And this is the... fourth Sumeru patch that we get a part of the map filled up, and this is kind of the 'Chasm' or 'Enkanomiya' or 'Dragonspine' of the Sumeru patches, in the sense that we reach the 'badlands' -- even relative to the other previous two desert areas. The "Girdle of the Sands" area, north of the two desert areas we've seen before, is another location where the enigmatic Cataclysm tore apart the terrain, leaving behind crystalized remnants of the Abyss and how the energies from this eldritch, otherworldly realm have affected the location.
Also, while they were originally lumped onto the Desert of Hadramaveth review, I've moved the two monsters introduced in 3.5 here.
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NEW WILDLIFE:
Tent Tortoise
After barely getting any new wildlife in Inazuma, it's actually very fun that every little sub-area of Sumeru comes with its own new wildlife. I honestly kinda wished they went back and added some additional flavour animals to Mondstadt, Liyue and Inazuma. You can totally see these tortoises hanging out in the Adeptus mountains of Liyue, right?
Anyway, the Tent Tortoises sure are large, land-dwelling tortoises with a fancier-looking head with horns and stuff. Interestingly, they are completely invulnerable, or at least as far as I can tell. Hitting them with any attack just causes them to retreat into their shells and spin around, which means the Tent Tortoises don't drop any kind of materials or drops. Originally I thought this makes the tortoises unique, but then I remembered that the dogs, cats and kitsunes are all also invulnerable.
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NEW MONSTERS:
Abyss Herald: Frost Fall
Introduced in the story-focused 3.5 patch, we get a brand-new Abyss Herald, the fourth greater minion of the Abyss Order and the first new one since we got the Pyro Lector in Enkanomiya. Since all the Lectors and Heralds all have this idea of being a super-zealous religious order, the Frost Fall Abyss Herald is noted to be 'envoys who must correct any twisted strains and remove any dissonance' from the gospel that are spread by the other Abyss people. This particular one is the focus of the Archon Quest 'Caribert', which is an excellent story... but it didn't even click into my mind that this a new kind of Abyss Herald until he started swinging ice instead of water.
The Abyss Herald model is sure cool-looking, and this one has a lot of different-looking details on his body compared to his three 'brothers'. There's a bunch of shared animation with the original 'Wicked Torrents' Hydro version, which is also the one with two giant blades.
The 'Caribert' part of the main story we go through does imply that this is a 'pure' version of an Abyss Herald, as opposed to the transformed Khaen'riah humans we've been facing in Enkanomiya and the Chasm, but that's more credit to the story than the actual monster design.
Black Serpent Knight: Rockbreaker Ax
The Black Serpent Knights, meanwhile, debuted a bit more recently in the Chasm. And the Rockbreaker Ax is completely different-looking from the other Black Serpent Knights, who look sleek and very traditionally knight-like. We've covered the history of these Black Serpent Knights and how they have a neat backstory to the ancient fallen kingdom of Khaen'riah, and the Rockbreaker Ax sure does have two gigantic cool-looking axes. According to the flavour text, it's a sword art called 'Truthseeker' -- and something that can be adapted into other weaponry, which the Rockbreaker Ax dudes basically had to do because of limited weapon availability during the Cataclysm. He can combine his two hand-axes into a big double-bladed battle axe, and can use it as a shield.
There's a rather annoying mechanic that makes him go absolutely berserk if he hits a character with a shield, a neat little counter against one of the more common ways to 'cheese' difficult enemies in this game. Not really a whole ton to say here since I don't normally go into mechanics, he sure is a cool knight dude. Despite the Khaen'riah-heavy story in 3.5, the Black Serpent Knights don't actually make an appearance in the proper 'overworld', and he only shows up in the Spiral Abyss at that point.
Anemo Hilichurl Rogue
Called 'Hilichurl Rangers' in all languages other than English, we get another group of unique elite Hilichurls, the first time that's not another large, bulkier Mitachurl/Lawachurl, or the mage-like Samachurls. These Hilichurl Rogues fill the three RPG tropes of 'warrior, mage, thief', I guess. Very cool-designed, and the descriptions note that the Hilichurl Rogues do not belong to any tribes, and wander around 'searching for the fated genesis of their kind', seeking to uncover the bygone splendor of their people. We learn from 3.5's Archon Quest (which was a patch before the Rogues debuted) that a significant amount of the Hilichurls are cursed non-pureblooded Khaen'riah people, and it's pretty interesting to see that these Rogues apparently have enough sentience to look around for their origin.
Very cool cape and extra horned protrusions from his mask, and the Anemo variant wields a three-pronged blade shuriken thing. But far more hilarious is the fact that the Anemo Hilichurl Rogue will summon an Anemo Slime that it holds onto with one hand, floating up like a balloon. A cute and adorale little detail for what's otherwise a very serious-looking enemy.
