- "Forget you ever saw this book. It's for your own good." —Esmeralda
Esmeralda is a character in Octopath Traveler. She serves as the boss of Tressa’s Chapter 4 after stealing the young merchant's notebook.
In Emberflame Story of Champions of the Continent, Esmeralda serves as one of the main antagonists alongside Mattias, who is plotting to release the Eye of Calamity to manifest the Accursed Halo upon the entire world - setting the stage for Galdera's revival.
Story[]
Emberflame Story[]
When the Chosen One obtains the Stollenwurm arcanastone, Esmeralda suddenly appears at the Sacred Springs, quickly incapacitating Aviete and attacking the travelers. After being defeated, she summons Kulshedra while fleeing from the battlefield.
Far from the spring, the Kulshedra arcanastone shatters. When Mattias appears, Esmeralda asks him if he gave her a fake stone; Mattias clarifies that the stone was real, but could only be used once. Esmeralda gets angry as she thinks he is pulling her leg. Calling him a fraud of a merchant, she reminds him that she is helping him per request of the puppet master before leaving the place.
Esmeralda is later seen with Mellow, who is apparently collaborating with them. When the Chosen One catches up to them, Esmeralda attempts to use the Simurgh's arcanastone, but realizes that Mellow gave her a fake stone. While mocking Esmeralda for her naivety, the cait thief summons a corrupted Simurgh against the party. Seeing that the situation is out of her control, Esmeralda flees again.
At the base, Esmeralda is unable to understand the actions of Mellow, who not only betrayed them, but the Cait Sages as well. Cursing Mattias's inactivity, Esmeralda decides to act for herself this time and try using a certain item. After overhearing Ditraina talking about the Moon Rabbit's location, Esmeralda ambushes her—and, with the unspecified item, temporarily transforms Ditraina into a cat.
When the Chosen One pursues her into the Moon Rabbit place, Esmeralda calls for Kulshedra a second time. She admits it is a fake divine beast, but claims that a fake will be more than enough. While the travelers are fighting against the fake beast, Esmeralda gains enough time to summon another Kulshedra, sacrificing this iteration to awaken Yuetu. As Emerald is trying to command the real divine beast, an annoyed Yuetu warns her if she doesn't want to have her head cut off, she should stop being a nuisance. Unable to control this beast, Emerald runs away once more.
For her past actions, Mattias scolds her, saying she is putting the plan at risk. Esmeralda talks back claiming his plan is likely a failure. He assures her that everything is going as smoothly as planned and, to her annoyance, tells Esmeralda to behave herself.
Later, she is surprised to see the Kulshedra arcanastones Mattias has gathered for the next phase of his plan. Neither of them realize that the "Cat" of Salvation is spying on them.
Eventually, Esmeralda is sent to the temple where half of Jurmung's soul lies dormant to release the seal. The Chosen One reaches out to stop her, but she summons Kulshedra once more. After the battle, Esmeralda reveals Kulshedra's existence as a sacrificial beast for Jurmung: the more iterations the Chosen One falls, the stronger the Divine Beast of Chaos will become. Summoning two fake divine beasts, Esmeralda resumes the ritual and sacrifices both beasts to successfully awaken Jurmung. After seeing the Divine Beast pursue the other half of its soul, Esmeralda claims that her work is finally done before leaving the place.
Octopath Traveler[]
Although it is not stated directly in-game, Esmeralda is a member of the Obsidians, as indicated by her clothing, her interest in Graham Crossford’s notebook, the crow tattoo in her concept art, notes from the developers, and the presence of the Obsidian Executives in the dungeon preceding her boss battle.
Esmeralda begins following Tressa due to her possession of Graham Crossford’s notebook. At Grandport, she steals the notebook and takes it back to an unnamed man.
As the two are about to escape through the bazaar, Ali distracts the man while Tressa pursues Esmeralda in the Grandport Sewers. Esmeralda realizes the notebook is of no use to her, likely because it was started and finished before Graham Crossford’s involvement with Lyblac. Despite this, she refuses to surrender the notebook to Tressa, resulting in their confrontation.
Upon defeating Esmeralda, Tressa takes the notebook back and leaves her in the sewer.
Battle[]
Esmeralda is battled thrice times in the series:
- In Octopath Traveler as Esmeralda, final boss of Tressa's story.
- In Emberflame Story of Champions of the Continent:
- As the Black-Clad Shadow, boss of Chapter IV.
- As Esmeralda, alongside the Divine Beast Kulshedra in Chapter XV.
Esmeralda will begin the battle with 4 shields, but will increase them by 2 after recovering from a break, for a total of 8 shields. She will also change weaknesses after recovering from each break in the pattern shown above.
Esmeralda has several blade abilities that inflict various effects and are visually represented by a dagger sticking out of the target. Blades all have the following properties:
- Multiple types of blades can affect a single target at the same time.
- Blades and their corresponding effects cannot be removed through the effects of Rehabilitate, Rest, or items. The only way to remove the blades and their effects is to break Esmeralda or to defeat her.
