Marie's Adventure Bestiary & Enemy Codex

Marie’s Adventure packs a built-in Bestiary (enemy codex) inside the journal menu, but it does not advertise itself. New players stumble across it while looking for quest notes, then notice entries are still greyed out after a dozen random encounters. This page explains how the Bestiary works, what you actually unlock by chapter, and how the post-v1.12 crash fix changed the rule for opening it during battle.\n\nStay on v1.12 before blaming your install. The Bestiary crash mentioned in itch community posts after a long play session was patched in the same hotfix wave that corrected overdue dialogues and Title-scaled Talent (Release Notes).\n\n## Where to find the Bestiary\n\n1. Open the journal from the in-game menu (same panel as the Substory Log).\n2. Look for the Bestiary section — usually labelled in the same BETA-styled panel as substories.\n3. Tap an entry to read flavour text and (sometimes) drop tables.\n\nIf the panel is greyed out, you have not yet encountered that enemy type. There is no pay-to-unlock and no booster — only fights.\n\n## What unlocks and when\n\nThe Bestiary tracks enemy archetypes, not specific spawns. One bandit recruit counts toward the whole bandit archetype entry.\n\n| Chapter | Archetype unlocked | Notes |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| 1 — Starting village | Slime, Forest Lizard, Recruit Bandit | Tutorial-tier HP and drops |\n| 2 — Sylva outskirts | Wolf Pack, Cursed Pilgrim, Highwayman | Mid-defense stats |\n| 3 — Desert / Mulshore | Sand Scorpion, Mirage Hound, Desert Bandit | High evasion, weak vs Chroma |\n| 4 — Alram Highlands | Highland Golem, Mineshaft Wraith, Frost Acolyte | Pre-boss walls for the bonus boss |\n| 5 — Jurai Castle | Demon Soldier, Cursed Knight, Court Mage | Story-required, no skip |\n| 6 — Heritage Plane | Wraith Sentinel, Demon Captain, Alram Boss echoes | Late-game difficulty curve |\n\nNumbers are chapter anchors, not strict gates — exploring ahead of the story may reveal entries from later archetypes.\n\n## Why entries stay grey\n\n- Encounter count is per-archetype, not per-fight. Slaying ten slimes only fills one entry.\n- Boss versions count separately. Killing the regular bandit chief does not unlock the boss-tier entry; the actual boss encounter must trigger.\n- Some entries are missable if you skip a chapter’s side dungeons. The Alram Highlands bestiary closes when you beat the bonus boss — entries before the boss become locked behind the chapter transition.\n\n## Combat tips for fast unlocks\n\nUse the Bestiary as a checklist while you progress:\n\n- Walk every map pin at least once per chapter. Random spawn tables rotate, so do not assume a single dungeon run unlocks the full list.\n- Restart from a save circle if you finish a fight in 1-2 turns; some rare archetypes only spawn after a non-combat detour (look for hidden doors near Sylva market stalls).\n- Open the Bestiary outside battle if it is sluggish. Opening it mid-fight can freeze long sessions — see the next section.\n\n## The v1.12 crash fix and what it changed\n\nBefore v1.12, opening the Bestiary during an extended combat session could trigger a hard crash. The fix shipped alongside the overdue-dialogue update and the Title-scaled Talent change. After the fix:\n\n- Opening Bestiary mid-battle is safe again — but the game now dims the battle UI to acknowledge the switch.\n- Long sessions with capture overlays (Discord, OBS) still benefit from a periodic restart; the fix targets the engine crash, not background capture latency.\n- If you encounter an undefined prePhaseCheck error during a Bestiary read, report with exact build number — that array error is separate from the crash and still under observation.\n\n## Cross-links and tools\n\n- Combat Basics — turn order, damage formulas, EXP rules.\n- Difficulty Settings — Safe Day HP scaling interacts with Bestiary drop expectations.\n- Troubleshooting — what to try if the journal panel itself fails to load.\n- Save Files — keep a backup before grinding random encounters across chapters.\n\n## Hard mode and the Bestiary\n\nHard mode (post-Difficulty Settings unlock) keeps the same Bestiary gating but doubles enemy HP and tweaks spawn tables. Plan around the first three chapters for unlock speed — late chapters scale so hard that grinding unlock rates there is inefficient.\n\n## Frequently asked\n\n- Do I need to capture every enemy? No. Archetype kills are enough for the Bestiary; specific captures are not required.\n- Does fleeing count? No. Fleeing does not increment Bestiary progress.\n- Will later patches add enemy art? The developer has not announced official art expansion. Treat the Bestiary as a stat reference, not a gallery.\n\nUse the Bestiary as your enemy reference table during pregnancy and combat grinds — the journal is the single source of truth, and v1.12 made it safe to keep open.