Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox! part 14

The Harpy Tower

The epic playthrough of Monmusu Quest: Paradox continues.  The first part was posted back here.

Currently we’re looking for the harpies as they’ve all buggered off somewhere.  Some of the folks think it might be to a mysterious tower to the north.  Before then we might as well check out (translation: steal all their stuff while they’re buggered off) the harpy village.  It’s the big tree next to the village.

The harpy village is a ghost town.  It’s also a little weird to navigate as there are hidden paths around the back of the tree that take the player higher up.  If you’re wondering how you’re supposed to reach the higher branches, look for the sign post and then walk into the tree trunk.

Right at the top we find Nero drinking tea (out of his own cup – he brought it with him) in the chief’s house.  He has the answer to why all the harpies have vanished.  They’ve been infected with a virus that turns them into uncontrollable nymphomaniacs.

Hrm, isn’t this MGQ-verse?  I thought every monster girl was already an uncontrollable nymphomaniac.

Anyway, because the infected pose a risk to the humans around them, the queen has quarantined all the harpies off in a tower to the north.  The weird thing about the virus is everyone thought it extinct thousands of years ago.  More evidence of timey-wimey weirdness likely originating from the Tartarus pits.  If Luka can travel into the future of a parallel world then so too can ancient travellers from the past.  One of them must have brought the virus with them.

Nero, who clearly knows way more than he’s letting on, has a cure.  It’s the rare fruit of some kind of world tree.  I don’t think that location was in the first series.  Might be wrong though.

Armed with a cure, we toddle off north in search of the tower.

There’s a big forest and a whole lot of nothing in this region.  The monsters are the same bee girls, orcs, rabbit girls and sparrow daughters as before.  The tower is next to a lake at the north fringe of the big forest.

We knock on the door and tell them we have a cure.  A harpy opens the door.

“Forget the medicine.  Let’s have sex!”

This will not be straightforward.

Actually, the tower is fairly straightforward.  And a little dull.  There’s nothing new here.  The harpy and harpy twins return from the first game.  The other wandering monsters are the same sparrow daughters we’ve already fought (and fucked).

I think I might have got a little lucky with having the right people in the party.  Harpies have annoyingly high evasion and dodge most attacks.  I found this out later when I returned to the tower to try and recruit the harpy twins.  I’d noticed that the Slime race picks up a couple of anti-harpy skills around level 6 or 7.  I figured that was a hint the game was expecting Bunni and Lime to be useful in this section.  Unfortunately, damage bonuses only apply if you actually hit the target and the slimes are about as accurate as the England cricket team after a night on the piss.

The tower has three floors and on the top floor is a returning boss from the first series – the lovely harpy queen.

Despite desires on spiriting Luka off to be her babies-forever husband, the harpy queen was (sort of) one of the good guys.  Given that the human and harpy village are already co-existing, it was going to take something like this nympho-inducing plague to give Luka a reason to fight her.  She does try to fight the effects, but it’s Luka, and every monster girl in the planet wants his man meat.

As with the first series, the harpy queen is the first to employ a Counter stance (where attacking sets the player up for an instant loss).  I was wondering if Paradox would bring that back and how it’d be implemented with the party fights.  The game asks me if I want to attack and I wisely decide to hang back while queen harpy is showing her funky moves.

After the fight we find out that the quarantine is going to have to continue.  More powerful individuals need more of the cure and the harpy queen is so powerful that curing her would leave nothing left for her people.  Her solution is to stay in self-imposed quarantine.

This is also a convenient excuse to leave the harpy tower open for future visits.  If you didn’t pick up either Reina (the normal harpy) or Pina & Pii (the harpy twins), you can come back later.  I’d advise much later – the harpies are a damn pain to hit.

I’m not 100% on it, but I don’t think the harpy queen can be recruited this chapter.  I think this is a quest for future chapters.  It will be interesting to see if she’s been given any new H-scenes.  In the castle Reina and Chun (sparrow daughter) only have one request scene at 10 happiness.  Pina and Pii have three (they like bananas) and I think the 50 happiness might be new, although I can’t remember exactly how many scenes they had in the original series.

Back at the now populated harpy village and there’s some more story background.

