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52: Too Angry to Die (Part 2) 56 - Lands Untamed And we're back in the Far Grasslands!   No surprise, we can do anything! It's not much of a celebration, but we get to set up camp and rest for a few moments. Would it be wise to stop now? Of course. We've all taken quite a beating. My leg most of all... If you're going to infiltrate their kingdom, you'd best be in top shape. Give me a moment.We fade out for a moment again, and then...  Not bad. You got through that treacherous place while keeping a stash? Incredible... You'd best share, Vi. We're starving. Eat your own stuff! ...Just kidding. It's fine this once. We beat that super huge monster! Kabbu? Are you hurt? You're such a softie... Of course we'll get through everything if we're together. Team Snakemouth's the best for a reason! Heh. It seems it was my loss for not putting you on my team, eh? Maybe I would have made such an incredible bond, too. You're our friend too. Kinda. Thanks for passing us and all. I'm sorry for delaying us with my sentimentality... Let's feast and get ready for our mission!  Because this area is covered by heavy foliage, it seems the Wasps haven't noticed this crack yet. Well, good for us. Let's go in, then. Don't be hasty. You mustn't let the Wasps catch you. If you're captured... That's it. It's over. Can't be any tougher than the bandit hideout. Do not underestimate the Wasps, Vi. Indeed, we must be utmostly cautious. Yeah, Vi. You better not do ANY underestimating. Uhm, either way, I shall remain here securing the exit route. If you get hurt, do retreat and come to me for treatment. You cannot afford to be reckless. Looks like it's time for Metal Gear Bugs II.  Before that, though, let's get our bearings a bit. First off, there's a new banter: Am I beyond glad to leave that swamp... We can leave it behind, now. We never have to go back. What if we missed some treas-... I mean, yeah. It's over! ...Heh.  If we talk to Maki, he'll offer to let us rest. (Yes) Very well. Please rest well so that the mission may succeed. (No) Do not push yourselves too hard.He'll just stay here for whenever we need him.  A few steps to the south, we come to a rock formation that might look familiar...  Breaking the first one lets us get down to this platform, which should definitely be looking familiar. This is the other side of the river from the entrance to the Wild Swamplands. Speaking of ways back...  There's a save crystal here, too. And we can see a path to the north.   Going through there, we come out on the other side of the walls, and get a new discovery.  We're in the Wasp Kingdom! (I'm going to hold off showing the text for this discovery; it's a bit too spoilery for now.) The Wasp Kingdom's very fortified. We're gonna have to be super sneaky! Trust me with this, team. We shall dig our way through!The banter here just reinforces the importance of stealth.   If we go south, we'll quickly realise our mistake: that's the way to the main entrance to the wasps' hive! We can't get in this way without the guard seeing us.    If we do let the guard see us, this is what will happen. No fighting our way in right now. Let's, uh, pretend that never happened and try to find a different path.  Let's walk around this way behind the hive instead.   This all looks very ominous.  There's a poorly disguised hole in the side of the keep, though. All we need to do to get in is cut these weeds! ...We'll get to that.   Because there's also a boulder here for Kabbu to destroy.  Also, if we try to go south, we'll quickly learn the guard will catch us from this side also.  Let's check out this hole that the boulder was hiding. 25 - Caves Um. This place looks familiar...   Flipping the switch on this side lowers the portcullis.   And we quickly find our way back to the Ant Tunnels. This cave apparently connects the Power Plant (which is in the Golden Lands), the Far Grasslands (near the Wizard's tower), and the Wasp Kingdom. If we wanted to, we could head back and explore all sorts of things now, or catch up on sidequests (if we had any), etc.  But for now, let's head back to the save crystal at Maki's camp.   If we take a quick look at our achievements, we'll notice something a bit peculiar. We got the achievement for defeating the chapter boss on Hard Mode, as usual, but we didn't get the one for finishing the chapter! That's because the chapter isn't over yet. We may have defeated the boss, but this chapter's structure is a bit nontraditional and we have more to do yet. So next time on Bug Fables, it's time to spy on some wasps. Would that be called vespionage, do you think? One way or another, I'll see you then.
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Jan 14, 2022 10:06
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Explopyro posted:So next time on Bug Fables, it's time to spy on some wasps. Would that be called vespionage, do you think? sting operation
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Jan 14, 2022 14:10
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I felt immense relief at the shortcut here. I also don't remember finding The Beast particularly challenging. Definitely a good story moment more than a mechanical challenge, and it probably would cheapen the blow if it were super challenging and you were tired of dealing with the cutscenes and scripting and stuff.
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Jan 14, 2022 19:29
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It's just called card collecting you weirdos
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Jan 15, 2022 15:11
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Hwurmp posted:sting operation God, that's way too good. I'm seriously tempted to use this as the next update's title now. Alxprit posted:I felt immense relief at the shortcut here. I also don't remember finding The Beast particularly challenging. Definitely a good story moment more than a mechanical challenge, and it probably would cheapen the blow if it were super challenging and you were tired of dealing with the cutscenes and scripting and stuff. This game's approach to shortcuts is really good, I think. They have a pretty solid sense of how far apart they should be to keep backtracking from becoming frustrating, and yet (at least in my opinion) it doesn't go so far that it stops feeling like an interconnected world. The one complaint I might have is that sometimes (like here), it starts to raise in-universe questions a bit. We really took this enormous detour through the swamps rather than try a bit harder to smash a boulder? Or rather than the ant workers do a bit more digging to get around a fence? I try not to let it bother me (and here, at least we have the excuse of Kabbu's revenge mission anyway), but sometimes I do find it hard not to raise an eyebrow or two. As a boss fight, I think The Beast's real problem is one we're going to see a lot of the bosses have going forward: the player's just built up so many powerful tools by this point that any coherent strategy just overwhelms it (especially if you go all-out burst damage). This is exacerbated by us having gone all in on MP, but even without that, the numbers are definitely a bit under-tuned for a player who knows what they're doing. It's less of a problem on a first playthrough, I think (and, of course, the menu code difficulties give most of the bosses a chance to become threatening again). FoolyCharged posted:It's just called card collecting you weirdos Haha. Okay, you've got me there 
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Jan 16, 2022 18:52
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53: Wasp Kingdom Sting (Part 1) 56 - Lands Untamed Where we left off, we were regrouping after escaping the Wild Swamplands and preparing to infiltrate the Wasps' Hive. Before we break in, though, a few little things.  First off, in memory of Kabbu's former team members, here's their concept art from the artbook. This is captioned "Bit & Master", though I'm not actually sure who is who and it doesn't explicitly say; I think Bit's the smaller one on the left and the more grizzled-looking one is Master? The artbook also has this to say: "Bit and Kabbu joined the team at the same time, but Bit's immense strength led to their master treating Kabbu as the rookie. [...] They loved Kabbu, and would be proud to see how far he's come." For better or worse, outside Kabbu's recollections, this is all the information we're going to get about them. Rest in peace, friends.   A bit of minor medal management. Vi's getting the Power Exchanges back for this next segment, I think Kabbu's had his fill of them for a while. Also, now that we're through the Wild Swamplands, we're done with Madesphy and I no longer feel the need to have Numb Resistance as a precaution.    I know I said we'd be infiltrating the Wasp Kingdom, and we will shortly. There's a semi-hidden scene we can see if we take a minor detour now, though, so let's check that out first. 37 - Defiant Root Namely, if we go back to Defiant Root, we can find Kina and Yin. (You can technically see this any time after joining up with Maki, I just forgot to double back earlier.)   M-muh muh!  YOU BETTER NOT THINK OF DOING ANYTHING FUNNY OR I WILL END YOU!! We'd best, uh, catch up with Maki soon.Well, that escalated quickly.  Also, amusingly, Kina will keep glaring at poor Yin even after the conversation ends, until we leave the screen and they reset. There are also banters: I remember Maki saying this caterpillar's name is Yin. Isn't Yin too old to still be a caterpillar? We can feel a faint magic inside of her. Don't think this is your run of the mill caterpillar. We need to ask Maki for more information after the mission.And for Kina: Kina doesn't like Yin at all, huh. She's way too overprotective of Maki. Say it any louder and she'll smack us! A fair warning...Nothing we didn't already know there. That level of jealousy can't be healthy. Leif's speculation about Yin's magic is interesting, though; hopefully we'll get to learn more about her later.  Anyway, that was fun. Back to adventure. (Blame me for the pacing issues there if you want, but I didn't want to miss out on that scene.) 060 - Wasp Kingdom  Let's find the artifact and get out. Wait, Leif. Remember. We must not be caught, the Wasps are formidable foes. Hey! We managed to get past the bandit hideout, didn't we? I don't think the Wasps will be as easy to shake off as the bandits were. Let's plan our moves carefully, so that the mission may succeed! Let's move!Stealth mission time. Let's try to get a better view of the area. (Also, the music in here is quite nice, it's got a tense and militaristic sound to it.)  This seems pretty simple so far. There's one guard who patrols back and forth here, and a stationary one on the stairs. While we wait for her to head back left, let's check the banter in here. This room's mostly pots, correct? Interesting... The Hive's got a few like these too! It's probably just a bunch of food. Outsiders probably don't get to see these. We're pretty lucky. And hungry. Don't steal their food!Leif is easily distracted, sometimes.  Once she patrols back to this point, we can sneak past behind her while she's still facing away. The dark brown floor is too hard to dig, so we can't take the easy solution.  This type of floor is more permeable, thankfully, so we can burrow under the fallen beam.  Simple enough.  From there, it's a simple matter to climb to the upper level. Let's stay away from the stairs, though, or that scout might see us. (I'm pretty sure the upper level is safe, but she will absolutely see you if you drop down to her level.) Onward we go.  What's this place? It's not much more heavily guarded... What is... going on here? Everything's closed down... Is this supposed to be, like, their plaza? S-Shh! They almost heard us... Let's ponder later.This is a bit weird.  Anyway, this room's floor is entirely diggable soil, so let's just take it underground. As long as we don't get close enough to actually touch the guards, they won't notice us.  Still, paying attention to the patrol patterns makes it safer.  Let's see what's through this exit to the west.   Uh... are those tanks? Hm? What is this room for? I dunno, but it seems they hang those big machines here. ...Seems like one of them is missing. Where could it be?That's probably not good.  Anyway, aside from some new alarming things to be concerned with, we can't do anything else in this room. Let's head back.   Let's get back underground.  It can be a bit tricky to see, but we can burrow under the boarded entrance and get inside this hut. There's a switch we can flip in here.  It activates the elevator. Now we just have to get to it.  Whew, good thing we have to be underground to get out of the hut. Otherwise, it'd be tough to avoid getting caught, since you can't really see the guards from in there.    Let's make our way to the upper level. The elevator itself is safe, none of the guards can see on top of it.  The door east is locked, so that's no good.  We can go west, though. (Also, do note there's a yellow save crystal here, that can be helpful. Though it's worth noting that it's a minor point of no return if you save here: we can't get out the way we came in.)  It becomes immediately apparent on entering this room that things are about to get complicated. I really don't get it. How come everyone's stuff is so run down? If the Hive looked like this, no one would listen to the Queen! Yeah. They're awfully loyal to be living like this. Something's bizarre...Our party continue to comment on the general state of disrepair. There's definitely something curious about all of this.  Let's get underground and explore a bit to see what's going on here. The guard patrols the entire room anticlockwise, in a big circle; best try to keep track of her, since the room's big enough she can surprise you from offscreen.  We can't head further west on the southern part of the room, thanks to the dark floor. We can see water droplets falling here, though, which means ice block puzzles ahead. That geyser at the back is probably going to be useful eventually...   We can make our way through the north side to this end. The guard by the door may be stationary and look like she's sleeping, but she's perfectly alert and will spot us if we get too close. It might look like we could just sneak behind her, but that won't work.   Also, this crank raises the wooden elevator at the back. That should be helpful, somehow... Let's put the pieces together.   First, we freeze the droplet.     Then we manoeuvre the ice cube into the geyser. This can be a pain, especially if your timing isn't great relative to the guard's position. It's best to take this slowly and retreat rather than getting caught, because if she sees us we'll have to start the room over.    Now we burrow our way to the crank, and use it to raise the platform.   We have to be a bit careful now, because we have to hold the Beemerang in place and can't dig. The safest way to do this is to follow behind the guard while keeping a safe distance.    And the reason we did all of this becomes clear at last - there's a hole in the roof of the house!  Falling down inside, we can grab this key.    Then carefully make our way back. (I do emphasise carefully. On an earlier take while recording this, I learned that getting caught after taking the key causes you to lose it. That can get very frustrating.)    There we go. Let's see what's on this side.  More guards. Just lovely. The more we see of the Wasp Kingdom, the more confused we get. This gate looks recent... We can feel sorry about 'em later. We've gotta get the artifact! This seems straightforward so far. Another anticlockwise circular patrol, so we can follow her.  Then flip this switch.  Which lowers the gate. This one's on a timer, though, so we do need to hurry a bit.   There we go. That's a lot of guards...     But there's a path of soft ground all the way through here, so the solution is pretty obvious. That said, this isn't trivial: the path is pretty narrow, and if we actually touch the guards (or they step on us), we'll get caught.  Here, once again we need to hit a switch to lower a timed gate. This one more or less requires the Beemerang; trying to hit it up close is just asking to be caught.  From there, we can just head right through. That could have been worse!  Entering the next room, a conversation immediately starts. They must not be patrolling past here too thoroughly. Yay. Huff... Alright, team. This is a good spot to rest. We can proceed when we're ready. You know I'd rather we be cautious... And you know how we are. Let's give it to 'em. Sigh...Our team observe that this area is less densely guarded, so we can abandon stealth and aggressively take out the guards instead. Sounds good to me. There's also a new banter. Today's been full of action, huh. Our legs are starting to feel the strain. I'm glad we made it through the swamplands. Please, let's not push ourselves too hard. You got it, Kabbu!This one's cute too.  This sign tells us the blocked off portion of this room is food storage. The vents sound interesting, though... guess we'll need to find another key.  There's a save crystal here, but they've gone back to blue again. No more free healing for us.  Oh well. Let's fight some guards! 24 - Oh No! WASPS!!  Wasp soldiers should be pretty familiar to us by this point. We've fought them a few times before, and their abilities are exactly the same.  Ours, however, are not. With two Power Exchanges equipped, Vi can just casually shank these guys now.      The Scouts don't fare much better. We needed Frigid Coffin's damage boost to make this a same-turn kill, but even without that she wouldn't have gotten to do much.  I think we're doing a fine job of avoiding detection, wouldn't you say? Also, you may notice their experience yield has been adjusted again. Looks like we're back to being considered at an appropriate level for the content. 060 - Wasp Kingdom Let's just keep moving along.  Oh. That doesn't sound good.   That is certainly a prison. And those are some familiar faces, unfortunately. Is this a prison? It's huge! Like, the bandits would be super jealous. It's worrying for a kingdom to need such an extensive holding space... Don't we know some of them? Did they get snatched during the invasion? I'll do my best to help us reach them!Before any of that, though, we have some guards to dispatch.   It's the same fight as last time.  Went with a similar plan this time, but I decided to save a bit of TP and not kill the Scout immediately. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake: stacking Power Exchange can make the enemy's response really hurt, especially if they use an attack that hits multiple times.   Still, the cleanup is pretty painless.  Let's move along.  There's another enemy waiting a bit further in.   This one's a pair of Scouts.   We'll just get them out of the air first.   And have Leif freeze one of them so we take fewer attacks.  Chompy does her part too.  Oh. That'll make things easier.  This is trivial to clean up from here.   Let's head back and check out the cells.  First up, this one.  What's Amber doing here?  ...her job, clearly. Um. Okay then.  She can hold onto some of the rare ingredients we picked up, there's no good reason to be carrying these Dark Cherries or Tangy Berry around with us.  Thank you! I will guard it with my life. Would you like to store something else? (No) Oh, okay! have a nice day!Uh. We wouldn't be surprised if she hasn't even noticed she's a prisoner. She's, uh, dedicated. But she's not dumb. She sure knows. As if her life wasn't hard enough, she's being judged by you both...Amber will be fine. Let's move it along.  There's also a sad little ant in this cell.   She's starving. We can give her something to eat...  If we decline, this is what would happen. But let's not be so heartless.  We're overflowing with food, anyway. We certainly won't miss a Leaf Omelet.  The king will pay. Rest, poor soul. You will be freed soon! ... Nothing to say, Vi? A request, perhaps? Nah. Let's go, team!And this cute conversation is our reward. Character development! Talking to her again after feeding her will just repeat her last line. Also, there's a banter. That's just cruel! You can't leave people without food! He's not gonna win any best king awards, for sure. We've got to solve this issue quickly...! For better or worse, there's nothing else we can do here. At least we were able to feed her. (Although Amber's right there... maybe she didn't feel comfortable sharing our items without consent?)  Now for the second cell.  That's all she has to say, but there's a banter too. She sure looks glad to be here. She's nuts! Even if she's glad, we must save her!This character continues to be... strange. Why does this mantis have a wasp fetish? We will never know.  There's a wasp in here too?  So they threw you in here? Mhm. It's so frustrating...That's certainly interesting. There might be something unnatural about this. Why's a Wasp in prison? The best way to know is to ask the fellow, I believe.If you look carefully, this scout actually has a distinctive appearance: one of her antennae seems to be broken.  Anyway, that's it for that cell.  Wait, they arrested Bub and Rob?   Aw. Kabbu seems to be reminded of his old friends. Even these two have ended up here... Well, they'd been travelling a lot. This is like a sponsored trip. Ugh. You'd have to pay me to get me to come back. Unfortunately, we can't seem to break them out right now. We're going to have to investigate further and see if we can find a solution.  We're not quite done here yet, though. More boulders to smash!   The big door is too heavy to move. But there's something suspicious in this last cell...    Not bad! I certainly won't complain about these. (Let's just take a quick detour and hand them off to Amber, since she's right here.)  With that done, let's head through here.  It's... the cleaner's room?       W-Wait! Are you THE Bug Rangers!? Oh Queenie! P-Pardon me? Yeah! Just look at the poster! It's such an honor, wow! Finally someone's heard my pleas! Not me. I'm just a cleaner. Everyone's gone super nuts lately after the Queen went missing...! I've kinda just rolled with the punches. Better than getting thrown into a cell. You're saying the Wasp Kingdom's changed under the King? You've looked around, right? Everything's so unkempt... Everyone's just focused on fighting! Dunno where he came from, but he sure messed stuff up fast! ...You'll help, right? You're the Bug Rangers! To help, we, uh... need an ancient artifact! Got any of those? Oh, no way they'd give anything useful to me. You'd have better luck asking the King himself. Here, this should help ya. (We can't believe this is working...) Hang on tight, miss! We will restore your kingdom! Heheheh, yeah! You'd better have a reward ready when we do! I'll give you some of my famous stew for free! Or I would, but, uh, I'm in a tight spot now. Economy's bad... ...Eh, I'll take it. A snack wouldn't hurt. Name's Jayde. I can't believe my dream's coming true! Make yourselves at home, Rangers! Well, that is certainly a thing that just happened. So, yep, there's the punchline for all the setup with the Bug Rangers - apparently they bear a completely coincidental strong resemblance to Team Snakemouth, to the point we can be mistaken for them.  Here's a closer look at the poster. They're pretty much just us, with masks on. (No wonder Kabbu loves the Green Ranger so much.) Anyway, let's investigate further here, Jayde's pretty interesting. The Wasp Kingdom is like one big complex. But I'm surprised there's a cleaner's room... Even villains gotta clear the dust! Hopefully she won't mind picking up after the guards we knocked down.There's a room banter, first off.  If we talk to Jayde, she has a few options for us. First up, we can chat: You're a big inspiration, you know? Wasps are strong, so if a little Bee can be a hero... Maybe I can too! You saying I'm little? Um. Whoops! Heh. Your faith in us won't be misplaced! I really hope so. I need to see the Queen again... To thank her for this pendant and all. It'd be so unheroic not to be able to! My bed's the comfiest! You won't regret it!She'll also let us rest for free. If I can help AT ALL, just let me know!There's also a banter for Jayde herself: (We're surprised you'd lie to her, Kabbu.) (It's an emergency! And it makes her happy, so...) Woah! This stew's super good!Hmm, what's this you say about stew?  Ah. Yeah, that looks pretty good! So, in addition to everything else, Jayde's running a food shop here:  Jayde's Stew (7 berries) Magic Seed (13 berries) Mushroom Salad (7 berries)Her prices are quite reasonable for everything (that's quite a discount for Magic Seeds!) but the real standout here is her stew. It's a legitimately great item, especially at this price; we've definitely seen stronger healing items, but for a hybrid HP and TP restoration it's hard to beat it without using expensive ingredients. (Drowsy Cakes will match it, but you need to equip Sleep Resistance to make those worth using.) This is good stuff.  I'm so honored! We've got five open slots in our inventory, so we may as well fill up with these. If you're feeling cheeky, you can keep going back and forth between Jayde and Amber and fill up your storage with these too. I'm not going to bother, but it's not a bad idea if you go through a lot of healing items: these are very cheap, and unmatched for the price. These will also be available later, but never again at such a low price. If you want them, it's better to stock up now; they're much less appealing at 20 or 25 berries each.  Anyway, let's bid Jayde a nice goodbye. She's been very helpful! (Unfortunately, the character limit forces me to split the update. Back momentarily.)
