Fate/Grand Order: Lostbelt No. 5.5 – Heian-kyo

Fate/Grand Order: Lostbelt No. 5.5 – Heian-kyo

Naraka Mandala Heian-kyo

Naraka Mandala Heian-kyo is the story chapter after Olympus in Fate/Grand Order. So, does that make it the 6th Lostbelt? Well, no. It is a Lostbelt. But, it’s also a Singularity. And it’s a Pseudo-Singularity. Basically, it’s complicated.

The chapter starts off as a Singularity, which is weird. There haven’t been any Singularities since Part 2 began. But, whatever. Even though the world as we knew it no longer exists, we have to shut down this Singularity before it gets worse. So, we suit up to rayshift.

Lostbelt No 5.5 - Naraka Mandala Heian-kyo from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Lostbelt No 5.5 – Naraka Mandala Heian-kyo

Immediately, we run into trouble. Mash and Fuuma don’t make the jump, leaving us with Danzou as our only servant. That’s right, this is the first story chapter of the game without Mash. I assume you can still bring her into battle, though. I didn’t actually test that out.

Oh, and why didn’t Mash make it into the Singularity? Because this is actually a Pseudo-Singularity created by Caster of Limbo, of course. As Admiral Ackbar would say, “it’s a trap!”

Heian warrior Sakata Kintoki from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Heian warrior Sakata Kintoki

But, here’s the thing. I don’t think Heian-kyo was a very good chapter. The story wasn’t that good. And I didn’t think we got enough fights against each of the enemies. A powerful enemy would be introduced, we’d fight them once, and then we’d move on.

While that did lead to a variety of fights in the chapter, it left the antagonists feeling lackluster. The story wasn’t set up to be a boss rush like Olympus. So, without building up the enemies, the chapter felt like it was missing something.

With that said, I did like the overall cast of this chapter. Kintoki’s a fun character and I love Shuten and Ibaraki (both Bond 10). Also, Watanabe-no-Tsuna is pretty cool.

Shimousa Part 2

If you’re a newer player, you may have skipped Part 1.5 of the game. That includes the 4 Pseudo-Singularities: Shinjuku, Agartha, Shimousa, and Salem. Well, if you did, you should probably go back and play those before playing Heian-kyo.

Actually, you should have played them before playing Olympus. Musashi was one of the main characters in that chapter. And her storyline was set up back in Shimousa. But, completing Shimousa is even more important for Heian-kyo.

I’m pretty sure that was the first time we met Caster of Limbo, the main antagonist of this chapter. And, in a lot of ways, Heian-kyo is like Shimousa Part 2.

Watanabe-no-Tsuna vs. Sakata Kintoki from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Watanabe-no-Tsuna vs. Sakata Kintoki

One way Heian-kyo is like Shimousa is in how boss battles are done. They take place in the same realm as the boss battles from Shimousa. But, this time around, you aren’t stuck with an NPC Musashi as your supporter.

To make up for that, though, I decided to give myself a challenge. I brought the Kintoki NPC (or another NPC if he wasn’t available) to every single battle of the chapter. No double Castoria for me.

Fight against Watanabe-no-Tsuna and Medea Lily from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Fight against Watanabe-no-Tsuna and Medea Lily

The team you see pictured here is the team I used for the majority of the chapter. Its premise is simple: keep Kintoki alive so he can decimate everything in his path. And the reason why this strategy works so well is because of Kintoki’s NPC CE. He starts with 50% NP charge and has +50% NP gain.

In almost every scenario, you can either take out the biggest enemy or break their first bar on turn 1 with Kintoki. He has a 50% NP battery skill. So, you can fire off his NP on turn 1 of every battle. No enemy stands a chance.

Douman’s Eight General Gods

Okay, so I know I said that this chapter wasn’t a boss rush. But, that’s only partly true. It actually sets itself up to be a boss rush like Olympus. In Olympus, we fought the Mechanical Gods and Heian-kyo, it was the Eight General Gods.

However, the Eight General Gods differ from the Mechanical Gods in 2 major ways. The first of these is their appearance. Despite what you’ll see in the picture below, the Eight General Gods aren’t unique boss enemies. They were summoned using servants as vessels.

That means we don’t get to fight giant monsters with unique attack patterns and skills. We fight servants like Suzuka Gozen and Tawara Touta. That makes these fights way less interesting. Sure, they’re stronger than usual. But, they’re not on the same level as the Mechanical Gods.

Ashiya Douman and the Eight General Gods from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Ashiya Douman and the Eight General Gods

The second issue with the Eight General Gods is that some of them are real characters. What do I mean by that? Well, while some of them take the form of servants we already know, others are entirely new servants. I’ll talk about them more later, but these are Taira-no-Kagekiyo and Ibuki-Douji.

