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Bloodly posted:My feeling is "Is this a simulation?" Or maybe the other two were....ugh. yeah, in another game i could chalk that up purely as comedy, in this one it could be both comedy and foreshadowing something wild Kaboom Dragoon posted:Everyone knows if someone has a physical accident, if you add enough blunt-force trauma, it warps around to healing them instead only if you eat bananas for breakfast every day
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Mar 18, 2022 16:11
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slips on a banana peel and absolutely near-cripples himself, and when he's in the hospital with a laundry list of injuries people are making jokes about him being banana boy neo-kenya roasts are merciless
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Mar 26, 2022 00:12
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 Try jumping. Skeleton, but hole. -- An anonymous Dark Souls player Yes, we have no bananas! -- An old Beastian song Welcome back to Scenario C! In short: Ken slipped on a banana peel and hit his head, rendering him somewhat incapacitated for about a year. Waking up after about a year, he was apparently saved due to a blood transfusion from his long lost twin Nek, who is apparently a very rich man. Oh, and also, it seems that Ken is now married to Linda somehow!  So, what's one to do in such a situation? After the explosive finish of Scenario B, and the explosive start of Scenario C, today we'll taking things a little easier. So, let's hunt down some animals for the ark, of course. I mean, what else? But first... we need to get some better equipment, specifically a pair of swallow cutters! Because, yes! this time Linda is in our party from the start and Ken doesn't need to go on his own any more! So, we'll do the same as in scenario B...  Visit the animal dealer in Ozport...  ...and buy some female rats from him, leaving enough money for the Bird Line ticket to Minago.  Then go to the animal disassembler in Minago and disassemble all of them. This will of course net us several of those swords and also a golden nugget worth a further 6400 G. I will also do another round of 99 rats to earn a bit of money to start with. Once that's all done, we can sell all the extra swords to the animal dealer and end up here:  As you can see, I didn't go too overboard with money this time!  Equipping the sword for Ken...  ...and Linda, raises our attack power slightly, but more importantly allows us to hit all enemies in front of us at once which is crazy overpowered. Next, we go over to the item shop in Ozport shopping mall...  Here, first...  ...we can sell that golden nugget for a bit more money.  And then of course, we can also buy the "Air Free Pass" allowing us free travel on regular Bird Line routes. Allrighty, so now we can head out for some hunting. As usual, in the immediate area around the ark, we can find some relatively low level species...  ...such as pigs...  ...ostriches...  ...squirrels.  (Definitely try not to get attacked by a pack of dogs as we're way too low level to stand a chance against them!) Anyway, we continue our animal gathering...  ...with some rats...  ...squid...  ...and finally dragonflies. They are a bit annoying to get to spawn, as usual. We'll do a bit more hunting later, but for now let's explore a bit. Also: yes, I totally forgot to buy another dog! That's ok, it's not critical right now and I do remember it later on! So, then, first...  ...of course, let's hand everything in at the ark.  This of course gets us up to 6 out of needed full 120.  While we're outside, let's shortly make camp with Linda for some important dialogue. In case you are wondering... if you select any of the other two options in the dialogue, then the game lets you type in the name yourself that you want! There is a bit more to this, but it will take a while to get to it.  All right, let's go and get ourselves a second dog that I forgot to do before!  Continuing with our tradition of naming our dogs after all the seasons of the year except Summer, I name this dog Fuyu (=winter). Isn't it convenient that the names of all four seasons in Japanese can be written with just two characters? Maybe later we'll give it a try to earn the right to use kanji! Allrighty then. Seeing as there is really nothing to do but explore, let's head first over to Ozport and see how things are going there. I will generally try to avoid repeated dialogue as much as I can, but I will keep some as it will be more relevant to us finally in this scenario. Anyway, on to Ozport!  Ah, yes, the familiar "WELCOME NEOKENYA" flower bed. The second part of the last scenario was more focused on the southern area so it's been a while since we've been here. The guy in white shirt has something to say...  Let's head inside. (Also, yes, we can still get the dog sword in the little passage--we don't need it for now, however. Also also, yes, you can still capture the catfish down in the basement here--we're nowhere near strong enough to be able to survive that at present.)  This lady here has a bit of a tutorial, although nothing we don't already know. Places like caves etc. only appear on your satnav after you visit them for the first time. Towns and settlements are visible there from the start, although not all of them will have a Bird Line station, as we've also seen in the previous scenario.  We'll head upstairs to the airport area.  First, this largish fellow here.  And then this lady here sitting at the desk. So he didn't get murdered in this version of events and also it seems Sachiko didn't apply as crewmember either. Don't worry, she's around and we'll meet her soon! The other people here are saying the same stuff as before, so...  ...let's head further up the stairs!  Hi Lady. You have something to say, don't you? Yeah, I beg to differ on that one. But it is true that as time progresses the number of people we can talk to will be decreasing, even down to stuff like shops closing gradually as their owners leave the planet and so on. We didn't get to see this in Scenario A and B because there you can finish everything in a couple of years. But this time, as mentioned, we're staying until the bitter end in 1999 so we'll experience more of this.  Anyway, let's talk to other people working here, like this lady at the desk. A bit silly, but also a bit surprisingly deep. Like a lot of this game. One can definitely say that the writing quality overall is pretty high (and genuinely funny too).  Before stepping on the teleporter, let's talk to this technician lady here.  We take the teleporter up to Ozsat orbital satellite.  The only person of interest for now, is this lady here working at a computer. Well, we know that already since we found that old news bulletin there in Scenario B. Also, "Cult Quiz" or "CultQ" is a Japanese TV game show from early 1990s. So it's just a little joke. In any case over the course of the game you can get here different messages. Sometimes they are just silly jokes like this one, but sometimes they're a bit more useful. That's all we came here for, so now we'll take the teleporter back down and exit all the way out on the building terrace.  Here we can talk to this guy in blue.  Over to the right is another person. All three options give different answers, but all three are interesting so I will put them together in one convenient package: Lady, they are people, not animals in a zoo, ok? Next, we'll head over into the hotel entrance.  Inside, there's this guy in his room, whom we can harras. Right, the explosion that happened at Garex for unknown reasons. Also, we have definitely seen glimpses of archaeological digs on our journeys so far.  