Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 8: Grand Noah

<- Previous: Finoa

We’re off to Grand Noah.  On the way there’s a fork leading off to Yamatai to the east.  That’s for later according to Alice.

Don't turn right just yet

Further north the path loops back south and we get another campsite scene.

These camps are getting a little crowded

The campsite is starting to look a little crowded with all the recruits to Luka’s ‘harem’.  I would have said the characters here are the ones the player should focus on levelling up for the extra dialogue pieces, but so far those additional bits of dialogue have been fairly random.

(and occasionally amusing – take librarian boss Cornelia to the casinos of Grandeur and you’ll find out she’s a bit of a gambling fiend on top of being a fan of racy romance literature.)

The camp scenes are pretty cool for giving the cast a little bit of development.  The phoenix Mini is free of Don Dahlia’s control, but she still likes her pot.  Promestein and Alice are usually the characters to talk to for additional information.  Promestein seems a little too happy that all the other angels might have died.  Alice is a bit down over the defection of her heavenly knights to her mother, but gets over it by resolving to give her mother a good slapping.  Being sealed in a loli form isn’t going to hold this demon lord back!

Grand Noah

The guards try to stop us on entering Grand Noah, but it appears Luka’s fame has already begun to spread.  Despite this, we still need permission if we want to visit Esta and explore the Tartarus location next to it.  I suspect fighting in the coliseum might be involved.

The blacksmith here talks about dragon scale weapons and armour.  Sounds like we’re due another gear upgrade.  The quest for that is in the caves just south of Grand Noah.

There’s mention of the Queen’s mysterious advisor, Mephisto.  Yup, that name doesn’t sound evil at all…

There’s a house with a sickly kid in it.  Some people are spreading rumours he might be a spy because he refuses to sign up.  Instead the lad is sensible enough to know he’s too wimpy for the first line and would rather have a role boosting morale with songs and poems and the like.

There’s another battle fucker, although I wonder if she might need a talk with sickly lad about suitability for certain professions.  Heavy armour and giant axes are not things I’d normally associate with sensual pleasures.

Are you sure you're in the right profession?

I was expecting the Queen’s castle to be off-limits for now, but a couple of words from Sara is enough to open the gate.  Inside there are more NPCs to talk to in order to glean more background information.

Everyone is terrified of Grangold’s ant girls and automatons.  There is a bit of rivalry going on between the first two regiments.  The 1st regiment is led by the Dullahan from MGQ chapter 2.  The 2nd is led by the Cerberus you also fight around the same time in the original series.

Hmm, of course, the big question is:  Where is Alma Elma?

The queen is upstairs.

Queen of Grand Noah

She and Sara chat and initially it seems like she’s going to give us a permit to go investigate Esta.  Then the mysterious Mephisto shows up.

The Queen of Grand Noah's totally trustworthy and not at all suspicious adviser, Mephisto

Yup, not suspicious in the slightest.

She’s not convinced about our strength and suggests we prove ourselves in the coliseum first.

Told you.

But before we do that, Alice suggests we upgrade our gear by retrieving some dragon scale stone from the fossil mine just south of Grand Noah.

Sounds like a sound plan, so we’ll head off there next.

-> Next: Fossil Mine

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 7: Finoa

<- Previous: The Open Seas

So far Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] has done pretty well in throwing new monster girls at us.  The only repeats so far have been Dagon and one of the mermaids.  And if you happen to like Arekishi’s big-boobed paizuri scenes, well…

Your brave sacrifice will be remembered, but forge onwards we must.  There are many more monster girls to fuck is a world (possibly many) in need of saving.

The next location is Finoa, which is north of the Navy HQ and can be found here:

Finoa

And the originality comes juddering to a halt.

In the countryside around Finoa we can find centaurs...

Something for the bronies?

…alraunes…

Something for the gardeners?

…and some of UN_DO’s frog girls.

Something for the... I got nothing.

We’ve slotted back onto Luka’s path from Monster Girl Quest [chapter 2].  These were the first three monsters en route to Grand Noah if I remember right.  Centaur was a training fight to see if you’d remembered you’d picked up Gnome.  Forget that and you ended up wedged against a tree and stuck in wrong horse pussy.

Remember, it doesn’t count as bestiality if they can speak.  Gnooommmmeeee!  Haaalp!

The froggies have three request scenes back in the pocket castle – a tongue job, a communal tongue job and a frog sandwich with Luka in the middle.  I’m not sure if any of these are new.  In their first appearance I remember they had different Bad End scenes depending on how many Luka had knocked out before succumbing.  Maybe the tongue job scene is new.

Frog girls are very talented with their tongues

Not much else new here, but as Torotoro Resistance is trying to remain faithful to his original series, it makes sense.

