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The Hanging Gardens is a dungeon that makes up the last few hours of Tactics Ogre: Reborn. It's a long, multi-stage dungeon with twisting, branching paths, difficult enemies to face, and some rare loot to collect.
This dungeon unlocks once you've dealt with the story events at Barnicia at Chapter 4, and you'll want to make sure you're prepared before heading in. Stock up on items and make sure your units are as trained as they can be.
Dungeon Structure
Map |
Deployment |
Notes |
---|---|---|
Foot of the Gardens |
10 Units |
There are two secret doors on this battlefield. |
The Serpent's Spine |
7 Units |
|
Echoes of Her Passage |
6 Units |
There is a secret door on this battlefield. Princess's Mark may drop. |
His Fist Upraised |
6 Units |
|
Tears of Topaz |
5 Units |
|
Verdant Stair |
5 Units |
There is a secret door on this battlefield. |
Songs of Raven Hair |
8 Units |
|
Enraptured Dream |
7 Units |
|
Hold High Your Cups |
7 Units |
There are two secret doors on this battlefield. |
Halcyon Days |
9 Units |
|
Vermillion Stair |
6 Units |
There is a secret door on this battlefield. |
The Beast Has Fangs |
6 Units |
|
Sounding of the Hours |
8 Units |
There is a secret door on this battlefield. |
Faith and Devotion |
7 Units |
|
Sharp and Cold the Stars |
9 Units |
|
Ebon Stair |
6 Units |
There is a secret door on this battlefield. |
Ivory Stair |
10 Units |
After either Ebon Stair or Ivory Stair, there are no more split branches. There are only the final battles to take on, which are presented in detail below.
Once you enter Twixt Heaven and Earth, there is no going back.
Once you beat the game once, returning to the Hanging Gardens will let you skip the majority of the dungeon, with a secret route taking you from Foot of the Gardens directly to Twixt Heaven and Earth.
All Secret Doors
To unlock these secret paths, you simply have to end a unit's turn on the tile's being highlighted in the images below.
Foot Of The Gardens
- The first secret passage will open a path to His Fist Upraised.
- The second secret passage will open a path to Verdant Stair.
Echoes Of Her Passage
- This secret passage will open a path to Enraptured Dreams.
Verdant Stair
- This secret passage will open a path to Halcyon Days.
Hold High Your Cups
- The first secret passage will open a path to Vermillion Stair.
- The second secret passage will open a path to The Beast Has Fangs.
Vermillion Stair
- This secret passage will open a path to Ebon Stair.
Sounding of the Hours
- This secret passage will open a path to Ebon Stair.
Ebon Stair
- This secret passage will open a path to Twixt Heaven and Earth.
Quickest Route Through The Hanging Gardens
There is a pretty short path through this huge dungeon that rewards knowledge of the secret door system. With these, you can fight a minimum of five battles before reaching the confrontation with Andoras at the top.
- First, open the secret door in Foot of the Gardens to unlock the path that goes to Verdant Stair.
- Open the secret door in Verdant Stair that leads to Halcyon Days.
- Move on from Halcyon Days to Sounding of the Hours.
- Open the secret door in Sounding of the Hours that leads to Ebon Stair.
- Open the secret door in Ebon Stair that leads to Twixt Heaven and Earth.
Story Battle: Twixt Heaven And Earth
Enemies |
Leader: Andoras (Knight Commander) |
|
---|---|---|
9x Templar, 2x Baldur Golem, 2x Thunder Dragon |
||
Deployment |
12 Units |
|
Victory Condition |
Defeat Andoras |
|
Difficulty |
★★★★☆ (4/5) |
Andoras is a very tough opponent, though you already know that.
- Andoras has a powerful, unique Finishing Move that may inflict the Weaken status. If this gets one of your heavy hitters, try to get rid of the status quickly. You want speed in this fight.
- The Baldur Golems are very annoying, as they'll likely block your both and let the other units in the fight rain pain down on you with impunity. This is also true of the Thunder Dragons. Consider bringing along multiple Dragoons just to deal with these big sacks of HP, and pump them full of MP with recovery items.
- There are two Cleric Templars and a Templar with a Lobber plus healing items. Make them high-priority targets once the Golems are dealt with - they love to heal Andoras just as you're whittling him down.
This is another battle where finding the right targets is the most important point. Eventually, though, you shouldn't have too much trouble - you have all the tools you need at this point in the game.
Story Battle: The Tomb Below
Enemies |
3x Templar, 2x Cyclops, 1x Knight, 1x Berserker, 1x Enchantress, 1x Warrior, 1x Archer |
|
---|---|---|
Deployment |
9 Units |
|
Victory Condition |
Defeat all enemies |
|
Difficulty |
★★☆☆☆ (2/5) |
This battle isn't too hard - just remember that tombs hold the dead!
- As hinted at, the majority of your foes here are undead, with some of them starting the battle pre-stilled. Bring along some means of exorcism and you can get ahead quite easily.
