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that pc engine version of the ark looks kinda.... gooey  will it get added to an update? also i like how both ken and linda are posing in their status screens  ah, the colors in that high res family photo look quite different from the in game one
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Oct 31, 2021 01:04
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| # ? May 15, 2024 18:39 |
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You can get 80 animals in this scenario? When you said you needed 30 I just sort of assumed that was ALL you can get. So you can get more than required?
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Oct 31, 2021 01:11
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Sachiko, ever present yet also apparently utterly irrelevant to the plot. Bout time Linda joins the party.
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Oct 31, 2021 06:00
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Hypocrisy posted:Sachiko, ever present yet also apparently utterly irrelevant to the plot. Kind of ominous, really.
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Oct 31, 2021 11:02
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I was kind of curious how the scenario plots meshed with the scenario goals just being "Noah's Pokemon". Good to see that you have to play through the plot first. And that tree scene is cute, but do both people have to be there for it to count (so Ken would have had to be with the nurse when she carved it) or was that just a thing Ken and Linda did together, while normally it's just one person who sneaks in and carves their name and their crushes name?
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Oct 31, 2021 12:30
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At this point I'm expecting everyone, Ken included, to have been hit with memory-altering shenanigans.
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Oct 31, 2021 15:41
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Randalor posted:And that tree scene is cute, but do both people have to be there for it to count (so Ken would have had to be with the nurse when she carved it) or was that just a thing Ken and Linda did together, while normally it's just one person who sneaks in and carves their name and their crushes name? I'm pretty sure it's implied that both people DON'T have to be there because that lady says that she has to keep coming to check if somebody had put her name there. So this would mean that the Ken & Sachiko thing was probably done by Sachiko without his knowledge or something like that, I guess. SloppyDoughnuts posted:You can get 80 animals in this scenario? When you said you needed 30 I just sort of assumed that was ALL you can get. So you can get more than required? Yeah, you can. The south area is not accesible, but most of the rest of the map is, so you can literally go and do whatever you want. The game gives you a lot of freedom in capturing how you want to do it. But in this scenario there's nothing extra to be gained by capturing more than the required 30. Booky posted:that pc engine version of the ark looks kinda.... gooey You know that's not a bad idea... I will add it to whatever update this first appears in. About the family photo, I honestly don't know, one is a scan from a book and the other is the screenshot from the game so who knows what happened in between. But this also reminded me that I forgot to show what this photo looked like in the PC Engine version, because it was actually slightly different: I'll add this too to the previous update, thanks for reminding me! ivantod fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Oct 31, 2021 |
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Oct 31, 2021 19:48
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Linda is even more of a violence gremlin in that
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Nov 1, 2021 02:36
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She is a violence gremlin, but she does have more of a resemblance to her mom in the sepia-tone photo.
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Nov 1, 2021 03:15
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 Last time, Linda showed up at Ken's house, still without her memories. After a brief consultation with Ken's mum and Ben, the ranger commander, it was decided to "disguise" her as a ranger because apparently because nobody would think to look for here there! Ken and Linda then proceeded to visit several locations, in an attempt to jog her memory, and it's kind of working a bit. When we left off, they had just finished examining a tree where they carved their names as kids. Presently they are on the way to buy a 2G ring, which is the same thing Ken did back then to commemorate the ocassion. Therefore, we'll join them as they are making their way to the Ozport airport shopping mall!  And here are Ken and Linda, leaving the Ozport public park...  We'll head over to the airport and shopping mall, where there's this guy, standing in front of a "WELCOME NEOKENYA" flower bed. Presumably what they meant to say here was actually "WELCOME TO NEOKENYA", but it's close enough, I guess. This is actually even worse, because the Federation knew from the start that the time is limited before this planet is rendered uninhabitable. Yet they still continued without telling this to the settlers. Not nice.  Over here by the escalator (or, alternately, by the tent, if that's your preference), is another ranger. Hmm, that's pretty interesting, but we have no idea what he really means. We haven't even come across any flowers in the wild anyway. So let's just add this to our list of things to "remember for later". Incidentally, the tent is empty. The stairs and the escalator (which, as I already mentioned, is actually fully functional in game!) lead directly into the airport proper...  ...so we'll go over to this entrance here, which leads into the shopping mall part of the complex.  Here we go. Immediately next to the entrance is the wedding shop.  We can start by talking to this lady here who seems to be admiring the mannequins. Is it just me or do the mannequins actually look like Linda? Well, that's just... By the way, the Japanese character on the wall there next to the dresses means "congratulations"/"best wishes". It has a couple of other meanings, but I guess that's the intended one here.  To continue, there are two people working here at the counter. So, let's start with the first one. Well, let's see what's for sale here!  Hmm. So there are three things here. The middle thing (which costs 500,000 G) is a Diamond Ring. That's pretty clearly outside of our price range for now (the blue colour indicates we don't have enough money to buy this). At the bottom there is our 2G ring, in fact it's labelled as "Promotional Ring"! This is quite embarassing, but if Linda really wants it... Anyway, we'll check that in a moment. The thing at the top of the list is something named "Ziade's Ring" and it's indicated that it sells for "market value", whatever that means. But, what even is a "Ziade's Ring" and what is it for in the first place? I mean, we could try to buy it, we still have some money in the bank due to Ken's regular salary, so we won't be destitute.  Let's simply offer all the money we have. I mean what could go wrong? Oooh, what a sick burn! Well, clearly this is not happening today either (and, spoiler alert, it's NOT going to be happening in Scenario A at all--this particular mystery will have to wait until later in the game!), so we can just go ahead and buy the 2G ring, as it really does seem this the only thing which we can really afford right now. Although our "list of things we need to explore" is getting quite long at this point. As you can imagine, you're not meant to uncover/understand everything over the course of one scenario. It isn't even possible to do so, considering that one third of the map is blocked off in this scenario to begin with! A side note: You could say, we'll let's just go and grind money so we can buy the diamond ring. While this sounds good in theory, don't forget that fighting animals will also level you up, thus at some point making it impossible to actually capture those same animals, because of the overkill issue I discussed at some point. So this won't really work in a general case. Therefore, for now, as mentioned, let's simply spend the 2G on a ring that Linda anyway said is the one she wants (at least for now). So, if we buy the 2G ring... Linda puts it on... Well, no matter. Let's talk to the other salesperson here in the wedding shop. There is some geuinely clever/funny writing in this game, I have to say. Anyway, what is for sale here:  The 5000G item is a "engagement gift set", but it's a mostly useless item so we're not going to worry about buying it right now. The other thing is a "luxury wedding dress" which again sells for "market value". If we try to buy that second one with all our money... Yeah, so... at this point we'll just move on! Our next stop is...  ...the furniture store! I told you there was one here! The Japanese text on the banners says "Interior Shop". There are two ladies working here, so let's start by talking to the one on the left. Well, let's just see what you have for sa...  ...aaaaah, look at those prices! Are they actually serious! No, I don't think we'll be buying anything here today. But, IF we had the money, we could buy stuff like a double bed for 110,000G, or a wardrobe for 45,000 or a coffee table for 10,000 or a reproduction of a Rousseau painting for 40,000. Presumably the Rousseau here is Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), a post-impressionist famous for his paintings of jungle animals, so that surprisingly fits with the theme of our game. Also, I know you're curious, the 800,000G item is a rotating bed. Either way, we're way too poor for any of this, but don't worry, the time will come! We can also talk to the second lady working here at the furniture store... Here, there is a whole other set of items to buy:  The prices are slightly more affordable and here we have things like a kitchen cupboard for 20,000 or a pair of bookshelves for 30,000 or even a stuffed lion for 30,000G. Anyway, we'll move on for now. One thing I should mention is that because this town is just a few steps away from Hardia, the game expects that you might visit here pretty early on, so there are a few people here who give you early-game tutortials. However, this is all stuff we already know by now, so unless they say something really interesting and/or funny, I'll simply skip them here. We're here a bit late in the proceedings, but that's only because there's no real reason to come here until Linda is back with us, but of course, if you're playing the game for the first time and simply exploring, then it's likely you'll stumble here early on.  We'll stop briefly at this counter. This is your typical "general store" consumable/item shop.  One interesting item in their inventory is the "Air Free Pass" for 28,000G. As you might guess, this allows you to use the Bird Line for free after you buy it! This is also something to consider for later, but right now we don't have the money, or, honestly, the need for it.  Over here in the corner is the butcher. Also, from now on, if you see some chests on the screen and I don't mention anything, just assume that they are behind a locked door, ok? So we'll move over next door to the equipment shop!  The warning against over-leveling as we are already aware. Kind of a nice way to incorporate an "anti-grind" measure directly as part of the plot! The "destroyed" animals, don't even give EXP, either! (Funnily enough, though, we ARE going to do just a small bit of grinding today after all!) And so, luckily this is not a video LP, because at this point I spend an inordinate amount of time fiddling around with what equipment I want to buy and/or equip for Ken and Linda. Since we have quite a few earthworms from Ken's adventure at the dig site, we can craft some equipment. First I make earthworm goggles for Ken as headgear. This increases his defence to 198:  And then, earthworm clothes for Linda:  This gives her some nice defensive bonuses. Linda, by the way, starts with Rabbit equipment (Ken started with Squirrel equipement originally). Then I also make earthwork goggles for Linda too, for a further defensive bonus:  This brings her defence finally to 142. And now, I spend a ridiculous amount of time figuring out who should use what weapon, even considering to make an earthworm whip. But it's a normal weapon that hits one enemy only, and the increase in power is not worth almost 3,000G that it costs to make. So I give up on that idea. Finally, this is what I end up with. I give Linda Ken's jellyfish needle, which takes her attack power to 144 (although it only hits one enemy):  And Ken goes back to his old swallow cutter, which, while its attack power is slightly lower, has the amazing benefit of hitting all enemies in front of him. So this is what he ends up with:  So his attack power goes down to 207, but as mentioned the fact that it hits all enemies is worth it. Finally, we can also talk to the other person here at the equipment shop: Yes, equipment breaking is definitely a thing in this game. Again, something we'll cover when it actually happens. I do sell some of starting equimpment here that we're definitely not going to need, though. And finally, after spending way too much time here, let's keep going left.  Over here we can read the sign. Winter Lottery Winning Numbers Announcement 1st Prize (100,000G): No. 4089 2nd Prize (50,000G): No. 4090, 4088 3rd Prize (10,000G): No. 9804 4th Prize (1,000G): No. *086 5th Prize (100G): No. **87 Valid for redemption only this Spring! I'm sure nobody's surprised any more at this point that still more new things pop up that you can do in this game, and, well, lottery is one of them. We can talk to the guy at the counter next to the sign to find out more! Our next stop is the bank.  First, let's talk to the guy here. Ummm, I'm not sure about that, but you do you, Yamada.  Checking out Ken's bank book, we find out that his salary has gone up to 1,400G this Spring. Still, considering the prices, that's pretty much nothing (as most characters are happy to point out), so the money does have to be earned in other ways. Usually this is by selling animals, so again there is a balancing act between having enough money to function in this world and not being overleveled at the same time. Still, we seem to be doing ok on both fronts for now, so I guess we should just continue with what works then? As mentioned, the woman sitting on the right is "Miss Maki", so let's see what she has to say.  We can go around to the back where the bank offices are, although there is a sign on the wall which says: "No unauthorised persons beyond this point!".  There are two guys here. So let's start with the first one... And the other guy... Funny, but I happen to spy...  ...some actually accessible chests here! And there's three of them too! Let's see what they contain. The left one...  The right one...  And finally, the middle one...  So, uh, I guess we got three tissues? But what are they for?  I mean, here they are, right in our inventory (I've highlighted one) and it seems they can be sold for the whole 1G? Hmmm. We'll see. Incidentally, in the PC Engine version, there was only one chest and therefore only one tissue to be found:  All right, well, if we go back to the furniture shop...  ...there is this staircase leading down next to it. As we get down...   Down here, we have a bar but I'm not going to drink anything as having too much affects you with the "lost" status effect, which is annoying!  Also here is an information desk with a person in a bunny suit. Interesting. Also, you can just see a couple of chests in that storage room, but, well... you know.  As mentioned, over here really is the casino with slot machines and a roulette table. We can talk to the roulette guy. Surprisingly, being able to gamble in a casino is NOT one of this game's mechanics! Or, perhaps not so surprising when you consider that Japan has pretty strict gambling laws and casinos are not generally legal. So I suppose maybe they just didn't want to put it in the game. Also the waitress here: And well, for now that's all we can do down here. We'll head back up, trying not to get too annoyed about that chest in the locked room there. I didn't mention that this is not simply a matter of finding a "key". You need for each room to find a SPECIFIC key that opens only that room!  We'll go by the bank and take this staircase up...  This leads to the VIP Rooms. But there is a few people here and we can just go into the rooms to talk to them!  Like so. If there's one thing that you learn quickly in this game, it's that nothing is random and even for the most mundane things, there will be some in-universe justification why they are the way they are. Lots of attention to detail that you don't often see.  Most of the rooms are empty, but on the other end, there is another person. He's talking about the ticket for using the Bird Line instead of walking through that tunnel that we've used many times. Considering that you can actually see the enemies on the map, I don't think it's that bad, but... We'll take that staircase right outside the room...  This brings us to another floor with rooms, with a couple more people to talk to.  Like this lady here. Ah, right, it's been a while since we visited Eterna... Perhaps it might be an idea to go there soon again, especially now that Linda is with us? Further down the hall is the actual reception desk of the hotel...  That santa there just collects donations for the refugees, so we'll again go up the stairs.  Here, there is a person on the rooftop! Basically telling us that running consumes HP only on the overworld map and dungeons, but not inside towns or tunnels. If we go back down, there are some more rooms here...   In this one, there's a boy we can talk to. Maybe this is something we should try visiting? Anyway, let's make our way back all the way out.  We are now at the top of that escalator we saw at the beginning. As always, we'll talk to the person.  Ah, here is the emitter. So let's head in through the glass door.  This brings us into the actual airport part of this whole complex. First let's read the sign on the wall! Milky Way, the last paradise! The nature is waiting for you! --Neo-Kenya Travel Just an outdated advertisement, it seems.  