Warrens: The Swinefolk
Swine Chopper: So I'll spoil part of the Warrens storyline told from the narrator monologues while meeting the two area bosses, and just tell you that the monstrous, mutated pig-men of the Warrens are the result of your crazy ancestor experimenting with profane rituals, and the literal leftovers of his experiments have been transformed into these monstrous pig-men who want nothing but to butcher and kill anything in its path. They're considered Beast/Human by the game, and... y'know, I've always found pigs to be fairly creepy, and while Swine Chopper isn't super mutilated, being the 'base', simple enemy, I do like that it still has stubby little pig feet. A pretty neat, disgusting-looking design all around from the chains to the weaponry it swings around to the boar tusks.
Swine Slasher: The other swines tend to play up this bizarre combination with torture implements, and Swine Slasher here has replaced an arm with a hook, its legs with swords and walks around with that utterly gimp-looking metal mask. A pretty creepy design, and I do like the contrast it strikes with some of the other Swine with how lean it looks. The swine, being, y'know, disgusting creatures, the Swine Slasher often inflicts debuffs to your party that make it more likely for them to contract diseases or the 'bleed' status.
Swine Wretch: The variant of the Madmen exclusive to the Swines, the Swine Wretch always looked the most utterly disturbing of the Swine monsters in the Warrens. From that face to the long, human-like arms that support its body, to those poorly-developed legs, to the random human skull that grows out of its flesh, the Swine Wretch is also bizarrely the only Swinefolk to be considered purely a "Beast", instead of a Beast/Human. In addition to stressing out your party (because come on look at this thing) it also vomits its own loogie at your party, causing a chance for them to contract diseases.
Swine Drummer: Not the most interesting of the Swine, as it's basically the support unit, drumming on its edgy human-flesh-skin drum with bone clubs. Unlike the bone trumpeteer guy, though, this one only uses its drums to debuff your party members. I love just how gross the stretched-out lips on its screaming mouth looks.
Swinetaur: The Swinetaur doesn't appear until the more difficult variants of the Warrens dungeons, and it's the "big enemy" of the Swine, taking up a couple of slots on its own. I'm not sure why, but I've always found the Swinetaur to honestly be not that huge of a threat. I do enjoy the sheer absurdity of a mutated, giant pig-centaur with a bunch of shields wrapped up around its big fat belly. I also appreciate how its face is always covered up, making it look different from all the other more common gross pig-faced monsters.
Swine Skiver: Oh, huh. This thing exists. I genuinely forgot about this thing. It's got a cool, furry texture that brings to mind warthogs more than pigs, and it's got a cool looking bladed helmet thing, and I think it just sort of messes up your formation and whatnot? I dunno, it feels a bit different from most of the flesh horror of the swinefolk from the game, and just looks like it could just be a member of like any generic fantasy boar-men race.
Carrion Eater: Exclusive to the Warrens are these giant worm monsters, the Carrion Eaters, which are giant centipede-maggot-grub things with a pretty nasty multi-fanged mouth. I've seen enough creepy worm-maggot monsters to realize that I might very well never be tired of them. I do like that this one looks more arthropod-like than worm-like, which is interesting.
I do like the implication of the game mechanics that these giant maggot-grubs function as some sort of attack dogs for the swine. Some of the swine enemies can mark a member of your party, and all the Carrion Eaters will then just deal extra damage to it. A nice little thematic combination of two animals that are traditionally associated with consuming refuse.
Large Corpse Eater: The larger versions of the Carrion Eaters have been utterly transformed by Cthulhu radiation-magic corruption into something even more horrifying, though, swapping out its little buggy-legs for octopus suction pads, growing a hunchback, a fuck-ton of glowing eyes, and a tentacle mouth. Only seen in attack animations is a Xenomorph-style inner mouth of a mass of wrapped-up flesh, eyeballs, and what appears to be a dog's skull or something used as makeshift jaws. It's pretty monstrous! I like this thing
Swine Prince & Wilbur: The first boss of the Warrens is the Swine Prince, who is basically a bigger, grosser and creepier version of the other Swinefolk, and it's all well and good. It's impressive, and I do like some details it has like the completely hollow eyes, the exposed brain with a crown, and the fact that it seemingly slithers around on a mount of intestines and gore like a weird slug. That's neat, and the implication that the Ancestor summoned a dumb brute of an Elder God and trapped it in a giant rotting body stitched from pig corpses is more hilarious than badass...
But what made this boss fight memorable was the presence of little Wilbur there, whose real nature is never truly explained. Wilbur basically acts as the little order-giver for the Swine Prince (later Swine King and Swine God), directing the Swine Prince where to attack and what to do... so you'd think that killing off the mastermind, the tiny defenseless pig giving the order is the right way to go, right? Well, do that and the Swine Prince will go absolutely berserk. It's a pretty fun little mechanic.
The Formless Flesh: Known as the Inchoate and Unstable Flesh on lower levels, the Flesh is the other boss for the Warrens, and it's basically a huge, literal shambling mound of body horror. Taking up four spaces and constantly regenerating new forms that share a HP pool, each flesh party looks different, based on a different organ, and has different attacks. This was the result of a gigantic pile of swine and human corpses possessed by "unnameable things from outer spheres", which explains the large amount of random eyeballs and mouths on these things.
