Game:

Planet Stronghold (2011)

Duration: 15:16

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I resume exploring the sector, and the next wandering party we come across consists of just one Matrick Soldier. The last time we fought a lone Matrick Soldier we had little trouble, and this time is no different. Tom’s energy-based weapon barely scratches it on our first turn, but the acid weapons do respectable damage and I make sure to have Rumi cast a high Disrupt on our opponent. As usual, he then wastes his first turn with Ground Crush, and we’re then able to inflict devastating damage on him. We reduce his health from 291 at the start of our second turn to 195 at the end of it, almost 100 points worth of damage. After another Ground Crush, we inflict another beating and reduce his health to 115—a bit less than last time, but still excellent progress. He then uses his standard attack on Tom, but frankly it’s too late. We reduce his health to 52 on our next turn, and the following turn kill him off. It’s not a particularly exciting battle, but it’s enough to get Tom to Level 6 like I wanted.

After the battle ends, I make sure to allocate Tom’s skill points into Heavy Weapons and bump the stat up to 60—just enough to wield Toxic Death. After resting the party, I head to the equipment screen and swap out his current weapon, the rifle Lightning, for the acid rifle. Ironically, the Lightning is actually better from a raw statistics point of view—it has slightly higher base damage and accuracy—but it’s the wrong damage type. Acid weapons excel against Matricks but energy weapons don’t, so we need an acid weapon. From there, I check in with Rumi and Bellamy. Rumi doesn’t have Lifegiver available yet but Bellamy does have another set of grenades, so I collect those from him. From there, I decide to head to the training room, not to train but to talk with Rebecca. Despite her tough personality, Joshua’s been commenting since the start of the game on her good looks and so I’ll be trying to start a romance with her. When we greet Rebecca, she’s initially rather brusque—understandably so, given how we’ve leapfrogged her in rank. We need to try to learn more about her, though, and the game gives us the option of asking about her hobbies or her clothes. The correct choice for getting relationship points is the latter, so we ask if she ever changes out of her military uniform. She sarcastically asks if we’d prefer her going around naked, and Joshua replies that it would keep our enemies distracted in battle. We’ve made our point that we think she’s attractive, so Rebecca’s flattered and we gain +10 relationship points.

With that done, I return to Sector B2. There’s only one wandering army left on the map, but it’s a tough one—a Matrick Worker with two Young Matricks. Facing three Matricks has always been a challenge, so for this fight I decide on a new strategy. Instead of targeting the Worker first, I’ll concentrate our fire on one of the Young Matricks. They have much less health than their adult counterparts, and the hope is I can quickly eliminate one of them before they switch from Ground Crush to their standard attack. It more or less works—we manage to kill it on Turn 3, effectively turning this into a fight against two Matricks rather than three. The problem, though, is the enemy’s first two turns featured three Matricks and three uses of Ground Crush, so our characters aren’t in the best shape. Joshua is now down to 66 health, and when the two remaining Matricks combine fire against him they’re able to reduce him to just 18 health. Still, I like our current situation. We’ve already eliminated one opponent and the remaining Young Matrick is likewise vulnerable, so I continue to attack it. The enemy then uses Ground Crush, which Joshua narrowly survives but Rumi gets KO’ed by. That’s alright, though. Joshua promptly kills the Young Matrick, while Rebecca revives Rumi with Lifegiver and Rumi in turn heals Joshua to around 70 percent health, giving us a much better position. From there it’s a straightforward fight against one Matrick Worker, and I have Rumi focus on healing the party instead of trying to Disrupt. That makes the fight take a while longer, but it also means we’re able to avoid any further KO’s. Soon we defeat the Matrick, and I make sure to rest and collect the now-available Lifegiver. The sector is now clear of wandering enemy parties, and it’s finally time to begin our campaign against the Matricks.

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