It's a game with the good kind of bugs! Let's Play Bug Fables

Last time, we started exploring the Forsaken Lands, got lost in fog and warping paths, eventually finding our way to this strange little village. Let's have a look around.

Before that, though... let's move some medals around.

Let's try something a little different today. I was thinking it's about time to show off all the poison medals, since we have them all, but stacking them all on a single bug feels a bit overplayed. So, instead, let's separate them into offensive and defensive piles, and give those to Vi and Kabbu respectively. There's only one Weak Stomach, but there are other ways to get poisoned (we do have a Poison Cake on us), and Eternal Venom means we should only need to poison Kabbu once per fight. Kabbu's also temporarily taking all of the HP Plus medals for himself, to help him tank better.

(Kabbu doesn't have quite as much defence with this setup as you might think, since he's getting -1 from both Favorite One and Reverse Toxin. But Back Support and Defence Exchange will cancel those out, and then double Poison Defender will bring him to +2.)

This ought to be fun.

With our medals accounted for, let's start exploring this place. There are some bugs we can talk to here...

But we can't understand them. What language is this? (This looks even more unsettling ingame, these scribbly symbols all rotate and shake.)

Uh...

Something about these bugs rubs us the wrong way.

Indeed. They seem intelligent, but avoid conversation.

They can be all weird if they want. Let's keep looking around!

There's a banter for these bugs but it's not particularly enlightening, Team Snakemouth are as confused as we probably are.

So let's keep exploring.

One of Venus' buds is hanging out in this ruined house.

Let's see what she has to say.

...But now it's full of these weird mask-wearing bugs. What's their deal?

It seems like she doesn't know what they are either. Also, it's good to get some history of this location.

Let's also take the opportunity to get some healing, especially since we've been moving HP Plus medals around (remember, those only increase your maximum HP, putting one on will not increase your current HP).

Please come by again, I'm always up for a chat.

Thanks, Venus.

Let's look around some more.

On the east side, there's this fallen pillar.

If we dig underneath it, there's a buried item we can find. (This one can be pretty tricky, you can't really see it's there before you get close.)

It's a Lore Book. How did this get here...? Anyway, we'll have to go check this out at the next opportunity.

Back we go.

And up the steps, we have more of these odd bugs.

Okay, I guess? Sure.

Not much to see on this side, just more rubble. Although there's a weed growing up on the ledge there, we should try to get to that.

Uh, sure.

There are some weeds on this side in and around the ruined building, but there's nothing of note in them. Also, you can drop down from here to get to the Lore Book if you want, though you'll still need to dig your way out afterward.

Up here, there's a big tent we can go inside. Let's explore the rest first, though.

This building looked suspicious, but there's nothing inside.

Thanks. You too?

We can fly across to the ledge now.

The weed up here has a Magic Seed in it! Those are always useful.

All right, let's go in.

Uh. Who or what is this?

...! T-Team, I feel a great threat. Be on guard!

If we check the banter, Kabbu seems pretty alarmed.

If we get close, it starts trying to talk to us...

Click me for video!

35 - Reckless for Glory! (Bonus Boss)

Oh.

Well, whoever or whatever this is, they definitely want to fight us. Let's rearrange our party a bit, and do some spying.

It's charging up! Leif, we've gotta block it!

Meet the False Monarch, another one of the Bounty bosses. This thing's pretty interesting: as Vi's spy dialogue told us, it's literally a swarm of Mothflies under a trenchcoat. (When I first saw the bounty board and that one of them was called False Monarch, I was expecting something a bit different, but this works too.)

I also find its design reminiscent of the Beanbean residents from the Mario & Luigi RPG series (hey, it's not precisely Paper Mario this time!), especially Cackletta and Fawful. That's fun.

I've got a bit of a weird plan.

We're going to use Sharing Stash despite being at full health, just to set up regeneration.

And let's have Kabbu taunt.

Now we'll use the Poison Cake on him. He's got Eternal Venom equipped, so this will suffice to keep him poisoned for the entire fight, and make sure his defences are active. (I used Sharing Stash earlier to waste less of the TP restoration from the cake, and because we can't really set up that regeneration later without healing the poison.)

This leaves Chompy free to draw first blood for once! Good for her.

On its turn, False Monarch makes a very aggressive start. This attack is nasty! It opens its cloak and sends forth a swarm of Mothflies to dive-bomb us. These deal 5 base damage per hit, it can launch 3-5 of them, and they inflict poison if not blocked. That's quite the barrage! If you aren't prepared for this, it can be devastating: that's a lot of damage to spread across the party! If it weren't for Kabbu's Taunt, we'd be much worse off.

At the end of the turn, Kabbu recovers 2 HP from Sharing Stash and 2 HP from Reverse Toxin. That's quite substantial! (Though, truthfully, I'm a bit disappointed. The rounding for Reverse Toxin is kind of weird, and I'd hoped to get 3 HP per turn from it if Kabbu had more than 20 maximum HP. It heals 2 HP if your maximum is 10-29, and 3 at 30+.)

Another perk of this strategy is that we're guaranteed to trigger Favorite One every turn.

Getting a bit fiddly here: Leif and Vi swap positions again, then Leif attacks twice so that Vi can save up her charges.

Kabbu's going to keep doing this.

As is Chompy.

This is new. At the start of its turn, it summons two Mothflies. It doesn't always do this, but it doesn't cost it an action to do.

The first Mothfly immediately attacks (though it's not terribly intimidating, and they're easy to block). Taunt works on freshly spawned enemies too, even if they weren't on the battlefield when Kabbu used it.

Then the False Monarch does its actual attack. It walks up and unleashes a swarm right in Kabbu's face! This deals 7 damage at base, and inflicts Attack Down for two turns. (Good thing we don't plan on having Kabbu attack anyone.)

Then the other Mothfly attacks. It wasn't any more effective than the first one.

We get healing again! This will be our last turn getting 4 HP, so let's enjoy it while it lasts.

Here, we can see what's different between these Mothflies and other ones we've seen. Like the ones Mothfly Clusters can spit out, these have only 4 maximum HP but are otherwise identical to regular Mothflies; here, though, they also get a permanent Attack Up and Defence Up.

Leif's just going to keep attacking, while Vi saves her charges. If I wanted to eliminate the Mothflies, Icefall does that quite nicely, but let's see what they're going to do.

And we have another round of taunting and biting.

Here's something new! The small Mothflies can rejoin the main gestalt, healing it for their current HP. If you leave them alive, they can undo a lot of the damage you're dealing (though here, Spiky Bod on Kabbu rendered that pretty ineffective).

And here's another new attack. Throwing the crown is very similar to the previous attack, it's also 7 base damage and can inflict Attack Down (though unlike the swarm attack, this one doesn't inflict it if you block).

And the other Mothfly rejoins the group too.

We only get the healing from Reverse Toxin now. Still, that's not nothing. (Honestly, though, looking at the numbers in this fight makes it apparent what a questionable proposition it is: especially with the multi-hit attacks, we'd probably prefer to have another point of defence, even if that'd mean taking some poison damage.)

We've got three charges built up now, so let's use them.

We swap Vi in front again.

And use Hurricane Toss.

Vi can attack again, letting Leif save his charge (and doing more damage anyway).

Taunt is working well, let's not stop now!

And Chompy does what she does.

More Mothflies! Yay?

We can definitely handle two Mothfly attacks and a crown hurl.

After the usual end of turn effects, here we are. We're making progress, though we still have a ways to go.

Leif has two charges and we've got multiple enemies, so, hmm. Icefall would be enough to eliminate the Mothflies here, but we have the TP and Ice Rain gets more value out of the charges.

We can inflict a lot more damage on the boss this way.

This also seems like a good opportunity to use one of Jayde's Stews! We'll recover some TP and get Kabbu right back to full.

The taunting and biting continues.

This time, it uses the dive-bombing swarm attack, but only hits 3 times.

We're getting closer. We could almost certainly finish things now, but I'm going to play it on the safe side.

So we'll go through a familiar pattern once more.

And take one more crown attack. That could definitely have been worse.

Now Vi's at maximum charge. We don't really need it, but as proof of concept, let's do the poison things we set her up for.

We'll use these Spicy Fries to give her Attack Up and also trigger Weak Stomach.

Yeah, that's definitely enough damage! We're finished here.

The False Monarch is done for.

It does have one other attack we didn't see, the charge-up that the spy conversations allude to.

It spends a turn charging, gaining +2 charge-up and Defence Up for a turn.

The turn after charging, it unleashes this massive swarm attack that hits the entire party, and has a mashing action command. This can be quite painful: it has a base damage of 7! Of course, considering it's telegraphed, Leif's Bubble Shield solves the problem if you can afford the TP cost.

The False Monarch is an interesting fight, especially if you don't know what it's doing. Its main weakness is that all of its attacks (except the charged swarm, which Bubble Shield blocks) are single-target and therefore subject to Taunt. If you stack Kabbu's defences high enough (which is even easier to do with, say, the Do Nothing medals), you can render this boss almost completely harmless. If you don't do that, though, you can definitely end up fighting an uphill battle here, and the dive-bombing Mothfly barrage can easily take down your more vulnerable bugs if it's being spread across the party. And the Attack Down debuffs combined with the summoned Mothflies healing it can really impede your progress.

I almost want to call this a puzzle boss, given it's more or less solveable, but of course you can still just power through it with conventional tactics if you want to. That's pretty solid design.

Anyway, let's get back to the game.

The swarm of flies dissipates, leaving behind the crown for us to claim.

And we're back in control. Um. That happened.

What was UP with that thing!?

I struggle to comprehend how a mass of flies could behave that way...

This tent was here before them, right?

We wonder if... Elizant stayed here at some point.

This ain't fancy enough for a queen, right?

If they were traveling, there'd be no place for too much luxury.

Sadly, there's no real way to be sure. But it's fun to speculate.

Yeah.

Our team seem more interested in speculating about the history of this place than the entity we just fought.

There's nothing else to interact with in here, so let's head back outside.

The strange bugs we saw before are gone now. If we look around, we can see the masks they were wearing lying on the ground.

Everyone's gone...

Was everyone a bunch of Mothflies in hoods too?

A mystery... Just what in blazes was going on here...?

We will probably never know.

There's another mask.

Venus notices they're gone too, but doesn't elaborate further...

For better or worse, we're done here. That was an interesting little excursion! (Before we leave, I'm going to revert our medals to the build we were using before, this experiment was just for the False Monarch.)

Let's take a shortcut back; we should probably go claim our reward for the Bounty, and turn in that Lore Book while we're at it.

Oh, hi there Elizant.

Oh, right! Before we head back, there's a short detour we should probably take while we're here.

So let's head west instead of into the cave.

Remember this area?

Now that we have Vi's flight ability, we can make use of the airstream here...

And fly over to this cave entrance.

In we go!

025 - Caves

What's this area?

Whatever they were gonna build here... They gave up, right?

Most likely. It has this chaotic messiness only an abandoned area can possess...

It seems there's something high up. We may need some sort of special ability to make it through, though...

Duly noted. Let's explore a bit and see if we can get a handle on what the puzzle is here.

First things first, though, let's clear this enemy out.

It's a lone Ironnail. I'm not really in the mood for this; one Needle Pincer from Vi is enough to get rid of it.

Let's just move along.

We need to get up to that ledge, somehow. There's a boulder up there blocking off airflow from that pipe, and we probably need that... but how do we get up?

Well, if we have Leif freeze an icicle in this tiny puddle, it'll get us just enough elevation to make the jump. (If you have difficulty getting up, you can also try having Vi fly from atop the icicle.)

Breaking the boulder frees up the airflow.

Which allows us to fly all the way to the west ledge.

Though there's a Belostoss waiting there, and it comes with a Mimic Spider. In the interest of time, I'm going to gloss over most of this fight too; with the first strike, we have enough damage to kill off the Mimic Spider with just our normal attacks, but I'm going to leave it alive so we can maybe see more of its attacks and hit the Belostoss with one of them instead.

And here we go. This is their other main attack, spitting bubbles that can poison us (though not if we block, of course).

From here, it's easy to finish them both off. (Once again, Vi can make quick work of defensive enemies with Needle Pincer; I'm feeling impatient.)

We're getting close to ranking up again. Not bad!

With the enemy gone, we have a better view of what's here. There's a lever we can flip... let's do that.

What did that do?

From this vantage, we can just begin to see it: it turned on that chimney at the centre of the room. What can we do with that?

Well, if we get back up here...

We can fly over and into the vertical airstream.

Which enables us to get quite a bit of altitude! Once we've flown up high, we need to land on the pipe up here.

There's not much to see on the west side...

But to the east, we can barely see a passage on a ledge below us! Let's fly over and drop down.

There we go. Let's see what's over here.

What's this?

Life Cast is a really interesting medal! It costs 2 MP to equip, and causes the equipped bug to spend HP instead of TP to use skills (but also gives them a 1 point discount on all skill costs). At face value, this might not seem particularly great, but you can do a lot of tricky things with it, ranging from "kind of neat" to "pretty broken". For instance, it's a great way to enable medals like Last Attack that trigger on low HP; alternatively, the cost reduction combined with a source of HP regeneration (or Vi's healing skills) can make it easy to spam something like Taunt or Bubble Shield Lite indefinitely. If you want to get clever, this will absolutely reward you.

It is worth noting that there's a hidden effect: if you combine it with

Life Stealer, the amount of HP you recover from that medal's effect will be halved. I guess they anticipated that being an overpowered combo (e.g. equip Last Attack, use Hurricane Toss or Ice Rain at an HP value that would enable Last Attack, then heal to full from the damage and do it again next turn); it's still pretty effective even with that nerf.

I can't say I've personally used this medal a whole lot, but it's a good one.

After grabbing the medal, there's nothing else up here, so we can drop down and discover where we are! It's all the same cave.

Let's get out of here.

Wait a second... we can reach that digging spot now, can't we?

It has a Crystal Berry inside! We can finally knock this one off the list.

Anyway, let's go see Doppel for our reward.

34 - Dodgy Business

Ah... I see you defeated that nasty False Monarch...

May I have that crystal it dropped?

...Yes, this is a genuine deal. Here is your reward.

Nice doing business with you. Please find the other bounties and your reward will be waiting.

(Only one more to go!)

Our reward this time around is

Last Stand. This costs 4 MP to equip, and (similar to Last Attack) increases the equipped bug's defence by 2 when they have 4 or fewer HP remaining.

2 defence is enormous, and this can contribute quite a lot of survivability (especially when combined with other defence boosts). You can use this proactively by keeping a tanky character low on HP (it doesn't matter how low your HP is if nothing can deal damage to you), or as an emergency measure for a more fragile character.

The worst thing I can say about this medal is that you may not need it, and that keeping a tank low on HP can be slightly risky if you're bad at blocking (and there are some attacks, like for instance Golden Seedlings, that are too strong to be completely negated). Still, this medal is very, very good if you know what you're doing.

Anyway, we're done here for now, let's go turn in our Lore Book.

On the way back, passing through the square we can notice that Utter has new sidequests to inform us about. Let's take a look.

We should definitely look into this.

18 - In the Court of the Ant Queen

Let's go to the library first, though.

Let's see what this one is.

The Era of Deceit. After the Day of Awakening, not all bugs stood equal in society. Many ants, bees, wasps and others failed to evolve with the rest. Many long disputes and frustration occurred because of this. Thankfully, with the passing of time, all bugs experienced the Awakening.

Just what happened to give the bugs sapience, anyway? We don't know much of anything about the Awakening. Maybe we'll learn more later?

We're not far from the mines, so we may as well go see Isau.

Back to Defiant Root.

Before we go see Isau, there's actually something new we can find here now!

If we climb up here, we can just about see a roof to the west...

And now that we can fly, we can get over to it!

There's a very sneaky medal hiding behind the pot here!

Fortify finally completes the set of Leif's status spells. Like the others, it costs 2 MP to equip. Fortify costs 2 TP, and grants Defence Up for 2 turns.

I can't say I've personally made much use of this skill (especially in comparison to, say, Empower and Break), but it will reliably do what it says on the tin. If you frequently find yourself wanting a defence boost, this will get the job done.

Okay, let's actually go see Isau. (This seems to be the "ooh, shiny! a distraction!" update, doesn't it? This trend will, unfortunately, probably continue for a bit.)

In case you've forgotten, Isau's clinic is at the far east side of town.

Let's talk to her.

Why, yes! that permit... You saw my request?

Yep. We'd like to hear more about your miracle cure.

You see, I've been studying Bugaria's flora and their properties for many moons now.

I've found a combination that should heal any illness!

Woah, that's a berry maker right there!

You are a noble soul! I will gladly lend you my strength!

Heheheh. Thanks.

We're assuming the missing ingredient's not going to be easy to get.

Have you all heard of Snakemouth Den?

Excellent! Although the white Sophie Petal I seek actually grows over the den itself, I hear.

I haven't found a way to reach that high place.

So we should try to get really high up?

Leave it to us!

I'll be counting on you! Don't get hurt!

So, yeah. This quest wants us to try to reach a higher level in Snakemouth Den, which we might be able to actually do now that we have Vi's flying. It becomes available on the quest board once we see the cutscene unlocking the ability. (I hadn't planned to interrupt the Forsaken Lands and do this immediately, until I realised it made sense to go back for Doppel and the Lore Book anyway... anyway.)

If we talk to Isau again, she'll request a key item. Let's see if she reacts to the Bug Ranger Plushie.

Sadly, no. It's been a while since we've gotten anything special for this; I wonder if we've already seen them all?

There's no rush. Please take your time looking for it.

If we back out of the menu without choosing an item, Isau says this. She's pretty patient, but this quest is fairly short, so we may as well solve it now.

So let's use our Ant Compass and go back to the mines. This is also a convenient opportunity to show something else off:

In addition to the usual tunnels, this person is also here, and now has Snakemouth Den as an available warp location also! I'm not sure exactly when it gets added to the list.

Regardless, it will conveniently bring us right to the entrance! Not bad.

12 - Snakemouth Den

Snakemouth Den is the same as we left it.

Although that doesn't mean there aren't new things we can do! We were supposed to look up high, right?

We can fly east across these pillars, where we found a Mushroom very early in the game. It doesn't look like this will lead us to Isau's medicine, but there is a Crystal Berry trapped in that vine!

It's a simple matter to knock it free with the Beemerang.

Let's just take this and go.

This room seems like the next natural place to investigate... behind those vines was a bouncy mushroom, where we were able to go up and find a block to use in an early puzzle. Is anything else up there?

Hmm.

This is very easy to overlook, if you don't know the trick to it...

We can actually land on top of the open door here!

