Freedom Force vs 3rd Reich - Help Requested (Spoilers)

[noun]

All right. So I've saved the three artifacts from destruction and now have to stop Fortissimo himself from personally destroying the last one. I can NOT get past this, and it seems so unreasonably difficult that I think I must be missing something obvious.

1) I have Tombstone, Black Jack, El Diablo and Alchemiss in my party.
2) I'm playing on Hard.
3) My characters all start on the other end of the map, so by the time they even reach him he's already halfway to the fire. Yes, he manages to outrace even the fliers.
4) After the first successful attack, no matter what it is - blast, possession, smack down, thrown object - Fortissimo immediately turns on his force field and remains immune to all attacks until he reaches the bonfire. ALL attacks - even Possession bounces off his shield. WTF?
5) I've tried destroying the bonfire itself - no go. They are immune to all damage as well.
6) Once, I was able to have Tombstone possess him and walk him in the opposite direction, but once again, the uber-forcefield and Fatman Speed ensured his quick progress to the bonfire.

I know some of you have already beat this game, so I'd appreciate it if you could tell me what I'm missing here. I've already tried 15 times to beat this mission and am beginning to lose interest.

[forgeforsaken]

You should be able to throw things at him, those seem to cut right through the shield.

[Nick Walter]

If you didn't like this mission, there is worse coming . . .

I beat this mission with a custom character. I think the difficulty on this was way too hard. The trick to making it easy is some sort of ranged stasis power that can bypass his shield and pluck him out of the air. Everyone gets a chance to beat on him while he's in stasis and it halts his progress.

Alternatively you simply need some different characters. I know his shield will stop everything El Diablo, Black Jack, and Tombstone can do because I had them in various fights with Fortissimo.

[Kalle]

Alchemiss has a power that'll distract him. Use that, while the rest of your team pummel him with objects. Park benches, rocks, fences, anything goes.

Black Jack's gun can shoot through his shield as well. As long as you can keep him distracted from reaching the fire you can win this.

[Anders Hallin]

EDIT: actually read post

[Chris Woods]

I played on hard as well,

Have Tombstone get close to him, then use possession. Don't use any other abilities yet. Tombstone needs to be "close" because if you use Possession as soon as you're in range, he will move out of range and it will miss. You need to make sure you're very close before using it.

Once you get that, have Fortisimo fly away from the bonfire and grouop your guys to interscept. His invun. shield will go down before possession ends.

After you lose him, have Tombstone Possess him AGAIN. It will take a bit since Tombstone will probably be near the bonfire and Fortisimo will be on the other side of the map, but that's okay.

His shield shouldn't activate when he's possessed since you control him. Just land him on the ground and have your guys pummel him. You have to force them to attack with r-click on him since they consider him to be a "friendly" at that point. Once possession ends the second time, he should be pretty harmed and unshielded.

Then, just beat the crap out of him. He should be sufficiently far from the Bonfire that he won't be able to get back there. Throwing objects is really good as it's knocks him over/away. Alchemiss' "Repel" spell is also useful if you've bought up to it.

Hope this helps.

Chris Woods

[Nick Walter]

Have Tombstone get close to him, then use possession. Don't use any other abilities yet. Tombstone needs to be "close" because if you use Possession as soon as you're in range, he will move out of range and it will miss. You need to make sure you're very close before using it.


Aha, thanks for pointing that out. I thought he just had special boss character immunity since I could never get him possessed. Your explanation about the range makes more sense :D

I do loathe "puzzley" missions like this one where there's a gimmick that needs to be figured out and the only way to win is to play it a few times to figure out the gimmick. Poor game design in my book.

[noun]

You should be able to throw things at him, those seem to cut right through the shield.

I threw two benches at him. One did 3 points of damage. Then after he turned his force field on, the other bench did 0 points of damage. That left him with 327 and an easy journey to the bonfire.

I know his shield will stop everything El Diablo, Black Jack, and Tombstone can do because I had them in various fights with Fortissimo.

Greeaaaaaaat.

Alchemiss has a power that'll distract him.

Which one works post-shield?

Black Jack's gun can shoot through his shield as well.

Not that I've noticed...

Once you get that, have Fortisimo fly away from the bonfire...

Oh, he can fly? I missed that. OK, I'll try flying his fat ass to the far corner of the map and see if I can attack him when his shield's down, because I reiterate, that shield makes him invulnerable to everything.

[Graeme Dice]

OK, I'll try flying his fat ass to the far corner of the map and see if I can attack him when his shield's down, because I reiterate, that shield makes him invulnerable to everything.

I don't think it makes him invulnerable to physical attacks.

[AlexxKay]

Even with his Sound Shell up, Fortissimo has no particular resistance to:
Crushing (most thrown objects)
Piercing (most bullets, including Black Jack's)
Mental
Mystical

Also, the shield doesn't protect at all against Direct attacks (which, among others, Alchemiss and Green Genie have several of).

[Dirt]

I would have loved to be able to have a smackdown with the villains in the air, with a punch sending them flying across the screen into buildings or into the dirt.

[Kalle]

You should be able to throw things at him, those seem to cut right through the shield.

I threw two benches at him. One did 3 points of damage. Then after he turned his force field on, the other bench did 0 points of damage. That left him with 327 and an easy journey to the bonfire.

Damage really depends on the strength of the hero. 6 or more in strength is good. I let Minuteman do most of the damage in that mission when I played. The Ant has an ability that boosts his strength for wielding/throwing things so I think he's good at it too, though I never really used him.

[noun]

OK, that worked - I flew him across the map and started attacking him. I still couldn't damage him when his shield was up, but thankfully, being so far from his goal seemed to have made him forgot about the fire altogether and focus on attacking us. It took a while, but I finally beat Fortissimo. Thanks for the help.

I would have liked an option to have destroyed the bonfires. Everything else is destructible; having invincible bonfires seemed really out of place.