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Monsters are the hostile creatures players fight throughout the floors of Aincrad in Echoes of Aincrad. Combat is real-time and action-based, so every field encounter is fought directly with weapons, Sword Skills, and the help of an AI partner. At launch the bestiary is drawn from the first two floors, the Town of Beginnings region on Floor 1 and the fields around Urbus on Floor 2.
Enemy Types
Early enemies fall into a few broad groups: beast-type creatures that roam the fields, and kobold-type humanoids that appear in greater numbers and tougher variants as you climb. Confirmed field foes include the following.
Enemy | Type | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Beast | Floor 1 fields | An aggressive boar; a common early-game opponent useful for learning combat basics. | |
Kobold | Early floors | A kobold foot soldier; often fought in groups. | |
Kobold | Early floors | A sturdier kobold guard variant. | |
Kobold | Floor 1 | A basic kobold foot soldier; its attacks can trigger a Guard Crush if you block at the wrong moment. | |
Raging Mountain Bao | Beast | Floor 2 fields | A bulky beast roaming the fields around Urbus; one of the first Floor 2 enemies players meet. |
Fighting Monsters
Because the game rewards reading enemy attack patterns, defensive options such as parrying and dodging matter as much as offense. Tougher packs are easier to handle with the Switch System, which lets you swap places with your partner to break an enemy's focus or recover. Defeating monsters yields experience toward leveling, Col, and materials used for crafting and gear enhancement at the Smithy.
Leveling Against Them
Field monsters do not scale to the player's level, so a region can be too dangerous until you have leveled up and improved your gear. Defeating them is the main way to raise your Attributes through Growth Points, and their drops supply the materials and blueprints used for crafting and enhancement at the Smithy. The early-game enemies of Floor 1 are also the foes a new player meets first in the free demo, which is set during the in-universe closed beta and covers the opening of Floor 1.
Bosses
At the top of each floor's labyrinth waits a floor boss, a much larger and more dangerous encounter than the field monsters. The Floor 1 boss is Illfang the Kobold Lord, confirmed in the free demo as the guardian at the end of the first floor's labyrinth. A smaller Sentry Golem encounter is fought earlier as a lead-in. See Boss Battles for how these encounters work.
Enemy Families
Enemies are grouped into recognisable families, and a family's boss shares its behaviour with the lesser versions around it. Learning one member of a family teaches you most of the rest, which is the main reason the second floor feels manageable despite swapping the bestiary out almost entirely.
Family | Where | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|
Floor 1 and the Labyrinth | The backbone enemy of the first floor. Elite Kobolds appear as boss adds and are the main threat in most Labyrinth fights. | |
Floor 1 | Charging enemies. The Snowcap variant applies Frozen and loses its tusks once broken. | |
Shrewmen | Floor 1 caves and Floor 2 | Fast, evasive, and prone to fleeing. Later variants teleport and use smoke bombs. |
Grizzlies | Floor 1 caves and ruins | Slow, heavy hitters that use fire attacks and apply Burning. |
Wolves | Floor 1 and Floor 2 sanctuaries | Nimble and hard to parry. Lightning variants paralyse, fire variants burn. |
Nepenthes | West Forest | Stationary carnivorous plants that summon smaller copies of themselves. |
Ruins and sanctuaries | Heavily armoured and slow, with wide area attacks. Boss versions add lasers. | |
Bao | Floor 2 | Roll into balls and leap. The impact of a landing does heavy damage. |
Oxen and cattle | Floor 2 | Charging bruisers with stomps and shockwaves. Later variants add lightning and dust whirlwinds. |
Trolls | Floor 2 | New to the second floor. Elite trolls cloak themselves in a barrier of wind and leaves, making them difficult to approach. |
Spines | Floor 2 plains | Fire barbs that stick in the ground and then explode. Burrow once their spines are broken. |
Mountain spirits | Ark encounters | Attack with projectiles from range. Individually weak but numerous. |
Bugs | Ark encounters | Summon lesser bugs to swarm the arena. |
Elite Enemies
Most families have an elite version marked out in the field. Elites hit harder and take considerably longer to kill, but they are also the fastest experience in a given area, which makes the approach to a dungeon a reasonable place to close a level gap before committing to it.
Status Ailments
Enemies inflict a small set of ailments, and each is tied to a family rather than being distributed randomly. The full list, including the building Instant Death gauge used by one late boss, is on the Status Effects page. The practical habit is to check which ailment an area is known for and stock the matching cure before setting out, rather than carrying one of everything.
See Also
Boss Battles
Aincrad