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Hello everyone and welcome to this LP of Tengai Makyou II: Manjimaru! This introductory post will be a bit longer than what you might be used to, simply because there are a number of things we need to cover before we start the game! The Tengai Makyou series and about this game The Tengai Makyou series of JRPG games (known in the west as Far East of Eden) is quite popular and well known in Japan, but not so much outside of it, mostly owing to the fact that out of all the games in this series, only ONE was ever released in the west and even that was just a dumb beat'em-up spinoff that nobody cared much about! So none of the mainline games ever came out in the west. The series started its life with the first few games published on the PC Engine platform, starting in 1989 with Tengai Makyou: Ziria (Ziria is the name of the main character), which is reportedly the very first RPG game ever published on a CD-ROM. Although the graphics capabilities of the PC Engine platform were not much better than NES, the fact that unlike the Nintendo console, it had a CD-ROM drive, made a big difference! Suddenly you could have lavishly animated cutscenes and voiced dialogue! And yeah, the game was popular, as expected. It could even be said that at the height of its popularity in the 1990s, the Tengai Makyou series was quite literally the equivalent of Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy on the PC Engine platform. It was literally that popular. Somewhat in the style of these two other game series, although Tengai Makyou games are more or less set in the same universe, their plots are mostly unrelated and they can be played independently. Hence us playing the second game in the series here in this thread--so you don't need to worry about that. The said second game, Tengai Makyou II: Manjimaru was first released in 1992, also on the PC Engine (with Manjimaru suffix again being the name of the game's main character), to immense popularity which it still has to this day. Both games were published by Hudson Soft and Red Entertainment (then known as Red Company), and the development was led by Hiroi Ouji, later best known as one of the main people behind the Sakura Wars series for Red Entertainment. There are other (semi-)familiar faces in the team, like Masuda Shoji, later known for cult classics such as Linda³, Oreshika and a few others. Although the PC Engine platform does have some technical limitations, they truly went all out with this one, so it includes things like fully voiced dialogue for main characters, CD Audio music tracks, many lavishly animated cutscenes and so on. After its initial release, the game was later released on other platforms too, such as Nintendo DS and PSP, both of which feature the exact same graphics as the original, and also on PlayStation 2 and Gamecube--this version features "upgraded" 3D graphics, but honestly, this was done with a very low budget and it does not look good at all (I will show some examples in the first update), so they are really not worth looking at. Better pick one of the versions with the original graphics--which while admittedly a bit on the simpler side, are incredibly charming and colourful and just generally pleasing to look at (unlike the PS2/GC version). The setting Like most other Tengai Makyou games, this one too is set in the far east country of Jipang, which is more or less a fictional (mis)representation of Japan as seen somewhat from the western perspective ("Jipang" is how Marco Polo originally recorded the name of Japan). It is all based on the books of a 19th century scholar from the Smithsonian Institute, P.H. Chada ("P.H." stands for Paul Hieronymus), and the game even features his picture and a brief comment he made about the game: In the style of Orson Welles, I should now tell you that for the last couple of minutes I've been completely lying to you. Of course, P. H. Chada does not exist and even that picture up there is actually of Karl Marx. The whole thing is just an invention of Hiroi Ouji, but even still you will find the references to good ole P. H. in the credits of all these games where he's credited as "based on the works by". In fact "P. H." just stands for "Prince Hiroi", a reference to Hiroi Ouji's name in western order, since Ouji (王子) means "prince" in Japanese! Anyway, this particular game is set in the western part of Jipang, called Yamato, and here is a map of it as it is in the game: The story Here is our "the story so far", as paraphrased from the manual! quote:The Creator of the universe gave birth to two gods. The names of the two gods are Mari and Yomi. Released from the Lord's hand, Mari and Yomi travelled through time and space, sometimes fooling about, sometimes quarrelling, and sometimes in deep meditation. Eventually, the two deities found a blue planet full of life. They spoke to each other: "That one looks good." "Let's go." Of course, we'll find more about this as we play the game, but for now this should be enough to get us started. About "that" symbol... Yes, I am talking, of course, about this guy here: It's known as "swastika" from its name in Sanskrit, although in Japanese it's called "manji". You can see it up there on the title image, but it appears literally everywhere constantly in this game. It's actually also a legitimate kanji in Japanese language, and thus it's even part of the main character's name "Manjimaru", written in Japanese as 卍丸. Importantly, NO, it's not the same as the Nazi symbol. Theirs, which I will NOT reproduce here, is oriented the opposite way and tilted by 45°. Although in fairness, I will say that both orientations of swastika were used interchangeably throughout the history. Swastika itself is an absolutely ancient symbol, dating from over 10,000 years BCE--yes, this is WAY before the actual development of proper writing systems, which only came into existence about 4-5,000 years BCE. In any case, the symbol is present in many, many cultures, mostly in Europe/Asia, but even some appearances in Africa and North America are known. In general, it's meant to be a symbol of spirtuality with additional meanings of good luck and such. It's a shame it's been tainted by its use by the Nazis, because until around the 1920s it was just a "normal" symbol. In fact, here is a photograph, taken in 1916, of Edmonton Swastikas, a women's hockey team from Canada: After 1920 or so, the symbol started to get misappropriated for more nefarious purposes and at least in the west, remains kind of tainted to this day due to its use in the time period before and during World War II. Anyway, I just thought I should clear this up a bit before we begin. About the LP Of course, as mentioned, the game was never released in the west, so it will be translated here by yours truly. It's not going to be perfect, but we should be able to follow the story well enough! Other than that, this will be mostly a screenshot playthrough with the cutscenes presented as videos with English subtitles for your perusal. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any fan translations for this game, not even any that are in progress/being worked on. A note on the names. For the names of places, generally I will leave them in their original Japanese form, but I will usually explain what the name actually means in English. Since this game has a deep Japanese (sorry, Jipangese) setting, the names of people will generally be used in Japanese order, i.e. family name first. Not an insignificant part of the world building in this game is delivered via the NPC dialogue, so there will be a lot of going around and talking to everybody in towns, because if you don't you simply miss on a lot of what this game has to offer. So this will be a relatively slower paced playthrough in the end, since the goal will be to see and experience as much of this game as possible (and the game world is pretty huge to begin with--this is not a small game). To know even better what to expect, I could say that this game is kind of one half road trip and one half "Bildungsroman", so... yeah. Anyway, either way you look at it, it's sprawling. As you may have noticed, I like to talk a lot, so I will stop now and let's get started on our adventure (after one final note)! A note on spoilers I wouldn't expect that too many people here have played this game, but nevertheless try to avoid posting spoilers about stuff which we haven't seen yet! Thanks. LIST OF UPDATES Part 01: Takayama Village Festival Part 01: Takayama Village Festival (cont.) Part 02: Manjimaru's Destiny Part 03: Badly Drawn Boat Part 04: The Holy Sword of Benimaru Part 05: The Pink Tornado Part 06: The Valley of Sorrow Part 07: A Pirate's Life Part 08: The Sleeping Giant (Robot) Part 09: The Capital City Part 10: The Capital City (cont.) Part 11: The Party Situation Part 12: The Thing with the Mermaids Part 13: The Thing with the Mermaids (cont.) Part 14: Attack of the Clones Part 15: Atelier Manjimaru: The Alchemist of Jipang Part 16: Manjimaru's Dream Part 17: Demon's Daughter Part 18: Demon's Daughter (cont.) Part 19: Castles in the Sand Part 20: Castles in the Sand (cont.) Part 21: Monkey Business Part 22: Monkey Business (cont.) Part 23: Pig Business Part 24: The Twin Dragons of Izumo Part 25: The Root Clan Village Part 26: Onwards to Kobe Part 27: Onwards to Kobe (cont.) Part 28: The Speedbird Part 29: The Speedbird (cont.) Part 30: The Grand Tour Part 31: The Grand Tour (cont.) Part 32: The Awakening(s) Part 33: The Awakening(s) (cont.) Part 34: What Kind of Day Has It Been? Part 35: What Kind of Day Has It Been? (cont.) ivantod fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Nov 23, 2023 |
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 So, hello everyone and welcome to this LP of Tengai Makyou: Fuun Kabuki Den (a.k.a. "A Tumultuous Story of Kabuki"). This is the third and final game of this series that came out on the PC Engine platform, and it was published as usual by Hudson and Red Entertainment in 1993, about one year after its predecessor, Tengai Makyou II: Manjimaru. It's not a "numbered" game, but numbering in this series is anyway weird: the 3-numbered game came out years after the 4-numbered one and the next game after this one was numbered zero and moved on to Super Famicom/SNES platform (only to then jump over to Sega Saturn two years after that). What is this actually? As mentioned, this is not a "numbered" game, but chronologically it fits right after Tengai Makyou II: Manjimaru because the story is officially set one year after the conclusion of the war against the Root Clan. It's a bit like a "side" story and a sequel to both previous Tengai Makyou games in one although you generally don't need to have played either of them as the game does explain the necessary parts. The main character this time is Kabuki, who works as, well, a kabuki actor in Kyoto, but is pulled back into action when the villains of the first game (Daimon Cult) return and try to mess with people of Jipang once again. There is much more to the plot than that, so I'll just let you discover it as we play rather than spoil it here. Wait, did you say plot? I did indeed. You will be forgiven for being a bit cautious here, since Tengai Makyou II: Manjimaru, for all its good qualities, didn't really have much of a cohesive plot beyond the "destroy all orchids" McGuffin. This game however, does have an actual plot that develops over