#monster fights

[sebayard]

Oooooohooohooo I finished Skull Island and new obsession unlocked!

[drama-glob]

As mentioned yesterday, here is the 3 year anniversary post for “City of Monsters Part 2,” where we get the truth of who “Liv,” the levels she is willing to go to in order to get what she wants, the heroes having to face the monsters without HIro and Baymax, how different Liv and Diane are despite being genetically identical, and a sad goodbye as Karmi left the city. :( Admittedly, Fred’s plan did work, even though it was unlikely to and it gave me a good laugh when Mr. Sparkles commented on Ned calling Bessie a she. XD

Although it was sad that Karmi was taken away, I’m glad that Hiro realized how much she actually meant to him and how he helped break Diane’s hold on her. The “I’m ashamed” line from Liv Amara will always give me chills at the implication of how much evil Diane did in order to save one life. O_O

Also, if you didn’t see my other post, I made a new story of what Globby was doing during “City of Monsters Part 2″ on AO3. Here is the link or you can just search “Globby” or “Drama_Glob” and you’ll find it. ;)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/37997185

[sodamnbored]

Jason, looking to Percy: You ready?

Percy: *nods* Let’s do it.

Percy: *runs straight at the giant monster like an idiot by himself and is promptly thrown into a wall* Oomph!

Jason, throwing his arms up and ranting: What was that?? I thought we had a plan! Do you not remember a minute ago? I gave you a knowing smile, you gave me a knowing smile. I thought we were on the same page but noo I guess we were just two idiots smiling at each other!

Percy, upside down against the wall: *grins and shrugs apologetically*

[imagooffygoober99]

About to go watch Godzilla vs Kong with my fiancé!! 🎥🍿😜💯

[doodleferp]

Son of Look-See VS The Birch

Hey, I haven’t talked about the Son of Look-See in a while!

The Birch was what made me really get invested in CryptTV, and since I did one for Miss Annity already, I figured with her big series on FacebookWatch, The Birch definitely deserves her own spotlight on here. (GIF by Tenor)

Dad, I broke the stick by aCCIDENT, I sWEAR-

Atticus really didn’t mean to break that summoning stick. Hell, if he’d known it was even a summoning stick, he wouldn’t have even touched it! Now he’s got this tree woman chasing after his dad. Whoop-de-doo.

Aside from his house being torn to shreds by spontaneously-overgrown houseplants and his father being attacked every time he tries to come in the house, what could go wrong?

A lot. Quite a lot could go wrong.

The Birch is all about protecting, and that’s great. Atticus has been taught to respect those with good intentions. But she doesn’t exactly know what she’s supposed to be doing in this case. Atticus didn’t make the summoning stick, but the only logical conclusion here is that his family is being threatened by this monster. Why would it be coming back if not to terrorize them?

So she decides to go off-script for today and do these kids a solid. Because she’s a nice monster, right?

Look-See and The Birch stand on pretty equal footing, but he can only take so many attacks before he just gives up. Eventually, Atticus’s mom is the one who saves the boys by packing up and moving to a town with no forests.

So much for a secluded haven in the woods. Now Dad can’t visit as much as he used to.

[doodleferp]

Son of Look-See VS Miss Annity

In honor of CryptTV’s newest short, we’re pitting Atticus against the prim and proper Miss Annity! Her short was directed by the director of the Look-See shorts, and I’d really recommend checking it out. Obligatory apologies for any shitty format.

From what we’ve seen in the trailer and in the official short, Miss Annity operates on a mentality similar to The Look-See. She gives you very strict guidelines about how she wants you to live, and if you don’t follow them, she’ll make a very bloody, albeit very cheerful example out of you for the others viewing her life lessons.

Monsters are meant to terrify. Humans are meant to run. Any attempt to deviate from these age-old rules is going to guarantee you a special guest spot on Life Lessons with Miss Annity. It’s safe to say that Atticus’s unorthodox family background is going to land him a spot in the woman’s web. But chances are that rather than going after the monster of a dad -- which will most likely result in a fight more trouble than it’s worth, she’s going to take on Atticus and his mother.

Let’s make something very clear -- Atticus may be half-monster, but he’s still a child. He might have some abnormal strength and agility from his father's side of the family, but he’s nowhere near on the same level as the dreaded Look-See. All he can really do in this situation is try to outsmart Miss Annity, and hope that if he pushes back hard enough she’ll lose interest.

Best case scenario, Miss Annity will give up on trying to educate this little monster and go somewhere else to impose her standards. But chances are if she doesn’t let up soon, she’ll end up getting the very thing she was trying to avoid -- an ominous rhyming note and a few less pieces than she started out with. The apples don’t fall far from the tree -- you can mess with the apples all you want, but the tree will always find a way to get you back.

[redpagespodcast]

A Quick Glance at Collectible Monster Fighting Games

I got thinking about why Pokemon succeeded but Magi Nation didn’t, despite having the more interesting mechanics and world. This led to the following notes about similarly themed games.

Pokemon (the king)

Small science balls have a chance to capture wild monsters which somehow convinces them to fight for you, despite in some cases being literal gods. Converted to digital form for mass storage.

You can carry six at a time (because seriously, who could handle more science than that?). Fight 1v1 until one trainer is out of conscious pokemon.

