Surprise last minute schedule changes at work made things interesting. Lets see if I can actually get this update finished now.
Part 3.2 School Is For Even More Learning
Top floor, pretty much the same layout as the first. Going top left down for this one. However, the very first fight I run into here is… different.
This fight is rare to run into. Painfully rare most of the time. In previous playthroughs I’ve spent an hour trying to find this guy. But he just fell into my lap for once! You may notice that he looks very similar to Spyke’s Cyandog. There’s a reason for that, Krosserdog is the “upgraded” version of Cyandog. Upgrade was in quotations for a very good reason.
Anyhow, the strategy for this fight is exactly the same as it was against Cyandog, except you now have more powerful weapons. That and you don’t really have to worry about Krosserdog’s damage quite as much. Compare his Left Arm with the one from Cyandog we’re currently rocking:
Unlike going from Revolver to Snipe Rifle, going from Snipe Rifle to Aim Rifle is not really an upgrade. Same armor, same charge/radiation, losing yet another 3 damage for 10 additional RoS.
I suppose some people would like the tradeoff, but to me its completely unnecessary. Remember, its not only the part’s RoS that matters, there’s a lot of other factors involved. Frankly in a lot of cases the RoS on the part itself matters the least. We also get no other benefit and we lose damage on an already fairly weak part.
All direct “upgrade” Medabots are like this; same armour, same or close to same charge/radiation, higher RoS, less damage. Its weird quite frankly, to me it should have been slightly higher armor, higher RoS and a higher power rating but in exchange for higher charge/radiation penalties.
Because this fight is so rare I actually scummed it with the emulator so I could go over all of the parts and see if there are any I would actually recommend keeping. The Right Arm isn’t any better really, being a measly 20 damage while we’re rocking 44. The Head is okay, not something you’d replace on Metabee but serviceable on another Medabot. I ultimately went with his legs:
Not that I’m switching to them of course. That propulsion difference of just 5 points is noticeable, I tested it out in a few battles and Metabee would be a field sprite farther back before Kintaro could use his first attack on him. The slightly higher armor is nice but the lower defence kinda counteracts that. Don’t even get a slight damage boost from Remoteness as its identical, only get one if you were silly enough to slap a melee part onto Metabee.
Despite all of those downsides, these are probably the second best shooting based legs you can get for a while, all the rest are melee focused or something crappy like floating. So if you happen to run into one while playing on an emulator this early in the game and you want to take advantage of it, save scum to get the leg parts.
Surprise rare encounter aside, lets continue onto the far left classroom.
Boy NPC: However, he’s pretty weak and doesn’t come to school that often either. Isn’t he in your class?
Don’t know. Lets see what combat tip we can get here.
“When Leg Medaparts with high propulsion are equipped, Berserk attacks get stronger.”
Something I covered last update, but a good reminder. Next classroom:
Aha! Found the Screws hiding hole. First, the Robattling tip: “Robattle Basics. Step 6. It’s easy to get critical hits when you use Aimed Shot attacks.” I’ll drop you in a washing machine and put you in the spin cycle!
You’d better remember this! I won’t take this lying down!
The same trick won’t work twice in a row.
Yep, still sore losers. Lets see, next room-
Alright. What about the one after that?
Whoops! Bottom row of classrooms it is then. Less classrooms on the upper floor than the bottom floor it would seem.
Girl NPC: At least that’s what I heard the other day…
That’s a name alright, if true.
“If you destroy a lot of your enemy’s Medaparts, the chances of you getting parts you don’t have goes up.”
This is very useful information to know, and also a reason why you shouldn’t always just go for the headshot ASAP. I don’t know how much each part destruction increases the odds, but its something to keep in mind: when farming for new parts, destroy everything. If you destroy every part the chance of getting a new one is nearly 100%, I know that much from experience. Its also not 0% if you only destroy one part. Beyond that its going to be a bit of a learn by doing situation.
There is actually only one classroom left, and its where the plot progresses.
The boy in the back challenges us to a Robattle when we talk to him. Kintaro as usual. Yawn.
“If your Leg Medapart gets destroyed mid-Robattle, your mobility is halved”
I believe that’s the last Robattle Basic we’re going to find in the school. All together some really good, useful information for first time players… that’s completely hidden with no indication that checking a random corner of each classroom with tell you that. 
Its a shame, there should have been at least a random NPC that tells you to check the walls for them, new players would probably talk to every NPC and be able to find out that way. If you don’t have this knowledge the Robattles can feel really bizarre with Medabots suddenly not avoiding attacks they could normally avoid and whatnot. And good luck ever figuring out that propulsion boost to Berserk attacks on your own.
Lets check out the newspaper, see if we can catch the headline Erika choose.
Well its… decent at least. We actually get mentioned instead of just our Medabot. Lets see what she has to say.
