Let's Play Monster Quest part 9


So, here we are. The game seems to consider this be to something of a climax -among other points, all your surviving party members will chip in a line before you start- but really it's not. Almost every enemy on the map is entirely passive, for starters.


I do my usual check of all the enemies, and note that Murray is following in the footsteps of O'Neill from all the way back in the prologue -he's been granted a monster-slaying weapon.

This has two big implications -first, it means that any hope of starving him out of weapon uses is a dead hope. Second, it means that it's basically suicide for anybody other than Eirika to enter melee range with him. (Like most bosses, Murray refuses to move)

Fortunately, we can hit him with Mogall magical fire, and Eirika does have, er, some Rapier uses left. Should probably conserve those.

Also he'll drop a Knight Crest when we kill him, so that's nice.


Also, there's this guy. He's like this in the unmodded game, too, but he's worth noting regardless as the first enemy we've encountered to be carrying a consumable that provides a permanent benefit that, nonetheless, he won't drop when killed. As such, bringing Colm is a necessity if you want this valuable Energy Ring.


We start the mission with a bunch of moving up -Colm, Neimi, Vanessa, and Joshua are heading north to secure the Ballista, and everybody else heads east. I'd originally intended to have the Mogalls kill the frontmost Soldier, but I only had one in range and they couldn't kill it. I settled for having Gilliam ready to bait out one of them.


It works fine, of course. Gilliam can't quite two-shot them with his Rotten Claw, whoops. Oh well, kill goes to someone else.


Meanwhile, up north Joshua opens up on this Fighter... and takes a hit and doesn't get a crit on either of his hits. Really?


Neimi breaks out the Killer Bow, and thankfully not only lands the hit but gets the crit. Now I just need to deal with the Thunder Mage.


My first thought is to have Vanessa kill him, but it turns out she can't. I settle for having her Rescue Joshua so he doesn't die.


Down south I have Lute move forward and finish off the Soldier Gilliam wounded.


Artur softens up the other Soldier.


Then Ross runs up with his glorious Cavalier-style movement speed and finishes them off from safety with his Hatchet, netting him... well, Speed is good.


Lastly, a bunch of moving up happens.


The Mage targets Colm, and lands the hit. Annoying.


Neimi softens up the Mage instead of straight-up killing him with her Killer Bow, but at least the Mage doesn't get their own crit -still, now Neimi could die on their turn, no need for a crit.


So I have Colm kill them with his Fetid Claw, netting me another Pure Water.

This could have gone more smoothly, but it could definitely have gone worse.


I have Vanessa fly down and drop off Joshua, now that the north is handled.


Eirika moves forward and promptly crit-kills this Mage with her Rapier, because it was the best aggressive move I could find, never mind that it was a gamble.

... and never mind that I really ought to be saving this for Murray.


End turn after moving people up.



The first Fighter charges up, misses, and is promptly also crit-killed.

I take back my mild complaining about the RNG relating to the fight in the north.



Then the other Fighter also misses Eirika, and is merely doubled and mauled. The effort nets Eirika another amazing level, albeit one missing Strength.

Now that I've confirmed that the hack has modified growths, I'm wondering if they increased Eirika's growths or if this is just really good luck.


Lastly, the Archer moves up to plink Eirika.

Also there's an aggressive Fighter moving in from the north, I guess.


My turn. I start with Colm getting the Colm/Neimi Support to B Rank, and then Neimi hops into the Ballista and knocks some health off this guy.

I think it's technically possible to double someone with a Ballista, but you're not liable to see it in normal play because only Neimi and Innes can use Ballista, a Ballista has a Weight of 20, and in the campaign there's only two other times the player has access to Ballista. (And only in Eirika's route, at that) By the same token, I've never actually tested this theory, though, so maybe not.


Artur finishes off the Fighter Eirika weakened.


Lute chips this aggressive Fighter and gains a really good level out of it. More Speed would be nice, but she's still liable to cap it unless her Speed growth is weirdly low, so I'm not particularly bothered.




