Part 20: The Final Battles

Last time, Euchre managed to transform Wildcard into his ultimate form and entered the finals of the Monster Scout Challenge.

Music: Contest Castle



This time, he'll be participating in said finals, but not before doing a bit of sightseeing around Green Bays. Some more options have opened up now, after all!



I'm sure no one will object. Darkonium is of no use to anyone.

The first order of business, as usual, is to go around talking to people. What this man has to say is not entirely true; although the MSO has taken the ten pieces that Euchre needed to qualify for the finals (although there's no way to see this in the menus), he still gets to keep the three spare ones to sell.



They've finished their final training, and are taking a breather before the big fight.

Oh yeah, the other finalists! Since Euchre's presumably allowed in the lounge now, why not go and talk to them?



Predictably, the door that was closed before is open now.



...That reminds me. I saw a man dressed all in black down by the jetty. Is he here for the finals too? There was something very unsavoury about him.

The first person Euchre comes to in the finalists' lounge is not a finalist but rather this MSO employee. Still, this is an interesting bit of information that's going on Euchre's to-investigate list.



I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get on with it.



The first finalist here is Slimon, who appears to be struggling to hold back his Slime puns. Of course, his question is answered with a resounding no. Euchre's team is already more than strong enough!

You don't need any more training, eh? Stronger than you look, are you? Well, be gentle with me in the finals, then! Hahaha!

Sadly there are no puns to be had in the rest of his dialogue, and I'm not sure whether that last part should be taken as an insult or as a compliment. Either way, Euchre definitely won't be holding back come the finals.



That's why I'm going to beat her and win the championship! I'm going to be the new scout challenge idol! Soon, everyone will know the name "Missy"!

Next up is Missy. I'm expecting that she'll sour pretty quickly on Solitaire if she's as obnoxious to everyone else as she is to Euchre.



Speaking of Solitaire, she's not in the lounge right now, and neither is Tryger. Euchre will have to go looking outside MSO headquarters for them.

Music: Solitaire



Fortunately (or unfortunately) Solitaire is right outside.

I finished FIRST! ...So, where did you finish? Oh, right - fifth. (chuckle) Seems to me the finals are just a formality. It's pretty obvious who's gonna win. Why don't you just save us both the trouble, quit now, and give me the doggie?



The finishing order is of little consequence. Isn't that right, Ginny Rummy?

There's a four or so second pause before this next bit. Solitaire's obviously been shocked into silence.



..."Gi"?

Metal Gear?



There's the Solitaire we all know and love barely tolerate!



The championship will be decided in a head-to-head battle. We'll settle it then. Obviously, I'm going to win. I don't want to see a scratch on my doggie when you hand him over. Okay, enough chitchat. See ya in the finals!

And so Solitaire leaves once again. I'm sure her trigger words won't come up in any capacity ever again.



Sometimes, I have great difficulty understanding humans. Especially that one. What a tiresome breed!

Now that that's over with, it's time for Euchre to look around the rest of Domus Isle.

Music: Appearance of the Town



Instead of immediately looking for the last finalist, Tryger, Euchre instead makes a beeline for the department store, and specifically the weapon shop there.



They've actually got some new stock in! This is, as far as I know, the best weapon shop in the game.



It has an upgrade for every weapon type that was previously in stock, and most of them are better that what Team Euchre already has. Despite that, none of them are getting bought right now. They're very expensive, with prices going as high as 11200 gold pieces.



Next up is the item shop, which also has more items available. The new items are Multi Medicine, Sage's Elixir, Panacea...



...Wizard Shilling and Jumbo Insulade. We've already seen all of these except for Wizard Shillings, and they increase magic resistance for Euchre's entire team. They're basically the spell Magic Barrier in item form.

Anyway, that's all there is at the department store. There aren't any new Skill scrolls available, although they're a lot easier to buy now that higher Rank monsters are available.



I tried askin' him what he wanted, but I couldn't understand a bleedin' word he said!

Hearing more about this person by the docks gives more clues about who he might be.



Of course, Euchre's right next to where he was sighted, so it's an easy matter to find out his identity.



As it turns out, it's Black Jacques! He hasn't shown up in a while, has he?

I 'ave new orders from ze boss, Monsieur Trump. Quickly, take zis letter.





...?

Does this mean that Euchre's no longer a terrorist?



I do not know what ze Warden is sinking. I am just ze posting man! And now, I must bid you adieu. Until we meet again, my leetle friend!



Still, it seems he is saying that your mission for him is over. Now we can focus all of our energy on winning the challenge.

Why would CELL suddenly distance themselves from Euchre now? Presumably they don't actually want the Scout's Mark, since they didn't steal it when they had the chance, but then why didn't they cut ties after they stole Snap's research notes?