Hey Erika. Did you write a good article?
Hmm? I’m writing it now. But more importantly, there is a rumour going around that some weirdo is using a Medabot to tickle girls. His hideout has to be in town for sure. Go check it out and I’ll be there right after I finish this article.
Why do I have to go?
The culprit will escape while you stand there complaining! Get going!
Yep, we’re committing to this being the next mini-plot. Ugh. But before we can even step out of the classroom to go poking around town for a serial tickler, something happens after the next random encounter.
Oh yes, it has happened. I can finally talk about Medals in depth now that one of the pages won’t be just blank!
First up, the main page for a Medal. Attribute tells you what Medapart type it gains bonuses from. Aim tells you what type of Medapart the Medal will force a Medabot to target if its present on the enemy team. Remember back before the cutscene of the Screws 3-on-1 attack, when I said maybe Metabee could pull out the win? This here is exactly why: Metabee is forced to aim at Strike parts. Peppercat would naturally be in the leader spot of the 3-on-1, so every attack Metabee used would have to target her. So if Metabee could shutdown Peppercat before Totalizer got a shot off or before the combined chip damage from Peppercat and Cyandog shut him down, he actually could win that fight legitimately. In the Rokusho version of the game it wouldn’t be nearly as easy: Rokusho is a melee Medabot so he only attacks whoever is closest with both Peppercat and Cyandog moving pretty quickly.
Anyhow, Compatibility tells you the RoS bonus you get for each compatible Medapart. That RoS bonus is for every Medapart the Medabot is using, not just the compatible ones by the way. So if say, I swapped out one of Metabee’s arms for Kintaro’s Light Axe arm, his total RoS bonus would go down from 16 to 12, but that 12 would also apply to the Light Axe. Its one of the ways you can balance out using Laser based attacks and making sure they still actually hit: make the other parts give RoS bonuses.
Now, this is the page where I can finally start talking about Medaforce attacks. What Metabee just unlocked in game (and what he used a super version of in the Screws 3-on-1 cutscene), is an attack called Ultra Shot.
With all Medaforce attacks, the gauge at the bottom left of the screen during the battle needs to be full, 80/80. You can spend an action charging it by 40, and whenever that Medabot takes damage they gain 20. However, each Medaforce attack will use a different amount of the gauge. In Ultra Shot’s case it uses the full 80 because its an amazing attack. As it states, it uses all of the power of your shooting parts in one blow. Doesn’t have to be bullet based attacks, just anything that is classified as shooting or aimed shots. Lasers count (but they don’t get their double damage bonus used in the calculation), Missiles count, Gravity attacks count, you get the picture. And its Chain Damage enabled. To be specific, its formula is Dmg = Power + TotalCompatibilityBonus/8 + MedalSkill/8, with
Power = 10 + Power of all shoot & aim shot Medaparts
chain dmg to 1 enemy.
As I said, its kinda nuts. And its why the Kabuto Medal will never leave my team. And why it will only ever equip shooting parts unless I have a really good reason to do otherwise.
Unlike in the cutscene, it only hits one target, hence the single red arrow beside the Ultra Shot name. The Skill box says its an Aim Shot attack, but Medaforce attacks don’t follow the rules of normal Medapart attacks for penalties/bonuses: its mostly for show and to explain how the attack is launched.
Medaforce attacks are unlocked at set Medal levels, same level for everyone. Each Medal has their own set of three: the first one is unique to that Medal (with 4 exceptions for Medals we won’t see for a looooooong time), while the second and third ones are shared with one other Medal.
Here is something I pretty much never use. You can set up an automated attack rotation for each Medal, choosing from Head, Left Arm, Right Arm, Charge Medaforce, Medaforce 1, Medaforce 2, Medaforce 3, and Random. You can use to use the attack rotation in battle, and your Medabot will fight on its own for the rest of the battle. If a part is broken it will replace that part of the rotation with a random attack.
Personally I rather keep control of all actions, just to make sure nothing stupid happens. You can also shorten the rotation, and I guess its good if you’re grinding a particular fight and have a particular path that always destroys all Medaparts? But even then nothing is quite guaranteed.
This is the big one: how well your Medal actually does at each type of part action. Those are all of the possible categories, I should point out Defend is different from when a Medabot avoids a Critical Hit and redirects the damage to the healthiest part, its a specific action we’ll see later on in the game.
Those little pips indicate how far along a particular action is to levelling up. Using that particular type of action adds to the pip though the higher the level of that action, the more times you have to repeat that action to gain a pip. So lets say at Level 6 it only takes 2 Shoot attacks to gain a pip, it might take 50 at Level 80.
