#nargacuga and azure rathalos have cool bases

[feelinkeeli]

TCW x Monster Hunter ideas/thoughts

@thepatchycat since I now know one other person all for this crossover with me. So general crossover ideas:

The clones and Felynes! A cuter, more heart melting interactions I could not imagine.

Have you seen the cutscenes of the Felyne chef from Monster Hunter World? Clones getting delicious gourment meals they actually feel full on after because the portions are ridiculous. Felynes - between the merchants, healers, and palicos - just doing their best to take care of the clones.

Mutual "I can't protect them!" feelings

Riders being the MH equivalent of Force Sensitive. They got the power of empathy and magic rocks to help them befriend monsters. But like.... force sensitivity not required?

I don't know if you know the history/back story of Monster Hunter universe but it's basically a post-apocalyptic world and could easily be written into the GFFA as a former Sith world.

Locals 100% not worried about CIS droid army because the local monster populations will probably be more than the droids can handle. (They're right too.)

Locals 100% insulting clone armor quality and despairing that they do not have the resources to kit out all of the GAR. But like... they'll try for all the clones stationed on their planet.

Monster Hunter being a world the Mandalorians tried to conquer during the Mandalorian Wars and got their butts kicked by the locals and the local wildlife. To this day Mandalorians that know their history get twitchy when the world is brought up.

Jango Fett having some ancestors from Monster hunter planet, meaning all the clones do too. Turns out some things the clones thought the Kaminoans modified them for are really Monster Hunter genes coming through.

Jedi 100% deciding all monsters are friend-shaped and insist on trying to chat with the Elder Dragons despite the fact that Elder dragons dont like humanoids and dislike visitors from offworld even more. Clones would despair more if locals were not so busy deciding the clones were friend-shaped and in need of TLC (including the monsters).

On more specific crossover ideas

Commander Doom becoming a rider and getting a Lagombi. Because I refuse to believe Doom was based off Doctor Doom and not Doom Guy

Blackout and a Nargacuga

(a sort of Jedi are Riders AU? Or it's an option for Jedi?) Anakin thinks he'd get a cool dragon as a monstie. Ahsoka bonded with a Tigrex and Obi-wan looks like he might bond with a Khezu of all things if he keeps rubbing his beard in fascination like that (he befriends a Zinorge instead). Anakin befriends a Qurupeco. Ahsoka is crying she is laughing so hard. And then Rex shows up with an Azure Rathalos like "help. I am not a Jedi. I am not cut out for this."

[nostalgic-blood]

Three boxes labelled “Fragile”, two damaged, one with a giant hole. I found some sort of clear sheet that said this was found like so on the conveyor belt, and for me to file a claim on their website or to call them, but when I checked that, well.. You have to be the sender for that kind of stuff.

So I emailed them, but anyway... I was looking at the damaged figure online and realized maybe this wasn’t as broken as I thought!

See look! Perfectly fine. 

Well no. Turns out I can stick the red string thing into her hat, but it can fall out quite easily. I put some force on the other one and it wouldn’t come out, so I don’t think it’s meant to be detachable... I did read a review that said they were detachable, but then how come I couldn’t pull the other one off? HOW COME!?!?!? MYSTERIES ABOUND.

But I guess, if I don’t play with it or whatever and just display it, it’s fine? I despise posing nendos anyway. Still, this was a like-new Aya and broken hat is not like new.

Though the experiment did work in a way. Sanae has much looser joints than Aya aside from her right arm >_>, the beginning of sticky plastic syndrome in the back of her face plates and Youmu’s base! Yes. Whoever sold this the first time around did not provide the proper base. I don’t know if it’s more likely they had this figure as a figure collector and not as a Touhou fan or if they were so careless as to send off the wrong base. They are similar colours I guess, but Sanae is not affiliated with ghosts in any way, so...

Also every accessory I wasn’t using went into the figma sandwich bags. As if I could reuse their boxes as containers. >_>

You know, I had many options where to buy this damn dragon. There was a cheaper one, where it was used and had no box. I chose not to buy it because I wanted the box. I thought this would have the box. I was lied to. There was no reason to spend those extra few dollars to not get a box. Bah.

Ah well, from now on I’m probably just going to buy the whole box sets anyway unless I only like one monster and despise the rest. Here’s Azure Rathalos compared to its similar brethren!

These are ultimately trading figures, and since I’ve jumped up a tier recently buying more display-type figures like scales and nendos, these really seem tiny in comparison. When the oft-mentioned tiny figmas are taller than you, that is a problem. That’s why the most beautiful fauna in my shelf bestiary is still good ol’ Brachydios.

I hope I have something that can join you soon. 8D

Guess what was in the other damaged box?