Additionally, there are people here. First the lady at the desk. And then the other person, sitting at the computers.  Here by the transporter pad, there is a technician.  Let's use the transporter.  As mentioned, it takes us up to the orbital satellite Ozsat. Of course, we're here mostly to talk to people at this point. For example the person sitting at the desk.  Over here there are two more people. First, the woman sitting at the computer: You don't say. Well, that's definitely going to be worth looking into once we have some time to actually explore this planet in detail. The technician: Going back to the person sitting at the desk, we'll take the staircase that was there.  This leads us to a whole other area on the satellite. I'm pretty sure those beds have restraints simply because of low gravity, though.  We can talk to this lady here. Well, tehcnically we didn't, but...  And another person over here. No idea who that message is from, but yes, as time passes we can hear different messages for Ken and Linda here. So we might visit from time to time. If we pass through that door on the "north" wall, we go into a hallway...   ...which ultimately leads to another person! And in the observation area...  We're done here for now, so we'll head back to the transporter pad...   ...and return back to the planet surface!  We take this staircase down...  ...which brings us to another kind of "waiting" area at the airport. Let's have a chat with this lady. And the other guy. And finally the woman sitting at the desk behind... We can't actually see him on the screenshot, but if we move a little bit...  There he is. I can see why he may look intimidating. Well, that was not particularly englightening... But in any case, we continue by taking that staircase down.  And that takes us to this area, where we can talk to the lady at the information desk...  Next to her, there is some kind of thing. If we read the sign... ☆Neo-Kenya: One Hundred Years of Progress☆ An introduction to Neo-Kenya, from its discovery to the present day, in an easy-to-understand format! One hundred years of progress is all it's going to get too, so this is a bit ironic. Unfortunately, we can't look at the exhibit more closely, which is a shame, as that would have been interesting. No matter, we'll discover all of this planet's secrets ourselves soon enough. But not exactly in this scenario, though.  This guy is sitting at the bar... Yeah, so I'm not going to be buying anything to drink anyway. You can restore HP by buying a drink, but why do that when a camp will do it for free? Anyway, this was all a relaxing walk/sightseeing, but now is the time to get back to work again. So, let's head outside!  We'll need to do soon a bit more hunting, and Linda is still only at level 3! So we need to take care of that a little bit. For that purpose we'll head through the west-east tunnel and then due south east in order to make our way to Marblepolis.   Inside, I figure we might as well make camp for the night, in order to restore everybody HP and so on.  So I set everybody to "sleep" and set up camp. But there is a bit of a difference this time: when Ken and Linda are together, when you make camp, they will often have a short conversation. Such is the case today, too. And so, next morning...  ...if we check our inventory, we find out that one of our three tissues apparently got used overnight. It used to be right there where there is now an empty spot. Well anyway, we have a thing we came here to do, and that is to level up Linda. This can be done pretty quickly by fighting earthworms, since they usually come in large groups and give a pretty good chunk of EXP. So Linda will pretty much be gaining a level after each battle for a while!  It goes pretty much as expected, but if you want to see it all in action, I have put a video below which shows a bit of dungeon traversal and a battle with a bunch of earthworms. To explain a bit. Everyone's attacks go in order of their speed, including our two dogs, so nothing unusual there. Near the end of the battle, one of our dogs runs away (as I already explained before that it can happen here). After the battle is done, Ken goes up to level 21 and Linda to level 10. You can also see that after the battle Ken is flashing orange--this indicates some kind of adverse condition. You can go into the "party condition" menu option to see, but there I find out that the only problem is that Linda is very low on HP, which I solve by giving her one of those tablets. Anyway, level 10 is enough for now, so we head out, but unfortunately there is one unavoidable battle in a narrow passage, so Linda gains another level there. And so, here is where we are after all this:  That should be ok for the time being, I think. The closest town is Hospico, so let's head there for a bit.  First of all, we go to the animal trader...  Because, as it turns out between this and previous visit to Marblepolis, we have collected quite a quantity of earthworms:  Yes. That's 47 males and 35 females, no joke. So I sell all of that, which results in a pretty nice sum of money.  That says 48,107 G, yes. So we should be set financially for a good while for sure. Another thing I do here is buy a rescue beacon from the Bird Line shop. As mentioned, it allows us to be picked up from anywhere in the world. So we might use it to save time at some point, or something. When we are already here, let's just check in quickly with Sachiko...  Today, she is here at the nurses station.  Ugh, she keeps saying these odd things and I'm never sure if I should take her seriously or not! And, well at this point, as I'm walking around the map, the game decides that it's time for Summer of 1992 to begin!  There is exactly seven years left and also seven species to still collect. I hope everyone enjoyed taking a bit of a break, but in our next episode it's time to do some hunting and to pick up the plot again!  Today we have another typically silly one from the PC Engine times: ...and also a sketch which looks like an advertisement for the game or something: ("Coming Soon!") ivantod fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Nov 9, 2022 |
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Nov 15, 2021 23:32
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The concept art continues to be great, though Ken never seems to catch a break. This incredibly normal RPG is remains very unique, and I'm loving it.
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Nov 16, 2021 00:34
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Man the wedding industry was a scam even in the 90s.
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Nov 16, 2021 05:43
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That wedding industry joke is genuinely pretty great.
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Nov 16, 2021 15:27
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Odd Wilson posted:The concept art continues to be great, though Ken never seems to catch a break. If you like the illustrations, then you might want to check out the two "Cannabis Works" books by this game's illustrator/character designer/cutscene director Tatsuyuki Tanaka. They have lots of other works besides those related to this particular game:  
ivantod fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Nov 16, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 20:15
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Interesting name for those books.
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Nov 16, 2021 20:33
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"It just works, people!"
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Nov 16, 2021 21:06
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ivantod posted:If you like the illustrations, then you might want to check out the two "Cannabis Works" books by this game's illustrator/character designer/cutscene director Tatsuyuki Tanaka. They have lots of other works besides those related to this particular game: Oh, neat! I'll definitely check it out sometime then. That is an... interesting name, though it's about what I expect at this point. 
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Nov 16, 2021 21:38
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Wait, he's one of the key animators for Akira - no wonder I kept thinking the style looks familiar.
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Nov 17, 2021 00:55
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Robindaybird posted:Wait, he's one of the key animators for Akira - no wonder I kept thinking the style looks familiar. Yep, that's him! He worked on Akira and also a whole bunch of other well known animes from that time period like "Nadia: Secret of the Blue Water" and others. For Linda Cube he basically did also all the cutscene storyboards/direction and character design and other stuff.
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Nov 17, 2021 01:55
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If you get all the animals required for a scenario can you just gently caress off and get on the ark or do you HAVE to wait until the time limit is coming to an end/the plot says you can?