And then, landing on the door gets us close enough that we can fly the rest of the way to this ledge! (Vi can't carry Kabbu quite that far in a single trip.) What's through the passage here?

Oh! Well, that looks promising, doesn't it? (There's no music out here, just silence and a few minor sound effects.)

What's this discovery, anyway?

Looks like we're in the right place! (And we also get a history lesson.)

So serene...

To think so much suffering goes on under this paradise...

Don't let it stop you from relaxing!

There's a banter here too, of course. It's not surprising Leif would be unsettled by this, really.

And the Sophie Petal we need is right here for the taking.

If we wanted to, we could actually warp out of here with the Ant Compass (strange as it is given where we are, the soil around the tree counts as diggable, and that's enough to be able to use it). But let's not; I want to take a bit more of a look around Snakemouth Den still.

There's a bit of new content we can see inside the lab area.

73 - Lab Over Snakemouth

To start with, there are a handful of new banters (which can be seen any time after completing Leif's Request), including one in this room.

Must we truly come back here?

It'll be quick, ok? It's just to make sure we didn't miss anything.

You can wait for us here, Leif. Do not force yourself.

It's not that big of an issue. Let's not stay too long, though...

I promise I have a reason for being here, it's not just to torture Leif.

Let's head in a bit farther, until we reach this room. There's another new banter here.

Sorry, Leif.

This enemy's in the way, let's just plow through it and keep moving.

Into the containment room.

Zommoth... We... I...

...

I don't think we're going to be learning anything else here, and Leif is suffering, so let's not stay.

The actual reason we returned here, is that there's a secret we can find here now that we have Vi's flying. To start with, let's climb up this makeshift staircase.

Once we get up high enough, we can fly over to this ledge. It's hard to see, but there's a place we can land. (I've been told you can get up here early, without flying, if you freeze the enemy that was here and use it as a platform, but I've never tried to do it.)

Is that a crack in the wall, right in the corner?

If we're very precise, we can dig into the ground here, and slip behind the wall further east.

Uhh... where are we? (The music goes completely silent as we enter this room, also.)

There are some computer screens with plantlike entities displayed on them... if we get closer, we can inspect them.

Um. Did the Roaches create Venus, somehow? What? Is that what this means?

Also, who or what are Mars and Pluto? Are there two other godlike plant beings out there in the world somewhere? (Also, wow, Pluto is fairly young, which might give us a rough timeframe of how recent the Roaches' disappearance was...)

Are Venus and her possible siblings related to the Healing Sophie we now know grows here? That would make a certain amount of sense, I suppose...

For better or worse, there's nothing else here. This room is something of an easter egg, it's just here for lore purposes and there's nothing tangible to find, but I wanted to make sure I gave you all a chance to see it, since it's very easy to miss.

Let's use our Ant Compass and get out of here. Yes, it works in this room too.

From the mines, it's a quick trip back to Defiant Root and Isau's. Let's deliver the petal.

Easy peasy!

We can feel magic within it. It's sure to be what you need.

Oh, how can I ever repay you!?

Your help was priceless! I hope this humble reward is enough.

...I mean, it's cool. But is it enough?

Don't be like that, Vi!

N-No, she's right. Your help really was priceless!

She's always like that. Don't worry.

Nonsense. Here, have just a little extra!

Heheheh.

T-Thank you, Isau. We hope your research goes well.

Me too. For the sake of all bugs out there... Huh? What's this?

Is there an issue?

I think this petal's got some seeds in it! They're super tiny, see?

I'll try planting a Sophie here, too. That should save explorers a lot of trouble!

It's gonna grow great, you're super kind!

Heheheh. Well, let's toast to that!

And with that, the quest is complete. Isau's pretty generous (and Vi gets rewarded for being a pest again!).

HP Core is our reward. For 2 MP, it will allow the equipped bug to recover 2 HP at the end of every second turn. (It behaves very similarly to TP Core, which we're already familiar with.)

I find this medal a bit underwhelming, personally (and prefer other methods of regaining HP), but it has its uses and may well serve your purposes, depending on your build. It can pair reasonably well with Life Cast, too, if you're using that.

And if we leave the area and return, we can see that Isau's managed to get a Sophie plant to grow!

Let's end the update here for now. This was a bit of a disjointed one, out of necessity, but we accomplished a lot and acquired quite a few interesting new medals! (And uncovered more mysteries than we solved. That seems to be a pattern here too...) Next time, we'll get back on track and continue exploring the Forsaken Lands. I'll see you then!

# ? Mar 20, 2022 10:51

Alxprit: Feb 7, 2015; <click> <click> What is it with this dancing?! Bouncing around like fools... I would have thought my own kind at least would understand the seriousness of our Adventurer's Guild!

I had no idea about that "plant god" room! That's really interesting, it feels like something out of Undertale, kinda, with its placement and vibe. Just a shame it's not really elaborated on.

# ? Mar 20, 2022 15:23

Natural 20: Sep 17, 2007; Wearer of Compasses. Slayer of Gods. Champion of the Colosseum. Heart of the Void.
Saviour of Hallownest.

Yeah I completely missed that! So it's really cool to see.

# ? Mar 20, 2022 18:19

Torrannor: Apr 27, 2013; ---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

I honestly thought Venus predated the Awakening, this is pretty surprising.

# ? Mar 21, 2022 16:30

Quackles: Aug 11, 2018; Pixels of Light.

quote:

:viduck:

# ? Mar 21, 2022 22:04

FoolyCharged: Oct 11, 2012; Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

Huh, so there are other plant gods and they have a Roman god/planets theme. I kind of wonder where the other two are at given that Venus seems to only really have a following with her immediate locals

# ? Mar 21, 2022 22:20

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

Alxprit posted:

I had no idea about that "plant god" room! That's really interesting, it feels like something out of Undertale, kinda, with its placement and vibe. Just a shame it's not really elaborated on.

You are definitely not the first person I've seen to compare the Snakemouth Lab (and especially this room) to Undertale; even the music has a similar feel in places. I definitely see it, though I personally would not have thought to make the comparison because the True Lab section isn't one of the first things I think of when I think 'Undertale'.

I'm almost glad they didn't elaborate on it, despite how mysterious it is; sometimes less is more in writing, especially when it's something meant to inspire speculation like this. (I'm reminded of the Black Moonstone discovery in Skies of Arcadia. People had so many theories about that, and all it took was an offhand mention in an intriguing location.)

Natural 20 posted:

Yeah I completely missed that! So it's really cool to see.

Honestly, I think it's probably the best-hidden secret in the game; I certainly didn't find it on my own! I wanted to make sure I showed it because it's something most players never find.

I suspect it's probably easier to stumble into if you put off exploring the lab until after getting the flying ability. Otherwise, it feels like you've completed the area and don't have any reason to go back (and because there's no collectible in the room, the fortune-teller won't give you a hint).

Torrannor posted:

I honestly thought Venus predated the Awakening, this is pretty surprising.

That's what I would have thought before seeing this room also (or that she also came into existence with it). I suppose, strictly speaking, the game never says the Roaches created her, and it could be argued that "they measured her age and were keeping tabs on/studying her" is an equally valid conclusion to come to. This room is all we have to go on as far as her origins are concerned.

FoolyCharged posted:

Huh, so there are other plant gods and they have a Roman god/planets theme. I kind of wonder where the other two are at given that Venus seems to only really have a following with her immediate locals

I've seen a bit of fan speculation that one or both of them might be in the Eastern Lands, where the fruit-shaped bugs like Tanjerin are from.

I'm also wondering whether one could be in the Beetles' homeland to the north. There's not a lot to go on, but Kabbu was pretty quick to pick up worshiping Venus. If the names are indicative of anything, maybe Mars is there since they have at least something of a warrior culture?

There's only speculation, though, as far as I know the devs have never said anything on the subject.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 02:26

Junpei: Oct 4, 2015; Can't post for 11 years!

Out of curiosity have the devs stated they're working on a sequel to Everlasting Sapling, or a prequel or whatever, or a different project/world? Or have they been radio silent on any new projects?

# ? Mar 22, 2022 06:26

Alxprit: Feb 7, 2015; <click> <click> What is it with this dancing?! Bouncing around like fools... I would have thought my own kind at least would understand the seriousness of our Adventurer's Guild!

From what I remember, I think they are working on something in the same universe that is going to be a different genre. Or maybe they only said they wanted to do that, but haven't started yet?

# ? Mar 22, 2022 14:41

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

Junpei posted:

Out of curiosity have the devs stated they're working on a sequel to Everlasting Sapling, or a prequel or whatever, or a different project/world? Or have they been radio silent on any new projects?

Alxprit posted:

From what I remember, I think they are working on something in the same universe that is going to be a different genre. Or maybe they only said they wanted to do that, but haven't started yet?

So, um, this is a hard one to answer. I've read some things here and there, but I haven't personally spoken to the devs and wouldn't want to speak authoritatively, so please take everything I say here with a hefty pinch of salt. At best I have second- or third-hand information.

It sounds like they want to do a sequel eventually, but they don't want to get typecast as "the Bug Fables studio" (which seems like a valid concern, looking at e.g. Yacht Club Games and Shovel Knight, though I know they've started branching out recently), so they want to do a different and unrelated project first. I don't think they've said anything concrete about what that project might be, or what state of progress it's in.

As for an actual sequel, the only concrete thing they've said is that they consider Team Snakemouth's story to be complete, so any eventual sequel won't be set in Bugaria/the Ant Kingdom and will have new playable characters (though cameos are still absolutely a possibility). There's been some speculation about minor characters from this game getting a starring role (I've seen mentions of Monsieur Scarlet or Mothiva, or, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being Tanjerin) but as far as I know nothing's anywhere near confirmed.

I also saw Mar say in the official Discord recently that a future Bug Fables title will probably still be an RPG, but not in the Paper Mario style.

There is a bit of spinoff Bug Fables content and it's entirely possible they'll release more little things here and there if they feel like it (they often do something for April Fools), but I don't know of any concrete plans.

Prior April Fools gags have included a fighting game teaser trailer (which they're almost certainly not making), and Aphid Festival (wiki page), a simple but fully playable minigame where you raise aphids as a farmer ant. I'll probably cover this in a bonus update at some point, I haven't actually tried playing it yet.

There is also an official prequel comic in the artbook. It's a bit over 20 pages and covers the Wasp King's origin story, which is too much of a spoiler to talk about right now.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 15:49

Captainicus: Feb 22, 2013

I've been playing this game again after I found out about the randomizer mode, and just finished again today. I also went with the personal restriction of no crystal berry shop so I'd do something different. I relied a lot on a combination of berserker + first plating + strong start + antlion jaws on Vi for random battles, and berserker and power exchange on Vi combined with hard charge on Lief for huge Frost Relay damage to late bosses. I don't think I found berserker at all the first time I played, but it was great fun to use it on randomizer. One of the surprise early game stars for me was a pickup of boulder toss for Kabbu - does 5 damage to the main target and 2 splash damage, which is pretty good for a no setup time early damage skill. I had great fun with the randomizer mode, so cheers to this thread for telling me it exists! I'd definitely recommend it to anyone playing this game after the first time.

# ? Mar 25, 2022 05:49

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

59: Primal Screaming

Last time, we defeated the False Monarch, and got a bit distracted from exploring the Forsaken Lands to do sidequests and find some secrets in Upper Snakemouth. We left off here in Defiant Root, after delivering the Sophie Petal to Isau.

We're almost ready to return to the mission, but before that, one last minor detour on the way back.

36 - Lost Sands

Now that we can fly, we often don't need to bother rotating these bridges. There isn't anything new we can discover this way, but it's often convenient.

Here's our stop, the room where we were ambushed by bandits all the way back in Chapter 3. There's a secret here that flight allows us to finally grab.

Specifically, we want to fly over this sinkhole here.

When we reach the other side, the camera rotates to show us what's behind; there's a staircase of rocks we can climb here.

There's a digging spot up here on top of the cliff.

And it has a Crystal Berry inside!

This brings us back up to 4 of them. It's not enough for us to buy something useful immediately, but it's easy to forget this is here (honestly, I often do) and I wanted to grab it while I remembered. We're in the home stretch where these things are concerned, there honestly aren't too many left to find.

Anyway, that's the detour. Let's use the Ant Compass now.

And let's make our way back to the Forsaken Lands. I'll skip most of the journey, we know the way by now.

Oh, right, Elizant's with us! We can see her again once we reenter the cave.

Okay. We're back. We know the correct path now (or at least up to where we stopped, anyway), so it shouldn't take long to get back there.

And we're back to the room with the pipes and chasms. We've explored past here in one direction, but there's still quite a bit we've yet to see here.

To start with, we need to head back west. The enemies are back, but they're the same as before, so we'll just beat them and move on.

Let's actually pay attention to the arrow this time!

To start with, we need to smash this rock and expose the pipe.

Now we can actually get further east!

This platform is just a staging area. We need to land and recharge our flying distance anyway, and it gives us another airstream to change directions.

That lets us reach this platform to the south. There's a Mothfly Cluster waiting for us, so let's get it out of the way.

55 - Team, It's Getting Serious!

It's two of them at once. This isn't a particularly difficult or interesting fight, so I'm just going to move past it - we've boosted Vi's attack enough now that with some clever use of Turn Relay, we can take out one of these on the first turn, and from there it's pretty simple to clean up the second.

Though not before it gets to spawn Mothflies (which prolongs things a bit, but honestly not much else). I didn't manage to get it to happen while recording (one downside of killing these too quickly), but it's worth noting that just like in the fight with False Monarch, the small mothflies can merge back into a Mothfly Cluster to heal it by their current HP.

We're getting close to another rank up, though!

With the battle out of the way, let's take a look around where we landed...

There's a path south, and another pipe blowing air east, but if we head to the western edge of the platform, we can just barely spot another off in the distance! (I think the weed is here to help you spot it, if you walk over to cut it the platform will be in view, but it's still not hard to overlook.)

As soon as we start flying west, we can see there's a Lore Book on the platform! (How did it get there?)

Anyway, we'll grab it. We can take this back to read later, but for now let's keep moving along.

From here, we have two paths. Let's check the south first, I guess?

Well, that's certainly not right! It warps us back to the start of this room. Could be worse; let's just retrace our steps.

So, clearly, we need to fly east.

This is actually a bit tricky to line up. We have to start flying just south of the pipe, then swerve into the airstream so it catches us.

Still, we make it across.

We can figure out where to go in a moment; first, a snail.

55 - Team, It's Getting Serious!

It has a Mothfly with it, but this is still a pretty trivial fight.

A single Needle Pincer is usually enough for these guys. If you can afford the TP, it's a really efficient way to deal with them.

And with a bit of relaying, Vi can swat the Mothfly too.

Arguably, it's a downside of the Turn Relay system that once you start stacking attack on a single character, it's usually more efficient to just give them as many turns as you can. On the other hand, it creates a possible "level-up" moment for the player when they figure out they can do it, and giving players opportunities to feel clever is good game design.

Regardless, we finish the fight and get just enough EXP to reach Rank 23!

You know the drill.

We don't get any other bonus at this rank, just the one we choose.

Ironnails drop these pretty often, but they're not particularly useful. I'll no doubt throw it away soon enough to make room for something else.

There's only one way to go from here, north. Once again, we need to swerve into the air current to be able to get enough distance.

As we fly north, we can intersect this second airstream, but trying to follow it is a trap right now...

Instead, we want to land here and let Vi rest first. If we'd tried to go east immediately, we'd end up running out of energy and falling into the chasm.

Landing first makes it an easy trip, though. There's a Mimic Spider waiting for us.

55 - Team, It's Getting Serious!

Two Mimic Spiders, and a Mothfly. Hmm.

It might not be very threatening, but the Mothfly's easy to eliminate right away, so may as well?

Everyone else will get some damage in on the first spider.

Their bite's still nothing special.

This, however, is worth revisiting. I completely forgot to cover an aspect of this attack last time we saw it, and it's noteworthy.

What's this weird status effect on Vi?

The Mimic Spiders' spit attack has two sizes of bubble. The small ones inflict poison, but the large ones inflict this. It's called "Sticky", and it's another very rare status effect. Only one other enemy can inflict it, and that's a postgame superboss. It's kind of like an alternate take on Ink: it prevents the afflicted character from using items (and can't be cured with items). Also like Ink, this was a new addition in version 1.1, and in earlier versions of the game Mimic Spiders only inflicted poison.

Unless the entire party gets hit with it at once, the effect is honestly negligible, since you can just use Turn Relay and have another bug use an item instead. (This circumstance here is one of the rare times it does matter, since Vi's wearing Heal Plus but the other bugs aren't.)

I'd genuinely forgotten this status effect existed.

Anyway, back to the fight. Kabbu and Leif will start bashing the first spider.

And we'll have Vi heal everyone with Sharing Stash. Despite the theming, Vi's healing skills aren't actually items and she can still use them (just like in the fight with Astotheles).

Chompy finishes off the first spider.

We endure another round of spitting. (Only poison bubbles this time, those tend to be more common.)

And from here, the rest of the fight is a known quantity, so let's keep moving.

Now that we've ranked up, we're back to getting just pity EXP.

Now that we've gotten rid of the enemy, let's look around the area.

There's a boulder we can smash up here, blocking another pipe.

Removing the boulder frees the air current, but we don't want to follow this one. It's a shortcut back to where we entered the room. That's useful if we want to go back (since the path we took here is one-way), but we don't need to right now.

Instead, we'll take this path east.

Finally, a new area!

Impressive. Pumpkins have managed to grow in these barren lands!

Time for lunch!

Well, I do enjoy Plumpling Pie. It has been some time...

They grow in the Golden Settlement too, yeah?

Then this must be an act of mercy from Venus!

It's just pumpkins, Kabbu...

The banter here is pretty cute (and, also, a rare one in which Elizant II participates! She's been pretty quiet before now).

Before we can look around too much, this Ironnail insists on being in the way.

It has a Mothfly Cluster with it, but we can still just power through this (especially with the bonus turn from first strike).

We'll get Vi in front and just stab.

Then relay to her for two more hits on the Mothfly Cluster.

That brings it low enough that Kabbu, Leif, and Chompy can do the rest. We might've made Vi a bit too powerful?

Ironnails are still giving actual EXP, unlike the other enemies here.

Now, back to exploring.

There's a path to the south, but it's blocked by a giant mushroom!

If you played Bug Fables long enough ago, this might look weird to you: the mushroom is a new addition as of v1.1, and wasn't here before. You used to be able to try going further south, but couldn't do anything there other than waste time (it's a puzzle that can't be solved without something we don't have). I'm not sure what I think of this change; I kind of liked getting an early look at something mysterious, but if enough people found it frustrating I can't really fault the devs for solving it like this.

