, 11m vs 12m...), and the same attacks, so use the same strategy. The other robots can be taken out from collateral damage. Save at this point.
• In the next map, some cutscenes will happen and you will have to fight Kaguya. She's not an easy fight, as you can't SP drain her due to immunity to Moon (Flandre's normal attack with her ultimate weapon can damage her SP, but it's not enough to empty the bar in one hit. Two or three maybe). Her attacks aren't strong and most of them have high charge time, but Hourai Barrage charges quick and damages action gauage, and if you aren't using PWG you might get hit by it several times in a row (more than three is basically death). Consider using a Philosopher's here if you are unsure, since it carries over to the next fight anyways. Her other attacks aren't much of a threat; remember to dispel her defensive statuses when she uses Salamander Shield on herself. Once she's down Kanako will take over. Alice's Phantom of Grand Guignol can inflict Slow on her, and after that if you have PWG on everyone she's essentially unable to fight back at all. Easy.
• At this point, prepare a bit or whatever and head deeper into forest. A few maps later (right after the map where a recovery crystal blocks the exit) you will have to face Kaguya, Kanako, and Shinki all in the same fight. Shinki will use Source of Beginning to set up a barrier on herself at the beginning; she won't attack you, but nothing except Final Spark can damage her beyond the barrier, and when she takes it down (after you defeat the other two) she will have full HP again anyways. Just focus your efforts on Kanako and Kaguya for now - Kanako can be slowed by Alice, and after that you should just focus on Kaguya where possible, hitting Kanako only when you're using Guignol, or Silent Selene if you're trying to chain Royal Flare since Kaguya's immune to Silent Selene. Do remember to keep Kanako SP drained, however, so she can't bother you in the mean time. Once Kaguya is down, take out Kanako who still can't fight back, and Shinki will remove her barrier to finally do battle with you. She has a lot of HP (80m) and some really annoying statuses to go with her attacks, but they don't really have much power and she's vulnerable to SP draining, so it's more of a battle of attrition than anything.
• Once she's done, you will to have to fight the Dragon. While this fight is not designed to be unwinnable, considering the facts that any number of your party members will be in fear at any time (can't act), and that you can't keep her SP drained reliably due to that she recovers seemingly both after every time she's hit and spontaneously, and that her attacks are just extremely strong (especially if you somehow get her down to half HP), and that you change absolutely nothing by winning, it's easier just to lose on purpose.
• After that, the dragon will knock a few people around and go deeper in the forest. Marisa's original teammates will be unable to fight, but Mokou, Shinki and Kanako will join in their place. You can't touch Shinki and Kanako's equipments at all, but for Mokou change her accessory to the double HP one so she can survive some potentially lethal attacks. Also, remember to talk to all your fallen comrades so you can learn some of their skills (Patchy's Philosopher's Stone is extremely important. The next few maps houses the undisputably strongest encounters in the game, each being a black version of the Eientei minibosses, having 20m HP and all the same attacks they had, so avoid them if you can (they won't chase you) unless you want to try out your new party members' skills. Just before the map where the Dragon is, Mokou will remind you, and you can choose the second option to prepare. Consider blowing all the money you have on stat boosters and feed them all to Marisa. Once you're all ready, head in for the absolute final battle of the game.
• The dragon has the same stats as last time, but your party members won't be in fear this time around and you can actually fight back. Marisa should use Philosopher's Stone ASAP, and that makes her basically unkillable (with one attack at least) in the fight, an angel wing too if you want to (this makes her completely unkillable unless you neglect to heal her after several attacks in a row), then just spam Blazing Star over and over and over. As for the others, Mokou should just spam Possessed by Phoenix (most of her other skills are fire elemental and will heal the Dragon); Shinki should just use Cycle of 4.6 Billion Years, and Kanako should just spam God's Rice Porridge to keep everyone healthy. The dragon isn't very fast and doesn't have any attacks that are overly dangerous at first, but once you get her to half HP (100m), she will change the battle field background and BGM, and start using some really strong skills. Mokou with double HP and Marisa should be fine, but you will find Shinki and Kanako getting KO'd over and over again - just revive them when it happens. Don't worry much, though - with Super Marisa in this fight, it's really hard to lose the fight. You will see the true ending of the game after defeating the dragon. Congratulations! Don't forget to get down the password either.

Final Extra Content - Legendary Trees

• This is mostly just for fun, kind of like bonus content for DVDs. For the most part it's just a lot of plot stuff, although you do get some items out of it, which might be helpful for second playthroughs. Basically there are four flashing trees in the world, where you have to put in corresponding passwords to see a little extra content.
• The SDM tree is at Misty Lake north. There's a battle in here that is unwinnable (At least, I don't know how to win it). You get nothing out of it.
• The Higan tree is in the drama play room in Mugenkan. You get to see a little Fate/Stay Night parody, and receive some items after watching.
• The FinalB tree is right outside Eientei. You get to see a little soliloquy from InabaZ, and receive some items after watching.
• The Bamboo Forest tree is in the seventh map of Bamboo forest (from the Magical Forest side), and you'll need the passwords for SDM/Higan/FinalA as well. You get to see why Mokou was protected by everyone and everything in the Bamboo Chapter. Note that you'll actually have to do the battles Mokou went through, and some of them are actually not much of a joke. You don't get a game over for losing, though - you just have to do them all over again. Defeating the bosses is an exercise left for the readers.