The final storyline quest in Octopath Traveler II, Journey for the Dawn only unlocks once you complete every other character-oriented quest in the game. This means you must recruit all eight characters, complete their storylines, and complete their Crossed Paths chapters with the other characters in the party. It's a tall order that will encompass the majority of your journey.
Once you've unlocked Journey for the Dawn you can trigger the quest by traveling to the Southern Cropdale Trail and looking for the save point. South of the save point and on your left are steps to a small campsite. Inspect the campfire and you'll receive a lengthy notice regarding the quest. As the notice mentions, this is a one-way trip of sorts. You're stuck doing it once you begin the quest, and the world won't quite go back to the way it was once you're done, so if you have any unfinished business you should attend to it first. This includes:
- Getting everyone in the party to at least around level 50ish - and that's everyone, not just the characters you prefer to use; note that getting closer to 60 is probably wiser
- Completing Side Stories you haven't finished
- Exploring dungeons and collecting items
- Unlocking all of the Jobs, including the advanced ones (Inventor, Armsmaster, Arcanist, and Conjurer)
- Using Path Actions to plunder NPCs in towns, particularly 'named' NPCs who you encountered during the game's chapters - they tend to have the best equipment
The game will also advise making a second save file for this quest. Given that you can't go backward if you find this section too difficult, you should absolutely make a second save.
The chapter begins with Partitio and Agnea trying to light a fire. The rest of the party will show up soon after, and everybody will have a nice feast by moonlight. (Check the cover image of the game at this point. Look familiar?) All is well... at least until Sacred Flames worldwide, including the one in Flamechurch, start to go out. The team will wake up, having shared the same dream, and discover that the dawn isn't coming.
Enemies
- Shadowy Animated Armor - Weak to Axe, Staff, Light
- Shadowy Demon Deer - Weak to Staff, Lightning, Light
- Shadowy Demon Jellyfish - Weak to Axe, Staff, Lightning, Light
- Shadowy Horse Fly - Weak to Polearm, Bow, Light
- Shadowy Peek-a-Book - Weak to Dagger, Axe, Lightning, Light
- Shadowy Ratkin - Weak to Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Light
- Shadowy Shaggy Aurochs - Weak to Polearm, Dagger, Axe, Light
Soon after waking up the team will be attacked by Shadowy creatures. You've run into them before, during Ochette's final chapter, and there's a slight chance that you had them temporarily invade your game at random while exploring outdoor areas. Now they've overrrun the world, and you need to figure out why. The game gives you no help in doing this - though on the plus side, you can now change your party formation via the menu, without having to visit a Tavern. That's something.
If you pull up the world map you'll see that several locations around the world are coated in a thick, purple mist. You need to travel to these spots to investigate. We'll make our way to the closest and work outward from there.
Fellsun Ruins
Travel to Crackridge, then east to the Abandoned Road, and on to the Fellsun Ruins. Inside the ruins you'll find Journal Fragment I near the entrance. Head deeper inside and you'll find Journal Fragments II through XVIII. If you take the time to read these entries you'll learn a lot about what has been happening in the background of Octopath Traveler II.
The fragments will lead you to a pair of statues in the rear of the ruins, and if you inspect them you'll receive a hint: 'Let the mirror shine and kindle a fire in your heart to chase away the darkness'. The specific gods involved also hint at what you need to do. Place Partitio and Osvald in the active party, then use the Shiny Mirror that is glowing in your inventory next to the torch dais between the statues.
That's one Sacred Flame brought back to life. On to the next.
Tranquill Grotto
Jump to Ku, then head east to the Tranquil Grotto, where Hikari and Agnea journeyed together. At the rear of the ruins you'll find two more statues flanking an extinguised Sacred Flame. Put Agnea and Hikari in the party, then, once again, use the Shiny Mirror in front of the torch dais to bring the light back to life.
Tombs of the Wardenbeasts
Jump to the Beasting Village, then head south, to the Path to the Tombs of the Wardenbeasts. Make your way into the tombs, as before, though when you approach the two statues at the end of the trip you'll be hit by a sense of danger. Make sure you heal and save before making the final approach.
