Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Low Level (Tough Going) Part 3: Hackrobat

Challenge playlist:    • Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Low Level Ha...   Hackrobat fought with the party all at lv. 5. The first seriously tough battle in this challenge run. The video's brevity may deceptively indicate that it's a quick and easy one, but every turn incurred carries the cost of the boss being all too likely to kill somebody in the party with ways of farming Yggdrasil Leaves being unavailable for a while. The number of attempts spent was also so high that I switched the battle speed to Ultra Fast, as there are no cues from the boss that I would be interested in reading (in contrast to the previous battle, to give but one example). As you can tell from my inventory, I'd spent all my gold on buying the best gear sold in shops, running myself thin to the point I had exactly 0 Gold in my pockets. The characters being equipped for maximum defence may help with taking the boss's cinematic eye ball strikes, but they do little against the likes of the Zam spell, which coincidentally is strong enough to OHKO Maribel and threatens the others, too. Offence wise, Kiefer and Maribel can deal respectable AND consistent fire-elemental damage to the boss with their respective lv. 2 skills, which leaves the slime stick to be equipped by the MC (he can actually equip it, unlike Kiefer). It's not impossible to end the battle after incurring a death or two, using up one of our Yggdrasil Leaves in the process, or breaking the Kerplunk Bracer that Kiefer is equipped with for a generous defence boost - the fact we're limited to fighting mandatory battles makes surviving with all three party members while preserving precious resources like the ones mentioned above a real challenge. Besides Zam OHKOs, any two attacks aimed at the same party member before we get an opportunity to heal, which, as I've already mentioned, can go awry with the game's unstable turn order at times. Fortunately, the boss does occasionally act only once per turn, which is always a breath of fresh air, and tends to waste some of his turns attempting to blind the party, which is unsuccessful much of the time. A single "one-action turn" where he does just that is a whole turn the party can lay punishment without having to be concerned about healing. I also have to thank those consecutive king slime procs for getting me fairly far in whittling down the boss's health at the start - how many procs was that? Ruff joins the party after the battle, boasting a very apparent level advantage over the party. Needless to say, it is more than welcome at this stage.