Anyway, now that that's over with, Euchre can finally get back to what he was doing. At this point he could just start the finals by going back to MSO headquarters, but there are still more things to do.

Music: Scoutpost



You know why? This is just a costume! I bet I had you fooled! Instead of just waiting around, I'm going to try and squeeze in some last-minute training... But which island should I go to? I just can't decide.

Tryger's hanging out in the scoutpost, pondering his next destination. There's really only one island that would be really useful for training, and we'll be getting to that in a moment.

Music: Appearance of the Town



Do you vant to know vat it is? Ja, ja, of course you do! Very vell. I vill share zis magnificent invention vith you, my friend.

Igor Folds has something for Euchre again. Hopefully it won't be another worthless consumable.



Well, it's not worthless at any rate. A free Elfin Elixir is always welcome.



Ah, you are speechless vith amazement, ja?

Sadly that's all the free stuff that Igor here is ready to give Euchre. What should his next destination be, then?



I bet they're all on Palaish Isle, practicing in the Old Maid's garden.

Palaish Isle is the single best grinding spot in the game, and the relevant area just opened up. What better time to check it out that now?

Music: Island



The place to be on Palaish Isle is Madame Rummy's palace, so that's where Euchre goes.

Music: Contest Castle



More specifically, it's the garden challenge.

You are free to enter and explore all of the gardens of the island... ...except for one. The metal menagerie remains closed to you.



Fight as many metal monsters as you can within two and a half minutes! You may enter the menagerie again if you defeat a certain number of Slimes. This is a special privilege extended only to Monster Scout Challenge finalists.



Euchre came all the way here to do this, so obviously the answer is yes.

Good luck, young scout.

The actual minigame here has only one difference to how it was the last time Euchre participated, so I'll be skipping over most of it.

Music: Monster Battle



The difference is that the Slimes here can cast Clang, a particularly annoying ability for this area and this area only.



It gives its user complete invincibility on the turn when it's cast. Since Euchre's on a time limit to beat these things, the reason for its annoyance should be self-explanatory. It's near-useless for most of the rest of the game, though - only a monster with Double Trouble might get some use from it, and even then they would have to be at the fickle whims of the AI.

Music: Contest Castle



Anyway, this one isn't too hard. The Slimes are a bit more spread out than before, but there's plenty of time to exterminate them even with a few uses of Clang.

Well done. You exterminated 15 Slimes. That means you may enter the metal menagerie for two and a half minutes.



Despite being nominally part of the gardens, the metal menagerie seems to be indoors. At least that's how it looks, since the area through this door would be directly underneath Madame Rummy's throne.

Music: Scout Battle



Wherever the place is, Euchre really doesn't have time to waste.



The only monsters here are Metal Slimes and their variants, which obviously makes it the best place to grind in the game.



Of course what this means is that the Metal Slimes themselves are severely outclassed in terms of usefulness, since all of their relatives have a much larger experience point payout. These ones are in the back.

Music: Monster Battle



Liquid Metal Slimes are the first step up from their more solid cousins. As well as having more HP, they have much greater damage potential.



More specifically they have Frizzle, which is a decent increase in power from the Frizz that the Metal Slimes have.



They're fairly simple to beat, although they can just decide to run away sometimes. Just keep attacking, using Metal Slash or using Hatchet Man in increasing order of effectiveness. They give out almost ten times as many experience points as Metal Slimes.



Next up are Metal King Slimes, which are considerably bulkier than any other monster in the menagerie - this one had somewhere around 30 HP to whittle down. Don't use Metal Slash on these! As far as I know it can't be a critical hit, and it's only 1 point of bonus damage. It's better to hope for a critical hit from a normal attack or, even better, use Hatchet Man. There's a slight problem with this strategy, though...



Metal King Slimes have Critical Miss, and if the user of Hatchet Man gets hit by it they'll have to resort to using something else.



They also have Kafrizz, which does a little over 100 damage to a single monster if they decide to use it. Not fun.



Despite being several magnitudes harder to take out than Liquid Metal Slimes, Metal King Slimes only give about double the experience points. It's not worth fighting these things until Team Euchre is strong enough to get through their ridiculous defences, since they're very likely to flee and it's incredibly time-inefficient.



The fight took so long that Euchre's time limit ran out, in fact.

Music: Contest Castle



We look forward to seeing you again.

Euchre appears to have run out of things to do in order to put off the finals, so it's time to bite the bullet and do just that.



If you've finished all your preparations, we can get started. You'll be fighting with the monsters you have in your current team.



It's not like there's much else to do. Might as well get this over with.

Okay, then. Let the games begin!

Music: Colosseum (IV)



It's the moment you've all been waiting for - the Monster Scout Challenge Finals! But before we get it on, let's hear it for our very own COMMISSIONER SNAP!