In the harpy queen’s house one of the harpies tells Luka and others that a trio of powerful demons visited the queen right before the epidemic started.

Oh hello, first sighting of the succubus trio.

Morrigan (her name translates to ‘harpoon cancer’ amusingly):

Lilith:

And Astaroth:

Machine translation doesn’t help too much with what was said, or it might be that it was too late at night and my eyes had gone blurry.  Alice is a bit surprised at the names.  Sometimes demons might be given the names of a trio of infamous and powerful succubi from the past, but it’s considered bad form.

(uh oh, I think these might be the original name holders)

Alice decides the best plan from here is to investigate the second Tartarus hole in the east, but as it’s a bit difficult – and dangerous – to get to, they should visit Midas village in the north and get some better equipment.

Before then there are a few minor sub-quests to fill in now that the harpies have come back.

Talking to the harpies in the item shop with Vanilla will expand her inventory in the pocket castle item shop.  Harpy wings (an item to teleport to any town previously visited) will be available to buy.

Rami, the ludicrously busty imp, wants to fly.  She’s not too good at it (“too much air resistance” as Remi and Rumi joke).  Talking to a harpy in the inn will suggest she jump off the top of the mountain the slimes inhabit next to Iliasville.

With the harpies now back a couple of new characters can be recruited.  Tiny Lamia (her name is even Teeny) can be recruited from the Sutherland Inn in Iliasburg.  She’s of the Lamia race and likely the first recruit with the Maid job.  She also takes on running the inn in the pocket castle and the party can rest there for the ultra-cheap price of 1G.

The unfortunate harpy, Pyhar, can also now be recruited from Pornburg providing you have Amira in the party.

That’ll do for today.  I’ll pick it up again tomorrow.

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox! part 13

Happiness Village and where have all the harpies gone?

And we’re up to number 13 in the Monmusu Quest: Paradox playthrough.  I posted the first part back here.

Last time the story kicked up a notch as Luka and party went through Tartarus and found themselves in a parallel version of MGQ universe where Luka didn’t challenge Granberia in Iliasburg and they saw the consequences of this as the future world was scoured clean by Ilias’s angels (also be worth remembering that this is information only the player would know – Paradox!Luka also didn’t challenge Granberia in Iliasburg because the White Rabbit was there instead.  We still don’t know what the hell is going to happen in the third, Paradox, universe.)

Back in their timeline and Alice calls a war council to plan what to do next.  Once again you’ll have to forgive my lack of Japanese reading comprehension for not being able to fill in the exact plot.  From machine translation the gist of it is Alice is going to continue to hunt the White Rabbit for answers, but they should also look for Luka’s father, Marcellus, to find out why Luka is able to do things he really shouldn’t be able to do.  In the meantime the plan is to head off to the harpy village to investigate rumours of mysterious disappearances there.

Before we do, there’s another quick job quest to complete.  Before the journey into Tartarus an engineer at the excavation site asks to see an example of the unusual technology that can be found in Tartarus.  We’ve been through Tartarus and picked up some unusual items.  Showing them to him will earn the certificate to unlock the engineer job.

This is where my notes and first impressions from two different start to get jumbled up.  As I talked about back here, Paradox has a main story progression that requires tagging the correct flags in order.  Miss a flag and you can still head off to the different parts of the map, but some dungeons are closed off and the NPCs required to advance the story don’t appear.

This happened to me first time around as I didn’t find Amira and wandered cluelessly through the wilds.  Back then I was using the returning monsters from MGQ as a clue for which area I should be in at any particular time.  So far they've appeared in roughly the same order as they showed up in the original series.

This seemed to hold as bee girls started showing up when I went west.  Luka (obviously) succumbs to their temptation attack and gets licked all over with a long tongue.

This was also one of the spots where I thought the re-use of scenes from the original didn’t quite fit.  During the Bad End the bee girl taunts Luka about him enjoying the taboo act of putting his willy in hot monster girl pussy as this is against Ilias’s decrees.  That held true for the original series, but in Paradox-world Ilias hasn’t been seen for 30 years and humans seem a lot more relaxed about co-existing with monsters.

There are two brand new monster girls in this area – orcs and sparrow daughters.

The sparrow daughters are wearing animal costumes.  That seems so vanilla and unlike MGQ I immediately suspect something must be up.

