Friday, March 23, 2018

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 51: The 6 Orbs

Beginning

<- Previous: Vampire Castle

Hmm.  This section of the game is going to be a little awkward to write about, given that it’s a big chunk of exposition and a ton of random side quests.  Bear with me.

We’ve defeated all four of the monster girl queens that declared war on humanity, so it’s time to convene another war council to figure out what to do next.  The consensus is to take the battle to Alice (Alice’s mum, Alice) in Helgondo.  The main problem is getting there as the continent is ringed by impassable mountains.

Now comes the part that will be familiar to anyone who played through the original series.  Alice suggests resurrecting the Bird God and flying over.  This requires a ceremony at the Bird God Shrine and 6 magical orbs.

So about those 6 orbs.

Queen Noah tells us she’s already given us the green orb as a prize for winning in the coliseum.

Sphinx has the yellow org, which we haven’t yet picked up.  That will involve a trip back to the pyramid.  Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to recruit her now.

Robo-Pope has the information on the red orb.  That was lost to/carried around by merchants.  He thinks it’s ended up in the secret elf village just outside of Yamatai Village.  Alice suggests asking Queen Elf to help with negotiations to try and obtain it from the shut-in Elf Princess.  (This is a deviation from the original series where, I think, Queen Elf held the orb.)

Grangold mentions the purple orb was in possession of Pirate Queen Selene.  That’s already been looted from the ghost ship, so we’re good here.

The silver and blue orbs were given to the ocean queens for safeguarding.  We’ve already grabbed the silver one from Poseidoness, but it looks like we’ll have to go back to the South Sea Temple to pick up the blue one.

At this point Kraken informs us that the blue orb was destroyed by Astaroth when the shikibus besquidded her.

Ah.  I guess we won’t be following the plot of the original series after all.  Hmm.  Why would Astaroth want to blow that orb up?

Then it’s Black Alice... sorry, Alicetroemeria of all people to save the day.  She suggests snatching the blue orb from her reality where it is still intact.

That is... a sensible suggestion?  Are you okay there, Bla... sorry, Alicetroemeria.

She points out the tunnel route into Helgondo is still open back in her day.  They should be able to sneak in and take the orb, as long as they take care to avoid Black Alice.

JRPGs aren’t always the best medium for characterisation, but our Alice’s line of “............”s here is absolutely hilarious.

Alice knows Alicetroemeria is really Black Alice.  I think Alicetroemeria knows everyone knows she’s really Black Alice, and the fact everyone is pretending to not know she’s really Black Alice is what’s making the game fun for her.

Okay, we’ll cross that bridge when Black Alice inevitably sets fire to it.  In the meantime the quest goals are fairly obvious.  We need to pick the yellow orb up off Sphinx, get the red orb from Queen Elf/Elf Princess, and fetch the blue orb from a parallel demon castle.  I’m guessing the first two are simple fetch quests, while the third is an actual quest in a new location.  At this point, having glanced through the graphics folder, I’m wondering what monster girls are left.  There are the muscle succubi drawn by the guy (or gal) that actually makes Luka look like a proper hero in their art.  I suspect we’ll see them in Helgondo/demon castle.  After that... some weird angels?  Oh, and La Croix’s circus.  I’m wondering if she’ll be the overall final boss of [part 2].  It would give some symmetry with [part 1] considering that “good” La Croix was the final NPC we found in the tower at the end of the universe.

But that’s for future consideration, we still have a fair bit of game to get through (which surprises me, as I thought I was somewhere near the end).

And side quests.  A lot of side quests.

We do want to recruit all those lovely monster girl queens after all.

Randomly, the max party size is increased to 12 at this point.  This is pathetically inadequate for the purposes of levelling up Luka’s monster girl army, but I’ll take what I can.

Right, this is the point where the game throws a ton of separate side quests at you to unlock and recruit various characters.  While I did these in some sort of overlapping fashion, I’ll break them out into an easy follow guide, rather than the mess of an order I actually did them in.

Yellow Orb

This is a straightforward fetch quest.  Warp to Sabasa and walk out west to Sphinx’s pyramid.  Thankfully, we don’t have to fight our way back through the pyramid.  Talk to the scorpion girl outside and she’ll give an option to teleport us right to Sphinx.

At this point the trickiest part is talking to Sphinx without accidentally selecting the “challenge her to a battle” option.

Oh, yeah.  We don't have Alma Elma with us this time...

All you have to do is ask for the orb and she’ll hand it over.  Sphinx will also tell you that she senses the presence of Black Alice’s old “gods” wandering around and is getting the urge to get out and about.  This means she’ll now join the party if you ask her.

I’m not sure if having Sara in the party affects things here.  There are some comments about how pleased she is to fight alongside her great-great-great-great-this-could-go-on-for-a-while-great granny, but I think you get those whether she’s in the party or not.