Over here in the big room is a kid we can also talk to. Location G-07 is around where Battle Park is in the West Area:  So it's basically on the coast of that big lake. Obviously in scenario B we could not go there, but in this one we'll definitely need to catch a pair of swallows. This however is one of the slightly more "complicated" captures, but we'll make a start on it today. One last thing in Ozport today, though...  ...is to go and visit the wedding shop!  As always, here we can buy Linda the 2G ring.  All right, as promised, let's make a start on obtaining some swallows. As mentioned they seem to be mostly found in northern areas (and I will never get used to the fact that the game calls is the "west" area--just why?). For this we need to head over to that place called G-Factory. You might recall that this is a factory town now mostly inhabited by robots.  After arriving at G-Factory, we can talk to the Bird Line employee.  Downstairs, the guy who works at the "left luggage" counter... Incindentally, in this scenario probably we will really have to make use of this left luggage service. The reason is that the game has a bit of a restricted inventory capacity. You can only carry with you a maximum of 32 items and they do not stack. So that means if you have five health potions, that takes five slots in your inventory! It was more or less fine before when the scenario would only last a year or two, but this time we may have to do some inventory management from time to time, unfortunately. Or, as Aloy would say: "I'll put that into my stash." (and then repeat that sentence about a million times!). Anyway, we didn't come here for the town itself, so...  ...we'll head outside into the snow! Just a few steps to the west is a cave which we haven't yet visited on our previous travels.  This place is called Swallowm. Do you think it has something to do with swallows perhaps?  After a short walk, we reach a couple of tents and a person in front of them! And what exactly is your business? Do you sell tickets for swallow-watching on the lake coast? I guess.  In the tent, there's another person to talk to. Ah-ha! How interesting. Ok, let's head further down into the cave. We'll take that staircase just behind the tents.  Going downstairs...  ...and checking out the handy map, it seems like an impossible task to find all 20 groups of rats in this huge cavern. However, as it turns out, this place uses the same animal spawning mechanism as anywhere else in the game. This means that the animals spawn as you "scroll into" the screen. So you can simply walk back and forth in the same area until you've caused 20 groups of rats to spawn and defeated them!  It's probably a bit hard to see, but here is one such rat trying to run away from Ken. You will have to use the sprint button here as they are way too quick. Incidentally that shiny object on the screen is in fact an egg, which we too can pick up. But for now I will leave it there.  Anyway, you fight a bunch of rats, defeat them and then repeat this 19 more times. Afterwards, when we are done, we can head back up to the tents.  So I guess they've started to come back then already, huh?  Also the person in the tent... All right, that's all we can do here for now. As mentioned, now that we've done this, we should be able to catch some swallows in the future.  That's some pretty bad weather... let's head back to warmer climates!  We're not heading all the way down south, though. Just as far as Minago! Here we have a hunter loitering about the entrance, but he has a bit of a tutorial we haven't seen so far! True, although it doesn't make a huge difference in practice. On my species "info cards" I haven't really been indicating these skills especially, for this reason.  Inside, we can talk to this older gentleman here. Right, we need to solve also the mystery of Ken's father's disappearance, I almost forgot! Not today, though.  Hope you haven't forgotten about this dude here. I wonder if it has something to do with the well in the church? In any case, let's hope Minago doesn't get minago-ed this time (Japanese "minagoroshi" = annihilation/massacre) so we can actually find out where this story goes! Also this guy's name bothers me something fierce.  Ok, let's head inside the church.  So here's the well that the old gentleman was talking about. Were this a FromSoftware game, there would certainly be a "try jumping" message in front of it. But, when you think about it, maybe we really should, you know... try jumping? Oh, Ken, you don't have the right.  Oh, hey, someone is sending us a message! But who? And why?  On the upper floor, we can talk to the priest a bit... Ok, that explains a lot.  Upstairs, there is another priest... This is kind of interesting, because back in Scenario A, when we met Nek in the abandoned town of Koshikata, there were also some issues with wild dogs and wolves there too. Hmm. Anyway, we can exit the church...  ...and head over to Linda's house!  Inside are, as expected, Hume and Ann.  As always, we can pick up some duck meat from the fridge. This is pretty convenient because by Summer it will rot and then we can use the rotten meat to catch some hyenas! Also...  Back outside...  So we get three different variations on Ann and Hume's relationship. In scenario A, they are divorced, in B they are divorced and remarried and here just happy together. Before we leave...  ...let's remember also this shack here.  It contains the animal expert guy. Sure thing... if the town doesn't get annihilated this time. I also would like to know what is it that you have to tell us!  With this, we're done with Minago for the moment. To finish off, let's find a few more species here in the immediate area.  In spring, sometimes the area around Hospico will flood. This is a bit of a problem as you stand a greater chance to get attacked by stonefish, and they are pretty strong in water!  You know, like this. Nevertheless, we manage to scrape by somehow!  As I make camp to recover some health, suddenly it becomes Summer 1992!  We also catch some moles.  Also we find some monkeys.  And rabbits.  And crabs. After this...  ...we head back into the Ark to hand these in.  Finally, we are informed by the robot that this makes 11 out of 120 that we will be collecting. So, that's all for today. It was kind of a bit of a breather episode where not that much happened, but not to worry. Next time we'll be exploring at least one new town we've never been to before, and also catching at least one new species!  Today we have here a couple of "model sheets" for Linda:
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Mar 28, 2022 23:18
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It honestly feels even weirder at this point to have such a relaxed update.
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Mar 29, 2022 00:24
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When will the crazy in this scenario ramp up. Is the plant lady going to unleash her super plants across the world?
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Mar 29, 2022 01:12
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Blaze Dragon posted:It honestly feels even weirder at this point to have such a relaxed update. "Sure thing... if the town doesn't get annihilated this time. " 
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Mar 29, 2022 03:16
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The swallow folks might be there for edible birds nests, if Neo-Kenyan swallows are anything like ours. Would make sense if swallows changing their nesting area destroys them economically like that.