But no, they are actual harpies.  Losing gives the typical harpy, babies forever ending.

As common for a lot of hentai games, orcs in MGQ-verse world seem to be a type of pigman (or rather pigwoman).  They’re lewd, crude and very much on the voluptuous side.  The first time around they also disabused me of the notion this was the correct place to be as my party got battered by some solid club swings.

They also have curly vaginas that are very good for getting men to come apparently.  Luka at least gets to experience some nice sex before being dragged off into slavery.

A fun thing.  After recruiting an orc girl (Hip) to the party, as long as she isn’t selected for one of the eight party slots, she starts showing up in the towns and villages being orc-y and rowdy (apart from Pornburg – that’s too much even for her and you’ll find her cowering up on the hill).  This can block the gambler off if you manage to recruit an orc before carrying out the ‘look for Amira’ quest in IliasBurg, but is easily fixed by putting her in the party.

Amira also does something similar, but with a sub-quest.  She hides in each of the settlements and finding her rewards the player with stats-boosting items.

The next settlement is Happiness Village and in Paradox everything is flipped from MGQ.  In MGQ the village had a critical shortage of men because the harpies had carried them all off for breeding purposes.  In Paradox it’s the harpies that have buggered off somewhere and it’s all the men that are upset that their harpy wives have all run off.  I don’t think Ilias’s decrees are taken very seriously in this village (and another reason to regret not taking Ilias – her impotent anger at being on the ground and seeing what humans and monster girls are getting up to with each other would probably be very amusing).

The battle-fuck location is up in the top-right corner of the village.

Hmm, did Luka just pay for a handjob off a boy?  Oh well, I suppose it broadens the mind.

There’s also a useful fairy blacksmith in the village.  She can imbue some armour pieces with wind stones.  This becomes very useful when we come to fight harpies.

According to rumour, the harpies have all flown off and secluded themselves in an ancient tower up in the north.

Guess that’s where we’ll be off to tomorrow then.

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox! part 12

Where the fuck are we now and… STAY. ON. THE. ROAD!

Hello and this is part 12 of my continuing playthrough of Monmusu Quest: Paradox.  The first part is here.  Yesterday Paradox finally took the gloves off and unleashed the crazy fucked-up smut the MGQ series is famed for as we ran into some very odd monster girls in the first Tartarus dungeon.

At the bottom of the dungeon Luka opens the door he shouldn’t be able to open and steps into…

Silent Hill?

It’s a village/town and something is not right.  I imagine if this was any other type of game all that purple stuff covering everything would be pulsing like blood vessels.  Asking the local standing next to the door tells them that this happy place is called Remina.

Uh oh, this is probably bad.

Again it requires knowing a little of the lore of the original MGQ series.  In that, Remina was a settlement thought to be wiped off the map by monster girls (in reality Ilias’s angels) in a mysterious catastrophe 30 years ago (also echoing the history of Paradox).

Talking to another girl causes her voice to degrade into static and she suddenly morphs into another one of the hiding-under-the-dress insect girls and attacks us.

We are definitely not in cute loli beast girl world anymore.

Inside the house is a boss fight against the tentacle/scylla girl that was showcased in some of the promotional artwork.

Her temptation attack is to open up an orifice in the end of one of her tentacles.

Luka, as you do, thinks it might be a good idea to stick his dick in there, much to the displeasure of the rest of the party, and gets sucked all the way into a rather tame (by MGQ standards Bad End).

Tentacle girl can be recruited to the party, but you have to step outside the house and then walk back in and talk to her.  Thank you walkthrough guide from nameless internet person as I’d probably have missed that.  The tentacle girl doesn’t speak.  Her dialogue machine translates to “coming up” or something similar, but I suspect that’s a mistranslation and she’s doing whatever the squid equivalent of nya nya! is.  Sonya calls her Nuruko as she’s slimy.  That’s… uh… nice, Sonya.

At the end of the street things get even weirder.  We walk through the door at the end and…

Okay, so what the fuck is going on here?  This looks like some kind of bridge across a massive gulf.  It also resembles the region Luka ends up in every time he dies.  There’s even a magic circle at the end of the path.