Finoa is also a bit nothingy.  I am back to relying on machine translation, so it’s possible I might have missed a quest somewhere.  Aside from that, the NPCs here are mostly just information sources for the new continent.  From them you can learn that:

The next Tartarus location is west of Grand Noah and difficult to get to as it’s right in the middle of a lake.

There is another disappeared village.  Just like Rubiana in part 1, all the inhabitants of Esta have mysteriously vanished.

There’s lots of talk about avoiding the draft to fight the war against Grangold, which doesn’t appear to be going very well.

Despite all the war, people are still excited about the Queen’s Cup held in the coliseum of Grand Noah.  Ah, I remember that from the original series.  When you lost, you got fucked in front of the whole audience.  Good times.  Does this also mean we might be seeing a first appearance from Alma Elma?  The heavenly knights were conspicuously absent from the first game (aside from a recording/hologram of Tamamo).

Yamatai Village, another location from the first game, also gets a mention.  Alice advises visiting Grand Noah first to upgrade gear as the monsters on the way to Yamatai will be too strong for us currently.

Lastly there’s mention of a mysterious school of magic, which, I believe, is a new location.

There’s also the obligatory battle fucker – Lara.

Footjob technique.  Either that or she's trying to pull Luka's head off

My Luka might be a teensy weensy bit on the over-levelled side, so it’s not exactly a contest.  Ironically, she drops Cat Gloves, an accessory that bumps the rate of finding items to %150.  If I’d had that earlier, my Luka might be a more sensible level than 40 (that damn Grizzly Bear rare drop, grr).

As an aside.  In the first game I levelled up a lot of characters in Merchant for the buff to gold drop.  If you’re a completionist, I’d recommend following the Fortune Teller/Gambler path instead as these give abilities that improve item drop rate and trying to get the rare item drops is by far the biggest grind when it comes to removing all those ??????s from the library profiles.

Anyway, there’s not much going on in Finoa.

(I’ve botched a translation and missed something, haven’t I?)

Time to head off to Grand Noah.

-> Next: Grand Noah

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 6: The Open Seas

<- Previous: Navy Headquarters II

“It’s a pirate life for me… a pirate life for me…” or whatever it is pirates sing.  Probably with lots of added “Yaarrrrrrr”.

We have a boat, the MS Fish, thanks to Bonnie, Ashel and the rest of the fishy pirates (who only pirate other pirates, so they’re the good fun pirates that don’t get up to all that raping and pillaging stuff, unless it’s Luka, of course, because the game wouldn’t be fun if there wasn’t a hot succubus trying to jump his bones every five paces or so).  Anyway, we have a boat, and the next place we’re supposed to go is directly north of the Navy Headquarters.

Which, of course, we’re not going to do, because it wouldn’t be a JRPG if you didn’t go haring off in search of hidden locations the moment the map opens up.  I’ve played Final Fantasy before.

The open section isn’t all that open to be fair.  We have the run of a central sea, but most of the northern shores are blocked by impassable mountains.  The Navy Headquarters is on an island to the east.  The sea to the north and south of it is blocked by rocks.  There is a canal running through the island, blocked at the far end by a massive stone gate.  I don’t think we’re going to see that open until Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 3], to be honest.

The Grand Pirates’ Cave is surprisingly far away, being right out to the west.  As with the Navy HQ, further progress is blocked by rocks.

There is a huge black smudge of a Tartarus location right in the middle of the sea.  Currently there is no way to enter it, at least none that I can see.

Just to the west of the Navy HQ is Sheep Island.

Sheep Island

It has a location filled with sheep girls.  Sheep girls are the chronic drunks of the monster girl universe, so we get silly music and lots of drunken sheep milling around.

Where the sheep girls go to get drunk

There isn’t a whole lot to do here.  Both the entrance to the building and a pathway behind it are blocked.  I tried bringing both the sheep and rabbit girls and nothing changed, so I think this might be a location to revisit later.

There are two other locations to explore along the north.

Spider Island

The first has a cave with the entrance blocked by an arachne (one of the ones from MGQ chapter 3, judging by her portrait).

Arachnes be here, but no entry for now

I guess this is where the spider girls holed up after Neris bashed them around.  The arachne won’t let us in or fight us, so I think this would appear to be another place we’re not supposed to be visiting right now.  There are some items hidden in chests in the surrounding woods, so it’s not a complete waste of time.

The second island doesn’t even have a name.

??? Island

There’s a bit of a Lovecraftian Cthulhu vibe here as we find the corpse of a doomed explorer/castaway.  They left a notebook that talks about fog, being unable to leave the island and some kind of eldritch structure.

Notebook found in a deserted campsite

As none of that is happening right now I think we can add another item to the list of interdimensional weirdness.  I suspect its significance will become clearer once we go through another one of the Tartarus locations.

At least we get a few new monster girls to play with along the way.

Mermaid Assault!

