I believe I am about 75% of the way through the game and as I mentioned before I have experienced very little in the way of truly difficult parts of the game. I dont' mind this but other hardcore gamers would probably find that to be a bit boring. I'm cool with it because I am a casual gamer at best. Make a game too difficult for me and I am almost certainly going to give up. There have only been a few exceptions such as Hollow Knight where I actually completed a difficult game. There was just something about that game that inspired me to continue despite the grueling difficulty.
This particular battle in Sea of Stars is something that at first, I thought was one of those fights that we are accustomed to in JRPG's where you aren't actually supposed to win. I say this because not that long ago I had faced just 2 of these guys and barely emerged victorious.
These 4 beings who are simply known as 1,2,3, and 4 are meant to be your nemeses and we are told about them as the game goes on. They are meant to be an unstoppable magical force that keeps the world in balance with their side being the "evil" side.
Just one of them would be a challenge but combined they are a massive pain in the ass to defeat for multiple reasons. For starters, there are 4 of them... to make things more complicated they have combo attacks that do massive damage and some of it is unblockable.
This one particular attack, that you will see a lot of, is the combo attack of 1 and 2 where 1 surfs on a giant stone and crashes into your head. You cannot block this. It will take around half of any of your buddies' life bar away.
I wish I could tell you some sort of strategy here but the only thing I can think of is to try to take out "2" first. he/she/it 's attack combines with many of the others for very powerful magical attacks and once he is gone, most of those attacks are no longer available to them. For whatever reason, number 2 also seems to attack more frequently and also has the ability to do a group heal that will erase most of the damage you have done up to that point. I know most gamers find this really annoying but hell, you are doing it all the time so imagine the disdain on the part of your enemies?
Also, something to keep in mind that most people, including me forget on a regular basis, is that "3" will block and counter-attack any melee attack you throw at him, so don't do that. You'll have to rely on taking him out with AOE damage that you are doing anyway throughout the battle.
I think the idea here is to last long enough for your combo meter to get filled and then use one of your ultimate combos to finish them off. While I haven't dug into it I am sure there is someone out there that managed to do it without using that because the people out there in the gaming world are a bit insane when it comes to accomplishing the un-accomplishable. I am not looking for a hardcore experience so I just took the path of least resistance.
This is the first boss fight that actually took me multiple tries before I got past it. Ok, that isn't true. There was one boss that I lost to in our first encounter but I defeated it on my 2nd try. This is the first one that took me I think 6 times before I got it right. Just like in any fight, healing is going to be a priority and don't fuss with the spells that will negate a single attack since most of 1-4's attacks strike multiple times. Just take the hit, then focus on healing up. Group healing foods are a good idea to bring along, but I don't remember which of those are the best, probably the fish ones that use a bunch of mushrooms and that is why the rooms just before this one had a bunch of mushrooms in it.
You see... the game is trying to give you some clues and help before you ever even get to this point. Once you get past this I presume the game gets even more difficult, but we'll have to see. I have played games in the past where sub-bosses near the end were intentionally more difficult than the final boss actually was, I guess just for fun.
I'm still loving this game and if you have a PS-Plus Extra membership you already have included access to it. Check it out!