We're obviously going to need this block for something. There might've been a bridge here once, but there isn't one now!

Can we climb up this pile of pumpkins, perhaps?

...Well, we probably could have, but this one's alive!

All that means is that we have to freeze it first, though. (As is the case with other enemies designed to be part of a puzzle, this fight is only a single Plumpling, and it will respawn immediately if killed.)

With the Plumpling frozen, the staircase actually works.

And this gap is narrow enough that we can fly across.

Let's take a look around here.

This path north is probably wrong, but we may as well try it out now?

...What.

Okay, so this is the downside of them adding the mushroom. They seem to have forgotten to change where this false path lets out when they put it there, so you get stuck in the mushroom if you go this way. Oops.

That said, if you just try to walk north for long enough, the party will eventually clip through it and escape. No harm done, really, it just looks awkward for a while.

Pardon me while I get back up there.

Here we are. Where we need to go certainly isn't obvious yet. Before that, though, a snail.

It has a Mimic Spider with it, but that's not really enough to make this threatening.

Let's move on.

Well, there's our hint. That's definitely an arrow pointing upward. How can we get up there, though? (We can't get any closer to the arrow from here; it's hard to see from this angle because the game makes it transparent, but that dark shadow just south of Kabbu is a cliff face.)

Up here is another weed with a squash in it; we'll take it, I guess. I can get rid of the Numbnail Dart for this.

Here's a better view. It sort of looks like we might be able to dig under that log, but we can't. Just past that, though, there are some breakable rocks.

So let's smash them.

There's not much of note in the alcove behind them, except this block we can move. We're going to need that. Maybe we should move it over toward the pile of pumpkins?

Just like before, though, when we get close one of them reveals itself to be a Plumpling. Let's freeze it and build some stairs again.

There we go.

And now we can get up. (If the geometry starts causing problems getting up, sometimes flying can work a bit better than jumping. You gain a similar amount of altitude that way, but have a bit more control.)

Anyway, we can reach the top of this pillar. It seems a bit like a dead end?

But if we remember where the arrow was, and fly south, we can get across to the other ledge.

And from here, finally, there's a path further east.

This area looks a bit different; I think we're getting closer!

That rocky formation stands quite tall!

It's just inviting us to climb it, isn't it?

The banter here suggests we should go up. We'll definitely add that to the list.

Before we get too far, though, another snail.

This time, it's joined by a Plumpling. (I know I've said this before, but I do enjoy how varied the formations manage to be in this game, even with relatively small numbers of unique enemies.)

Let's do something a bit different.

With careful aim, Needle Toss can be pretty effective here! (In general, I really like it against Plumplings, since with Vi's current level of attack she can one-shot them.) I wouldn't recommend this unless you're confident in aiming it, but it's fun if you are.

And then Kabbu can flip the Ironnail out of its shell, leaving Vi to finish it off. The numbers just worked out perfectly here.

On we go.

There are more mushrooms here, but they're just cosmetic this time. (Also, we can see a Mimic Spider in the distance.)

From this side, we can see there are two paths here, in addition to the one leading north we saw earlier. Lots of ways to go!

First, though, let's deal with these guys.

This isn't very intimidating. Let's just beat them and move on.

Only pity EXP from that formation.

Behind where the spider was is a bouncy mushroom.

So let's go up.

Now we can wrap around to this side; we could see this mushroom earlier from where we entered this area.

If we stand in the centre up here, we get a prompt to inspect the area. Let's see what happens.

...It's just a big rock?

Think of that big rock as their Hive, Vi.

It's more than close enough. We've just got to go north.

In addition to a pretty strong hint to the correct path, that conversation gives us a Discovery!

Here's hoping we can do something about that.

If we check the location again after getting the discovery, we get this line.

There's nothing else up here, so let's go back down.

We know we need to go north, but I've been showing where all the false paths lead so far, so why stop now? Let's just check these two right quick.

That one brings us out here, for some reason. We could just turn right back and go north toward progress...

But I wouldn't do that to you.

...sigh. This one's a bit irritating. I'll go solve the puzzles again, be right back.

All right, we're back. Only one path remains.

So north it is.

There's a yellow save crystal here. You can probably guess what that means, with how scarce these have generally been.

Is that glass? How weird...

What's weird about glass? We've seen heaps of it.

It's where it's placed, and the area we're in. Dunno, it just feels like it's not natural.

These lands turned out to be full of strange trinkets. I'll have to bring Neo sometime...

This is a cute one, although with the wistful tone I wonder if it was meant to be seen on a return visit here, instead of this first one?

Let's heal up and save before going any further; that seems prudent.

Also, I've just remembered I never made use of the MP we gained from that rank up. Let's try giving Vi First Plating; this goes very well with Power Exchange, or any similar type of glass cannon strategy. I'm not doing anything very sophisticated here, we'll just stick with what we've been using otherwise.

We won't get very far east before hearing a roar from offscreen.

13 - It's Getting Scary!

With a good ol' beatdown!

Now, everyon-

CRUSH this insolent creature that dares defy our most sacred mission! Have no mercy!

...That works, too. To battle!

Click me for video!

29 - Team, This One's Stronger! (Miniboss)

Whatever this is, it's pretty big. Let's spy on it, but first, let's rearrange things to get Kabbu in the back of the party.

We must keep an eye on when to block, and stop it from calling reinforcements!

This is the Primal Weevil: a bigger, angrier version of the Weevils we fought quite a while ago. Honestly, it's less intimidating than it looks, it's just a miniboss and we've been fighting much scarier things (like, for instance, the False Monarch last update). I'm going to give it a chance to show what it can do, but in normal gameplay it's often barely a speedbump.

We'll start off by having Kabbu taunt it.

And we'll have Leif use Royal Decree to buff everyone. It's a bit unnecessary, but this is one of the few significant fights where we'll have access to this, and it's a cool skill.

Vi can just attack normally. With the boost to her attack, this hits pretty hard.

Chompy gets to contribute too.

On its turn, the Primal Weevil attacks Kabbu with a tail swipe. This does 6 damage at base, but Kabbu can nearly nullify it between the defence boost and his Super Block bonuses.

One turn in. Let's keep going.

Vi and Leif will just attack. We could save up the charge bonuses, but we're not really going to need to; it's not that kind of fight.

Kabbu keeps up the taunting.

And Chompy keeps chomping.

Here's the call for reinforcements Kabbu mentioned in the spy. Primal Weevil can whistle to call Weevils to join the fight. I think it will only do this while alone, I've never seen this fight end up with multiple Weevils at once.

As usual for summoned enemies, it gets to attack right away. I'm not sure if I've pointed this out explicitly before, but Kabbu's Taunt even works on enemies that weren't present when he actually used it. Despite looking like a status effect on the enemies, it's actually global.

Here's where things stand now. We could kill the Weevil, but honestly it's not all that threatening...

So instead we'll just keep attacking the boss.

Also, let's refresh Royal Decree, since it's worn off already. (Whoops. I messed up the sequencing here, I should have had Leif use this before Vi attacked to not waste a point of damage. Oh well.)

Kabbu will keep taunting.

Chompy does her thing.

Ouch! This attack is pretty interesting, and one I wanted to make sure we got to see (especially since it's a cool animation, and it's easy to miss out on).

The first hit deals 5 damage at base. If you block it, the attack ends there, but if you don't, Primal Weevil will grab the bug, charge through and then launch them for an additional 3 base damage when they land.

The normal Weevils still have the ability to boost their attack before striking, they'll sometimes do that.

Still, we're not doing too badly.

Let's just get rid of the Weevil now, since we can do it with one hit.

In retrospect, I should have done those in reverse order. This isn't exactly optimal gameplay, but then, I'm certainly not trying to do that.

Kabbu will keep taunting.

And Chompy will keep chomping.

This is new! Just like the small Weevils, Primal Weevil can boost its attack at the start of its turn. This doesn't cost an action, so it will attack immediately afterward.

Another tail swipe. This hurts a lot more when we only do a normal block, especially with the attack boost! Things aren't looking great for Kabbu here, all that taunting is starting to add up.

We can work with this.

Vi keeps doing what she does.

Though we'll have Leif relay to her, so she can heal Kabbu. Even if we're going to use an item rather than her skills, it's better to have her do it since she's the one with the Heal Plus medals.

There we go.

And now he's healthy enough to taunt again. (Unfortunately, our Royal Decree has run out again, and I didn't refresh it this turn... between that and the attack boost, the next hit might hurt.)

Chompy keeps going.

Ow. I missed the block entirely this time, which pretty much undoes the work we put in healing Kabbu.

Once again, though, this is not exactly catastrophic.

Two uses of Secret Stash gets Kabbu right back to full. We could probably have just finished things, but there's nothing wrong with playing it safe (and there's still a bit more to see).

Now he's healthy enough to taunt again.

On we go.

There we go! This is definitely one of the nastier things it can do (and I'm terrible at the block timing for it, which definitely does not help). This shriek attack is just like the one Madesphy used, hitting the entire party for 3 base damage and inflicting Numb for 1 turn (if not blocked). The animation looks a lot like the attack boost at first, the only difference in animation is the gleam in its eye during the wind-up.

If you're on low health when you get hit by this (or you get unlucky and it chains it), the fight can turn against you pretty quickly out of nowhere. If you know it's coming, you can equip Numb Resistance in advance; otherwise, the best countermeasure is just staying on top of healing.

Although in our case, First Plating kept Vi from getting numbed, so it's not quite as bad as it could have been!

We'll just keep attacking for now.

And there's its final attack! This looks a lot worse because it's hitting Vi's -2 defence, the base damage is 4 per hit. Still, this can hurt!

Now that we've seen everything the Primal Weevil can do, I see no further point in keeping it around. Let's just end this.

Simple enough.

That wasn't too bad. As I said earlier, in my experience the Primal Weevil is usually a pretty underwhelming miniboss: it doesn't have enough durability to stand up to the kind of damage output most builds can manage by this point, so it's easy to kind of just roll over it without seeing anything it can do. But if you let your guard down, it can actually be threatening, since several of its attacks do decent damage and the party-wide Numb can catch you off guard.

No problem!

You there! You defeated this beast? You have our thanks.

As said before, no problem.

You must be soldiers from the Termite Kingdom, or am I wrong?

...!!! Cross, she's...

Indeed. I bear grave news. Bugaria - and your kingdom - are at risk of a great calamity.

...What do we do, Poi? No one would cross these lands for a cruel joke.

Come on! What if it's really serious!

I-It is! I beg of you, you must let us talk to your rulers!

...Alright. At the very least, you saved us the trouble of capturing this beast.

We'll meet you back at the gate after delivering the Weevil and informing the Royal Guard.

Please wait for us there.

You're taking it with you?

Right...

Thank you for your concession. We'll meet you at the entrance.

I do warn you though, the King will not be happy to see you.

Nor the Queen. So best of luck.

We fade out briefly, as the Termite soldiers collect the Weevil and take it away. (Not at all suspicious...) When it fades back in, they're gone.

As expected, Ants are still not welcome in their land. Such is our history.

It will be okay! This matter concerns every Bugarian!

Just do your magic Queen diplomacy!

...Let's go.

We regain control, and the music finally resumes. (The entire scene after defeating the Weevil plays out without background music.)

There are actually two exits from this area; let's head west first.

Does this look familiar? We're on the upper level of a room we visited earlier.

We can knock down this ruler.

Which creates a shortcut we can use to backtrack, if we want. (It's a bit hard to tell from this angle, but this is the room with the broken bridges where we unlocked Vi's ability to fly.)

We'll launch ourselves up and head back.

That was fast! The crystal's already turned blue.

This seems like a decent stopping point for now. Next time, we'll head east, and finally arrive at the Termite Kingdom. It remains to be seen how warm a welcome we'll get there...

# ? Apr 5, 2022 05:03

Slaan: Mar 16, 2009; ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH

Id say Kabbus earnestness is the far better diplomacy option at the present Elizant. A shared love of the Rangers is sure to open up the termite's royal hearts.

# ? Apr 5, 2022 12:28

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

So, um, I should probably apologise for having gone MIA, and for the general pace of updates having slowed down recently. I've been going through a lot offline (including a move and a new job, which are proving difficult to adjust to, and a family health emergency) and it's been cutting into the time and energy I'd normally have to work on the LP. I'm hoping the pressure is going to ease up a bit from here out, but I have a feeling we're going to be looking at more of a ~2 week update schedule from now on. Thanks for bearing with me and I hope you're still enjoying the LP despite my haphazard updating.

Captainicus posted:

I've been playing this game again after I found out about the randomizer mode, and just finished again today. I also went with the personal restriction of no crystal berry shop so I'd do something different. I relied a lot on a combination of berserker + first plating + strong start + antlion jaws on Vi for random battles, and berserker and power exchange on Vi combined with hard charge on Lief for huge Frost Relay damage to late bosses. I don't think I found berserker at all the first time I played, but it was great fun to use it on randomizer. One of the surprise early game stars for me was a pickup of boulder toss for Kabbu - does 5 damage to the main target and 2 splash damage, which is pretty good for a no setup time early damage skill. I had great fun with the randomizer mode, so cheers to this thread for telling me it exists! I'd definitely recommend it to anyone playing this game after the first time.

I meant to respond to this earlier; thanks for reporting on your experience! I always enjoy hearing about fun things that happen in randomiser runs.

I've also gotten Boulder Toss early before, and I definitely think that's the best case scenario for the skill. It's really great early on even with the big TP cost, and AoE/splash type skills are rare enough in this game that it will absolutely change how you play. By the time you get it normally in Chapter 4, other skills just outclass it so it's underwhelming by comparison, but if you get it in Chapter 1 or 2 it's really solid. Getting to recontextualise things like this is definitely one of the perks of playing the randomiser.

Slaan posted:

Id say Kabbus earnestness is the far better diplomacy option at the present Elizant. A shared love of the Rangers is sure to open up the termite's royal hearts.

Hah, yes, that's a good point.

(I'm not going to say the Bug Rangers won't come up as a point of discussion during our Termite Kingdom expedition.)

# ? Apr 6, 2022 22:39

Torrannor: Apr 27, 2013; ---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Slaan posted:

Id say Kabbus earnestness is the far better diplomacy option at the present Elizant. A shared love of the Rangers is sure to open up the termite's royal hearts.

I think that depends on why relations broke down in the first place. An apology by the ant queen for whatever happened (assuming it was the ants fault) might carry a lot of weight.

# ? Apr 8, 2022 07:52

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

60: Termite Territory (Part 1)

Last time, we finished ~~getting lost in~~ exploring the Forsaken Lands, fought a Primal Weevil and had a brief encounter with the Termite Kingdom's border guards. Let's head onward!

It's a pretty impressive view from up close. I don't know what, if anything, the glowing green crystals mean, but they're certainly something new.

Let's check the banter.

The Termites live here? Really?

Not the most inviting of entrances, that's for sure.

Do not judge, my friends. Some of the most astounding technology lays beneath this dome!

You can be smart and look ugly, you know...

This is another rare banter that gets a reaction from Elizant, which is nice to see.

Let's cross the bridge and get closer.

As soon as we reach the far side of the bridge, we walk right into a cutscene.

You're free to go in. But, Ant Queen... I'd suggest you go directly to the castle.

It's straight ahead from the plaza. The less people see you, the less fuss there will be.

I understand. We thank you once more.

We've had many years of peace. Don't make us regret letting you in.

(To treat a Queen in that manner...)

Things are definitely going to be a bit tense for a while.

After that conversation ends, the screen immediately fades out while they let us inside.

64 - Termite Capitol (Recommended listening!)

(Check out the new music. The Termite Kingdom's theme is very calming with a distinct techno element. It's quite fitting.)

I hope you'll meet me at the table for the negotiations.

...Yes, see you there.

Did you really just call the Ant Queen "Lisa"?

It's too informal!

You two gotta learn to relax! Let's look around and catch up!

That certainly happened.

This always gives me pause, a bit, and wonder whether I've been pronouncing "Elizant" wrong because I can't quite see where Vi gets "Lisa" out of it. (Unless she's pronouncing that more like "Liza"?) It's just a bit odd.

And, honestly, while this scene inevitably makes me laugh, it comes out of nowhere and I think they could have gotten the same effect by just having Vi call her by name instead of "Queen" or "Your Majesty" as she always did before.

Anyway, the game gives us back control after that conversation. Let's check the banter before anything else.

The Bee Kingdom's also inside a structure, but it feels way more oppressive in here.

Well, duh. My Kingdom's full of paint and happy stuff. This city's all dull!

Some bugs are born in such a place, and don't get to see the lush Bugarian Outskirts...

Most Termites don't like sunlight, we hear. So they probably don't mind this.

Some bugs are really weird. It's that culture thing, I guess.

We get a thoughtful one here. The Termite Kingdom has a very distinct atmosphere, and our protagonists aren't sure if they like it yet.

We've got a lot of exploring to do, this is a pretty huge town and there's a lot to see (even before we get into the negotiations). Before that, though...

If you want to leave, just go through this gate here.

This guard kindly informs us that, despite how it may look, the gate isn't locked and we can leave whenever we want to.

So let's take a quick detour back outside. (The screen fades out for a moment while we hear the door opening noisily.)

There's not that much to see out here, but there is a bit (and we couldn't see it before thanks to the cutscene trigger stopping us), so let's get it out of the way before we go out on the town.

We can talk to Poi and Cross again. In addition to the dialogue, they also each have a banter.

The guards in this kingdom are varied, huh. In shape and all.

I've heard this kind of Termite holds a potent cannon in its head!

They're BORN with a cannon? Why do Bees get, like, one tiny stinger!?

(I... I like my horn...)

This is a real thing that some types of soldier termites have! They're called fontanellar guns and can launch sticky chemicals a distance of several centimetres. (Though the comparison to bees' stingers is apt in another way, too: in some species of termite, using this tears off their mandibles, though they can often survive without them.)

Cross doesn't have much to say either.

The guards in this kingdom are varied, huh. In shape and all.

This one seems super bulky! Like Kabbu!

I'm going to take this compliment.

They seem well versed in the use of long-range weapons, too.

Even if they've had peace, they're not eager to see it threatened.

This one's cute too.

(These banters will be repeated if we check any of the identical termite guards throughout the town; there are two distinct types. All the other guards use the same sprites as Cross and Poi, so I'll be using the same portraits throughout.)

Just to the west are some rocks we can smash.

Eventually, we find a cave entrance.

Let's go in.