One is a returning mermaid from the original series.  I like this artist’s style and I liked the encounter in the original series, but I don’t think they’ve drawn that many characters.  It’s a shame as they’re perfect for the more vanilla monster girls.

The other two are more of Arekishi’s busty cuties.  And if it’s Arekishi, you know exactly what you’re getting…

Boing!

More Boing!

…titty jobs!  Lots of big bouncy boobwanks.  Yummy.

The mermaid merchant also shows a true entrepreneurial flair.  She charges Luka for every spurt, and the poor lad is too addicted to the experience to turn her down.  So, by the end of it, he’s completely drained of both gold and cum.  Tick another one off as Monster Girl Quest adds findom to the list of fetishes.

Or should that be fin²dom, hurr hurr.

(It’s coz she’s a fish, with fins, geddit.  Never mind… I’ll get my coat.)

The returning mermaid from the previous series also has a sweet paizuri scene, if I remember right.  These seas are pretty much titjob heaven, if you can avoid the odd creepy Fusuma flapping around.

There are also a trio of similar Bolt of Cotton girls flying around.

Sky dancers

They also like to warp Luka up in smooth silky heaven.

Private dances.  Refusal not accepted

Although in this case, there appears to be an absence of both creepy doll faces and drooling digestive acids, so they’re fine by me.  We’ll have a private dance later, if you know what I mean.

Nothing for you to worry about, Luka my old pal.  Just keep sailing north.

The open seas aren’t all that open as it happens.  There’s only really one place to go – Finoa.  So that’s where we’ll head off to next time.

-> Next: Finoa

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 5: Navy Headquarters II

<- Previous: Grand Pirates’ Cave

We have a boat, the MS Fish, crewed with some enthusiastic pirates.  This will take us to the next continent and Grand Noah, but before then there are some side quests to tick off.

The fishy pirates had their flag confiscated by the navy.  They’d like it back, and as an extra incentive it’s also stored next to the permit required to unlock both the pirate and marine jobs.

So, no biggie, just an all-out assault on the Navy HQ.

We have two new members of Luka’s “harem”.  On the eve of the battle we should pop in and see them for... ahem... comfort.  I mean, we might not survive tomorrow’s battle.

Both Ashel and Bonnie are Arekishi creations, so – unsurprisingly – their first request scenes involve big bouncing boobies wrapped around Luka’s cock and squeezed...

Squeezed between big boobies

...and squeezed...

Even more boob squeezing

Until we get our balls totally drained.

But not drained enough to miss out on a spot of nookie.

Ashel is fairly business-like about it as you’d expect – In you go.  Squeeeeze.

Luka wisely moves his head to the side to avoid certain death by suffocation

Mermaid pussies are a little more tactile than their human equivalent.  So, that’s no escape for Luka until his balls are completely drained... again.

In contrast to Ashel, Bonnie has a spot of baby fever.  Once Luka is inside her, she pulls him in deep and gushes about all the eggs Luka is currently fertilising.

There may be consequences for this, Luka...

Oops.  Even Luka realises he’s in a spot of responsibility bother, mournfully stating he’ll have to do the right thing and marry Bonnie once the adventure is over.

I don’t think Alice will like that.  Or Sonya.  Or... let’s face it, you’re screwed, Luka.  Better make plans to go into hiding once all this is over.

Anyway, that much needed distraction out of the way (because we might not survive tomorrow’s battle), it’s time to begin the assault on the Navy HQ.

Now that we’ve allied with the pirates, the Navy HQ has become a ‘dungeon’ location, with random attacks from sea horse and sea slug marines.  Despite this, the various merchants will serve the player, so you don’t have to worry about locking out the blacksmith, for example.

On top of the random encounters there are a few fixed encounters blocking our path.  The first is on entering the HQ location, the second is in front of the HQ doors, the third is on entering the HQ building, the 4th is blocking the stairs to the 2nd floor, and the final one is blocking entry to room with the flag and permit.  After clearing the way, you’ll be able to pick up the flag and permit here:

The objective for this quest

Picking up this unlocks both the pirate and marine jobs.

Oh, Admiral Leviathan is on this floor as well.  Can we fight her as a boss?

She doesn't look that hard...

Alice strongly advises against it.  Leviathan’s strength is comparable to a monster girl queen.  Feh, we’ve fought monster girl queens and won before.  She can’t be that hard...

ulp... followed by...

Mistakes were made.  Mistakes were made.

The punishment for Luka’s attempted insurrection is execution... by Leviathan’s vagina.  She draws Luka deeper inside her, the soft walls swell up and enfold him, and then she slowly drains his energy by forcing him to come over and over.

...gulp!

There are worst ways to be executed, I suppose.

But anyway, this was a hypothetical alternate reality where Luka was a real fucking idiot.  Obviously, we follow Alice’s advice and don’t go near the huge fuck-off sea dragon.  Our plunder secured and Bonnie and Ashel happy with the increasing rep for the fishy pirates, we slink off back to the MS Fish.