the course of the playthrough! Although it's definitely a shorter game than its predecessor, there is pretty much more of everything in it: more plot; more actual character dialogues, including with the party members; more cutscenes and with much more detailed animation, and so on. So we're definitely in for a good time in this one! Mechanically (battle system, etc.), the game very similar to its predecessor with only small changes. As usual, the game purports to be based on the works of a XIX century scholar named P. H. Chada, but as I've already explained this is of course a total fabrication. The game does however, include as usual some brief quotations from said P. H. Chada, and this time they are even straight up in English:  Yes, that photograph is still of Karl Marx. Some final notes As usual, I don't expect anybody here has played this game already, but still please refrain from posting spoilers about stuff we haven't yet seen in the game. As a small warning, I will generally assume that you have read the LP of the previous game, so I may not explain things in my typical excruciating detail which were already extensively covered there, but I will give at least some pointers. Any references to the first Tengai Makyou game, I will explain in more detail since we skipped over that game here! And one last thing! There is one last thing you really need to know about this game: it secretly wants to be a Broadway musical. And I'm just going to leave it at that for now. And now, enjoy the game! LIST OF UPDATES Part 01: After the Performance Part 02: After the Performance (cont.) Part 03: The Creepiest Place on Earth Part 04: The Creepiest Place on Earth (cont.) Part 05: An Unexpected Journey Part 06: Just the Right Bullets Part 07: Just the Right Bullets (cont.) Part 08: The Daily Life in London Part 09: The Daily Life in London (cont.) Part 10: Save the Princess! Part 11: The Final Disciple(s) Part 12: The Crimson Fire and the Azure Wolf Part 13: The Tower(s) of London Part 14: One Last Thing... ivantod fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Mar 17, 2024 |
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All right, let's do this! I suppose not many here have seen the PC Engine boot screen, so here it is. As mentioned, one of the big advantages of this game over NES/SNES is the fact that it came on a CD-ROM, and as such it required the Super CD-ROM² hardware in addition to the actual console--this situation is visible on the boot screen. Anyway, let's press the Run button (which is the same as Start button on any other console)! The familiar Hudson logo, of course. I guess they're part of Konami these days, but at the time they were of course along with NEC for the hardware aspect, the company behind PC Engine itself. Despite the fact that Red Entertainment was involved with this game, no logo of theirs is shown. Anyway, after this we head straight into an opening cutscene. And, well, there we go. Before we really start, a couple of small notes, though. First, did you notice that Manjimaru even has swastika-shaped hair? Take a look at this screenshot from the cutscene we just watched: Yep. Like I said, we'll be seeing this symbol literally everywhere in this game. Second: there will be sometimes unfamiliar terms encoutered during this LP. So as not to burden the main body of the text in situations where it's not critical for immediate understanding, I will instead include a short glossary section at the end where you can refer for more information (when necessary, of course). So basically, just go with it, and read about it later if you want, is the deal more or less. As you saw, in the true tradition of 1990s JRPG, our mischievous hero starts his journey by having breakfast in his mother's house! But at least that's now done and we have full control! While the graphics are quite colourful, the character sprites are definitely a bit on the tinier side. So the blue haired guy in the middle is Manjimaru and the other person at the bottom near the entrance is his mother. You can certainly talk to her, and talking to NPCs in general is a big part of getting the story of this game, but she will simply tell you to go upstairs and escape the house. Before we continue, I was talking previously about the PS2/GameCube remake version. So here is what this same screen looks like in that version: As you can see, while the resolution is increased, the graphics truly look as bland as they can possibly be, especially compared to the charming and colourful original (I know we haven't seen much yet, but trust me). I believe this same graphics engine was later used also for the Xbox 360 remake of the first Tengai Makyou game, and it looks just as bland. Having this remake be on Xbox 360 only is also pretty random, but whatever. Clearly this remake didn't really have much of a budget. In any case, for the rest of this LP I am not going to mention the remake any more, except briefly later today when we come to the next cutscene. Next, we can shortly check out our character's base stats in the menu: We'll talk more about this stuff as we go, but for now we can see that he is level 3 (段), has 37 HP (体) and 2 MP, well I guess in this game they are called "skill" points (技) but really it's MP. As you can see, in keeping with the "Jipangese" setting, the game does not use the standard abbreviations like HP/MP etc, but I have noted here which Japanese character means what so that you can follow it on screenshots when needed. Oh, and we're also in possession of 18 ryo (両), which is the currency in this game (the name is based on a real world old Japanese currency). It's really not much at all. There are more stats than this, but we'll check that out shortly. One last thing: that chest of drawers in the corner is actually locked, so we should remember to come back here if we ever obtain a key. All right then, enough talking. Let's start our journey properly--by going upstairs, as we were told to do! Al right, let's see what his mum was talking about... Not much here, but let's check out the window. It might provide a way out. And then... And we end up... ...here. Not exactly inconspicuous, but what can you do? Those two kids seem to be blocking our way out, but nevertheless, we can talk to them briefly. The many, many, MANY NPCs of this game usually do not have specific portraits, so we'll use the empty portrait box for their dialogue. Usually I will indicate in some way who we are talking to in cases where it matters. But here it doesn't, so we'll just talk to the other kid. Note that the word for boss used here (親分) is one which can carry an implication of it being a mafia boss of sorts. Anyway, let's gon inside the temple. Because this is a temple, you can see our friend 卍 front and centre right there! Other than that, here are our for little minions: three impressionable boys and one dog. Let's talk to them quickly. They only have actually two different things to say! But I'm sure you didn't miss what definitely looks like a chest in the back there! So, let's check it out! Ah-ha! Our first found item! As it turns out, this is a piece of equipment, head gear in particular. So that means we can equip it! So, here's the equipment screen. In the top section, we can see the current stats of our character: attack power 30, defence power 25 and agility 23. Below we can see his current equipment, as follows: - tattered clothes (which gives us 8 in defence power - bamboo sword, givn us 9 in attack power - empty slot for shoes, so I guess Manjimaru is currenty barefoot - empty slot for head gear. Anyway, since we just got a cotton headscarf of sorts, let's equip it. Every little bit helps. Equipping it gives us +4 in defence... ...which brings our defence power up to 29. So this is pretty simple and I won't need to go into too much detail. Now we can collectively head out and let's talk again to these guy blocking our path. And finally, they let us through. This festival has bee built up so much, it better live up to it! Obviously, there's still a bunch of NPCs in this town, so we're not leaving just yet! Like these three ladies outside the temple. Well, maybe eventually. Anyway, the last one: Definitely. Even if they are not actually party members! Funny, we're literally dragging a train behind us--this game does employ a similar system like early Dragon Quest in that your entire party is visible walking in line (or the not-party like in this case). But anyway, hello sir, what do you have to say to us? Over here is the mulberry farmer in his garden! Heh, looks like most of the people in Manjimaru's home village consider him a bit of a nuisance. Incidentally this place is named Shirakawa (="white river"). Back at Manjimaru's house, a line seems to have formed! What is this all about? Let's talk to them, from the back to the front. Oharu (お春) is the name of Manjimaru's mother. But these seem to be the people from the beginning of the game who have come to complain about him, and also some of them seemingy to court his mother too! Well, let's leave them to their business, we have other stuff to do anyhow. Like, for example, checking out those two houses there. First the left one. Another one of Manjimaru's minions and their parent. Let's talk to the father first: And then the kid. This house has an upstairs, too! There are two more people here. I am using here the "literal" spelling of the word "taikun", simply to avoid associations which the anglicised version "tycoon" has. Here it should be understood simply in the sense of lord/ruler. In this game "Taikun" simply refers to the ruler of Yamato, the western part of Jipang, where the events of the game are set. The other person: "As you know, Manjimaru..." I mean this is a bit awkward since he should already know all of this, but I guess we have to be told somehow. In the other house next to it... ...there is just one person here. There is however, one more person upstairs, with a somewhat interesting comment. A bit to the side, there are two more houses together. Let's go into the left one first. This one is the village elderman's house. If you want more swastikas, here's another hidden one on that screen behind the older gentleman too. I'll stop pointing them out now, so you're on your own from now on. Let's just talk to him. Welcome to the save mechanic of this game. You can save only in towns if you go either to the inn, or to the elderman's house (if the town is too small for an inn, like the one we're in now). You can rest and/or save here. Resting recovers your HP/MP (yes, I will be calling it MP) but you have to pay for it, as expected. Saving is, however, free. So the other guy with the hat is a vendor. You can also sell things to him, of course. But for now, I do actually want to buy something. The world outside is dangerous and we are really not well equipped, to put it mildly. So he basically sells equipment: - Black shovel (weapon): 60 ryo - Farm clothes 20 ryo - Mountain straw sandals 8 ryo We're really pretty skint, but Manjimaru is currently barefoot as we've seen, so we'll just spend 8 ryo on straw sandals. Anyway, after going through all of that, I promptly forget to go into the other menu and equip the sandals. Oh well, I'll remember it a bit later on. The last person just gives us a bit of tutorial about saving/resting, which I've already explained. Finally, we head into the other house right next to it. Yeah, can't possibly imagine why. Well, okay, it