Thursday, May 07, 2015

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox! part 44

Finding Gnome

We're up to part 44 of the Monmusu Quest: Paradox playthrough (for the first part, go back here).  Today we're looking for the second of the four elemental spirits – Gnome.  If I remember correctly she's located in some ruins to the north of Grandoll.  I'm guessing that would be these then.


In the original series there were two encounters in the desert on the way to Gnome.  Both return in the ruins.  First up there's giant sandworm girl.


She was the original series' nod to the giantess fetish, being that she's huge and her Bad End has her suck on Luka like he's a lollipop.


Oddly her design has been superseded somewhat by KC's rather innovative design in his own monster girl encyclopaedia.  I wonder what someone like Xelvy would make of the concept now.  I suppose I could also pull my finger out as well, given my own story on sandworm girls features a rather generic implementation of the concept.

The other returning encounter is Setouchi back on weird form with ant lion girl.  As with her insectile counterpart, she sits at the bottom of a pit of sand and sucks out the juices of any male (un)lucky enough to fall in.


As to how she sucks those juices out…


…c'mon, this is MGQ, you should know by now.

There are also two brand new monster girls.

Xelvy shows a degree of restraint with their desert scylla (restraint being a relative word in this case).


There's an amusing thing if you talk to the desert scylla (Deiji) back in the castle with a lamia in the party.  They have a big slanging off match with the lamia (in my case it was the Nefertiti lamias) telling Deiji an ugly octopus like her has no business being out of water and Deiji calling them barbarians in response.  Lamias and scyllas really don't seem to like each other in the MQ: Paradox universe.

The last of the four is another ghost girl, mirage girl.


Mmm, she's rather boobilicious.  Tempt me?  Well if you must...


Totally worth it.

They're also a really annoying encounter given they come in trios and have annoying magic attacks.  Poor Vanilla went up in flames pretty much every battle.

Now for Gnome.

As we wander around the ruins there are various cutscenes showing Gnome and her mud dolls watching and then running away.  The ruins can be divided into four quarters.  Gnome can be found next to the oasis in the top right (northeast) corner.


She specialises in Earth magic, so you might want to leave the imps home for this battle (or just level everyone up to be ridiculously overpowered).

After beating her, the sparkly gravestone in the same region now triggers a cutscene when read.  It's a semi-sad tale of a girl who befriended Gnome.  Her story highlights the disparity in life spans between flimsy humans and nigh-immortal spirits.  We see the girl grow up, get married, have kids, and then finally die of old age while Gnome remains the same.  I think it might be to explain why Gnome stays out here on her own with only her mud dolls for company.  The rest of the part tells her she doesn't have to be lonely anymore as they'll be her friends now.

In the original series, recruiting Gnome was the endpoint of the first chapter.  In Paradox we have the third Tartarus pit awaiting us.

But before then, there's another village to the north.  We'll check out Saloon tomorrow. (maybe, my write-ups have now caught up with my game progress – some frantic grinding in order (no, not that type of grinding!))

22 comments:

  1. Desert Eagle07/05/2015, 16:01

    The artist for Mirage Girl is SlapStickStrike (ステルス改行). They've drawn some amazing "monster girl waifu" doujins. I'm glad they were included in MGQ Paradox but I'm also a bit sad that they've only done four of the girls. All of them are great though! (You'll get to meet the other three sooner or later).

    Nuruko was in my team when we investigated that gravestone. After seeing the cutscene, Nuruko gestured to Gnome that she would be her new friend. It's so cute. They even have so much in common. Neither of them talk very much, although Nuruko is a bit more talkative with her "kyu~ kyu~" stuff. :P

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    1. Who is Nuruko?

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    2. Desert Eagle07/05/2015, 16:28

      She's the mysterious being we encountered in the 1st Tartarus hole. Tentacles, red jacket, oppai loli. Arekishi's work, the artist of Rami, Remi and Rumi.

      She's a permanent part of my team. :)

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    3. The bit with Nuruko triggers even if she isn't in the current party. The trigger events are like that. For some the right person has to be in the party. For others (Alice and Sonya) they're always assumed to be in the party.

      Read a few of SlapStickStrike's doujins. Damn good. I look forward to seeing their other girls.

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    4. ... I knew this one guy online that didn't consider a loli a loli UNLESS they were pettankos... despite the fact that lolis who have large breasts are oppai lolis... Yeah, he's a weird guy.
      The kuudere has always been an interesting archetype to me. The way they view the world, or how they even got to that point, is an interesting thing to figure out. It's interesting to see the reason why Gnome is a kuudere, and at the same time... Well, it's blatantly obvious why NURUKO'S a kuudere (Not spoiling how).

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    5. Desert Eagle07/05/2015, 19:34

      Kuudere? Kuuderes are ice queens; They act cold and uncaring most of the time, and only occasionally show their caring side.

      That doesn't fit Nuruko at all. She always shows a great deal of emotion in her interactions with other people, even if she doesn't really speak. She's more like a child who doesn't know how to speak. Doesn't matter; She makes up for it with kyu kyu.