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Mar 29, 2022 04:02
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"People are still talking about your wedding! It was the first time that the bride brought the groom in in a wheelchair. And also the first time that she answered his vows for him, too!" She force-married him? While comatose? Add that to the "Why hasn't he applied yet!" in the previous scenario and something is wrong here. Like....that isn't really 'funny' at all. Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but...
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Mar 29, 2022 06:21
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sb hermit posted:"Sure thing... if the town doesn't get annihilated this time. " Exactly. All this update did is make me wonder what ivantod's about to drop on us next update. can't make assumptions though, what if there were two chill updates in a row to really mess with us?
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Mar 29, 2022 07:02
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Ken wasn't comatose the full time, we didn't see most of his recovery. He could blink for yes and no. It's entirely possible he agreed to be married, Linda just vocalized the vows.
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Mar 29, 2022 07:10
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So what happens if you buy Linda the expensive rinf? I don't recall if you showed that off in a previous part, or will you be covering that later?
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Mar 30, 2022 03:07
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Randalor posted:So what happens if you buy Linda the expensive rinf? I don't recall if you showed that off in a previous part, or will you be covering that later? If you mean the stuff from this screenshot: There are three rings here, the bottom one is the (in)famous 2G ring of course. It's only effect is a couple of lines of dialogue from Linda, and nothing else. The middle one is a "diamond ring" for 500,000G, which as far as I know doesn't do anything. However, I'm happy to verify that later when we have enough money.  The item on top is called "Ziade's ring" and for this one, we'll be able to get it later on (and we will get it) so I'll explain at that point what it's for. This is a bit similar to what happens if you talk to the other salesperson in th wedding shop. You get this choice:  The item which costs 5,000 is an "engagement gift set", which also has absolutely no function in the game (for this one I'm sure about it). I'm not even surprised that a game like this would have "troll" items in it. There are actually more of them than just these two.
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Mar 30, 2022 20:16
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 Welcome back to Scenario C! Last time, we did some exploring and also some hunting. It also seems that Linda and Ken really have gotten married during the time while he was incapacitated. Today, we'll continue with the relaxed mixture of hunting and exploration, although it's time to visit a new location which we haven't really seen before and it's also time to start meeting some new animal species!  And so here we are, just outside Hardia. It's been a while, but I think it's time to head up north for a bit again!  In order to that, of course, we'll make use of this convenient tunnel northwest of Hardia. In scenario B, this tunnel was closed, but now it's of course open again, considering that this time there are no parts of the world which are off-limits to us. So let's head out there and do some more hunting to start with.  For example, those barely visible dots flying around on the screen...  ...are, of course, fleas.  Here we can also easily find some dolphins, although they can be found elsewhere too, as we've seen in Scenario B.  Also in the northern parts are found otters. As mentioned previously, it's important that you capture them before 1997. I mean, that's still plenty of time, really.  Probably best to avoid fighting eagles for now. They're just a bit too strong for us still. But, since we're already close by, let's go and visit again Battle Park and see how things are looking there this time!  Here we go.  This gentleman sitting here has a thing to say. A secret hunting ground, you say? Hm.  Also a bit of tutorial from this guy here working at left luggage counter. Yeah, we know this already too. Don't grind for levels, it really doesn't work in this game!  Also up on the Bird Line counter. Ah, so in this version of events Koshikata is not abandoned, huh? Anyway, going in...  ...brings us to this farm. Let's first talk to this lady here. Wow, ok. Talking to the other peron standing at the fence... Well, we did hear this one before, but now it's actually relevant to us since we will definitely want to look into it in this scenario. Any guesses on what this mysterious animal might be? Also, the public opinion on the Broncos doesn't seem particularly high, huh?  Over here, there is also a hunter. Ok, let's head over inside.  Inside, we'll first take this staircase down...  Here we find Mr. Bronco.  Back upstairs, talking to this guy... So this is another (minor) game mechanic. As he says, you can bring here a male/female pair and then next spring you get several of their offspring (up to 8). Obviously, this will not give you any species you don't already have, but if you need a bunch of animals to make a piece of equipment, it might save you some in-game time to do this instead of spening time hunting them. Obviously, this is very situational and probably not super useful in most cases.  And then this guy here in the corner... We've seen this before, but not yet used--setting traps to catch animals. Eventually Ken will learn to do it himself, without the aid of a shop.  Next, we'll go into this building with glass doors.  First, the gentleman sitting here at the table. We definitely will. Who knows, maybe we'll even run again into Angela, the famous travelling songstress?  We stop by the bank to take out our salary money!  Back outside, we'll head out into the equipment shop.  This person here has an interesting comment... This farm just seems like overall not a great place.  Outside, another hunter off to the side of the shack. Yeah, we've seen the ruins and the archaeological digs in a few places. We'll have to look more closely into all that.  Here, of course, is the tent where hunters can fight each other for prizes. Let's go inside.  This gentleman here... We'll have to check and see how Panheim and/or Elizabeth are doing in this timeline!  This hunter here has a comment. Champion's belt is of course one of the rewards you can earn for fighting here. And so that's about it for here, for now. Most of the rest of the dialogues is the same as before, really.  So at this point, we'll do some more capturing before we proceed. In order to do that, we'll take this tunnel that leads to the area west of Battle Park.  As we approach the tunnel exit, we ca talk to this person for a short reminder. We are indeed carrying some rotten mean, that's why I picked up that duck meat last time during spring, so it would become rotten by the time summer comes, so we can catch some hyenas. So thanks for the advice, but we'll proceed as we are!  After some wandering, we finally find ourselves accosted by a bunch of hyenas!  Oh, wow, that's quite a few of them! They always show in large groups and it's not so unusual to get 10+ of them in one fight! However, usually most of them will run away pretty much immediately so it's not too big of a deal. Otherwise, the benefit of having a weapon that hits everybody at once is pretty clear in situations like these! After capturing a pair, it's best to just get rid of the rotten meat immediately, so that they wouldn't keep chasing you!  