Future adventures await!

-> Next: The Open Seas

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

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part2] - 3: Navy Headquarters

<- Previous: Port Marle

To progress further, we need to get a boat, and to do that we need to ask permission of the Admiral at the Navy Headquarters.

Navy HQ is a single big building with docks on either side.

Walking around are even more Sea Horse Marines.  They’re also joined by cutesy Sea Slug Marines.  I imagine we’ll be fighting both later on.

Inside, the Naval HQ has its own shop and blacksmith.  There is also a sailor girl battle fucker – Milia.

Her special technique is... armpit jobs?

Talking to the various characters reveals some background history.  There used to be three main pirate groups.  The Justi group went on to become the navy.  Rosa (who you might remember as the former queen of the mermaids in La Croix’s undead circus) led the mermaid pirates.  The third group was led by Selene.  She cropped up in the original series as a ghost and it’s also her treasure Luka needed to find in order to cross the sea to Port Natalia in both series.

Currently, both Rosa and Selene are missing.  The mermaid pirates also got beaten up during Neris’s mission to quell the rebel queens and are in hiding.

There is also information on two previously locked jobs – Pirate and Marine.

The quest character is Admiral Leviathan.  She’s not hard to miss.  She’s the giant monster girl on the top floor that looks like a monster girl version of a gyarados.

Is this what the sea horse marines become after evolving to the next level?

She can lend us a boat to take us to the next continent, but there is a problem she needs our help with first.  There are a new bunch of pirates causing trouble, the fishy pirates, and she wants us to help her put them down.

The plot thickens as a dog girl meets us on exiting the main HQ building.  She’s working for the fishy pirates and she takes us around the corner to their boat.  There we are met by the second-in-command, Ashel.

She also does all the cooking, cleaning and nursing

Talking to the crew reveals Ashel is hyper-competent.  The captain, Bonnie, isn’t.  Put it this way, she’s a mermaid that can’t swim.

To advance the story, you need to go downstairs and talk to the cat girl sitting on the main chair.

Go to the captain's chair first

She’s not in command, she just sits there because it’s warm and no-one knows how to get rid of her.  Talking here reveals Bonnie is upstairs sneaking food out of the storeroom.  You can find her here:

Bonnie is sneaking food in the storeroom

Luka is given a counter offer.  The fishy pirates can also provide us with a boat (this one), but they also need something from us.  Bonnie wants our help with fetching an item from a nearby dungeon.  It’s an old pirate treasure and Bonnie thinks nabbing it will raise the reputation of the fishy pirates.

Captain Bonnie of the MS Fish

So, the game is giving us another one of those mutually exclusive choices – Pirates or Marines?

Come back next week to see which choice I make.

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 2: Port Marle

<- Previous: Tunnel to Port Marle

It’s time to visit the first town of Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] – Port Marle.

Port Marle

I think this might be new-new as well, as I don’t remember it being in the original series.

Currently it’s under the control of the navy.  This is described as an independent and neutral monster girl organisation tasked with bringing some order to the oceans.  It’s neutral enough that both Mecha-Pope and Sara let Luka know they can’t use their influence as heads of state here.

Oh yeah, that’s right, we have both heads of royalty from the previous two countries we visited tagging along in our entourage.  That’s… weird.

(Succubus Sara, when?)

Aww, a lickle sea horse marine.

An adorably cute sea horse marine

This is the monster girl navy apparently.  Port Marle is swarming with sea horse marines and they are ridiculously cute.  It’s a shame Monmusu Quest: Paradox is what it is, as I think Arekishi (アレキシ)’s Tatsunoko Marine design would make an adorable mascot plushy.  But porn game, yadda yadda, blah blah.

As you might have noticed, we have some English translation from Dargoth and co’s sterling efforts.  I suspect we won’t have it for long, but I’m grateful that most of the new items, skills, names, etc are already translated.  Great job, guys.

There’s not too much going on in Port Marle.  The game of find Amira continues, but she’s not trying to hide behind trees and other items this time.

Amira's not too hard to find in Port Marle

There is also the town battlefucker.  These are always very easy to find.  Just look for the drained dudes sprawled outside her door.  Gina specialises in swords.

She knows how to handle "swords"

To advance the story we need to go to the Navy Headquarters and request permission for a ship.  First we need to find someone to take us there.  This is the guy you need to talk to:

Where to find the boat to take us to the Naval HQ

He can’t take us there without a permit, so our next step is to find the viceroy.  She looks identical to the other Tatsunoko Marines.  You can find her stealing fish here:

Where to get the permit to be allowed to go to the Naval HQ

Talking to her grants us a permit to travel to Naval HQ.

-> Next: Navy Headquarters