Once a pip bar is filled up, your Medal gains a level in that specific area and it will pop up in the middle of a Robattle to tell you as much. Its those levels that influence the RoS and damage formulas from before. And while this early on it doesn’t matter as much, by an arc or two you really don’t want to be using action types that your Medal isn’t good at; it will either completely whiff if its an attack or if its an effect it will barely last. I’ve seen effects last for literally a handful of frames because the Medal had zero training in Strike and it was tied to a Strike attack.
Every Medal start off really good at two things, and then kinda good at two other things. So in the Kabuto Medal’s case it started off with high Shoot and Aim Shot levels, and a small bump to Defend and Support. Its nice they give you that flexibility, it matters a lot more for later Medals where you probably don’t want to be pigeonhole’d into certain things.
If you really wanted to, you can bruteforce levels of any type of action into any Medal and force it to become good at it. But keep in mind during every fight the Medal gains experience and starts to level up its overall level in the upper left corner. When that hits 100, the Medal can no longer grow at all. All action levels are locked. Choose wisely!
Anyhow, let’s head outside to start looking around for a hideout. I have a pretty good idea in mind.
-bark bark-
Eeek!
That’s Salty! But who was that other voice?
And cue the lovey dovey sounding music.
Is this your dog?
Wow, cute… Um! I mean… was my dog bothering you?
Not at all. He suddenly came running out and I was just surprised.
O-oh, is that all? Thank goodness. Um…
Nice to meet you. My name is Karin.
Wow… Karin… Um, I’m Ikki Tenryou.
By the way, did you see a boy from the next town over whose name was Koji?
I, I didn’t see him.
I see… Please tell me if you do see him.
Okaaay…
Well, I’ll see you later then.
Otherwise, everyone would be talking about a cute girl like that.
Welp, Ikki was smitten at first sight alright. Given that Erika and Samantha are the only two non-generic girls in the school, I get his point about politeness as well.
Now lets go look around town.
Wait, Ikki, I think you took the idea of a hideout the wrong way.
Good afternoon, Ikki.
Check out my cool new Medawatch!
Well then, I’ll just have to give you a present to congratulate you on your new Medabot! Please go into the room next door and select one Medal of your choice.
Are you sure it’s Okay? Yay! Thank you very much!
O_O. Nae just giving away Medals now? Must really be trying to keep Ikki quiet about the whole punching incident earlier. But yes, at certain times in the game if you go talk to Nae you get to pick a Medal. These are all limited time windows however, you miss one and you miss it for good.
I’ll let the thread decide what Medal we grab. Just a reminder as to what they are now that you all have a bit of a better idea of what Medals do:
- BAT - very compatible with Medaparts that target Air Type Medabots
- CHAMELEON - very compatible with Medaparts that hinder an enemy’s attacks
- KAPPA - very compatible with Medaparts that target Sea Type Medabots
- RABBIT - very compatible with Medaparts that control a Medabot’s speed
- MONKEY - very compatible with Medaparts that confuse Medabots
- MOUSE - very compatible with Medaparts that assist an allies attack
That’s all of the information you have to go on when making a choice. If no consensus is reach I’ll use an RNG generator to pick one. I will say that the shop in town’s store is open and they are carrying an Anti-Air Medabot and a Support Medabot. Neither one are exactly good, I’d be reluctant to buy many, if any of those parts, but they exist and its something a new player would know about. I’ll show off those parts next update.
Now onto the plot progression trigger
The one suspicious building in town.
This place looks pretty shady.
Immediately afterwards, Erika runs up. Boy she was done fast.
Ikki! We’ve got trouble! A Medafighter came from the neighbouring town’s Rosewood Private School and started picking fights in our own school! He’s in there now!
Why?
Don’t sak me! Hurry and come to school!
But why do I have to go?
Just come! Got it?
Fine fine. Might as well add another name to our list.
You walk SO slow! The Medafighter is already here!
Not only that, he has his own heroic sounding theme!
How dare you talk to me like that! I’ll challenge you but don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you.
Hey Boss. If we beat this guy, it’s going to be a real smack in the face to Rosewood Private School!
I’m gonna mess up your clothes too!
I’ll take you all on! Time to Robattle!
What a scoop!
-click!-
-click!-
-health depleting sound-
-click!-
-click!-
Hey you! Don’t take only my bad side!
-click!-
Medabot, retreat!
What should we do, Boss?
Now I’ve gotta wash my Medabot too!
Men! Resort to Plan B!
Let’s get outta here!
I’ll say. He won a 3-on-1 without a surprise attack out of nowhere! Is this the time to be impressed? Let’s go!
Wha?
And with that, Erika races off. But still, another guy who can beat the Screws in a 3-on-1? Sounds like a worthy Medafighter to be sure.
Next time on Lets Play Medabots RPG Metabee Version: Robattles, Skirts, and Latex Suits.