That takes us back to the entrance of the Tartarus pit.  Or does it?  The tents and everyone are gone and the ground looks scorched.

The White Rabbit pops up again.  She’s also surprised to see us here.  It sounds like it might be something to do with Luka, but neither the White Rabbit or machine translation are clear on this.  She vanishes again, briefly, before popping back up and leaving a cryptic warning to stay on the road.

Back on the world map and things have changed.  The elf forest has been burnt down, the bridges smashed and the towns in ruins.  Iliasburg looks like it’s been wiped off the map entirely.

What was that thing about staying on the road?

Oh.

And.

I remember them.  They were the bad angels that showed up in chapter three of MGQ.  Luka kicked their ass.

Ah, but that was a Luka that had found all four elemental spirits, had defeated all four heavenly knights and Alice herself in combat, and unlocked his super-powered angelic side.  This is a Luka just starting out on his adventures.  Our party is a collection of cute-because-they’re-not-all-that-powerful loli bandits, imps, and a monster lord sealed away in a juvenile form.

These fights do not go well.

I did have an imp survive to the third turn, but only because she was exceptionally lucky with her dodge rolls.

Yeah, stay on the road.

At the end of the road Sonya and Luka are traumatized to find Iliasville in ruins.  Skeletons are everywhere.  They can recognise some of them.  The one with the hunched back was probably the village chief.  That one with damaged right arm was Lazarus.  The well is filled with bones.  Unfortunately it’s not really possible to convey horror effectively with RPG-maker graphics.  It’s clear that the story has transitioned to a more serious chapter, though.

The story gets a little weirder as they enter a fully stocked graveyard and Luka finds first Sonya’s grave and then this:

Welcome to alternate universe land.  Luka’s diary next to the gravestone confirms it.  Someone else had written at the end that Luka fell bravely trying to defend the village from the first wave of killer angels.

Reading further back reveals the reasons.  In this universe Luka never challenged Granberia in Iliasburg.  Instead he realised the adventuring life was not for him and returned home.  Consequentially that meant he didn’t go off on his adventures trying to mend divisions across the world and because of that no-one was able to stand up to Ilias when she decided to wipe the world clean.

If that paragraph makes no sense at all because you’re unfamiliar with the original MGQ story, there was a moment in the original series where the player could choose to confront one of the heavenly knights, Granberia, despite clearly being outmatched.  If the player chose the cautious approach it resulted in a Game Over.  This universe played out the consequences of that decision.  Rocks (or rather angels) fell.  Everyone died.

Alice reasons it must be some sort of alternate timeline.  She also realises it’s all connected to Luka.  She demonstrates this with a Harpy Wing.  Normally this item should teleport someone to a place they’ve already visited, but here, in the alternate world, it does nothing for her.  Luka shows he’s the key to these multidimensional shenanigans as when he uses the Harpy Wing it teleports him back to the Iliasville of their time and space.

The plot thickens.

To be continued… tomorrow.

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox! part 11

Descent into Tartarus I

This is a playthrough/guide of Monmusu Quest: Paradox I’ve been running daily for the past week or so.  The first part is back here.

Before we carry on – there is a new translation patch put out by Dargoth and friends.  I tried it out last night and it worked fine.  More of the skills and items have English translations as far as I can see.  So gratz to them for the hard work they’re putting in.

Now so far, anyone unfamiliar with the original series might be wondering where the reputation for crazy fucked-up Bad End scenes came from.  So far, with the exception of returning weirdos earthworm girl and leech girl, the monster girls have all been cute lolis and vanilla (by MGQ standards) beast girls.  That, my friend, is about to change.  We’re heading into Tartarus.

In the back story, the cataclysm that wrecked the world 30 years ago opened up seven pits, or holes, to a weird region they called Tartarus.  There’s a small hole in the south of the Ilias continent where some research-y types are investigating the phenomena.

One of the dudes gives a helpful history of the other Tartarus sites and which ones are currently being investigated.  The soldiers around the excavation site are less enthusiastic – “We’re all going to die.”

Might be a slight morale issue there methinks.

Tartarus is off-limits unless the main quest chain is followed.  We arrive there and look, it’s that damn White Rabbit.