Since these new servants were introduced in this story chapter, they’re actual characters. They don’t just show up and get defeated like Suzuka and Tawara. There’s some build-up for them before the fights. We learn about their backstories and what makes them such formidable opponents.

That’s good, though, right? Well, it could have been. The issue is still that we only got one “difficult” fight against each of them. So, there’s all this build-up, and then Kintoki smacks them with his NP and it’s over. At least, that’s how I beat Kagekiyo. I would have liked to see more from these characters.

The Genji Killer

Taira-no-Kagekiyo, also known as the Genji Killer, is the first of the new enemy servants. She’s an older version of Ushiwakamaru who appears as an Avenger. What is she taking vengeance against? The Genji clan, including our allies Kintoki, Tsuna, and Raikou.

I have some mixed feelings about her backstory. On one hand, she’s a cool character and I liked how she came into the story as the natural enemy of the Genji clan. But, her backstory also included a lot of Japanese historical figures.

I guess if you’re Japanese, you know who all these people are. But, there were a bunch of old guys with really long, similar names that kept being mentioned. I couldn’t keep track of it all. So, a lot of the stuff with her went right over my head.

Fight against Taira-no-Kagekiyo from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Fight against Taira-no-Kagekiyo

The fight against Kagekiyo wasn’t very interesting. Because of her backstory, I figured we’d have to fight her a bunch of times over the course of the chapter. And I thought she’d be stronger each time to give us a new challenge. That’s not the case.

You can easily defeat her using the same team I used for the first half or two-thirds of the chapter. As long as you keep Kintoki alive, you’ll have no trouble taking down Kagekiyo.

Taira-no-Kagekiyo defeated from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Taira-no-Kagekiyo defeated

Oh, and speaking of Kintoki being able to destroy almost every boss in the game, I need to mention something I hate. Heian-kyo wasn’t the first chapter to do this. But, I hate when I decisively defeat an enemy, and then my allies are talking about how they lost the fight.

There were so many times I destroyed an enemy on turn 1 with Kintoki’s NP. And then, after the fight, Kintoki comments on how he was the one defeated.

Ibuki-Douji Descends From the Mountain

Ibuki-Douji is the overwhelmingly powerful enemy of Lostbelt 5.5. And when I say that, I mean based on her lore. She’s supposed to be a combination of Shuten-Douji and a god of nature. She’s a divine servant — and not one who’s only a little divine.

I guess you could compare her appearance to when Surtr appeared in Lostbelt 2. They’re both ancient, powerful beings that we should stand no chance against. I’d also put Atlas from Olympus in the same category, even though we didn’t get to fight him.

Ibuki-Douji appears from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Ibuki-Douji appears

Unfortunately, Ibuki-Douji has less build-up than Kagekiyo. But, at the same time, I can kind of understand it. It’s not like Surtr had any build-up, either. Still, I would have liked her to be a bit more involved in the story before her defeat. She’s connected to Shuten, one of the main characters of the chapter, after all.

Anyway, it was the Ibuki-Douji fight where I finally switched up my team composition. I still brought the NPC Kintoki to every fight. But, starting here, I moved him to the backline. Why try to keep Kintoki alive when I could use a team that just doesn’t take any damage?

Fight against Ibuki-Douji from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Fight against Ibuki-Douji

I’m pretty sure Ibuki-Douji was supposed to be the hardest boss fight in the chapter. But, even she can’t do anything against the combined power of Himiko, Castoria, and Merlin. If the enemy doesn’t have a way to consistently remove buffs, they can’t get through this team.

The strategy is simple. You use Himiko’s NP, Merlin’s NP, and Castoria’s NP in that order whenever possible. This protects your servants, cleanses their debuffs, generates stars, and buffs their attack. Then, while you’re taking no damage, Himiko destroys the enemy with her Buster crits.

It’s broken.

From Singularity to Lostbelt

Now seems like a good time to dive a bit more into the whole Singularity to Lostbelt thing. So, from the Pseudo-Singularities, we know that Limbo can create Singularities. Well, we know he can create Pseudo-Singularities. So, that’s what he did here.

And why did he choose for this Pseudo-Singularity to take place in Heian-kyo? Because that’s where Ashiya Douman, Limbo’s vessel, is from. I’m pretty sure servants get power boosts when within their original time-space. So, Limbo is stronger than normal here. Also, he already has political power in Heian-kyo.