And while the giant pig head, the giant pig spine-and-ribcage and the gigantic, pulsating aorta are neat and cool, I am juvenile and I absolutely love that the fourth member of this is just an upturned pig's ass with an enlarged bunghole with Sarlacc tentacles around its gigantic butthole. Not to be too juvenile about it, but... hee hee, butt. Anyway, it's a pretty cool boss fight.
Weald: The Fungal Folk
Fungal Scratcher: The Weald is populated by mushroom-men! The mushroom-men are considered Human/Eldritch, and what lore we got tells us that the fungus in the jungle takes over lost explorers and basically turn them into walking, shambling zombies. These are like a fusion of myconids and zombies, which are pretty awesome! Fungal Scratcher is a pretty creepy-looking mushroom man, and not content with just a single giant toadstool cap replacing the human host's head, it's got a cluster of other sorts of ear mushrooms and the like all over its body. Interestingly, the Fungal Scratcher moves entirely on instinct -- it's got high health but slow and cumbersome, but once another fungus creature 'marks' one of your party members, suddenly it becomes focused and is able to deal far deadly attacks.
Fungal Artillery: Unfortunately, there aren't a whole ton of fungal enemy variants, which is a shame. I do like what we got, though, like the Fungal Artillery here, who's a human corpse so transformed into this hilarious, weird scuttling spider-thing that is host to a gigantic puffball mushroom. I think the human skull hanging down from its crotch is a mite distracting, and it would probably work a lot better as just a mass of fungus, legs and arms. Still cool, though.
Blighted Giant: The final fungus monster is the Blighted/Corrupted Giant, boo! The Weald is shared with a lot of bandits, as well as witches, ectoplasms and random beasts, which makes me sad that we don't get more fungus monsters, and especially since the two bosses in the Weald aren't fungus-based. Boo! I'm not sure if the Unclean Giant are actual fantasy giants taken over by mushrooms, just one of those unreasonably huge bandit bloodletter dudes taken over by mushrooms, or a regular Fungal Scratcher mutated into a giant size. It's all right, but not particularly memorable.
Crone: Crones show up in the medium and hard levels of the Weald, and would be revealed to be agents of one of the two bosses of the Weald, the hag. Their design is serviceable, and kinda look like an evil version of the Antiquarian hero with that weird gas-receptacle thing, but ultimately pretty bland.
Hateful Virago: No, it's not the drug you're thinking of. The Hateful Virago only appears in the hard levels of the Weald, and I do like their design, looking like a sinister plague doctor without using a mask, instead using this bizarre animal skull and... y'know what, I'm not sure what part of it is part of her mutation, or if she's just a mostly-regular woman underneath that huge rags-and-bones spectacle. Despite her mushroom backpack she's still considered as purely human. In addition to throwing hexes at your forces, the Virago will transform one of the corpses of its allies into a "Necrotic Fungus", which will fuck up all healing abilities. I remembered I got a full party wipe the first time I met this hateful bitch.
Ectoplasm & Large Extoplasm: Slime monsters are neat! The Ectoplasm and the Large Ectoplasm are shown in their attacking animations here, but in their neutral position they are just columns of blobs with skeletons trapped within, mid-digestion. They're simple if you can deal with them, but take too long and the Ectoplasms will replicate, and a bunch of smaller Ectoplasms have a chance to merge into a larger one. A pretty fun gaming trope that Darkest Dungeon likes to use -- even the weaker enemies have a chance to royally fuck you up real bad if you're not in your top gear and go straight for the kill.
Rabid Gnasher: These zombie wolves are pretty cool, with exposed bone on their ribcages, back and legs, but... but they're just zombie wolves. I don't really have a whole ton to say about them. I like them, and they bring some variety into the otherwise human-dominated Weald, but otherwise they're sort of just there?
The Hag: The first and more impressive boss of the Weald is the Hag, a big, burly giant woman dressed in typical forest witch garb. She spawns with a gigantic cauldron, and at the beginning of the battle she'll trap one of your heroes inside the cauldron at random, making it a race against time before the trapped hero (sometimes crucial to your party's strategy) is cooked, and you really kind of have to split your turns into freeing your hero and damaging the Hag. I love how quickly the stress of your party builds up at the sight of their buddy being cooked alive, and the fact that the Hag's attacks are just her being cannibalistic -- either seasoning your party with salt and pepper, or drinking from the stew, or just "tenderizing" meat -- some fun black comedy there. The Hag is noted to be the Ancestor's former lover-slash-assistant, who was a genius in horticulture, but ended up being betrayed and sent to live in the Weald by the Ancestor.
Brigand Pounder & Brigand Matchman: Probably the most underwhelming boss fight in the game is the Brigand 8-Pounder (later 12-Pounder and 16-Pounder), a big-ass cannon that keeps summoning reinforcements in the form of the generic bandits you fight throughout the Weald, and it's a race of time to guarantee that the constantly-respawning Matchman -- who can fire the Pounder -- dies each turn, otherwise the Pounder will fire and deal massive damage to your party. The design of the Pounder is pretty cool as far as armoured cannons go, but I felt like this probably should've been like a mini-boss in the Vvulf Encounter instead of being a boss in the Weald... I dunno. Just sort of disappointed we didn't get a fungal boss, but even the other enemies of the Weald surely would've made for a cooler boss fight? A giant ectoplasm titan? A giant spider? I dunno. It's actually a fun boss-fight, mechanic-wise, but I was genuinely baffled that this is the boss after seeing just how flashy things like the huge swine bosses, or the Siren, or the Prophet, are.
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