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Jan 28, 2022 08:28
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53: Wasp Kingdom Sting (Part 2) With the key Jayde gave us, we can open this locked door.    There's not a whole lot back here, just storage containers...  But, of course, we can use those to climb up.  Let's head through here.  Are we in some kind of air duct? (Also, the music goes silent once we're in here.)   Well then. Fancy... and empty around here. We can charge straight ahead! Let's be careful. Even if they haven't noticed us yet, this is too convenient...This is a bit spooky.  This room certainly looks intimidating, but it's very empty. If you were paying very close attention, you might notice this portcullis was on the other side of the fallen rubble in an earlier room, where the yellow save crystal was. We had to take a much more convoluted path to get here.  Anyway, up the stairs is the only way we can go.  ...the throne room is also empty? This seems to be the throne room. Well, yeah! You can see the throne right there in the middle! The artifact should be around here, let's look around.I guess there's nothing else for it.   ...Who's there!? Show yourself! 13 - It's Getting Scary!   I am the cruelest! The most cunning! You face General ULTIMAX! The crusher of rebellions!  We have been watching your every step! And here I was! Waiting for you to come for my grand entrance! Your entrance was absolutely, what's the word... Yeah, lame. Insolent! Peasant! COMMONER! I shall teach you how we deal with outsiders in the Wasp Kingdom!! Just get out of the way! We're in a hurry! As if I'd let you take even one more step...!   Look. Just hand over the artifact and you'll save yourself a whooping! Fools! The artifact is only for our great king to behold! Even now he enjoys its splendor, safe within his chambers... You are not to disturb him in any way! Your king feasts and rests while your kingdom crumbles. Have you no obligation to your people? All who serve the king are well cared for. Traitors don't deserve a thing! Hng. We cannot afford to debate our enemy. Let's clear the path to the artifact! Click me for video! 24 - Oh No! WASPS!!  Like it or not, we've got ourselves a fight! This is less intimidating than it might look, especially after the Beast, but let's do some spying and see what we're dealing with.  But we can do this, team. I'll break his guard as soon as it's raised! If we manage to flip it over, we should be able to deal with it quickly.These two are new. Wasp Drillers and Wasp Bombers are the elite soldiers of the Wasps' army, and have some pretty interesting moves. They're not unique to this fight, we'll definitely be seeing more of them in the coming chapters.  For a general, this guy's really weak... I'll beat up everyone else first!And, of course, we have the general. General Ultimax, despite serving the Wasp King, is not a wasp. He's a hornet. More specifically, he's based on Vespa mandarinia, the Asian giant hornet. You may be familiar with these colloquially as "murder hornets", but will he live up to their reputation? Anyway, let's get started here.  We've got one action left, so we may as well go for our best attack.  Wasp Drillers go into a guard stance after you hit them. This increases their defence to 3, making it a lot tougher to get subsequent attacks through. Like other guard stances, though, you can break them out of it with a flipping attack.  Chompy can't do that, though.  On its turn, the Wasp Driller launches a barrage of pebbles. This has a base damage of 3, and hits 3-4 times; it can be surprisingly painful, especially if you're using medals that give negative defence.  Meanwhile, the Bomber launches a bomb at us. What were you expecting? These are very similar to the bombs we can make ourselves, and you really want to block them if you can. This Frost Bomb deals 3 base damage across the party, and would have frozen us all if we didn't block.  The general, meanwhile, seems content to offer support, giving a Spicy Berry to the Driller.  Hmm. This could get nasty.  On the other hand, we could just have Vi stab people. Let's do that.   Kabbu doesn't care about guard stances. That's one threat dispensed with.   The bombers' 2 defence isn't the easiest thing to get through.  This time, she pulls out a Sleep Bomb. That, also, is something we really don't want to fail to block. These guys have access to all the bomb types, and they each act pretty much exactly the way you'd expect. It can get out of control quickly.  The general... laughs at us? Okay, then.  What to do now?   This is interesting! It's been a while since we've seen this; it's the off-balance icon. Wasp Bombers are flippable, but it takes two attacks to knock them over.   That's better. While flipped, their defence drops to zero.  Which leaves Vi with the perfect amount of damage to finish it off.  And Chompy can bite the general.  The general seems to freak out a bit once all his soldiers are gone; he starts using this flailing slap attack, but it's pretty pathetic. Its base damage is 1 and it hits 3 times. That said, this can get scary if it goes after someone with lowered defence; that's still a lot of hits, so don't underestimate him.  Still, we're definitely winning this. No sense prolonging the inevitable.    Get out of here.  And that's precisely enough EXP to rank up!   We'll grab the usual MP upgrade. We don't get any special bonus this time around.  Ugh, just shut up already!   The King should be in the next room. Let's go. Well, that was a fun little interruption. It's not exactly a chapter boss (the Beast already took that role anyway), but it's a nice little fight and has a lot of interesting things going on. It can turn against you in a hurry if you let the Bomber get a status effect on the party, so there's a decent amount of danger still. If the status effects are a problem, you can focus down the Bomber ASAP (they're pretty fragile), or try stacking resistance medals as a last resort. The King must be in the next room. Let's get the artifact and leave without fighting if we can.Kabbu will say this if we check for a banter here after defeating Ultimax.  The general is also still here, even if he's stuck in the floor.  Next time... Victory will be on ULTIMAX'S SIDE! Just shut it!We can also get a new banter here: General guy turned out to be a pushover. As if we needed more distractions... let's just get the artifact and make our exit.Heh. That's a cute way to sneak a reference in.  Now we can finally see what's down this passage behind the throne. Can we do this without any further interruptions? Please?  What's this? The royal chambers? The King... isn't here? Huh? Who's that?     Heavens, no! I'm but a hostage in my own castle... I am Vanessa II, ruler of the Wasp Kingdom. Or I was, before that poser somehow stole my people's minds and locked me in my own chambers... Could it be you've come to save me? We came to defeat the King. He's not here? Or at least to take the artifact... I have not seen him since. What? How could this be?! He was driven out of the Ant Kingdom and we've had reports he... 13 - It's Getting Scary! This is bad! Disastrous! Uh, what's up? We were tricked! There's no artifact here! WHAT!?  We must return, immediately! Please, allow me to accompany you. It would not be wise for me to stay here. Have your people forsaken you completely? ...My people have lost their minds, even if I do not know how. We cannot rely on them! With haste! That's certainly not what we were expecting, is it? We had no idea Queen Vanessa existed before now... so just who is the Wasp King, anyway, and how is he controlling the wasps?  For now, though, Kabbu's right, we should get out of here.  Vanessa is following us now.  Oh, what now?   NOT MY NAME! And you're too late! Our attack at the Ant Kingdom may have failed the first time... But the second time, with you lot and that sword guy out of the way... Our glorious King will finally take all the artifacts! We played right into their hand...! Grrr! Get out of the way! Gladly! Not like you can do anything to stop us now! This really isn't good. The general is certainly smarter than he led us to believe earlier; he might be decent at tactics after all.     Well, that was quick.   No. I can feel something is off. We must hurry to the Queen. I shall accompany you. I do wish to talk to the Queen about the situation as well. Yes. I shall escort you. Team Snakemouth, please join us whenever you are ready. They all head onward to the throne room. We should definitely get to following them... but this has been a long update already, so we'll pick up right there next time.    Also, now that we've met Vanessa, we can read the discovery information for the Wasp Kingdom without fear of spoilers. Next time on Bug Fables, we attempt to engage in diplomacy. I'll see you then! Explopyro fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jan 29, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 08:29
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Ooooh, are there any wasp species that use pheromones to take over other wasp's nests? I think I've read about some parasitic insects like this who take over bee nests, but those were queens that then got those bees to take care for their offspring, iirc? Perhaps the wasp king used some kind of roach tech to take over the nest, which would explain why the one wasp with a broken antenna wasn't put under the same spell? Now that Explopyro has basically confirmed that Lyn will grow up later in the game, I can't wait to see their adult form. I apologize for a lack of comment on the recent updates, I wrote a big post about Kabbu but my PC ate it  So I'll just say that Kabbu remains my favorite Bug Fables character.
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Jan 28, 2022 11:33
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Vanessa seems like a nice lady. I hope we can help her get her kingdom back from the King
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Jan 28, 2022 13:57
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Torrannor posted:Ooooh, are there any wasp species that use pheromones to take over other wasp's nests? I think I've read about some parasitic insects like this who take over bee nests, but those were queens that then got those bees to take care for their offspring, iirc? Perhaps the wasp king used some kind of roach tech to take over the nest, which would explain why the one wasp with a broken antenna wasn't put under the same spell? This is a really interesting question and I enjoy the lines you're thinking along; I do know what the situation in the game is, and it will eventually get explained, but I'm not sure how much I should say right now. Social parasitism and parasitic queens are absolutely a thing, and can take over colonies via several different methods, but it's most common (or at least best documented) in ants. There's even a specific strategy called nest usurpation. It seems to be rarer, or at least less well-studied, in bees and wasps, but it does exist: here's one wasp species at least that does it. Torrannor posted:Now that Explopyro has basically confirmed that Lyn will grow up later in the game, I can't wait to see their adult form. Heh. Oops? I was trying to be vague there, but yes, we'll eventually find out what's going on with Yin see her adult form. Torrannor posted:I apologize for a lack of comment on the recent updates, I wrote a big post about Kabbu but my PC ate it Ugh, I hate when this happens. No pressure, but if you remember any of the things you'd wanted to say, please  , I'd love to read it. (It's really hard to have a favourite character, I love all of them, but if pressed I'd probably say Kabbu is my favourite too.)Slaan posted:Vanessa seems like a nice lady. I hope we can help her get her kingdom back from the King We will certainly try. Explopyro fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Jan 29, 2022 |
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Jan 29, 2022 16:40
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Explopyro posted:For better or worse, there's nothing else we can do here. At least we were able to feed her. (Although Amber's right there... maybe she didn't feel comfortable sharing our items without consent?) Amber is a bug fully dedicated to her job. Even to the point of heartlessness.