looks like it's time to get on the road and make our way to Takayama village. Here we are on the overworld! The game informs us that we're in Hida province (火多), which is in the eastern part of our map. Manjimaru's village is in the northwest corner of the province. We still have a train behind us! But as we walk... ...the ground starts shaking! Anyway, Takayama is basically our neighbouring village, so to get to it we just cross this bridge to the east first... ...and then turn south and cross another bridge and we're already there! You can already see the vilage there at the bottom. As we walk towards it... ...of course a random battle gets triggered with a stray dog! But as its first move, the dog runs away immediately, so I guess nothing happens. This game employs the "standard" random battle system for a game of its time. Enemies are not visible on the overworld/in dungeons and simply every few steps a battle is triggered. The encounter rate is probably a bit on the slightly higher side, but it's actually not too bad. The game does however feature an absolutely seizure inducing battle transition and I genuinely don't get how that got left in the game like that. I am actually not going too post it here since I don't want to cause problems for those who may have issues with it, but click here to view it in a separate browser window if you want to see it!. Tell me that this is not ridiculous! Anyway, without further incidents we manage to make our way into Takayama (高山="tall mountain"). We have some time before the festival, so as usual, we'll make a tour around the place. We'll start with this guy standing rignt next to the entrance. Yes, I, too, am compeletely sure that the earthquake is just a coincidence. All right, let's see who else we can talk to. There is actually some repetitition between different NPCs, so for that reason I will sometimes skip those. Let's see about the twins here. Or, these guys here. Not quite true, but for all practical purposes, close enough. You can go inside the shops, but they just tell you that today they are closed on account of the festival. So nothing doing on that front for now. Anyway, more people to talk to over here. Lady, why are you standing all the way out here, all on your own? Hmmm. Let's see what's going on in some of the houses. Eventually, we want to make our way to the inn where a place has been "reserved" for us, but for now we have time to just wander around. There's a bunch of guys here but they all just shout random stuff like "Festival!", "Women!", "Booze!". The only one with something different to say is the woman (the one who has different clothes, I know the sprites are really tiny). Yeah, I'd say. Let's hope there's not another... oops! The next house over... Let's keep making house calls! Same situation there with the guys as previously, but the one different dressed person also has something different to say. Folks, I'm starting to get an idea that this Taikun is not a good dude. Houses often come in pairs, so we'll go into this one now. Same situation with the drunk guys, so of course we talk to that one person instead. Without incidents, you say? In this house there actually IS someone upstairs, but he's already pretty much passed out drunk and has not much to say, just the usual stuff about festival and booze! There's actually a whole other part of the village across these bridges to the north! Before we cross, though, a few more people on this side of the bridge. Let's continue with our house calls by going into the village shrine! And then back outside for all these people. Really seems like an awesome guy. And finally this person here. Let's see. First off, the man on the left has an advice. Upstairs, there is QUITE a bunch of people! Well, I guess it makes sense that an important dignitary has a big party with him. Let's begin with the guy standing by the staircase So we'll continue with the two people in the room on the right. Is it now. The other guy! He's totally drunk. Then we'll move to this lady in the middle room. The guy next to her is actually Taikun so we'll leave him for later. I can see why we're told not to talk to her. Let's try talking to the other woman in the room on the left then. Well, we were told to come here, so... Also this game has dialogue choices, but they don't matter too much for the most part and in general you even can trigger the conversation again to try the other choice. Generally, when it doesn't matter, I will be choosing the funnier choice. Well, these three guys look important, so let's see what's going on (spoiler alert: the three sages!). Uh, what do you mean. The middle one: And the last one: What is UP with these guys anyway? Well, let's just talk to Taikun instead. So, uh, things are getting a bit out of hand here, I think. But I guess we'll just head to our place at the inn. The OTHER inn in this town that is, which is on the opposite side! We can expect this place to be a bit more welcoming, or so I hope. This guy in the centre is the owner! And then the guy by the door. The kid over there in the back is one of Manjimaru's minions! The bigger kid next to him is the older brother. Well, ok, let's head upstairs then. Ah, nice, they even have a special cushion for Manjimaru to sit on, bearing his "initial" there in the middle! In case it's not clear, they're going to be watching the festival through the windows. Only a few people to talk here, and then we'll settle down for the festival. Let's start with the lady we're just standing next to. Nice, thank you. Then we'll start from the right most room. Then the middle room. And then the one on the left... And then, well, there's nothing left to do but to take our seat and watch the festival! The festival is, of course, described in a cutscene, which also includes the opening credits for the game. See if you can spot some familiar names there. I'm sure most of you will find at least one! So, uh, that escalated a bit there. Well, I hope nobody thought that the festival will proceed without a hitch. Before we continue, a small technical note about the cutscene presentation. As you might have noticed, they are mostly presented in a cinematic-style wide aspect ratio. However they sometimes include shorter parts in other inconsistent aspect ratios. Generally I will try to edit the videos to minimise the amount of black bars on all sides, of course, without losing/cropping any part of the actual image. So hopefully this will work out well, but if not, let me know. As far as the PS2/GC remake is concerned, the cutscenes were all redrawn into a square 4:3 aspect ratio, so they too lost quite a bit in the conversion, giving simply another reason to just play the original. And now, getting back to our story, it certainly seems that someone has it out for our hero, Manjimaru. Immediately after this... ...most people disappear in a puff of smoke. But luckily, our minions are still here. I guess we'll just have to go outside and try to figure out what is going on here. But, then this happens... So... looks like our minions are not up to coming with us at this point. Well, fine. How bad can it be, really? Let's just have a look outside. Ok, that's bad. It's also complimented by the voice of the skeleton assassin coming from somewhere!  Did you see that, Manjimaru? This is the true power of the Root Clan! I wouldn't mind to crush you right here and now, but let's save some fun for later, too! Your mother and the people from this town are in my custody now! If you want them back, come the to the Double-ended Cave! Double-ended Cave, remember?It looks like a nice trap is probably set for us there, that is obvious. The town itself certainly looks worse for wear, and the bridge is indeed out, as we saw in the cutscene. There's also the matter of this... thing. We can actually examine it. So, uh, a dark orchid you say? Well at least it doesn't sound ominous or anything. There isn't really anything to do here right now, so I guess let's head outside. The dark orchid is actually visible on the overworld map, so that's a nice touch I think. So then, what shall we do? Obviously we should head for the cave, but we might be just a touch unprepared for that. First of all, let's head back over to our hometown of Shirakawa and see what the reactions to all this are. Looks like many of the same people are still around. Let's start with the three ladies here. I guess, for now? Yeah, we know. Then we'll visit these two houses, starting from the right. Well, we know that it does. Going in the other house next to it. On the way home, I ran into a couple of random battles (don't worry, I'll show more about that in a minute), so thanks to the fact that like any normal JRPG, monsters carry cash with them which they drop when defeated, I now have a few more ryo so we can upgrade our clothes a bit. Essentially, our first goal before going to the cave is to equip ourselves a little bit better, so we'll start here... ...by finally buying these farm clothes for 20 ryo. They increase our defence stat by 10 which is not bad at all. Of course, our previous clothes were giving us +8, so the end result is only +2, but still. While Manjimaru is alone in our party, every little bit counts. We can of course sell the old equipment immediately (and we should, since the inventory space in this game is severely limited. I do also finally remember to equip those sandals, which give us +7 in agility. So finally here's how we end up: Don't worry, we're not done with preparations yet. But for now, we'll make a quick tour of the town here. Let's head upstairs. Upstairs, this old lady has something interesting to say now. Then we catch this guy here. I don't know. But we'll find out. Next, we'll go to these two houses. First we talk to the father. Well, yes, that's one way to phrase it, for sure. The kid: And the two people upstairs. Yeah, because they will be celebrating that he's gone. We also have a person in the house next to that one. In a nice touch, before there were only wild dogs, but now you get all sorts of monsters there. It's this game's variation on the Final Fantasy plot along the lines of "the crystal shattered and spawned monsters all over the world", I guess. Upstairs. Of course, we should also stop by Manjimaru's house. I guess these are the guys who were waiting in line previously. There are four of them here... The other two are upstairs. The Japanese text refers to demons as "youkai" (妖怪), as you might expect. Well, yeah, I mean the skeleton bro already told us that. Of course we stop by the guy who is tending his field. Sounds good. At least we have a pointer. Finally, let's talk to our two minions here in front of the temple. All right, it's time to head out and see what we can find in the world. ivantod fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Oct 3, 2022 |
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Oct 1, 2022 21:28
