Oishi the Roninator, roninating the countryside – part 2

Continuing with my playthrough of Ronin 47, this time giving my mech some cheats so the game is actually playable instead of just roll 2d6 to find out how quickly I died.

I’ve found that Kira is holed up in Tokyo – or rather, the ruins of Tokyo, which was devastated by kaiju attacks decades ago. I guess that’s a decent place to hide – nobody’s looking.

I’m continuing to make my way north. I bypassed a typhoon and fought some Ninja mechs, which was really tough. I found the site of a mech battle where one of them was sporting some exotic weaponry. Strangely, EMPs seem more suited to attacking mechs than monsters, so that’s interesting. Naturally, I grabbed the lightning cannon and the EMP. And to finish off the day, I was attacked by a giant two-headed lizard-bird and had to park to rest for the night. I wish they’d made a picture of this one -sounds freaky

Further north along the ocean as I stop to cool my jets, well what do you expect? I can’t get a quiet day on a Pacific beach, but instead I get a trio of giant crabs. Fortunately they are pretty weak and go down easily. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring a hundred gallons of butter for dipping. I lament my bad fortune, and presumably eat a ration bar or something, and by mid-day Honshu Island (that really big island that’s most of Japan) comes into sight.

Now, here’s the rub… Back before Japan was abandoned to the kaiju, there were a bunch of defenses set up, notably giant turrets and a mine field, both designed to fend off these giant monsters. And now these defenses are between me and the island. Curse our tenacity and preparedness! I can get around them with fairly little difficulty if I burn through some of my collected upgrades: a Reactor point to fly over the mines, and a EMP blast for the turrets, and I’m free to stomp my way into Tokyo.

And now, a rather awesome mini game. Page 420 has a grid of what’s left of Tokyo, and I have to move along it exploring my way until I find a clue as to Kira’s location. Pretty awesome, really. And before long, I get a clue – in the form of a salvo of missiles coming at me. I lose a little armor, but in the meantime my Advanced Scanners give me a bead on their location. Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! And there it is – a heavy artillery mech. Fortunately, I encounter it up close and we head straight to melee fighting, because it had an advantage in artillery. I do the “Form blazing sword!” thing from Voltron, and in two swipes get it down to half health. Huh, if you get it down then turn to page…. ah crud, a second mech, and this one will stay at long range while I also do the melee fighting with the first one! This gets a little more intense. Shing! Clash! Pew pew pew! Foosh ka-boom! Eventually, I stand victorious among the smoking ruins of the two giant mechs. I set two repair spiders to work, because the mech got pretty torn up, and start looting the mechs for a clue. And I find it – the second part of the GPS coordinates, and they point to… Mount Fuji.

Sure, a baddie who steals a mech and builds a fortress inside a volcano. That’s new.

The path up the mountain is a veritable gauntlet of tough fights.

• Two ninja mechs. I know these guys are tough, and could wreck me, so I use my EMP device. I know I’m nearing the end, and that Kira’s Shogun mech is EMP shielded so I won’t need it for the (presumptive) final boss fight.
• Two more Oni heavy artillery mechs. Unfortunately, when I roll for long-range vs short-range, it gives us 6 rounds of artillery combat where they have an advantage. Blam! Pow! Rat tat tat tat tat! Zap! By some sheer luck, I only take a little damage before I get in close and tear them in half.
• And then… a whole dang host of individual people on foot and on snowmobiles with rifles and handguns. I don’t know what they thought would happen against an armored skyscraper, but the result was pretty predictable, and they are routed shortly.

And there’s the front gate. I stomp on in, unchallenged.

As I make my way into the mech hangar, I get a popup that my antivirus is out of date. Oh damn! I forgot that way back at the beginning this is what happened to all of the other pilots! I frantically try to update my credit card info, but I’m not fast enough – Kira’s virus crashes my mech, and I’m trapped inside. The days pass by, and I’m sure the smell does not improve, and I slowly smothercate inside the cockpit.

My adventure ends here. So close.