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Feb 2, 2022 10:45
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54: Desperation and Diplomacy 17 - Ant Kingdom Okay. Everything looks normal... but is it? Team Maki went ahead with Queen Vanessa, let's catch up with them. Hopefully we're overreacting and it's not the worst case scenario?   ...I-I need to go back to the castle... Something weird is happening.Some of the ants have new dialogue; there's a general sense of unease about.  It looks like Utter wants to alert us that the quest board's been updated, but now's not the time for that! We'll come back and check in with him later.   Something bad is going to happen.This soldier also feels like something is off.   Please hurry! 18 - In the Court of the Ant Queen So far, the palace still looks undisturbed. That should be reassuring, and yet...  But I am too afraid to check it out.The sense of foreboding is further reinforced by the fact that everyone else is feeling it.  Yin's here, freaking out by the throne room entrance. Maki and Kina are nowhere to be seen... Yin is shaking badly... Something is going on at the throne room...She gets a banter.   Hurry!The Lieutenant's seen better days. That's not a good sign. ...! Something is wrong!She also gets a banter, though there's not much to it.  Nothing else for it, let's go into the throne room. 13 - It's Getting Scary!    You blasted usurper! Will you burn all of Bugaria to the ground to reach your foolish ambitions!?  A King holds absolute power over his people. He is not meant to serve. He is to be served! To command! To possess! To enjoy! That is the privilege of royalty! And it shall all be mine!  Like we'd fall for the same trick twice!    Kabbu! MOVE!     Or I will pry them from your carcass! ... N-No! If we do, he'll... You have until my axe swings... To say YES! ...  You shall all bow to me once more - but you shall keep breathing. Enjoy your last days of peace, lowlives!    My Queen, all I've done is fail you... Stay still, Maki... You're even more hurt than me. It's okay. A-At least we're all safe...  Elizant... No, Queen. Thank you. For choosing to save us. ... 61 - Elizant II's Promise (Recommended listening!)  It would be folly to pretend I deserve this royal mask. ... My Queen... That's not true! We couldn't ask for one better! You are our mother! Our beacon of hope! I have failed as both your Queen and mother of our people. N-No... When the King usurped my people, I cowered and hid. I have never raised a blade... I simply believed my subjects would always follow me, no matter what. I don't know how, but he turned them all on me just like that... If you are not a Queen, I am but a peasant. You've given us all the chance to thrive in your city! ... Your words are kind, but I cannot accept them. As we speak, the Wasp King must be heading towards the Everlasting Sapling... Yet we have no way to pursue... I assumed it would be to keep yourself young and fit to rule... Uh, right. No one wants to get old! ...Fair assumptions. But no, it was never something for my own gain. I might as well tell you, then. The reason for my search. 48 - The Ones Who... (She hesitates quite a bit here, it seems like she's struggling to say it.)    It was her dream to get the Sapling so she could continue to rule Bugaria for years to come. ...I wished only to bring her back with it. A graceful Queen, loved by all. A diplomatic genius who ended wars without combat. I longed for her return... So that I may concede my throne to her. ... We truly thought wrong of your intentions. But the truth sounds even more insane... Um, I'm not sure if that would be my reaction... We need to go beat up the King! Whatever he wants isn't any better! If we knew where he was going, we would have some chance, but... Were you ever gonna tell us? Speak up! R-Right. I was, uh, waiting for the right moment. The King is certainly going for the Sapling, yeah?   A towering behemoth of steel and wood, said to have housed the previous rulers of these lands. The so-called giants. It is forbidden to go there. None who enter have come back. ...In hindsight, it makes sense it'd be there. Even if we needed the artifacts to enter. We need a boat to get there, though. Doubt the Wasps will let us sail in fine and dandy. Tch. They were one step ahead of us. We had just received reports that the ships at the pier were all sunk by the Wasps!  The camera pans up, to focus on a stained-glass window that was hidden behind a curtain on our previous visits.  There's a Termite Kingdom? They are an isolationist yet advanced society that lives just outside Bugaria... They hate daylight, so they don't make much contact. Some species go for a visit, but they forbid entrance to all Ants. ...Or that's how they used to be. Right, our Queen? But they are our only hope. I will go, injured though I may be. I shall request an audience and do what it takes. You must NOT put yourself in such danger! I will prepare envoys at once! 18 - In the Court of the Ant Queen We are only in such dire straits because of me. I will go myself, and that is final. Hnngh... If only I was as strong as you, my Queen. Injured as I am... Maki, Zaryant, you two rally up all explorers. Do not let rumors and panic spread. When we return, we shall strike at the Wasps. That is the only known way inside the Giant's Lair from Bugaria. But right now, we will move to the Forsaken Lands. I will need an escort to ensure I arrive at the Termite Kingdom. Also, Vanessa, please feel free to stay at our palace. We do not have much to offer, but we will be sure to treat you as you deserve. Our mothers may have had trouble in the past, but we can change the relationship between Ants and Wasps for generations to come. ...Is that so. Then let us share a meal after all this is dealt with. Team Snakemouth, we must hurry. Do not keep me waiting.  You can count on us. 062 - Chapter 6: Assault on Rubber Prison   This marks the point at which Chapter 5 officially ends, and Chapter 6 begins. Those were certainly some revelations! If nothing else, we now understand why Elizant II wanted to find the Sapling so badly, and this is generally the moment where she passes beyond suspicion of villainy. (Also, the intro didn't lie: it used the phrase "she fell into a hard-earned sleep", which definitely sounds like a euphemism for death, but technically we were never told Elizant I was dead.) Though this motive does raise other questions. Among other things, I find myself wondering how well she actually knew her mother before Elizant I went into stasis (and how old she was at the time). Everyone speaks well of Elizant I and views her as the perfect ruler, but we have very little actual knowledge, and it all sounds just a bit like everyone is idealising her. Would she really be better able to handle this situation, or does Elizant II just want to see her mother again? Anyway, we have much to think on. In the meantime, let's get our bearings. There's a new banter here now to start things off: The throne room has seen better days... We shall not forgive the Wasp King. Let's put a stop to his reign of terror.Let's hope we can catch up with him.  Please be careful. The Forsaken Lands are always shrouded in fog, and many dangerous beasts lurk within. Leave it to us!Zaryant will remind us of the plan, and she has a little more intel to add.  Indeed. The sapling is finally within reach. Of the Wasp King! Be careful, everyone! I'll be rooting for you!And Neolith has a bit of pep talk for us, though Vi's right to temper it.  What's this? We can inspect the newly revealed window.  As you no doubt expected, it's a Discovery!    There's a lot of background detail here. Including that unlike the other kingdoms we've encountered, the termites have both a queen and a king (which is actually true of real termites as well, in contrast with most other social insects).  The window with Elizant II's image is gone, the Wasp King used it to make his escape route. It's almost like it's symbolic, or something. (This doesn't mean the discovery is permanently missable, for players who somehow didn't get it by now; it will eventually be repaired.)  This window is new too.  Apparently this one was of Vanessa I (presumably the relationship between the Ant and Wasp kingdoms broke down before the change in leadership, so it was never updated). Let's check out the discovery info.     Weirdly, despite the window being captioned Vanessa I, the actual text seems to focus on the current queen instead.  We can try to talk to the fallen soldiers in here, but they don't really respond. The King will not be forgiven! Let's go after him!I suppose at least we can take some motivation from this?  Let's leave the throne room. We've seen all we can here for now.  ...Oh?  Well, you see...  What!? To think this would happen behind our backs... We did what we could. At least we can say we were present. Why you... Mothiva... You've gotta learn to shut up sometimes!  Shut it! Or we'll take you all on right now! We can't afford to waste any time. We can argue when the kingdom's safe.   Well, duh! Do you know how frustrating it is to live in your short, meager shadow!? As if you're the only team who's grown. Whatever. We'll settle this later. Can't get too agitated before my show today.     Well, that was interesting. I'm sure they'll forget they heard that and leave us alone, definitely. (drat it, Leif.)  Now that we're through most of the chapter-start talking, let's start the usual check-ins. We'll head to the library first.   Sorry... It doesn't seem you have enough for the next reward tier... But don't give up! Keep trying and come back when you do!We'd gotten a whole bunch of discoveries in a short period of time, but we're still one short of the next reward. Oh well.   We do have a Lore Book to turn in, though! If you look closely, this one finishes up the bottom shelf. There are still a lot of these left to find; by the end of the game, we'll have filled up both shelves, hard as that might be to believe right now.  Ooh.  Family Structures in Social Bugs. Bugs can be classified into two types: social, and loners. Social bugs usually have a single Queen, the mother of the colony. Although all individuals are siblings, they do not tend to see it that way. Some individuals grow closer to others by choice, creating their own small "family cell".Social bugs are further separated into workers and civilians. Workers are born to protect and take care of running the colony. They take their job very seriously and fulfill their duties the best they can. Recently, some workers have rebelled to lead a loner life. This, too, could be an evolution? Civilians form family bonds more easily, and care for the general well-being of their colony. It should be noted that social bugs referring to their Queen as "mother" is considered a taboo. The Queen, however, has the freedom to call others her children. We'd pieced most of this together already, of course, but it's nice to have it in one place.  We're done in the library for now.  Let's take a quick detour into the mines.  This is new! The mine foreman is trying to get our attention.   We turned it into a pretty nifty tool for you! Would you mind testing it? This compass always points to this big crystal. Use it whenever you want to travel back here. There's quite a few tunnels leadin' back here already, the compass will take you to them!That sounds handy!  The Ant Compass goes into our Key Items menu, and can be used from there. This will let us fast-travel back to the mine hub from almost anywhere (provided that we're standing on a surface Kabbu can dig into). It's really convenient, although honestly it wasn't that difficult to get back to the existing tunnels before this. Still, I'm not going to complain. It's a bit weird to get this so late in the game; I'm not sure if they give it to us now because the castle attack made for a convenient excuse, or if (on a more meta level) it's because the designers are done using points of no return? Or I could be overthinking it and it's just to give the player a nudge toward doing sidequests, as they approach the endgame. Anyway, that's all we went into the mines for; let's go back up.  We really need to revise our security.The Lieutenant's recovered a bit since we last saw her; good to see she's thinking about countermeasures. There's also a new banter for her: The laiu... lieu... the ant captain's ok! Phew! Lieutenant, Vi. Is this the time to correct her grammar? ...You're right. I'm glad she's okay as well.(While we're being pedantic, Leif, pronunciation is not the same thing as grammar...)  Let's head out of the palace. 17 - Ant Kingdom Oh, right, Utter had quests for us.     Three new quests. Lost things and missing persons seem to be a bit of a theme here... this could be straightforward, or it could be a huge pain. Only time will tell. We'll accept them all, of course. Let's have a look around town and run the rest of our post-chapter errands.  That's weird. Merab doesn't have any new medals on display?  This is a thing that happens sometimes; I'm not sure why. If we ask him to shuffle them, though...  It fixes it. He has two new medals we can buy.     We've got plenty of berries, so there's no reason not to grab both.   Prayer isn't new, we already had one, but a second copy allows us to stack them, or give the ability to multiple bugs. (If we wanted to invest 10 MP toward Prayer and Meditation, we could have a single bug recover 4 HP and 2 TP by doing nothing. That adds up!)  Sleepy Needles costs 3 MP to equip, just like Poison Needles did. It adds the ability to inflict sleep (2 turn duration) to Vi's needle skills. Weirdly, inflicting sleep this way only increases enemies' resistance by 10%, unlike the 13% increase from other sources.This medal's potentially a lot better than Poison Needles (or you can stack them and inflict both statuses). For instance, you can try to spread sleep across multiple enemies if you're good at aiming Needle Toss. Or, if you're willing to exploit it, you can inflict sleep with an early hit and then immediately wake up the enemy by hitting them again, which glitches the AI into skipping that enemy's turn. I rarely use this medal because that feels cheesy, but it can definitely be powerful.  If we talk to Merab again, he'll reveal that we've cleaned him out. That was the last restock he had in him.   Huh? You'll have to figure it out on your own...And if we talk to this person after buying out Merab's stock, he'll teach us a new Menu Code! This one's significantly more interesting than the last one we saw. Inputting "MYSTERY?" when creating a new file enables randomiser mode. Specifically, it shuffles all the medal locations (as far as I know, everything's randomised in a single pool). This also makes medals appear as  mystery medals in the field, in shops, etc, so you don't know what anything is until you pick it up.(The code is also, of course, a blatant reference to the eponymous item in Paper Mario. It would spin a roulette to do a random effect in battle, or give you a random outcome when cooked.) This mode's a lot of fun, and definitely gives the game a lot of replayability if you're left wanting more. I'll put together a mini-update shortly to cover it in a bit more detail.  Let's head to the bar and see if Shades has anything new.   He definitely does! Like Merab, Chapter 6 marks the final time Shades will restock: these two are the last new medals he's going to get in. Let's remind ourselves what's currently in his full inventory:  Electric Needles (5 Crystal Berries) Front Support (5 Crystal Berries) Poison Attacker (5 Crystal Berries) Defense Exchange (5 Crystal Berries) EXP Booster (2 Crystal Berries)Let's talk about the new ones. Electric Needles completes the trifecta of Vi's status infliction medals. For 3 MP, this gives her needle skills the ability to inflict Numb. It will also increase the enemy's resistance to Numb by 15% each time it's inflicted this way (the same as any other source of Numb). Immobilising enemies is powerful, and the drawback of increasing their defence barely matters if you're attacking with something like the needle skills anyway (both of which ignore defence). That said, it's actually been nerfed: in the current version of the game, Numb duration on enemies is capped at 1 turn, but prior to v1.1 this wasn't the case and you could immobilise things for much longer (and even stack the duration by inflicting it multiple times). It's still a very strong and useful tool, but it used to be significantly more gamebreaking.Also, equipping all three status needle medals at the same time (and maybe adding Status Booster) is a build choice that's somewhat popular. It's not necessarily predictable what will happen, but most enemies aren't immune to everything, and their resistance generally won't build quickly enough to stop the disabling before you win the fight. I'm not the biggest fan of this approach (if I'm going to use these, I prefer to just equip Electric Needles and use it as one tool among many), but it can definitely be effective. Front Support is the most expensive medal in the game, MP-wise. It costs a whopping 8 MP to equip. For that, you get +1 defence for the bug in front (which, considering that position is more likely to be attacked, is the most effective place to have a defence bonus). This is obviously good, but is it worth the opportunity cost of not spending those 8 MP on other medals? I find it hard to justify, it's just too difficult to fit in given how many options there are. But, having said that, the effect is powerful, and it might be what you need.We've got 8 Crystal Berries right now, and we'll probably find a few more soon (though, as you can see, we're definitely coming up on the tail end of things). Please vote in the thread for a medal or two for us to buy next; this will probably be the last time I ask for votes on this, given how much options will be narrowing from here. In the meantime, let's get some more stuff.     Was it too challenging for ya? You deserve a reward. Here, take this! Come back later when you've bonked some extra hard heads with that Medal, will ya?  Reverse Toxin is the final piece of the poison build. For 3 MP, this makes the equipped bug recover HP while poisoned, instead of taking damage: they'll heal the same amount that they would have taken in damage. As a downside, though, it reduces defence by 1 while poisoned (but of course you can counteract that with Poison Defender). This can definitely be good if you're going the tanking route with your poison build (and it pairs well with Eternal Venom), though depending on how you're going about it, that extra point of defence might be more valuable than the healing. Regardless, the tradeoff makes it significantly more interesting to think about than if it just had the healing aspect.We'll add it to the pile. Let's take a quick trip to Defiant Root, there's one last thing I want to pick up before ending the update.  Remember this fellow?  Uuuuuhhhhh? So, Sun has gotten new stock for the first time since we met him in Chapter 3, and it's this thing. drat right I want this.  Use it well, travelers. I do not have any more berries with me at the moment, but I might find some more in the future. Please come back some other time. So. The Super Pepper. This is the only way to get a permanent attack increase that isn't from medals. And we get one. There's one other, but it's in the postgame. So we're now faced with a decision. Voting time! Who gets to eat this? Anyone could make great use of this. Vi probably gets the most mileage out of it, since she has the cheapest multi-hit moves, but then Leif has Icefall and Ice Rain, and even Kabbu has Under Strike and Dash Through... anyone can be the primary damage-dealer of the party, if you set them up for it. Honestly, on unmodified Hard Mode, I tend to think it's overkill and usually don't give it to anybody. But this is an LP, so it shouldn't be my decision. What do you think? Next time, world exploration and sidequests! I'll see you then. (Look out for a mini-post on the randomiser mode in the meantime.) Explopyro fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Feb 9, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 07:53
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Bonus: Menu Codes & Randomiser Mode Preview 01 - Bug Fables Let's take a quick look at menu codes and the randomiser mode, because it does some interesting things. I'm obviously not going to cover it in full (it's taking me long enough to cover the main playthrough!), but I don't want to ignore it either.   So let's enter the code MYSTERY? instead of our file name.  When we select "Confirm", it plays an acceptance tone, but just clears the name entry and waits for more inputs. We could put in more menu codes, if we wanted; the effects combine, so you can customise your playthroughs for all sorts of challenge runs. It's pretty nice, but for now we'll just put in a file name and move on.  It also lets us input a seed! Want to do a race with a friend under the same conditions? Did you have a really good experience you want to repeat? (For a long time, I wasn't sure whether you could view your seed ingame after creating the file, and recommended using an external RNG to pick the seed and note it somehow, maybe using it for the filename?, so that if you liked the run and wanted to replay or share it with a friend you could easily do so. I've since been informed that you can in fact view your seed ingame, on the right-hand sign in the Cave of Trials room, so this is largely moot.)  Once you come across any medal in this mode, the difference becomes apparent. Every medal in the field appears as a mystery medal until you collect it and find out what it is. In this run, instead of  Bug Me Not!, I got Poison Attacker.The utility medals you get used to relying on aren't necessarily going to be available! (This mode can really make you miss  Crazy Prepared, for instance.)As far as I know, all of the medals are shuffled into a common pool and could be any mystery medal, with only two exceptions:  Hard Mode and  Extra Freeze are always still found in their original locations.   Another thing you'll quickly see is that the prices in Merab's shop have been standardised. Everything costs 35 berries, no matter what, so you can't deduce what they are from the cost. What's this one going to be?  Shock Trooper? That's different. Okay then.   The same goes for Shades, though with a bit of a twist.   Heh, that's one he usually sells. That does sometimes happen. Let's buy another one.  Well, that's a dud.  Wait, what? Now the price has gone up? The first two medals you buy from him, no matter what they are, cost 3 Crystal Berries each. After that, the rest of them cost 4 each. As he carries 13 medals total, this adds up exactly to 50 Crystal Berries, so there won't be any left over just like in the vanilla game. That's really all I had to show. It's a randomiser, it behaves exactly the way you'd expect. If I had one criticism, it's that the nature of randomising medal locations makes runs feel very different and interesting in the early to midgame, but as you get further, things homogenise as you start to accumulate a critical mass of the good stuff, and the late game always feels pretty much the same. The best way to combat this, I found, is to add a self-imposed restriction that I'm not allowed to buy medals from either Merab, Shades, or both (Merab stocks 15 total, Shades stocks 13 total), depending on how much I want to challenge myself. This way, there's always an arbitrary portion of the medal pool that's inaccessible to me, and I have to make do with what I get and can't rely on using tried-and-true strategies. If you've finished the game and still want more Bug Fables, it's well worth trying out. This mode's great. Also, here is a tool which might be of interest to people playing this mode (which I became aware of thanks to the Bug Fables Discord). It attempts to deduce your seed and the likely locations of medals based on information you give it about what you've already found. What I don't know is the mapping between its order and the actual ingame locations, so I suspect there's going to inevitably be some guesswork involved still (and, honestly, I think I'll prefer to play without using it), but it's pretty neat regardless. Explopyro fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jan 10, 2023 |
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Feb 3, 2022 07:56
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That's actually really interesting and I never knew that was a feature, I'd definitely give random mode a go for a second playthrough.
