Eaten by a shark again, then by a turtle

I’m still at it, playing Ronin 47 and so far I’m not having a lot of good luck with it.

We open again with the starfish tutorial, then the attack on Ako Base. I fought a giant turtle, and it tore me down to 35 integrity out of my initial 55. When I saw a dozen more of the beasts coming, I fled for my life. Eventually I stopped to get some rest and repairs, and to swear revenge,

So what next? This time, instead of choosing The Vault I decided to try the research vessel Gojira in hopes that the boffins there have some news about fighting kaiju so I don’t just get destroyed every time.

No luck. The crew of the Gojira weren’t able to save themselves, and the ship lies at the bottom of the sea. Knowing these game books, though, I know that no required treasure is hidden behind “oh well, walk away to the next scene” so I descend, hoping to maybe salvage something useful. But it’s sort of the opposite – I’m attacked by Mega-Shark or a “isonade” as they call it here. The shark wins every round, and despite my 4 Armor gets a surprising number off 4+ rolls. Ultimately this brings my mech’s integrity down from 35 (out of 55, we can do this) to 21 (oh dear), before the book says that after 5 combat rounds the shark just leaves. Oh thank goodness!

To get aboard the ship, I’m offered three options: dock and swim in my wetsuit and oxygen mask, punch through the hull with giant robot fists, or blow the hull open with missiles. Maybe Jonathan knows something I don’t about the wisdom of tearing open hulls and firing missiles at close range under water, and has hidden some awesome path there… but I choose the smart path instead and swam aboard. I made my way to a lab where the boffins had been experimenting with different anti-mutation chemicals and with some degree of success, and I find a list of chemicals that work on some type of monsters, So that may be useful.

My dive alarm beeps at me, and it’s time to head back… after I fight this giant crab. Scuttle to the left! Scuttle to the right! Punch that crab! And he’s down. That was exhilarating, and I still make it back to the mech in time. As I doff my suit, I wonder how well a katana really could work underwater; could you get a good swing with the water drag and all? And without your body weight on the ground, as you’re floating, wouldn’t that take a lot of the force off of a strike? And I’m so distracted by this, that I am blindsided by Mega-Shark again. Damn it!

This time, though, there is no “after 5 rounds it gives up” to save me. I get two punches in, but it gets a lot more (it has a melee of 4) and rips me open.

My adventure ends here… chum.

Yeah, I don’t know about this. I expect to get killed by monsters in these books, but dang.

An hour later…

Okay, so reset and let’s try again.

Kill the tutorial starfish with a salvo of missiles and lazerbeamz, easy.

Back to Ako Base, all hell breaks loose. I go to the admin area to see what’s going on, and by passing my agility test lose only 1 combat and 2 endurance.

Back into my mech, the only survivor. And here we go… the kappa, a trademark-free kaiju turtle not at all related to Gamera.

It hits me. It hits me. It hits me. What the heck? I have a 3 in artillery and a 4 in melee, so this should be 50/50, but the dice seem to hate me. It hits me. I finally get one hit in, and it’s a decent one. It hits me. It hits me. Oh geez, this is going badly. It hits me. It hits me. And that’s game.

Yep, killed by the first non-tutorial monster in the story.

Honestly, I don’t expect to steamroll through the book unchallenged, but this is ridiculous!