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Nov 24, 2021 21:02
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SloppyDoughnuts posted:If you get all the animals required for a scenario can you just gently caress off and get on the ark or do you HAVE to wait until the time limit is coming to an end/the plot says you can? Well, this scenario has already made it so you can't leave until you do the plot by locking away the controls to actually fly away with the ark until you do so...
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Nov 24, 2021 21:27
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SloppyDoughnuts posted:If you get all the animals required for a scenario can you just gently caress off and get on the ark or do you HAVE to wait until the time limit is coming to an end/the plot says you can? You cannot leave until the plot says so. Remember how we went to the ark control room and Linda started convulsing in pain because Nek set some kind of thing up there. We can only leave after that situation is cleared up via the plot progression. At that point, we're mostly free to finish capturing the remaining species and take off with the ark at our own leisure, but not before. But no worries, as I mentioned, over the course of the game we aren't always going to be so tightly restrained by the plot.
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Nov 24, 2021 22:41
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Right, right. I forgot about that part.
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Nov 25, 2021 00:11
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 Previously, Ken and Lind had a bit of a wander around Ozport, where the main airport was related. Today we'll definitely continue a bit with the hunting, since that's been somewhat neglected for a little while. Also, it's time to start picking up the plot threads once again! To start with, since Nek keeps appearing in a Santa suit, it might be interesting to head over to Eterna with Linda and have a chat with Elizabeth about that.  This is actually an entirely optional scene, and it's pretty easy to miss, too! Namely, you will recall that we've been told that we're free to visit here whenever we want, but that she may be busy and not be able to meet us. So I ended up having to try going back and forth a few times, until finally she was available for a chat!  As always, we want to go through all three of these, so let's start with the first. A joke here, but not one easy to translate into English. The point is that she is spelling it out from katakana into latin letters, but also the fact that "neko" means "cat" in Japanese. Whether she's just pretending to not get it, or if something else is afoot, we'll have to figure out later. Let's move on to the next one. Ah, yes, that old story about how Elizabeth has managed to retain her looks even at an advanced age.   And, as always, Panheim crawls out from under the table! Ken receives from Dr. Panhein medication "Binbin A". This guy... keeps giving us different pills every time we visit! If you're wondering about the name "Binbin", it's one of those typical Japanese "onomatopeic" adjectives, this one describes something kind of strong or loud, like music or a headache. It is, also, a slang for "erection". Considering also, that the effect of using this item in battle is a random increase of all stats (same as the previous one we got), I think it's safe to say that he's trying to peddle variations on the Viagra pills if you ask me. In any case, we're ready to go.  Heading out, I think it's time to capture a few more species, don't you?  Over here in that big lake just south of Eterna, which is now not frozen because it's Summer, we can find...  ...a bunch of hippos! This is one of the designs which haven't changed a huge amount since the PC Engine version:  Incidentally, while wading through the lake, Ken receives a message notification. We'll sort that out in a moment, but first more hunting.  Here's another species which we can find in the lake...   This one is a bit more obvious (although I still think it looks awesome!). Of course, we have here a pair of turtles! Nothing too unusual ability-wise, but definitely very high HP, so just need to be a bit careful there. In fact, we're probably a bit underleveled for these guys, especially Linda! There is actually here one other species which we can find during the summer...  These are tree frogs. But as you can see on the screenshot, they are all males. In fact, in this general area of the northern lake, it's basically impossible to find any females. Both males and females appear in another location, so whenever it happens that we run into both sexes, we'll talk more about them. For now they are not of any use to us, as in order to hand them in at the ark, we have to have at least one male and one female. In any case, we'll do some more hunting later today, but right now let's head back up to Eterna and listen to the new message!  The message is actually from a person we haven't had a chance to meet yet! Here it is: Hmmm, the plot thickens. What does he want now? Only one way to find out: we'll take the Bird Line to Paraside and talk to him. Paraside, as you might remember, is that half finished junk town. Notable things you can find there is the guy who "disassembles" animals, and also hunters for hire.  Here we are. Before we go and find Hume, we'll do the usual "tour of the town", which for Paraside we haven't had a chance to do yet! To begin with, let's talk to this guy standing in front of the hotel. We have in fact already talked to this guy last time we came here! Let's head into the hotel.  Well, ok, but we probably won't be staying either. Next is the gentleman on the sofa. This story about a phantom beast in a blizzard was definitely mentioned to us before... but, we have barely scratched the surface of this game, so we'll just have to be patient until we have a chance to get to the bottom of this. In the end I decide to stay over just to fully refresh our HP and everything else. So here's where we're at right now:  As you can see, Linda is catching up pretty nicely. This is good as we'll be catching some relatively tougher animals later today.  For now, though, let's head to the butcher shop which is right next to the hotel.  So there will be some tutorial messages still here too. We mostly already know this stuff so I'll skip some of the less interesting ones. Now let's talk to the other guy here in the shop.  Our next stop is the dog shop, which for some reason in this town has both a MAN and a DOG sign outside! We'll find out in a second why that is.  Starting with the person on the right... Ok, that's pretty funny. the "human" doctor is simply indicated with the "MAN" sign. The other person here simply reminds us to bring here an injured dog so it can be fixed.  On the other side of the building, by the dog pen, there are two more people. First the woman standing by the sink... If dog is knocked out in battle (0 HP) then you have to bring them here to be healed, but usually at very low HP they will on their own run away and leave the battle. They will, however, be available again for the next one, so this is not a big issue. We have anyway already experienced that when fighting earthworms. There are some animals where you have to be a bit more careful about your dogs, but we'll see more on that topic next time! The ranger standing there by the wall:  Outside of MAN/DOG shop, there's this person...  We continue our tour of the town with this person... Well, we've heard this before about Hume. But who is this Gomez person now? Spoiler: we'll find out in just a few moments!  Back over here, there are also a couple of people sitting on pipes by the fire. This seems kind of inconsequential, but actually remember this comment for later (not today though)! The other guy:  Ok, enough of that, let's finally head inside, into the famous "Junk Palace", which is apparently built like a maze inside!  The first thing we find is an animal trader. Yeah, this Gomez seems to be some kind of a celebrity around these parts... The ranger standing there gives us another, pretty literal bit of tutorial: Again, this is something we already know, the different "elemental" resistances shown on the screen where you equip the weapons and clothes.  Now let's talk to this lady here. Does it have something to do with that performance enhancing drug that all hunters seem to be talking about as "good old days"?  And finally one last person in the immediate area. I still love it how this game always makes sure to give "in-world" explanations for its technical limitations, such as the fact that all animals of the same species use the exact same sprites, but might have a varying level which drives their HP, attack and defence! Next we'll head up those stairs.  