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Feb 3, 2022 08:50
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I recently got a double dip copy of this game on PC for my birthday and I thought that doing a random playthrough would be a great way to replay it, maybe combined with the Luigi Challenge modifier.
Alxprit fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 17:51
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I vote for pepper on Vi.
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Feb 4, 2022 04:29
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I vote Vi for the berry by random roll. And I guess go ahead and grab the last poison attacker and finish that set.
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Feb 4, 2022 06:51
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Captainicus posted:That's actually really interesting and I never knew that was a feature, I'd definitely give random mode a go for a second playthrough. While in some ways I think having the menu codes be given as rewards for completing various things ingame is a good idea (it avoids the classic problem of, e.g., giving you a powerful weapon or ability when there are no challenges left to use it in, by making the rewards extra game modes), it's definitely a big downside that it's easy to miss out on finding them. Non-completionists deserve fun replay modes too. The good news is that you don't need to "unlock" the codes to use them, if you know them you can enter them on a clean install and they'll still work. But that still means you need to learn about them somehow, probably from the wiki or word of mouth. I honestly want to play around with the randomiser more, I prioritised other challenge playthroughs (and then the LP) and haven't spent as much time with it as I'd like to. Alxprit posted:I recently got a double dip copy of this game on PC for my birthday and I thought that doing a random playthrough would be a great way to replay it, maybe combined with the Luigi Challenge modifier. That's definitely a solid combination, sounds like fun! Shaking up the MP cost economy at the same time as the distribution should be a really good way to keep things fresh. We'll definitely be talking more about that other mode at some point, because it's interesting and the history of it's pretty neat (I love that they took inspiration from the Paper Mario romhacking community). There are also some odd quirks to it: for instance, it arbitrarily takes away some of the extra rank-up bonuses (you still learn new skills and get inventory expansions, but the ones that give you extra stats don't happen). Edit: just wanted to say, I appreciate the caution in spoilering that but I think it's probably overkill. I don't have any issue with the thread discussing game modes I haven't covered yet (I've definitely done my share of that too). Quackles posted:I vote for pepper on Vi. FoolyCharged posted:I vote Vi for the berry by random roll. I'll note these down and leave voting open for a bit longer; I've had a novelty update planned that I might do next, so I have a little room to put off recording... Explopyro fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Feb 4, 2022 |
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Feb 4, 2022 16:26
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FoolyCharged posted:I vote Vi for the berry by random roll. Agreed with this. I'm glad Elizant II isn't a bad lady, just a monarch with complicated motivations. Thanks for defying convention Bug Fables 
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Feb 4, 2022 16:31
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There's more good Elizant II content to come but this revelation was very relieving and vindicating to me the first time I saw it. Knowing where our loyalties lie precisely as we get closer to the end of the game makes sense. And I appreciate the extra humanizing here. I'm also really looking forward to our journey towards the Termite Kingdom, but I know we'll probably be taking care of a lot of business before then... Anyway, I vote Kabbu for the attack boost, because it seems like we've been using him a lot, and it would defy a lot of conventions. No preference on the crystal berry buy.
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Feb 4, 2022 17:34
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...I have just noticed that today apparently marks the 1 year anniversary of my starting this thread. Well then. It feels simultaneously like it's been a lot longer than that, and not nearly so long, if that makes any kind of sense? (Arguably it's not 1 year since I started the LP, it took me around a month of false starts to get to the point of being able to post the first update. But still.) I had no idea how much work I was getting myself into back then. As a check-in: we are definitely entering the home stretch now, and I'm hoping it won't take anywhere close to another year to finish the game. Chapter 6 is another long one, comparable to 4 or 5, but by contrast Chapter 7 is pretty short and is almost entirely the final dungeon. Then maybe a chapter's worth of postgame and extras to cover. If I had to guess, I'd say we're at around the 75% point or so. Slaan posted:I'm glad Elizant II isn't a bad lady, just a monarch with complicated motivations. Thanks for defying convention Bug Fables Yeah, it feels weirdly subversive even though it's... not, really? Or it shouldn't be, anyway. There's a decent amount of complexity to her character and she's allowed to make mistakes, and I like that. (Interestingly, at least according to Genow's comments in the artbook, they weren't sure what direction they were going to take her at first, and did at least consider making her a/the villain. Her earlier lines leaned more brusque and harsh for that reason, though I also like how it ends up working as character development.) Alxprit posted:There's more good Elizant II content to come but this revelation was very relieving and vindicating to me the first time I saw it. Knowing where our loyalties lie precisely as we get closer to the end of the game makes sense. And I appreciate the extra humanizing here. I'm also really looking forward to our journey towards the Termite Kingdom, but I know we'll probably be taking care of a lot of business before then... I really enjoy Elizant II's arc, and it's definitely going to be a big part of the plot going forward. I wouldn't say she's the main character of the forthcoming content, exactly, but she's definitely going to be stepping into more of a co-protagonist role from here out. I'm so excited to cover what's coming. (God, I love this game.) As you say, though, it's going to be a bit before we get there. We've got an update or two of side content between now and meeting up with her, at least. (Also... I have maps to figure out how the hell I'm going to make. That's going to be fun.) Alxprit posted:Anyway, I vote Kabbu for the attack boost, because it seems like we've been using him a lot, and it would defy a lot of conventions. No preference on the crystal berry buy. It would defy conventions a bit, but I've definitely seen people end up with Kabbu as the main damage dealer, if they've decided to build Vi as a healer and Leif as support. It's probably one of the least common approaches, though, because Vi and Leif are both so effective at burst damage. (IMO, Leif has the strongest role without stat boosts, because so many of his support abilities are stat-agnostic, and Turn Relay is a thing. Which I find pretty fascinating, because the nuke wizard is usually an RPG staple.)
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Feb 4, 2022 19:31
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Interlude: Welcome to the World of Pokémon What's this? Everyone looks different here! Are we in the wrong game? So, some time ago I did a playthrough of Pokémon Sword with a team of all Bug Fables characters. I've been wanting to do a side update showing them off for a while, but I've been waiting until I could explain all the decisions I made without spoiling anything in the LP.  Here's my party of six, from left to right: Vi, Kabbu, Leif, Maki, Levi, Celia. There are plenty of other characters I considered including too, but I either thought they didn't quite fit (a Scolipede for the Beast would have been perfect, for instance, but it didn't feel right having it on the same team as Kabbu), or they would've made team diversity weird (I considered just doing Team Snakemouth and Team Maki, but I didn't have any great ideas for how to differentiate Kina and Maki, so Levi and Celia got the nod instead). One detail that unfortunately won't come through in the screenshots is that I played through the game with a trainer called Elizant II (who I gave burgundy hair and purple clothing), since all six of these characters are loyal to her. Unfortunately, I bred all of these Pokémon on my main file, so the "original trainer" info shows that instead, and I didn't keep the Elizant II save after finishing (it was before I decided to do an LP) so I don't have her trainer profile to show. Let's take a closer look.  Let's start with Vi. In perhaps a controversial decision, she is a Ribombee, rather than Beedrill. Beedrill does have Twineedle, which would have been perfect, but I thought overall Ribombee fit better (aesthetically Ribombee just looks a lot more like Vi, and there are some other reasons I'll get into). Also, shh, Beedrill wasn't in Sword and Shield anyway. She's holding Leftovers, to represent her endless stash of healing items.  She also has the ability Honey Gather, for a similar reason (it lets her scavenge Honey items after battles, which I thought was nicely fitting). It's a useless ability in gameplay terms (Honey is significantly less useful in Pokémon than it is in Bug Fables, and Ribombee have other abilities that are better), but these are the sacrifices we make in the name of accuracy.  She has a Rash nature. This is +special attack, -special defence, so it's both a useful one for her in gameplay terms, and one that fits her personality reasonably well. It's nice when things like that come together.  Here are her moves. This is where things get a bit fuzzier, because Ribombee is a special attacker and physical moves would have fit Vi better, but I did the best I could within those constraints. Pollen Puff lets her heal her allies in addition to attacking, Stun Spore vaguely represents Electric Needles, and Quiver Dance boosts her attack and speed (representing the types of strategies she tends to favour in Bug Fables). Moonblast lets her hit things hard, so it works in that sense, it's just a bit thematically off. Next up is Kabbu.  Kabbu, of course, is a Heracross. He was by far the easiest character to pick a Pokémon species for. He is seen here holding a Rocky Helmet, representing the Spiky Bod medal.   Though he sometimes gets a Focus Band or Focus Sash instead, in acknowledgment of his survival at 1 HP in the fight with The Beast.  He has the Guts ability, which lets him do more damage when suffering a status effect (usually poison). Clearly, this version of the team has the poison medals equipped to him.  Kabbu has an Adamant nature (+physical attack, -special attack). As well as being one of the better choices gameplay-wise, I thought it was a pretty good fit for his determined personality.  And here are Kabbu's moves. Megahorn needs no explanation, but he also has Brick Break (I would have given him Rock Smash but that wasn't in Sword) for destroying boulders, Dig for use both in battle and the field, and Rock Slide representing Mighty Pebble/Mightier Pebble. Now for Leif.  Sword and Shield gave us Frosmoth, an ice moth Pokémon, so this wasn't a particularly difficult choice either. Though I did consider some others before going with the obvious: there are several moth Pokémon with vaguely-magical abilities (or even some fungus Pokémon, Parasect is literally a cordyceps) that could probably have worked, and Frosmoth's body shape is quite different to Leif. He is holding a Never-Melt Ice, because all of his offences are ice-based. He's Leif, what did you expect?  I went out of my way to get his hidden ability, Ice Scales. Also, Leif is the only team member I didn't go with a 252/252/6 EV spread for, he has 252 in special attack but I spread the rest across his defences a bit haphazardly. All of this is a more or less futile effort to get him some survivability (and mitigate the defencive flaws of Ice/Bug as a type), because he's too slow to avoid taking some hits.  I gave Leif the Quiet nature (+special attack, -speed). He's often soft-spoken and deadpan, so it seemed reasonably appropriate.  And here are Leif's moves. Just like in Bug Fables, he only deals damage with ice. (Let's say Blizzard is "Ice Rain"; he also had Hail at one point as a more direct representation, but it didn't do him a lot of good.) We also have Icy Wind (which has the secondary effect of lowering enemies' stats) and Quiver Dance to raise his own, representing his myriad status-buff spells. I considered giving him Helping Hand, also, to represent that and/or the way I frequently have him use Turn Relay, but there weren't enough double battles ingame to justify spending the slot. That's Team Snakemouth. The other characters didn't have as many details I could mine, so they're not going to be quite as elaborate, but let's look at them too. Maki is next.  I ended up with Maki as a Lurantis. It's a bit awkward because Lurantis is grass-type (meaning this team isn't mono-Bug), and a pun on orchid mantises (which Maki isn't), but it's a reddish mantis with sword-like appendages that gets slashing moves. Arguably, Scizor is mantis-like and could also have worked, but I preferred the explicit swords Lurantis had. I could have used a Scizor for Kina, maybe, but I didn't have the ability to do trade-evolutions when setting this up, so I couldn't control enough of the parameters for my taste. Maki is holding a Quick Claw, because Lurantis is very slow but he's pretty nimble in Bug Fables. (He's got that leg injury, but he can pull off an ambush when it matters.)  The Contrary ability isn't a great thematic fit, personality-wise, but mechanically it lets him get stronger over the course of a fight without having to stop attacking. That seemed like a reasonably good fit for him (and also it's a fun ability to play with, let me have this).  Brave (+physical attack, -speed) nature is self-explanatory. Adamant could have fit just as well, but I didn't want to overuse that and Brave seemed like an excellent fit personality-wise. Maki doesn't hesitate to go into danger, even if he leaves his team behind for their safety.  Maki's moves. Leaf Blade and Night Slash are both swordy moves. Superpower, in addition to sounding awesome, is an ability that lets him power up with Contrary. Leech Life is there not really because it's fitting, but since he couldn't be a Bug type I wanted him to have a Bug-type move, and the recovery does help him. Levi and Celia are left.  Levi is probably the one I had to stretch the hardest with. Truthfully, Ledian would have been a better fit, as a physically-oriented fighting ladybug, but Ledian is both an awful Pokémon and one that doesn't appear in Sword and Shield. Escavalier could have represented his knightly side, but it's not a ladybug. Orbeetle was the compromise I eventually settled on. We'll say the Twisted Spoon is his sword.  I wasn't spoiled for choice where abilities were concerned, but Swarm at least theoretically works for him. He gets injured a lot, like in the scene with Monsieur Scarlet?  Timid (+speed, -physical attack) was a less-than-perfect choice of nature; it works well for him gameplay-wise, at least, and I justify it in that he's the type to set traps rather than attack openly. Modest (+special attack, -physical attack) would probably have been a better fit, I think, I'd pick that if I did this over again. We have less information to go on for Levi than the previous characters.  Levi's moves were just chosen to be generally effective, I don't have thematic justifications for these. (As a curiosity, in the course of all the breeding I did to assemble this team, I ended up with a nearly-perfect shiny Blipbug. But it was the wrong gender and the non-shiny colours better fit Levi anyway, so I didn't end up using it.) And here's Celia.  And here's Celia the Durant. She's a greyish ant who is always seen carrying a shield, so the Steel-type ant seemed like a perfect fit for her. (Before I settled on Levi as the sixth party member, I considered naming my Durant something like Gen-Eri instead, but I think this worked out better.) She's got an Assault Vest, further representing the big tower shield she carries.  Celia also has Swarm, because Durant's other two abilities are actively detrimental (barring niche strategies for competitive play, which I wasn't going to be doing with this team). I guess her and Levi both having the same ability as teammates makes a kind of sense.  Adamant nature seemed reasonably fitting for Celia also; I can't justify it as much as with Kabbu, but it fits fine with what we know of her.  And her moves. Again, I didn't have as much to go on as for the others, so I just gave her the combat skills I wanted for gameplay. I went out of my way to get First Impression, though (which required a bit of shenanigans); she was pretty standoffish to Team Snakemouth at first, after all. Let's take a look at the team all together. It was surprisingly hard to get them all into frame at once, but I did manage a couple of decent shots.  (Heh, it's almost like the title screen, Vi and Kabbu are chatting off on the left side while Leif ignores them...)  Something must be going on in the distance here, nobody wanted to look at the camera.  And here I am cooking curry for everyone. I'm no Fry, Kut, or Crisbee, but it just wouldn't be Bug Fables without cooking. And there you have it! This was fun to do, both in design and as a monotype challenge, and I've been looking forward to sharing it with all of you. I might expand this beyond six members someday (there are a lot of characters I could still add, like Kina and Yin, or Vanessa II as a Vespiquen, etc, there are a lot of Bug Pokémon to work from). I hope you enjoyed this Pokémon interlude; we'll return to the usual content next time.
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Feb 7, 2022 05:04
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It's sometimes easy to forget that Leif isn't wearing robes, but that those are wings wrapped around Leif's body. Seeing Leif the Pokemon is a cool reminder of how moths usually look.
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Feb 8, 2022 10:13
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Voting Kabbu and Poison Attacker as well.
