Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 62: Final Boss

Beginning

<- Previous: Ilias Temple Ruins II

Hmm, probably isn’t going to be much time or space for recaps, so let’s forge on straight from where we left off (I played the game that way anyway, I had to split this section into two posts because there was too much damn exposition).

The bad Black Alice floating around is the bad Black Alice from the original MGQ reality.  She’s also a god.  This could cause problems.

A chaotized Ilias just about manages to tell us about the two worlds where the monster girls and angels won out convincingly when the monster girl delegation of Lilith, Morrigan and Astaroth show up.

Rather conveniently as it happens, as they are able to continue the exposition as this world’s Ilias finally succumbs to chaotization and falls apart.

(Again you’ll have to excuse my clumsy interpretations.  AI machine translation is not ideal for text-heavy games.)

Lilith and friends are from the world where the legendary ancestor monster girls won against Ilias and were not sealed.  It’s a monster girl paradise of complete freedom (where I’m guessing human lives are both awesome and very very short).  Unfortunately, they realised they need to unify the worlds to prevent chaos from destroying them all.  Their plan is to suck the souls of everyone over into their world and unify that way.  Unfortunately (again!), in order to pull the soul across into their world they have to kill the individual in this world.  However, the more a world deviates from the proper history of the original world, the faster it’s destroyed by chaotization.  Which is why they’ve been trying to prod Luka along a similar path to his canon counterpart.

This also explains the war-like behaviour of Alice’s mother.  She knew this plan would require a big slaughter, but she didn’t her daughter to have that blood on her hands, so she usurped the throne to be the bad guy the universe needed.

Then the angel faction from the other world crash the party.  They’re led by another Eden.

She's from an alternate reality.  You can tell because she's wearing clothes.

They come from the world where the angels crushed the forces of darkness and everyone lives happily in constant worship of Ilias.  Their masterplan is not revealed, but I imagine it involves something similar to the heaven version of Esta.

I’m also guessing that the Ilias route has the angels arrive first and explain their plan before Lilith and sisters show up.

The two trios exchange insults before getting ready to kick off an epic battle.

Uber catfight!

Sonya tries to get in the middle of them to play peacekeeper.

No, Sonya love, you don’t want to get involved in this.  You’re outclassed.  This is not the time to...

“Battle acts between people who come form parallel worlds are forbidden.”

Huh, that’s a very stiff way of... Oh.  Fuck.

I mean pint-size Ilias did warn us right at the beginning of MQ:P part 1 – “You should watch her.  I know everything in this world because I created it.  I do not know her.”

The angels and succubi spot something isn’t right as well.

And something isn’t right.  Really not right.

Uh oh

Sonya, Luka’s “childhood friend”, was really an apoptosis secret agent the whole time.

(okay, this is probably as big of a “twist” as Alice being the demon lord in the original series.)

She’s also very high level apoptosis.  She grabs Gnosis’s arm and the angel has to cut it off to escape before Sonya absorbs all her energy.

Yup, we have problems.  Luka tries to get through to her without any success.  Looks like the final boss of part 2 is Sonya.

The endboss is Sonya

She’s referred to as Sonya Mazda, which I think is also Sonya Heaven, although I’m not 100% on this.  In this form she’s absorbed light energy and taken on an angelic aspect.

Should you lose to her, she gives you a suitably angelic send-off.

Prepare to be ridden hard

She rides you to nirvana... literally.  MGQ angels aren’t that dissimilar to succubi.  They can suck the energy out of humans and the way they like to do it usually involves a lot of ejaculations and cum.  For an apoptosis monster girl it’s actually rather vanil—

Yeep!

Pass the vodka, please.

Her first incarnation isn’t all that hard to beat.  First time around I didn’t really pay attention to Alice’s warnings, wandered up with whatever party I had at the time and managed to just about muddle through Sonya’s first stage.

First stage?

Oh yes.  Did you think you were done after that?

Defeating Sonya does not result in the usual pledge of friendship.  Defeating her is only the prelude to worse things as Sonya starts to download Adramalek into this world.

Morrigan tries to stop her only to have half of her energy drained in the process, replenishing everything apoptosis Sonya used up in the fight and giving her snazzy new chaos powers on top of that.  She also doesn’t prevent Sonya from summoning Adramalek, who arrives in a much more buffed up form than the one we last saw.