There are some familiar faces inside! Elizant must have arranged for them to follow us and build the tunnel as backup.

So the Ants just managed to tunnel all the way here?

So it seems. They are dangerously close to the Termites, though...

Eh, if they stay clear of the dome it'll be fine!

That's very optimistic, but let's hope she's right I guess!

Amber's here, ready to help us with storage as usual.

Bringing miners, and even Ms. Amber to such a dangerous place...

Sometimes I wonder if the Queen considers the dangers of her requests!

We're sure she does. But it's still something that needs to get done...

This banter acknowledges that this might be quite risky.

I suppose this is the farthest we can build this tunnel to.

I guess they got as close as they dared.

Also, Diana is here, and we know what that means. New shortcuts!

Those berries don't even taste good...

We don't think her taste would be the only weird thing here...

Oi, I'm doing you a favor, okay? Just sit and watch!

We're in your debt once again, Diana. Thank you.

Well, I'm off! See you some other time, folks!

As usual, once we feed her, Diana connects this area to the Ant Mines for us. That will definitely come in handy later, so we don't have to trek through the foggy maze again.

Anyway, unlocking the shortcut was the main reason we came out here; let's head back inside.

Back to exploring! As befits a new town, there are lots of things to see and people to meet.

O. M. G.! Can't wait to tell my friends on the Termanet about the incoming war!

...I have many questions.

...Termanet?

No clue.

Seems to be a technology unique to this land. For communication.

We should tell H.B. about it!

(I... I don't get how it works.)

Our team seem pretty confused too.

This guy's too busy, he doesn't have much of anything to say to us.

S-Sir! Please, sit down for a bit!

He's super ignoring you.

Overworking's global, huh.

You can't work if you collapse! Sir, please listen to meeeee!

Kabbu's nagging's global too...

This workaholic character is actually a reference to the fact that worker termites don't sleep. They literally work constantly until they die.

This person seems a lot calmer.

She is really shy, and hides herself beyond the dense fog.

I should visit sometime soon.

Make note of this, maybe we can meet her friend later? (We still haven't explored all of the Forsaken Lands, there's that section that's blocked off by the mushrooms...)

We wonder if those scarves are the fashion around here.

Most likely. I don't like them much, though.

If you want, Leif, we could look around and buy you one.

No, thank you. We were just wondering.

Heh, Leif still gets fixated on fashion sometimes, but still can't be bothered to participate.

Let's see what's inside this building?

It's an item shop! Let's have a look around.

You know how to use the self checkout, right? Just press (A) near an item.

...Aww...

We can sell her items if we want, though the game hangs a lampshade on it. It sounds like she'd be using her personal funds.

Alright then.

There's also a banter here, of course.

Malbee would stomp her if she read on the job at the factory!

This store seems mostly automated, so she mustn't have much to do.

That's worrying... Will there be a shop with no one running it at some point?

Silly Leif. Gadgets could never replace our fellow bug!

Leif has some thoughts about automation eliminating retail jobs, apparently.

If we talk to the other customer in here, we'll learn there's something called DineMite. I wonder what that is?

The Termite Kingdom's quite impressive, but all this store food makes me miss Fry's cooking.

Machines can't really match Kut's expertise.

Or Crisbee's baking! Um, guess we know where to go after the mission.

This is cute. (And, actually, not just flavour text, this is hinting at something we'll learn later this update.)

Let's check out the inventory, finally. There are some neat new toys here.

Squash (9 berries)

Shell Ointment (20 berries)

Aphid Shake (15 berries)

Mega-Rush(tm) (15 berries)

We can buy Squash here, if we're too lazy to go cut down weeds in the Forsaken Lands; that can definitely be convenient. Also, we can finally buy Shell Ointment in unlimited quantities (there were only two available prior to this point). Aphid Shake is a bit underwhelming now, though it can still do the job if you want to use it. And then there's the new item, which is pretty interesting.

Mega-Rush(tm)
"This power-packed, 90% sugar drink boosts attack for 3 turns and grants a charge-up! But you'll need to rest after..."
Sell: 7 berries

What this does might not be immediately obvious from the description. When you use it, it grants Attack Up for 3 turns and +1 charge immediately, but when the Attack Up buff expires, it inflicts Attack Down for 2 turns. (It's not a hard-coded 3 turn delay, so if you stack the buff further with items or skills, you can put off the downside.) It also triggers Weak Stomach.

This can be a really effective way to boost if your strategy wants burst damage, and the downside isn't hard to play around (though I like that it comes with a tradeoff). On the other hand, Squash Tart comes without the downside, so you have alternatives available. Squash Tart is a bit better if you're using Hard Charge, since the charge-up from Mega-Rush(tm) would be wasted in that case.

(Also, this item's name is, of course, a blatant reference to the infamousPaper Mario badge.)

I'm not going to buy any right now, but these are pretty great. I honestly never used them that much, because I'd got in the habit of using Spicy Fries or Squash Tarts already, but they're fun.

Let's head back outside; there's nothing else to see in this shop. (Also, there's a convenient save crystal right here.)

What's this giant slab thing?

Apparently it's some kind of display, though it's not working right now.

So this rectangular gadget provides swift news to the populace?

Or, uh, it did. Guess it's not working right now...

I'm sure this will be important later. Let's move on.

Is that Samira over there?

O-Ok. I'm always here if you want to hear me play.

As usual, she lets us listen to music if we want.

Samira's doing well enough to afford an escort here, huh.

Hard work always pays off!

It's good to see her, even if we're still putting off buying songs. (I promise we will eventually.) Let's move along.

Over here is the way to the palace.

You have come with the Ant Queen, so you're an exception.

Still, behave yourselves in front of the Queen and King!

The guards have a bit of dialogue.

We won't hesitate in throwing you out the door.

I'm seeing a general theme here.

We could head to the palace now, but let's finish exploring the city first. What's this place over here?

65 - DineMite Beats

There's unique music in here; what is this place?

They are harvested from the Plumplings that roam around the wilds.

What if one mixed a Squash with some defense boosting ingredient?

My appetite flares up just thinking about it...

Dan's here, and has recipe hints on offer as usual.

This guy is even here...

Where there is food, there he is.

You have to admire his dedication to his culinary quest.

This is clearly some kind of eating establishment, anyway. Let's look around more.

This person certainly has opinions.

Is it, uh, healthy to just eat one food?

Delicious as it may be, we reckon it's not.

We don't even know what's in it...!

What do they sell here?

Also, who is this and what are they wearing?

...Okay then.

Hm. I quite dig this fellow's style.

He looks lame. You've got bad taste.

Oof...

Respectfully, Vi? You don't know the first thing about fashion.

Hey!

Fashionista Leif returns with a vengeance!

Let's talk to the clerk.

What's a Mite Burger? Let's buy one and find out.

ONE MITEBURGER COMING UP!

Come again for an explosive dining!

I have no idea what "fatty termite stuff" is, but this is a decent item. It's nothing spectacular (especially compared to Sharing Stash), but there aren't many items that grant HP regeneration so it does have a niche.

Our team aren't kidding about not knowing what's in this: it's not a recipe we can recreate, and the only way to get these is to buy them here. You'd think they might be made of wood or something.

ONE ORDER OF FRIES COMING UP!

Come again for an explosive dining!

We can also buy Spicy Fries here. This is pretty convenient, and they're cheap (actually cheaper than buying ingredients and cooking them!). Though considering you can go next door and buy Mega-Rush, it's a bit superfluous.

If you have a full inventory when trying to buy something here, he'll say this:

You wanted takeaway with no space? Come DineMite later?

So, yeah, the Termite Kingdom apparently has fast food joints. (No bars? A termite walks into a bar and asks "where's the bar tender?" :rimshot:

)

DineMite's the cheapest place around! And yum!

We cannot help but pity this poor worker.

The conditions don't seem too bad?

It's the music! We'd go insane after a few hours!

When you put it that way... At least I know how to annoy you now!

Don't. We'll freeze your mouth.

This place makes you cranky... Let's order and get out!

Also, the banter for the clerk here is fun. Leif has the right of it, I have to say. (I don't actually mind this music track, but I spent just long enough working retail in the past to know that that often doesn't matter...)

Let's get out of here.

There are a lot of moving pipes and gears around, it definitely gives this place an industrial feeling. Also, take a look at the posters on the building, we can see Mothiva among them. Apparently she does shows here too?

The guard here helpfully tells us what we can find further east.

Let's check it out.

There's a lot going on here too.

Awesome! They've got conveyors on the floor!

Very convenient. A lot of Termites must move about daily here.

The air is thicker here... Is it fog or smoke?

There's a lot of pipes and stuff. Probably smoke.

We hope their researchers aren't taking air for granted...

With how enclosed this space is, the air quality seems like a real concern.

Also, it doesn't come through in the screenshots, but the conveyor belts here are running, and we can ride on them if we want to. It can make it a bit faster to get through this area (though it's honestly superfluous, it's a fun little thing). Walking on conveyor belts always makes me think of airports...

There's another familiar face! We met Layna the firefly at the Golden Festival, which feels like ages ago.

Coming of age rites be darned, what will I do if something happens to you?

It seems like her pet's gone missing. Maybe we'll be able to help with that later?

Let's see what this building is.

Well, whatever it is, it's fancy!

Okay. Come back if you feel sleepy!

Oh, it's the inn. It's a bit pricey, but it's good to know this is here if we need it I guess.

15 berries!? Why is it so expensive!?

Maybe there's higher demand?

At least we've made good savings during our journeys, so...

Just 'cuz we're richer doesn't mean we should be spending more!!!

Vi's not exactly wrong here.

Let's look around a bit. There's not much to see on this side...

But the elevator is functional! We're on 1F, but let's check out the others.

2F first.

This looks like some kind of communal room, there are a bunch of guests staying here.

Even the Termites get tourists? Wasn't this, uh, iso... isole...

Isolationist.

It's a rough trip, but only Ants were truly banned from this kingdom.

Good thing our team's not banned anywhere!

There's one banter in here, which we'll see both for the area and the individual guests. Let's talk to some people.

It wasn't fun getting lost in the Forsaken Lands, but it was worth it to see everything the city has to offer!

That's definitely a long journey.

This ladybug doesn't like the look of things here much.

It doesn't taste as good as something prepared by a chef, but it gets the job done.

While the butterfly here has a useful tip for us.

...they have a microwave.

And just like she hinted, we can actually use it to cook items.

Just to demonstrate how it works, let's throw in this Squash.

It works just fine and gives us the item we expect! So, when various characters say the microwave "isn't as good as a chef", what they mean is that it can't be used to make any of the chefs' specialities (Crisbee Donut, Tangy Carpaccio, Queen's Dinner); otherwise, you can prepare any recipes you like here. It's pretty convenient.

That's all for this room; let's head up to the roof.

Let's head outside, I guess?

There's another familiar face!

Well, what's a journey without some risk?

I don't regret it. The Termite Kingdom has a very different vibe.

It's technological and convenient, but it feels a bit lonely...

Have you found what you were looking for, Kenny?

...Yeah. I'm satisfied at having seen this beautiful world.

Where will you stay, in the end?

Let's say the end's at the beginning.

Uh, we'll see you there, then?

Yeah. I'll head there after I visit the Coliseum. I hope we'll meet again.

It sounds like Kenny's figured some things out, and might be done travelling at last. We'll have to go find him again once he settles down.

If we go to the edge of the balcony here, we can see another building with an open window in the distance.

And we can fly over to it!

This house is empty, but I guess we can burglarise it?

This wasn't theirs to keep anyway. (These are starting to pile up, we'll have to drop by the library soon.)

Uh. Did whoever lived here fall prey to the False Monarch, perhaps? (Maybe that's how another Lore Book ended up there?)

That's all there is to see here.

If we drop down between the buildings, we can see there are some people hanging out in the alley.

This person will ask us for a berry. Let's see what happens if we decline first.

Sorry, maybe in the future...

Right...

Yeah, we can do better than this.

T-Thank you...

...May the blessings of our ancestors be with you.

When he asked for a berry, he meant it; a single one is all he'll take from us.

There's also a banter, of course.

...

What, you don't take kindly to beggars?

If I want berries, I go and earn them!

...But he looks like he can't, it must be rough...

Vi... Let's share what we can!

Yeah!

Is this... character growth? (We've had a few scenes to this effect now, so it's not exactly new, but it's still nice to see.)

This person is also here.

Though he has nothing to say to us.

Careful, everyone. We may be cut just by standing near this dude.

He does seem very, uh, sharp and volatile.

You're scared of a random guy after all the stuff we've beat up!?

Let us please stay away, alright? I'm tired of random fights...

There's no way he's going to be important for anything.

Let's move along, we can't do anything else here for now.

The guards don't have a whole lot to say.

Here's the Colosseum entrance. Do the termites have neon signs?

There are more buildings to the east. Let's talk to this guard first.

Interesting. I wonder if Vi will see a kindred spirit here?

If he doesn't wanna fight, he shouldn't!

Thought you were all about smackdowns.

But I LIKE smackdowns! I do them 'cuz I want to!

I, too, believe we should all choose our fate.

It's easier now than it was back then, let us tell you that.

Sometimes she's more understanding than we give her credit for. Also, for all that there are predefined social dynamics for a lot of these species, Leif's recollections seem to suggest it's more social construct than biological inevitability in Bugaria.

Let's see what this building is.

Another shop! Are they selling bombs here?

Yes, yes they are.

This shop doesn't have the most welcoming staff, does it?

They're quite reserved despite selling such explosive items...

Eh, it's whatever. A deal's a deal!

This is the bomb shop. They sell every type of bomb here (except Cherry Bombs, those you still have to make yourself). I've seen a few players not learn bombs exist until getting here; the recipes are just obscure enough that they're not hard to overlook without realising. (If you wait to use a Spicy Bomb from here to complete Crisbee's quest, the reward looks a lot more underwhelming...) Anyway, here's the full inventory:

Clear Bomb (20 berries)

Sleep Bomb (30 berries)

Numb Bomb (30 berries)

Frost Bomb (30 berries)

Spicy Bomb (20 berries)

Burly Bomb (21 berries)

Poison Bomb (28 berries)

They're a bit more expensive than the ingredients would be, but you're paying for convenience. It's perfectly reasonable to buy them here if you want them.

The "bomb master" is very curt and barely has anything to say if we interact.

There's an elevator here, though. Let's check out the other floors.

Guess we'll go to 5F first. (What's in 2 through 4? We'll never know.)

There are a couple of rooms up here.

Let's talk to this person.

They exist all over Bugaria and beyond, and they adapt easily to their surroundings, so many subspecies of them exist!

I'd love to catalogue them all, but I am so busy here I cannot leave...

This sounds like it'll be a sidequest later.

Who'd ever wanna research dumb Seedlings?

First of all, they're adorable.

Don't forget, what we take for granted is most exotic to them!

Heh.

Anyway, let's check the other side. This seems to be some kind of gym?

Uh, okay. Let's not bother her.

What determination! She won't stop!

Heh, this is an entertaining one. (I can't tell if Kabbu or the person exercising here is the butt of the joke...)

Let's head up to the roof.

There's someone up here, so let's start with that.

To see what the sky really looks like...

Seems like not all the termites are satisfied with their lives here.

What's he looking at? It's just the dome ceiling.

Some call it day-dreaming, Vi.

Oh, it's like when I think of being super rich and famous!

Err, yes. Let's go with that.

I hope his dreams come true. Mine sure are!

(You're not half-bad sometimes.)

Another cute one.

If we head over to the west side of this roof, we can get a nice view of the Colosseum from above.

Also, if we get right up to the ledge, we can inspect it.

Such a large building, just to celebrate fighting...

What's wrong with that? Showing off your cool moves is great!

I guess it'd depend on how willing the fighters were...

As you may have guessed, it's a discovery!

Though I'm not sure how much this really tells us, it's a nice bit of colour.

If we check again, this is the message we get.

This is one of the easier discoveries to overlook, I think; I've definitely had playthroughs where this was the last one I got.

Let's head back down.

That's all for this area; let's head further east. We'll come back to the Colosseum later.

(Also, unfortunately, character limit issues mean I need to split the update here. Back shortly.)

Explopyro fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Apr 19, 2022

# ? Apr 19, 2022 06:38

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

60: Termite Territory (Part 2)

We've reached the docks.

They have a pier too! We should've just ferried in.

I don't think their pier is very inviting...

There's some catapults and everything. We would've gotten sunk.

What's the point of a pier if there's no boats!?

I'm sure they've got plenty use out of this area without opening it up for tourism.

Don't explain it! I just want to feel mad about it!

Let's have a look around.

There are some people to talk to here also.

Couldn't they make an anti-smoke gadget?

Some of the residents here do seem to have issues with the air quality.

So they're exchanging their air for many commodities...

The Bee Kingdom just throws all the smoke into the sky!

...Why not just live in the open like the Golden Settlers?

I don't think you're going to get an answer to that, Leif.

Here we can get a better view of the catapults...

Any unknown ships coming in? KERPLOW! Fire the catapults!

Well, that's hostile.

Anyway, if we come to the far edge past the catapult here, we can just barely see a platform off in the distance.

If we fly over, there's a Crystal Berry for the taking! These are always nice to find.

And back we go.

Let's check out the end of the pier.

But I really want to swim...

That's a bit of a conundrum, isn't it.

You can do it. Just... dip your arms in the water.

You hate water, stop telling him to swim.

But he doesn't. You know, it'd be nice to see him triumph over his fear...

We... we should take a swim too! To inspire him!

...No.

That went... places.

The last thing to check out here is the building.

Apparently it's the water treatment plant. So the termites do care about sanitation, just not about air pollution...

I hope that someday I get to go outside and visit Bugaria.

Some of the Termites definitely want to see the rest of the world. Maybe if we play our cards right with the royals, we can help them do it?

Nice glasses.

This must be a Termite in charge of this big machine.

He mentioned water, right? So this pumps water everywhere?

With so many tall places, it must be helpful to not have to come down.

They've got nothing on our super honey network!

That does raise some interesting questions about the technology levels of the various kingdoms, actually. Everyone's very surprised by how advanced the Termites are (and they do apparently have the internet, so there's definitely a difference there), but the Bees also have industry and robotics, and there's ancient Roach magitech everywhere; it's a bit odd that our team react more to it here than they did elsewhere.

This worker doesn't have as much to say. (And, also, shares the same banter as the previous one.)

There's not much else to see in here, just some machinery and display screens.

Let's head back and check out the Colosseum.

There are a lot of people we can talk to by the entrance here.

Hmph. Worry not, this time I won't forget!

Uh huh.