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Feb 8, 2022 10:23
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55: Time For Reflection (Part 1) 01 - Bug Fables We're back! Now that we've started Chapter 6, the title screen has updated again. Mothiva and Zasp have joined the crowd, hanging out by the theatre entrance. I wonder if that means anything. Anyway, let's get started. 37 - Defiant Root We made a quick stop in Defiant Root last time to pick up the Super Pepper. Let's start off with that.  This ended up being a bit contentious: Vi won by only one vote! Let's give it to her.   From this screen, it's not immediately apparent that did anything.  But if we go into the stats/medals menu, we can see her attack value definitely went up. (If we took off the Power Exchanges, we'd see her base attack is now 3.) Vi is getting very, very scary. Someone should probably make a joke about killer bees or something.  While we're here, let's go see Engira in the smithy. He posted a quest for us earlier.  Let's talk to him.  Woah, chill out. You're Engira, right? You lost that claw thing? Grr... Yes. Those darn Wasps! I'm sure they're responsible! Wouldn't one sooner blame the bandits? As if those uncultured criminals would know the value of MY CLAW! Heck, if it wasn't the Wasps, they hired the bandits to do it! That's not much of a clue, is it? If anyone can find it, it's explorers, right!? Worry not. We shall recover YOUR CLAW!All right, that's simple enough. We'll need to head back to that area anyway, we'll definitely keep our eyes open for this. There's also, of course, a banter we can see: Poor guy. The claw really was a big charm point. Is it that big of a deal? He can just get another tool, right? Would you so quickly abandon your Beemerang? ...Alright, alright.It's not clear to me whether this is just a tool Engira uses, or an actual prosthetic. Regardless, we should find it. Before that, though, let's have a look around. There's a bit of new dialogue in Defiant Root.  Fuzzo's worried war isn't good for his business.   How long until this old town of us is next? I don't want to think about this...This guy's worrying about Defiant Root being attacked.   We have to protect the town!As are the bee soldiers who have to defend it. More interestingly, perhaps, if we head into the bar...  Speak of the devil. Aebees appears to be drowning her sorrows here.   ...Not my business. So long as they keep off here. Sorry.But first, let's discover that the barkeep is pretty callous.   How will I ever face the Queen...!?She's not doing too well.     Also, there's a new banter for her. There are so many emotes in this one I had to screenshot the whole thing; Leif, there's a time and place for jokes. (Also, this one's a pretty deep cut: he's playing on Vi's wording in Aebees' previous banters, but if you didn't see those this is probably a lot less funny.) I wondered if there might be some new dialogue in/around the Bee Kingdom addressing the attack and its fallout, so I went and had a look around, but there doesn't seem to be yet. There was this along the way, but that's it:   Mmm... Times are getting rough.Will seems to be a bit behind on the news. I can't remember if we've seen this dialogue before, we might well have done.  Let's head outside for a bit. We've got a few miscellaneous things to check out, in addition to working on sidequests, and the first point of interest is right here.  Remember there was a boulder here? Kabbu can smash it now.  There's a buried item underneath it.    It's another set of Dark Cherries. We'll need to do something neat with these soon, they're starting to pile up and I've barely touched them. Anyway, we're done in Defiant Root for now... 26 - Golden Lands So let's head to the Golden Settlement next.   If we head into the eastern residential area, we can run into Jayde! Looks like she managed to flee the Wasp Kingdom and is hiding out here. Jayde's settling here, huh. It's good to see she'll be out of harm's way. What we should see is if she's still selling that stew!If we check the banter, our team will express concern (okay, Vi's concern is for stew, but that still counts right?). Let's see what she has to say.  Jayde? What are you doing here? After you knocked out Fuff, I decided to follow the Queen's steps and leave for a bit. This place is really nice, isn't it? I think I'll set up here. What, like a shop? My stew shop! You guys liked it so much... I think it can be a success! You've got that right. I'll give you a special Ranger Discount, so buy a lot! Woohoo! You don't have to say anything! I'm just glad to help in your travels!Heh, Kabbu wanted to come clean, but she wouldn't let him get a word in.  If we talk to her again, she'll offer to sell us her stew, so it isn't lost forever if you chose not to buy any last chapter. The price has gone up significantly, though. It'll be 25 berries each from now on, which is significantly less of a bargain than before: honestly, at this price, it's not exactly worth it (though berries are so plentiful at this point of the game that the cost barely matters, if you do want it). Sure, we'll take one. All done! Have a feast! You can come back anytime, my heroes!If we decline to buy it, she'll say this: Aw... well, I'll be around. Come by anytime if you want some!Also, this was fun:  If we try to buy one with a full inventory, she'll ask us if we can give her something as a souvenir and make room that way. Unfortunately, the game doesn't actually let us do this, but it's a cute line regardless. So, yeah, this is where Jayde goes. This is all she can do for us right now. Maybe we'll come back if we're hungry, but for now let's move on.   There's another boulder here, right outside the Golden Settlement. It's easy to forget this one, it's been quite a while since we were here!     This one's hiding a Lore Book! We'll have to go read that.  I started heading back normally, but then I realised this would be a perfect time to demonstrate our shiny new Ant Compass! Let's see how this works, shall we?  18 - In the Court of the Ant Queen After a short animation of Kabbu digging into the ground (you do need to be standing on ground Kabbu can dig in to use this item), we warp directly to the Ant Mines! This is really handy. (Let's just ignore the fact we were standing right next to an entrance to the mines anyway, this is just a demonstration and this works nearly anywhere.)  We can head straight south and immediately find the way up into the Ant Palace.  Since we're here, let's go turn in that Lore Book.   We're starting another row on the shelf! That's more than halfway done, though honestly it always surprises me how long it took us to get to this point. A lot of these come along surprisingly late in the game.  Let's read it. Bugarian Honey. Something about the pollen collected from Bugarian flowers causes the honey produced here to be super sweet, but also super volatile. If the honey is mixed too thick or heated up too much, it becomes alive and turns into a being called an "Abomihoney". Scientists are still trying to figure out what causes the honey to turn into these beasts. Many tests point toward crystal fragments in the plants of Bugaria being the culprit, but there's no conclusive proof.This one's mostly telling us what we don't know, though I guess it's good to know they're researching this. (It all goes back to those crystals...) And, I guess, that honey in this world isn't intrinsically monstrous and explosive, it's more of a regional speciality.  Let's head out and have a look around town again.  Just... Just what am I good for...!? What am I guarding for!?Some of the guards are having crises in the aftermath of the attack.  Well at least this time the city wasn't destroyed...While others are looking at it a bit more pragmatically. (Though she hasn't seen the damage to the palace itself...) Weirdly, most of the bugs around don't have new dialogue.  This one does, though.   Also, it's been a while since we've been to the bank. Whoa. I don't remember having nearly this much... This is honestly a pretty common experience. This number's a bit inflated because I ended up grinding a bunch from the Spy Cards tournament in the process of trying to see all the dialogue, and again in the Whack-a-Worm game to get the menu code reveal, but it's not at all unusual to end up having more berries than you could conceivably spend in the bank by this point in the game. There's still one major money sink yet to come, but honestly, even considering that, berries are practically unlimited now. We'll leave these all here and let them keep multiplying, I guess.  Your berries are safe here. Come back anytime. While we're here, let's make a purchase from Shades too. The thread voted for us to grab Poison Attacker and complete the set. Now that we have the full complement of poison medals, I'll need to show off how absurd they get sometime soon. For now, it goes on the pile. 06 - Outskirts Our next stop is in the outskirts, to the west of the city.   Specifically, we want to check out Chuck's place.   No problem. This bug ain't goin' anywhere.Chuck himself doesn't have much to say...  But there's a breakable boulder hiding around the far side of his dwelling.    Breaking it lets us walk behind his house into this hidden area, and there's a crystal berry here!  We'll take that with us.   While we're in the Outskirts, let's head to the pier and investigate what happened there. 23 - The Sailors' Pier  At least there were no casualties.This soldier gives us an update on the situation.   There are Wasps all around Metal Lake. They all headed towards Rubber Prison. I hope Metal Island is fine.The divers around here have ceased their operations.  Including Eetl's friend who we met early in the game.    The sea never forgives.The bugs in here have new dialogue too.  This one seems pretty sensible.  And if we head out on to the pier, we can find the captain looking pretty miserable, and there's clearly no boat to be seen anywhere.   The Wasps sunk it...Yeah. It seems they really did sink his ship. Even if it was super overpriced, it was an awesome ride! It didn't deserve this! We must take down the Wasp King in the name of everyone, even this poor sailor!Our team lament the loss in the banter. This one's actually kind of interesting: it's a bit different if you've never ridden the boat and been to Metal Island. In that case, you see this instead: Yikes, they really did sink his ship. We have some regrets. It would've been nice to ride on it. We must take down the Wasp King in the name of everyone, even this poor sailor!It's not a spectacular difference, but it's neat to see the writers thought about this.  We'll use our trusty compass to head back quickly, we're done here. 56 - Lands Untamed And from there, we'll make our way back to the Far Grasslands. There's some more exploration we can do here: there are quite a few new banters now that we've finished the chapter and no longer have Maki with us, and of course we have sidequests to do. I still can't believe we got to be part of Maki's team, even if briefly! You're such a fanboy. He's the one who should be honored! We're the super best Bugarian team!Starting off on a high note, this one's cute.     Heading west, there isn't anything new to see until we get to this area. There are a lot of boulders to smash here... Y'know... we've been thinking of opening a tour business. A business? Just shield up and carry bugs through the thorns. For a price. Got the idea from Maki. That's a fantastic idea! Just, um, please don't charge us... No kidding!Another cute one. Leif does seem to love extortion sometimes.  Let's get started on all these rocks. This one is hiding literally nothing, which will become a trend here...    But this one in the back was blocking a path. Let's see what that's uncovered.  This area certainly looks mysterious. ...There's nothing here! Hm... is this truly a dead end? We can feel some faint magic in this place... But there is nothing we can do now. Let's return later then?Our team don't have much insight. We will eventually be able to return here and find out what Leif's noticing, but that'll be a long way away yet.   That said, they're not quite right that there's nothing here! It can be hard to see, especially from a distance, but this is where Engira's claw ended up somehow. (If you have the Detector medal equipped, it'll go off here, making it a lot easier to find this; without it, it's very easy to overlook.) We'll bring this back to him once we're done exploring here.  For now, there's nothing more to see.     We can smash some more rocks here, but once again, they're not actually hiding anything.  And there's this one, up here.   There's a Flowerling hiding back here... 55 - Team, It's Getting Serious! This battle's a new formation and isn't completely trivial, but we're overpowered enough now that we can just breeze right through it. 56 - Lands Untamed  Heading west past that one encounter, we reach a familiar area. As I believe I hinted before, this path took us right back to the "preview" portion of this area, which links up to the wizard's domain. There's a new banter now that we've reached it from this side: To think all these areas are connected... we are lucky the Wasps never took advantage of this. Well, no way to know if they did. No point in thinking about it! We can smash the boulder to get back to our Ant Mines shortcut, if we want (though that feels a lot less significant now that we have our Ant Compass).  Let's head back the way we came, though, we have some more things to see here yet.   The Wasp Kingdom border is... not welcoming, to put it in plain words. You can tell they don't like visitors. It's like that poster outside my room! Let's leave it at that...There's a new banter here, by the Wasp Kingdom border. We still can't get in from this side... can we?    Instead of arbitrarily catching us, we can fight this guard now. It's just a single soldier, and easily dispatched.  For better or worse, though, there's no way through this gate. Let's head back.   All the plants are annoying. But also nice. In a weird way, you know? The Ant Kingdom used to have more plants in it. Maybe they could have built around them better? Mayhaps we could discuss a project to plant flowers in unused spaces...Here we get a slightly different version of a conversation we had earlier.   The mission being done for, it wouldn't hurt to explore this area a bit more. Just watch your step. The monsters are still dangerous!Put a pin in this one. There's something new in this room, but we'll be heading past it for now and coming back next update.   Hey, there's Madeleine waiting for us by the entrance to the swamp. She did have a quest for us...  Madeleine's here! Let's start the Seb rescue operation!We can see this short banter if we check before talking to her.  So it goes. Seb's lost again? Pretty much. We were sightseeing in the swamp... And when I turned around, he was gone. Sightseeing!? He's incorrigible! I've heard of the Leafbugs living here. I wanted to meet them personally! ...But yes, the area's also full of monsters and murky water! They didn't mention THAT! Blasted tourist agencies... Well, it's fine! We'll get him back! This time, I shall accompany you. B-But... Do not worry. I can handle myself. And I may even get to see some Leafbugs! ...And I can't just stay here worrying about Seb. It's mortifying! So let's go! Into the swamp! Easy there. We'll get through this just fine. After that conversation ends, she starts following us! Looks like we're going back into the swamps, whether Kabbu wants to or not...  Let's go in. 57 - Swamps Where Dreams Drown This area is as dreary as ever.   We could just equip Bug Me Not! and get through here without any encounters, but we'd be missing out if we did. Madeleine's here in the battle screen, and she's going to be helping out with the combat! We'll have our team do nothing so we can get a look at her capabilities.  Madeleine can hold her own! Her attack is a two-hit combo, and each hit does 2 damage and ignores defence. She's not quite as strong as Maki was, but she's far from helpless. If you want to fight some enemies during this quest, it's fun that she can help out.  We'll clean up the Madesphy after that.  Onward.  I wonder how the tribe is doing... You're too nice. They attacked us, you're aware? They were just protecting their home! Well, yeah. But we weren't hitting them or anything... If we walk around enough, we're bound to meet them again. Then you can ask. I feel that won't go well, sadly...This area has a new banter discussing the Leafbug tribes. They're still around here as random enemies.  Forward.  This place is super intense! Nothing that cannot be solved by thinking on our next step! No need to copy Maki word for word...Heh. I think the writers might've gotten a bit frustrated at having to write multiple versions of a lot of these banters?  Here we can see the Leafbugs are back, but we're just going to run past them, there's not much point in fighting. Madeleine can admire them from a distance, that'll do just fine.  Pressing on.  And here we reach the area where the bridge used to be. They could've repaired the bridge or something... That'll take time. But we know how to get around.  Breaking this boulder reveals a bouncy mushroom we can use. (We can't quite jump down to the lower area; I had thought we could, but we'll land in water if we try, so we need to go by mushroom instead.)  It launches us over here, right near the exit of the area. Of course, we can't go that way, we need to find Seb!  So we'll head this way.  Right, this room. It's a lot easier to get back from this side, at least.   We can just launch ourselves across with the mushroom, then drop down.   Although we do need to make an ice block and hold down the switch to lower the bridge here.  Still, that's a far cry from what we had to do crossing this the first time.  This area should look familiar. It's more or less a hub where most of the paths converge.  If we make our way all the way to the west, we can eventually return to the area at the bottom of the bridge. There's a mushroom here that wasn't before...  Which launches us right back up to here. That's convenient, but we still haven't found Seb, so we'll need to walk back again...  Let's head east from here.  When we enter this area, Madeleine calls out automatically. This is our hint that he's somewhere in this room.    If we ride the lily pad to the centre of the room, then take this path to the tiny island...  There he is! Also, the buried item seems to have respawned here.  Which isn't bad; Magic Seeds are nice! But I don't have room for this, so I'll need to leave it behind. (I don't know why this one respawns when others don't.)  Seb's here! Let us get him to safety!Once again, we can see a short banter if we check before talking to him.   Milady! I am deeply sorry for abandoning you once again... I'm relieved you're safe... But must you keep causing me so much trouble!? M-Milady! Please... How can I make up for this mistake? Hmm... When we return home, you shall make me your legendary delicious treats! I will not let you down! Thank you once again, Team Snakemouth! I am in your debt once more! It's a bit dangerous here. Would you visit me at my residence? I live just next to the Explorers' Association. Gotcha. Let's leave this dreadful place, then. I'll make sure Seb does not get lost again. Don't mind us! I will follow your every step! See you later, Team Snakemouth!The screen fades to black, and when it brightens again, they've left.  We're immediately given this prompt to warp back to the Ant Kingdom, if we want to. I see no reason not to, we've done what we came here to do (and seen all the new banters). We'll pick up there in the next post, the character limit is forcing me to split the update. Be right back.