Here we have like a bar area. First let's talk to the guest sitting at the table. The waitress:  After going past the bar, we'll take this staircase up to the third floor.  First, let's quickly chat with this person sitting on the bed... Turns out, Linda's parents are divorced! Anyway, heading into the big room...  ...this is actually where all the hunters for hire are hanging about! We'll talk to all of them in order, starting with the one standing next to the staircase! So I decide to pay this guy 2000 G and see what we can get out of it. We're told to come back in winter to find out the result of his hunt! Luckily, it's now summer, so winter is not too far away. Let's try to remember to stop by here at some point! Next, let's talk to the guy standing by the table. I hand over another 2000 G to this guy, and am told again to come back in winter. Let's see what he comes up with. Next is the person leaning against the wall... This is actually kind of interesting, as escaping from a battle is not so easy in this game, since Ken has to first let Linda go and only then can he go himself! Of course, when he's on his own, then he can just escape directly. Again I hand over another 2000 G to this guy too like the previous. Finally the last one, standing by the counter. This guy turns out to be a bit more expensive, so I hand over 5000 G. Let's see if it's going to be worth it.  With our hunters hired, let's now talk to the person standing in the centre of the room.  You have a portrait. Sure. Unfortunately, this guy is quite expensive, so I decide not to hire him at this time. We'll exit this room through the southern door, which brings us over to this staircase:  The person on the bed there on the right is actually Hume, Linda's father. We'll be back here shortly, don't worry!  Down the stairs, there are a few more people to talk to, and also what seems to be a "mini-church" with that mysterious Beastian symbol.  First in this room, there are two people. The first person gives us a bit of (obvious) tutorial... Obviously, monsters with "elemental" affinity result in elemental weapons, but that's more situational really. Also, you have so many other tools at your disposal (including elemental abilities), that I'm not sure how useful this really is. Anyway, the guy sitting on the bed has more interesting things to say...  In the room down here, there's another person. Indeed, keeping watch is one of the things you can do during a camp, in addition to things like sleep, process meat and so on. Why this matters, we'll find out over the course of the game.  And one last person here, before we go and talk to Hume... I guess what he means that those separate numbers 1-7 are the ones which drive your resistance to elemental attacks. But, of course those are still not absolute numbers, and they do depend on the difference in levels between you and the enemy. It just means that you can have physical defence as high as you want, if your elemental resistance is low, then it's not going to help. So basically what is called magic defence in some other games here is split into several different stats, one for each type of "element".  Actually, I forgot this counter here, which is the hotel reception. We mostly figured this one out on our own. And now for real, let's go and talk to Hume.  As mentioned, he's the somewhat large guy lying on bed in this room here.  And one last bit before we leave...  Well, that was kind of funny, but it also explains how Linda managed to escape from Nek and get to Ken's house. We'll catch up with him soon enough, but for now there are a couple more things to do around Paraside. (By the way, I just love that name "Paraside". It just fits with the overall vibe of the game.) First of all, if we take that staircase next to Hume, we get to this room:  Here we find one of those Beastian priests/shamans, or whatever they are... Presumably this is the crazy hacker elder that was mentioned before, who broke into Federation's databases?  That was quite weird. But we need more information before we can figure out what he's talking about. Now we'll make our way all the way back down to the first floor.  There we are faced with this individual. And he let's us through! Well, I was never going to pay him 100 G, especially since you can get to that spot also from the other side of the building, but I thought it was just a random funny bit, in a game which, admittedly, has a fair few of those!  Anyway, here are the equipment shops, but all they have to offer are some fairly low-level tutorial comments, so we'll just walk past them.  I do want to stop by the bank before we move on, though. I don't forget to withdraw the money, especially since Ken again got another salary in the meantime.  I think I might have forgotten to mention this, but if you keep your money in the bank, it does in fact earn interest as you can see above (it's the 42 G payment). It's pretty small, only 3%, so it's not going to help you a whole lot, though. It is, like everything else in this game, paid once every season. All right, now we can leave the Junk Palace. As we exit...  Well, it was explained before that Linda is a child from a marriage of a human man and a Beastian woman, and she certainly seems to have taken her looks from her mothers side, so this is not too surprising. Now, we have one last place to visit here... the animal disassembler!   So, today, we'll disassemble some of our extra hippos. By disassembling a male hippo, we get the following items: - some carrion (we'll need this soon!) From a couple of female hippos, we get the following: - ill fitting shoes - torn clothes But you might be wondering what even are these last two items? As the names might suggest, they are in fact pieces of equipment that you can wear. So if we try, for example, to equip the "ill fitting shoes" on Ken:  We find out that they give even lower stats than his starting "squirrel slippers". So, in the end, these are just useless items honestly (I guess they are supposed to be the remains of someone who was eaten by an animal), but there's a bit more here. All equipment/weapons in this game is strictly tied to a particular species of animal, right? They all have names like "<species_name> <equipment_name>". But these don't have such a name. So, what gives? Well, you can poke around the save file a bit and hack things in a bit, in order to find out how this was actually implemented in the game! Here, we'll continue with the update, but if you want to read a short bit about the technical side of how these items are implemented in the game, check out the "Extras" section at the end! But for now, let's exit the shop...  There is a guy here, but he just collects donations. There IS in fact some consequence to donating the money, but again this is one of those things that we don't need to concern ourselves with just now.  In the mean time, on the back wall there are various graffiti and stuff. Like here: ｜の の ゛ ｜ も ｜ へ ／ Is that supposed to be a drawing of a cat? I'm not sure.  To those who know Masaki Ooki from from Amagasaki, Hyougo prefecture: I will be going to Kagoshima. Are you doing well, Masaki? Well, these are all places in Japan, but of course there's no Japan in this game, since there's no Earth. I'm sure this is some kind of in-joke, but not sure what about. I looked through the credits and didn't see this name there. So your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, more graffiti:  To you who is urinating right now at this wall here: don't forget that you're holding the future of humanity in your hands. Also, warning: this game contains strong language (joking, but check out the left side of the wall!).  There's a Santa behind you! Ok, that's the last (and the creepiest) one! After having done this, we do have time to do a bit more hunting, which will also allow me to demonstrate another game mechanic at the same time. I think this species is worth catching because it's one of the more ridiculous animal designs! But anyway, in order to catch it, we do need to descend into an underground dungeon. We could of course take the Bird Line to the nearest town and then walk over there. But if you have lots of money, why walk? You might remember that the Bird Line also offers another service, which allows you to be dropped off (and picked up) anywhere on the map, within the current area! The location I want is actually in the West Area, so we first need to travel to a town there. So let's pick Battle Park, it's as good as any.  Once there, if we go to the Bird Line counter, and select the Shoot Service...  ...we are literally presented with the map, where we can freely chose which coordinate we wish to be dropped off at! We'll be going to C-12, which I've already highlighted. As you can see, you can only select a coordinate within the current area, hence the need to first travel to Battle Park, since Paraside is in the East area.  