Over in the far nortwestern part we find...  ...some goats! Luckily it's not snowy around so this will be easier than usual.  Finally, walking around these northern forests...  ...you will typically run into some weasels disguising themselves as trees!  Turns out, we're right next to Eterna! It's been a while, so let's stop and see how those folks are doing!  As always, the people from left luggage counter have some good advice! Well, ok, let's head inside...  ...where as it turns out is no longer constantly Christmas! Although they didn't exactly take down all the decorations. The person in white shirt will give us an update on this topic! You will recall that in Scenario A, this town was quite the tourist trap because of its constant Christmas thing. I guess now that it's a town like any other, tourists aren't coming so much any more.  They do still have a bunch of hotels, though. So let's go in.  If we talk to the priest first... Ugh, just go away. The guy in white: Ah, yes, I remember that guy from Scenario A. He was a pain in the rear end when you wanted to get an optional/missable scene with Elizabeth because he wouldn't let you in and you had to try many times until he does. I hate him. If we go over to the inn on the opposite side of the road...  Well, hopefully it works out for you, buddy. For us, we'll go and check upstairs.   Back outside, we have also this person here. Well, we're already married, actually. Under slightly unusual circumstances, admittedly, but still... Since we're on a tour, we'll have a look at that inn too.  Upstairs...  Lina Valley is that town right next to Eterna. We haven't been there yet, however we will make our first visit today!  On the other side of the walkway is not another hotel, but a combined animal trader/butcher shop.  These guys don't have anything new to say, so we'll head directly upstairs.  Okay, this one is a bit on the unsubtle side.  Next on our tour is this random person here.  The priest here is looking for donations.  Sure, we'll give 1G. Let's see if it gets us anything.  This lady here has an interesting comment. It seems the relationship between Elizabeth and Panhein also worked out better in this timeline, huh? Although that proposal is quite something...  Well, ok, let's head into the mansion then.  This guy here in this place which looks like it's where all the Christmas trees have come from.  Over on the upper floor next to the entrance to where Elizabeth's office used to be is this rather well dressed lady. That is a surprisingly random comment... But anyway.  Going into the office, we can see that Elizabeth is indeed not there. However...  ...it gives us a chance to look around the side rooms.  It's all rather elaborate, isn't it? (By the way, you can get a pig sausage from that fridge in the top left corner. They are all about pig sausages here in Eterna.) But well, for now there's nothing else to do here, so let's just go up to the top where the Confession Tower is. Presumably this is the place where we had the showdown with Nek in Scenario A!  We can just climb the usual series of steps to get there.  Up there, we find two people. Let's talk to the man first. And then if we approach the woman... Uh, yeah, I guess this confession didn't go so well. In any case, this is all in Eterna for now. But before we go...  ...I'm sure you will be happy to see that this time there isn't anybody imprisoned in those underground cells.  We can also see that this "famous" door is already open. Unfortunately the chests which previously used to contain a weapon (jellyfish needle) and a piece of clothing (sheep sweater), in this scenarin they are empty. Nevertheless, I will remember next time to buy some better clothes/armor. We have upgraded the weapons, but we could improve our defence situation a little bit too. Next time, though. Anyway, let's get out of here.  Exiting from Eterna, we are informed that it's now Autumn 1992.  Also, since we are right here. Let's go and have a look at Lina Valley, since it's right next door! That's definitely a weird name for a dungeon/cave, but as always, this really is its official name, as evidenced by this page of the game guide: But then again, most dungeons in this game have somewhat weird names. Anyway, getting in...  ..we find out that the news bulletin has been updated! N.K. NEWS BULLETIN A Miraculous Recovery of the Male Ark Crew Member Ken Challenger, who was seriously injured in an accident one year ago, has finally returned to the ark project! It is said that it is all thanks to devoted nursing and care by his loving wife, Linda. We sincerely with them both the best of luck!  The person at the left luggage counter has an ominous comment. Continuing inside...  This place definitely doesn't look particularly inviting! But let's talk to this gentleman standing on this terrace. Note: despite this description, it's just a normal animal dealer same as everywhere else. Also, the cave has other entrances--one is at G-Factory and the other can be reached through that "secret" door in Elizabeth's mansion basement.  Using this staircase takes us indoors.  We stop to withdraw our money from the bank, and have a chat while we do that! We'll check out the animals in the cave soon enough. Most of them are species we have NOT yet seen. Let's also talk to the person sitting at the table.  On the other side is the equipment shop! (By the way, the above screenshot is not broken/half-loaded. The bottom part is just a part of the wall around the whole structure. But it looks weird from this angle.) One of the few useless bits of advice given by the NPCs. The outside season and temperature has no influence on Ken and Linda whatsoever. It does, however, influence which animals may or may not appear and how strong or weak they are, as we already know. G-Factory is, of course, located far enough north that it's always covered in snow there. We can also talk to the guy in the butcher shop next door. This might come as a surprise, but he's describing yet another game mechanic. If you are being accosted by animals, you can throw meat on the ground to distract them and get away. Also some animals can only be caught in this way. I will demonstrate it in the next update.  Taking that staircase down, brings us to where, as already mentioned, animal dealer and pharmacy operate their shops right next to each other! First we talk to the animal dealer. And then the person working in the pharmacy. If I recall correctly, it's in fact possible to find an actual drug dealer in a tent somewhere in Sperm Lina who sells those performance enhancing drugs and stuff. We will look for him when we go there.  Over on the other side of this floor, there is a guy standing in front of a room.  His father is over here in bed... If we exit north from this building...  ...we get into that area we were able to see from the terrace above. There is a hunter here to talk to. Sure seems like it. In fact not many places on this planet seem to be doing particularly great. Walking in acid does in fact damage your HP very slightly, so don't do it. Except in places in the cave where you're forced to as there is no other path. Also, sulfurous acid in reality is colourless, not white, so this one here is probably mixed with some minerals from the cave or something.  If we take that big staircase up, we reach an area with a couple of metal shacks. You know what, let's just head to the bar, why not?  