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Feb 16, 2022 11:32
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55: Time For Reflection (Part 2) 06 - Outskirts After a brief fadeout, it brings us right back here to the Association.  Turns out this building is Madeleine's house! She's been out travelling for the entire game so far, so the front door was always locked. It's open now, though.  Let's check in with her before anything else.  I haven't shown you proper gratitude for saving Seb... twice! I can only hope that this is enough.  We get some berries, and the quest is marked as completed. We're not quite done here yet, though. (And for all that 30 berries may seem a lacklustre reward, that Lore Book in plain sight is part of the reward for the quest, since Madeleine will never open the door otherwise.)  Let's talk to her again.  Uh, we were wondering if you could lend us one of your umbrellas! The heat's starting to get to you, huh? You're in luck! I DO have this old one I no longer use. It's all yours!  No sir, no! It's the least I can do after you have helped me so much! Thank you. It'll really help us out.The second time we speak to her, we can get this umbrella. Remember the "It's Too Hot!" quest we've had for ages now? This umbrella is for that. We can talk to her one more time: Welcome! I hope that umbrella has served you well! ...Although I wonder if I should have lent it to those siblings, hmm...Oh no, what did the neighbours do to it? I hope it still works. There's also a new banter for Madeleine: So Madeleine was the generous bug living here... What makes you call her generous? She's part of many relief efforts helping impoverished bugs. She built the house next door, too! She gives stuff for free? I don't get it... ...Maybe you will someday, don't worry.Interestingly, this conversation can't be seen until after we've had the opportunity to feed the starving ant child in the Wasps' prison, so this feels like a bit of a regression for Vi. She already learned this lesson...  Anyway, let's grab this Lore Book from the table. (For all her charity, apparently Madeleine isn't great at returning library books?)  We can also help ourselves to a cup of tea.  Thank you for rescuing me twice. I will repay you someday.Seb doesn't have as much to say. He does also get a banter, though: This place ain't that big. Does she really need Seb? It's not all about cleaning, Vi. Sometimes you just want company... Yeah, but I don't pay you guys to hang around me! I'm sure they have close bonds in their own way...We get to speculate a bit more about their relationship  There's not much else to see in here, just the bedroom area. (There's only one bed, where does Seb sleep?)  Well, that was nice. Let's go hand in some stuff. 18 - In the Court of the Ant Queen We'll start with the Lore Book, since it's on the way.   Berries as Currency. It is unknown how long bugs have been using these specific types of berries as currency, but it is a very effective method. Hard, long lasting, and very bitter, these berries are almost never eaten for their horrible taste. Their small size is perfect for carrying around, too! There have been some recorded cases of bugs actually enjoying eating these berries, but almost no one can stomach the taste.I wonder when this book was written. Is Diana the only one who likes them?  Anyway. 37 - Defiant Root Let's head back to Defiant Root. We've come full circle today.  First things first, let's finally help out Eremi!   Now when we talk to her, it opens the Key Items menu instead of regular items, so we can no longer give her the alternative solutions. We can, however, try giving her the Bug Ranger Plushie?  This isn't really gonna help. I'm grateful you've tried, but...Sadly, she doesn't have a special reaction.  Let's give her the umbrella. Wow! That umbrella's beautiful! It's one of a kind, but perfect for your needs! Super cute! Now, to seal the deal... You must have gone through such a hassle! I hope this makes up for it! Oh, and take this too! W-Woah! You sure 'bout giving us this much!? Yeah, it's a lot... This umbrella will last me more than 20 ointments! It's okay! We are grateful, miss Eremi. We hope you have cooler days ahead! And with that, we finally get to complete this quest! It's about time, wouldn't you say? This one started way back in Chapter 4!  If we talk to her again, Eremi certainly seems satisfied.  And if we leave the area and come back, we can see her finally out and about, and carrying the umbrella!  It's nice to finally be able to look around town without feeling like I'm melting!So that's nice. But what if we'd given her one of the other items earlier?  Well, even if we've completed the quest already, Madeleine will still have the same conversation and give us the umbrella. (I genuinely hadn't known about this before Alxprit pointed it out to me in the thread, back when we first discussed this quest.)  And if we come back to Eremi after obtaining it...   She'll notice, and we get the option to give it to her. Let's see what she says if we refuse. Ah, alright. If you do change your mind, let me know, alright?Eh, okay. Let's give it to her.   Here, take this as a token of gratitude! Thanks for everything!So while we don't get the Reflection medal (it already went to the caravan and we could have bought it already) solving it this way, we do at least get some berries to make up for the cost of buying it, and Eremi does eventually get to change her sprites and walk around holding the umbrella.  She'll also have the same dialogue now as she did on the other path. I still think I prefer solving it the "correct" way, but given how long you have to wait, there's a good argument that giving her Shell Ointment earlier is optimal. Reflection is a handy medal, and you can get it at the beginning of Chapter 4 that way; the only thing you miss out on is berries. Anyway, for better or worse, this odd quest is finally complete.  Now, let's see a man about a claw.  Of course, let's try this first... Does this look like a claw to you!? Like I could wear this!? Uh, whoops! Wrong one...Sadly, another generic reaction. Oh well.  Let's return the claw.  It fits you very well, Engira! Can you make us something cool with it? Hm. Well, it'll take a bit. But I do have this prototype... This'll do. Thanks. And that's this quest completed! It's a comparatively simple one, though the reward is nice. Though it is a bit weird to get both copies of this medal so close together; I halfway wonder if we're supposed to think Eremi got hers from him at some point, if it's a prototype he's working on?  We can talk to him again, but he only has this to say. Nice claw. I don't get what's the big deal with it. Well, he's the blacksmith... so long as it helps him out, that's all that matters!There's a new banter too.  We discussed  Reflection a bit when it first came up, since we could have obtained it way back in Chapter 4. We now have both copies of it, which completes the set of "Do Nothing" medals. This one costs 3 MP, and makes doing nothing become a kind of defend action. (Like the other Do Nothing medals though, you can only get the effect once in a turn, you can't abuse it further by relaying and doing nothing again.)Stacking all of these medals on a single bug can actually make for a very effective build, and it's one I definitely plan to show off at some point (it's one of my favourites). The combined effects of these medals makes Do Nothing increase defence by 2, and recover 4 HP and 2 TP. That's quite an effective move. (16 MP total is quite reasonable for this.) Kabbu in particular can make excellent use of this, if someone relays to him so he can also use Taunt: the TP recovery completely offsets the cost, so he can spam it forever, and then 2 defence and 4 HP recovery every turn makes him very, very tough to kill (even without stacking his defence further, which you absolutely can do). Green wins by doing absolutely nothing. It's surprisingly reliable, verging on completely broken. Anyway, on this note, I think that's enough for one update. Next time, we'll take care of our last remaining sidequest, and explore the final unknown portion of the Far Grasslands. And then it's back to the plot!
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Feb 16, 2022 11:33
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There's probably a 'deflection' joke in here, but I've no clue what it is.
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Feb 18, 2022 04:54
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56: Damsel(fly) in Distress 37 - Defiant Root When we left off last time, we were in the midst of a batch of sidequests, and left off here in Defiant Root. 38 - Make it Crisbee! Before we leave, let's just nip into Crisbee's and pick up a Nutty Cake. I'm getting ahead of myself a bit: there's no way to know we'll need this yet, but buying it now will save us a trip once we do. I'm sorry if this bit of inexplicable foresight breaks your immersion.  Let's head into the mines and take the shortcut to Metal Island. A character there posted a sidequest for us. Do note that because the ships have all been destroyed, this is the only way we can get to Metal Island now. If we hadn't gone there earlier and unlocked the tunnel, Metal Island would be inaccessible, and we would have to put off this quest until we found another way to get there. (The same would go for the Spy Cards tournament if we'd put it off this long.) 72 - Summer Holiday at the Metal Island (tm) That said, because we do have the tunnel, we can just go here.   Metal Island is pretty much the same as we left it.  Let's also note that Stratos and Delilah are still here. We still can't access the Bounty they're hinting at, we'll need our own seafaring vessel first.  And here's the person we came here to find. She can be a little tricky to spot from a distance because the scenery gets in the way. Let's check the banter before we talk to her. She's a bit stressed for someone in a vacation island. Something must be troubling her... Are we able to help?Not much to this one; let's talk to her and see what she needs.   I... I... Have some tact, Vi. Pardon her. We're explorers who took your request. Ah... I get it now. Thank you! ...So what happened, exactly? Um, my sis is super strong and brave. She's always taking care of me. I saw her taking a walk with this Wasp... I trust her, so I didn't get worried. B-But... How did a Wasp make it here...? This place hasn't been a target at all. I overheard them mention the Wasp Kingdom... They've gotta be near it! I-It's my turn to be brave for Sis. I'll meet you in the Far Grasslands entrance! We'll be right there. Please be careful! The screen fades out, and she leaves. Guess we'd better go catch up with her, it looks like we have another escort mission ahead of us.  There isn't an easy shortcut to the entrance specifically. I'm not sure which path is faster; I went via Defiant Root, but you can also take the Far Grasslands tunnel and go past the Wizard's tower area. 56 - Lands Untamed Anyway, Bumble's here waiting for us. Woah, she actually made it! Let's stop her from going further in by herself.We can see this banter before talking to her. Let's get started on this.  We could've escorted you, you know. I-It's ok! I gotta be brave to rescue Sis! Allow us to accompany you from here to the Wasp Kingdom, at least. A-Alright. Let's go...! It'll be fine. Just stay behind us! After that conversation, Bumble starts following us. All we really know is to search areas near the Wasp Kingdom, so let's get started...  Also, just to confirm, Bumble doesn't join us in battle the way Madeleine did. We can just put Bug Me Not! on for the rest of this if we want, we wouldn't miss out on anything.   This area seems like a reasonable place to check first, since the main gate is here, but they're nowhere to be found.  So we'll just trek through the Grasslands again. (Yes, this screen has more to find, but we'll pass through again and double back once we find her.)  And here's where we met Madeleine near the entrance to the Swamplands. I didn't arrange to get a screenshot of it, but we could get both of them to follow us if we wanted (just on this one screen), like we did before with other escortees.   Thankfully, with Leif's icicles and Kabbu's ability to smash boulders, we can take this shortcut instead of going through the Swamplands.  And here we are by the Wasps' hive. Do note that we can't go inside again, they've boarded up the hole we used to sneak in before.  ...And they're just right there. That was easy?  If we check for a banter here, Bumble will call out for her sister. I think this might be the only banter in the game where nobody from Team Snakemouth says anything? Let's talk to them and see what's going on here.   W-What? Kidnapper? What're you talking about? Wh-What? But Rebelle is my... ...Date? With a Wasp Trooper? O-Oh dear... Y-You have a date!? You didn't say anything! I thought you'd... I was trying to do something spontaneous, for fun! Okay? I-It's true! I invited her here... And she said yes! Please understand, tensions have been running high! Who cares about all those politics? We just want to be together! Why didn't you tell me?  Wow, your sister IS cool, Rebelle. We're... sorry for this misunderstanding. ...No, it was my bad. I should've told you, Bumble. S-Still, we could probably stay at Metal Island until the conflict dies down... Yeah, right. I guess. We've spent some good time here anyways. Thanks for caring about Rebelle so much. Here's a little something. You're a cool dude. Sorry for the scare. Haha, I get that a lot... We'll get going now, then. Take care! And they leave.  Once they're gone, we regain control and the quest is marked complete. Since it was all just a misunderstanding, that was an easy one to resolve! I certainly won't complain about another  TP Plus medal either; this is our third now. (Though I'm honestly not planning to equip this any time soon, I haven't been having any TP problems and the MP can be used for other things).Bumble and Rebelle are both "velvet ants", which are actually a type of wasp (they have this in common with Carmina). This relationship is still somewhat cross-species, but doesn't seem all that absurd. (Also, I should point out that Voi here also has a broken antenna...) 72 - Summer Holiday at the Metal Island (tm) Anyway, if we head back to Metal Island after resolving this quest, we can find all three of them hanging out here now.  I gotta start thinking of moving, though. Can't be a third wing forever!  They all have a bit of new dialogue. All's well that ends well, I guess, though it sounds like they still have to work out all the details. Seems our intruding didn't hurt their relationship. I'm so relieved! If I was the cause for a breakup, I... ...'d apologize a lot. Right? ...Yes.Also, there's a cute banter, though I do wonder how on earth Vi is pronouncing that. (Copyediting pedantry: Why not break up the lines as "I'd..."/"Apologize a lot."? or "I..."/"You'd apologize a lot."? Either of those would express precisely the same sentiment, a lot less awkwardly.) 56 - Lands Untamed Let's head back to the Far Grasslands (and ignore the fact I obviously spliced in a later visit to Metal Island).  The save crystal here reminded me to pause for a moment, so let's move some medals around. I want to try something out.      We've assembled the full set of Do Nothing medals, so let's take those out for a spin. (I did have to take off some things to make room, but mostly we lost a few TP Pluses and out-of-battle utility things here.) This isn't the most degenerate version of the Do Nothing build yet, but it should let us do some interesting things.  All right, let's head onward.    This area had a branching path we couldn't take before, but now we can.    Remember this person? Maki wouldn't let us interact with him before, but of course that won't be a problem now. 13 - It's Getting Scary! Woah, chill out. We're just walking around... Well, this guy's aggressive. If we pick the second option, we won't even see any new dialogue, the conversation just immediately ends and Team Snakemouth turn back (and then we'd be given this same option on returning). But Thou Must. Excuse me! We come in peace! We're simply exploring the f- I warned you! If you won't leave, I'll drive you out! Whatever! You're probably hiding treasure or something! W-Wait, we're not poachers!  Click me for video! 29 - Team, This One's Stronger! (Miniboss)  Well, that was abrupt. If he won't listen to reason, I guess we have no choice but to fight him.   It's been a while since we've done this, but let's rearrange our formation. We'll get Kabbu in the back, and then use the Swap Positions command to put Vi in front. And then, of course, we'll spy, we need to get our information.  ...He got mad. Maybe we spoke a bit too much this time... What's this you say about bombs? I guess we'll find out shortly, for better or worse. This is Riz; he's a damselfly, though all we know about him right now is that he seems very territorial. He has 85 HP and 1 defence. He also starts the battle taking two actions per turn, and will do so for the entire fight. He may not look intimidating, but don't take him lightly.  We'll have Vi hit him to start with. She's got a lot of attack power now.   Leif will relay to Kabbu, who uses Taunt. It's been a while since we've seen this in action, hasn't it?  Now, for his second action, Kabbu will do nothing. All the medal icons show up next to it in the menu here, indicating that they're in effect.  There's not much of an animation, but Kabbu receives +2 defence (bringing his total net defence to 2, Back Support and Favorite One are cancelling each other out) and restores the TP he spent taunting.  Chompy does her thing.  At the start of his turn, Riz buries something in the ground. If you look closely, it seems to be some kind of burrowing drone with a drill, but it has a Numb Bomb in it. These mines are a delayed attack that hit 2 turns later, and have various effects depending on what kind of payload he puts in them. It also doesn't cost him actions to do, he will just sometimes set one up before taking another action.  Here's his actual action, walking up to Kabbu and bashing him with his spear. This has a base damage of 5.  He then attacks again. Riz has three different animations for attacking with the spear, which have different block timings, but all have exactly the same effect. They do 5 base damage, and inflict the Inked status for 2 turns if you fail to block. (His spearhead is a pen nib!) That could get awkward...  As we see here, Kabbu's been inked for two turns. The bomb is targeting Leif in the middle position, but that's less of an immediate problem since it's two turns away still. (Also, notice the bomb is fully underground; if you want to keep track of the effects they'll have, you need to pay attention when he buries them.)  Let's take advantage of Status Relay: Leif relays to Vi, and transfers his charge-up to her.  She can then Hurricane Toss for 25 total damage! There are more impressive tricks, but combining Status Relay and Favorite One can be pretty effective.  Then we'll just have Vi attack again.  While Kabbu does nothing. Being inked puts something of a damper on this strategy, since it prevents him using Taunt; I could definitely have picked a better fight to show it off in (but also, that makes this interesting). But Inked only prevents using skills, Do Nothing still works fine and we can benefit from the recovery at least.  Chompy makes with the chomping.   Riz doesn't set up any new mines this turn, he just attacks twice. I managed to block with Kabbu at least, but Leif unfortunately got inked this time.  Also, this time the screenshot caught the recovery from our TP Core medals. Between those and Meditation, this small TP pool is pretty much self-sustaining.  ...Oops. So I wanted to do the Status Relay trick again, but forgot to factor in the fact that Leif was Inked and that would get transferred along with the charge-up. So Vi might have the attack boosts now, but she can't really do anything with them because her skills are blocked. This is a bit of an embarrassing blunder on my part, but honestly, it's interesting to show off anyway so I'm not sorry it happened. Status Relay can sometimes trip you up if you're not careful, and the Ink status appears rarely enough that it's easy to get caught off guard by it.   Well, we'll make the best of it.  Kabbu does nothing again and heals himself to full.  And Chompy bites.  Now it's Riz's turn. First up, he plants another bomb (and it's another Numb one).  Ow. I keep messing up the blocking in this battle, I think all the different variants of his attacks throw me off. Leif's barely hanging on, and he's also been inked now.  More ow. Vi, of course, is taking extra damage thanks to her Power Exchange medals.  And at the end of the turn, the bomb that was queued up for Leif's position hits and KOs him. They only do 2 base damage; what's really threatening about them is the status effects, which as usual are inflicted if you fail to block.  