I'm sure this is just an offhand exchange that won't mean anything later. Also, there are some banters:

I can't believe someone can forget to eat!

Mhm.

Yup.

...Anyways, let's go.

And for Yatanta (the one in pink):

There's already guards here. What's his job supposed to be?

Probably a cleaner, after all the fighting.

He could help carry in supplies, too!

Boooooring.

Fascinating.

There's a sneakily-hidden Lore Book behind one of the crates on this side. It's very difficult to see it without just walking into it.

The guards by the entrance don't have a whole lot to say.

...Fuzzo's here?

We'll have to study more to make a profit here...

If he's here with the snail, I wonder where the rest of the caravan are.

You've gotta respect their commitment to trade.

Well, making a profit's hard work!

I'm just glad the snail made it here safely...

Just past Fuzzo, there are a few others.

I wonder if we can do anything about this?

Their society is advanced, but it seems some bugs do struggle.

Is it just part of industrialization?

Or they're super competitive!

...Rather than discuss their situation, let's try to improve it!

...Sometimes you have to talk to them to learn how, you know. But sure, let's try.

You seem to be upset. I was wondering if I could help you?

No. You can't. Scram.

W-Wait, I...

Don't mind her. She's been so cranky!

You'd have to be some sort of Colosseum hero just to make her look at you.

A bit cranky, eh Vi.

What, you tryin' to say something?

...A hero...

It doesn't look like we're going to be able to do anything about this just yet.

That child looks so... disheartened.

Go, Kabbu. Don't let us stop you.

Don't take toooooo long!

The banter for her suggests we should keep trying, but we don't have any way to get her to open up right now. Let's move on.

Let's see what's inside here.

This is it. Their hall of blazing glory!

It looks a little... normal, you know?

They must've chosen to keep it outdated. In the name of culture.

That just sounds lazy!

Don't let historians hear you...

Whatever.

Kabbu seems more enthusiastic about the place from this vantage than he did from above. Perspective changes matter, I guess?

Let's talk to the attendant.

Right now we don't have any fights happening... Come back later when we do!

Well, that's disappointing.

Aww...

Getting paid to run this place could be chill. We may consider it if we quit exploring.

Is that so? I've always thought of being a gardener.

I don't wanna ever quit exploring! ...But, y'know, I'd run a shop.

It's nice to know they think about this sort of thing, I guess.

We might not be able to watch or participate in any fights here yet, but we can look around at least. We know these people!

Bub and Rob have made it here. (Good to know they're not still imprisoned!)

these two have pretty much seen the whole continent.

Except the Ant Kingdom...

...Maybe if we find the Everlasting Sapling, we could revoke that ban?

Definitely something to think about.

The merchant caravan are here, offering their usual services. They've got a larger stock than usual, but it's just more basics. Here's the full list:

Spicy Berry (12 berries)

Burly Berry (12 berries)

Magic Seed (18 berries)

Crunchy Leaf (3 berries)

Honey Drop (4 berries)

Nothing new to see here, it's all offered at the standard prices. Still, it's convenient that they're here.

The guards won't let us past, so we can't see the actual arena.

There are a few more people to talk to on the other side.

He suddenly disappeared though. I wonder if new challengers will take that picture now.

That's mysterious.

I-Is it okay for children to witness such battles?

Weren't you inspired by plays and books?

That is completely different to a Colosseum!

Kabbu, make up your mind. Do you like gladiatorial combat or don't you?

There's also this person.

You go, super regular normal dude!

Vi's found a hero, eh?

Wha- No! I'm my own hero! I should be HIS hero!

*Sigh*.

This one always amuses me.

The guards won't let us through on this side either.

Well, we've seen the Colosseum. We're clearly going to have to come back here later; we can't actually engage with the place now, so let's head back.

We've now explored all of the Termite Capital except for the palace itself. This update's already getting quite long, so we'll pick up there next time. I'll see you then!

Explopyro fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Apr 19, 2022

# ? Apr 19, 2022 06:39

Alxprit: Feb 7, 2015; <click> <click> What is it with this dancing?! Bouncing around like fools... I would have thought my own kind at least would understand the seriousness of our Adventurer's Guild!

There's a couple of NPC pics in this update that seem to imply a conversation happened but it only shows the team standing in front of them with the talk icon without showing any dialogue.

I loved how big the Termite Kingdom is. The buildings with elevators reminded me of exploring the big showcase city in Pokemon Black/White for the first time. It has a similar vibe to it I think, though with a little more realism, somehow. A lot of the NPCs around here have good and unique designs that I enjoy as well. I'm the kind of nerdy hermit that would live here if I had to choose a place in Bugaria to settle down.

# ? Apr 19, 2022 15:42

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

Alxprit posted:

There's a couple of NPC pics in this update that seem to imply a conversation happened but it only shows the team standing in front of them with the talk icon without showing any dialogue.

drat it, I hate when this happens, thanks for catching this. Looks like I had a few off-by-1 errors when pulling the screenshots in and didn�t catch them in proofreading. I�m at work now and won�t be able to fix them for several hours, unfortunately, but I�ll replace them with the right ones as soon as I can.

Alxprit posted:

I loved how big the Termite Kingdom is. The buildings with elevators reminded me of exploring the big showcase city in Pokemon Black/White for the first time. It has a similar vibe to it I think, though with a little more realism, somehow. A lot of the NPCs around here have good and unique designs that I enjoy as well. I'm the kind of nerdy hermit that would live here if I had to choose a place in Bugaria to settle down.

That�s an apt comparison I wouldn�t have thought to make. I really enjoy the design sensibilities here, and I agree it feels very lived-in in a realistic kind of way (to the extent �realistic� means anything in this sort of context, but I know what you�re getting at).

I love exploring these enormous towns in normal gameplay, but I have to admit they�re kind of awful to LP. Between how much there is to transcribe, and trying to plan a route that shows everything but feels natural (which I�m not sure I succeed at), it�s just an enormous pain. Which probably explains why this update took me so long to finish and still ended up with a bunch of errors, procrastination is bad for quality.

# ? Apr 19, 2022 16:14

DACK FAYDEN: Feb 25, 2013; Bear Witness

Explopyro posted:

You go, super regular normal dude!

you go, super regular normal dude

I hope you fight him and he's sturdy, a full-on Kent C. Koopa situation

# ? Apr 19, 2022 16:21

Slaan: Mar 16, 2009; ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH

5 berries that super regular normal dude gets to round 2 :rolldice:

# ? Apr 19, 2022 17:46

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

So, uh, sorry about the mixup with the screenshots. I've found the correct ones and spliced them in, we should be all good now. If you don't want to read through the entire update again, these are the lines that I accidentally left out:

DACK FAYDEN posted:

you go, super regular normal dude

I hope you fight him and he's sturdy, a full-on Kent C. Koopa situation

Slaan posted:

5 berries that super regular normal dude gets to round 2

Hahaha. I can't really say anything but I love this.

# ? Apr 19, 2022 22:59

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Finally caught up, this game is just so charming and seems so much better than Paper Mario in terms of characters.

# ? Apr 20, 2022 07:03

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

Finally caught up, this game is just so charming and seems so much better than Paper Mario in terms of characters.

Pleased to have you with us, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

I'm fond of saying that "Paper Mario walked so Bug Fables could fly" (though, admittedly, I can't recall if I've done so yet in the thread!). I usually mean that in terms of the game mechanics, admittedly, but I think it can just as equally be applied to the writing. I have a lot of nostalgia for Paper Mario (and PM64 honestly blew my mind as a kid), but I can't help feeling that Bug Fables has obsoleted or superseded it. But that's also at least somewhat due to the fact that they had something like 15 years of conversation and precedent about Paper Mario to draw from by the time they started working on this, and I don't want to forget to give those games credit for blazing the trails either.

That said, I'm not actually sure if (or how much of) the writing style was consciously influenced by Paper Mario. There's a similar feel to some of the humour, but other than that Bug Fables is very much its own thing (which I say to its credit). And, as far as I know, at least some of the character concepts and ideas were developed before they even knew they'd be making a video game (as I understand it, the project concept started out as a comic before they decided it'd work better as a game and started incorporating the Paper Mario influences).

# ? Apr 21, 2022 23:21

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

061: Colosseum Clash (Part 1)

When we left off last time, we were exploring the Termite Capital. We've seen most of it now; all that's left is the palace, so we can't put off our meeting with the royals much longer. Let's head in.

If nothing else, it's much easier to see in here!

Now this is a better mood.

My eyes appreciate the light! But I do wonder... did their throne have to be in the last floor?

Well, duh. It's the throne. Come on, Kabbu!

Our team seem to agree. Let's have a look around.

The guards are still pretty suspicious of us.

Is that some kind of wire sculpture? We'll get to that in a moment; let's talk to the attendant here first.

It's... a heavy task.

What could she mean by that?

How adorable. The Queen's got lovely servants.

I've seen the things they can carry! It betrays their small body!

Woah. I've GOT to see that!

I do find it a bit odd they're this impressed with the termites, when this kind of strength is also something ants are known for.

Anyway, let's check out this thing.

Whatever this sculpture is supposed to be, it counts as yet another discovery!

Arguably, I'd have said it looked modern rather than postmodern, but I'm not going to pick nits over something like that. (How could I? There aren't any lice in this game.)

There's one other attendant we can talk to here.

...Wait, you're with the Ants?

...Oh, look at the time! I must go...

Isn't that friendly.

There's also a stained glass image of the Termite royals at the back, though we can't interact with it.

At the far side of the room, we can see Elizant waiting for us.

Um, Queen?

You gonna go in?

......

I'm a bit nervous.

It's not often a Queen's the one requesting an audience.

If only it was just that. I cannot help but think that if I fail, we are all doomed.

Whatever Kabbu was going to say, he doesn't manage to get it out because the guards interupt.

Our royals will now grace you. Don't pull anything funny.

...Let's go.

Is that so? What is it, dear?

They said a visitor that will surprise us has arrived! They should be here soon!

......

Your eminences...

That is KING Hector IV and Queen Layra II to you, Ant!

My apologies, King Hector. Queen Layra.

Dear, watch yourself. You'll faint from disgust.

...What is your business!?

My people have been hurt, and the artifacts of old have been taken...

The artifacts? So you did find them, after so much struggle...

And then you incompetently lost them!

...Indeed. The Wasp King holds power I had never witnessed.

Nice to meet you!

I-It is my honor.

Sup.

He was injured in the attack. It would not have been prudent for him to come.

Such a varied team... It seems just about anyone can get into Bugaria nowadays.

What's it to us, then? You ruled poorly, and got your trinkets stolen.

You presume we should worry? As if our great defenses would be felled by some Wasps.

This dome of ours has survived storms without a single scratch.

And will soon obtain the full power of the Everlasting Sapling, shall be of no threat to you?

F-Flame, you say?

That sapling is a darn myth that drove your mother insane!

Oh, how many more moons we could have had with her, if she hadn't been so obsessed!

Watch your tone, Ant!

We found the mask, the tablet, and the key. Or were those myths as well?!

The Wasp King is heading towards the Giant's Lair, an area none dare to tread!

You think I would travel the wasteland personally, and bear brunt to your crass tone...

If all of Bugaria weren't facing great peril? You think of me so pathetically?!

I accepted and respected our treaty, after our negotiations turned sour.

I am not asking you to change your mind in that regard...

But if you care for your people, you won't turn a blind eye to the danger heading our way!

Dear, calm yourself. You're being blinded by the past.

Ants are unrefined in many ways... They cannot match our intellect either.

But they do not yield under pressure, and work very hard. It is nature's way.

Layra, you were always too soft!

And you too stubborn. That is why I am by your side.

Although it would be for the best for our nations to try and reconcile...

Right now, what we need is a way to head towards the Giant's Lair.

A way to cross the sea.

Dear, weren't the scientists...

Will you help us, then, in protecting Bugaria?

You say your knights lost to that puny Wasp? You think our soldiers wouldn't match up?

I wish for proof of the enemy's strength.

We do not think you'd wish for their visit upon your kingdom...

Before then, I would have you participate in our ancient tradition.

Ah... The Colosseum!

If your people best our brave warriors, then we might be in a real pickle.

Your knights will face off in glorious combat, and then I shall decide!

I would like for you and me to discuss some other matters as the fight goes on... if you don't mind.

Leave it to us, my Queen! We'll do well!

Mhm. They'll see we're not joking around.

You will find the Colosseum around the residential district of our kingdom.

Do not dally. Your kingdom is against the clock, after all.

We'll start the ceremony shortly after you arrive.

I hope you can provide a good show!

Do not fail!

You can count on us, Your Majesty!

Let's go to the Colosseum!

Well, that was certainly... something. One gets the impression the prior conflict might not have been entirely Elizant II's fault, whatever she seems to think. King Hector (excuse me, Hector IV) is very irascible and seemed to be looking for excuses to get mad.

That could have gone worse, but they're still not taking us very seriously. We're going to have to change that. Of course, the mere fact there's a Colosseum here meant we'd no doubt have ended up fighting there at some point...

Anyway, that was a very long discussion, but we're back in control now. Let's have a quick look around the throne room before we head back to the Colosseum.

First up, we can talk to Elizant again, though she doesn't have that much to say. There is a banter, though, that's a bit more interesting.

She really shut that king up!

Her words had me nervous... I'm glad we've been given a chance.

She's no Elizant, but... we're warming up to Lisa a bit.

Looks like Leif's adopting the nickname too? (He has more excuse than Vi does, since he knew her mother and might want to differentiate them.)

The guards here are even more hostile than most of the earlier ones. How pleasant.

There's not much to see on this side.

Of course, we can talk to the royals again, and there are also banters for them.

The Queen is, um... big.

That is not a matter we should discuss here. It's very sensitive!

They both seem to have met the previous Queen. So they must be very old as well.

Or Termites just live longer, who knows...

That's the beauty of our people. We're the same, but so unique!

Honestly, to me it seems less that Layra is unusually big, but that the other races' queens are surprisingly small. (If you use the workers for scale, even she is on the small side compared to real termite queens.)

Meanwhile, King Hector offers us typos. Oops. (Normally I'd just correct the typo if I were trascribing it, but it's his only line here...)

He's sure packing a lot of anger for a short guy!

Really? YOU'D make short jokes? At a KING?

I never get to! I've gotta take the chance!

Just, uh, make sure he doesn't sic the guards on you...

Vi, he's got enough of a Napoleon complex as it is, let's not exacerbate things.

We can explore a bit back here, but there's nothing to find.

On the other hand, this is sneakily hiding out of view behind the step! We'll just take that, so long as the royals don't mind.

Anyway, we can't do anything else in here for now, so let's be on our way.

We'll head to the Colosseum shortly, but there are a few minor things I want to do first.

First off, this termite has new dialogue.

Ha! Tough luck! Our soldiers will destroy you, and we will record it and share all over the Termanet!

Can't wait to text my friends about this!

How charming. Someone really believes in us.

Anyway, let's take a minor detour.

And pay a quick visit to Amber.

I've got a very silly plan. I've been dithering for a while over what to do with our stockpile of Dark Cherries; I think this is going to be fun. We're going to need all five of these for it, so let's take them out.

Here you go! As if it was new.

We're also going to need an equal quantity of Spicy Berries.

And a microwave.

Making explosives in a microwave seems like it couldn't possibly go wrong in any way, surely! Let's keep doing this.

There we go. Five generous servings of Cherry Bombs.

Also, make note of the Hustle Candies. I took a quick detour via the Ant Mines to make two of those, which are the other part of this plan. Since it's been a while: if you don't remember, Hustle Berries are only available in the shop in Defiant Root, then combining them with flour makes these.

If you are playing along: this plan is incredibly silly and wasteful, do not copy me. Save your cherries for a better occasion.

All right, preparations are done so let's be on our way.

I think I skipped talking to one of these guards last time, but their dialogue hasn't changed. It's a bit weird this one recommends using the conveyors to reach the Colosseum, since there aren't any more of them between us and the entrance... I think I know what he's trying to say, but this line is a bit awkward.

Onward.

We've already spoken to everyone here too, so we can just head in.

Before that, though, let's just remember these two. Terrie is upset, but she won't talk to us because we aren't fighting champions. That seems like something we'll be able to fix shortly.

In we go.

Once again, we've been here before. Nobody here has new dialogue, except at the counter, so let's get things started.

Excuse me?

It's whatever. Everyone's looking forward to a new challenger.

Let's see what he says if we decline first.

Don't take too long. The king gets grumpy.

All right, fine.

Alright. Please cross through the left door.

I placed a bet on you for kicks and giggles, so good luck.

If I give you some berries, can you bet higher and pay me later?

...No.

Aww...

(Despite saying we should head to the left door, we don't actually have to. The screen fades out and the Colosseum sequence starts automatically.)

Click me for video!

(For the video portion, I've left the entire Colosseum sequence in one video rather than splitting out the fights.)

(Oh, that's what they meant by "a heavy task". Can Queen Layra get around on her own, or does she need to be carried everywhere?)

The honor of our kingdom is on the line!

Throughout this sequence, we'll periodically cut to the crowd to see what they're yelling about. I'm forced to present these in GIFs because there's no good way to capture them in screenshots with the way the dialogue bubbles overlap.

Than with the ancient tradition of our ancestors!

Without further ado, let's begin!

It fits us perfectly. Focus on the battle.

We'll do awesome like always!

They shall face fierce beasts from the Forbidden Lands!

Well, round one at least doesn't seem too bad.

29 - Team, This One's Stronger! (Miniboss)

Well, he wasn't lying when he said this would be a warm-up. We can finish this in a single turn, and I see no reason not to.

A quick Needle Toss from Vi can eliminate the Plumpling and deal heavy damage to the Mimic Spider behind it. (I love doing this, it's so satisfying.)

Kabbu and Leif get their attacks in, then Leif relays to Vi for the final hit. It's exactly enough damage to finish it off.

Nothing to it.

(Leif agrees!)

You will now face Cross and Poi! The bravest of our border guards!

We won't go easy on you. Give it your all.

It was your trust that got us this far. We will honor you with a good fight!

Yeah, yeah. Let's go!

29 - Team, This One's Stronger! (Miniboss)

Well, this is something new at least! Let's see what we're dealing with here. (After getting Kabbu in front, I don't think I want Vi leading this one.)

Everyone, watch out for his sword and cannon! We must fight with honor!

Termites handle the cold well. Guess it's up to us if we want to gamble on it.

These two have some interesting moves, but they don't quite have enough HP to be a proper threat at this point. We'll take things slowly and give them a chance to show what they can do. (And also conserve our resources; you may notice we don't recover between rounds, so pacing ourselves isn't a terrible idea here since we know a third fight is coming.)