Hydro Hilichurl Rogue
The Hydro variant of the Hilichurl Rogue wields a scythe and, just like the Anemo variant, summons a Hydro Slime. The Hili-rogue kicks the Hydro Slime to force it to cough out water blobs, which is both hilarious and sad. Again, the Hydro Hilichurl Rogue is noted to be roaming the wilds, in 'voluntary exile', without any affiliation to a tribe. They would lend their aid to other Hilichurls, but never stay and remain with any tribe, and I do like how the descriptions note that these are basically the equivalent to folk heroes or adventurers among the Hilichurl people.
It is interesting to note that the Hilichurl Rogues also speak a lot. Over the game's multiple events, we've had a lot of events that shed some focus to the made-up in-game language of the Hilichurls, but it's always been the same ten or so phrases about food or danger or friend or gifts. The Hilichurl Rogue seem to really have a lot more words available to them when they speak, which I felt is a neat way to showcase how they do have a fair bit more intelligence compared to their fellow Churls.
Consecrated Fanged Beast
After the three Consecrated Beasts we had in the previous version (the scorpion, the flying snake and the vulture), we get two more to round up all the hostile Sumeru wildlife. The Consecrated Fanged Beast is a mutated version of the Rishboland Tigers, and I do like how their heads and upper body has basically been consumed and turned into nothing but masses of jagged bone and fangs. Again, the same lore applies here, where the Consecrated Beasts have consumed the flesh of a dead god and survived, mutating their physiology.
I guess I never really talked too much about the 'phagocytic' modes that all the Consecrated Beasts have, interestingly drawing its name from the way single-celled organisms would engulf and eat smaller particles. The Consecrated Beasts all start off with these phagocytic forms, having higher elemental resistance and I think the flavour is that they're absorbing elemental energy from around it? All the beasts have their unique phagocytic attack where they exit this berserk mode to unleash a particularly powerful attack (the Fanged Beast turns into green mist and creates a massive explosion of grass and vines)... but spawn a 'phagocytic block' that your character can take out (a bit faster with the right element) which will stun them and knock them out of the phagocytic mode. I guess the idea is that one of the god-flesh they consumed got spat out in the process of doing the attack? Now the question is if the beast is the phagocyte, or if the god-flesh is the phagocyte?
Consecrated Horned Crocodile
Very cool, and this one is obviously the Consecrated Beast form of the Spinocrocodile. I will always have a soft spot for the scorpion because of how badass it looks, but the Horned Crocodile's prominent dorsal spine, the skull on its upper head, the unicorn horn and just how badass it looks. The crocodile, obviously, manipulates the element of Hydro, and its phagocytic attack involves its dorsal fin flaring up into a giant water blade before a similar-shaped attack bursts out of the ground.
I do also like the flavour text for this being noting how so many beasts had the potential and chance to evolve, but only very few survive the process of consuming these flesh blobs of the dead gods.
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NEW BOSSES:
Iniquitous Baptist
Introduced with very little fanfare and honestly not even so much of a lore for one of the most powerful-looking Abyssal beings, the Iniquitous Baptist just randomly shows up in an underground cave in the Girdle of the Sands area. Admittedly the area does have a lot of Abyssal lore to it, and is the site of a great battle between the forces of the Abyss and Khaen'riah, but where even the Hydro Abyss Lector above got a role in an Archon Quest, the Iniquitous Baptist doesn't even show up in any of the area's storylines. It really did make me wonder a b it if the Iniquitous Baptist was supposed to be the Abyssal creature that showed up in the "Caribert" Archon Quest?
Anyway, you're not here for my monster-usage-in-the-plot speculation, you're here for my talk about their design! The Iniquitous Baptist has four arms, which is a bit hard to see if you don't know what you're looking at. The massive skirt and spikes jutting from its back makes the upper set of arms kind of blend in! The Iniquitous Baptist also wields three elements -- Pyro, Electro and Cryo -- the first three Abyss Herald/Lector elements to be introduced to the game. And... his bark is really worse than his bite. Some really great animations and voice acting, but ultimately I found this guy super underwhelming.
There are some speculations as to how the multi-armed pose of this guy is very similar with the puppet boss forms of both Shogun and Scaramouche, but with how little of a role the Baptist has, and how his flavour text just really doesn't talks about anything beyond the Abyssal beings channeling the power of the gods, I really don't have a whole ton to say here.
Warden of the Last Oasis/Warden of Oasis Prime
And we finally end this review with... an interesting boss fight. Originally touted among the fandom as the 'Dendro Dragon' in the same vein as Dvalin and Azdhaha, turns out that calling this guy the 'Dendro Dragon' is a huge, huge mistake. Accessible through a relatively long story quest, the Dendro Dragon Apep (named after an Egyptian serpent god) turns out to be a massive wyrm who we only saw briefly but towers over the entire desert. Even the giant sand-worms, the Wenuts, we saw a patch ago, are just the evolved versions of Apep's offspring. Our heroes try to purify the corruption that has tormented Apep for centuries, and in the process of doing so, they enter Apep's body and find out that Apep's body serves as a realm with a lot of elemental-based inhabitants... most of which have mutated into what the game calls 'proliferating organisms'.