We're not exactly in great shape here. Still, we can salvage this. Kabbu's ink has finally worn off, for one thing.   So let's start off by having him revive Leif with Pep Talk. Did you remember Kabbu could do this? It's not the kind of skill you use frequently, but it can definitely come in handy sometimes.  That's better. Now that Leif's back... let's have Kabbu keep doing things, and let both of the others relay to him.  First he taunts...  And then he does nothing. There are a few layers to this plan: we can get the heat off Vi and Leif, recover some TP to set up a bigger move next turn, and guarantee Favorite One will trigger.  Meanwhile, our intrepid plant friend keeps doing what she does.  ...Another Numb Bomb? Couldn't we at least have some variety here?  Once again, I mess up blocking and get Kabbu inked for my trouble. My inconsistent timing is really making headaches for me in this fight.  And here we finally see Riz's third attack animation with the spear. This one's a bit of a fakeout, since it looks very similar to the straight charge at first, but takes longer to complete. I actually got the timing this time, though.  We're getting close to the end, now. Though it could still be a bit dicey, since our main strategies are offline thanks to the ink, and both Vi and Leif are pretty low on HP. Let's think things through here.  Well, we can start off with Vi attacking.   Here's what felt like the eureka moment to me. We can spend some TP on Bubble Shield to guarantee we get through this turn safely and Vi's ink will wear off...  Then have Kabbu use Do Nothing, to restore just enough that we can afford Hurricane Toss next turn.  The usual chomps occur.    Bubble Shield does its job. I'd hoped he might target Kabbu to trigger Favorite One, but we don't actually need it.   Also, Leif still had a +1 to pass her, since he shielded last turn. We just need Kabbu to relay to him first, since he's down an action from Bubble Shield. (And this time, he won't be passing ink along with it.)  So we can finish the fight with one final Hurricane Toss.  That one got dicey for a bit! But we pulled through just fine. Before we talk about this fight overall (and then see what happens afterward), let's look at what else Riz can do.   He has Spicy Bombs, which deal 3 base damage, compared to 2 from the others. These have no special effect, though.    Frost Bombs, Sleep Bombs, and Poison Bombs, which like the Numb Bomb, inflict the status if you fail to block. Like a lot of enemies that inflict status, it's technically a 2 turn duration, but it gets inflicted right before the turn ends (and it ticks down), so you actually only lose 1 turn.   And then there's this thing, which doesn't look like any bomb we've seen before. This is an ink bomb, which, as you may have guessed, inflicts the inked status if you don't block. This isn't an item we can ever obtain, and we won't see one anywhere else, it's exclusive to this fight. That's right: we already saw Riz's entire moveset, aside from the variety of bombs he can set. This fight is deceptively simple in that way. His moveset is very small, but he can put on a lot of pressure, and most of what he does creates interesting complications for the player one way or another. This fight can definitely catch you off guard if you don't know what to expect, which is pretty fitting considering he's supposed to be improvising traps. I'd say it's a tricky fight more than a hard one (and if you go full blitz with some combination of Poison Attacker/Last Attack/Hard Charge, you can kind of just overpower him before he gets to do much), but it's fun and I really enjoy it for that. Also, that pen spear is stylish. This fight was significantly easier and less interesting prior to the 1.1 patch; that's the patch that added Ink to the game, and without that he's not nearly as threatening. It's the core of what makes this fight unique, and I'd definitely say that was a good change. 56 - Lands Untamed Listen! We truly meant you no harm!  Then, you're not poachers? Nope. ... My... my bad. It's been tense with so many Wasps about. It's only my family and me here. We don't see many others... I assumed the worst. My bad. It's alright. Forgive us for the smacking! What DO you want, then? Uh, we really just wanted to look around. Maybe help a bit? For a price! Definitely nothing evil! I'll let my family know of your arrival. Please don't disturb us, though. And he leaves. Honestly, he's being surprisingly understanding about this, all things considered.  We regain control.  I guess we may as well see what this place is about.  When we enter this area, we get a discovery. (Also, there's no music here, just the sound of waves. It's pretty nice.)   The weirdest thing about this, to me, is that bugs have a word for fishing. Actual fish should probably be something huge and incomprehensible to them, so it's weird thinking they'd call the activity that. We know what they mean, though. Also, this entry says dragonflies, but that's an error, they're meant to be damselflies (which are very similar, but not as closely related as one might think). I think this is the only place the mistake remains, Riz's bestiary entry for instance says damselfly. This is a soothing place. Could have gone without the harsh welcome, however. That's why exploring's fun! You get to meet lotsa weird people! Also, there's a cute banter here. I like this one.  Let's have a look around.  Riz is here, but he doesn't have a whole lot to say. He's still pretty suspicious of us. Riz was quite eager to start a fight. He's quite overprotective. Living in the wild's gotta put you on edge! I hope we can move past our fight and become good friends.There's a banter too, of course.  Let's talk to his sister.  Well, no. But we've been there, young lass. Really!? Is it true there's a big sweet maker!? There's a baker. Same thing, probably. Cool! You know... Bro brings us food every day, even if Dad fishes. But it's super salty... I wish I could eat some sweets. Like a Nutty Cake! She's got a quest for us! This one's pretty simple (especially because I got the cake in advance; if you don't, it's a bit of a walk back).   Since we didn't get this one from the board, let's check it out in the quest log.  You didn't? ...Aww...If you give her the wrong thing, she'll say this (and won't keep it).  Let's give her the Nutty Cake she wants. Yay!!! Chill out. It's just cake. Super yum cake! ......Cake? You don't know what cake is? Err, no. Not really. Preposterous. Here, try some. W-Woah... Incredible! Sweets are the best! Hehehe... Thanks! I got to share with Bro, too! I'll have to go into the city and get some for Father... Oh! Here is something I found earlier! You can have it!  We get a Crystal Berry for that. But this one would be worth doing even without the reward, really.  If we talk to Rizza after completing the quest, she'll have this to say. How can she be so cheerful? You can't do anything in here. Well, there's fishing... ...Exactly! She's probably never seen a proper city, so she's happy with what she knows. ...Does it really work that way...?Also, there's a banter. This is another one I really enjoy.  On the pier, we can find their father, fishing.  If we talk to him, this is all he'll have to say. I guess that's something of an explanation... Fishing SUCKS! How rude. You have no concept of patience. Indeed. Fishing soothes the soul, and even provides food! My master and I used to sit long hours just to fish and chat... ...I, uh, respect that. But it won't make me like fishing...This banter highlights a difference of opinion that we probably could have predicted. It's nice to learn a bit more about Kabbu's master, too.  We aren't quite done here yet; let's take a look around the eastern side.  What's this?   Please don't tell anyone I am here. Take this. Keep this a secret, please.Well, that certainly happened. This character is known as "that one stickbug" and your guess is as good as mine as to what's up with them. (Are these others also stickbugs, or just plants?) A second copy of  Heal Plus is nice to have, at least. The effects stack if you equip both on the same bug, as you probably expect by now. If you're fond of Vi's healing skills, having her equip both of these goes a long way toward keeping them effective for the rest of the game (it really is a huge difference when you increase the initial healing of Sharing Stash from 2 to 4). The stickbug won't say anything if we try to talk to them again. We've seen pretty much everything here now, shall we head back?  On our way out, let's snag this. There's a Lore Book sneakily hiding behind this plant! You can see bits of it peeking out from certain angles, if you're looking, but it's really tough to spot. This is another one where having the Detector equipped goes a long way to help finding it, since at least you know to keep looking.  Now we're actually done here. (Well, sort of. While we've now done everything there is to do here, we will be seeing this place again later. There's an alternate version of the dialogue if you wait to come here until you have the ability to approach from the sea side. I have another playthrough going in parallel so we'll be able to see that eventually.) Let's use our Ant Compass and head back. 18 - In the Court of the Ant Queen   Let's stop in at the library.   We've been finding a lot of these recently, haven't we.  Dark Cherries. There are some rare berries in Bugaria that are worth a lot. A LOT! We call them Dark Cherries. A red counterpart has been found in the Eastern Lands, but due to how common they are, they aren't as sought after. The dark variants strangely seem to only grow underground. Meanwhile, the red ones grow in tall trees... In any case, some bugs have a keen sense of smell for Dark Cherries. They're hired to find them so that they may be sold to collectors.Ordinary cherries do exist in this world, apparently. Not that we'll be seeing any. Also, while we're here...  ... Looks like you have enough for the next reward tier! Here you go! That seems to be all for now! Come back once you have found more Discoveries!Thanks to finding the Fishing Village, we reached the threshold for another reward from Libren. A Crystal Berry is always nice to have. We should have enough to grab another medal from Shades now, if we want to.  Also, since we defeated a boss, let's go see Artis.  Was it too challenging for ya? You deserve a reward. Here, take this! Come back later when you've bonked some extra hard heads with that Medal, will ya? They can't all be winners, I guess.  Berry Finder costs 3 MP to equip, and increases berries dropped after battles by 25%. That's a substantial boost, but honestly, this late in the game you should probably have all the berries you'll ever need, and if you don't,  Hard Hits is more effective for grinding berries (it's 0 MP, and doubles the berries you get). I guess you could stack them. Honestly, though, 3 MP is a bit much for this.For better or worse, this seems like a good place to wrap up this update. After defeating Riz and visiting the fishing village, we've completed all the sidequests available at the beginning of Chapter 6. Next time, we'll meet up with Elizant II and head into the Forsaken Lands. I'll see you then.
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Feb 24, 2022 04:37
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Fun fact, you can actually gi bash your way into the fishing villiage much sooner than this. The only thing stopping you is making and it's pretty easy to double back after he gets injured
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Feb 24, 2022 23:14
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Explopyro posted:
I don't think you need to justify it at all
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Feb 25, 2022 19:33
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I think we just got stickbugged, that's all
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Feb 25, 2022 19:45
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Just FYI, everyone, the next update might end up being delayed a bit more than usual. I have to do some travelling this week, so it's going to be hard to find time to work on the LP.FoolyCharged posted:Fun fact, you can actually gi bash your way into the fishing villiage much sooner than this. The only thing stopping you is making and it's pretty easy to double back after he gets injured I did know this, but in fairness I don't think it's that much earlier? Once Maki gets injured you're locked into finishing most of the Swamplands dungeon; I guess once you get through there, you can use the bounce shrooms to get back up the broken bridge and double back to Riz and the village before beating the Beast? That's definitely earlier, but you still have to have completed most of Chapter 5 first. I was always planning to do it here, though, for the sake of the update title. DACK FAYDEN posted:oh my god that one stickbug is adorable dervival posted:I think we just got stickbugged, that's all Hah, true. They are a fun character. I was just trying to draw attention to how random this whole thing is, and that what you see is what you get; there isn't any hidden story here that I know of. (Although I've seen some people say they find them a bit creepy, considering they're just silently watching the village.) What I find a bit odd is that there are other stick insects in the game whose visual design is very different to these ones. There are a few minor NPCs (off the top of my head, I know of at least one in Golden Settlement) who also seem to be inspired by stick insects but are closer to the art style of everyone else. I think this one is a backer design.
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Feb 26, 2022 17:39
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Explopyro posted:I did know this, but in fairness I don't think it's that much earlier? Once Maki gets injured you're locked into finishing most of the Swamplands dungeon; I guess once you get through there, you can use the bounce shrooms to get back up the broken bridge and double back to Riz and the village before beating the Beast? That's definitely earlier, but you still have to have completed most of Chapter 5 first. Yeah, it isn't that much earlier, it breaks up the narrative flow, and there's no real reason to, but by golly we're not going to ignore a bug 
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Feb 26, 2022 19:48
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Meanwhile I never remembered it was Maki saying not to bother the guy, so I only ended up fighting him by approaching from the other direction.
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Feb 26, 2022 20:06
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57: A Fog of Confusion 34 - Dodgy Business This isn't exactly where we left off last time, but before we head out on our mission, let's take a quick stop at Shades'. It might be a while before we get back to town, and we have enough Crystal Berries to afford something.  I thought about this for a while, all of the medals remaining are good but I think Defence Exchange is the one I'm most likely to make use of in the LP. Front Support's just too expensive for what it does, MP-wise, and while Electric Needles is great, it fights against my desire to let the bosses show what they can do.  As you might expect, this is exactly the same as Power Exchange, just in reverse. Kabbu tends to like this one, but I'm not going to have him equip it just yet. Onto the pile it goes.  All right, let's head out. 06 - Outskirts It's been a while since we've come this way; we need to head south through the Outskirts, toward the caves.   As we pass by here, let's notice the digging spot up on that ledge again. We still can't reach it, even now, but it's something to keep in the back of our minds.  Into the cave we go. 025 - Caves Immediately, we can see the Queen is waiting for us with one of her soldiers. Let's not waste our time with the enemies here, let's just head straight to the rendezvous.  As soon as we get close, the conversation will start automatically.  If there was any other way, I assure you I would take it. The Forsaken Lands... Do the rumours hold true? Many dangerous beasts roam in the Forsaken Lands. Some even disguise themselves in various forms. But heed me! Nothing in this land compares to the horror we will live if the Wasps get the sapling. I've heard that Termites dislike Ants heavily. Would they open their doors? We can only hope they realize this matter concerns them as well. Having a Queen with us is not the worst insurance. Let's proceed at once. You are to keep me safe, but I will support you where I can. Leave it to us! Be careful out there, my Queen. The real horror would be a kingdom without you... My loyal subject, I thank you. Please wait faithfully for our return.  Well, that's interesting! Elizant will finally be joining our party for this mission. She won't actually fight with us, unfortunately, but having her along does give us the ability to use a new skill. Let's check that out.  Royal Decree is a skill any of our characters can use, and it appears in all their skill menus. For 5 TP, this gives both Attack Up and Defence Up to the entire party, with a duration of two turns. That's a bargain in terms of both action economy and TP economy, and it's definitely worth keeping in mind; I can't say I use it all that much, honestly, as I usually find it to be overkill, but it's definitely powerful. This skill can only be used while Elizant II is physically following the party. If Team Snakemouth get separated from her for any reason, it will disappear from their skill menus.  The soldier also has a bit of new dialogue if we talk to her now.   Anyway, let's move forward! We can finally smash this boulder and see where that leads.  Well, for starters, the enemies on this side are much stronger!  04 - FIGHT!  These guys look familiar! We fought Belostoss before in Stream Mountain, but if we hadn't explored that optional dungeon, this would be our first encounter with them. Their stats seem a lot less outrageous now than they did then. (Interestingly, this fight is still using the early-game battle music, rather than "Team, It's Getting Serious!". I think they've probably tied the music to the area, and this is technically the same room as the other side we explored in Chapter 2.)  Why not try out Royal Decree?   It's a really straightforward skill. Elizant comes in from offscreen to give us some encouragement and boost our stats, simple as that. (I do think it'd have been nice if we'd see her hanging around in the background like some of the other characters we've escorted, but oh well.)   With the stat boosts, Kabbu can do an Under Strike and inflict pretty heavy damage on both of them.    And with a relay from Leif, Vi can inflict quite a bit more.  Chompy contributes the best she can. (Unfortunately, even a party-wide attack boost doesn't work on her.) It's not quite enough to kill the Belostoss.   Kabbu shrugs off a couple of giant boulders to the face. Between the defence boosts and Super Blocks, they could be a lot more harmful.  Let's clean this up. I'm not going to show the rest of this fight, it's pretty straightforward to finish both of them (all we have to do is get Vi in front and have Leif relay to her).  These guys are still worth lots of EXP, somehow.   Also, Belostoss are one of those enemies that, peculiarly, can drop cooked food. Sure, we can take a Leaf Salad, I guess.  This looks like a new enemy! What's this odd snail?  It's shockingly nimble for a snail, it actually leaps up and tries to dive-bomb us!   Definitely a new enemy. Let's do some spying, then.  Beware its sedatives. I shall drag it out of its shell when it retreats!This is the Ironnail. It's more or less an upgraded Numbnail, but it has some new tricks.  Here is me forgetting that Leif can't get through this thing's defence. A lot of the enemies around here are very difficult to damage with base attack; the game gives you plenty of tools to deal with defencive enemies, but it definitely expects you to use them.   After Vi attacks it, the Ironnail retreats inside its shell. This is a defencive stance, increasing its base defence to 5. Ironnails will always do this after being damaged by a non-flipping attack (it didn't hide after Leif's attack because he did zero damage).  Kabbu's horn attacks can flip it out of the shell, and also deal damage.  This way, Vi can attack again and get some more damage in.  Unfortunately, that leaves Chompy trying to get through the shell, and that's not going to work.  Ironnails have very similar eye lasers to Numbnails, but they get to fire twice. Each hit of this does 4 base damage, and can inflict sleep if not blocked.  This battle's over now. Let's just switch Vi in front and finish it off.  There we go.  These things don't give us quite as much EXP as the Belostoss, for some reason, but they're still pretty lucrative. Seems like the game's back to thinking we're at a reasonable level for the content.  Let's move along.  