Ross chips the Archer, and to my surprise Eirika is so fast she can double the Archer even while weighed down by an Iron Blade, so I have her do that... though she misses on one of her hits, inconveniently. I gamble on Gilliam killing the Archer with his Sharp Claw, and he succeeds!

He also gets a mediocre level, especially now that I know his HP growth is so high he must get HP on every level. That effectively makes this a 2-stat level in RNG terms. Oh well, he's completely ridiculous as-is, and he's still got 11 levels to go before promotion.


Then I end the turn looking like this, unable to get anyone else in reach to attack the Fighter.

I mean, Franz could lob a Javelin, but then the Fighter would have weapon triangle advantage over him. No thanks, especially since I haven't brought a healer.

Incidentally: I didn't bring a healer. I felt that, between how ridiculously tough my units have proven to be, and how much of a waste of experience/money it is to have Moulder or Natasha using Heal Staves, I'd be better off leaning on Vulneraries/Elixirs and having another combat unit. So far it seems to be working out.

Kind of a weird experience, honestly. I'm normally obsessive about having at least one Staff user every mission in Fire Emblem games.


To my slight surprise, the aggressive Fighter decides to take a chunk out of Lute's health.


It's probably not obvious in this screenshot, but there's an Archer manning a Ballista to the north. I forgot about him entirely, and he's taking a shot at Lute. Thankfully, he missed. Given a regular Ballista has 8 Might in the normal game, this would very possibly have killed her if he'd hit, depending entirely on whether her admittedly okay Defense beat his Strength or not.


Back with my own Ballista abuser, we take a shot at the other Soldier.

For reference, Colm is sitting around providing Support.


Back with everyone else, Lute moves to chip the Fighter from outside the Ballista's range, while Franz moves into its range.

Then Joshua instagi-



.... okay that works too.


Then general moving up occurs, keeping everyone fragile out of reach of the Ballista and putting Gilliam in its reach.


Gilliam takes literally no damage from the Ballista. I'm honestly surprised they targeted him.


Neimi chips a Soldier again and gets an okay level out of it.


I pass my turn and don't even bother to screenshot the Ballista bolt plinking against Gilliam's carapace.


Meanwhile, I finally notice that Neimi's Ballista has more than 5 uses. In the unmodded game, they only have 5 uses. Apparently they have 10 uses in Monster Quest.

Well, that means I'm going to be waiting even longer on the enemy Ballista to run out. Oh well, no hurry.

Also note that at some point I decided to move Colm to catch up with the rest of the group, so he can steal the Energy Ring when it's time.



I stop bothering to screenshot Gilliam becoming increasingly decorated with arrows. Instead, here's Neimi killing a Soldier.


Here's her missing a Soldier, though my timing on the screenshot was poor.




She misses the Soldier again at one point, and then she breaks the Ballista on weakening the Mage. She gets a quite nice level out of it -it's not like she's supposed to be tanking hits anyway.


Screenshot of the enemy Ballista being over and done -the enemy Archer has dismounted.


General moving up, positioned to bait out the Mercenaries.


To my surprise, Gilliam lands this hit. (This is immediately after he hit, not before)


The Mage also joins in on the fun. The fact that he has a crit chance on Gilliam is annoying, but not terrifying -he doesn't double Gilliam and he wouldn't kill Gilliam with a crit anyway (Gilliam started the fight with 34 HP), and not much can hurt Gilliam.


Turns out I'm close enough the Archer can join in on the fun too, adding another decoration to Gilliam's carapace.


First things first: Colm steals the Energy Ring.



Then I have Vanessa attack the Archer. She gets a crit on the second hit -though at least the Bright Lance has unlimited uses so nothing was actually wasted except my time- and she gets an uninspiring level out of killing the Archer.


This time Gilliam fails to hit the Mercenary. Oh well.


Lute and Artur chip and then kill the Mercenary.


