Old Hedgehag

The Red Hedgehag is a monster in CrossCode. They can be encountered in Autumn's Rise and Bergen Trail.

Appearance

The Red Hedgehag is a small, four-legged creature with dark grey skin and a back covered in bright red spines. It varies in appearance from the normal Hedgehag only by the color of it's spikes.

Combat

While they are much stronger than the basic Hedgehag, Red Hedgehags behave identically to them. Once engaged in combat, Hedgehags will attempt to follow and swarm Lea. They have two attacks that they are able to use: a dash attack, in which they roll straight at Lea (which can be blocked), and a jump attack, in which they jump into the air and try to land on her (whitch cannot be blocked by a normal guard). Both attacks are led by a brief period of spinning (and bouncing, in the case of the jump attack) during which the hedgehag takes reduced damage. They are able to jump and climb as well as Lea, and their jump attack also allows them to ascend one level.

Strategies

While one or two Hedgehags can be easily pinned down and dispatched with Melee attacks, their main danger lies in large groups, where Hedgehags at the back of the group can stay hidden from your attacks, and then counterattack through the crowd. For this reason, hit and run tactics may be useful in these cases: Use area-of-effect combat arts on the group of Hedgehags when it is safe to do so, then dodge ahead of their persistent attacks. In some places, it is also possible to lead Hedgehags into following you across water, and then hit them with Balls in mid-jump, knocking them into the water and damaging them.

When paired with other enemies, Hedgehags should be dealt with first, as they require no special tactics to defeat and their aggressive following will often lead them in front of the other enemies. This same good following ability makes them an excellent choice to lead between groups of foes when trying to obtain a high combat ranking.

Rewards

When defeated, a Red Hedgehag awards 33 Credits, along with XP related to your current level. They also have a chance to drop Metal Needles, and Chili Dogs at high Combat Ranking.

Locations

58 respawning Red Hedgehags can be found throughout the Autumn's Rise area, and 4 can be found in Bergen Trail. Five additional Red Hedgehags are also summoned along with the Blue Hedgehag in the Hedgehag's Den. Another 12 Red Hedgehags are fought during the Bull Rush sidequest, and 7 Red Hedgehags are found in the Enemy Rush challenge: two in Round 12, one in Round 17, two in Round 19 and two in Round 21.

Development Notes

The Red Hedgehag was introduced along with Autumn's Rise in the first version of the Demo. It has appeared in all subsequent versions of the game except the Shortened Demo.