- The Cyclops both have Siege, making any Rampart Auras you have quite useless. Luckily, they're also quite fragile themselves, so you shouldn't worry too much.
Story Battle: Relics Of The Past
Enemies |
11x Templar |
|
---|---|---|
Deployment |
10 Units |
|
Victory Condition |
Defeat all enemies |
|
Difficulty |
★★★☆☆ (3/5) |
Before the final battles, there's a final bout with generic Templars.
- As always, Templars are actually just beefed-up versions of normal classes. This battle has plenty of physical Templars heading the frontlines, including a Knight and a Terror Knight, and a pretty sparse backline.
- Notable, however, is a lone Fusilier Templar with Engulf and Course Correction, who may be able to snipe your squishier units with ease.
- You shouldn't have much trouble with this one. The Templars have a tendency to clump together a lot, so area-of-effect spells will be fantastic, especially any third-tier indirect spells.
There are only two more fights to go, and they're both quite special.
Story Battle: Chamber Of The Seal
Enemies |
Martym (Knight Commander) and Barbas (Knight Commander) |
|
---|---|---|
Deployment |
10 Units |
|
Victory Condition |
Defeat Martym and Barbas |
|
Difficulty |
★★★★★ (5/5) |
While you outnumber your foes by three, this is a very tough fight.
- Martym and Barbas can both pump out gigantic damage numbers. It's very important that you make a concerted effort to kill one of them as soon as you possibly can - as soon as one falls, the damage you're taking will halve.
- Both bosses have Rampart Aura, but that's not likely to cause too many issues in this fight. Scarier is Barbas' Intimidate, which can interfere with your auto-skills, such as Phalanx or Mother's Mercy. Barbas is a good boss to take down first.
- Martym, on the other hand, fills his last skill slot with Pincer Attack. This is another reason to make Barbas your first kill - with only one boss around, Pincer Attack becomes worthless. He does have powerful spells, though, so be wary of that - range isn't going to keep you safe.
- Bring MP recovery items and use them to supply Finishing Moves, as these are the best way to eradicate your foes. Don't bother with too much healing - if you can't eliminate both Knight Commanders within a few turns, you're not likely to win a war of attrition anyway.
After this battle, the next will start immediately after the cutscene.
Story Battle: The Final Battle
Enemies |
Doppelgangers, Dorgalua |
|
---|---|---|
Deployment |
12 Units |
|
Victory Condition |
Defeat Dorgalua |
|
Difficulty |
★★★★★★ (6/5) |
This is a very special battle. As you can see, the first thing that Dorgalua does is summon a Doppelganger for every unit you deploy. The positioning of these units is standardized and detailed in the image below. As it stands, you will want your weakest, squishiest units to be in the spots closer to the front and your strongest units towards the back.
How difficult this part of the fight is will depend on two things: how strong your units are, as the Doppelgangers are almost-exact clones (they do not get copies of your items), and how often Dorgalua's Risk Management skill triggers.
- The reason we want squishy units at the front is that Dorgalua's Risk Management skill will make it very hard to actually damage him. He's very fragile himself, but that's not helpful when he keeps triggering that skill.
- Dorgalua's got a powerful Word of Pain spell up his sleeves, but not much else at the moment. The difficulty here is in how powerful your units are, and you should know them better than anyone, so tailor your strategy to them.
- You only have to get Dorgalua to around a third of his maximum HP to trigger the second stage of the fight.
At this point, the Doppelgangers all disappear, and your party gets transported to a new battlefield.
-
Dorgalua's Dark Lord form is incredibly powerful. He has a bunch of HP, two physical attack buffs, an MP buff, and an auto-skill buff. Let's go over his skills:
- Umbra is a long-range magic attack with a very large area of effect. It deals a ton of dark damage and can inflict the Frighten status, which reduces your attack and defense. For this reason, it's important to keep your units separate from each other.
- Exhalatio is an MP drain with lots of damage attached. Having MP recovery items to hand is a good idea for the mages that require it, as well as for physical powerhouses that rely on Finishing Moves.
- Howl is an auto-ability that may Stun your units at the start of his turn.
- Winning a war of attrition with Dorgalua is not likely. You need to shore up your offenses quickly and beat him down. This means stacking buff cards, preferably physical attack buffs, on the units with the highest strength.
- You will have the Lombardia and Brynhildr swords at this point - these are both fantastic for cutting through Dorgalua's defenses. Hopefully, you have some trained sword users. A dual-wielder (e.g. Vyce, Azelstan) with both will deal a huge amount of damage.
- Your units will start this phase of the battle in the exact state that they ended the last stage of the battle. This includes knocked-out units. Revive them quickly so they can contribute.
All in all, it may take a lot of luck and perseverance, but Dorgalua is beatable. Once he falls, the game is over, and you can start doing all the postgame stuff! Be warned, there's a lot.