Greatest of this all is the Warden of the Last Oasis, who is this... bizarre... thing. It is best described as some sort of flatworm or planarian, but with a set of eight limbs that help it to scuttle and crawl around. The creature doesn't really move like a centipede, though, but more fluidly writhes and wiggles like... well, a worm or a plant. EDIT: And after a while, people have pointed out that the Warden is likely designed after the sea slug of the Melibe viridis species, particularly an image of a specimen whose body has flared out into tiny tentacle-looking legs. That's cool! With Dvalin, another dragon, being based on the Glaucus slugs and the Seelies being based on Clione, it's kind of interesting that the design team really likes sea slugs and associating them with more mystical creatures like dragons and fairies!
The idea is that this guy is some kind of parasite within Apep's body that we have to purify. It's never really clear whether this thing is an aspect of Apep, a parasite, a particularly large Proliferating Organism (or a colony of it) or if it's a symbolic manifestation of the corruption within Apep, but it sure is a very interesting-looking creature! The game is frustratingly vague about just what this 'Warden of the Last Oasis' is, since every archive or in-game description about it talks about Apep and her backstory with the gods instead -- something we already learn from the in-game story!
The desiccated version of the Warden on the left here is the first phase of the boss fight, whereas his final, third phase is the Warden of Oasis Prime, shown on the right in all its bright green and yellow glory with vines and stuff. Turns out even restoring the Warden of its corruption doesn't make it any less hostile, and you still have to kill it. Both Wardens are cool, and I do appreciate that neither of them really have a recognizable 'face' and just has a mass of vibes, growths and glowing orbs as a 'head' There is a glowing 'nucleus' that looks like some kind of a seed or a fetus? Very weird!
More than anything, I do really want to know just what this thing is based on. They did a 'behind the scenes' for the design of Azdhaha, and if they do one for this weird worm-guy, you'll see an addendum here.
Proliferating Organisms
And these guys! They don't really show up in the archives, and only really show up as Apep's second phase. After you beat up the first worm, a number of these Proliferating Organisms -- all simple enemies with only a single attack pattern -- show up and try to attack the plot device you're fighting. They all are noted in the accompanying story to be now-amnesiac and twisted versions of the elemental spirits that once lived within Apep... and they look very interesting now as these dull-gray-green creatures that are meant to represent the corrupted versions of the elemental beings that we see throughout the course of the story. The few 'pure' elemental beings that we help enter Apep's realm ended up taking the form of fungus and living among them, which lends me to believe that these guys are attempting to do the same, only with less intelligence and sentience thanks to their corruption.
There aren't really good screenshots of all of them yet, but I'll go through each of them! The Preliminary Proliferating Organism (shown on the top picture here) is a walking bud that reminds me of Cherrim's wrapped-up mode from Pokemon, and it can alternate between having its 'mouth' face downwards when it's moving around, and flip around when it enters a 'cannon' mode. I wonder if he's meant to be some sort of sea sponge.
The Provender Proliferating Organism, shown in the center of the picture, looks like a much simplified and smaller version of the Warden, rising up with a cobra-like head around the center green orb. This one buffs the attack of its smaller buddies!
The Predatory Proliferating Organism is just... it's a giant clam, but it looks so weird of a clam, alternating between orienting itself horizontally or vertically, having protrusions that look like a fish's fins, and, y'know, being a floating ghostly decay-thing. All these Proliferating Organisms really do have the feel like they're trying to mimic 'physical' life-forms, but just ending up as strange, plant-based approximations thereof.
The Protective Proliferating Organism looks like two vines that curl together like a DNA strand and rise up to show off the glowing green orb (the 'core', the actual elemental bodies of these things) and create a defensive aura for its buddies. The way it moves really gives kind of the impression of some kind of biofilm or fungal colony or something, doesn't it? A closer inspection shows that it 'stands' on the same fingers that the Warden has.
The Pernicious Proliferating Organism rolls around like some kind of pinwheel bug covered with spikes and slam onto the enemy. Just another very fun organic-looking creature.
The Perch Proliferating Organism is another very interesting-looking one, looking like a lantern with two long hands similar to the one the Warden has. While the other five Proliferating Organisms look like some kind of quasi-natural living creature, be they some kind of plant, animal, or microorganism, the Perch looks the weirdest, like some kind of bizarre plant fairy thing.
Anyway, these guys came as an absolute surprise because no one really talked about them in the build-up to this version. Everyone was hyped about the dendro dragon boss, the four-armed abyss herald and the badass caped hilichurls, but I think I do really like these Proliferating Organisms a fair bit!
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Anyway, this came a bit late. I screwed up writing this article multiple times early on in 3.6, especially when i was talking about the Proliferative Organisms and trying to get pictures for them. Not my best work, honestly, but hey, see you guys next time.
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