Goal: Be the very best, that no one ever was; catch them all (and forget them in your PC box until the battery in your cartridge dies and they finally get to ascend to heaven).

Magi Nation (dark, gritty Pokemon)

Hit monsters so hard that they die and drop crystallized shards of their souls. Bring said crystals to a smith who will hammer them into a ring setting; summon that monster to fight for you. These smiths can also add additional shards to an existing ring, making it stronger by making its soul bigger (they also level up from fights).

Fight through your opponent’s monsters with up to three summons at a time. Summoning monsters costs energy, and energy can also be spent to cast magic directly, so you’re aiming to manage your energy wisely and get a better value out of it than your opponents do with theirs. Battles end when you and your monsters straight-up murder the other summoner.

Goal: Get home.

Monster Rancher (that one on Playstation)

Since the system was disc-loaded, enough of the game loaded itself into the console to continue running while you took the game disc out and replaced it with any disc. The game scans that real literal physical object and pulls the monster (different based on the metadata of the disc) that lives in it into your party to fight other monsters in the game.

A super cool mechanism that the world is poorer for having forgotten.

I don’t remember any other details about the game. Oh rad, wikipedia says the DS version uses the microphone to generate monsters based on recited incantations.

Goal: Be the very best, that no one ever was.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 

Pokemon with the wealthy Dragon Quest bestiary. You bully monsters until they agree to fight for you, and then you make them fight. You can squash any two monsters together to get a third, governed by a detailed breeding system. Online play is nonsense since everyone has god-tier hacked monsters.

Goal: Be the very best, that no one ever was.

Digimon (those cool little battle cubes)

I’m only vaguely aware of these things, but the concept sure is cool. You buy a cube with a monster in it, feed it, play with it. You can chunk your cube onto someone else’s and make your monsters fight. Fighting tamagotchis. I like the physical element.

Goal: Feed, cuddle, and crush your enemies before you.

Chrono Trigger DS (that sub-game nobody plays)

I don’t want to say it was “slapped on”, but it’s the only description for a weird pokemon clone living inside a remake of the genre’s finest game.

You start out with a little blobby dude, and you send him out on real-timed adventures in Chrono Trigger zones. After enough of this (and honestly, weeks after you’ve exhausted every bit of fun Chrono Trigger has to offer), it will have grown and developed into a monster from Chrono Trigger based on what zones you sent it to and which items you gave it. Then you find somebody else with a DS and a copy of the game who has also dedicated this much time to this weird mostly standalone sub-game and have your monster fight their monster.

There is a tiny bit of overlap between the main game and this sub-game. Some items found in the main game can be fed to your monster, and some items the monster brings back from its travels can be useful in Chrono Trigger.

Sadly, any interesting gameplay this might have had is waved away. You don’t get to know anything about what happened to your little dude on its journey, just the end result. It’s a whole string of end results.

Goal: ???

SaGa2/Final Fantasy Legend II (in North America)

Here we branch out from games that strictly fall under the genre.

A solid Game Boy era RPG. The party can consist of any number of the Monster class. These monsters can be fed meat from fallen enemies, which transforms them according to an invisible and looping table. Special boss meat can bump them up to higher tiers, but that stuff’s limited, so if you’re running a party of more than one, most of them will spend most of the game underpowered.

If memory serves, they don’t actually gain experience of their own. The only way to develop them is through the meat system, which can easily backfire by looping your dude back into a sewer rat or whatever unless you’re keeping careful track of where on the chart he’ll land and passing up any meat that would act as a snake rather than a ladder.

Goal: Develop your heroes.

Final Fantasy VII (you’ve probably heard of it)

VII’s Enemy Skill materia learns (most) any skill an enemy uses on the wearer, who can then use them in battle. This falls under the category because you’re powering up by collecting things from monsters, though this is admittedly a half-step away.

A neat aspect is that those skills live inside the materia, so equipping it on somebody else gives all those skills to them instead.

Goal: Be slightly more powerful.

Chrono Cross (tied for best game)

Any monster dealt the killing blow by Sprigg or a wearer of a Forget-Me-Not Pot gets added to a pool that Sprigg can transform into or chosen for an arena fight against three other monsters.

Goal: Get some rad monsters that you’ll use maybe twice in a playthrough.

Bahamut Lagoon (English speakers only get the fan translation)

Each party member gets a pet dragon who acts independently during fights. Feeding them enough of various things will increase various hidden stats like Intimacy, Wisdom, Loyalty, altering their behaviors and causing them to transform into some pretty dramatically different-looking dragons, some more useful than others.

A pretty neat monster-raising mechanism built into a fantastic tactical RPG.

Goal: Grow a bunch of god-tier dragons that will nuke all your enemies and make combat easy.

So what makes Pokemon the king? Despite complaints about them diluting the experience, overmerchandising and delivering bland stories wrapped around typical grindfests, this franchise is chugging right along, blowing right past generation gaps (and only being dimly aware of those of us who have been here from the start).

So why Pokemon and not Magi Nation? What ever happened to Digimon and Monster Rancher? It’s clear that there’s room in the genre for some healthy variety. Is it just that Pokemon has a massive marketing budget behind it?

How much is just good luck and timing?