The Glitch (EBF4)

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Roles	Boss
Appearances	Epic Battle Fantasy 4

For its appearance in EBF5, see The Glitch (EBF5)

"What the hell is that thing?! It doesn't look like a normal foe!"

―Matt / Natalie, Epic Battle Fantasy 4

The Glitch (real name unintelligible) is an optional boss in Epic Battle Fantasy 4. It is a computer glitch that somehow gained a physical form, becoming a bizarre entity that defies the laws of reality.

The Glitch is responsible for the chaos within the Waste Disposal Plant during the events of the game. After escaping the computers, it seized control of the facility's many robots, including the mighty Praetorian, and began manipulating the building's security system to force the human workers out. If the heroes manage to penetrate the heart of the plant and bypass the barriers in the way of the room where the Glitch first spawned, they can battle and defeat it, ending its reign of terror over the plant and its robots.

Appearance

The Glitch, along with its two smaller counterparts, appear as a string of square or rectangular repeated images of foes and Matt at some points. Eyes appear when attacked. The Glitch as well as its smaller versions display pictures of dying cats when killed, and the head of the Wooly Mammoth is shown when an attack misses it.

How to reach

In order to get to the Glitch, the player must achieve a certain combination of switches within the factory. Only then the door to the "Danger Room" will open. The required switches are listed on the room's wall. The necessary combination is as follows:

• Switches II, III, VI, IX, and X must be ON (green light).
• Switches I, IV, V, VII, and IIX must be OFF (red light).

Due to Switch "X" being placed outside of the plant's upper exit, it is not possible to fight the Glitch during the player's first visit to the Waste Disposal Plant. It can only be fought as early as discovering the Temple of Godcat.

Overview

The Glitch is a very mysterious, yet dangerous, foe. At first glance it may seem it is indestructible, as it can't be damaged by any element and is completely immune to status effects and stat debuffs, and kills in one hit. However, it has one weakness — it is still damaged normally by non-elemental attacks.

Statistics

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Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP
	700	Infinity	4	Infinity	4	400k	8	700	50	50	50	50
Elemental Resistance
	200%	200%	200%	200%	200%	200%	200%	200%	200%	200%
Status Resistance
	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Debuff Resistance
	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

Item Drop Rate
Icon		-	-	-	-	-	-
Name	Microcontroller	-	-	-	-	-	-
Chance	100%	-	-	-	-	-	-

Status Damage
Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances:
Burn	Poison	Doom (if Death fails)	Regen
Immune	Immune	Immune	-33.(3)%
Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down.

Prior to the Battle Mountain update, it had 250 EXP, 10 AP, 5 SP and 10 Gold instead.

Attacks and Abilities

Attack List
Attack	Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect			Acc	Crit	RdF
???	Single	100k		----	--	--	--	100%	--	--
Notes: Deals infinite damage to the target, displayed as 0.

The Glitch starts the battle with two replicas of itself that share the same resistances and use the same attack, but at Level 0 (and thus, with very low HP, defences, and evasion). Whenever they are destroyed, they will be re-summoned at the end of Glitch's turn.

Strategy

Equipment

Regardless of difficulty setting, battling the Glitch always plays off the same; due to its attributes, the only thing that changes is the amount of Glitch's HP. The Glitch's only vulnerability are non-elemental attacks, so non-elemental weapons and skills are the natural choice for offence. Defensively, both elemental resistances and defensive stats are irrelevant against the Glitch. Equipment that boosts Attack, Magic Attack, Accuracy, or provides other useful special effects is preferred.

Battle

The battle against The Glitch is an ambush, occurring automatically when the party steps on a certain tile, and cannot be fled from.

For skills and summons, you'll want non-elemental skills like Star Shower and Sawblade/Triple Sawblades, and skills that base their element on the equipped weapon's element (since you're using non-elemental weapons, they will also be non-elemental), even including limit breaks such as Cleaver, Power Blast, and Rapture. However, your main concern should be having Revive, strong healing spells, and the Kitten Fort summon (which is a reward for quest in Lankyroot Jungle given by Tabby). The Slime Bunny summon may also prove useful, but if you feel unsure about your amount of SP, focus on Kitten Fort.

Except for Morale and Auto-Revive, there is no real way to prevent The Glitch from killing at least one player per turn. Its minions, however, must be destroyed at all costs. Ideally, your party should consist of one member using a multi-target attack to destroy the minions and deal some damage to the boss (Matt's Swift Slash, Natalie's Star Shower, and Anna's Arrow Rain are useful here), Anna or Natalie with Revive to raise the fallen or apply the Auto-Revive status if necessary or heal damaged ally with normal healing spells to keep Morale active, and the last member to deal focused damage to the boss or use Coffee on the party member with Revive if she gets killed.

Apart from its many immunities, The Glitch's main defensive asset is its above-average Evade stat. Since you can't reduce its evasion, you can increase your accuracy with Lock On skill, but the difficulties in keeping your party healthy may make this an inefficient option. Instead, you can use multi-hit attacks like Combo Shot, Arrow Rain, Legend, Star Shower, and Double Shot, or attacks with increased accuracy like Piercing Shot, Quick Slash, and Snipe to increase your chances of hitting The Glitch. Equipping accuracy increasing equips is also a viable option (especially Eagle Eye, Cowboy Hat and Shirt, and Target Badge). Despite its power, The Glitch has fairly low HP, and it can quickly be brought down once you can mitigate the problems of its "overflow" attack.

If you have the Kitten Fort summon, the battle becomes significantly less of a headache; cast it on the first turn to kill the Glitch's two minions, damage the boss, and apply a five-turn Morale status to all of your characters. With the Morale status up, you only need to worry about keeping everyone's HP ≥49% (such as by summoning Slime Bunny or casting Heal/Refresh/Medipack) while you keep wearing down The Glitch and slaying its minions. This strategy also turns The Glitch's constantly-spawned minions into something of an asset, as they each give 25 SP (only 3 SP before Battle Mountain update) when killed, effectively regenerating your SP meter by fifty points per turn (so in two turns you receive enough SP to cast both Kitten Fort and Slime Bunny while they last for five turns). If Matt is the one reduced to 1 HP, his Revenge skill can be used before healing him back to ≥49% HP.

Rewards

Once the Glitch is successfully beaten, the chest behind it can be looted for a Dark Rune, a Dark Matter, and, most important, the powerful Cosmic Monolith summon.

Defeating the Glitch will also reward the player with the Leet Hacker medal, regardless of the difficulty.

Trivia

• The Glitch is a tribute to video game glitches, notably glitched characters such as Pokémon's Missingno.
• The Glitch is formed of data images and several different EBF-related images, such as Lazarus and pumpkin Slimes. This may be a further reference to Missingno., as pumpkin Slimes don't actually exist in game and neither does Lazarus, similar to how some of Missingno.'s forms take the appearance of non-existent Pokémon.
  • When being hit, it will often show the Wooly Mammoth's head or a Slime's "critical hit" expression.
  • When dying, it will use the Cat Soldier's death animation.
• After defeating The Glitch, Natalie will wonder how a computer virus gained a physical form. Lance proceeds to lean on the fourth wall by speculating that "all of (their) reality is a computer game".