Part 62: Bonus Update: Golem Chat
Bonus Update: Golem ChatAlternate title: Golems are dicks
Let's talk about Golems. Golems a big game changer for appearing so late in Disc 2. They're stronger and hardier than ANMCs, they hit harder, and generally exist solely to make your life miserable. They're kind of like Resident Evil's Tyrants, in that they are supposed to be unstoppable super soldiers, so that's why they're so deadly. Except Tyrants were regulated exclusively to boss fights. And usually didn't have guns.
Golems, at this point, are all over the joint, and half the time, they DO have guns.
Aya can, at this point in the game, access the storage room for Golems, which gives me a handy framing device to
Examining this placard on the wall gives us this handy little exposition blurb on Golems and the various types. I guess it's here if any Golems wake up and forget what they are.
: "8 GOLEM units are held in each storage/deployment pod. Before launching GOLEMs, activate the control room defrost program."
: "Color: Green. Standard Patrol Model"
The Pawn Golem...erm, excuse me, GOLEM is the most common type of G-Man you'll run into. Pawns have 425 HP, making them the frailest of the Golems, but they're still a lot tougher than most ANMCs. There are two types of Pawns: Sword Pawns and Gun Pawns.
Sword Pawns are generally more common, but I find them to be the tougher of the two varieties to deal with. Up close, they have a very basic slash, but if you're outside their immediate range, they will bend over and dash at you, attempting to stab you with their bargain-bin lightsabers. Hell, sometimes they'll charge you even if you're standing right next to them. A stab will hurt, it will hurt a LOT, but you can dodge it with a quick run to the right or left. If you're not sure about your dodging skills, you can even knock them out of a charge with a grenade! Plasma doesn't seem terribly effective on them, though.
Gun Pawns are really more of a threat if combined with other Golems. They take aim with a laser pointer, then fire a series of six gas-shrouded bullets that inflict Blindness. The gas lingers for a moment after impact, and can still Blind you, so you need to be careful where you step. But, if you're lucky enough to fight them in a large enough room, the slow moving are almost comically easy to dodge. They can also smack you with their gun if you get close, but I have no idea why you'd get close to them. Amusingly, enemies can deal friendly fire damage, so if you're feeling cocky, you can play bullfighter with a Sword Pawn to lure him into the line of fire for a Gun Pawn. Too bad enemies are immune to Blind.
All Golems have a notable resistance to most Magic based attacks, except Pawns. If you've got the MP to burn, and little Fireball can be a big help.
: Color: Grey. Close Combat Model.
Rook Golems are basically just Pawns on steroids. Like Pawns, they come in both Sword and Gun varieties, but they have more health (482 HP), higher resistance to Magic, and an annoying little shield they can use to block bullets. You CAN break the shield with enough punishment, but generally it's just easier to attack them from behind or the side.
Sword Rooks don't really have any special tricks, just the same slash and stab moves as the Pawns. But both Rooks have a nasty new trick where they cross their arms, make their eyes turn pink, and charge up. When they release the charge, you get hit with Silence. The radius on this thing is crazy, and the attack itself is invisible, so I'm not entirely sure how big it is. It is possible to dodge it in a big enough room by just running the fuck away, but a better option is to hit them hard and fast to knock them out of it. Hit them with grenades or other heavy artillery, or be ready to pop a status curing item.
Gun Rooks are a big problem. They fire six shots in two burst of three, with a decent pause in the middle. The shots move at about the same speed as a Pawns, but they inflict Paralyze, and Paralysis is the worst status effect in the whole damn game. They still have that lingering cloud, too, so watch the fuck out. Gun Rooks like blocking much more than their Swordy comrades, and can block WHILE firing, so basically just fuck Gun Rooks all together.
: Color: Purple. Night Operations Model.
Hey, remember earlier in the game when we had to fight those really annoying invisible enemies? Wasn't that fun?! Now here's one with more HP, more damage, AND status effects! PS: it can teleport
Knight Golems are total fucking cocks. When you enter a room, a fucking Knight Golem shitweasel will grab you from behind and HEY NOW YOU ARE FIGHTING! If you mash those buttons like you're playing Eddie Gordo in Tekken, you can break out of a grab before you take any damage from the choking, but it's still a dick move. If you DO get choked, one of two things will happen. Either you'll break out of it after taking a load of cheap damage and getting Poisoned, or you don't break out of it quickly enough and the Knight snaps your neck. You're dead, fuck you, reload a save.