A few people to talk to here... Let's start with the hunter standing to the left of Ken. We can also talk to the very skimpily dressed dancer on the podium The waitress in bunny costume (a bit hard to see but she's standing next to the bar counter), surprisingly only has a capture hint to give us. The big lake to the south can get frozen in winter and you can also find penguins there during that time, so this is not a super useful hint. Finally we can talk to that lady standing by the sink in the kitchen. Well, I don't know, with all the acid it seems to me that Angela has a valid point here. Anyway, maybe we'll run into her somewhere over the course of our adventure? Let's hope so! Taking that staircase up...  ...we get to the area where the guest bedrooms are. We can of course talk to the guests, as always. Dude, you definitely think too much.  The reception desk for the inn is on the other side. And this shows why you really need to keep talking to all NPCs constantly. Basically, we're now quite far up north, but the location K-24 is all the way down in the caves of Samakia, so the animal this is referring to is the hydra, which you can only catch if you get attacked while camping overnight. Cute they are not, though!  Back outside, there is this guy standing by the barrels...  One of the other shacks houses a doctor who will patch you up if you get knocked out in battle. We're not here to talk to him, though...  I only came in to show you what the hospital beds look like here.  Around the back and in the corner here is another person...  And then, taking this staircase down...  ...leads into the house.  At the other end of the house, there's another person. All righty then. That's all we're going to do here for now, so let's make our exit.  While we book our flight, we can have a short chat with the Bird Line employee. Of course, you will recall that Bird Line does provide a "pickup" service, but it's not cheap. However, it should not surprise you that the stuff she's talking about is indeed an ability Ken will be able to learn soon! However, this ability is not learned by leveling up, but you have to trigger a specific event in-game to get it. We will of course make sure to do so when the time comes. Anyway, let's take a flight back to Hospico for now.  We won't be going inside this time (also, man, it's still completely flooded around here, huh?).  Instead, we'll head to this cave, which is a bit southeast.  This place is called Dagpond and I guess it's also a bit flooded at the moment. No matter, we have a thing to do here.  We'll head up this way...  On the way, we can see this interesting situation. Because of the fact that the whole area is flooded at the moment, there is here a staircase which is not accessible! I guess we would have to come during a "drier" season, such as summer or winter if we wanted to be able to go downstairs. Anyway, eventually...  ...we can find here some hermit crabs to add to our tally.  Eventually, we get to this area, which is also flooded. But thanks to that fact, we are able to find here another new species!  The ducks! So they only actually appear during those two seasons during the times the area is flooded. Also don't ask me to explain what is going on with their legs. Also, I know you are already curious how much more crazy did they look in the PC Engine version, and so I'll tell you. Actually the remake version looks exactly the same as the PC Engine original. This is one of the few species which really didn't undergo any design changes at all. Anyway, after this we can make our way out back to the exit.  We'll take this tunnel back towards Hardia.  Before we go back, we'll head a bit south first...  ...to catch some dogs!  Ok, now let's head back to the ark. By the way, in the next update, we'll finally start figuring out what is up with those ruins that you can see in a few places around the world (like the one visible here on the screenshot).  Back in the ark, we'll hand in everything we've caught today.  We're informed that we have so far captured 20 species total. So we still have a full 100 to go. This will take a bit of time, I think. Well, ok. I think we can stop here for toda-- Actually wait, I almost forgot. We still have that message that we haven't listened to! Let's head quickly into Hardia and see what that's all about.  The message is from a person unknown to us. That was kind of weird.  But I guess she's waiting for us here at the hotel, so we should go and have a chat. Next time, though. So this was kind a bit of a leisurely start to this scenario still, however from now on things are going start to happen a bit more, including also broadening of our exploration. Today, a nice collage with illustrations of bits from various cutscenes! Speech bubble translations, kind of in three columns from the left: KANZENBAN = The complete version (also the title under which the Sega Saturn port was sold). (Left) 1. Insect-robot: "3... 2... 1... Attack!" 2. Emory and Sachiko: "How about Sachiko!!" 3. Ark drops from the sky: "What is this!?" "The ship of salvation!!" (Middle) 1. Ken: "Ken attacks!!" 2. Linda: "Easy-peasy, right?" (Right) 1. Nek and Elizabeth: "Hurry up and get started..." 2. Ben doing the presentation: "Absolutely no guarantees!" 3. Ken and Linda with the dogs: "I'm tired..." Also... What do you think, are we going to run out of illustrations before finishing the game?
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Apr 9, 2022 20:24
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Things have been concerningly normal so far... My guess for what's in the blizzard is a Yeti.
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Apr 9, 2022 20:54
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GilliamYaeger posted:Things have been concerningly normal so far... What do you mean? This game's always totally ordinary- it's hardly concerning, I'd think. The hospital beds being shaped like coffins is a dark, but good touch.
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Apr 9, 2022 22:00
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GilliamYaeger posted:Things have been concerningly normal so far... Could also be a polar bear (or yeti-as-polar bead) or a walrus. Maybe a wendigo? I think those tended to be winter-related in their portrayal.
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Apr 10, 2022 03:13
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It’s a butterfly, and it also caused the storm by flapping its wings.
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Apr 10, 2022 05:27
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We hadn't seen any kind of bears yet, I wonder how wild Linda^3 bears would be.
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Apr 10, 2022 23:52
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Robindaybird posted:We hadn't seen any kind of bears yet, I wonder how wild Linda^3 bears would be. But we've already seen Linda's dad 
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Apr 11, 2022 03:00
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Randalor posted:But we've already seen Linda's dad Not that kind of bear.
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Apr 11, 2022 03:10
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Robindaybird posted:Not that kind of bear. In this game? They could easily be one and the same.
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Apr 11, 2022 03:11
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quote:If the animals are going to kill you already anyway, it would be nice if they would at least eat all of you. But most of the time, it's only about half, so that's pretty annoying. lol, this is one of my favorite lines of dialogue so far
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Apr 11, 2022 06:38
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Doc Hawkins posted:lol, this is one of my favorite lines of dialogue so far Yeah the writing in game is definitely on point, in particular the NPC dialogues are just fantastic!