- Esmeralda shifts her weight: Used whenever Esmeralda recovers from a break. The following effects occur:
- After each of the first two breaks, Esmeralda will increase her shields by 2, up to a maximum of 8.
- Esmeralda changes her weaknesses in the following order:
(Initial)
- Always followed by Five Strikes.
- Attack: Physical attack, single target.
- Hack and Slash: Physical attack, single target. Strikes 3 times.
- Raven’s Flight: Debuff. Targets entire party. Decreased Physical Defense for 3 turns.
- Five Strikes: Heavy physical attack, targets random allies. Hits 5 times.
- Red Blade // You are unable to attack!: Prevents the target from using normal attacks.
- Blue Blade // You are unable to use physical skills!: Prevents the target from using physical skills.
- Violet Blade // You are unable to use elemental attack skills!: Prevents the target from using elemental skills.
- Black Blade // If you don't act fast, the wound will prove fatal!: Places a timer on the target that decrements per turn, starting at 4. Once the timer reaches, 0, the target is incapacitated.
- Black Blade Rush // If you don't act fast, the wound will prove fatal!: Applies Black Blade to all party members with timers at 7, 5, 3, and 1 turns. Breaking Esmeralda removes all timers.
- Black Blade - First action and used randomly in battle. Deal damage to single target. Inflict Fatal Sentence (The traveler will be incapacitated when the effect expires) for 4 turns.
- Attack - Deal standard physical damage to single target.
- Sealsong Blade - Deal to single target. Inflict Silence (The target will be not able to use one skill) for 3 turns.
- Boltbing Blade - Deal damage to single target. Inflict Paralysis (The target has a certain chance of being unable to act) for 3 turns.
- Hack - Deal physical damage to single target 5 time(s).
- Five Strikes - Deal damage to random target 5 time(s).
- Raven's Flight - Impart Phys. Def. Down to Front for 3 turns.
- Black-Clad Shadow's blade glistens with darkness!: Black-Clad Shadow enters boost mode. Uses Dark Binding Blade if she is not broken before her next action.
- Dark Binding Blade - Deal damage to Front 2 time(s). Inflict Silence (The target will be not able to use one skill) and Blindness (The target has a certain chance to miss physical attacks) for 3 turns.
- Dark Binding Blade - Deal
- Black Blade - First action and used randomly in battle. Deal damage to single target. Inflict Fatal Sentence (The traveler will be incapacitated when the effect expires) for 4 turns.
- Attack - Deal standard physical damage to single target.
- Sealsong Blade - Deal to single target. Inflict Silence (The target will be not able to use one skill) for 3 turns.
- Boltbing Blade - Deal damage to single target. Inflict Paralysis (The target has a certain chance of being unable to act) for 3 turns.
- Double Edge - Deal damage to single target 2 time(s).
- Hack - Deal physical damage to single target 5 time(s).
- Five Strikes - Deal damage to random target 5 time(s).
- Raven's Flight - Impart Phys. Def. Down to Front for 3 turns.
- Esmeralda's blade glistens with darkness!: Esmeralda enters boost mode. Uses Dark Binding Blade if she is not broken before her next action.
- Dark Binding Blade - Deal damage to Front 2 time(s). Inflict Silence (The target will be not able to use one skill) and Blindness (The target has a certain chance to miss physical attacks) for 3 turns.
- Dark Binding Blade - Deal
- Successive Strike Stance - At 50% HP or less. Permanently increases her actions per turn to two.
Skills (Champions of the Continent)[]
Battle Skills[]
Passive Skills[]
Support Skills[]
Resilience Skills[]
Ultimate[]
Awakening Accessory[]
Quotes[]
Emberflame Story[]
- "O sealed god... Send unto me thy beast! Descend, divine beast Kulshedra!" —Summoning Kulshedra
Octopath Traveler[]
- "You've been nothing but a thorn in my side, so I'm going to nip you in the bud." —To Tressa
- "Ahaha! You have no idea who you're dealing with, kid!" —Before battling Tressa
Gallery[]
Etymology[]
"Esmeralda" is a Spanish name meaning "emerald." This name likely symbolizes Esmeralda's beauty and possibly her greed for treasure as well.
Trivia[]
- In her concept art, Esmeralda has the mark of the crow tattooed on her thighs. This detail was omitted in her sprite, possibly to avoid confusion with Primrose's story.
- Esmeralda's concept art also depicts her holding a piece of paper labeled alternately "memo" and "notes," rather than the knives that appear in her final boss sprite. Another version of her concept art has her holding a gray dagger in her right hand, a red dagger in her left hand, and an unsheathed dagger on her back.[1]
- Esmeralda is one of only two bosses to not die in their respective main character's final chapter, the other being the Ogre Eagle. She's also the only surviving Obsidian boss.
- Her battlefield is used as the background in the DLC stage for "Battle at Journey's End" in Theatrhythm Final Bar Line.
- Esmeralda is the only human final boss without her own voice acting, as she reuses short audio clips and never voices an extended section of dialogue.
- From her comment in Emberflame Story, Esmeralda hates animals, especially cats.
- Her first set of weaknesses () is consistent in both games when she is fought as an enemy.
References[]
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 124.
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