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As pretty much everyone has mentioned, we'll head eastwards for now. Considering that Shirakawa vilage is anyway in the northwestern corner of the country, it would be somewhat difficult to go westwards as there is a wall of mountains! We'll go past Takayama and continue further east from there. Of course, now that we're out in the world, we're exposed... ...to random encounters! This one however is your basic trash mob and won't pose a problem even when more than one appears at once. There are some other monsters around here for whom that is definitely not true! In any case, no strategy is required, because Manjimaru can dispatch them in one hit. So, we need to pick up a few things before we head to the cave. I would also like to accumulate at least 100 ryo, so we can buy a better weapon. As we wander around here, we'll probably get there naturally so lots of grinding won't be needed. In the meantime, after making a couple of steps forward... Like in Final Fantasy, here too imps are some of your basic trash mob. After this battle, Manjimaru gets to level 4. Nice thing about this game is that when you level up, it replenishes your full HP and MP. Manjimaru now has 3 MP, which is important, as we'll see shortly. Over here, there's a little directional sign! East: Ushikubi Village North: Maze Village Checkpoint We'll see about checkpoints a bit later. But for now let's keep going towards Ushikubi. Incidentally, there is a menu option which you can choose to show the map of the area you are in. It shows also towns/villages, but only those you've already discovered. Thus, the two "houses" on the map represent Shirakawa in the northwest and Takayama a bit east from it. But the next random battle... ...is very definitely problematic. Each one of these is not a problem, they die in two hits, but five of them, plus they all get to have their turns in between... at our level, we're lucky to be alive at the end of it! But eventually we get to Ushikubi (牛首="cow's neck") village. This is a very small place, but let's see what they can tell us. First we'll talk to that kid by the house, he is also one of our minions! Yeah, yeah, we know. There is a bit of repetition in NPC dialogues sometimes. Anyway, the old guy behind the house--he has something very interesting for us to hear: So, "mountain goblin", or "red nosed goblin" or, simply, tengu, (天狗) a creature from Japanese mythology. Actually there are several of them around the game, but our friend here is right. We should go and visit them because it will be helpful to us in battle. We'll do that shortly. Hello, sir. Do you have anything useful to tell me? We should also talk to that woman there standing on the left side by the cow. We'll also go into that house right next to her. I know it looks weird, but that's actually a bald-headed person facing away from us there. He has a tutorial for us. Yep, talk to everybody constantly, but especially after major events. For example, a monstrous flower appearing in the middle of the village. There's also a person upstairs. That's good to know, but we still have things to do before we head to the cave. With that in mind, let's leave for now. We'll be back in a bit. Let's head north and see about that goblin. There's a little hut there, but also what the heck are those things blocking the way? Well, ok then. Let's head into the hut instead. So, this is "Tengu's Cabin" and you can see him right there with a big red nose! Obtained the "Fresh Grass" scroll! So, in this game, magic spells come in the form of "scrolls" and there are a LOT of different ones. We'll talk more about it over the course of the game, but for now let's say that "Fresh Grass" is a basic healing spell. It costs 3 MP to use, which means that right now Manjimaru can use it exactly once before he runs out of MP entirely! Anyway, we can talk more with the goblin. Well, I don't really mind if I do. So we'll head there shortly. On the way... ...we find out that enemies sometimes appear in mixed groups too. A weird little island in the middle of the river like that. Also you can see the cave entrance just to the north there. You can find here some very slightly stronger enemies. Like these guys. I mean they are still pretty much trash mob even if slightly stronger. Or this very cool looking dude. But what about that name, "mashari"? In the game, it's written in katakana as マシャリ, so we don't have kanji to help us understand the meaning. However, based on what I was able to find, it's most likely supposed to be 魔舎利, which could roughly mean "demonic bones" (it seems to fit with the look of the enemy), and in particular 舎利 refers to bones left after cremation of a dead body, so I guess maybe it's an implication of an "undead" enemy of sorts? This guy is definitely on the stronger side as it can take about 4 hits. But as long as it's only one we can (mostly) handle it. I only just barely survive with 2 HP remaining, and that was with using the heal scroll in the middle of the battle too! Eventually we find another small place, just across this bridge. Ah, it's the charcoal making pit, where that lady's family work! Let's talk to the kid. I have indeed, and he gave me the heal scroll! Inside, there are two people. The other guy just lets you rest here (you can't save, though). So this is really just a rest stop and nothing else. Manjimaru can however walk into the coal pit. And when he comes back out... Hehe. It just a joke, has no effect on anything. But anyway, after fighting a few more battles around here, I have managed to accumulate more than 100 ryo, so let's go back to Ushikubi and put them to use. In this house... ...we find the vendor. Let's see. Here we go: the hunter's machette. It gives us +15 to our base attack! Let's equip it. So in the end it's overall +6 compared to what we had previously. Should make the life a little bit easier for now. One last thing we want to do is visit this little hut here... ...because it contains the second Tengu that we've been told about. Or, it would if we had any MP to use it with. But anyway. Obtained the "Lightning Flash" scroll! It's a lightning spell that hits all enemies. It helps with the situation when you get attacked by like five of those flowers, but unfortunately it costs 4 MP to cast, so we can also really just cast it once before we are out of MP. But that's ok, we'll of course gain MP as we level up. Also we can talk to the goblin some more. So they just point you to each other basically. But these are just first two of many, many, magic scrolls we'll be finding over the course of the game. Well, all right. I think we're about as ready as we're going to be, so let's make our way to the cave. On the way... ...some more new low level enemies. As you can see, there is definitely some slightly imaginative monster design going on here. Here. We. Go. Ugh. The three sages. What do they want now. And they depart, exiting stage right. What on earth was that supposed to be? Are they working for or against us? I mean they said they are from the Root Country, so I guess against, but... (I should probably mention that in Japanese "root country" (根の国) is an old-fashioned word that also means "underworld". So. Well, ok, anyway we don't have time to think about this for the moment. Let's take a few steps into the cave. But as we do, we come across some prisoners held in here! I guess those are some of the people from Takayama? Let's see what they are saying. The last one is another of Manjimaru's minions. A boss fight in announcement? Perhaps. Well, I guess we should head deeper into the cave. But not today, as we'll be stopping here for now. You can see now what I meant when I said this will be a slightly slower paced playthough, but I feel that it's worth it to get the full flavour of the interesting and entertaining world where this game is set. Well, I hope you enjoyed this so far and as the three sages said, take care until next time!
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Oct 1, 2022 21:29
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Ground floor for another excellent Ivantod translation LP, let's hope we don't slip on any bananas this time! I quite like what I'm seeing out of the monster spritework so far.
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Oct 1, 2022 22:29
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My body is ready for another very normal game
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Oct 1, 2022 23:24
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you're a madman jumping into this right away
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Oct 2, 2022 02:04
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wow i can't believe ol manjis so infamous even root clan people have it out for him 
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Oct 2, 2022 02:48
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Aw yiss another ivantod LP, get in is this another flavor of Linda insanity or is it played mostly straight?
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Oct 2, 2022 08:08
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lets hang out posted:you're a madman jumping into this right away  TitanG posted:is this another flavor of Linda insanity or is it played mostly straight? Also, welcome to the thread, everyone!
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Oct 2, 2022 18:30
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Seraphic Neoman posted:My body is ready for another very normal game oh yeah, absolutely ready for this 100% normal game
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Oct 2, 2022 18:40
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Wow, you were absolutely not kidding about the number of swastikas in this game. That all by itself would represent an obstacle to localization even if there were no other issues.
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Oct 2, 2022 20:54
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ah, what a beautiful Jipang [chew]
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Oct 2, 2022 22:10
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Booky posted:wow i can't believe ol manjis so infamous even root clan people have it out for him I won't lie, when they called out Manji, I was half expecting there to be a joke about how he's even managed to piss off yokai with his shenanigans. And maybe find them waiting in line to complain to his mother after the opening cutscene.
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Oct 3, 2022 04:09
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idonotlikepeas posted:Wow, you were absolutely not kidding about the number of swastikas in this game. That all by itself would represent an obstacle to localization even if there were no other issues. the real reason this game was never localized is because nobody wanted to pay the censors
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Oct 3, 2022 07:06
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Oh boy, no breaks for this train and I'm all here for it. Let's see just how many people Manjimaru can piss off before the game ends. Starting on a high note if he not only annoyed every adult in his village, but also Hell. Also, you have a few "tycoon" there instead of "Taikun" if you want to keep that consistent.
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Oct 3, 2022 15:10
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Blaze Dragon posted:Also, you have a few "tycoon" there instead of "Taikun" if you want to keep that consistent. I definitely want to be consistent, but when you've gotten used to the other spelling all this time, it's no wonder that I slipped up a couple of times. Anyway, thanks for pointing it out, I've fixed it now!
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Oct 3, 2022 19:44
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So so excited for this one Ivantod!