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Apr 11, 2022 19:38
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quote:If you underestimate penguins, you may get hurt! I mean, it's not too bad one on one, but you get a large group, they might make you leave the world of the living! https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AnguishedTintedApe-mobile.mp4 checks out
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Apr 11, 2022 19:59
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just caught up, loving this lp.
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Apr 12, 2022 04:57
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Pladdicus posted:just caught up, loving this lp.
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Apr 12, 2022 17:31
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ivantod posted:Also, sulfurous acid in reality is colourless, not white, so this one here is probably mixed with some minerals from the cave or something.[/i]
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Apr 13, 2022 13:21
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TitanG posted:Probably sulfuric (H2SO4) not sulfurous (H2SO3) acid there (the latter exists only as a technicality), and the white thing would likely be the solid SO3 in fumes above it. To be honest, last time I had anything to do with chemistry was back in high school, but in the game text it's definitely talking about sulfurous acid (亜硫酸) and not sulfuric acid (硫酸). But this could be just a thing because they though "sulfurous" sounds more esoteric or something.
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Apr 13, 2022 13:38
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quote:a small amount of a certain animal's hormone I can't think of any hormone we have that would have that effect on animals.
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Apr 13, 2022 14:20
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Bloodly posted:I can't think of any hormone we have that would have that effect on animals. Almost all of the animals are alien horrors, though. Only dogs are normal. So, who knows what their reaction to human hormones is gonna be.
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Apr 13, 2022 15:16
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Bloodly posted:I can't think of any hormone we have that would have that effect on animals.
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Apr 13, 2022 15:53
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Geemer posted:Almost all of the animals are alien horrors, though. Only dogs are normal. So, who knows what their reaction to human hormones is gonna be. Also, humans in-setting may be weirder than they look.
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Apr 13, 2022 16:44
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Sum Gai posted:Also, humans in-setting may be weirder than they look. oh they're weird all right
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Apr 13, 2022 16:50
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 I look at you and wham, I'm head over heals I guess that love is like a banana peel -- Elvis Presley Welcome back to Scenario C. In this world, everything is surprisingly normal. Well, there is a certain obsession with bananas, but other than that.  When we left off, we had just finished listening to a message from a person named "Spectra", who told us to come over to the hotel and talk to here.  On the way, we can stop for a short chat with the receptionist... So the usual story about trying to entice us to stay at the hotel... but there is genuinely no reason to spend money on that in this game, especially when Ken learns the "camp" ability already at level 4! Why bother sleeping at the hotel? Anyway, the person we came here to see...  ...in the room all the way in the back. Let's see what she has to say! So this is kind of interesting, because as you might guess, it isn't even possible to get this key in Scenario A or B, because you need this person to be there to give it to you, and she obviously isn't! One of the reasons why I postponed dealing with keys until now, since as you can see, you can't even get all of them in previous scenarios. But now we can, and so we will. As a matter of fact, we have heard about Fang before. It was mentioned by the old gentleman sitting upstairs in the hotel's bar. He told us about Fang having slaughtered a whole family in Minago once. But I guess maybe that was some other family since she clearly survived? So then the question remains, where would one go looking for this "Fang"? Well, this was a while ago, but you might remember that during our exploration treks in Scenario B, at one point in one of the caves we came across somebody talking about a "nest" of wild dogs! The place in question was Karagoram, so that's where we'll head again. But it's interesting to note that if you use the first two scenarios to do a bit of exploration and get an idea where some things are, this then allows you to save a bit of time at this point!  In any case, Karagoram is just a bit to the south east from Hardia, so we can get there quite easily.  We need to go deeper!  And the back up on the other side. Having detailed maps of all dungeons in the game guide is a lifesaver as they can be confusingly laid out:  You can see here on the map how there are multiple "unconnected" sections on this floor, which can only be reached by a right combination of up and down stairs!  Over here is a chest, but it only contains a 50HP recovery tablet.  Oh hey, here is an animal we can catch!  Lizards!  We pass by what look like some bone remains... possibly previous victims of Fang's?  Ah, I think we might have found the dog nest!  Yeah, that big guy there is probably Fang himself. For once, we actually get what almost seems like a mini-boss fight. But don't worry. He's easier to defeat than roses.  Here we go! First, looks like he brought help. Second, what in the world is that thing! So, let's see. A bit similar to the Hume fight, this guy hits rather hard, so it's important to have proper defence so you don't get one shot with him. So in order to achieve that, first of all we'll use the transform option on Linda (she is faster and usually gets a turn before Ken).  Linda transforms into a rabbit-woman for an extra +30 in defence. It also gives her +20 attack, but that's less critical at this time. After this, she will immediately use her Armored Skin ability for an additional +26 in defence. This is good, but not enough, so Ken will have to also help out here.  Ken transforms into a dolphin, which gives him +56 to his attack power. It does also decrease his defence and HP, but that's ok since we'll use the old trick of Linda taking the hits for him. Unfortunately, Fang's hits are still a little too strong! In order to solve this, Ken will use the best special ability that has ever existed in any JRPG.  Ken uses Smelly Fart ability!  It causes Fang's attack power to go down by a whole 71! Now we're talking! Now we just do the usual thing where Linda will defend Ken, and Ken will use his Desperate Attack ability to deal damage. This gives him an additional +64 in attack power, but at the cost of -64 in defence. Hence why we need Linda to defend him.  But it results in some nice hits, here you can see Ken dealing a whole 138 damage to Fang.  I wasn't bothering too much with them, but after a couple of turns, Fang's posse decide to cowardly run away so we don't even have to deal with them at all. In any case, at this point we can just continue with our strategy for an additional couple of turns until we're done with this fight. So you can click above to see this fight in a video form. I highly recommend that you do, since you absolutely have to see/hear the audio and visuals that accompany the Smelly fart ability when Ken uses it! Seriously, don't miss it!  