And just like that, we're dropped off at that exact spot!  You might already notice the cave entrance on the mountainside in the top left corner, and in fact that's where we're headed! Let's have a brief look at another dungeon and increase our species count by 1 at the same time!  This place is called Urma and, as before, we are not going to explore too deeply at this particular time, we are mostly here to catch a few animals of a cool loking species!  Walking through the cave, we soon run into some creatures... maybe you already have an idea what species this is?  Up close, we can easily(?) tell that this is simply a pair of tigers. I mean what else could they be, they have the orange and black stripes, right? But seriously, please don't ask me to try and explain what in the world is going on with their anatomy! But I have to say, this is probably my favourite design of all the species we've seen so far! So these guys are kind of tough, they have strong attack and defence and also their HP is nothing to sneeze at (high defence unfortunately also means that our dogs won't be doing much damage to them)--although strangely they don't have otherwise much in the way of abilities, they mostly rely on brute strength. So you do need to be careful. Luckily they only appear in small groups of 1-3 animals typically, which makes them perfect candidates to use Linda's "Cobra Twist" skill. Basically she will hold one enemy in a "wrestling chokehold" so that they are unable to act. Obviously, Linda is also unable to act during this time, but it does leave Ken able to deal with other 1-2 enemies in the meantime, while our party takes overall less damage than it otherwise would. This is especially useful right now, when Linda is at a lower level and can't deal as much damage, nor does she have a "all-hit" weapon. I haven't found a definitive info, but basically the chokehold status lasts all the way until the enemy is defeated. Of course, Ken will also be mostly transforming into a dolphin, for a huge increase in damage--with these guys you really do need as much power as you can get. Because I forgot to mention that tigers can also heal and buff themselves. Also they can and do dodge our attacks, too. Yeah. You might notice also the high price they sell for--this is because of the protected animal designation, therefore the normal animal dealers won't buy them. We'll have to see if we find someone who will. Incidentally, here's what the tigers used to look like in the PC Engine version:  You will probably agree with me that this definitely one of the cases where better resolution and colour depth of the PlayStation console has resulted in a much improved look!  Anyway, as we walk through the cave, we go past a staricase in order to open a chest (or in this case a crate!). Ken found Champions Belt! This is another of those battle arena items that can be sold to that guy in Battle Park who never seems to actually be there. I have been checking, believe me, but so far no luck! After this we can head down the stairs.  Another staircase up...  And another crate... but this one unfortunately contains no items, only tigers. Like in older Final Fantasy games, it just triggers a battle. But unlike those games, enemies in this one drop neither items nor money when defeated, you only earn EXP.  And, as always, as we are wandering around this cave, Ken gets a message notification! It's time to exit this dungeon!  Before we exit, I thought I should show you this... Like on the overworld, our navigation device works in dungeons too--it actually shows us the map of the current floor/area of the dungeon we're in! That's pretty wild, actually. Ok, now let's exit.  Here I activate that rescue beacon I bought last time...  ...get picked up by a bird...  ...and finally we get dropped of directly in Battle Park, where we started from! That's pretty convenient, I have to say! Before we finish our journey for today, let's just listen to that message!  The message is from Nek! So, there's our next plot pointer! Before we finish, here is where our characters are right now:  As you can see, Linda has completely caught up in levels and also while she was leveling up in that cave she also learned the ability to tame wolves and also dolphins, which means that both of those species can now become members of our party in those two extra slots! That's about it for today, and if you're interested, please keep reading to get some more info about those weird useless weapons and equipment we found earlier.  So, here's a bit more detail about those items. I mentioned that in general all weapons and clothes are tied to a particular animal species, so the question was which exact species do these items belong to. Turns out, none that you can actually catch in the game, but by some clever hacking of a save file, we can find out that there is actually a partially implemented "human" species in the game:  On the screenshot above, we see in Ken's TransCargo backpack 7 human males and 4 females!  You can even bring to the animal trader, and try to sell them--but they sell for exactly 0 G!  Like any species, they can also be transformed into meat. It costs 0 G to do so.  And, finally, like any other species they can also be transformed into weapons. In this case the weapon you get is called "Bone Remains".  Also, they can be transformed into equipment too--these are the items we've already seen earlier: "Torn Clothes", "Tattered Cap" and "Ill-fitting Shoes". As you can see, both the weapons and clothes have terrible stats. So this is kind of interesting, because there's definitely no capturing humans, processing them into meat or anything like that in the game itself (neither in the remake nor in the PC Engine original), so it's not clear why this is all even implemented, unless they had to do it to be able to have those equipment items in the game in the first place--it may not have been possible to have a "just a weapon" without it needing to be tied to a particular species. But in any case, there it is. The first illustration for today is actually the same one that we already saw last time in PC Engine version--but the illustrator actually did another version in the PlayStation era: And then we also have some concept art of Hume: ivantod fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Dec 5, 2021 |
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Nov 26, 2021 00:04
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ivantod posted:In the mean time, on the back wall there are various graffiti and stuff. Like here: So, weirdly, I know what this is somehow. It's Henohenomoheji. From what I understand, it's kinda just a goofy face. I don't know if it's got any long history like "Kilroy was here", but there it is.
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Nov 26, 2021 00:43
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Having to hunt humans would definitely make this game go in a way darker direction than it has so far. I have to wonder if it was ever properly planned, maybe for a Nek route where Ken just breaks down hard and decides to follow his insane brother or something.
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Nov 26, 2021 00:57
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Odd Wilson posted:So, weirdly, I know what this is somehow. It's Henohenomoheji. From what I understand, it's kinda just a goofy face. I don't know if it's got any long history like "Kilroy was here", but there it is. Huh, I had no idea, that's pretty intesting, thanks! I guess they had to simplify it a bit in the game since there is only three rows of text available in the text box.
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Nov 26, 2021 01:09
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The designs are growing on me, I immediately guessed tiger on the tiger.
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Nov 26, 2021 01:33
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Does the japanese make it clear if his name is Hoo May or Hyoom?
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Nov 26, 2021 18:22
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SloppyDoughnuts posted:Does the japanese make it clear if his name is Hoo May or Hyoom? If you mean how it's spelled in Japanese, then it's: ヒューム (Hyuu-mu).
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Nov 26, 2021 23:04
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How nice of Nek to point us to the next plot beat!
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Nov 27, 2021 10:45
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PC engine: Tiger-beetle. Playstation: Tiger-Spider.
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Nov 27, 2021 11:16
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So is Elizabeth's last name actually Bathory...?