Those mail carriers really were having it at Aya... Kill every trash bird before its destination! An admirable goal, but I only feel 10% shame at spending too much money on Aya figures which are all ridiculously overpriced in the aftermarket. SHE’S EXPENSIVE. ALL OF HER. But I relented, I caved, here be the Aya.

True to Griffon Enterprises’ infamous quality, Aya looks weird next to my other Touhou scales. See, Alice looks downwards. Keine faces forwards and is pretty level, Aya... unless she’s leaning and I got a very. very old figure, she’s sort of pushing her chest out and leaning back a slight. It really makes the three of them look completely off compared to one another. 

Not really noticeable when you’re looking from the front though. I need a bigger makeshift shooting studio if I wanna fit in Alice. Oh and if I for some reason wanna display Aya without the puffballs attached to her hat (which I usually associate more with Momiji anyway) there is actually an option!

It’s so small and loseable. 

Actually she came wearing this first, but since I associated her MoF outfit with the puffballs, well... the more annoying hat was put on instead!

The pegs on these bases are decided on a whim. I can see Aya's geta needing these plastic holders to put in the slot, but why does Alice need them?

In fact she's on her tiptoes making her leaning ever more forward with her gaze downwards all the more obvious. Plus they're located at rather random spots. Why is Aya further back? Look at all the space in front of her! I should put a party of figumates and petit nendos on these bases too with all the space they take up. About the only thing I like about these bases are the shiny metal plates with their names etched into them.

Finally we have Sayaka! So a little bit of background, the screen on the iPad in my first story post is fake. I got her on Mandarake along with the wrong order I haven't opened and used EMS (one of the faster shipping options) on. So Sayaka and co. were one of my latest orders. I intended to buy her new off AmiAmi but waited too long and missed the preorders. (She's was re-released) So I ended up getting a so-called used one and Sayaka was completely unopened! Far better conditions than Sanae, though that's to be expected. We may never know what Aya's original condition was. :( 

This could have been a super neat and tidy box stack...

Nothing much to say about Sayaka. Her skirt is less flexible than Kyouko's and her cape further impedes movement so as a figma that docks marks. She can't even sit down like Kyouko can. She does have way too many cool swords though. They aren’t especially sturdy inside their individual stands, so I chose not to display her that way. Her all PVC cape is super cool too but even more unwieldy so I left her cotton one on. 

Bootleg Aya can now take pics underneath Aya this time around, as per canon!!

Since AyaSana have taken the OTP spot where Kyousaya were, they've now reclaimed their position atop my computer case. Why does the Sayaka nendo keep falling over even while sitting without their ugly base? They’re SITTING. Even if their heads are too big and heavy for nendos to realistically stand up, at least make their SITTING be viable! Sayaka is barely sitting upright thanks to both Kyouko and the tealight behind her supporting her (which coincidentally is the one with the Mercy charm on it P:). It’s like a metaphor for her entire character or something! In fact I just looked up and she fell over again!! Goddamnit Sayaka! Even in plastic toy form you frustrate me! Stupid overly dense head!! Inferior nendoroid and inferior figma! This paragraph was supposed to outline my Madoka figures’ great Canadian pride but thanks to Sayaka I had to spend all the space ranting about her! 

Here we have Azure Rathalos who should really turn around and set aflame those Negima mangas behind him. Once I get more figures all those books and such are being moved. I don’t even care about Marvel and for some reason I have a dozen Wolverine books too...

So here’s how it looks so far. As you can clearly tell all my lesser figures are down below, as they should be. I really have nothing against ponies. They’re just really low quality toys and not nearly in the same category as the figures above. I don’t really have enough interest in MLP these days to get the more expensive vinyl figures or other cool things. Maybe the movie or season seven will change that? I dunno. I highly doubt it.

Yes that’s a b-daman. And there’s a beyblade in front of it too. And yes that is a plane. And yes that is a Burger King Krillin. These are the toys of my childhood, and the pink multicoloured horses are the toys of my adulthood. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life either.

With all my harping over posing nendoroids for some reason they are by far the most photogenic of any of my figures. If only they weren’t so frustrating! I had to use one of my spare base stands for Aya because the one she came with was so loose a mere breeze would send her upside-down crashing into Sanae and throwing her off my shelf down below. Listen I know her box got absolutely mullered but those issues are actually common with the figure itself. The fact that she doesn’t have a customized base like all the other Touhou figures (I think), has loose joints, a hat that can break super easily, and a stupid meme face that replaced one of her three faces are all usually minuses for a figure’s rating, BUT CONSIDERING I HAVE TWO OTHER AYAS THAT WASN’T STOPPING ME FROM BUYING IT. God, it’s like this nendo is a metaphor for her character too.