Eirika runs up with the Iron Blade and takes out the Mage easily.

It had to be either the Iron Blade or her Rapier, the Iron Sword was too weak. I'm really weirded out at how much use I'm getting out of the Iron Blade, and on Eirika of all people at that.

You know, I finally thought to check, and the hack has increased Eirika's Constitution by one point. That helps explain it. Weird that it apparently did modify her stats.


Anyway, I have Joshua run up and attack the Mercenary on the logic that the Mercenary can't kill him and I want to block them off from going south. I was hoping for a crit, and didn't get one, though it's not like it would've been a kill if it had happened.

That is still one of the more bizarre frames in the Mercenary's attack animation.


The Mercenary decides to attack Joshua on his own turn. Nothing interesting happens, except that Joshua still hasn't crit.




Lute, Artur, and Franz all pile onto the Mercenary, and Artur and Franz both get really good levels out of it -Franz's level is actually perfect! (Unless one of his growths is more than 100%, which I'm doubting)


I have Eirika use the Energy Ring, because she's my only character whose Strength/Magic is actually lower than their level, ignoring Moulder and Natasha who I intend to shun.


Moving up, nothing interesting happening.


More moving up. You can see a Fighter sitting up by that Ballista, and that I'm prepping for Lute, Artur, and Joshua to kill him (They're all just barely out of his reach, but between Joshua's high Move and Lute and Artur ignoring terrain, he's not out of their reach), while everyone else is making their way toward the castle. You can't see the Archers, but Ross is placed to bait out one.


See?


To my surprise, Artur and Lute turn out able to handle the Fighter entirely by themselves, letting Joshua simply run over to catch up with everyone else.


Colm chips the Archer (He missed one attack) and gets an odd, okay level. Not the stats I wanted, but still.


So instead Vanessa finishes the Archer off.


I bait out the other Archer with Ross again, because Ross really hasn't done much this mission and I don't have much use for the Hatchet anyway.


Ross then melees the Archer to chip them, followed by Vanessa handily destroying them.

I take glee in having Bow-vulnerable units kill Bow users.

... also Vanessa is actually currently my lowest-level character on the field. Well, tied with Artur, but he's easier to level, aside from the crit vulnerability.


General moving up.

Time to finally attack Murray!


Artur misses.


Lute and Franz actually both land their hits, in spite of lower odds to hit.


Then Vanessa gets us back on average by missing as well.

I can already tell this is going to be fun.


Enemy turn and oh crap he has a crit chance on Artur.

ARTUR. STOP BEING SO UNLUCKY.

Fortunately, he misses, but I'm no longer willing to leave Artur in his reach.



I take a small risk and waste a Fire Tome use on giving Lute 1 experience point. (Odd point: if a Tome or magical sword misses, it still eats a use. If any other weapon misses -even Bows and thrown Axes/Lances- they don't eat a use)



Murray targets Lute on his turn, she actually lands her hit, and she gets another amazing level out of it. I have her heal.



Murray's turn again, and he hits Lute and she misses. Argh.



I'm getting impatient and decide to send in Eirika. He can't kill her even if he hits on my turn and his turn anyway. She misses her first hit, but dodges the retaliation, and hits on her second hit.

I really like that piece of her attack animation where she's leaping back. A lot of classes have incredibly ugly "return to original position" animations, or simply run their approach animation backwards (eg Baels), but Eirika's leap backwards looks good. The cape, in particular, is nicely done -capes have a tendency to look silly and unnatural in... any game, really, 3D games just tend to have different problems from 2D games.


Anyway, end turn looking like this, moving everyone away so he'll target Eirika.



He hits, but then she promptly gets a critical hit, killing him and getting a perfect level. 2 perfect levels in one mission? Seriously? What kind of growth numbers does Monster Quest have?

Also the Knight Crest drops.

Unusually, no talking ensues. We actually just go straight to the next mission and then have talking ensue.

See you next mission.

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