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Nov 29, 2021 17:03
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Last time, Ken and Linda explored Paraside for a bit and then checked in with her fathere, Hume, who seems not to be doing too well, especially as he's still quite hung up on his ex-wife, Linda's mother. After that, some tigers were caught for our collection, and then Ken got a message from Nek to meet him in Koshikata, for a little "game" in Koshikata, as he put it. After tiger hunting, we used the Bird Line pickup and so were returned exactly at the place we started from, which is Battle Park.  And so, here we are. Nothing else to do, but head over to Koshikata, and luckily, Battle Park is actually the closest town to it (yes, I planned this!).  As before, to reach Koshikata, we'll simply take the western tunnel out of Battle Park.  You might remember that there is a "Rent-A-Animal" office at the other end of the tunnel. But this person here has something intersting to say! In fact, I do have some rotten meat which I got last time from disassembling hippos, but I'm definitely not throwing it away since I actually want to attract hyenas so I could capture them. Hyenas do indeed only appear when you carry rotten meat on you, so it seems that the ones from Neo-Kenya are also the scavenger kind of sort. Before we head out, just one thing. Someone commented previously how on the menu screen the characters are making a pose:  Actually, if you press R1 or L1 button on the controller, you can change the display so you can get a look at the portraits in their full glory, like so:  So that's pretty cool (in a game full of fun/cool little touches literally everywhere!). Oh, in case you are wondering why I suddenly have more money than last time, it's because the dude in Battle Park finally decided to show up and buy my Champions Belt for 10,000G! Anyway, let's head out and capture a few hyenas while we walk to Koshikata.  If you have carrion with you, they will even come to you, no need to chase!  Hilarious. They usually show up in very large groups, so it's not uncommon to encounter 10 or more of them in one battle. If you look carefully at the bottom right battlefield display on the screenshot above, you can see that I have indeed encountered 10 of them here. They can be a little bit of a problem to capture, actually, but not because they are particularly strong--if anything, it's the opposite. They are quite weak, and it can be a bit difficult to not "overkill" them at the level that we are. In addition, as soon as one of them suffers a lot of damage, most of the others will immediately run away. Hence the fact that they come in groups 10+ doesn't actually matter because after 1-2 turns most of them will run away anyway. Therefore I employ the following tactic: transform Ken into a rat (which lowers his attack, but greatly increases speed) and then use one of the elmental abilities that hyenas are not weak to (e.g. gale cutter). In this way, you should be able to lower your damage enough to the point that you can actually capture them--it may still take a couple of tries to do this without them running away, but it's not too bad. Note also that I have temporarily removed dogs from the party, because they definitely do too much damage at this point and I can't really control it. Anyway, with this done, we can proceed to Koshikata, the abandoned Beastian town (whose mayor it seems, was Ken and Nek's actual father).  Here we are. I should probably mention that "koshikata" in Japanese means "past", both in the sense of time and also in the sense of a place that you went past. Let's head in--by the way, you might want to remember to put the dogs back in your active party at this point.  The place certainly looks abandoned. But our gaze is drawn to the left...  ...where we have one of those elaborate Beastian churches...  ...on top of whose bell tower, there seems to be a Santa, waiting for us. Well, let's head inside and find him, since that's clearly Nek.  There are some wolves roaming around, but they don't attack us, so that's good.  So we'll start going up to the bell tower.  Man, what IS it with this game and chests?  Anyway, we're heading up.  And up, while desperately trying to not pay attention to that chest there...   And after a few more steps, finally we reach the place where Nek is standing:   His "friends"? He can't possibly be talking about... wolves? He goes away.  Yes, Linda, but now we need to go! We go back the way we came, but by the time we're down from the bell tower, the three bells have rung, and...  ...wolves are no longer docile.  But that's totally ok! It gives us a chance to collect another species on our way to 30! There's honestly not that much to say here. They are pretty easy at the level we are, and I really haven't been doing any grinding--it's really not ever necessary or even really useful in this game, as we already know. The wolves can buff themselves and all that, but still they don't pose a huge threat. One last interesting thing to note is that, not unexpectedly, they have mostly the same abilities as dogs.  Getting to the ground floor, probably the easiest way is to go around the back   ...and finally take a side exit!  We make our way to the main entrance... only to be confronted by Nek, again.  Linda sounds quite listless here... She moves over to Nek's side.  He and Linda exit the stage...  ...and Ken quickly finds himself surrounded by dogs! However shall we get out of this one? No problem, because help appears just in the nick of time:   Well, ok. Let's stop for a second and see where we are. Clearly we've lost Linda again, but we do now have Hume in our party:  Or like this, if you want to take a look at the picture properly:  So he has fixed stats that you see there, doesn't level up, and you can't change his equipment either, and also he has no BP and therefore no special abilities that he can use--therefore, brute force attacks are his thing. Luckily he's pretty much at the level where we need him to be and also has relatively higher HP for his level (but he's a pretty large fellow so that's not unexpected anyway). So we should be able to make do temporarily, until we recover Linda, at least. All right, well, there's nothing really to be done here any more, so let's at least make our way back to Battle Park and regroup there.  On the way back, Ken gets a message notification! We'll check that shortly.  Let's hear the message. It's from Ben!  All right, let's head back to Hardia, it has been a while! As usual we'll take the mountain tunnel southeast of Battle park...  ...which drops us off just a bit north of Hardia and the ark. So, let's visit Ken's mum first!  Nek is pretty crazy, huh? But also, on this topic check out at the end the concept art section! I don't feel we were particulary reassuring there... but nonethless, time is of the essence so we head to the Ranger HQ next to talk to Ben.  Commander gives Ken a radio-receiver.   You know what, let's just go. But we get stopped.  You know what, let's just go. But we get stopped.  You know what, let's just go. Not having any other ideas right now, we'll just head out and see what the receiver will tell us.  In order to use the receiver...  ...we just go to the item menu and use it as any other normal item. It shows us the world map like this:  The position of Linda (and Nek) is indicated by a small circle. Curiously, as you can see, currently the circle is pointing at the ark itself! So I guess let's go there and see?  Oh, there they are! I mean, if they're twins, that makes sense sort of.  Nek and Linda go inside.   Uh, now what? Well, I know that we should be chasing Nek down, buuuuuuuuuuuut... there's also another place we could pay a quick visit to.  Obviously we're going to go and see Elizabeth again. The following scene is, like last time, entirely optional. Also like last time, it might take a few tries until she actually decides to see you. Anyway, here we go, hold on to your hats!  It really hasn't been that long, actually. But ok. I'm pretty sure she's just playing dumb. Let's see what happens now! And the last thing...  Uh, ok, I guess let's leave. Like I said, now that we've done this, let's head all the way outside and check our receiver:  So, it looks like Nek and Linda are now in Ozport. Is he using the ark to make a tour of this planet, or what is going on here? Well, anyway, let's head to Ozport--I mean it makes sense, there's a wedding shop there.  First, let's check out the park again.  This lady has something new to say... Ah, we better check the tree, then!  Ken examined the bark of the Red Thread Cedar tree. Inside a 🎔, he found Nek and Linda's name written together. [ Put Ken's name back. ] / Leave as is. Ken erased Nek's name and put back his own! Ok, now that we've fixed that, let's check out the situation at the wedding shop.  As we enter, we are immediately approached by someone. Ugh. Now he's just trolling us. Well, anyway, I know we're in a kind of a rush, but still, there's a couple of new people here that are worth talking to!  Like this older gentleman here. This statement sounds entirely inconsequential, however I would suggest remembering it for the future!  Also, this guy down in the casino/night club area. Uh, wow. I hope not. But in any case, it seems that Linda and Nek are no longer here, so let's go outside and check our receiver again.   Hmmm... The little circle now indicates around coordinates S-09, but this is right in the middle of a mountain range. Also, the location is not known on our places list on the right hand side of the display either. What could it possibly be? Let's head over there to check.  