We'll have Kabbu hit Cross, to pierce his defence, while Vi goes after Poi instead.

Chompy doesn't have a choice, she has to attack Cross since he's in front.

As his name might suggest, Cross has a crossbow. This deals 4 damage at base.

While Poi has the fontanellar cannon; we've heard plenty about this, but now we get to see it in action! It launches two poison globs, each of which hits for 3 base damage (and inflicts poison if you fail to block it).

That wasn't too bad, though with both of them focusing on Kabbu he's low enough to be in danger.

For now, we'll keep spreading the damage around.

Vi will heal Kabbu, though, that's probably a good idea.

And Chompy keeps doing her thing.

This turn, we see some new attacks again. Cross has this bite attack, which is 5 base damage (and makes contact, so Kabbu can do counter damage with Spiky Bod).

Poi has a close-range attack too, a straightforward sword slash for 4 base damage.

Let's just keep doing what we're doing.

After Vi attacks, we'll have Leif relay to her to use Sharing Stash. We should keep ourselves topped up here.

Chompy makes with the chomping.

This turn, it's just a repeat of the same attacks as last time (though they made worse choices of targets; Cross isn't getting through First Plating on Vi, and Poi takes counter damage from Kabbu).

We're nearly finished here. I like these guys, but they're not particularly difficult.

Rather than finish them, I decided to have Vi and Chompy skip their turns, and give Cross and Poi a chance to maybe show us their last remaining moves.

No such luck, though; it's just the ranged attacks again. Oh well.

There's not really a point delaying this further.

And that's that! Will the third round be much tougher?

Before that, let's take a quick look at what else Cross and Poi can do. They each have a melee attack and a ranged attack (all of which we saw), and a few items they can use (which we didn't).

First off, they have Succulent Platters. These work a bit differently to the ones we can use, though: they're single target, and give them 4 turns of HP regeneration (the duration ticks down at the end of their turn before we see it displayed). They can both use these, though they'll only ever target themselves.

And then they have Spicy and Burly Berries to boost their stats. Again, with the way the duration works, they'll only ever effectively benefit from either for a single turn.

It's a fun little fight, though it's usually over too quickly for them to do anything interesting.

I-Incredible...

Please forgive us for having to beat you up.

Eh, it's all in good sport.

Oh my... Dear, Poi and Cross are not easily beat.

W-Whatever! You're not claiming victory so easily!

Now, you will face a captured creature that instills fear in the most hardened veteran!

Oh!? You'll... Are you sure!?

13 - It's Getting Scary!

We've gotta beat it AGAIN!?

My dear public deserves better, so much better!

66 - Mothiva's Grand Stand! (Recommended listening!)

Ohohoho! Her voice is as smooth as ever!

W-What are you doing here!?

No way we'd let you steal any Queen's graces.

When I heard you were coming... I just had to crash this party!

What do you gain from making this harder for us?

Yeah! We're on the same team!

If we defeat you, we'll show we're superior to you.

And then the Queen's gonna HAVE to tag us along!

This is ridiculous! You realize you could be dooming us all!?

What if the Termite King loses trust in the Queen!?

What if you lose to the Wasp King without our help!?

Have you gone completely, utterly insane!? Have you lost all intelligence?

(God drat, Kabbu.)

The Ant Kingdom's way better in our hands than with you LOSERS.

I said we'd NEVER speak of that again!

...Zasp. You've helped us many times. Can't you talk some sense into her?

Don't misunderstand. I'm not doing this only for Mothiva.

Ugh, I want the Primal Weevil back.

How serendipitous. I'm looking forward to this.

The fight starts... NOW!

(Sorry about this, but the character limit rears its ugly head, and we'll be splitting the update here. Back momentarily.)

# ? May 5, 2022 06:45

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

61: Colosseum Clash (Part 2)

66 - Mothiva's Grand Stand!

Unlike before, "Mothiva's Grand Stand" keeps playing, and will serve as our battle music as well. It's a pretty unique battle theme, and I quite like it. We heard it before, briefly, when they confronted us in the Golden Hills, but I'm pretty sure this is the moment the song was written for.

Also, you may notice we can already see their health bars. Zasp and Mothiva don't get new bestiary entries or spy dialogue in this fight, but they do have increased stats. They each get +15 maximum HP and +2 damage to all their attacks, but otherwise this fight is exactly the same as back in Chapter 2, their movesets and behaviours are exactly the same.

So. Instead of fighting them normally, let's give Mothiva the experience of being pelted with fruit in front of a huge crowd (we have to do it ourselves, the crowd don't seem inclined to).

It ought to work as long as nobody brought a gun.

Not quite yet, though, we're going to use this first turn for setup. Vi starts things off by hitting Zasp with a Needle Pincer.

And a neat little trick here. Normally we wouldn't be able to rotate the party after acting, but Leif has an extra action thanks to Strong Start, and if he relays that to Vi, everyone will have actions and we can change the formation.

We'll do another Needle Pincer, this time from the back. (I'm not actually sure if these shenanigans get us any more damage in this specific scenario, it's a bit marginal, but it's enough and I thought it was neat to show off.)

Now. Time for some candy.

After two Hustle Berries, we'll end up with five actions total next turn. Convenient, since we have 5 sets of Cherry Bombs.

Chompy does her thing, of course.

...Oh. No. I'd forgotten Zasp could do this. That's going to complicate things.

Aside from taunting, he has access to the same ninja combos he used last time we fought him.

Mothiva has her usual music-based attacks, including this giant note that hits everyone.

The best laid plans (of mice, and men, and bugs). Zasp's taunt renders Kabbu unable to use items (and, even more irritatingly, Kabbu is one of the ones I used a Hustle Candy on). We're still going to go ahead with things, but it does mean this turn won't go quite as cleanly as I planned.

Leif starts with the fruit. This one's chosen the Burly Bomb effect.

Just like before, Zasp reacts and charges up when he sees Mothiva injured.

Since he's taunted, Kabbu isn't able to do anything other than attack. May as well. If we KO Zasp this turn, he'll lose the charge-ups anyway.

Bombs away! This time, it's a Poison Bomb.

Zasp reacts again, but that's not going to be a problem.

Since he's literally on 1 HP, and we still have more fruit.

Boom. (Also, oops, I clicked too fast and aimed at Zasp instead of Mothiva, which wasted a bit of damage. That won't end up mattering, though.)

Chompy, go bite her for us.

Mothiva usually prioritises reviving Zasp, though it isn't a guarantee. He recovers 8 HP now, instead of 5.

Also, the poison does its work.

So, the taunt prevented us ending the fight that turn, but we can certainly do it now. (The original plan was to reduce Zasp to 20 HP or lower on the setup turn, then hit Mothiva with five bombs, which if the numbers cooperated would be enough to KO both of them on turn two. This take went awry in an interesting way, which I thought was more fun than one where everything went perfectly.)

Boom.

Just go to sleep already.

Well, that was completely ridiculous.

Huff... Huff... is this... enough for you!?

C-Come on. Just drop it.

Fine. Fine! Whatever! ...I give up. You win. Are you HAPPY now!?

I concede. Team Snakemouth. Today you're better than us.

Hehehe. Oh my dear...

Make sure to come to my next show! You'll get even closer to me!

What the... I can't believe they're cheering for YOU!

Justice is quite popular with the crowd!

Maybe Termites just have awful taste! Ugh!

C-Come on, everybody! Say my name one more time!

Theatrics aside, there are serious things to discuss. You fought well. We shall see you there.

And there ends the Termite Colosseum sequence. That was fun! I knew we'd be fighting Mothiva and Zasp again at some point, but I didn't really expect it to be here on the first time through. (Also, there's a certain irony in a miniboss rematch being replaced with a different miniboss rematch, even if being our rivals this one's definitely more fun.)

Or, well, it's almost over. We have another conversation with them in the lobby.

We'll go on ahead.

No weird tricks.

Just shut up. I don't want to hear you ever again. Ugh. BYE.

No time for the inn! Let's get going to the palace!

With that, we regain control. We'll head back to the palace shortly, but there's a decent amount of new dialogue to see now that we're the champions.

Bub and Rob are impressed with us now.

Come back later if you want to fight again. If you keep it up I'll keep betting on you!

The receptionist, meanwhile, seems to have found a new money-making scheme.

Incidentally, he's not lying. We will eventually be able to return here and replay the Colosseum whenever we want, though it'll be slightly different. The first two fights are the same, but the third actually will be a rematch with the Primal Weevil.

Interestingly, neither Cross and Poi nor the Primal Weevil can be refought in B.O.S.S. (either in rush mode or individually); if you want to fight them again, you have to do it here instead. And, speaking of B.O.S.S., once you finish the Colosseum, fighting Mothiva and Zasp there will use their upgraded stats instead.

Anyway. This termite is a fan of ours now.

Unfortunately, Super Regular Normal Dude back there doesn't have any new dialogue.

Let's get out of here.

There's a bit more new content to see on our way back to the palace.

The guards here are impressed with us now.

One of the pair here is gone...

Finding him will be a pain...

This sounds like it's going to be a sidequest, doesn't it.

And, speaking of sidequests. We're champions now, so can we do anything to help Terrie?

C-Champions? Woah...

Guess we've met her standards.

Wha? Termites know the Bug Rangers?

Not many... Mostly some old timers, back before things got really strict.

There was this one show, everyone really talked about it for a while.

I didn't know you were real!

Heheheh.

Sorry, but it's just a coincidence.

...Bleh.

Could you let us know what troubles you, at least?

Y-You'll laugh at me.

Look, I've been saving berries for a whole moon.

But the day I saved up enough, someone snatched it! I'm so angry!

That sucks.

Dunno if we can help...

Easy to say...

Heh. Um. So, can we do something about this? (Somehow, I don't think this is really just about a plushie...)

Yes, very hard to find. We wouldn't possibly know where to get one.

Well, we can't exactly test the Bug Ranger Plushie as the wrong answer this time! But what if we give her something else?

Is this a consolation prize? Cuz I don't want it.

It hurts, but, well, we do have it...

Kabbu, are you sure? For a kid you just met?

Team, don't worry.

The Rangers inspired me to explore, yes.

But... I don't need them any more. Think of all we've been through.

The Spider, the machines and bandits... the Beast.

We did that all together, and they were real adventures.

So it's time to hand this down, so that a new child may dream of exploring!

...

...Kabbu...

Y'all okay there?

Oh dear! You found one!?

IS IT REALLY FOR ME!?

Indeed! Someday, you can be as strong as him!

H-How much was it?

I'm gonna go get my savings!

It's free, don't worry.

Use those berries to buy some good food!

Really...?

Y-Yeah! On the house!

But you've got to take good care of it.

I will! It's gonna look like new every day!

T-Thank you. We don't meet kind bugs every day!

It was nothing. We do need to get going, however.

And they say money can't buy happiness.

Tch. How dare Kabbu be this cool...

Heheh. Onward to our next good deed!

We don't get any tangible reward for this (and, honestly, it'd kind of ruin it if we did), but it's a really cute scene, and there is an achievement.

In a way, this is Kabbu's personal quest, a rough counterpart to Vi's Request and Leif's Request (each of which also had associated achievements). This doesn't count as a sidequest for purposes of the quest log, though.

They each have a new line of dialogue now that we've completed this. And there's also a new banter for them:

You're strong, Kabbu. We would've kept our toy.

Yeah... you have, like, a being nice superpower!

Look at how happy she is! You can't tell me it wasn't worth it?

...Yeah, it was.

Yup.

Aww.

Incidentally, I don't think there are any further reactions you can get by using the Bug Ranger Plushie in incorrect locations from here on out, so giving it to Terrie right away doesn't cause us to miss out on any content. (I'll hang onto it on one of the parallel files I'm running, so if this turns out to not be the case, we'll still get to see them.)

Let's head back toward the palace.

Oh, looks like they fixed the display screen! Let's have a look.

With this, we can finally see all those who are in need...

That sounds interesting. Is this the sidequest board here? Also, let's check, there's a new banter.

So this rectangular gadget provides swift news to the populace?

No need to wait for the guards to change the leaves!

This bug seems addicted to the flux of information.

Let's hope the screen doesn't get broken again anytime soon...

Wait, how exactly does this work? All the other quest boards are manual bulletins, how is this reading the information from them? (Then again, we should probably be asking why the others are all interconnected as it is... eh, it's game mechanics, let's not think too hard about it.)

Anyway, let's check it.

It is, indeed, the sidequest board, and there are five new quests for us.

We'll ignore these for right now, but we'll be back before too long.

I was always rooting for you! Please, sign me an autograph so I can brag to all my friends on the Termanet!

This lady has a very selective memory! I certainly don't remember it like that.

Let's head back to the palace and see if we managed to accomplish any of our diplomatic goals.

Oh yes. That's what we're here for.

Oh sweetie. You've got to get over it.

I'll start, then.

We acknowledge your plight. The Termite Kingdom stands much to lose over this issue.

Our finest engineers have been working on a prototype vehicle.

It is able to operate and travel under the water. It should be just what you need.

Ehm, I like to call it Submarine for short.

I thank both of you from the bottom of my heart. Our people will be able to fight back now.

Um, so it goes under the water? W-What if it breaks?

It is impossible for it to sink! It is our most advanced machine!

...Err, yes. But what if it does?

Alright then. Very reassuring.

Sigh. It's stationed at the pier, in the rightmost part of the city.

Our head of research should be there to explain how it functions.

Excellent. We shall draw it to the Outskirt Pier, to make sure everything is in order.

...And, Queen Elizant.

Yes?

If you'll have them, please let some of our people travel with you. They are eager to see your land.

...! You will cease the separation?

You better repay it when the time comes! Or else!

She will. Our Queen is honest and honorable.

Thank you, Leif. To have earned your backing is most pleasing.

Please, go and make haste.

...And protect Bugaria. Don't make me regret any of this.

We're counting on you, after all.

I think we'll have to count this one as a success. Guess we're getting a submarine now?

Anyway, we're back in control.

But I doubt some Wasps can even scratch it!

The royals each have a bit more dialogue, though nothing too spectacular.

Anyway, let's head back outside.

Wait a minute, there are six quests here now! Another one got posted while we were talking to the royals, I guess. Let's take a look at all of these now.

(This one shouldn't be a surprise!)

(We had a hint about this one too.)

Anyway, we'll accept all of these.

But we've been going for a while and it's getting late, plus there's a save crystal right here. This seems like a good place to wrap up the update for now; we'll start with these sidequests next time, then get us a submarine and see what we can do with it! I'll see you then.

Explopyro fucked around with this message at 14:51 on May 7, 2022

# ? May 5, 2022 06:46

Slaan: Mar 16, 2009; ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH

Mothiva really bombed on her comeback tour, huh? At least Kabbu finally popped his (gladiatorial) cherry though!

# ? May 5, 2022 12:49

Qrr: Aug 14, 2015

Explopyro posted:

Y-You'll laugh at me.

Oh, Vi. You're delightful.

Nice little tournament arc. The justifications on these are always kind of silly but hey, gotta mend a decades long isolation somehow.

# ? May 5, 2022 18:42

Torrannor: Apr 27, 2013; ---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Wow, Kabbu was really pissed off. Congrats, Mothiva, for making the guy who has "being nice" as his superpower flip out at you.

# ? May 5, 2022 19:37

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

I'm trying to reign, but the clap of my abdomen keeps alerting the Wasps

# ? May 5, 2022 20:03

Quackles: Aug 11, 2018; Pixels of Light.

When I saw Mothiva, I admit I was thinking, �we�re going to cause an international incident, aren�t we�. :v:

# ? May 5, 2022 23:15

Junpei: Oct 4, 2015; Can't post for 11 years!

Mothiva is such a diva and I love it.

# ? May 5, 2022 23:28

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

Before I get into replying to comments, I want to share this remix of Mothiva's theme that the youtube algorithm helpfully fed me. I like it a lot; I don't think it outshines the original, but it's quite pleasant. I keep forgetting to link music remixes, but there are some good ones here and there that are well worth a listen.

Slaan posted:

Mothiva really bombed on her comeback tour, huh? At least Kabbu finally popped his (gladiatorial) cherry though!

Oh, dear. I really set myself up for this, didn't I

One thing I will say, because it doesn't quite come through in the update: if you don't blitz them, Zasp and Mothiva are actually pretty threatening this time around. With the attack boosts, their multi-hit attacks can put out a lot of damage quickly (you really don't want to let Zasp get charges this time around). I've definitely seen people lose to them here, if they go in unprepared (or are low on resources after the first two fights).

Qrr posted:

Oh, Vi. You're delightful.

Honestly, that's one of my favourite lines, I had to make sure to screenshot it. She got a couple of good zingers this update

I'm also a fan of her asking for the Primal Weevil back.

Qrr posted:

Nice little tournament arc. The justifications on these are always kind of silly but hey, gotta mend a decades long isolation somehow.

You know, it's funny, I never thought of this as a tournament arc before you mentioned it. It certainly fills a similar niche, but it's over a lot more quickly than that sort of thing usually is, so I tend to just think of it as a sequential boss fight more than anything else. The Spy Cards sidequest feels more like a tournament arc to me.

Torrannor posted:

Wow, Kabbu was really pissed off. Congrats, Mothiva, for making the guy who has "being nice" as his superpower flip out at you.

It really says something that the only other time we've seen him this angry was against The Beast, which literally killed and ate his best friend and their mentor. Kabbu finally losing his cool here is definitely one of his better moments, I think.

The juxtaposition of the "being nice superpower" really is quite stark; I hadn't planned it out that way, honestly, but I'm glad that these both ended up being in the same update.

Hwurmp posted:

I'm trying to reign, but the clap of my abdomen keeps alerting the Wasps

Hahaha oh no

Quackles posted:

When I saw Mothiva, I admit I was thinking, �we�re going to cause an international incident, aren�t we�.

Oh yes. This could have gone so much worse. You'd think it would be a bad idea to beat up a major international celebrity in front of a huge audience, honestly...

Junpei posted:

Mothiva is such a diva and I love it.

It's right there in the name, how could she not be? /s

In all seriousness, I really enjoy how they've written her (aside from some of how she treats Zasp). There's a fine balance to strike with this kind of obnoxious character, because if done wrong they're just as aggravating to the audience as to the characters around them. Mothiva manages to stay the entertaining side of awful, in my opinion; I suspect that it helps that whenever she's at her most obnoxious, it leads right into a boss fight where the player gets to punish her for it.