Also this shot looks like Aya just photobombed Sanae’s selfie or something. Like Aya is so blindingly fast she can take a pic and be in it at the same time!! With her camera in her hand still! That’s one impressive camera. Only very recently did I come to realize Sanae’s distress face has a blush on it too, and now I wish Aya had a similar face as well. She’s usually making that face in this rareTP anyway...

[rumikothefox]

Favorite Monster Hunter Monsters, Part 2

So here is the second half of my favorite normal Monster Hunter monsters. Once again, these are in no particular order.  Let’s get right to it.

Lucent Nargacuga

I put Lucent because it is definitely a very cool rare species of Nargacuga, but really, it could be this or the original Nargy. Green is pretty cool, too. I often say that my true favorite monster is either Nargacuga or Zinogre (way to go spoiling an entry on this list, right?). Nargacuga looks very much like a black panther in many ways, along with the roar to match. Despite not fighting him in the game he was the flagship of, I fell in love with him when I fought him in 3U. His movements are sleek and I love how fighting him makes you wonder just who is hunting who. Lucent takes it a step further by being able to go completely invisible when he enrages, only letting you track him by his glowing eyes. His fight is on top of a tower in basically a small arena, so it makes it very difficult to evade him.

I love the Nargacuga set, especially as a gunner set. 

It has very high evasion and has this cool ninja look to it. The Lucent armor looked especially cool, but sadly, I was never able to get it. Lucent was just TOO damn difficult for me to want to bother farming him. It was like “spikes for everyone” Opera-style, plus the fact that they could poison you and there was NO way Lucent was going to give you an opportunity to deal with that poison while you were on the screen with him. Lucent is highly fast and aggressive, so reprieve is something you rarely get against him.

Stygian Zinogre

So I mentioned Zinny was hitting this list, but I have to say that Stygian JUST pulled ahead on this one. OG Zinogre is awesome on so many levels, but Stygian, as frustrating as he can be, just amazing as well. Zinogre is a giant lightning wolf monster, basically. He was, at the time, the only canine monster I’d seen in this series and was very cool. I loved his vocals, I loved his style, I loved his moveset, and MAN did I love his music (I may have to cover music in another post, because that is another cool topic to put out). Stygian swaps the lightning element for a dragon element and man is he hard. For those unfamiliar, dragon element will cause dragonblight, a debuff that causes the element or status on your weapon to be disabled until you cleanse it. It can get really frustrating. 

This dog will do everything he can to get you. Claw stomps, throwing elemental balls at you, flipping through the air and either smashing you with his tail or attempting to do a back flop on you, shoulder checks... He isn’t too bad when you first fight him, but as with normal Zinogre, he has two levels of charge above his base level that he’ll build up to. Each charge will make him faster and more aggressive.  And hope and pray to the MH gods that you get out alive if he enrages while on a max level charge. 

I also love his blademaster set on females.

It has that thing going where it gives you its own hair and you have these adorable little dog ears and I really just can’t help myself. >.>

Azure/Silver Rathalos

So we have another instance where I really couldn’t decide and just listed both. Rathalos is a cool monster, but Azure and Silver have such cool colorations to them and have interesting twists on the normal moveset. It’s totally not because my favorite colors are blue and silver. >.>

Ahem. Azure is one of the first subspecies I ever saw, being on the US cover art for MH3U. He’s faster and hits harder than your standard Rathalos and hangs out in the air a bit more. He also seems to really have a homing instinct for those poison claw attacks, moreso than normal Rath. He also had one of the best armors for blademasters in MH3U skill-wise and I remember wearing his set a LOT with my Brachy switch axe.

Silver is a rare species (the difference between subspecies, rare species, and variant has always been kind of dumb to me) that basically says “Fuck this, I’m just going to be airborne about 80-90% of the time. Deal with it.” He’ll start on the ground like any other Rath, but once you get that first enrage and he goes airborne, it feels like nothing short of a flash bomb or him finally running out of stamina is going to get him down. And that very well might be the case, to be honest. You fight him on top of a tower, so there are no other maps to escape to.  You’re trapped with him and he’s super pissed about you intruding.

I have to give an honorable mention here to Rathian and her sub/rare species, the Pink Rathian and Gold Rathian. Rathalos is the male counterpart to the exclusively female Rathian. She didn’t make the list, only because Rathalos pulled a bit ahead and it felt redundant to have them both on here. She focuses a bit more on poison than fire and likes the ground a bit more than Rathalos. You also tend to fight her earlier in any game they appear in. In World, you find that these two are difficult to deal with when spawned together in the Ancient Forest, due to the fact that Rathalos is very protective of his mate. I found instances where I’d use a dung pod to shoo him away from her, only for either her to seek him out or for him to come right back, at which point if I hid, he’d proceed to hover over her like a mother hen, looking around for where I went.  It was a cool touch, but also a bit of a terrifying one.