Adramalek has been working out since we last saw her

This is a much better use of her character.  I always thought Adramalek came out of nowhere and was a weird choice for end boss in the first chapter.  This time around she fits much better.  She comes to worlds.  They die.  You should fucking fear her.

The angels and succubi obviously do.  Her arriving here is enough for them to temporarily set aside their differences and team together to fight her.

That leaves Sonya’s second form, Sonya Chaos, to us.

Okay, this is the real endboss of [part 2]

Should be fine.  Luka is level 60.  Most of my back row can’t fight at all, but my front row is probably still over-levelled.  We should be able to muddle through it like bef—

I'm not sure I want to know what's going on here...

Spoiler.  It was not fine.

Not fine at all.

Nope

Come back Delphinus.  All is forgiven.  I’m not really sure what’s going on in this Bad End.  Sonya sort of brings Luka into her body.  Then has a second body to hug him from behind while something (probably best not to think too hard on what) starts sucking away on the dangly bits.  Finally, it ends with two becoming one... the bad way.

Sonya’s second incarnation is considerably tougher than her first form.  She hits like a truck.  I came back with a proper party of level 60s—in the back line as well—and it was still a pretty tough fight.  As always, Alicetroemeria is handy to have around.

Beating Sonya doesn’t seem to improve things much.  The combined team of succubi and angels are able to take down Adramalek, but as Lilith points out, it doesn’t matter.  They’ve already beaten her twice before.  She just comes back stronger.

It looks like curtains for the world anyway.  The angels, being MGQ angels, decide this is a lost cause and run back to their world.  Lilith says this world is too important and her and the other succubi opt to stay.  To be honest, I think we’re at world past tense at this point.  We appear to be standing in void.

Then Nuruko pops up.  She’s the other “mysterious being”.  What, another hidden apoptosis?

Not quite.  She appears to still be on our side.  She sucks up all the chaos, reversing the chaotization of the world, and mutates into a much bustier form.

Nuruko?

Then the elemental spirits realise she’s another spirit, just like them.  Of chaos?  I’m not sure.  She dismisses Adramalek from this world and restores Sonya before returning to her original loveable (sort of) Nuruko form.  She’s also managed to revert the chaotization and return the world back to how it was before.

Afterwards the succubi are of a much friendlier disposition.  Morrigan is offered as a new party member.  Luka is hesitant at first, remembering how they slaughtered the Luddite village.  Lilith points out they did it to save the world (and to be honest, those Luddite assholes had it coming anyway).

I suspect this is also route-dependent.  I imagine if you have Ilias it’s the three succubi that run straight after the battle and one of the angelic trio joins the party, although I’d need someone on the Ilias route to confirm that in the comments.

Sonya wakes up with no knowledge she’s really a world-ending apoptosis.  Morrigan is keen to kill her, but Luka refuses to let that happen.

So what do we do now?  Do we continue to the demon castle to stop Alice 15th... who’s only taking on the role of a mass-murdering monster because she feels that’s the only way to save the universe?

Stopping Alice 15th becomes moot anyway.  As soon as Lilith and Astaroth get back to the castle they send a message that Alice 15th is dead—killed by a hero.

History repeats, or rather, snaps back to the initial path

Realities may diverge, but some events are constant.  Remina blows up.  Marcellus kills Alice 15th. Luka slays Ilias?

And that’s the note the game leaves us on.  Not sure where [part 3] is going at this point.  There is a lot going on!

Time to roll credits.

But we’re not quite done yet.  There are some post-credits quests, including the permanent recruitment of Alma Elma, which I’ll cover in the next post.

-> Next: Post-Credits Side Quests (Alma Elma!)

15 comments:

  1. Ok. Its spoiler time. You are motly correct with your assaumptions.
    After angels and sister arrives its Morrigan who loose her hand and Sonya becoming Sonya Manyu. Monster form Sonya. Then its Gnosis = Chaos Sonya. Epic battle, Adramelek sedtroying world. Then its succubi who running. Eden saying that she would not leave Ilias.

    BUT. Then things changing. Nuruko doing nothing (why i don't know). Its Chaos Sonya who waking up and saying that she can't let this world been destroyed. She attacks Adramelek. They seems speaking in their chaos language and destroying itself.