# ? May 7, 2022 04:50

Robindaybird: Aug 21, 2007; Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Explopyro posted:

In all seriousness, I really enjoy how they've written her (aside from some of how she treats Zasp). There's a fine balance to strike with this kind of obnoxious character, because if done wrong they're just as aggravating to the audience as to the characters around them. Mothiva manages to stay the entertaining side of awful, in my opinion; I suspect that it helps that whenever she's at her most obnoxious, it leads right into a boss fight where the player gets to punish her for it.

This is what helps. Too many series (Games, TV shows etc) have a deliberately obnoxious character that either gets away with bad behavior, or their punishment isn't strong enough or comes far too late.

# ? May 7, 2022 05:09

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; This does not make sense when, again, aggregate indicia also indicate improvements. The belief that things are worse is false. It remains false.

Explopyro posted:

This is a Madesphy, and it's a lot more dangerous than it looks (though we're unlikely to see that until later battles with them).

Incidentally, these are based on a real insect, but I cannot for the life of me find the name despite having seen it before ("madesphy" is a deliberate misspelling of the scientific name, and is used only in this game); please do tell me if you know it. The Bug Fables artbook only says "the real one is even uglier".

I just finished binging the LP so far, and tried to give this a shot.

This strongly resembles one of the tussock moth family of caterpillars, but I can't identify a specific one from a misspelling of the name. Amphion floridensis is a species with a caterpillar that's known to be able to "shriek" when attacked, but there's not a strong resemblance of name or appearance. This is going to bother me.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 07:38 on May 8, 2022

# ? May 8, 2022 07:32

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

Discendo Vox posted:

I just finished binging the LP so far, and tried to give this a shot.

This strongly resembles one of the tussock moth family of caterpillars, but I can't identify a specific one from a misspelling of the name. Amphion floridensis is a species with a caterpillar that's known to be able to "shriek" when attacked, but there's not a strong resemblance of name or appearance. This is going to bother me.

Thank you so much for trying. This just keeps getting more frustrating. I'm fairly certain I saw the name once, but I've never been able to find it again (and honestly, I wouldn't rule out that I'm misremembering how similar they were).

Both of those definitely sound like plausible inspirations, and I've seen a few offhand mentions elsewhere of them being some kind of moth caterpillar, so I think you're on the right track at any rate.

Even if we can't solve this, I'm glad to have you along, I hope you're enjoying the LP.

# ? May 8, 2022 18:20

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; This does not make sense when, again, aggregate indicia also indicate improvements. The belief that things are worse is false. It remains false.

Explopyro posted:

Thank you so much for trying. This just keeps getting more frustrating. I'm fairly certain I saw the name once, but I've never been able to find it again (and honestly, I wouldn't rule out that I'm misremembering how similar they were).

Both of those definitely sound like plausible inspirations, and I've seen a few offhand mentions elsewhere of them being some kind of moth caterpillar, so I think you're on the right track at any rate.

Even if we can't solve this, I'm glad to have you along, I hope you're enjoying the LP.

Upon further review, at least some enemies, such as the Inichas, are named using misspellings of synonymous taxa (meaning outdated ones which are no longer in use). With this in mind I may have more success.

# ? May 8, 2022 18:40

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

62: Sidequest Smorgasbord (Part 1)

When we left off last time, we negotiated with the Termite royalty, narrowly avoided causing an international incident when Mothiva and Zasp crashed our Colosseum challenge, and convinced the Termites to let us use their experimental submarine to travel to Rubber Prison, where we hope to confront the Wasp King and get back the artifacts he stole.

We also tripped some flags that activated the sidequest board and filled it up with quests. We'll be tackling those today.

Here's a quick glance into our quest log, as a reminder.

Incidentally, this is actually the last batch of new sidequests before the postgame. It's not the last of the side content in this game by any means (we still have another Bounty and some battle gauntlets to get to, and there are some new quests in the postgame), but this is probably going to be the last enormous sidequest roundup update.

Let's crack on with it.

I've barely taken two steps and we've already found one! We'll start here, then. If they're all lined up like this, this should be easy!

Indeed. What seems to be troubling you?

I haven't been able to sleep well for a while... And it is starting to affect my work performance!

But I cannot stop! I-I must work, or else...!!

Geez, you gotta learn to take it slow, dude!

I can't! I must...

Look, maybe we can deal with your sleep issues first. Any clue on what it can be?

I love sweets, so maybe you can get one of those for me?

It is worth a try. We will come back if we find anything.

As someone who frequently suffers from insomnia (this might not be a surprise if you pay attention to the times I post updates), he has my sympathies.

Luckily for us, this quest is pretty simple. Tarar wants a

Drowsy Cake. You can make this by mixing a Numbnail Dart with a Bag of Flour, like he suggests, or you can also just buy one from the merchant in the Golden Settlement. Be right back.

I knew this was coming, so I prepared in advance and have one in Amber's storage. It's not actually much further to just go buy one, though.

Back to Tarar. If we back out or give him the wrong thing, he does have an amusing line:

G-Geez... Did you forget what it was? It was some sleeping thing with flour...

Enough of that, let's give him the cake.

What if I eat one of those and oversleep...?!

But I cannot miss work! Wait, I know!

Uh, are you sure that's safe to consume?

If I eat both this cake and the shocking thing, maybe...

I'll be able to sleep for one second and be shocked awake right after!

That doesn't make any sense!

Sleep deprivation isn't good for your thinking skills. (In humans, anyway. This quest line is a nod to the fact that termite workers don't sleep, and spend their whole lives working nonstop until they die.)

Welp. The quest isn't complete yet! Now he wants a

Shock Candy. The quickest way to get this is to go to Defiant Root: you can buy an Agaric Shroom from the merchant just outside Crisbee's, then buy flour from him and make it there. (Or, if you already know you're going to need it, you can prepare it in advance and save yourself the trip. It's a lot less annoying that way.)

Before we give this to him, he has a couple of new lines again! If we back out:

Come on... I need to sleep or I will go crazy! But I can't just sleep like this!

And if we offer him the wrong thing:

That doesn't look too appetizing... It needs to be some shocking candy!

Well, he knows what he wants. This plan seems utterly mad, but he won't take anything else so let's give him what he asked for.

So... Will you give us the reward or not?

Yes, thanks! It's not much, but it might help you!

I hope my work efficiency improves after this. Maybe I will finally get that promotion!

Heavens, we hope they don't promote you into more work...

Poor guy. We did all that so he could get a single second of sleep? (I'm not sure if this plan will work out the way he wants, either. We can use both of these items on the same bug in battle, and they'll just end up simultaneously asleep and numb... I don't think sleep paralysis is very restful.)

Anyway, this was a pretty easy quest. Normally I'd expect a quest that tutorialises recipes like this to be earlier in the game, but I guess theming wins out here (or maybe it's meant to be a reminder to keep experimenting with the cooking system, and encourage players to try status builds?).

The reward is our fourth copy of

TP Plus. These are always nice to have; it's good to have more options! I personally tend to prefer going for regeneration with things like TP Core or Meditation most of the time, but there are times when a higher maximum is what you need to get the job done.

We can talk to Tarar again, but this is all he'll have to say. Best of luck to him, I guess.

Let's be on our way. One quest down, lots still to go.

We'll head into the eastern part of town.

There's Layna! She's another one on our list. We'll walk past her for now, though; there's another easy one we can knock out right away first.

We'll also pass the Colosseum entrance for now. Don't worry, we'll be back.

Let's go into the bomb shop building.

Specifically, to the apartments on 5F.

This fellow in the room on the left is next up. Let's talk to him.

And you're the Seedling guy, right? You're in SUPER LUCK!

We've been fighting Seedlings for ages!

Mhm! Seedlings have so many variations, too many for me to research on my busy schedule!

So I want you to gather some data on their behaviors for me! Don't worry though, it's easy!

Just defeat them in battle and your experiences should write themselves!

Once you have that, talk to me and I will give you your reward!

Sounds simple enough. Let's go trample them.

(50... So much violence!)

So, this quest is a gimme. We need to rack up 50 kills across all the various Seedling types.

I've literally never reached this point in the game without having it already complete. We're far past the mark even when just looking at the basic ones! (This does, unfortunately, mean I've never seen the dialogue if you talk to him without completing it, and won't be able to show it for the LP. I do want to do a minimum kills challenge run at some point, but not enough to put the LP on hold.)

Anyway, let's talk to him again and get our prize!

Take this as a token of my appreciation, I made it during my spare time. I'm sure it will be helpful on your quest.

Heheheh. I knew those Seedlings would be good for something someday!

Let's take a look at this medal!

Well, that's a mysterious description.

Seedling Affinity costs 1 MP to equip, and what it does is increase the odds of Golden Seedlings appearing. Specifically, it increases them by a factor of 2.5, so in normal encounters the odds go from 1% to 2.5%... but in Seedling Haven, they go from 7.5% to a whopping 18.75% chance of a Golden Seedling spawning.

This makes it nearly trivial to find Golden Seedlings! If you want to grind (either for EXP, berries, or Tangy Berries), the fastest way is to take this thing to Seedling Haven and beat up a couple of them. They're not much of a challenge at this point, especially if you have Ice Rain (which is the only multi-hit skill that can actually hit them multiple times).

Also, I don't think I've discussed it before, but there's an oddity to the mechanics of how Golden Seedlings spawn, which this medal makes it easy to exploit. Golden Seedlings replace other Seedling-type enemies, and the game rolls the odds when you touch the enemy and the battle starts. But if you run away, they don't turn back (a sensible design decision, to let the player regroup if they're in a bad position to deal with it). If you run away and then reenter the battle, the game will roll again for all the non-golden Seedlings and attempt to turn them golden. The normal odds are too low for it to be practical, but with this medal they're high enough that you can realistically keep running away and reentering a battle until it's composed entirely of Golden Seedlings (if, for some reason, you feel like fighting three or four of them at once). It's silly and ridiculous (and also an interesting challenge, they're scary in numbers!); try it out if you think it sounds like fun.

Anyway, that's that quest done. We're really churning through them today!

I hope that Medal's been more than worth it!

Takkun has new dialogue once the quest is complete. He really has no idea.

With that, we're done here, let's head back for our other quests.

There's Yatanta, and his brother is nowhere to be seen.

Heheh, yes! We saw your request. Your brother left without lunch?

Mhm. He's always rushing! And then faints from exhaustion in the wilderness.

I can't deliver today, it's too busy. I'll pay a pretty berry if you take this to him.

Alrighty! Where's his post?

Hm... Today he was supposed to patrol around the broken bridges in the Forsaken Lands.

Just walk west from where the Weevils hang around. He should've made it before fainting.

He's strong, but... please hurry.

This smells pretty good, wow.

He's annoying, but I do love him! It's my super nutritious survival box!

Leave it to us!

This one's pretty straightforward. We have the lunch, and we know pretty much where to go (the only weevil we saw was the Primal Weevil miniboss, so these directions are very concrete).

If we talk to him again, he'll repeat the hint about the location. We can do that.

We're done here for now.

On our way out, we'll stop and talk to Layna now.

Huh? Who are you?

We're Team Snakemouth. We've come to aid your request.

Really? I didn't expect anyone to take notice of it so quickly! Thank you!

You lost your pet, right? Hits close to home. We'll get it back to you.

Nero doesn't trust others. If you find him, he will flee quite quickly.

...So I'll go with you. Without making sure he's safe, I can't go home in good conscience.

Are you sure of this? The Forsaken Lands are quite dangerous!

It's the only way. I know I'm asking a lot, but...

Thank you, once again.

Is there any place Nero likes to run off to?

Do you know where that is?

Yeah, we went across it while coming here. Shall we depart?

Mhm. Let's go.

Layna joins us and will be coming along for this one. She can come with us for the lunch delivery too, it's fine. (It's pretty much on the way, it's in our best interest to do both of these at once.)

Let's head out and get on with the search.

Here we are at the Primal Weevil room. It's really not a long walk.

We'll just head west.

Oops, Layna disappeared, since this room isn't on the critical path of her quest. Oh well. She'll be back soon enough; now, where's Yatanta's brother?

All we have to do is drop off the ledge to where the ruler bridge is, and there he is. (I think part of the purpose this quest serves is to help make sure players find this shortcut?)

This must be Yatanta's brother. Let's give him the lunch!

Kabbu tells us the obvious in a banter. Let's do it, there's no reason not to.

Uh... that's not it...

Kabbu will scold us if we try to give the wrong thing, or back out.

So let's give him the lunch.

So my brother sent you here, huh? When I get to work, I get so pumped out and forget to eat.

Here, take this as thanks for saving me!

Well, time to finish my patrol and head back home! See you out there!

And he heads off. That was pretty simple! (I think the theme of today's quests is "please don't neglect basic self-care".)

Our reward is a second copy of

HP Core. You can stack both copies on the same bug for a 4 HP boost every two turns, or spread them out so multiple characters get recovery. It definitely opens up some possibilities. These also go pretty well with Life Cast, if you want to do things with that.

We're really knocking these quests out today! Let's keep going.

And there's Layna back.

There are some enemies here, but we'll just hurry past them. Layna is strictly a noncombatant, she won't appear in combat with us and doesn't have any animations to see.

Also, while we're in this screen, there's a minor novelty here; let's take a quick look on another file.

If we didn't get the discovery earlier while Elizant was with us, we could come up here and get it now, and see a slightly different conversation.

The Termite Kingdom's just a big rock, huh.

Think of that big rock as their hive, Vi.

Heh. Thanks for making us feel bad about missing it the first time, game?

Anyway, back to adventure.

Layna will immediately call out when we enter this screen. (It's more obvious it's her who's speaking ingame, screenshots don't capture the gestures and lip flaps and leave the speech bubble arrows looking ambiguous. This has been a persistent issue throughout this LP and I wish I had a better solution.)

So let's jump down.

Then we'll fly across this gap. It's much easier to backtrack through this room than it was to get through it forwards!

And when we land here, the mushrooms blocking the way south are gone. That's clearly where we have to go. (Or they were never here; as I mentioned before, the mushrooms were added in v1.1)

Let's see what this new area is!

Don't worry, everyone. Do you see those shrooms?

They're shrooms alright.

Magic!?

Seems it wasn't a waste to bring you with us.

Bring me to the shrooms, and they'll light up the way with hints.

After that brief conversation and demonstration, we regain control. Before we try to solve this puzzle, let's check the banter quickly:

This area is much foggier than the others.

Careful, team! We must watch closely where we walk!

Not a place we should wander around without a guide...

This feels a bit awkward when, in the current version of the game, we have the guide with us the first time we come here. It made more sense when you could just stumble in here while exploring.

If we ignore the glowing spores and just go haring off in whatever direction, the screen will white out on us and we'll be warped back to the start. So let's try not to do that, shall we? There's a specific path we're going to have to feel out to get through here.

We'll start here with the mushroom Layna showed us. These spores are heading vaguely west, maybe slightly southwest?

If we head in that direction, we eventually reach another mushroom with glowing spores. These are a bit hard to see, but they're going south-southeast, toward the screen.

Here, we have to go west again.

Now the spores point north, slightly northwest.

We'll have to dig under this stick.

And this mushroom wants us to go west/southwest.

Finally, we've reached the exit!

I have to admit, I don't care much for this puzzle, and find it a bit frustrating. The spores are hard to read and not quite indicative enough (I think they should probably have blown a bit farther than they do, to make the direction more obvious), so it feels a bit cryptic and trial-and-error even when you know the solution. I've cut out all the failures, but I probably wasted 10-15 minutes faffing around here while recording.

Anyway, regardless, we got through it; let's move on.

There's Nero!

I-It's so cute...

Hm? What's that?

It seems to be holding some sort of glowshroom! Although not like the ones that guided us.

Oh, Nero. You wandered off for this?

Is that, like, a super rare shroom?

Nibu! Nibu!

So helpful. It truly is the perfect pet.

More than a pet, he's a real friend!

Although I wouldn't mind staying in the Termite Kingdom a little longer.

Really? I can't wait to be outta there...

Right, Nero?

Nibu!

...You're right. Just saying thanks isn't enough, so would you take this?

I found it while looking around, and its contents are most incredible!

Of course it's enough! We wish you luck on your journey!

We should be fine going back, so don't let us hold you back any longer.

Make sure to say hi if you're back in the city!

Goodbye, Nero...

And they leave.

Books are priceless, Vi. I'll have you know that.

Agreed. You could use a little bit more culture.

If no one wants to buy it, it's worthless! Why do you think libraries rent 'em!?

Heh.

Anyway, with that, the quest is complete! That was a cute one.

Before we leave, though, what's this little area we find ourselves in?

Looks like we reached a dead end.

Drat... Should we investigate or turn back?

The banter makes it obvious there's something here, at least.

Looking around, there's not much to see, though. There are a bunch of weeds (none of which have anything in them), a sign, and a hole in the cliff?

Uh, what's this? ...Should we?

If we come over to the hole, we do indeed get a prompt to leave items.

I'm not going to miss this Mite Burger we bought, so, sure. Let's try that.

...Is that spider wearing flowers? Anyway, it seems like she liked it, she even paid us!

...She gave us 20 berries (plus the Crystal Berry). Mite Burgers usually sell for 10!

So... We can give our items to that spider?

She gives a LOT more berries than shops do! We're gonna get rich!

If we check for a banter by the hole after doing this, our team will comment on it. This is a whole thing. Pinky the friendly spider lives here, and she'll "buy" items from us for double the price they would fetch in shops. (And give us a Crystal Berry the first time.) That's nice of her!

...Let's try something. Does she like spider capsules, do you think?

That's a LOT of cash!

Technically speaking these are handled just like any other item, but Longleg Summoners have a very high sell price relative to what it costs to buy them (you pay 10-19 berries at the gacha in the Wizard's Tower, their sell price is 18 berries), so they end up being the most profitable thing to give her.

One other wrinkle: unlike every other item, Pinky won't pay extra for Dark Cherries, she'll only give the same 50 berries as shops do. I guess she doesn't like those?

Anyway, having met Pinky (and gotten her crystal berry), let's head back.

Leaving that screen warps us right back here, we don't need to navigate the mushroom maze again. I appreciate that.

Let's head back to the Termite Kingdom. (We'll skip the backtracking; the bridge makes it a bit less tedious than it would be otherwise, or we could just use the Ant Compass and head back via the mines.)

Here we are.

There's a bit of new stuff to see, again, including checking in with the people we helped. But first...

Do you remember Rose here telling us that she had a very shy friend who lives in the Forsaken Lands? Apparently, she meant the spider. If we want to go see Pinky again (and sell her stuff), we don't need to navigate the mushrooms again, we can just talk to her and warp there.

(No) Oh, sorry for asking then.

(Yes) Ok. Let's depart right away.

