"Captain! Our ship is going down! Mayday! Mayday!"
The explosion of my ship as it blows up rings in my ears for probably the thousandth time. Anger swells in me as I slam my fists into my keyboard.
"Come on! I was so damn close!" I groan as I check the final boss' health at 1,260/100,000. Another ten seconds or so and he'd have died.
The game I'm playing is Star Rider Andromeda. A game where both fantasy and Sci-Fi mix together. Magic is a fine-tuned science in this universe, and even fantasy races like Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, etc. are in this futuristic space. Specifically, I am playing the single-player campaign with an unreasonably difficult final boss. So much so that even the most gifted of players have given up. I'm one of the few still trying to beat him to this day. Many have tried to datamine his AI, but the code they found was incredibly simple, making it impossible for him to take the actions he takes in the game. Bewildered by this, it only further lowered the amount of players that even take the campaign seriously.
I have tried multiplayer, but I was shunned by the community for my style of play. Before defeating the final boss, you have just enough points to max two skill trees and their sub-trees. I chose Leadership > Tactician and Divinity > Foresight. The Tactician skill tree turned what was an FPS/spaceship dogfighting game into an RTS game, as if Starcraft and Battle for Wesnoth had a baby, my forte. However, the community absolutely hated it. They say the player is the main frontline, just having the NPCs there to support them. Instead, I was the backline and relying on the skills of the NPCs to defeat the opponents. I had once beaten a high-ranked Esports team to prove the usefulness of the skill, but many said that it was either a fluke or I was cheating. The sore-losing team didn't help any to stop the rumors, and instead encouraged them.
Despite all of this, I continued on. Darian Brainard, my human character, will defeat the final boss if it's the last thing I do. I decided to switch my strategy. Typically, the best chances I had when facing the boss where when I limited his movement to the few disadvantageous tiles in the asteroid belt, but his Displacement skill keeps ruining that strategy. What I've decided to switch to is using my units' Zones of Control (a one-hex circle around my units which keeps enemies from moving past them) to keep him in one spot, having my Spiderling Mothership controlled by the half-Spider half-Human Broodmother Tera Drach continue constructing low-level Spiderling Fighterships to limit the use of his Displacement skill. Due to his ship's resistances to everything except Divine Magic, I'm forced to use my healer in the front lines. My healer is an Elf with a Hospital Carrier that can repair damaged ships while also healing the crew inside with advanced healing magic, as well as construct several smaller Hospital Corvettes. My two frontlines are a Dwarf and a Slime. The Dwarf's ship is a massive Capitol Destroyer, the largest in my fleet, and commands several other smaller Destroyer-class ships. The Slime... I don't like to look at. For some odd reason, the developers decided to make it have a female body and a rather... voluptuous one at that. However, she manages a massive wall-like Capitol Ship that has high resistances to everything. She took the most time to level, since the amount of skill points I needed to level her resistances was extreme. She can also create small Slime Escort ships made of purely slime (with magic), which stick to other ships and block attacks until their health runs out. Though she can pump out escort ships en masse, the piercing weaponry of the final boss makes them next to useless, severely hindering my fleet. The final NPC capitol ship I have is another Human with a Capitol Frigate ship that specializes in incredible amounts of damage, and can also construct smaller frigate-class ships. However, the nigh impentrable resistances of the final boss also makes her next to useless.
I finally reload my save, carefully positioning my units before the final boss spawns. I hide my Dwarvish Destroyer, Slime Defender, and Human Frigate behind a relatively small planet, though it is still a planet, and bigger than my entire fleet combined even if I constructed as many units as humanly possible. As the boss spawns, he does his normal unskippable speech. As he monologues, I draw out my plans on a piece of paper in front of my computer to check for any issues. Once he finishes and I feel satisfied, the battle begins. I have my Spiderling Mothership construct as many ships as I could to force him to Displace in the range of my Elf, but being unable to attack, himself, unless he destroys the Spiderling ships faster than they can spawn. Like always, the final boss focuses the Spiderling Mothership first, garnering a free 20k damage from the Elf in the time it took for him to fight his way through the Spiderling ships to the Mothership. I then eject Tera Drach in an escape pod from her Mothership and retreat my Elf, hiding her behind the wall of Spiderling ships. The final boss gives up on the Mothership, focusing on trying to not love sight of the Elf. However, my plan finally comes into motion. The engines of the earlier ships finally explode as they reached their limit, but their work was not for nothing. An entire planet comes barreling towards the final boss, a trick I remembered from the dogfighting tutorial where the Orcish boss attempts to use a Repulsor Beam to launch a small moon at you. This was just a theory until now, but I'm glad it worked out. However, this revealed my Flagship that was hidden inside of the asteroid field as I had to move outside of the planet's range. The final boss put his thrusters at max to both escape and make his way towards me, but he was just a bit too slow. The planet barrels into him, 78k damage. This is the second fastest I have lowered his health to this much, and the only where almost all of my ships are not severely damaged.
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"Damn you!" I hear from my headphones as the boss enters his rage state. He is invincible for a whole 30 seconds, and has increased damage and defence for the rest of the fight. This is where it gets tricky.
My Elf, which has finally finished repairing the engines of the previous ships, returns with them. I then order her to back off to the backline, and engage with my normal strategy. The Slime Defender ship moves in front, creating a wall of Slimes with the passive ability Friendly Fire, which though it sounds bad, it actually allows allies to shoot through them. The forums for this game quite dislike it, but I find it kind of ironic. The boss gets closer and closer to 0 as my Frigates open fire as much as possible, as well as the Dwarvish Destroyers.
1,590/100,000
1,028/100,000
825/100,000
690/100,000
Critical Hit! 253/100,000
And finally, the fight finishes. 0/100,000. I scream in joy, jumping out of my chair as I finally beat the final boss. Tears rolls down my eyes. A whole four years my free time was occupied with trying to beat this boss. Outside my measly job, I had no social life. The only goal I had ever set for myself had finally been completed, and I felt joyous but empty. Just then, the screen fizzled and turned blue, replacing the explosion animation I had worked so hard to see.
Thank you for defeating the final boss Exavier of the Scourge. Your actions have saved the galaxy.
Huh?
However, the galaxy is in disarray after the destruction of the Scourge. You must now mend the civilizations you have freed. I will give you a gift to aid your quest.
You have unlocked a hidden skill: Ancestory of a Million Sages.
What?! Fix the universe? Is this a new DLC? What is this new skill?
Good luck, Darian Brainard.
A blinding light envelops my rooms as my consciousness fades.
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As I awake, I find myself in a futuristic sci-fi medical bed. "Wha..."
"Hello, Lord Darian." A feminine voice says to my right. I look, and there stands before me Anivia Bloomwood, the Elf. Her long, green hair flows down behind her white lab coat. Her slightly thin frame fits the coat perfectly, and her beautiful face smiles at me. My face instantly turns to shock.
"What... Happened?" I groan as I attempt to sit up, but Anivia swiftly yet carefully pushes me back down.
"Careful. We finally beat Exavier, and along with him the Scourge... You must have passed out from exhaustion, as you had been chasing him for months without must rest. We're all tired. Please sleep, I'll let the others know you're alright. They're all worried." she smiles as me.
Others...? Exavier... Wait, lord Darian? Is this Star Rider Andromeda?! Did I pass out after finally beating the boss and I'm having a dream? That must be it. Maybe if I do as she says and go back to sleep I'll wake up... I'm not sure why, but I did feel incredibly exhausted. Despite my various thoughts that would normally keep me awake, I quickly fell asleep, the world around me turning to darkness.