She leaps down into the hole and we head off in pursuit.  Another allusion to Alice in Wonderland – Alice chasing the White Rabbit down a hole.

Oh hello.  Secret research lab type thing underground.  Are we still in JRPG-land or have we shifted into Resident Evil-land.  The floor and walls are all metal.

I think the region of cute monster girls has ended.  Now I suspect we’re going to get chimeras and Xelvy’s mechanical (yet queerly sensual) horrors.

Yep.

And in case you were still unconvinced…

And also…

Now this is the MGQ world we know and love.  Hey, what are you doing hiding behind the sofa.  This is supposed to be sexy.  They just want to give you a hug with their… uh… pincers, and mechanical clamp things, and uh… many spindly leg things.

Yes, we should probably run.

Too late.

The first time I saw them I thought all the monsters were mechanical (or to use the Paradox race – Dolls).  This isn’t correct.  Only Jade, the girl with the cyclops eye and clampy arms, is of the Doll race.  She likes to use those weird limbs to clamp Luka to her and lather gel all over him while her specialized semen-harvesting unit gives his cock a nice suck.

Sully, the weird girl that looks like an upright shrimp or lobster, actually is some kind of shrimp or lobster girl.  Her race is Sea-Dweller.  Her pleasure attacks have a similar pattern to the infamous Crab girl of MGQ’s first series (I imagine she’ll show up later and will likely have plenty of fun dialogue).  She likes to clamp Luka and wash him with foamy bubbles.  I still haven’t seen her Bad End.  I got as far as seeing the temptation attack artwork and Nope!ed the fuck out of there.

Shestra, the girl in the dress with things we’d rather not think about hiding under the dress, is some kind of insect girl.  If you let her have her way with you or just lose, she’ll lift the dress up to reveal a bulbous abdomen with a rather squooshy orifice at the end of it.  During her Bad End she pins Luka to the floor and taunts him with how she’s going to suck him up and make him come with her ‘horrible’ insect orifice.

It’s certainly a novel take on paranormal BDSM.  D’you think it will take off with the Twilight/50 Shades of Grey crowd?

Oi, why are you quivering over in the corner?  This is still the tame stuff.  No-one’s tried to eat us for starters.

The first time I reached this area I found it a notable spike in difficulty.  The first fight alone nearly emptied the MP of both the main and backup priests I had in the party.  This was because I’d screwed around and tried to level up too many of the different monster girls I’d recruited in inefficient ways.  It was easier in the restarted game as I had a better idea of some of the Abilities/Items that speed up levelling.  At this stage I found the two best damage dealers were Barnny with the killer bow found in the tunnels to the Nameless Slums and Rami with the wand found in the iron mines outside Pornburg (both require a Level 6 Thief to unlock the chests).  Rami is probably the best choice here with her Lightning spell.

Navigating this region isn’t too hard.  Follow the White Rabbit through two levels, opening up the chests along the way, and eventually you’ll come to the mysterious door none of the researchers have been able to open.

Luka can, just by touching it.  Which surprises Alice as it’s something a mere human adventurer shouldn’t be able to do.  And on the other side of the door is…

Well, we’ll find that out tomorrow.

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox! part 10

Pornburg and yet more Rabbits

This is a continuation of the walkthrough for Monmusu Quest: Paradox I started back here.  Yep, it’s going to be a long one.

ETA: Dargoth Translations has just put out a new English patch.  I think this is concentrating more on adding more game mechanics translations (so people can actually play the game) rather than H-scenes.  I haven't tried it out yet.  Will probably give it a look tonight.

After carrying out Amira’s mission to the Nameless Slums she’s now prepared to give us information on the White Rabbit Alice is chasing after.  Apparently there’s been a sighting of a rabbit in Pornburg down to the south-east.

Pornburg?  That name’s not suspicious in the slightest.

Pornburg is a colony of sexually-liberated types (translation: perverts).  Everyone is wandering around in their underwear.  The mayor lusts after Alice despite her being sealed in a little-girl form.  One of the houses contains Captain Scatological, who wants you to drink some very suspicious tea and wigs Sonya out so much she won’t let the party go back into the house.  Basically, if you hadn’t already seen the dubious Bad End scenes, five mins of wandering around Pornburg would be enough to let you know this is not a kid’s game.