She'll bring us right to Pinky's area.

(No) Oh, alright.

(Yes) Let's go, then.

And we can talk to her again to warp right back. With this option for fast travel, this becomes an effortless money-making trick as long as you don't mind some walking (you can fill up an entire inventory with Longleg Summoners, sell them to Pinky, and repeat until you have all the berries you want, making occasional stops at the bank to offload if necessary). We didn't really need any more money-making tricks by this point, most players should be flush with cash, but this is a thing you can do if you feel the need.

Let's see if Layna has anything new to say.

It may be a bit too violent for Nero, though...

She's contemplating going to the Colosseum, that's all. Guess she missed seeing us fight.

Nero only has the usual to say, really.

Speaking of the Colosseum...

Let's check in with the siblings here.

Forgetting to eat isn't usually a good idea, but I've absolutely been there.

I can't believe someone can forget to eat!

Mhm.

Yup.

...Anyways, let's go.

I can't really say anything to add on to this banter.

Yatanta is grateful, also.

Let's take a quick detour in here.

If we revisit the Colosseum after beating it, we can see they took down the painting of the previous champion and put up one of us! That's nice. (Vi looks very smug there, doesn't she. When did we pose for this?)

We will be able to battle here again (though it's just for fun, you don't get anything notable for it), but right now the receptionist just repeats his previous dialogue congratulating us. I don't remember exactly when this becomes available.

And... my nemesis, the character limit, has returned. I have to split the update and this seems like a good place; back momentarily.

Explopyro fucked around with this message at 00:04 on May 18, 2022

# ? May 17, 2022 06:05

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 08:58

Explopyro: Mar 18, 2018

62: Sidequest Smorgasbord (Part 2)

The next quest I want to tackle starts elsewhere. We had a request from Artia, all the way back in the Bee Kingdom Hive.

40 - High Above, Bee Kingdom

There she is, just on the west side from the entrance.

Yup. Don't make a big deal out of it, ok?

...Alright. I'm looking for the blackest, darkest of all paints.

I need it to complete my masterpiece. To challenge Jaune's reign as the best artist of the Hive.

You sure you can handle that?

...A job's a job. Where can I find it?

Your soul is a dark grey... But anyways... I've heard it's with someone in the Termite City.

He hates being around in the open, a lover of the darkness. So cool...

Sounds like you two would get along pretty well.

Don't speak nonsense... I simply admire him. I would meet him myself, were it not so far.

Get it done, Vi. The pay's good.

Well, this is interesting. Is this really a good idea? Vi doesn't seem to mind, despite Artia professing to be Jaune's rival... well, regardless, I guess we're going to do it.

If you don't know where to start, search the darkest parts of the city...

If we talk to her again, this is all she'll say.

Okay, let's trek back to the Termite Capital.

Remember these people in the alley?

Is this our guy?

Uh... excuse us...

......

We heard you have the blackest paint. We're interested in that.

......I have no business with you. Scram, if you know what's better for you.

Eep! B-but we need the paint!

......

Uh, let's leave him alone, team...

We need the paint, Kabbu.

I know, but it doesn't seem like we can get it now...

Let's ask Artia what to do and come back later...

Ugh, this is going to be a whole thing, isn't it? Looks like we need to trek back to the Bee Kingdom again.

Let's ask Artia what to do and come back later...

If we try to talk to him again, still no luck, just a repeat of the hint to talk to Artia. Guess we have no choice.

40 - High Above, Bee Kingdom

Yeah. He won't budge, though. Sorry...

...Drat. I feared this would happen. Listen up...

Boyfriend's a pretty vague description...

We have... similar tastes. You will know when you see him. Now go, your pay's waiting...

...Okay, let's go to the Ant Kingdom. Sigh. (What is it with artist bees and fetch quests?)

For now, we're just going to pass through the castle. We've got a stack of Lore Books piling up, so we do need to stop in at the library soon, but we'll get to that. For now, let's just press on with this errand.

34 - Dodgy Business

Naturally, the first place we'll check is the Underground Tavern. Let's talk to Reed first, maybe he'll know something?

Vi... What do you want?

A-are you Artia's boyfriend?

(Or he could cut out the middleman. That works too.)

We are doing a request for her. She asked us to get the blackest paint.

But the guy that has it doesn't want anything to do with us.

I see. I know she wants the paint, but...

I really didn't want her to get involved with that guy.

I may be a tough guy, but she is my soft spot. wouldn't want to get her into trouble.

But since you're going in her place... I suppose I could assist you.

I used to know the guy but we have had a... falling out. So I couldn't get the paint from him anyway.

He'd probably do something horrible to me if I went myself. But he still owes me a favor from long ago...

So here, give this to him.

Don't you dare open that, it contains sensitive info. Info for his eyes only.

Just give that to him and don't ask questions. He will give you the paint.

You know, just saying that makes us even more curious.

Uh, Leif, don't. Alright? Wouldn't want to never be able to sleep again knowing something could happen to us.

Listen, just do this and everything will end without issues.

I can trust you with that, can't I, Vi?

Yeah, yeah. I know, Reed. Just leave it to me.

Good.

(This is sooo shady...)

What kind of mafia business have we gotten ourselves involved with, anyway? (Or is that note just a legal declaration that we are not Anish Kapoor?)

We know, we know.

If we talk to Reed again, he'll just reiterate the situation. Let's be getting on with it, then.

Well, in a moment. We've got enough Crystal Berries, we may as well pick something up from Shades while we're here. Electric Needles is really good.

Kehehe! Here you go my lovelies...

Come back if you still have any berries left to spend! Kehehe!

I don't necessarily plan to use Electric Needles any time soon, but it's a really nice medal to have, and it can definitely come in handy. (On my first playthrough, it's what I used to beat the Devourer, I was terrified of it after getting destroyed early and didn't want to even risk it getting turns. It's slightly less busted post the nerf in v1.1, but it's still a very good medal.)

Anyway, let's go see if this note changes anything.

He still doesn't say anything to us, but we get the option to give him something.

......You'd better leave if you want to see tomorrow...

Offering the wrong thing gets us death threats. How lovely.

Huh, we got a response!

......Fine. Here is the paint. But I do this favor for Reed, not for you.

...We no longer have any business between us. Leave.

Gee, what a moody fellow.

Well, we got the paint, let's deliver it.

...All's well that ends well? I hope?

If we try to talk to Tennent again, he'll just repeat this and tell us to get lost.

Let's just take the paint to Artia and forget all of this happened.

40 - High Above, Bee Kingdom

...Don't waste my time.

That's all the reaction we'll get from the wrong item or backing out. Let's give her the paint.

Yes... I can feel it. It's like I'm staring at a deep abyss!

Jewelry is for denizens of the light. I have no need of it, after having seen such darkness...

Seems like a fair trade, the brightest object for the darkest one...

Hehehe... soon, Jaune's art reign will be over and Artia's will begin...

Yeah, I doubt that!

And with that, this quest is complete! It's a bit tedious doing all that backtracking, but at least the reward is decent, and the dialogue is fun.

(As I alluded earlier, this quest is almost certainly a reference to the incredible pettiness and controversy surrounding Vantablack, the blackest known substance. VANTA is for "vertically aligned nanotube array", it's extremely expensive and difficult to manufacture, and the artist Anish Kapoor somehow acquired exclusive rights to its use as paint. This, very naturally, pissed off the greater community of artists, which led to Stuart Semple creating the pinkest pink; he offered this for sale to anyone except Anish Kapoor, provided they legally attest that they are not Kapoor and will not give it to him. It keeps going. There's a whole rabbit hole of hilarious petty feuding here, and it's well worth a look if you want to waste a couple hours.)

Anyway, that was a fun digression.

...Are you sure this was alright, Vi?

Huh... Guess you were helping out Jaune too, then.

If we talk to Artia again after completing the quest, we can see this conversation, which is pretty cute. It's nice to see Vi's confidence in her sister, after everything. (Apparently there wasn't any need to worry, at least on that front.)

We're done here for now.

34 - Dodgy Business

If we check in with Reed, he has some new dialogue we can see now too. (Actually, we can see this conversation any time after getting the paint, we don't have to have delivered it.)

Well, he may not have forgiven her completely, but this seems like a good start. (And, no, we never will know what Vi did to piss him off.)

We still have one more sidequest in our log (Alex's request), but let's not get to that just yet; it's one we'll want to wait a bit for. There are a few unmarked sidequests we can complete now, so while we're trekking all over, let's address those as well.

The first of these is in the Golden Settlement.

26 - Golden Lands

Once again, we need to head to the east side of town.

Kenny's here now. Let's talk to him.

The Golden Settlement does have a very serene mood.

I think after seeing the world, this is the place I enjoy the most.

You just needed to make sure, huh.

Yup. It made me happy to see you around, too.

It was nice seeing you too!

I know this comes out of nowhere, but I want you to have this.

I just feel... grateful for having met you.

Haha! Don't worry. You've given me plenty.

You're a cool one. Ask us if you need anything.

I will. I wish you the best in your own journeys!

Well, it's nice to make friends! (And get another Lore Book for the pile!) We get this for talking to Kenny at each of the different points of his journey (we saw him first in the Golden Settlement, then the Bee Hive, Defiant Root, the Ant Kingdom, and finally the Termite Capital, before he returned here).

Keeping up with Kenny's journey is kind of a game-spanning sidequest, except that you don't know there's any reward for it until after you've finished. Kenny doesn't move locations until you talk to him in the previous one (which can make it a bit of a pain to figure out, if you forget where you left off with him). He won't leave the Termite Kingdom until after the Colosseum sequence, so this is pretty close to the earliest we could get this Lore Book.

If we talk to Kenny again, this is all he'll have to say.

That's all there was for here.

Now, let's head back to the Termite Kingdom again...

If we go into the inn, there's someone in the lobby we haven't seen before!

Uh, maybe? I dunno...

Hmm... HMM...

This banter certainly makes things look suspicious. Let's talk to her.

You seem... familiar. Have we met before?

Never seen a Termite before coming here, so...

...Oh, you're from that sign at the inn.

Pardon me? The inn? Could you mean the inn in Defiant Root?

Right! You do bear a heavy resemblance!

He didn't take the sign down? That guy...

Why'd you come here? Doesn't seem much cooler.

I wanted to offer a genuine, warm inn experience in this kingdom.

But a lot of tourists want something different, like an apartment.

Ironically, many come to enjoy our grey skies... So business struggles.

I've set a colleague to run it for me, and it's like I'm not even needed.

Why not go back?

...

Doesn't seem like you're happy here, and you're missed there.

......You're right. I really was a fool...

I had everything I ever wanted, and I left it for this whim of mine.

I heard the Ant Kingdom's doing escorts. I think I'll take the first trip back!

We'll see you back at Defiant Root, maybe.

(He's going to be jolly!)

Well.

So, remember ages ago, when we first visited Defiant Root and I mentioned an unmarked sidequest involving the innkeeper? Yeah, this is it. If you talk to the innkeeper there and ask what he's upset about, it will start this sequence where we can find his erstwhile partner and encourage her to move back.

If we talk to her again, she'll say this.

(Let's drop by Defiant Root soon...!)

And if we check the banter after this conversation, Kabbu suggests we check on them in Defiant Root. Let's do that. (Conveniently, however we travel, she'll get there before us.)

There's the sign! And we can see them both standing behind the counter now. Let's go see what's going on with them.

If we say we're just passing by, we'll only get this reaction.

This is a bit more interesting, though.

Heheh. I'm so grateful we met! We're doing great!

I really missed my room... I left something nice for you!

Keep on trucking, you two.

(We'll see what she's talking about in a moment.)

And if we talk to Wayde, we'll see he's very pleased with this result.

This inn's got its smile back.

...I'm not gonna ask for a reward this time. I guess it's fine.

I'm happy for them... Some do get their friends back.

It'll be okay. Let's rest up.

The banter's interesting too, even if Kabbu brings a bit of a somber note.

If we head outside and climb the stairs next to the inn building, the door up here is open now! (This door can be incredibly aggravating, because you can see it early and see there's something on the other side of it, but there's no hint about how to open it. The Detector medal will constantly go off here, too.)

All that's inside is this Lore Book on the table. Still, we'll take that! This is definitely one of the more cryptic ones to find, in my opinion, because it's easy to just not stumble into the trigger condition for this "quest".

Well. We have a LOT of books now. Let's go to the library.

18 - In th Court of the Ant Queen

Let's check in with Libren, too. We should have enough Discoveries for a reward.

...

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!

Nice, I'll always take more of these.

Now for Brooke.

Did we find any books, you ask.

Look how much that shelf filled up! We're getting pretty close now.

Let's read some books!

Youngling Care. Since the Day of Awakening we mature faster, but our infant stage is still critical. There can be events where the caterpillar or grub stages get interrupted, causing unforeseen consequences. If one is not careful, the youngling can turn into a dangerous lesser bug! Nurseries must be protected and treasured at all costs, so that our future generations don't suffer such a fate.

This is concerning, and explains why Maki might be so worried about Yin...

A Study of Magic. Magic is uncommon, and few bugs are able to use it. Some bees theorize that crystal exposure can grant magic powers, but testing yields no fruit. A legendary wizard that lived in these lands used to experiment with crystals to learn their magic properties. But he suddenly disappeared, and all knowledge of how crystals relate to magic disappeared with him. Rumors have said that he might be living in the Far Grasslands, but no traces of him have been located.

We've met this guy! (Unfortunately we can't talk to him about his research, but it's still interesting to hear about. And how old is he, anyway, if he was doing early research into magic?)

The Mother Crystal. Deep underground, below the Forsaken Lands, it is said a massive crystal resides. Said crystal might be linked to why Bugaria is such a haven in this area. Ancient Roach texts suggest it fell from the heavens during the Day of Awakening, piercing the earth. They said the crystal's aura protects Bugaria from the outside world's great perils. Some say that it is tied to Goddess Venus, the local deity of the Golden Settlement. Although personally, I would prefer not to speculate using local folklore. Further study is necessary, but the Termites prohibit anyone from digging in the Forsaken Lands. Until relations between the kingdoms improve, reaching the crystal is currently impossible.

There are a lot of interesting tidbits in this one, including that the "Day of Awakening" may have been caused in part by the impact of a magical meteorite. Is that why there don't seem to be any humans left?

The Dead Lands. The gigantic feral beasts that surround Bugaria... it's uncanny how we've gotten used to them. Elizant I braved the Dead Lands, riddled with those creatures, to ensure our peace. Although Bugaria is protected by the Mother Crystal... I struggle to write when I think of what could happen should that crystal lose its power.

Gigantic feral beasts don't sound good (is that what we saw moving around in the fog from the telescope?). I also wonder if the large crystal we can see in the Ant Mines is connected to the Mother Crystal somehow. Is it the same one, a fragment that broke off, another similar one, or something else entirely?

The Northern Kingdoms. Far beyond the swamplands lay the Northern Kingdom, home to many kind of beetles. They are very traditionalist and hold honor above all else, however many travel to Bugaria to escape the Dead Landers' attacks. The trip to Bugaria is hard enough. But the north houses the swamps, filled with more dangerous creatures. To avoid the Wasps' hostility, most take the long route around their Kingdom. It's the most insane of trips. Truly, the lives of the northerners aren't easy...

Some intriguing tidbits about Kabbu's homeland. Also, uh, what are "Dead Landers"...?

The Eastern Lands. To the far east of Bugaria lay the Dead Lands we fear so much. Monsters everywhere, and a feeling of utter dread. Who knows how, but I braved the odds. Eventually, I reached the Eastern Kingdom. It is so different compared to Bugaria... It has many exotic fruits and materials that cannot be found in our kingdom. Many of its denizens live in a very closed community that shuns outsiders. The only exception to this seems to be a rare species of bugs that resemble fruits. Although friendly, other Eastern bugs appear to stay clear of them. Is their smell too sweet? If I don't make it back to Bugaria, I'm glad I got to meet them...

And, to wrap things up, some information about the Eastern Lands (where the "fruity bugs" like Tanjerin, Cerise, and Skirby hail from). It sounds very peculiar, to say the least.

Whew. That was a lot of books! We're done here for now; let's head outside, and go meet up with Alex finally.

17 - Ant Kingdom

He lives in this house with the fish designs (was it a sardine can or something?).

Well, I suppose you know what to do then. Striders. The scourge of the seas!

You see, I used to love the sea...

Now I just want revenge! But I have no way of fighting them. So please, go in my place! Give them my anger!

A-are you sure we need to beat them?

Yes! Beat 10 of them, that should teach them!

They're all over Metal Lake, so you will need a way to go through the water.

Your reward is here waiting with me for when the task is done. Go now!

Sounds like an easy job! Let's do it!

So, this is pretty simple. Alex wants us to murder 10 Water Striders. We already fought a few of them in Stream Mountain, so we could head there to grind if we wanted, but once we pick up the submarine we'll presumably be able to fight them at sea. (I did say before that the enemies in Stream Mountain were from this chapter.) This quest can wait for now.

Argh! My revenge isn't yet sated! You need to beat 10 of them! Go go!

I suppose we will need to see how many we have so far in our Library.

If we talk to him again, Kabbu will hint that we can use the bestiary to track how many we've killed, just like other quests of this nature.

Anyway, for now we're done here.

Let's pay a visit to Artis! He should owe us a few medals, since I've been dawdling on picking them up.

...

Hmm! Good job, folks! You defeated that hardened Mothiva!

Was it too challenging for ya? You deserve a reward. Here, take this!

Oh ho! You've been on a roll! Beat Primal Weevil too, eh? Here, take this as well!

Come back later when you've bonked some extra hard heads with that Medal, will ya?

We get rewards for beating Mothiva again, as well as for the Primal Weevil. (Also, we get to see how Artis' dialogue works when we have multiple rewards queued up, I can't remember if I've let that happen before in the LP.)

With this fifth one, we now have the full complement of

TP Plus medals. You know what these do by now, and you know when you want more of them.

For beating Primal Weevil, we get

Resist All. For 3 MP, this is actually kind of a bargain: it gives 50% resistance to each of Poison, Sleep, Numb, and Freeze, so you save 1 MP over using one each of the respective resistance medals. It also stacks with other resistance medals (just like they do with each other), so you can equip another resistance medal with this to become immune to that status. It has some utility on defensive builds, if you're worried a missed block will ruin your strategy.

(Also, this now enables you to have Sleep Resistance on every member of the party at once, if you want to use Drowsy Cake as your primary healing item or something. But I wouldn't really recommend that at this point in the game.)

Resist All isn't the most interesting medal, but there are times when it can come in handy. I'm certainly not sorry to have it.