Grotesque Monster
Shields: 7 (Grotesque Monster) / 3 (Twisted Spawn)
Weaknesses:
Steal: Nothing
Weaknesses:
- Axe, Bow, Ice, Light (Grotesque Monster)
- Axe, Bow (Twisted Spawn)
Steal: Nothing
Well, that is... indeed grotesque. Accompanied by two Twisted Spawn, the Grotesque Monster is a fairly straightforward fiend that has a taste for Dark attacks, which should be no surprise given the state of the world. The Grotesque Monster uses the following attacks:
- Normal melee attacks
- Piercing Cry, a physical attack against one target
- Dark Breath, a Dark attack against the whole party
- Dark Wave, a Dark attack against the whole party
- Dark Spawn, which summons two more Twisted Spawn
- Oppressive Shadow, a heavy Dark attack against a single target
- Darkstorm, a charged Dark attack against the whole party
The Grotesque Monster spends the majority of the battle battering your party with heavy-hitting Dark attacks, throwing in the occasional Piercing Cry for good measure. Do enough damage and it will call in more Twisted Spawn - assuming you defeated the first two - and begin using Darkstorm. Getting hit by two Dark AOE attacks in a row, particularly if one is Darkstorm, can bring your party down in a hurry.
Equip Dark Amulets and Void Amulets to reatly downplay the damage of the Grotesque Monster's moves, then batter it with Precise Shots from Hunters in your party. If fed BP Ochette can keep the Grotesque Monster Broken on her own. You can then use your strongest attacks to wallop the beast. Not a big deal, really, so long as you can target the right weaknesses.
Once the Grotesque Monster is out of the way, put Castti and Ochette in your active party, then approach the unlit dais to the north. The Shiny Mirror will do the rest.
Flamechurch
Your final destination is the home of the church's Sacred Flame, and the town has been overrun by monsters. The group will be greeted by a familiar face - to Temenos, anyway - though they seem a little off today. You'll soon find out why.
Arcanette
Shields: 8 / 9 / 10
Weakness:
- Polearm, Axe, Ice, Lightning (Arcanette)
- Dagger, Fire, Wind, Light (Ant, Servant of the Night)
- Polearm, Dagger, Bow, Light (Howler, Servant of the Night)
- Polearm, Bow, Lightning, Light (Condor, Servant of the Night)
- Dagger, Staff, Fire, Lightning, Light (Mushroom, Servant of the Night)
Drop: Refreshing Jam
Steal: Nothing
Ahh, Mindt, you always seemed so nice. Your final obstacle in restoring the Sacred Flames to their former selves, Arcanette uses the night itself to batter your party, and will call upon monsters to hold your team at bay. Arcanette knows the following attacks:
- A normal melee attack
- Beckon the Night, which summons minions to aid Arcanette that will lock her weaknesses
- Power of the Night, which buffs one of Arcanette's minions
- Elusion of the Night, which grants automatic evasion to one of Arcanette's minions
- Offering of the Night, which sacrifies one of Arcanette's minions to heal her
- Moonshade, a two-part Dark / Light attack against a single target
- Deny the Dawn, a charged attack that damages the party and strips them of BP
- Heaven's Vengeance, which reduces everyone to 1 HP
Arcanette begins the fight by summoning in two Servants of the Night to fight for her, buffing them as the battle progresses. While the Servants survive Arcanette's weak points will be locked away from attack. Wipe out the first few Servants and Arcanette will bring in more, taking a more offensive posture as the fight progresses. Do enough damage and Arcanette will occasionally charge up to use Deny the Dawn, which is painful for the party's BP. She'll also call in some more powerful Servants of the Night.
This fight isn't too difficult. Arcanette's Servants are beefed-up normal enemies, and aren't difficult to Break. Light is good against all of them, and Polearm can eat up some shields as well. Wipe out one enemy and Arcanette will likely kill off the other herself. You'll then have a few turns to demolish Arcanette's shields before she brings in more enemies and puts her defenses back up. Conserve BP for wiping out Arcanette's shields once she starts charging up, and otherwise, just heal. If you brought Temenos along for some poetic justice he can Break Arcanette without taking down her shields using his Latent Power, but it's not a necessity.
Head up Flamechurch Pilgrims' Way once the battle is over, towards the Cathedral Entrance. Tanzy's Journal is sitting near the extinguished Sacred Flame. Put Temenos and Throné in your party, then use the Shiny Mirror to restore the Sacred Flame. This will also return Flamechurch to its original state... more or less... and the four flames you've restored will point the way to your final destination.
Hop to one of the world's anchorages and use your boat to sail into On the Water. In more or less the middle of the world you'll find a new location: Vidania. Enter, heal your party, save, and prepare for the grand finale.