In the end only the skull remains and the rest of the dogs disperse. If we examine the skull...  Well, I guess that'll do as a proof for Spectra! Before we head back to her, however, we'll visit another place in this cavern.  You might remember this guy here guarding the stairs... Ah, I guess he's guading those stairs in case dogs try to come down. Well, we've deal with Fang, so probably less of an issue now.  Down here, we find again those people who seem to be looking for a source of water in order to rejuvenate some eggs. Let's talk to the lady.  Inside the tent is another scientist. Sure, we'll give them a few G. Let's see if it helps them somehow! Well, that was interesting, but it seems we'll have to come back at some point to see if there is going to be any result. Last time when we were here in Scenario B, we didn't have an option to donate money, that's for sure. In any case, we're basically done here, so now let's head back to Hardia to report on our successful mission to get rid of Fang.   Ken obtained the "forbidden key". And so, we have obtained our first proper key to a locked room! Of course there are still lots more to be found in the world before we finish the game. We are also done with this whole thing, so we'll be on our way now.  As we're about to leave, we're interrupted by the receptionist. I guess we should have suspected something when she said that her name was "Spectra". But we didn't. At least we should have remembered from one of the previous scenarios that it has been mentioned to us about a female ghost which haunts the hotel. All right, let's head to Minago and find what is in this "forbidden room"!  As mentioned, it's in the church...  ...over here on the second floor!  First of all, there is a chest here. It contains simply a "gold nugget" which can be sold for 6400 G.  On the other side is one of those computers which can be used to release the animals from cryogenic storage. This one in particular will give you a pair of sea cucumbers. But sea cucumbers can be easily found on the overworld, so this is not a huge help. Anyway, we'll keep this pair as backup if we really end up having trouble catching them properly. (Spoiler alert: we won't have any trouble with that.) But ok, let's continue with our exploration and let's catch a couple of new species for a change!  For this we'll go back to this tunnel leading from Hardia to the northern part of the world.  We'll follow this mountain range towards the west.  On the way we get another message notification.  Also on the way...  ...we can catch some horses.  Eventually we reach another cave entrance. We haven't been here before.  This place is called Shanai and this tent contains...  ...a person who will explain to us this cave's gimmick. That's ok, I have already not been using dogs for a while now. Also, we have indeed come here to catch some octopuses, so falling down a hole is not a problem! It's also not necessary, just a quicker way to get down and obviously everything is reachable through normal stairs.  As we continue into the cave, indeed if we come close to a wall in certain spots... Oops.  We seem to have fallen into a large open area...  It's swarming with octopuses here!  A spider or an octopus? You be the judge! The only issue here is that the ground makes you walk slowly and the octopuses will chase you relentlessly, so you might have to fight them a bunch of times I guess. Also, they looked a lot weirder in the original PC Engine version:  A brain or an octopus? You be the judge!  Don't miss this chest here in the corner, because...  We'll finally make use of this a bit later today! It's about time, right?  But getting back to hunting for a moment, there is another new species here!  It's the tanuki! Note that the real-life tanuki definitely don't have oversized testicles. That only applies to the magical ones! Unfortunately I cannot give you here any additional weirdness by posting the PC Engine version, because they looked the same in the original. Also for the item mentioned there "oban koban", oban and koban are old Japanese coins, and this item indeed sells for a whole 36,000 G, so if you have extra tanukis which you don't need it's probably a good idea to try to get it. But as we've seen, money is not a big pain in this game, so don't worry about it too much.  If we keep exploring we can find this staircase...  ...which contains a small area with a chest. The chest contains a large golden nugget, which can be sold for around 12,000 G. Not too bad for a couple of minutes work! With this, we can leave for now. But we will be back as there are more species here to be found.  Outside, it's now Winter 1992.  We'll stop briefly by the ark to hand in what we have so far.  Just as we're about to do it, we get another message notification! We really do seem to be getting a lot of these lately.  In any case, the robot tells us that we're now at 24 out of 120.  While we're here, let's check out at least ONE of those messages we have waiting for us! Surprisingly the message is from Panheim! Well, ok, this should be pretty easy, right? However, before we do that, let's first head over to Hospico and see what it looks like in this version of events!  At the Hospico entrance, there is a person to talk to...  First we'll head in here where animal dealer and equipment shop are.  We'll talk to the equipment guys here. We can sell to this guy the gold nuggets we have for a total of almost 20,000 G. Pretty good! Looking at his list of things that we can buy...  ...there is a curious item here: "a filling banana", for only 4 G. Hm, perhaps we'll find out more what that's all about if we keep talking to people?  The meat shop next door. Ah, well this explains it. Meat can normally mostly be used to replenish HP apart from any other effects it may have. So these "filling bananas" also recover HP, but they are also really cheap! I guess we'll try them at some point and see what amount of HP they restore. Let's continue our tour!  Let's talk to the people waiting here. First this lady. Huh, maybe this time he didn't turn into an evil genius in the process? Next, we talk to the gentlemant in the middle. You know, that's true. People HAVE been asking us to do stuff for them! What's that all about? Next, we'll go over here...  ...and talk to the hospital director. Deep. But, we'll continue back outside...  ...over to where the scientists' labs are located.  First, this lady here. Going into the first house...  ...it is of course, Dr. Flora's lab! Note also that in the following conversation the choices don't matter. This woman is weird. Let's get out of here.  In front of the second house is a pregnant lady. Going inside...  ...this one is, as before, the lab of Dr. Panheim. He's ever here for once! But first, let's see what his assistant has to say. Ok, let's talk to Panheim now.  Well, ok. I do wonder what we'll get in return. He did say "a couple" of things, right? We'll deal with the chickens in a moment, but for now let's just finish our tour of Hospico.  Finally, we proceed to the last house, which of course belongs to Emory! There is a person in blue here (and yes that's definitely Sachiko there tending the flower bed!). All right, next is Sachiko.  Huh, this is actually the same dialogue from Scenario B. Ok, then, let's go inside.  Inside is just Emory.  Yeah, he's still weird. But for us, let's head into the hospital building across from his house.  These stairs lead down to the morgue, but there isn't anything new to be seen or found there, so we don't need to worry about it.  Instead, we'll go and talk to this gentleman here.  Next, we'll talk to this lady here. Next, we'll take that staircase to go to the upper floor.  