The main quest component is fairly straightforward.  The rabbit is in the inn and once again it’s the wrong rabbit.  It’s one of the pink-haired rabbit girls that can be found roaming around this area (more on them later).  She says she might have heard of a white rabbit being seen around the excavation of the Tartarus pit, so I guess that’s the next destination.  But first Alice wants to go back to Iliasburg to show Amira her displeasure at giving out wrong information.

But before that there are other things to be done in this area.

A new job can be unlocked here.  Give the fortune teller on the hill overlooking the town a Hard Growth Wrist (not to be confused with Hard Job Wrist) and they will give you the certificate unlocking the Fortune Teller job.  The Hard Growth Wrist is the reward for surviving Stella’s (see Nameless Slums) handjob BF.

There’s another battle-fucker here as well.  One of the bunny girls (conventional rather than actual bunny girl, I think – so many damn rabbits running around this part of the game!) in the downstairs casino will give you a bit of frottage that will likely end up in making her fluffy tail sticky unless Luka is pumped up with HP bonuses.

There’s also a house containing an underwear thief.  From the explanation, if you level the job Unemployed up you’ll eventually learn a skill to steal monster girls’ underwear.  Don’t know much about this as haven’t levelled Unemployed up at all.

ETA (or rather correct): I've been told this is a mistranslation my part.  It's lvl 10 Flirt that learns the Shameful Theft skill.

To the north are some iron mines.  At the bottom of three levels a key item, Chunk of Iron, can be picked up.

There are also plenty of chests containing improved armour and weapons.  Of special note is the wand found in the blue chest.  This gives Magic a big boost and in the hands of a Magician like Rami will likely have her one-shotting any enemy with a weakness to either fire, ice or lightning for the next few sections.

There are three types of monster girl wandering around this region.  Two of them – rabbit girl and sheep girl – are new while the leech girl returns from the first series.

The rabbit girl is my favourite of the new monster girls seen so far.  To be honest the other ones had left me a little cold.  Bernie (or Barnny – although the translated spelling seems a little weird), the rabbit girl, is a lot more sexy than the other beast girl art.  She’s also an extremely useful addition to the party.  As a level four Hunter she has access to the skill Beast Killer.  That combined with the bow found in the chest in the tunnels to Nameless Slums means you have a party member that will likely one-shot most Beasts in the Ilias continent (and most of the monster girls in the starting areas are classed as Beast).

Enough of the boring game stats stuff.  What about the real things that matter?

Her Bad End scene is a footjob.  A little unfortunate as feet don’t hit my spots at all (My level of disinterest is so high it’s one of the few fetishes I don’t think I’ve written a scene for – will have to rectify that at some point).

The main difference between her low-happiness scenes in the castle is whether she’s barefoot or not.

However, get her up to 100 happiness and you can unlock her sex scene.

Being part rabbit, she’s… um… quite pneumatic in the whole up’n’down department.

Hmm, Lime’s 100-happiness scene and now this.  I think I can see what the creators are encouraging players to do.  That level seems to be where the good stuff is at – although how the hell it will work with some of MGQ’s more vore-happy girls I’ll be interested to see.  Maybe they spit you out before the digestive juices get too far.

Right we’re done with the village of perverts.  Back in Iliasburg we can now recruit Amira by talking to her.  It’s no great surprise to see she has no happiness-sex options.  Even MGQ has limits.  Instead she hangs around by the castle entrance and gives tidbits of information on where to go next.  From her I also saw that the Jobs max out at level 10 (assuming they all have the same number of levels) as she joins the party as a maxed-out level 10 Information Dealer (this job is unlocked after speaking to her on returning from the Nameless Slum mission).

Another of the loli bandits can also be recruited at this point.  Give Dragon Puppy the Lump of Iron and she’ll make an Iron Sword then join the party.  She can be found in the Blacksmith’s in Iliasburg.  Like all the loli bandits so far she comes with the Steal skill as standard and keeps it regardless of which job she’s moved to.  She’s also a freakin’ dragon, which means she’ll probably level up into a monstrous machine of mayhem at some point.

So many damn party options…

Tomorrow it’s time to enter the mysterious Tartarus pit in the south of the Ilias continent.

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox! part 9

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