The Heian-kyo Tree of Emptiness blooming from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
The Heian-kyo Tree of Emptiness blooming

So, what about turning this singularity into a Lostbelt? As a disciple of the Foreign God, Limbo knows all about Trees of Emptiness. And with that knowledge, he was able to create his own Pseudo-Tree of Emptiness. However, Limbo’s Tree of Emptiness isn’t connected to the Foreign God.

Instead, he plans to use the Tree’s power to turn himself into another Foreign God. Why serve the Foreign God when he could become a Foreign God and serve himself? This means two of the three Foreign God disciples have betrayed the Foreign God at this point.

Raikou, Ibaraki, Danzou, Shuten, and Tsuna from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Raikou, Ibaraki, Danzou, Shuten, and Tsuna

Overall, Limbo had a good plan. And he almost succeeded in it. But, he made one vital mistake. He invited us into his Pseudo-Lostbelt. Without us there, he likely would have won. But, he wanted revenge on Chaldea for ruining his plans in Shimousa.

Oh, and I guess I should mention the whole Casters-only Holy Grail War he set up in his Lostbelt. Do you know why he did that? It’s so the other masters would think we were a Caster servant (which they did) and kill us. Honestly, that was kind of genius even though it didn’t work out as intended.

Cutting Down the Caster of Limbo

The final fight against Limbo has a gimmick that could definitely make it difficult. During the fight, Limbo will apply a delayed debuff to all your servants. I believe it causes your servants to die after 3 turns.

Golden Huge Bear from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Golden Huge Bear

But, we also have Golden Huge Bear on our side in this fight. Its skills replace your normal Mystic Code skills. And one of its skills, which have reduced cooldowns, cleanses the party’s debuffs. Still, you probably want another debuff cleanser for this fight.

Of course, as you can see from the image below, I didn’t have any trouble with this fight. Castoria has a party-wide debuff cleanse on her NP. So, keeping my servants safe from Limbo’s curse wasn’t hard. This screenshot was also taken moments before Himiko finished Limbo off.

Fight against the Caster of Limbo from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Fight against the Caster of Limbo

If you read my review of the Atlantis chapter, you may recall I complained about the difficulty. That chapter came out pre-Castoria and I was still able to beat every fight thanks to Jeanne. I think only 1 enemy in the whole chapter had pierce invulnerability or buff removal.

The same problem exists for Heian-kyo. But, it’s not quite as pronounced. There are enemies who can pierce invulnerability or remove buffs. But, these effects aren’t prominent enough to be able to stop Castoria. Thanks to her, there needs to be a lot more NP/skill seal, buff removal, and nullify buff effects for content to be hard.

Caster of Limbo's final attack from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Caster of Limbo’s final attack

Challenge Quests and NeroFest/BiNY Exhibition Quests force you to build unique teams. Sometimes this is due to mechanics you have to build a team to fight against. Other times it’s due to limitations on the servants you can bring. Either way, more story content should do this.

Malice Severed — Golden Finish

I’m not going to say that Heian-kyo was the worst Lostbelt chapter. And that’s not because it technically isn’t a Lostbelt chapter — it counts as a Main Interlude. It’s because it’s still better than Atlantis. But, I’m going to say it’s my second least favorite chapter in Part 2.

Heian-kyo had better characters than Atlantis. It had a better story. And it had better boss fights, even if you can still beat them without taking any damage. However, compared to the other Lostbelt chapters, Heian-kyo was disappointing.

It also didn’t really feel like a main story chapter. There could be a few reasons for this. For example, the fact that Mash wasn’t there. Instead, we had Danzou as our Chaldean companion. And, unlike the other Lostbelt chapters, this one came out of nowhere. It wasn’t a pre-established part of the Cosmos in the Lostbelt story.

Malice Severed ending screen from the mobile game Fate/Grand Order
Malice Severed

Building on the fact that it didn’t feel like a main story chapter, that also means Limbo’s defeat felt a bit hollow. I liked how we defeated Limbo. It was cool, especially when he got cut down while attempting to bring us down one last time.

But, it felt like a villain got killed off in the straight-to-VHS sequel of a blockbuster film. Maybe that’s how it had to happen, though. There are only 2 Lostbelts left and a lot of loose ends to tie up. And considering how long I know Lostbelts 6 and 7 are, there likely wasn’t room for Limbo’s story.

What could this mean for the Foreign God and her other disciples, though? Are they all going to get satisfying endings by the time Lostbelt 7 is over? I have a feeling there’s going to be another chapter after that, similar to how Solomon was.

Conclusion

Have you finished the Heian-kyo Lostbelt? How did you feel about it? Do you agree with my assessment of the chapter, or do you think it was better than I claim? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Lostbelt 6 – Avalon le Fae is available now.

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