    World pause.
    Sonya - Goodbye, Luka. Goodbye, everyone.
    Sonya rever chaotization of the world and create who own copy, so Luka won't miss her. After, something strange.
    Luka and co speaking with Angel Trio and it seems that no one remebers what just happened. Luka screaming Sonya name but it seems can't understand why.
    No one from angel trio join team. And all they pkanning is to save some people and Likas don't like this plan. but Ilias said that they have no choice. Ilias saying that monster's plan is abomination of life or something like that.
    They starting to leave, but then Luke seeing flashback sonya saying goodbye.
    Luka - No. This is not goodbye. Because i'l bring you back.

    Ager that roll credits with sad melody.

    The end q___q

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    1. Interesting. I think that might be the stronger ending. TTR is certainly going to have a headache in part 3 with how the 2 routes have diverged. :)

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    2. It seems it will the choice between Monsters (Chaos) and Angels (Order). And propably true route - Chaos Route.

      And about before. If you loos with Sonya 1st form - you heard final message of Ilias. Like i said, Ilias from this world is the who is doing evaluation. But she is dead.
      So, if you loose with Sonay Chaos you see another Ilias with diffrent sprite. And i think it is Ilias from Angel World.

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  2. Any updates on story work? and can we get easy to access links to them. Some stories are only here and it's hard to find them by going back thru the blog.

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    1. Planning to start posting more original story work once MQ:P series is done (so next week or the week after).

      I'm still working out the best way to deal with the H-space stories. I probably need to think about upgrading to a proper website rather than a blog to be honest.

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    2. As much as I enjoyed this, this went on for such a long while that Inget the feeling all of your stories have slipped a schedule or two, right?

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    3. Yup. But I'm hoping I can apply the 3-post-a-week schedule I used here to my own original fiction and start to rattle off some stories again.

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  3. Nuruko is the chaos spirit. And it is also strongly hinted that there are three beings like Sonya and Adramalech.

    That is because it is mentioned somewhere that Sonya is the Aptosis Version 2.0, while Adramalech is 3.0

    So there has to be version 1.0 which could be Black Alice.

    But then again the whole Aptosis thing in unrelated to Black Alice. Black Alice creates the chaos, while the Aptosis is there in order to stop the chaos from spreading. At leasts that is how I understand it.

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    1. There are definitely multiple factions. Most have the same aims, but are carrying it out in different ways (presumably the angel and monster world factions are opposed because saving their world will likely destroy the other). I'm still not sure on apoptosis role.

      Black Alice seems to be the overall villain, but it's a lot murkier with all the other competing factions running around.

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  4. So I guess in a sense the succubus sisters aren't "really" killing people? Since they are sending those souls to be reborn in their world? Then again I guess its more they are not permanently ending their existence, just making sure they reincarnate elsewhere.

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    1. There is a side quest with Morrigan that sort of explains it. It'll be in the next post.

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  5. Sonya isn't really a secret agent.
    It's just that she's an anomalous existence, someone who shouldn't exist.

    In the original world, Marcellus and co. thought Alice 15 caused Remina's destruction and went on a quest to defeat her. They "succeeded" and shortly after little Alice tore Karen in half and sent Merlin's head flying.
    But in the world of Paradox, their journey was about helping people in the wake of the cataclysm Black Alice caused. It was clear Alice 15 had nothing to do with it, so they never went after her. Eventually they settled down, and Karen had Sonya before dying in an unrelated incident.

    Sonya is an error. Someone who shouldn't have been born because her mom was supposed to die.
    This makes her especially prone to the apoptosis effect.

    Anyway, in the Alice route Nuruko's race can now be changed to fairy. In Ilias' route Sonya (Copy) unlocks apoptosis as a race.

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    1. If I remember correctly, Sonya actually gets the Apoptosis race on both routes.

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    2. This also seems a good explanation for her anomalous status. Hadn't thought about it that way, but yes, Sonya wouldn't exist in the canon universe because her mother was killed before she could bear children.

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  6. Gonna go out on a limb and say we might not fight each faction of the angels side and monsters side seperatly depending on who we chkse between alice and illias. Rather i am guessing we will fight both considering their end goals have nothing to do with perserving the world alt luka is involved in. Rather just saving their own. But who knows

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