Fighting Knight Golems isn't exactly fun either. You have to back up against a wall so they can't just teleport behind you, and wait. The Golem will reappear, BUT DON'T SHOOT IT. Knights can make decoys, so if the Golem isn't moving or making any noise, it's just a hologram. You can shoot it and make the hologram disappear, but you won't do any damage. You need to keep an ear open for the Knight's faint buzzing sound. Sometimes, you'll see a red laser appear: this means the Golem just reappeared at the end of a hallway or across the room and is now running at you. He'll charge up, jump in the air, and slap you upside the head, because Knights are fucking assholes. With a heavy hit and a little luck, you can knock them out of the charge, it can be tricky, especially with a slowly reloading grenade launcher.
Knights are also resistant to Magic, and generally hate everything you hold dear. And don't think you can get smart with room filling spells after the fucker turns invisible. Because they don't really turn invisible, they completely disappear. Nothing can hit them because they are literally not there. What fucking cheaters!
: Color: Red. Special Operations Model.
Now, we haven't actually seen any Bishop Golems yet, so I won't say too much about them, but they're basically just Knight Golems in different footie pajamas. Knight Golems with fucking 800 HP!
Our buddy No.9 is also a Golem, but he's clearly a special case. For one thing, he can talk and think for himself. He also isn't a bitch and a half to actually fight. Thematically, I like the Golems. These mindless killing machines actually provide a nice, albeit dark, mirror to Aya herself. They are, essentially, doing the same job, after all.
In terms of game mechanics? Fuuuuck the Golems forever. They're such huge piles of HP and Defenses that any shootout with them takes far longer than it should, and any enemy in any game that inflicts status effects is fucking terrible as a rule. But what really annoys me is that magic resistance. Being able to fling lightning and burn shit alive with my mind is what sets Parasite Eve apart from other survival horror games. It's the game's hook, its big gimmick! Don't suddenly take that shit away from me, Square, ya buncha jerks! I don't mind a little challenge now and again, but damn guys, I just want to electrocute motherfuckers. Is that so much to ask?
By the way, there's extra difficulty modes in PE2 that you can unlock after beating the game. Why do I mention this? Because in two of them, Golems start appearing at Akropolis Tower. The very beginning of the game. When they say "Nightmare Mode" they ain't fucking around!
Now here's some GOON GOLEM GADVICE!
The GIG recommends sticking to basics when fighting Golems
The GIG posted:
I'd like to add that despite agreeing with seiren the dumping of pistols at this point, I actually prefer to use the MP5 loaded with Hydra/Spartan rounds backed up with level 3 energy shot against Pawns. I tend to end up dropping them relatively quickly and saving my R Slugs and grenades for the tougher GOLEMs. I still feel confident against Rooks later on with the addtion of an item that comes up shortly, though the shotgun and M4 with grenades is your best bet when more than one rook is around.
Also, I've heard that the Hammer attachment works wonders, though I never bothered because I never went beyond the grenade launcher and some other thing we'll see soon.
Both Captain Bravo and Caldwell prefer run and gun tactics
Caldwell posted:
I actually really like fighting the Knight Golems, I find all of their tricks kinda cool.
When fighting Knight and Bishop Golems playing defensively is probably the worst way to do it, you can actually counter several of their attacks by being aggressive. When they make a hologram, just run through it and keep going, the Golem will appear behind you and swipe at you, but if you don't stop running it'll miss and you can turn around and fill em with lead. Same thing works for the laser target lunge, if you just charge the Golem it'll jump right past you. No real way to reliably dodge the choke hold aside from being against a wall to my knowledge though.
Captain Bravo posted:
Wherever you're going, just run to it. Run everywhere. I don't know if it's a glitch, or a thing, but I've found that sometimes I can actually evade Knight's and Bishop's grab attacks by just moving as fast as I can wherever I'm going. It's badass as hell to see the dude teleport in behind you, grab empty air, and then catch a faceful of R. Slug for his troubles.
SnakesRevenge tells us how to handle Golems like a legendary soldier
SnakesRevenge posted:
Sword Golems: Stay close if you can, wait for them to duck down to do a slash, and run around their left side (the side with no sword), they'll slash and be stunned for a second or two wondering where you went and you can feel free to punish away. Remember on the less-armored types, a hit from the Javelin or Lifedrain will always stun them for a second, so if you're not worried about saving bullets, just get them in a stunlock with your tazer and pump them full of rifle rounds.
Gun Golems I mostly deal with in a slow dodge-and-shoot pattern, but the most important thing to remember is that their grenades WILL HIT OTHER GOLEMS, so when there's more than one enemy, and one of them is drawing a bead on you, just put the other inbetween. They always stop moving right before they shoot, so you can still get out of the line of fire in case the other enemy drops (which it often will, each round will do 80-100 damage). Smile smugly to yourself.