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Oct 4, 2022 15:00
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When we last left off, Manjimaru had just entered the Double-ended cave and talked to some prisoners.  This is not actually a big dungeon/cave, so let's proceed forward.  Eventually...  ...we reach a few more prisoners! Uhh, that's pretty bad. Let's talk to the other two also. Yeah, probably. Moving forward...  ...let's not forget that there are random encounters here. Here we encounter a new enemy, a Thousand Year Fairy. Not really anything super special, but the enemies are definitely getting stronger. There is one particulary bad enemy formation which we'll encounter soon. By the way, don't think for a second that this is an easy game, because it absolutely isn't. Unless you really want to spend time grinding, you will often be in a "borderline too weak" situation. This is even more true with the boss fights, so simply spaming the basic attack will often just not work and will end up with you easily killed. We'll see something like this later today.  Anyway, there's a couple more people over here. Well, we've already heard about Yomi, one of the two deities, alongside Mari. The other guy: No problem, we're ready. Maybe.  An ominous staircase, well, not like we have a choice.  Luckily, it only leads to more dungeon!  This can be a dangerous situation... you're likely to need to use up one of your heals. Which is not ideal.  Oh hey, a chest! Manjimaru found 56 ryo. Actually not bad.  There is another chest on the opposite side of the cave! Manjimaru found a nectar pill. So "nectar pill" (甘露丸) in this case is related to the concept of Amrita, found in Hindu and Buddhist religions and usually refers to a sort of a healing elixir. And so in the game, too, this is one of your healing potion items.  Finally we reach another staircase. This one leads to the boss fight, so what I would really recommend here is the following. If you've been playing the game normally, you should probably be close to level 7 at this point. So I would say, stay here a get that extra level. First of all it gives you a full heal and second it will improve your attack and defence. And we're definitely going to need that very shortly. Anyway, going up the staircase...  ...leads, of course, to the boss arena! For real. Also, looks like Manjimaru's mother is here captured and is supervillain-style suspended over the fire pit! There is no other choice here but to approach the boss!  By the way, aren't the enemy sprites in this game just awesome looking, despite the limited resolution and number of colours on screen? Anyway, as you can see by Manjimaru's stats being shown on top of the screen, the boss fight is already started. He has 120 HP and basically... ...just this one attack, which is to "swing his sword with all his might". It deals about 5 damage to Manjimaru. On the other hand, Manjimaru deals at level 7 about 30 damage to him. So this will not really last too long although you might want to top off your HP near the end of the fight (trust me on this one). Awesome.  Mm-hm. Yep. You know that feeling the the JRPG boss is trolling you. Anyway, second phase! His stats have increased slightly: this time he has 130 HP and Manjimaru can deal about 20 damage in one hit. On the other hand, he now deals about 8 damage per hit (his attack is still the same, just more powerful). The problem is that in addition to his own attack, he also counters every one of yours--the end result is that he basically attacks twice per turn most of the time. This is a problem, for one simple reason: the turn order. It can happen that he goes second in a turn, but that he then ends up going first in the next turn. So this means in general you need to be ready to take up to three of his attacks at any point during this fight otherwise you can be in for a very bad time if you get unlucky with the turn order. So, now you'll need to use those heals finally! Othewise, this is not too different from last time and is simply about trading blows. All right, let's try this again.   And he's gone and we can rescue our mother.  Back at home, mum has a story to tell us. And it's a bit of a long one, so get comfortable!         She steps over to the chest of drawers. Remember, this is the one which we found was locked at the start of the game! Heirloom sword obtained! Battle coat obtained! Manjimaru equips them automatically.  [SENGOKU MANJIMARU] Well, thanks mum. In any case, we're done here and can now go on our "real" adventure! But before that...  ...let's quickly check our equipment screen. We find that indeed the two new pieces of equipment have been put into their expected slots, brining our stats up by a fair bit. And so here is where we are. Attack 53, Defence 45, Agility 46. This should help a lot with random encounters. The old equipment you can of course sell at the earliest opportunity to free up the very limited inventory space. Anyway, let's head out.  It seems that half the village have gathered in front of our door! In addition to that, the game starts to play a rather heroic music theme, which you can listen to by clicking the below link. The music in this game is pretty good actually, so I will from time to time provide links to some of it. As you may have noticed in the credits cutscene, in charge of music for this game was the Studio Ghibli legend, Joe Hisaishi and he also composed some of the music tracks (in the first game of the Tengai Makyou series, the music director was none other than Ryuichi Sakamoto). Anyway, the music in this game is kind of interesting also because while a lot of it is just synthesized by the console, for the more "important" tracks, they are recorded as CD audio tracks and simply played in game. Back to the game, we'll continue by talking to ALL of these people (of which there is 9 plus the two kids, probably Manjimaru's minions)! Sure. I mean he will just have a magic scroll, like all other tengu, but still. And finally, our two minions.  Next, let's talk to people in these two houses. We'll start from the left.  And the kid:  The other house. Excuse me, what do you mean by "appeared"? Ah, I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually.  Over here is the shop. I remember to sell my not needed equipment, but if we go upstairs...  ...there is a person in bed here who is not feeling too well.  Down here we have two more houses.  Since the guy is only a save point, we'll talk to the woman instead.  And the three people upstairs. The last person gives us a bit of a tutorial which we can skip since we already know the stuff.  In the other house.  Finally, we'll go inside the temple. The two minions here are the same ones we already saw in front of our house, so no need to talk to them again.  No pressure, though.  All right, finally, we can set off.  Since there were some mentions about Taikun and his posse going towards the southern checkpoint, let's first head there to see what we can find.  We'll go past Takayama going south...  ...and then head west.  By the way, the lightning spell we got last time is excellent for this situation. It hits all enemies at once plus it one-shots these guys.  But anyway, here's the checkpoint. As you can see it's not possible to reach the southern side without going through it (the rest of the map has mountains which block the way). Let's head in and see what goes on there.  As usual we'll talk to the locals. The second person has a more useful comment. Ah. That sounds like our cup of tea. But first we have the house here to check out.  A couple of soldiers are stationed here. Sure, and indeed being able to recover HP and MP by walking would be super useful... were it not for the fact that there is a random encounter every few steps. In any case, "going back to an inn" will become sort of a solved problem soon(ish). Anyway that's all there is here, so we'll proceed on south. It might be useful to head first to Umase village.  Lots of bridges here!  Also some new (and stronger) enemies. This is "monster root" and I hate him. As you can see, his defence stat is really high, which means that Manjimaru does not do much damage and it takes multiple hits to get rid of him. On the other hand his attack is reasonably strong too. And the rewards are not great: 1 EXP, are you kidding me? When it's just one like this it's sort of manageable, but we'll see shortly a much more annoying enemy formation. Anyway, on the screenshot with all the bridges, you can already see the village we're going to, so we'll just head in.  Welcome to Umase village (馬瀬="horse rapids"). Let's talk to the person! Incidentally, many of the place names in this game are historical place names in Japan. Such is the case also with Owari province which used to be where the city of Nagoya is today. Also, the village headman's house is that one right there, so let's see.  The headman as always only acts as a save point, so we'll talk to the other guys. Shamisen and biwa (a kind of a lute) are both traditional Japanese instruments. Nice. Sounds very inviting. But ultimately we need to follow on the trail of Taikun and his people, so we'll have to keep going south.  There are also a couple of people upstairs! So, yeah, there's that sleeping guy there in the corner and we can talk to him. But... should we? In any case we will not do it just yet. This whole thing is actually a part of a sidequest, which is better left for a bit later on. So we'll be back to deal with that.  In the meantime, back outside, here we have two people. Or seven. He's talking about those roots blocking the road that we saw last time. But apparently there are other similar ones in different colour? Does it mean more dark orchids in the world? I mean probably yes, based on what Manjimaru's mother told us. Let's talk to the farmer. Yeah, you almost definitely don't want to be leaving your village right now.  Over here we have a few wheelhouses on the river. The one on the right is empty, but the other two have people inside. However, let's first talk to the guy near the bridge. Sorry, but... I don't think we have a choice here.  Then we check out the first wheelhouse. And what does she have to say. All right...  ...let's check the other wheelhouse.  Next, we have these two ladies in front of the shop. We're definitely staying away from the Atsuko sidequest for now, as mentioned. However, if this Kabuki claims to be of Fire Clan, then we should probably go and see him... which means we'll have to brave the cave. The other person: So. This Kabuki dude seems to be a bit of a heartbreaker. Let's go in the shop.  We can talk to the guy in the corner there. "Refreshing Tablets" (清涼丸) are actually a thing in traditionaly East Asian medicine. Their effect is basically like paracetamol, to relieve the symptoms of fever. In this game, they recover one party member from status effects. Yes, this is absolutely a hint that the next boss fight will involve also a status effect attack, but it's pretty minor so it won't play a decisive role. Therefore you don't necessarily need to worry about this just yet. Let's go upstairs.  This is about Atsuko again, I guess? Also, this Kabuki has been built up so much that we're bound to be disappointed when we actually meet him, I think.  We have two more houses to visit, next to the shop.  Well, that sounds like a holy sword to me. So, probably? Also the capital has no specific name in the game, it's referred to simply as... The Capital (京). The other house:  Yeah, well, that's what we're here to figure out!  Upstairs.  Before we go, let's not forget this kid here on the stone path. Soba dumplings is another HP recovery item. So I bought one of those in the shop before, just so we don't visit the Tengu empty-handed! It's time to head back out!  If we look to the west...  ...we do indeed find some roots blocking the way, and they are indeed different colour from the ones last time (sea-blue this time), exactly as we were told. Well, nothing doing here, so let's head the other way.  Some way to the east, squeezed between a mountain and a large lake, we find another Tengu's hut, also exactly as we were told. Let's pay him a visit.  Obtained the "Angel's Raiment" scroll. Now this one is interesting. It's actually gives you the limited ability to fast travel! It costs 6 MP to use, but it allows you to teleport to any town within the same province that you've already been to. So it's not possible to travel longer distances, but still, if you make sure to leave 6 MP unused, it gives you a quick exit to a town with an inn in case you get too beaten up at some point. Not bat at all. Tengu has a bit more to say. Yeah, I know, I know. I'm working on it. Well, all right. Let's leave here...  ...and try to find our way towards the Joumon cave.  Ugh, I hate these monster roots so much and now there's two of them plus a flower.  We found the cave, but here is also another blocked path. This time, the flowers are red. As we walk to the cave...  Oh god. Yeah, as you can imagine, this is for sure the strongest enemy so far and with most HP too. We can just about handle it and our Lightning Flash scroll certainly works on it decently well. But I should probably explain that name. "Night-sword gods" (夜刀の神) a.k.a. Yato-no-kami, are snake-like deities in Japanese folklore. Their first written appearance is around the 8th century and are generally considered to be malevolent. Their name in the game is shortened to just ヤト (Yato), but it's clear what they are meant to be.  Well, all right, I guess we should head in. But before that, a piece of advice. Don't head inside unless Manjimaru is at least level 9. There is a boss fight at the end, and you won't be surviving it on a lower level than 9--I will explain more in a moment.  The cave starts with a long(ish) hallway...  ...leading to a staircase going down.  Well, what is this now. This is also a short dungeon with just this one floor. Interestingly, there are no random encounters here, but instead you can see the enemies walking around. You really want to conserve your HP and heals, so in order to get to the boss, it's best to simply treat this as a stealth section. The enemies will not attack you unless you come near them, so just try to avoid them as you walk around. However, if you do get attacked...  ...here's what happens. "Warm Corpse" is such an absolutely endearing name. Really, just avoid them.  Anyway, the important part is that there are a bunch of chests around this place. Generally, they are empty (we've been told that the place has already been looted!), however... there are two which still have stuff in them.  Like this one here... but this one is a joke so just ignore it.  And also this one here, in the furthest top right corner. At first glance this one sounds terrible too--after all, it seems to be just a weapon, and weaker than the one we already have, too. However, the appearances can be deceiving. You definitely want to get this before going into the boss fight. All the rest of the chests here, most of them are empty, but some will also thrust you into a battle with a Warm Corpse. Either way, other than the two I mentioned, none of the rest are worth opening.  After picking up the halberd, we want to head down this way, making sure we're not seen by those guys.  And here we go, the boss is literally waiting for us. In the top corner there, you can just about see part of another chest. It takes a long way around to go there and back out and it's... just empty like most of them! Such a troll... although we HAVE been told about that situation. Anyway, let's approach.  So, I try not to do this too much, but I can't resist here. It's time for a "translator's note", sponsored today by the "Keikaku means Plan" corporation. Anyway, in that last bit "this will only hurt a little", the Japanese verb used is かわいがる, which officially means "to treat someone in an affectionate way", however it is very often used ironically to mean the exact opposite, i.e. to give a "rough" treatment to someone. So I tried to preserve here a bit the wordplay present in the original. Anyway, this battle is not "difficult" as such, however, it's kind of a damage race. He can damage you for a lot and you simply need to be able to keep up with your heals and to damage him also in the process. When you're level 8 or lower, this generally will not work, because he is doing too much damage. Upgrading to level 9 will increase your defence, plus get you enough MP for two more heals with the Fresh Grass scroll. Of course you can also go and buy healing items, but on level 8 and lower no matter how many of those you have you simply are not going to be able to keep up turn wise--did I forget to mention that he generally attacks twice per turn? Yeah, he does.  Mostly, this will be his opening move. Acid is sort of like a weak poison--at this point it deals 2 HP of damage per turn. You can use a Refreshing Tablet to heal it, but also you don't have to. It's only 2 HP per turn after all, and you will have to heal often either way, so it seems to me like a waste of a turn to bother getting this status off you. Other than that...  ...he will just use a normal physical attack like this. It deals about 15 damage per attack, so generally we can expect at least 30 or so per his turn in total (when he doesn't use acid). In the end, this is basically a damage race, but is there anything we can to do help ourselves a little bit here? As it turns out, there is. It's only a small help, but still. So, uh, remember that broken halberd? As I said, it's a (weak) weapon, so it's of no use that way, however... If you have played older Final Fantasy games, in particular Final Fantasy 4/5/6, then you might recall that in those games, weapons can often be also used as items during a battle. E.g. in FF IV, there is a weapon called the Ice Rod, normally meant for mage characters. However, you can also use it in battle as an item and in that case you get a free infinite number of casts of a weak Blizzard spell. You can already see where I'm going with this. This game also allows you to do the same with some of the weapons... and the broken halberd is certainly one of them. But, what kind of effect does it have? Well, let's use it and see...  And what does the heat haze actually do? Why, it reduces his hit accuracy! It's not really by much, he'll only miss about 25% of the time, but every little bit helps, really. Just be careful--it doesn't last forever. The game will tell you that the "heat haze has faded out", so this is your cue to reapply it. As I said, it's only a little help, but it's free so why not. Anyway, it continues on like this, with trading blows until he's defeated. Luckily here there is no second phase, so after he's defeated, we just get a few "choice" words. Ugh, why does there have to be a next time? I'm fine how things are now! Either way, that was the second Grim Reaper brother.  Now we can take the staircase up. As mentioned, that closed chest there is one of the empty ones.  And we just make our way out through the exit corridor. Unfortunately, status effects like acid do persist after the battle, but in this case, it will actually wear off by the time we exit the cave.  And... we managed to reach the Owari province. But who are those guys to the right. They look a bit weird. Let's have a look.  Ahahahahahahaha, what can one even say here. But more importantly, who are those three sages even working for actually? Well, there's time to figure that out. But in the meantime, two of Taikun's servants are also here in an advanced state of petrification, so let's talk to them while we still can! The second guy is already losing it, it seems... By the way, in case you are wondering about the way Taikun speaks. In original Japanese, he is using for himself the pronoun "maro" (麿) which is a very archaic first person pronoun that used to be used primarily by high ranking nobles/court. So the constant use of "we" in English is meant to mimic that to an extent. Well, that was all fun and games, but... at this point I realise I had forgotten to do something. So I head back to Umase village (you can walk back through the cave, all enemies are now gone there so it's completely safe!).  Over to the shop.  Let's just buy a straw hat to improve our defence a little bit! It's a typical old style Japanese straw hat (sandogasa): Equipping it gives us +2 in defence compared to our previous equipment:  All right, now back to where we were.  if we go a few steps to the south...  ...we find what looks like a slightly bigger town! Let's check in, if nothing else to get some rest after all of this. It probably doesn't come across so much through screenshots, but due to a somewhat realistic world layout and such (and the inability to save on the overworld) this game kind of really makes you feel like you're on a journey, and is a bit of a relief when you reach a place where you can rest safely for a bit. Anyway, into the town!  Welcome to Inuyama town! Inuyama (犬山) means "dog mountain". Hoever, immediately, things start happening!  A guy that is being carried on some sort of carrier is brought in! Let's see what this is all about! OH. MY. GOD. THIS GUY. In any case, he leaves the scene, just the same way he came. So this is the famed Kabuki Danjurou, the most eligible man of Jipang... Well, the first impression maybe not that great, but we'll see. Incidentally, he is voiced by Yamaguchi Kappei, known back in the day for his roles as male Ranma and Inuyasha.  All right then. Looks like the plot is fully in motion, but we'll stop here for now. Next time we'll explore the new town and continue on our journey! Take care and see you soon!
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Oct 8, 2022 22:22
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ivantod posted:So, I try not to do this too much, but I can't resist here. It's time for a "translator's note", sponsored today by the "Keikaku means Plan" corporation. Anyway, in that last bit "this will only hurt a little", the Japanese verb used is かわいがる[i], which officially means "to treat someone in an affectionate way", however it is very often used ironically to mean the exact opposite, i.e. to give a "rough" treatment to someone. So I tried to preserve here a bit the wordplay present in the original. Just for future reference, you could consider "I'll take GOOD care of you" which has a similar set of idiomatic meanings in English - that is, literally meaning to help someone but frequently used to mean the opposite, especially with emphasis on the word 'good'. (Please don't take this as a criticism of the amazing job you're doing here; just a thought I had.)
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Oct 9, 2022 04:06
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I... can see why Kabuki Dan is the most elegable man in all of Japan. Wait, you don't mean in the "He seems to be a reprehensible shitstain of a human being that no woman would willingly go near"? Whe he joins the party, does he bring his palanquin and the women who can apparently fuckihg book it while hauling him?
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Oct 9, 2022 10:44
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Dude, the orchids have literally just shown up. There's living for your own pleasure, but you can do that far better when the land isn't demon-infested hellscape.
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Oct 9, 2022 10:47
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Y'all have had a thousand years of relative peace, you can't spare maybe 5 tops to bring another thousand? And if you think you're a chick magnet now, wait till they know you're a hero that repelled the demon invasion. I guarantee you'll stand out more than now.
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Oct 9, 2022 15:35
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I feel people didn't read what Manjimaru's mother said. The seven heroes sacrificed their lives to use the holy swords to cut the seven dark orchids. There's no "oh just join for a bit, defeat the bad guys then go back to womanizing". From all we, and likely Kabuki Danjurou, know, this is a suicidal mission even if they succeed. He's still a self-centered jerk but I can't blame him for not wanting to join Manjumaru here. I can blame him for everything else such as mocking Manjumaru though.
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Oct 9, 2022 15:43
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idonotlikepeas posted:Just for future reference, you could consider "I'll take GOOD care of you" which has a similar set of idiomatic meanings in English - that is, literally meaning to help someone but frequently used to mean the opposite, especially with emphasis on the word 'good'. Randalor posted:Whe he joins the party, does he bring his palanquin and the women who can apparently fuckihg book it while hauling him?
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Oct 9, 2022 17:27
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I like the asides on folklore and translations.
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Oct 10, 2022 00:05
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I'm curious, when leaving the house one of the npcs mentioned that the people were returned to Takayama and you should visit them, is there any new or interesting dialogue there?