Getting there, there does seem to be something there in the mountains, but more importantly, a cave entrance which we can assume leads to it! Let's head into the cave, then.  This particular location is called Nebul Road.  It features enemies like crabs and squids, which we do not care about at all at this point. If we take the northern route, we get to this staircase.  It only leads to another staircase up.  This one leads to a tent.   Hm, ok. if we take two floors up from here...   ...we ultimately arrive this wall here. And also one floor up...  ...is this weird structure. But, as the man said, there seems to be no way in, or anything else that can be done. So, we have no option but to return to where we came from.  This time, we'll take the southern route, and then immdeiately go down a staircase.   Proceeding eastwards, we run into something chilling in a pool of water. It is not a species we've seen before, so let's check it out.  Ah, but of course. It's just some "entrails". Er... so, uh yeah. Well, anyway. They are actually pretty weak, so the same strategy applies like with hyenas: remove dogs from your party and reduce your attack as much as possible, and you'll manage to capture a few! Also, Hume should not attack the females, since they are even weaker than males. Oh, and I know what you're thinking. How crazy must these have looked in the PC Engine version, right? Turns out, they looked exactly the same:  Well, anyway.  After finishing that, we take another staircase down.  Then we head back west, passing by a crate which contains "entrail clothes". That's certainly an item you can equip (but we won't as it's slightly worse than what we currently use)!  We'll take a turn south to a staircase leading up.  We head again east from there...  And again up, at the end of the hallway.  From there we go through a doorway, which this time is open. This takes us into the "secret town" of Nebul! Before we leave, I should mention that there is actually one other species you can find in the caves, namely the crocodile, but I guess we didn't come across them this time!   There seems to be a system of bridges over that muck (whatever that is), but first, we'll talk to the person here. Also, yes, the auction house is another game mechanic. Some species of animals can also be obtained that way, and we will visit over the course of the game.  One of the tents is empty, but in the other...  We should add this to our "later" list. Also, "dai" literally means "big" in Japanese.  Leaving the tent, we head across the bridge to where there appear to be some structures submerged in this muck.  Most structures actually seem to have an entrance on the roof! What a weird setup.  First, we talk to this guy here. Back south across the small bridge, we'll take the stairs down into the hotel.  Here, as always, we can disturb the guests:   Walking past the reception, we take the stairs down...  Here we can talk to this guy... If we climb back out of the hotel and cross the bridge to the left...  ...there is a woman on the bench here. So, finally here we are. I guess we've found a place where it's possible to trade in some forbidden goods!  Taking the bridge south from there, we can enter the bar.  First, we can talk to the waitress... And then the gentleman sitting at the table. Don't forget that the general population is not aware of the human "life-force" issue, so they don't know that this planet is an experiment of sorts!  Leaving the bar, we'll now take the staircase next to the bench lady.  We reach an area where all the equipment, meat, etc. shops are. We'll start by talking to the woman standing by the sinks. Well, I'm not entirely sure about the "unrelated" part, but we'll see.  We continue our tour by talking to the gentleman in blue here. The animal trader next to him:  We can also talk to this person in white shirt, who's made his way to us in the meantime.  Here is the animal disassembler:  Our next stop is the equipment shop. Ok, I guess we will do that. In the mean time, I buy two crocodile caps, for a bit of extra defence. One is equipped immediately on Ken:  It gives a very slight defence increase.  Next is the bank: Rabbit knife being of course one of the weakest weapons around.  There is one last person to talk to, and they are over here. Cool. But also, if you thought we've see all you can do in this game, I guess you were wrong. Because here is yet another thing. And we will, just not today.  We're mostly done exploring, so we'll now take this lift up. Yes, you do have to push the button yourself to call it!  It takes us here, to an area looking suspiciously like a typical town entrance/exit. And indeed, if we go upstairs...  ...we reach the expected bird line service desk! And there are also Nek and Linda (apparently in her wedding clothes)! But before we can do anything...   ...they get on the pad and disappear as a bird picks them up. Well, drat. Ugh, I guess we'll have to check our receiver somewhere again. Bird Line has a somewhat more reduced amount of locations you can go to from here, but the cheapest one is Ozport, so let's go back there for now.  Outside, we check the receiver:  Here we can see that the circle is indicating Paraside, so we'll head there.  Indeed, the ark really is here.  Inside, we can talk to this person here. It seems we've just missed them again... Let's head back out.  Indeed, the ark really is gone. So, well, nothing else to do but check the receiver once again.  This time, the circle is definitely pointing to Eterna--to no one's surprise. I think we may be nearing the end of this particular chase. Obviously we head straight there. As we arrive, Hume has something to say.  As we proceed, Hume takes Ken to the side.  They head back behind a building, and after a few seconds...  ...come back out disguised as two Santas! I guess they must have beat up a couple of people and stole their clothes! Just as we are in front of the door, Hume stops us yet again.   And he leaves to go around the right side, leaving Ken on his own. Let's finally head inside.  Inside we find that a door is open, which wasn't open before! If we go in...  ...we find that it's some kind of a lab, with what seems to be a bunch of female corpses preserved in some pods or whatever those are. Over on the left...  ...the whole gang is here! Including Linda, who appears to be sitting on the floor.  It's been a while, so it's definitely time for another cutscene! Well, that explains a lot, and specifically a thing which was mentioned long ago about corpses of Beastian women getting stolen from the hospital morgue. Also, those who were wondering if her last name might really be Báthory, I guess you had a bit of a point. Although in the case of real Elizabeth Báthory, a 16/17th-century Hungarian noblewoman who was accused of killing virgin girls and bathing in their blood in order to prolong her youth, the accusations were never actually proven and it may all have been just a deliberate conspiracy against her, as she at the time owned much of the territory that is today Hungary, so she had a lot of enemies. In any case, as for our Elizabeth, we've now seen her true form, and also she's dead. So we don't need to worry about that for the moment and should focus on freeing Linda from Nek.   He takes Linda with him and runs up the stairs. I guess we should follow, sooner rather than later. But we'll leave that for next time, which will incidentally also be the final part of Scenario A! Although, if you were keeping count, you will remember that we're still at only 29 species, including those we haven't handed in. So, there's still some more work to be done on that topic, and who knows what else might happen anyway. In the meantime, enjoy some illustrations! Today we have a couple of drawings related to the current Nek/Linda situation! This first one seems like a cutscene storyboard which wasn't used, or something like that.
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Dec 4, 2021 22:18
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Well, the Elizabeth plot sure ended rather awkwardly, even the knife stab looked weird. But hey, at least Nek only makes himself more punchable every update. I'm not surprised at all he's the final boss of the route, though I am surprised at how unimportant Linda was as a party member considering her name is in the title. I hope the other routes are better with her instead of making her mostly a damsel in distress.
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Dec 4, 2021 23:55
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...Wait, "Mother"? What on earth? Did I miss something?
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Dec 5, 2021 09:53
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Bloodly posted:...Wait, "Mother"? What on earth? Did I miss something? Watch the cutscene.
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Dec 5, 2021 09:55
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Bloodly posted:...Wait, "Mother"? What on earth? Did I miss something? So, near as I gather, the mayor of the one town and Mrs Vampire had an affair and she birthed two kids. One was put up for adoption and the other... actually, New was probably raised by her, considering how crazy they both seem.
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Dec 5, 2021 12:03
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Well, at least the ark works!
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Dec 5, 2021 21:45
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Seraphic Neoman posted:Well, at least the ark works! At least in atmosphere, no info on how it performs in space.
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Dec 5, 2021 23:08
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