I'd like to congratulate the five finalists, and remind them to do their best. Never give up, even if you lose a bout. ...Because your next opponent might be fighting for a fourth consecutive victory...



Now, good luck to you all, and may the best scout win!



Okay, fight fans, you've waited long enough! Let the show begin! Let's meet the two scouts who'll be kicking off today's action.



Go Euchre!



Prepare to be slimed!

And, er, Slimon too. Yaaaaaaay.



FIGHT!!!

Music: Scout Battle



So, Slimon. His team is, unsurprisingly, all Slime family monsters. Despite this they all have different roles: the Angel Slime is a mage, the Dark Slime is a physical attacker and the Slime is...something else. I'm not entirely sure.



Dim is bad and this Angel Slime should feel bad. It won't affect Team Euchre much because a) they don't have any offensive magic and b) they're being commanded manually.



Frizzle is the same as it's always been. It's probably Slimon's best offensive option because, er...



I never saw him using any other abilities besides these two and Deep Breath. Presumably the Slime uses breath attacks based on this, but it never did. The Dark Slime only used its normal attacks.

I wish there was somewhere that information on enemy movesets could be found, honestly. This game is pretty badly documented, at least on the English-speaking side of the internet.

Music: None



Anyway, Slimon's team quickly falls once Team Euchre stops trying to see what they can do. Wildcard in particular is just too powerful, with Lightning Storm, the third and final tier of Lightning-elemental attacks, does around 150 damage to every memberof the enemy party.



He will now fight in the next round!



I'm going to beat you AND Solitaire, so THERE! And then eat lots of cake.

Clearly Missy wants to have her cake and eat it too. Euchre can't be having that.



FIGHT!!!

Music: Scout Battle



Missy's team is based around large and bulky monsters, obviously. It's a little weird to see these things not being used as physical attackers.



The Frou-Frou exists for crowd control purposes, as it really likes to cast Snooze and not much else. It's not Kasnooze, so it's not accurate enough to be much of a concern overall.



The Gigantes is a little weird. It appears to be themed around ice, since it uses both Frost Slash...



...and Cool Breath. I suppose it's good to have multiple damage types to deal with being disabled.



Meanwhile, the Living Statue uses dances. More specifically, it uses Weird Dance.



And, of course, that ability is immediately invalidated by this one, since it has the same effect but absorbs the MP instead of throwing it away. Not that it really matters, since MP isn't really a problem for enemy monsters.

Music: None



And that's it for Missy's team. They're a bit more threatening than Slimon's offering to the competition, and the MP draining is very concerning since this is an endurance match.



That's two in a row for young Euchre! But here comes challenger number three!



Oh, hey, it's Tryger! That means that Solitaire will be Euchre's last opponent.



This is just a costume, you know. I'm actually more of a city peRRR- (cough) person.

You're not fooling anyone, Tryger.



FIGHT!!!

Music: Scout Battle



Tryger's a bit odd in that he only has two monsters, which adds to the idea that he's a monster himself - after all, only three monsters are allowed in a team, and he's already filling up one spot.

As for the monsters that Euchre gets to fight, the one on the left, the Garuda, is new. The one on the right, the Beetlebully, was on Dr Snap's third team back when Euchre battled him.



The Garuda doesn't seem to get any spells or abilities, but the Beetlebully does. First up is Kaping, which is bad as usual.



It appears to boost its Midheal's power, though. Based on the amount of healing this is the version available to Euchre as opposed to wild monsters, which makes sense since all scouts should be on an equal footing.

Music: None



Unsurprisingly this fight isn't too hard with only two monsters to deal with. Action economy is a powerful thing.



Incredible! The rookie's come out of nowhere and is a victory away from the championship! Can he do it? Or will the next challenger stop him in his tracks?



For some reason this screen shows for a few seconds. It's a little strange, since Euchre has a regular old Wulfspade, which is impossible to have at this point, as well as the character on the left straight up not existing in any game to my knowledge.



Thanks for warming up the crowd for me, but I'll take it from here. I'm a bit surprised you made it this far. Guess you're not as useless as I thought. But this game ain't big enough for the both of us, kiddo, even with two screens! (shrug) What can I say? I didn't look for stardom - it came looking for me.



It is time to settle this once and for all, Ginny Rummy.

Oh. Wildcard just said the trigger words. That's...not good.



There are a couple of seconds of silence at this point. Again, Solitaire doesn't look like she's going to be answering back any time soon.



FIGHT!!!

So the announcer just interrupts the awkward silence. Unfortunately, though...

Music: Scout Battle



...Solitaire has finally composed herself to some degree. This isn't ending well, is it?















You know what? This is fine too. Next time, the Monster Scout Challenge will be concluded.