Monday, October 16, 2017

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 4: Grand Pirates' Cave

<- Previous: Naval Headquarters

So last up we were given one of those mutually exclusive choices Monmusu Quest: Paradox likes to throw at the player sometimes.  We can either choose to ally with the navy, or the pirates.  As with the previous choices (Alice or Ilias, Lily or Lucia), I’m guessing it won’t affect the story too much other than unlocking one recruitment option and locking another.

Bonnie and Ashel seem to have more character than anyone on the navy (even if the sea horse marines are adorable), so it’s a pirate life for me.

But, before they turn over their ship for our exploration purposes, we need to carry out a quest for them.  They want to steal an item from the depths of some nearby caves.  It’s an old pirate treasure of some renown, and Ashel and Bonnie – who are attention whores, basically – think it will raise the name of the fishy pirates if they can filch it.

To move the story forward, you’ll need to repeat what you did to find Bonnie the first time – “talk” to the cat on the chair on the bottom floor, and then go upstairs to find Bonnie sneaking food again in the storage room.  Then you’ll be taken over to the quest location.

A couple of things before entering the Grand Pirates’ Cave.  First off, you’re locked in until completing this mission.  That means no warping away or entering the pocket castle.  You can still rest or change your party at the ship though.

Bonnie and Ashel also tell us that we won’t be able to recruit any of the navy characters, so it’s a waste of time trying to raise their affinity.  I guess this is a continuation of the party choices from part 1.  If you pick pirates, you get Ashel and Bonnie.  If you pick navy, you get a sea horse marine and a sea slug marine.

(Waah!  Why can’t I have both?)

The max party size also gets raised somewhere around here from 8 to 10.  You can still only have 4 active in battle, but it’s an extra two slots to level up reserve characters.  I say somewhere around here as I can’t remember whether this unlocks at the beginning or after completing this mission.

(EDIT: It's after you complete the mission)

The mission is fairly straightforward anyway.  There’s one fixed fight with sea horse and sea slug marines on entering the caves, and then random encounters on the way to the cave at the back.

The navy's crack troops

Both sea horse and sea slug have artwork for their temptation scenes.  The sea horse dives on top for hers, while the sea slug pulls Luka on top of her soft body for some nuru nuru fucking with hers (I may have failed to resist that temptation).

Soft, wet and very tight.  The navy's recruitment methods are very persuasive

I think both temptation scenes are better than their bad ends.  Arekishi likes drawing paizuri scenes and the sea horse being flat chested ain’t gonna stop him.  She makes good use of her sailor costume to make up for it, but it doesn’t quite work for me.  The sea slug girl grabs Luka from behind and wanks him off with her tail.  Both ends are ultimately the same – Luka is carried off to be an official sex toy for the navy.

The navy are not the only inhabitants of the cave.  Dagon makes a return appearance from the original series and is joined by a new girl – will-o’-wisp girl.

Not in the navy and therefore recruitable

Will-o’-wisp is a ghost/spirit type.  She also has the fairy ability of switching her size around.  Her temptation scene has her winding her body around Luka’s penis and giving him a gentle tug.

I think she's got us...

(Yup, I failed to avoid being tempted again)

For the Bad End she switches up to human size to give Luka a lot of ghost cowgirl.  Her Bad End is also surprising as you can see from the dialogue below:

She might be dead, but she's still a sweetie

Will-o’-wisp doesn’t want to drain her victims completely to death.  That’s surprisingly considerate for a monster girl in these games.  She’s just a sweetie, really.

It’s still game over, though, as Luka enjoys it so much he has to keep going back for more, and forgets his quest in the process.  Still, it’s a pleasant change from being wrapped up in acid-soaked bandages and melted away (I’m looking at you, Fusuma).

It’s more in keeping with the overall light-heartedness of this pirates vs navy segment.  Torotoro Resistance likes to lure people in with Arekishi’s cutesy busty sweeties before unleashing Delphinus or Xelvy on the player.

The mission objective can be found in a cave at the top of the waterfalls.

Your objective for this mission

The chest contains a dark sabre.  It will be obsoleted the moment you reach the next town, but Bonnie is happy about it.  Maybe it has some sentimental value to the fishies.

(If you chose to ally with the Navy, the Grand Pirates’ Cave will be filled with mermaid pirates rather than navy sailors and the final room is a boss fight vs both Bonnie and Ashel.  As far as I know, you can’t recruit them on this run, same as players choosing the pirate path can’t recruit either the sea horse or sea slug girls.  If this is wrong, please correct me in the comments.)

Anyway, mission complete.  We now have a boat.  We can travel to Grand Noah.  But first there’s some unfinished business back at the Navy Headquarters.

-> Next: Navy Headquarters II

5 comments:

  1. 10-(wo)man upgrage happens after you're done with this quest, not in the beginning. Also, you can start NG+ and go for navy this time.

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    1. Thanks for clearing that up. I'll probably pick them on a stripped down (i.e. don't try and grind everyone to level 50) run with Ilias.

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    2. Will you comment on your Ilias run at all do you think? In part 2 there are some actual differences between choosing Ilias and Alice, and I think you'd find them interesting.

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  2. I'm fairly certain you are only locked out of sea horse/slug marine with the pirate choice and bonnie/ashel with the navy choice.

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