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Oct 10, 2022 08:38
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Cirina posted:I'm curious, when leaving the house one of the npcs mentioned that the people were returned to Takayama and you should visit them, is there any new or interesting dialogue there? Ugh, I accidentally skipped it it seems! It's only 3-4 people and they don't really say anything we haven't already heard from others in some form or another. However, I will incorporate it into the next update (alternately if I run over the character limit for a post then I will edit it into the previous update--but either way it will be posted somehow). Sorry about that!
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Oct 10, 2022 16:15
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When we last left off, Manjimaru finished defeating (with some difficulty) two of the three Grim Reaper Bros. Finally he entered Inuyama town where we had a somewhat unfortunate encounter with Kabuki Danjurou, apparently the most eligible man in Jipang.  However, last time we were also told to go and check in on the inhabitants of Inuyama, after we managed to free some of them from the prison in Double-ended cave. Since I forgot to do it then, let's do it now and see how they are doing.  The town is certainly still not in a great shape, but some of the life has returned to it, so let's see who we can find. First we can already talk to that gentleman there.  And a lady over here... Lovely. With that kind of name it must be an absolutely lovely place. Can't wait (not).  There's not many people around so they are quite spread apart...  Well, let's also check out a few houses. Like this one for example.  There are a couple of people upstairs. In another house...  ...upstairs, there are a couple more people in recovery.  And here is the inn where Manjimaru and his posse were going to stay.  The innkeeper is not doing so well... And his daughter.  And one last person upstairs.  Finally, the village headman's house.  There are three people here. That's pretty much everything going on in Takayama village at the moment (other than the fact that the shops have reopened). So let's head back to where we were, i.e. Inuyama town.  As always...  ...we'll make a tour of the town! So let's start here. Indeed, you can see shops all around us right here. There are even two weapon shops (the two bottom ones with the 武 symbol). They both sell completely different items from each other. There are also more weapon shops in this town that just these two.  Over here on the east side, even more shops and also this elderly gentleman. Benten (or more often, Benzaiten) is the Buddhist goddess of arts/wisdom/eloquence. Knowing this game, surely this is someone we can actually meet with. So let's make a note of this for later.  Hello, lady! A little dig at the player here, I guess. But also, when exactly was this attack on the castle?  People are a bit spread around in this town...  Well, there is certainly an old lady over here. Oh, good. More new places to visit. So Nagashino town is in the far eastern part of the province, noted. Also the other woman at the top there. Looks like it would not be so bad to have Kabuki in our party, huh? But convincing him is not going to be easy, I'm sure.  There are the two guards, but they don't have much to say!  Inside the castle walls (you can just about see the castle itself on the right. I'm pretty sure we'll be disregarding this warning very soon. But wor now, let's head into the house right there.  Well, I guess that would be Kabuki and a bunch of women. Let's talk to the ladies first. Ah, yeah, she is over there. And finally, Atsuko. However, had we taken that love letter, things would have gotten a lot more messy here. But, we'll see about that later. After all this, of coruse we can talk to Kabuki too. Oh, man. But either way, now we know what we need to do to get him to join. Also, this means we'll be alone for a while longer. Sigh. Either way, we can't do anything here right now.  Therefore, let's head into the other house next to this one.  All right, so let's head into the castle proper.  Nice.  Of course, there's more people here, so let's talk to both of them to start with.  And one more here.  Next we go upstairs...  ...where more people await. Interestingly, we were told last time about some musical instruments getting stolen from Joumon cave. In that case, they spoke of a shamisen and a biwa. So perhaps one of those two? We'll see. Also as you can see this is a very "old school" JRPG, although back in 1992 it probably wouldn't have been thought of as such. Well, it certainly looks like they are scraping the bottom of the barrel here as far as soldiers. Yeah, like I said.  One more person on the other side of the wall. We're learning of a lot of new places! Also, since you can already see that staircase to the left, let's go up it to the top floor of the castle!  Up there is what looks like (sort of) a throne room. So let's first talk to the person in the corner. So it seems that they've basically been recruiting farmers with no fighting experience. This can only end well... Anyway, let's talk to the lord. Sure, ok. But in any case, we're done with the castle. Back outside...  ...let's improve our equipment slightly here in the weapon shop.  Let's buy deerskin shoes.  They replace our previous straw sandals for a nice +5 increase in defence. As always, sell the old equipment to reduce "inventory capacity pressure"  One more thing, though. This guy here was talking about the "old lady who knows how to open the gates of Demon Bone Castle".  She lives in this house, in fact. Ah, so it's definitely one of those two that we've already heard about. My guess is on biwa, but let's see how this goes. By the way, biwa is simply a Japanese version of lute and they even look pretty much the same. Either way, the instrument is no longer in the cave, so we'll have to find it if we want to use it.  Also another guy who I forgot to talk to. All right. let's head out.  We have only one lead--that a hermit living beyond the eastern mountains has come into possession of a musical instrument. So let's try to find him.  We'll head south across the bridge.  On the way, we see on the other side of the mountains what looks possibly like another Tengu's hut. Let's come back there later.  More new enemies are encountered on the way, such as this graveyard janitor (rather imaginative monster names in this game)! There are A LOT of different monsters in this game! Not to mention A LOT of unique boss fights, too! The mentioned item gives you MP recovery.  Finally, we find ourselves by a cave with a sign in front of it. Let's read the sign first! Unparalleled in history! The best in the world! The home of the strongest and last great mage, the renowned Snake Hermit! (By the way, please announce yourself before coming in.) Heh. But no, we're in a hurry, let's just go in directly!  I see you have a chest behind you.  Is this guy for real. But we don't have a choice, so...  ...we go back outside and enter his cave again. Seriously.  I mean. That's all nice, but... you don't happen to have a musical instrument? Ah, well, guess not. Well, let's continue on our travels. We'll keep going east...  On the way, we notice this structure. I'm going to make a wild guess that that's the Demon Bone Castle. Well, nothing we can do about it now, so let's proceed without stopping. On the way...  Ah yes. The Right Hands Of Night. Of course. For large groups, we'll just use our lightning spell, to minimise the amount of turns they would get otherwise. I mean, many times tiny amount of damage still adds up. Even though they only have 6 HP, their defence is still quite high, making attacking them physically one by one a pain, as mentioned.  There's a definite "skeleton-y" theme to the monsters somewhat.  Also, notice the dead trees in the vicinity of Demon Bone Castle, just as we were told. More trouble on the way...  ...continuing the skeleton theme. Travelling on the overworld in this game is actually quite dangerous. Even the relatively lower level enemies hit hard and the random encounter rate is moderately high. Better have enough healing capabilities with you! However, despite a somewhat higher than you would expect difficulty, the game is genuinely fun to play.  Eventually, far in the east, we reach a rather nice looking town with a castle. There's also something there in the lake, but we'll see about that later. It's probably the pagoda of goddess Benten, as we were told. For now, let's head in.  Welcome to Nagashino town! Nagashino (長篠) means "tall bamboo grass". The town itself seems a bit like a Jipangese Venice or Amsterdam (or actually now that I think of it, Stockholm), with lots of canals running through it. Honestly, this game well and truly nails the road trip/exploration aspect. The world just has a good feel about it.  So let's talk with the first three people on this island. (I don't normally go into shops as shopkeepers don't have any dialogue other than offering you their wares. Generally any house you see with a sign on it, like these here, are shops or inns.) That's pretty sad. Indeed.  Let's cross over the bridge. By the way, notice the signs on each side of the bridge. The first one reads: The fish in the moat are the property of the castle. Stealing will be punished severely. And the second: Entrance to the castle forbidden for those who are not samurai! Now let's talk to the gentleman over there. (Notice also the cute Jizo statue to the right of that house. More on those shortly.)  There is also this lady on the other side. You can also see the castle entrance here.  Before heading into the castle, there is one more insland in the northeast, with two more people. Oh, so they are just eating them? Also, eels are NOT cute--not even close.  And one more guy, up here. I see, so it was a different hermit then, huh? Well, no problem, we'll find him somehow. Incidentally, Pure Land (浄土) is a buddhist term referring to the celestial realm of a buddha. Yes, this game never stood a chance of getting translated into English, that's pretty clear.  While we can't sleep in the hotel, there are still two people inside to talk to. Hmm. This is getting complicated, we are receiving conflicting info from different people. The other guy is a travelling salesman. But we don't need anything from him at the moment. We're done talking to everyone in the town, so as a bit of an extra, let me show you the map of the whole town: Pretty neat! So, we want to head into the castle, but there are some good items here which we won't have space for in our inventory to be found there. Therefore it's time for some inventory juggling.  First we'll head back to Inuyama (use of course our Angel's Raiment ability for instant travel). Luckily, to compensate a bit for the limited inventory slots, the game does provide a "storage box" service where you can leave items you're not currently using. It's right here in this house. We'll leave here most of our equipment for now.  Then it's back to Nagashino. Of course, using Angel's Raiment is a must, since we have basically no defence at the moment without any of our equipment.  But now we can head into the castle.   Let's do our usual tour! And then the guy in the other room. As mentioned, you can rest or save here in the castle. That chest there only contains a nectar tablet (heal). Let's take that barely visible staircase upstairs.  Hello there. Well, at least we have confirmed what that thing in the lake is.  Hello there.  But, let's head further upstairs...  ...and talk to that Rokusuke fellow. Where would we find miso dumplings? It seems everyone wants dumplings in this country! Oh, also the two chests there. Manjimaru found the Foot Soldier's Lance. And by "foot soldier", I mean "ashigaru" (足軽)--the samurai of the lowest rank.. Manjimaru found the Cedar Chestpiece. Like an armour made of wood.  Equipping the lance, we receive +5 in attack power.  The wooden armour gives us 18 defence which is actually +3 compared to what we had there before (you can't see it here because I had to leave it in Inuyama to make room!). We're also missing our headgear, but we'll swing by Inuyama and pick that back up later. We're almost done here...  