Super Dickhead Golems: I don't have much advice for these that Crowe hasn't already given. Break the hold as quick as you can and back against the nearest wall. Then just wait for the noise and shoot 'em, they'll be stunned for 2-3 more shots depending on your firing speed. Sometimes they will charge and sometimes they'll even start a fight with one. GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY. On higher difficulties this will pretty much one-shot you. A quick lifedrain on these guys is a good way to dish some damage and quickly restore your life, but SHOOT THEM FIRST, that way they get stunned and they won't stab you while you're casting. By and large the most satisfying way to deal with these guys is the Pyke, you can just barbecue the hell out of them in one go as they won't be able to disappear while taking damage. The downside to this is it'll pretty much drain your fuel in one battle.
Good hunting!
Finally, Seiren schools us all on the details, and makes me suspect he's actually a NMC Hunter IRL
Seiren posted:
You've pretty much covered everything here, even the little tidbit about the Knight GOLEMs making a little buzzing noise when they actually appear. Sometimes it helps to turn down the music volume, this can help you in picking out said sound, and thus a chance to unload on them. By the way; you can break free from their initial grab with button-mashing, before any damage or status is applied. If they don't lead with the grab, they're going to charge at you, so be prepared to dodge if you know they're around. On Nightmare difficulty, barring rare circumstances involving cheating, if they deal any damage at all to Aya, she's dead. With Antibody Lv.3, their neck-grab attack does around 165 damage per-tick, their uncloaking swipe does around 220, a counter-swipe and their charge+leap attack can kill Aya from the maximum possible HP-level.
With Shooters, arranging a friendly-fire incident is actually much easier than it sounds; they will gleefully target you whenever you're outside their gun-whipping range, and do not care if any of their buddies are in the way. The best part about this, the damage inflicted isn't affected by Aya's condition. Not terribly relevant in Normal, but on Scavenger or Nightmare difficulties, you'll find that them shooting each other is substantially more effective than using your own bullets. A burst of 3 can inflict close to 200 damage, and a full blast of 6 can put almost any other Golem on the ground, but not quite. As far as damage goes, there is no notable difference between Pawn and Rook. What will come into play is the Rook's shield; it can block 2 shots fine, but any more and the shield is busted.
Every type of Golem is very vulnerable to R.Slug rounds, and somewhat vulnerable to .44 Magnum and 5.56 rounds. The former will always perform criticals and, while I can't quite remember, I think it'll hitstun them too, but maybe it is just a chance of hitstun. The latter two types simply pierce their defense allowing you to do appreciable damage to them. Standard Pistols or Pistol rounds are not recommended, though they can get you by in a pinch, or if you're low on other forms of ammo. You just need to be extra careful about PE usage (namely Energy Shot and Antibody) and your ammo-count, 500 P.B/Hydra rounds will not last long against the Golems. Grenades may be strong, but the long reload times make them a poor choice, and you can achieve similar amounts of damage with R.Slug. It should also be noted that ROOK-Golems are immune to critical hits outside of the R.Slug rounds, but only until their shield is broken. That said, it isn't really worth using the bullets to break the shield. Certain special weapons can break the shield and do damage hello, Hypervelocity Gun!
As far as hurting them with PE goes...it'll fly, but only against Pawns and Knights. Stick to Fire spells or Lifedrain, but watch out for long cast-times. Do not use Wind-spells. By this point you've more than likely used them to either hit weaknesses or rain status on your enemies, ignoring the initial damage in favor of the damage you can inflict for almost free. Only Pawn-Golems can be hit with Paralysis from Apobiosis. Even then, they shake it off fairly quickly. They are immune to everything else, and all other golems are immune to everything including Paralysis. There are rumors that Energy Ball will do high damage to them, but I haven't tested this much. It will work quite well against Knights, but the problem with that is, you have to cast it after the battle starts, meaning it won't work for when you want it to, it will also trigger their decoy counter-attacks, but if you have Level 3, they may get hit anyway. If they grab you with Energy Ball up, it will hit them, make them drop you, and they'll suffer very high damage. It comes down to luck, and skill > luck in any difficulty above Normal/Replay.
Whenever Golems take enough damage, they will fall to the ground. They're still alive, but they're not going to get back up in my experience, so you can take your timetorturingfinishing them off, perhaps giving you time to deal with the other enemies on the field. You could even Tonfa them at that point. Save some bullets. You know they're dead when electricity is arcing around their torso.
As a last bit of helpful information, attaching the Hunter Goggles to Aya's armor will prevent their flashy thing from affecting you regardless of the status effect it's trying to inflict.