Red Orb

For this you need to talk to Queen Elf on Fairy Isle.  She’ll tell you that contacting the elf princess is rather difficult as she’s a hikikomori (shut-in) waiting to find an impossibly perfect man.  Alice suggests sending her a picture of Luka.

Now, if you went purely by the art of the game, you might be scratching your head at this point.  Luka, as he is most frequently depicted, would not seem your typical manliest manly man.  But to be fair, MQ:P is a game playing with femdom themes, and to reinforce those themes most of the Bad End scenes depict cartoon Luka getting curb-stomped (sexaphorically speaking) by big and busty monster girls.  The Luka of the story is a legitimate hero at this point with all his various deeds and probably quite a dish to blushing maidens everywhere.  (Good luck to those blushing maidens in getting past Alice and Luka’s growing harem of horrors.)

Elf Princess seems to think so anyway, as she agrees to meet us at the snake shrine in Yamatai Village.

New elf waifu

Then runs away.

You can find her in the main shrine building.  She’s too shy to speak to us directly, so does everything from behind a screen and through some elf minions we haven’t seen before.

Elves we won't see naked until part 3

And she likes, Luka.  I mean really likes Luka.  Not only does she give us the red orb, she also hands over the God Hunter’s Soul, a nice sword, and a whole bunch of goodies.  There is also lots of wedding talk and other dating stuff.  Sonya eventually snaps from pure jealousy and charges behind the screen to confront the princess.

It does not go well for her.

But we have the red orb.  That leaves just the blue orb and a trip to an alternative demon castle to go, but before then I’ll go through the various side quests required to recruit the various queens... in the next post, as this one has run on for a bit.

Hmm, a bit short of lewds today.  How about a blowjob from Alicetroemeria.

Her other scenes are worse.  A lot worse...

And don’t anyone complain about the vanilla-ness of it.  You never saw her teddy bear in the original series.

shudder

-> Next: Recruiting the Queens I

11 comments:

  1. In case you didn't know, the Elf Princess's 2... Guards? Handmaidens? Whatever they are, act as high tier shops of some sort. One of them may be a blacksmith. I don't quite recall. Point is, you can buy things from them.

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  2. With regards to the Elf Princess, if I understand things correctly, her standards of perfection actually entail a man with a delicate-looking face, or something like that. I don't remember all the details, but essentially Luka happens to fit every aspect of her ideal man.

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  3. SMALL SPOILERS AHEAD

    @Hydra When you do the demon castle, then go ahead and fight against Black Alice. Also bring another companion with you who is able to hold her/his own as Alictroemeria will leave your party for the fight (obviously as you kinda fight against her :D)

    The fight is interesting and it might be a fight that you actually won't be able to win.

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    Replies
    1. MORE SPOILER WARNINGS

      I'm a slightly further ahead in the game than these posts (I play it in chunks), so I know the bit you mean.

      I only did the fight once and it may or may not be unwinnable depending on what damage her Monster Lord Cruelty tops out at. It was TPK for the party I had, then they all resurrected thanks to the Goddess Protection ability I'd given them all, and I was able to do a fair bit of damage before the 2nd Monster Lord's Cruelty was a total wipe.

      I have a save point around there, so I might experiment with a beefier party (I like squishy high damage dealers) to see if her TPK attack can be withstood.

      I chose not to go up the stairs in the end, because it didn't look as if Alicetroemeria comes back even if you avoid fighting Black Alice.

      I'm also not 100% sure they're one and the same character. There was a lot of NPC dialogue in the castle that hinted of a sister to Black Alice, so there might be something else going on there.

      I'm currently about to head into the snow continent (which i know is full of angels), so would appreciate no spoilers beyond that until at least next week. ;)

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  4. In the Original MGQ you got the Red Orb (here Elf Princess) from the 4 loli bandits. The merchant dropped it when he fled from them.

    To the sister of Black Alice Hydra mentioned in answer to Daren K: If I remember correctly Black Alice said in that scene in the Pupeteers Tower Alice 9th was her sister. She even mocked/taunted her sister's zombie/doll about how nice she now is to BA, so totally different than before.

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  5. I always wanted to play any the Monster Girls games, the only thing that makes me stop short of doing it so is that protag always look like a kid which doesn't sit well with me.

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    1. That tends to happen a lot with the Japanese games. The art styles slide around a lot. Most players are going to replace Luka with themselves anyway.

      Personally, I prefer to make the protagonists older in my stories as it reinforces how strong the succubi are if they're effortlessly overpowering military types.

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    2. I always had a fetish about females overpowering strong, buff men, which is why I love your stories.

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  6. Sounds like someone might try to force Luka to marry her in part 3. Question is, would we just fight her underlings or would she face us in battle. Despite being a shut in I wouldnt be surprised if she has some insane magical abilities since leader in MGQ world tend to be powerful

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  7. https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/03/23/the-worst-sex-in-the-world-is-anglerfish-sex-and-now-theres-finally-video/.
    Just thought this might give you some inspiration ;)

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