Except, down on the first floor there is like an eel pond.  You can eat the fish to recover your strength. It has the same effect as resting at the inn.  All right, we're done here for now. Let's hop back to inuyama quickly to get our hat back--I will sell the equipment we replaced so we'll have space for them now. Manjimaru can hold a maximum of 6 pieces of equipment at one time (including the ones which are equipped) and there's usually no reason to keep the weaker equipment around.  After putting all our equipment back on, plus the new parts, here are our stats. Attack 64, Defence 56, Agility 64. Of course you can use these numbers to compare against the enemy stats that I've been posting.  While we're in Inuyama, we'll stop here by this shop.  Because they actually sell miso dumplings, which we were told we should bring as offering to the Jizo statue near Nagashino.  Therefore, next is to head back to Nagashino immediately (don't worry I've just been using the teleport spell for all of this!). Let's go and look for that Jizo statue.  But of course the teleport leaves us just outside of a town, so as I make those two steps to get inside, we get interrupted. One of these we can mostly handle, but more than one would definitely be a problem. They can also inflict the "acid" status on you which is not too awful, but it does persist after battle. Luckily I have a couple of those status healing items from last time, so I'll just use one. Manjimaru can also carry a maximum of 6 non-equipment items. You might be wondering, though, how is it even possible to do anything in the game with such small inventory limit. Well, two things. First, there is a place where you can temporarily store them. And second, and more importantly, this WILL get better once we have more party members--each party member actually gets their own separate inventory. So that means that the total number of "things" you can have on you is ultimately not too bad, other than the fact that you have to fiddle with the "give" command to move items back and forth depending on what you need to do. Oh, well.  Just a bit to the north and around the mountains, there is this cool place! Let's have a look.  We have found Mt. Akiba waterfall! Very nice. You can just about see the waterfall in the top left, but we'll check it out in a second! Incidentally Akiba (秋葉) means "autumn leaf".  As we were told, there is a Jizo statue right next to the waterfall, but first let's chat to that person there. Just in case you forgot, the game reminds you again. Well, all right, let's see. Jizo (地蔵) is basically a guardian deity of children and travellers. You will often find these child-like stone statues, pretty much looking just like the one you can see there on the screenshot. You might notice that the statue on the screenshot appears to be wearing a red bib. This is not accidental. Jizo being the protector of children, here the belief is that this garment will be provided to the children who have passed away. So you will often find these statues wearing red bibs and/or hats. Anyway, however, we are here to make an offering to Jizo at this time. There is not a specific command for that in the game, but...  ...you simply stand in front of the statue and select the "use" command for the item you wish to offer. In our case, of course, we'll offer miso dumplings. Majimaru puts miso dumplings in front of Jizo as an offering. It works out rather well: So now we have, presumably, a path through the mountains!  Let's head in!  Inside, there's mostly one way to go. This cave does not have a special name. It's simply called "Mt. Akiba Cave".  We need to go deeper! As far as I know, there are actually no random encounters here, so it's totally safe.  For some reason, there is a hot spring here. As you probably guessed, it recovers your health.  Continuing east, there is a staircase up and a chest. The chest contains miso dumplings, so the game gives you immediately back the one you just used! It's just a health recovery item (about 40 HP). After this we take the staircase up.  On the upper floor, the same situation--a chest and a staircase (which you can just barely see to the right). The chest contains a "Wind Amulet", which is a single use fast travel item. So I guess if you are short on MP and can spare an item spot... this is for you. Anyway, up we go.   We've reached the other side of the cave, it seems. There is clearly a village just around the mountains there. Let's go visit it!  Obviously there are interruptions on the way. But anyway...   ...welcome to Fukushima village. Fukushima (福島) means "lucky island" or "blessed island", something like that. This is another small(ish) place, so let's see what the residents have to tell us! We can start with those two. Well, good to know! I'm sure we'll find a way to use it.  Let's continue with this gentleman here.  On the east side is a Jizo statue and a woman.  Let's continue here. Or perhaps... somebody just wished for it on the Jizo statue? Anyway, next...  ...we go in this house.  Yeah, everything seems to point to Benten, but how would we go down the river? We don't exactly have a boat.  And here is the castle, on the east side, by the river. It does look a bit tacky. There seem to be two of those kids around. And then also the soldier-looking fellow. So looks like this is where the lord of Nagashino ended up. Did he just literally wish on a Jizo statue somehow to get a castle? I mean, I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something off about the way it looks. But anyway let's go inside...  ...and talk to the lord. Well, allright, now I see it, it really does look drawn, especially on the inside. However, an idea is starting to form in my head now. So let's see if it works. Also why is he making everybody be a member of the council of elders? In any case, it's time to go, but before that...  ...I did foget one house. Well, all right, we'll check it out. After leaving the village and heading all the way to the west...  ...we find indeed what looks like a Tengu's hut! It seems to be the same one we've observed recently from the other side!  So from this guy, we get our basic fire spell. It's called "Demonic Fire" (鬼火) and deals a small amount of fire damage to one enemy. Manjimaru can hold up to 14 different scrolls at one time. The same mechanic applies with each character having their own inventory and the ability to pass them around... although, not everyone can use every spell, so something to keep in mind.  Let's head back towards Fukushima (east).  On the way there, there is this structure. So let's go inside.  I guess this is where the Umbrella Rock Hermit lives?  Ah, there he is, with the paintbrush in his hand! Don't worry about the chest, it's empty. Eventually...  There is some writing on this picture, here is what it means. Left side: 傘岩仙人 ("Umbrella Rock Hermit") Right side: 卍丸さん江 ("To Manjimaru-san") So, I'm going to have to launch into of my typically long explanations here, feel free to skip this paragraph if you're not interested in the intricacies of Japanese language. Specifically the point is about the usage of the 江 character there, which doesn't look like it belongs, and normally one would expect to see the particle へ instead in that spot in the meaning of "To...". However, as it turns out, our hermit friend simply wants to be more formal, and that means, of course, using more kanji, so he's using this kanji 江 like a more formal/archaic/ancient version of the particle (because the pronunication is the same). You will see this sometimes, although I guess it's not super common. If he TRULY wanted to be really formal, then he could have also used the "official" formal version of さん (-san) and written the whole thing like this: 卍丸賛江 instead! I must admit I also had not encountered this kind of usage before seeing it here in the game, which prompted me to look up what this is all about. Well, all right.  I don't think we're getting anything else from this guy. He clearly doesn't have the musical instrument, and this very crude drawing of a boat is all we're going to get. So let's head back to Fukushima, because I have an idea.  Here we go.  You know, I was thinking...  ...about this Jizo statue here.  What if we were to offer it our drawing of a boat?  Surely it can't...  ...possibly result...  ...in us now having an actual boat we can use to travel around? I mean, that would be insane, right?
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Oct 20, 2022 22:05
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Oh man that's actually loving cool.
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Oct 20, 2022 22:41
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...does the boat look like that on the overworld map too, because that's amazing
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Oct 20, 2022 22:43
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 Oh, now THAT is really charming.
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Oct 21, 2022 00:04
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Both the castle and the boat rock, I love this. I don't love the inventory space stuff, that looks terrible.
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Oct 21, 2022 02:33
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That is absolutely adorable. I feel like if it had been drawn better it wouldn't work, specifically because the Jizo is the guardian of children. It looks like a child's scribble, so of course the Jizo's cool with it. (For that matter, both wishers are childish; Majimaru is a literal child and the so-called Lord is clearly a manchild. :p)
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Oct 21, 2022 05:28
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It's still a better boat than I could draw... And while I'm not a fan of eels, I can kind of see where someone might call them cute. They do have a goofy face and look kind of ugly-cute when they have their mouths open. Basically, if you're the type of person who finds snakes cute, you'd probably find eels cute too.
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Oct 21, 2022 11:33
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DACK FAYDEN posted:...does the boat look like that on the overworld map too, because that's amazing Blaze Dragon posted:I don't love the inventory space stuff, that looks terrible.
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Oct 21, 2022 20:19
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So I think have an idea of what happened regarding that "conflicting information", though I'm wagering you and some others might have pieced it together by now. The rumors that the old man had the awesome biwa and a dinky biwa are both true, it just so happens that they occured at different times. He at one point borrowed the awesome biwa, but had it taken back at some point. The old man, possibly missing the sweet biwa, made an offering to the statue, making his drawing of a biwa come to life(?), albeit questionable looking.
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Oct 21, 2022 21:57
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Gilgamesh255 posted:So I think have an idea of what happened regarding that "conflicting information", though I'm wagering you and some others might have pieced it together by now. I was expecting it to be a Indiana Jones and the Last Crusader moment where it turns out the dinky biwa was the legendary one and the awesome one was just a fancy newer biwa.
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Oct 22, 2022 16:53
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Or they're the same biwa, people just think the old man's is worse because he can't play to save his life.
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Oct 23, 2022 09:05
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This is really entertaining, please keep at it. Love let's plays of obscure story rich rpgs that I've never heard of, and will never play.
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Oct 24, 2022 06:17
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