Vide
Shields:
- 10 (Vide)
- 4 (Wriggling Tentacle)
- 3 (Lithe Tentacle)
- 3 (Creeping Tentacle)
- 3 (Thwarting Tentacle)
Weaknesses:
- Sword, Axe, Staff, Lightning, Light (Vide, first phase)
- Dagger, Bow, Fire, Dark (Vide, second phase)
- Polearm, Axe, Bow, Ice, Light (Wriggling Tentacle)
- Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Light (Lithe Tentacle)
- Sword, Dagger, Bow, Staff, Fire (Creeping Tentacle)
- Sword, Polearm, Dagger, Axe (Thwarting Tentacle)
Drop: Nothing
Steal: Nothing
This is it. Vide in the flesh. You'd best be ready for the worst, because you're fighting a god, and she does not play fair. Vide uses the following attacks:
- Pulse, a Dark attack against the whole party (Vide)
- Waves of Darkness, a Dark attack against the whole party that can inflict Blind (Vide)
- Ruinous Light, a multi-hit strike against a single target (Ruinous Tentacle)
- Rend, a physical attack against the whole party (Lithe Tentacle)
- Sweep Away, which temporarily knocks one of your party members out of the fight (Creeping Tentacle)
- Reflective Barrier, which bounces magic off of the target (Thwarting Tentacle)
- Resonant Cry, which restores health to every enemy (Thwarting Tentacle)
- All Shall Be Mine, which swaps your active party for your inactive party
- Wave of Nothingness, which removes every buff on your party
- Calamity of Night, a charged Dark attack against the whole party
This fight begins with Vide summoning in a Wriggling Tentacle. Defeat it and Vide will next bring in a Wriggling Tentacle and a Lithe Tentacle. Defeat those two and a Wriggling, Lithe, and Creeping Tentacle will come next. Each Tentacle only uses a single attack, but they tend to hurt quite a bit.
Get Vide down far enough - as well as get rid of the first three phases of Tentacles - and she will suck your party into a void, forcing your backup characters to jump in and attempt to save the day. Vide will then bring in four Tentacles, and the new one (Thwarting Tentacle) will lock Vide's weaknesses. The major saving grace here is that all of your replacement characters will have their BP maxed out when they arrive. Defeating the four Tentacles will prompt Vide to summon the same four, and the battle remains the same from this point on, aside from Vide occasionally using Calamity of Night, a charged attack.
This portion of the fight is all about going on the offensive and staying there for the entire battle, only healing when absolutely necessary. The Tentacles aren't a big deal at first, but once you're facing all four of them, and Vide, your party can get wiped out in a single round. Use every multi-hitting attack you have at your disposal to knock away shields:
- Aggressive Slash (preferably when you're just targeting Vide)
- Precise Shot
- Elemental Barrage
- Hired Help - Veteran Soldier
- EX Skills
- Hikari's Learnable Skills
- Ochette's Provokes
- Latent Powers, notably Ochette and Hikari
- Soulstones, particularly Light (L) Soulstones and Almighty Soulstones
The Tentacles don't have that much health, so as long as your characters can knock a few thousand HP away on their turn it's not that difficult to wipe out a whole host of Tentacles in a round. This will allow you to preserve your BP for Vide, as you'll want to Break her before she can regenerate her Tentacles. Get in as much damage as you can before she brings back the Tentacles, then repeat the whole process once Vide locks herself up again.
The big twist in this fight is All Shall Be Mine, which kicks your starting party out of the battle and replaces them with your backup team. This tactic can really mess you up if you've been concentrating on only four characters, and unless you can dish out 200,000 HP of damage in a few turns you'll have to fight Vide with all eight members of your party. Divide your members as evenly as you can, and make sure both teams can heal.
Manage to defeat Vide, and... wait... wait for it...