Those two enemies are all we can find in here for now. If you look up, you might notice there are some platforms above us; there's more to this cave still, but we can't get to it from here. Let's take the path to the south.  63 - Forsaken Lands (Recommended listening!)The path takes us outside, and we immediately get a discovery for the new area! (We'll check that in a moment.) Take a moment to listen to the music here. This song is quite memorable, and quite different in style to a lot of the rest of the game; it has a soothing and mysterious quality.  There seems to be a character waiting for us here, and we walk straight into a conversation.  Patton! So this is where you crawled to after your exile... Who's this guy? Oh, just a little scientist. Oi, oi, my stuff never hurt nobody... too badly. ...I do not have time for a trip down memory lane. You all seem pretty, uh, buzzed out. Must be real serious. Boy, that sounds rough. It wouldn't help my research at all, either. If you've got any tips, it'd help. This is some thick fog... Nothing to be done about that, but... So long as there's not a forked road, if you keep your eyes open you should be fine. Patton... Thank you for your assistance. Now, about that there exile... We will discuss that when the kingdom is safe. Please keep your... trinkets... here for now. Hehehehe. Alright. Drop by if you ever want a peek at 'em! And with that, he heads inside his house.  And we regain control. The fog in this area makes itself immediately apparent; honestly, it looks quite nice, and gives this area a bit of a dreamlike quality. Let's check the banter here. So these are the Forsaken Lands... I can't see anything! Where are we even going?! There should be some clues to the way forward. Let's keep our eyes on our surroundings.This echoes the hint Patton just gave us: there are clues in the landmarks that might help us figure out which way we need to go. This will make more sense momentarily.   Also, the discovery we just received also reiterates this hint. Sounds important!  Before we get to exploring, let's check out Patton's little hut.  He's definitely operating some kind of lab out here.  Just keep your eyes open! It is that simple. And, uh, come visit later? Without the Queen?Well, that's suspicious, isn't it? (We'll have to do this.) There's also a banter, of course. That mask's all weird. Think he's wearing it just for show? Dunno. I kinda wanna try it on! This place seems to hold a few dangerous substances... I would wager it is for his safety.Wearing a mask protects you and the people around you. It's a good idea.  Looking around, there's not a whole lot we can do here, but we can inspect this shelf...   Elias - Dr. Patton's Patent Pending... Anti-Obfuscation Ocular Lens. "Speccy" - Aphid Feed a.k.a. Apheed. John - Dr. Patton's Patent Pending... Snakemouth Oil. Jerry - 1 (one) "genuine" Spuder Spy Card.Heh. Snakemouth Oil. And it appears Patton was responsible for Jerry's totally legitimate cards. On the other hand, we know Elias' telescope works, so maybe not everything he does is a con?  For better or worse, we can't do anything else here for now, so let's head back outside. Out of curiosity, though... let's test something. Patton wants us to come back without the Queen, but what would happen if we sequence broke and came here before she joined us?  Well, if you come here too early (which you can do any time after getting the Horn Dash to break the boulder), you'll find his hut is just boarded up.  Anyway, let's look around. There's a label on the side of his hut, but I can't really make any sense of it; I think maybe he's living inside half a bottle? This doesn't seem to convey any useful information for us. Also, there's a path east.   There are boulders here, but most of them don't hide or block anything. We'll still smash them to be sure.  There's also a path to the south, and another to the west. We have a lot of choices here!  Let's start off by heading east.  ...Wha?! It loops around? So, yeah. If you hadn't quite realised yet, this is the gimmick of the Forsaken Lands: it's something of a Lost Woods type area. The paths connect in strange ways and can basically warp you around, backtracking doesn't always take you to the place you came from, it can get pretty confusing (and I'm tempted to say non-Euclidean). The hints Patton was talking about do exist, but some of them are subtle, and not every area has them, so a bit of trial and error is going to be inevitable (especially since there are secrets on some of the 'wrong' paths). Honestly, the calming music helps a lot here; this could easily get frustrating, but I often find exploring here gives a bit of a Zen feeling instead.   There are some boulders in this corner we can smash, too, but once again they don't really conceal anything.  Let's head west. Back "the way we came".  This is actually a new area! Let's have a look around. Why are there pipes all the way out here? I assume they were built by the Termites, for some reason. ...Uh, yeah. But why? I-I don't know...These pipes are definitely worth noticing, they'll be important in a bit.   We'll get started cutting some weeds and smashing some rocks. They're still not hiding much of anything.   55 - Team, It's Getting Serious! Well, let's get this snail out of the way, I guess. We'll spend the first turn hitting it, let's just speed past that for a moment...  It does something new on its turn! Ironnails, in addition to their eye beams, can charge up.  This gives it +2 charge-up and one turn of Defence Up, as well as readying a specific move for its next action. There's one further subtlety here: while it's in this charging stance, it won't retreat inside its shell after being hit, so despite boosting its defence there's a sense in which it's more vulnerable now.  We could kill it, but let's see what it'll do instead.  The turn after charging, it does this speedy charge and barrels into someone. This deals 5 base damage, though it's effectively 7 after accounting for the charge-ups; it hurts, but I think on balance this is less threatening than the eye beams.  We can finish things easily from here.  But before we do, let's have Vi heal herself a bit (and see that equipping two Heal Plus medals definitely stacks: Secret Stash is still a perfectly effective move!). Victory Buzz will give us back the TP after the battle ends, so it's worth doing this.    And from there it's easy to finish the battle. 63 - Forsaken Lands Back to exploration.   In one of the weeds over here, we can find a Squash. This area is where they're actually from; we could get a few of them early by stealing them from the bandits, but they're very plentiful and easy to get here. If you like using stat-boosting items, it's pretty easy now to stock up on these and turn them into Squash Tart and Plumpling Pie.   More Squash here. Unlike many items that can be found inside weeds, these Squash respawn and can be collected again and again.    We can smash some boulders to reveal these stairs, and climb up to get closer to the pipe (which is blowing out air), but there doesn't seem to be any way for us to interact with this right now.   Let's head further west?  This is definitely different! Is that a CD? Remember, there must be some hint as to the proper path! It's just hard to see with all this fog. Ugh, can't we just try all three ways? With a few seconds of patience, you'll save hours of circling around!Sorry, Kabbu, but we're going to be checking all the paths regardless...  Uh, hello?  Whoa! What is this thing, and why was it pretending to be a friendly ant? 55 - Team, It's Getting Serious! Well, it's certainly some new enemies!  Huff... Huff... Heck this. You're going DOWN! As if you could put us to sleep after that scare!These are Mimic Spiders. They pretend to be ants in the field until we get close, which is pretty creepy, but once they reveal themselves they're pretty straightforward.  Kabbu's probably the best one for this job. Hope we don't waste too many skills...And Plumplings are the Seedling variant for the area; in fact, they're the final Seedling variant we'll encounter! These have the most defence of anything we've seen yet, at 3, but they have low HP, so any piercing attack rips right through them.  Let's get started.     This isn't quite enough damage to take out the spider, but it's pretty close.  The Mimic Spider runs up to Leif and bites him; I miss the block and he gets sent to sleep. That's a bit annoying.  And here's the Plumpling's attack: just a straightforward pounce for 5 base damage. Plumplings are a very simple enemy, and this is literally the only thing they can do. The challenge with Plumplings isn't their attacks, but getting through their defences.  Let's clean this up.  Kabbu can finish off the Mimic Spider.   And Vi's needle skills are perfect for taking out Plumplings. I like Needle Toss in particular here: it's slightly cheaper, and if there are multiple enemies around, you can spread out the damage if you don't need all the hits to kill it. Kabbu's Under Strike is also a good choice.  These enemies aren't worth quite as much EXP as the snails or Belostoss, but they're still interesting to fight. 63 - Forsaken Lands Anyway, that was spooky! Let's move along.  Shall we head west?  Uh. Well. Oops.  What's this way?  Heading south from Patton's brings us back to this hub-ish area. This place is confusing!  If we head under the bridge, there's another new enemy! 55 - Team, It's Getting Serious! What are these things?  If we had more time, we'd consider domesticating it, but... Vi, you know what to do. Mothflies are a real insect, though they're not at all closely related to moths. They're flies, or gnats. Anyway, they're a flying enemy, so we're going to need Vi to get them down.     With a bit of careful planning, we can optimise our damage distribution and have Chompy finish off the one in front.  Mothflies' attack is pretty basic, they just ram into us. They're not particularly scary, especially not in small numbers. (Although we haven't seen everything they can do yet.)  Let's just finish this.  They're also not worth much EXP. They're a bit underwhelming for an enemy this late in the game, aren't they? 63 - Forsaken Lands  Let's head further south?  Um. Nope. That path apparently loops us back to this side.  Before we head onward, let's go back?  Here's proof that going back the way you came doesn't always take you to the place you just left! Let's try another path we didn't take before.    Going south from here...  Also brings us back here!  The "hint" in this room is that the CD on the east side has a chunk gouged out of it. We need to go this way.  Aha! This is somewhere new, at least. A dead end...? Too early to say. Let us inspect.(She does participate in banters sometimes! I was beginning to wonder.)  We quickly find ourselves facing a broken bridge, and our team stop to have a conversation.  Let's look around. We've always found a way.  Uh, yeah... These lands are disorienting as is. Would there be a path we missed? Not in this direction, from what we've seen... Are you, uh, 100% sure? Vi. My Queen? You shall carry us one by one across the ravine. We've tried this approach, and... If it was a vast canyon I would reconsider, but there is no time. Vi, this is an order. You must try. We'll support, Vi. Come on, try it out. You... can do that? Been practicing. Then there is no longer an excuse! Vi, fly with haste!   ...Yeah. This is how flying is unlocked. It's not a new ability, Vi just refused to do it until explicitly ordered (and when there was absolutely no alternative). We did know she could fly before, she just only ever did it in cutscenes, but we can now force her to do it any time we want. As you might imagine, this opens up some new possibilities for exploration. Vi's flying is, in fact, the last field ability for us to get.  We also get Fly Drop, the final team skill! This is Vi's team-up with Kabbu, and she'll literally pick him up and drop him on the enemy. It's a single-target blow, dealing (Vi's attack + Kabbu's attack + 3) damage and piercing all defence. It has its uses, but it's a bit inefficient to spend two actions on that compared to her needle skills or Kabbu's Under Strike. Still, it's a neat skill and I'll definitely show it off soon. Fly Drop used to be more powerful; it was nerfed a bit in v1.1, and used to do (Vi's attack + Kabbu's attack + 5) damage. I'm not entirely sure why they felt this nerf was necessary; it was strong, and fairly popular among first-time players for its ability to deal with defencive enemies, but ultimately it was still an attack that does one big hit and nowhere near the most broken thing you could do.  Well, Vi, you finally have no choice. I'm just doing it 'cuz the Queen asked me to! Well, let's get on with this!  (I apologise for the low quality of this GIF, it was really difficult to compress this animation under 2 MB.)  Anyway, this is how Vi's flying works. She'll pick up Kabbu and we can travel horizontally with free control (though she certainly doesn't look like she's enjoying it much). We don't gain much by way of vertical height, more or less staying at whatever altitude we launched from. And there's a distance limit, which isn't much longer than the gaps here. So it doesn't obviate all platforming, it just allows the devs to design different sorts of challenges instead. Also, look at Leif, just magically levitating himself on ice and bringing Elizant along, he's not even using his wings! I think he's just making Vi carry Kabbu because he thinks it's funny.  Second gap, same as the first.  And we've reached the far side. There's a path to the south, but also some enemies we should probably take care of. (Also, do note the pencil pointing south, that's the hint here.)   The Ironnail is alone, so we can take it out pretty effortlessly.  Let's not dwell on this.  Interestingly, Ironnails can also drop Numbnail Darts. That said, I don't have room for it and it's not particularly useful.   And it turns out the big pumpkin was actually a Plumpling in disguise! They do that.  It's also hiding a Mimic Spider behind it. Sneaky.  This seems like another job for Needle Toss! Sadly, I missed the third shot (it can be easy to mess up aiming this skill), but it's still pretty effective: it makes quick work of the Plumpling and lets us get some damage in on the enemy behind it.  We'll just quickly finish off the spider after that and move along.   There's another Squash in the weed up here. These things are everywhere.   If we head north (the 'wrong' path), it brings us back here.     Backtracking! Let's take the south exit now.  What's this area, then? Lots of chasms here... Well, Vi, you know what to do. Ugh. These gaps are too far apart! I can't carry Kabbu that long! Hmm... It seems these rocks are blocking the wind's flow... We could use that to push us forward. Where is all that steam coming from, anyway?The banter (in addition to ragging on Vi) gives us a pretty good hint.   If we smash this boulder, it opens up airflow from the pipe.   And we can use this airflow to help us cross! If we're aligned with it, we practically rocket off to the west, where there's another platform.  55 - Team, It's Getting Serious! Well, that enemy looked like just a normal Mothfly, but it has friends! What is this thing?  We should be able to freeze them all at once, anyhow.Did you think Mothflies were an easy and uninteresting enemy, and wonder what they were doing in this area? Well, here's at least part of the explanation.  Let's get started on this.     This isn't enough damage to destroy the cluster, but it's pretty close.  The Mothflies still attack us like normal.  And Mothfly Clusters can attack us the same way, they just do a bit more damage.   That could have been much worse.  Vi can knock down this one, it'd be a waste to have her kill the cluster when it's on 1 HP.   Kabbu can do that with Under Strike instead, and get some extra damage on the other Mothfly while he's at it.   This isn't quite enough to kill both, but we'll do what we can.   One more attack from the last remaining Mothfly, and we're home free.  Let's move along.  It leaves behind a Honey Drop. We don't have room for this.  There's nothing in this boulder either, but we may as well smash it.   The bridge south is also broken, but we can naturally fly across.  There's a lot going on here. There's another pipe blocked by a boulder, and an arrow on the ground pointing to the east. We should probably go that way. (Also, shh, this arrow was added in v1.1, it wasn't always here.)  But what if we don't?  This path doesn't warp us back, there's a new area here! (Although, do note, Elizant II has mysteriously disappeared. That's an indication that we're not on the critical path... but it also means that we've temporarily lost access to Royal Decree. No need to worry, she'll be back as soon as we go east again.) Hey... that scrap has the Ant Kingdom stuff on it! Huh. Were those the tanks Elizant used while searching for where to settle? They seem damaged. She probably abandoned them here. So we are walking in historic ground! What a grand honor! You should let that Neo guy know, right? Indeed!The banter here is cute. And also offers us a bit of insight into history.  Here's a better view with the Ant Kingdom insignia visible.  This battle has three Mothflies, but they're still not particularly threatening.  Let's just move past them.   Also, this is here.  This battle has two clusters! That's a bit more intimidating, potentially.      We can do enough damage to get rid of the first one immediately, at least.   And, so far, they're still just attacking us normally.  Hmm. Let's just keep attacking, I suppose?     We couldn't quite take this one out, but at least we got rid of the small one?  Here's a new thing Mothfly Clusters can do! When they're the only enemy remaining, they can spawn two Mothflies.   They also get to attack immediately, which is bad news for Vi this time around...  Well, that's annoying, isn't it? (Though, do note, the spawned Mothflies have only 4 maximum HP, instead of 9. Other than that, though, they're identical to the others.)  Let's get Vi back up, we're going to need her.   With such low HP, it's trivial to have Vi swat them.  I seem to have made an error, though! Leaving the main cluster alive means it can just spawn more of them.    Am I having deja vu?    This time, let's finish off the cluster so we don't have that problem again.  Much better.   Now we can finish the fight easily. Mothfly Clusters aren't the most difficult enemy necessarily, but they're definitely annoying! (And we haven't seen everything they can do yet either.)  With the enemies out of the way, let's get our bearings.  There's a path to the south...  But it loops us back to here. Oops. Let's get back there and try another way.    We can bounce our way up here. What's to the north?  Another warp back.  There must be another path here.  What about this mushroom?  There we go! Uh, what's this place? This place has seen much better days. Why'd all these bugs wanna live here? Their choice of home is not the only strange thing about them... They do give off a peculiar feeling... Let's be on guard.Well, that's nicely mysterious.  We can definitely see some strange bugs milling about in the distance, amidst the ruins. But there's a save crystal here, and we've been
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Mar 13, 2022 10:04
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To be fair to Leif, watching Vi try to carry Kabbu really is hilarious
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Mar 13, 2022 13:04
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Fly Drop was my bread and butter offense skill for such a long time, especially useful in situations where enemies react to damage (superbosses, anyone?) - doing one big hit instead of two smaller ones can help keep that under control. But I played in 1.0. After its nerf, I probably would find it less useful than simply using Needle skills, which is a bit unfortunate. You'd think the added utility of the increased damage would be worth the tradeoff of using two turns! Ah well. I barely see the added arrow in the screenshot, wow. I definitely also went that way first because of that, but it was a rewarding jaunt at the end of the day. Looking forward to seeing how you handle it.
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Mar 14, 2022 00:32
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Slaan posted:To be fair to Leif, watching Vi try to carry Kabbu really is hilarious
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Mar 14, 2022 00:36
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Bug fables looks to be 40% off on Steam. If you've been wanting to get it, now seems like a decent time.
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Mar 14, 2022 20:30
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Lynneth posted:Bug fables looks to be 40% off on Steam. If you've been wanting to get it, now seems like a decent time. Cheers for the notice, and Explopyro can notch another copy of the game being sold from this LP!
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Mar 14, 2022 20:35
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