Black Diablos

Black Diablos is labeled as a subspecies of Diablos, but as in-game lore and other sources will explain, a Black Diablos is a normal female Diablos. During mating season, the females darken to a deep black color as a warning to other monsters to not get in her way. She’s getting that D and god help you if you get in her way.

Diablos was already a terrifying monster to me. Diablos trades any sort of elemental or status attacks in favor of raw brute force. For the most part, its attacks are highly telegraphed, so you can avoid them pretty easily if you’re paying attention. Lose focus and get hit, though, and you can easily get nearly one-shot if not at full health. That’s at a full 150, I-ate-food-for-buffs, hp. If you’re at base 100, say goodbye. Especially gunners.

Black Diablos takes a step further. She’s faster, stronger, and her horns are harder to break. She also changes up her charge attacks and will often charge in ways you weren’t prepared for. Still, maxed out Black Diablos weapons often had some of the best raw damage in the game, even factoring in their negative affinity.  And taking out a monster this dangerous is always immensely satisfying.

Odogaron

So now we’re touching into Monster Hunter World territory. The monsters I’ll be mentioning aren’t really super spoilery (they were all shown in the trailers), but if you’re unsure, stop now.

Odogaron is a monster I highly looked forward to since the trailers.  He was scary and icky but I was super curious about how this monster would behave.  Plus, it was awesome to see another canine-based monster. Zinny was feeling lonely.

Getting closer looks at him, it’s apparent that he’s not a skinless dog like the impression the trailers gave me. Instead he reminds me of an intricately-carved jade statue (albeit jade of a particularly bloody color). The armor you made from him for your hunter and your palico have this detailed sort of Chinese look to them that is really cool. The female hunter set is one of my favorite sets in the game so far appearance-wise.

As far as combat, Doggo is a bleed-type. The double claws he uses against you rip and tear in ways that bleed the hunter dry. As with dealing with Seregios’ bleed debuff, you either must crouch for a time to recover, or eat a piece of meat. This monster has similar movesets to Zinogre, though there are a few lunges and such that are purely his own.  He is also smaller but much faster than the other canine. It isn’t uncommon for Doggo to leap off my screen and cause me to have to reorient my camera to keep track of him. He definitely earns his place as the apex predator of the Rotten Vale.

Radobaan

I honestly surprised myself when this monster came to mind when thinking of my favorites.  The more I pondered it, though, the more it totally made sense. I honestly never thought I’d love a monster that is essentially an Uragaan at its core. I mean, nothing BAD about an Uragaan, but I wouldn’t put him in a high place, either. But there’s something about Radobaan that makes him less annoying than an Uragaan, more unique, and more fun.

At first, I thought the bones of the Radobaan were his own. But noticing the Diablos horns on his sides, I started to question it. That was answered further when I started to break off the bones on his body, only for him to go to a bone pile and roll around in it until he was covered in brand new bones. His actual skin has a tar-like substance that coats it and makes him able to stick the bones on his body like armor. You have to break the bones off to make him vulnerable. I had a lot of fun with him and he’s one of the few monsters in the Rotten Vale that don’t fight down in the nasty, health-sapping acid floor downstairs, so it made him that much more fun to fight. 

Tobi-Kadachi

Not the best or worst on this list, just the last. Tobi is like if you took a flying squirrel, gave him a snake head, and gave him the ability to charge himself with static electricity. Oh, and made him highly aggressive. Can’t forget that.

Tobi is fast and can give you thunderblight. He’s especially tough in forested areas where he has trees to jump in to use to jump on YOU. Though this often results in him going up into Rathalos’ nest to fight you and you can imagine how THAT ends up half the time. He will charge his fur up with static and seems to have different levels of charge, similar to a Zinogre. He’s even prone to sometimes doing Zinny’s tail slap on you.

Despite how fast and dangerous he is, though, I found myself learning him pretty fast. He’s tough, but he’s by far not the toughest monster out there and is pretty easy to farm.  Which is good because he gives you thunder-based weapons, which are good against a number of monsters, notably Rathalos, who is rather scary without a proper setup.

He’s challenging enough to not be boring, but is easy enough that you can casually hunt him for fun and not feel like you’re struggling.

And that’s it for the normal monsters. I know it was a lot, but I guess that just goes to show how good Capcom is at making memorable and engaging monsters. Next time I’ll do an Elder Dragon edition. Then maybe a music version. o/