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    6. ... You know, maybe I don't have such a grasp on the deres as much as I thought I did. I thought that kuuderes were emotionless until they show their cute sides, while what you were talking about was a yukidere (A supposed subset of kuudere). It looks like a kuudere is what I thought was a yukidere, a dandere is more fitting of Gnome's personality more than anything else... and the term yukidere doesn't seem to exist. (So, then how would a shy girl be described? Guess I'll never know).
      And sorry, I merely assumed something based on the appearance and sparse info I've obtained about Nuruko. My bad. The point still stands, however... I know who she really is...

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    7. All of that went right over my head.

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    8. Of course it did; not even I know everything about Japanese Character Archetypes, lus I suck at explaining things.

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    9. The *deres are also subjected to change.
      Kuuderes were originally simply considered Tsundere, until tsundere were narrowed down to "open aggression/opposition" (instead of the indifference of Kuudere).

      Also, how comes you believe to know who she is?

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    10. Of course it did; not even I know everything about Japanese Character Archetypes, lus I suck at explaining things.

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    11. Heheheheheh... two words, my friend: Promotional. Artwork. If ANYONE'S seen the promotional artwork for MGQ Paradox (Like on the wiki), they'd know INSTANTLY who Nuruko is.
      *Everyone stops reading, heads to see the promotional artwork, then yells at me for spoiling it*
      Hey, you're the one who asked... although, as I'm typing this, I suppose it's not impossible for me to be wrong. After all, Merlin's alive in this universe, even though Alice tore him another one in the other universe, so it's entirely possible that i could b wrong.

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    12. ...nope. I've seen the artwork and noticed nothing.
      *checks again*
      Nope. Still nothing.

      But on the other hand, I think it's obvious who Hild's master is, but no one (except me) even brings her up her name when talking about it...

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    13. ... Wait, what? They have the same race, clothing style, and are only one syllable apart in names. HOW CAN IT NOT BE OBVIOUS WHO NURUKO IS (unless I'm wrong, of course)!?

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    14. Oh, you mean that one? The pettako (girl with flat chest) with a different eye color from Nuroko?
      Besides, "-ko" is just a generic girly name ending - Nuroko seems to roughly mean "Slimy girl".

      There are also some more differences that make me think more along the lines of "clone of, or otherwise created from...", not "X, but sealed/mutated".

      Especially since monsters don't seem to be affected by the "Turning people into monsters"-effect, so I don't see how she'd become a Minor Chaos monster...

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    15. Well, I DID say I could be wrong. And we can't forget; Sylph actually grows in height when she weakens. So, sealing may not be entirely the same for everyone...
      Also, it's HI-ruko and NU-ruko, so that's two syllables that are the same... unless we're talking about an actual kanji difference.
      Post Also, it's pettaNko.
      Well, those are my half-cents, anyway.

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    16. Well, I DID say I could be wrong. And we can't forget; Sylph actually grows in height when she weakens. So, sealing may not be entirely the same for everyone...
      Also, it's HI-ruko and NU-ruko, so that's two syllables that are the same... unless we're talking about an actual kanji difference.
      Post Also, it's pettaNko.
      Well, those are my half-cents, anyway.

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    17. Well, I DID say I could be wrong. And we can't forget; Sylph actually grows in height when she weakens. So, sealing may not be entirely the same for everyone...
      Also, it's HI-ruko and NU-ruko, so that's two syllables that are the same... unless we're talking about an actual kanji difference.
      Post Also, it's pettaNko.
      Well, those are my half-cents, anyway.

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    18. Yeah, Sylph got bigger, but then, she wasn't sealed by the same method as Tamamo, Alice and Hiruko.

      And the -ko isn't really relevant - it's really just "stereotypical girlish name ending". Which means the only relevant sylabe overlap is "ru".
      I looked up Hiruko's kanji - If I get this right, she's named after a god of fishing and trade, and her name can translate as "leech roar". I'm... not *sure* I got that right, but it sounds funny.
      Nuroko has no kanji, she's written in katakana, which is pretty much only used for foreign words.

      Also, Nuroko's name was given to her by Sonya, it's not "official".

      Their clothes only have the same color scheme, otherwise, they're different. And the hair is different (twin tails vs. hime cut).

      Then there's the eyes. Eye colour is something that has a pretty bug symbolic impact. I don't think they'd change that if they're supposed to be the same person.


      But mostly, it's the race. Nuroko isn't just a scylla. She's a *minor chaos*, and a scylla. Minor Chaos is a big deal, on the same level as "angel" - it signifies a specific kind of monster that's distincly different from other monsters.
      More precisely, it signifies the Tartarus-monsters created from the fusion of dark and holy energy. So far - and this might be a rather large spoiler - the only characters seen who turned into Minor Chaos were humans, not monsters.

      There are enough similarities to say they're related, but to many questions to say they're the same.
      I think it's more likely that someone attempted to fuse Hiruko's energy with someone, and that's what created Nuroko.

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  2. ... And I wonder what would happen if they got Kloah, too.

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    1. Desert Eagle07/05/2015, 19:35

      Oh. Dang. Kloah.

      *memories of Kloah's lamia girl flooding in*

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  3. Which area in the ruins does the sandworm show up in because i have been looking for a very long time...

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