Vide, the Wicked
Shields:
- 10, 15 (Vide the Wicked)
- 4 (Wicked Right Arm)
- 5 (Wicked Left Arm)
Weaknesses:
- Sword, Dagger, Bow, Wind, Light (Vide, the Wicked, first phase)
- Polearm, Axe, Staff, Ice, Lightning, Light (Vide, the Wicked, second phase)
- Fire, Lightning, Light, Dark (Wicked Right Arm, first phase)
- Ice, Wind, Light, Dark (Wicked Left Arm, second phase)
- Sword, Axe, Bow, Staff (Wicked Left Arm, first phase)
- Sword, Dagger, Bow (Wicked Left Arm, second phase)
Surprise! Vide isn't done yet! Bringing what is presumably her full power to bear against your party, Vide is no easier to beat now than she was in the previous round. You'll need to make use of every member of your party - and I mean every member - to take her down. Vide uses the following attacks:
- Normal melee attacks (Vide)
- Veil of Perpetual Night, which prevents you from inflicting damage on Vide while her arms are active (Vide)
- Wicked Glint, a Dark attack against your active party (Vide)
- Deny The Dawn, a Dark attack against your active party that saps their BP (Vide)
- Arcane Sphere, a magic attack against a single target (Vide)
- Condemning Bolt, a flurry of Dark attacks against a single target (Vide)
- Twin Flames, a Dark attack against a single target (Left Arm)
- Meteor, random Dark attacks against your active party (Left Arm)
- Heat Ray, a Fire attack against your active party (Left Arm)
- Sweep, a physical strike against your active party (Right Arm)
- Spirit Thief, a physical strike against your active party's SP (Right Arm)
- Terrifying Sweep, a physical strike against your active party that can inflict Terror (Right Arm)
- A debuff applied to the active party whenever you defeat one of Vide's Arms, preventing the use of healing items
- Eternal Night, which prevents you from reviving characters while Vide remains unBroken
- Bestial Roar, a physical attack against the active party that inflicts a defensive debuff (Vide)
- Annihilation, which reduces one character's SP to zero (Vide)
- Ruthless Blow, a heavy physical attack against one target (Right Arm)
- Shake the Earth, a physical attack against the whole party (Right Arm)
- The dawn shall never come, which changes Vide's weaknesses, gives her 15 shields, and gives her an extra attack (Vide)
- Heaven's Vengeance, which reduces the active party's HP to one (Vide)
- Tenebrae Operire, a Dark attack that hits the active party three times (Vide)
- Dark Calamity, a charged Dark attack that hits all eight members of your party, whether they're active or not (Vide)
As with the previous battle Vide has a pair of limbs supporting her, and they will smack your party around with a combination of magic and physical attacks. Vide will also attack, bringing the enemy a total of four attacks per round to start. Vide personally cannot be injured in any way until you've defeated both Arms. Vide will not revive the Arms...
... at least until you get her down to half of her total health. At this point Vide will bring the Arms back and change their weaknesses, adding more attacks to her repertoire. Vide will then create a dark aura around herself that will prevent you from using any Skill or item to revive fallen characters until her main body is Broken. Defeat the Arms again and Vide will boost her shields to 15, change her weaknesses, and give her main body one more attack. She'll also start using Dark Calamity, a charged move that hits everyone in your party - and that means everyone.
All that sounds pretty nasty, but you have one major advantage that makes this fight less troublesome than it seems: You get to use all eight characters at once. Sorta, anyway. Two characters share a single slot on the timeline, and you can switch back and forth between them on your turn, as often as you like. The team that is active when Vide attacks takes the damage. Both teams accrue BP, countdown buffs and debuffs, and receive HP / SP from equipped armor or accessories each round, whether they are active or not.
Ultimately this final battle boils down to keeping your teams healed and targeting weaknesses. It really is as simple as that. Vide has lots of powerful attacks, but she doesn't throw any major curveballs besides blocking your ability to revive KOed characters. You can get around this by Breaking her, then reviving anyone who got knocked out. Your Skills and items can be used on any party member, whether they're active or not, and any beneficial effect you deploy that targets everyone will, to your benefit, target everyone. Use Healing Light, for example, and every party member on both teams will be healed.
There are a number of ways you can use this to your advantage:
- As mentioned, healing. Whenever a party is getting weak, switch to the other one and have your healer go to work. You can keep switching back and forth like this and maintain a pair of fresh parties.
- Bring out characters with lots of BP to deploy buffs on everyone for many turns. Offensive or defensive, it is up to you. This becomes especially deadly if you bring out Conjurers to give everyone elemental attacks on top of their physical Skills.
- Put Castti to work. The hardworking Apothecary may well be your greatest asset in this fight, as she can heap HP, SP, BP, buffs, and status recovery on everybody in the fight if you use Diffusing Serum. Even just giving your characters hordes of BP makes Castti an utterly invaluable party member.
- Shift the turn order around with Stimulate. If Agnea uses her Latent Power she can bump everyone to the front of the order on a regular basis, preventing Vide from getting off many attacks.
In short, yes, Vide has an intimidating number of abilities, and yes, this fight will take a while, but it is not nearly as difficult as you might think coming in. So long as you remain on the offensive and exploit the unique setup to annihilate Vide's defenses you'll have plenty of time to heal away damage and take the dark god down.
Defeat Vide and, well, congrats! You've completed Octopath Traveler II! Almost, anyway. The world will be set back to its original self, minus... one or two people, and you can continue your journey as before. You can also travel to the campsite where you began this final chapter, along the Southern Cropdale Trail, and trigger the Epilogue, which brings the excursion to an official close.