We can also talk to that nurse behind the counter... Normally I would just choose one answer, but both of these are important! The first, because it gives a bit of a back story and the second because it's just plain funny. So, if you choose the first option: If you choose the second option... I guess we might as well head to the roof to see if there's anybody there!  On the way, we'll stop by these two nurses and see what they have to say. An interesting tidbit. The other nurse: All right, to the roof!   Oh, hey, it's Kens' mum!  Oh, so she was the midwife who... Well at least this hints that we may yet find out what happened to Ken's actual dad by the end of the game! Anyway, we'll go all the way back inside...  ...over to this room. Let's talk to the nurse first. Let's also talk to the old dude here.  Anyway, this guy here, next to some equipment... Yeah, we know. Hence not really going be catching any catfish until we gain a good few more levels! But all right. That's enough of that for now, so let's head out and catch some chickens (and earthworms in the process).  For that we go down to Marblepolis, slightly to the south east from Hospico...  Here, of course, we have these guys who are working on the excavation... Remeber that chickens have powerful fire based attacks! The other guy:  Inside the tent...  And the other tent... And yeah, the game is strongly trying to get you to, in fact, try moving any stone that can be moved. As you might recall it unlocks a staircase to that weird place with animals status and what looks like teleporters! We will find out what those are for later on in this scenario.  Anyway, down in the ruins, we will of course move a stone (well, you can't even avoid moving this one here in any case!).  This, of course, triggers some earthworms which we need for our collection!  Next is of course, chickens, one of which you can see here. As we know from before, they will try to run away, so you have to chase them. But there is another way to approach them, which is actually better. You can take a piece of meat from your inventory... ...and throw it on the ground, like so! This will distract the animal, and allow you to get a guaranteed back attack!  This is quite nice, since chickens are quite fast and we are a bit underleveled, so this lets us get a bit ahead of them at the start of the battle. So finally I manage to get enough chickens for us and also two extra to convert into meat for Panheim! With that done, let's head back to Panheim's lab and give him the requested items! Back in Hospico...   Ken handed over 2 pieces of chiken meat.  He goes over to prepare the medication for a while. And then, he opens the capsule, and...  This does indeed cause Elizabeth to wake up from her coma!   Hey, so in this version of the events she just grew old normally and didn't go crazy! Anyway, Panheim interrupts us for a moment. Ken received "Blue Beastman Statue". Ken is forced to receive "Chanelle no 5.". It's another one of those items that give random stat increases in battle. Yes, the incorrect spelling is part of the joke. About that beastman statue (blue)... we'll be making use of it very soon, don't worry. Before we leave, let's talk to Elizabeth one more time and find out more about her dream. Uh, about that dream... Actually, you know what. Better not. Ok, now we can leave. We have a couple more small things to do today, so let's head a bit to the southern area.  Of course, the only place in the south which still has Bird Line service is Dogy Figh, so we'll head there first.  We'll leave the tour of the town for another time--we do need to figure out what the dog fighting ring owner and his weird family are up to these days! But for now, let's head eastwards to Laguna Lodge, Dr. Emory's residence.  It is of course reached via this tunnel.  The door is now open, so we can just walk straight through.  While we're here let's check out if somebody is around!  Turns out, Emory is actually here now. He is also conveniently blocking the access to that chest by standing in this exact spot! Those dolls are still there on the table next to him, which we've looked at in the previous scenario. Let's talk to him.  Although the lucky cat is, of course, "Maneki neko" doll, as we've discussed about previously in the thread, here the game literally calls it just "lucky cat" in English. But it's nice to get a bit of an in-game explanation about the dolls. Conveniently, I'm not going to dwell too much on what he just said his country of origin is called, and we'll simply be on our way now!  We'll take the southern exit from his house, the one which leads into the lake here.  On the eastern side of this small lake is one of these ruin things that we've been seeing everywhere around the planet. LET'S GO INSIDE!  It's one of those mysterious teleporters, this time surrounded by animal statues! A small distraction...  ...because just as we come in, another message notification pops up! Is anybody counting how many this is already?  Anyway, in front of the wall, there is some kind of a pedestal with a statue on it. Let's examine it.  Well, I mean, yes, I guess. Kind of that's why we came here. Ken put the beastman necklace on the long-necked beastman statue. (Try saying that ten times fast.)  The teleporter starts to glow, like it's now active! I mean...  ...let's step on it, how bad can it be, right?  We arrive at another place, which the game helpfully indicates is named "Holy Hole".  Huh.  Oh, there's another one. And this one is lit, too.  And a whole bunch of chests, "guarded" by beastman statues! They are all empty, except...  ...this one here. So now we have a silver statue and a blue one from Panhem. Curious. Did they perhaps use to contain statues of other colours that got looted at some point and scattered around the world? Well we'll definitely try to find them all! There doesn't seem to be anything else in this big hall, so...  ...we can head south.   We pass by some tents and equipment, but there's no one around to talk to about what just happened.  Evenutally we make our way out. It seems we're still in the southern area, but... where exactly? Let's check out our helpful satnav!  So, we stepped on the teleporter near Laguna Lodge. On the map, this location is indicated by the white line pointing at it (J-17). On the other hand, our current location is indicated by the rectangle marker at H-23. Of note here, is the this H-23 location is not actually reachable by walking! It's surrounded by the mountains on the west and north (along coordinates I and 19), and the water around K-19 is as you can see a bit darker coloured, which means it's too deep to walk through. Of course, this location is still reachable by using the Bird Line "drop-off" service, so that's not the issue. What is the issue is that it costs around 2000 G every time you use it. Bottom line is, it looks like there is a network (?) of teleporters on this planet which just might allow us to traverse the place quicker. And who knows, there just might be one or two which lead to some unexpected places? And we also still don't know what those differently coloured statues are for... but at least we've figured out something to do with the necklaces! All right, we'll stop here for today. You probably are already getting an idea how this scenario will work in general, but in any case, we'll talk about it in more detail next time! Today we have an illustration depicting the game's main characters. Why can't they just look normal?
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May 3, 2022 23:02
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I'm glad that one thing is consistent in this game in spite of how weird it is. No matter the timeline, Emory is weird in all the bad ways.
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May 3, 2022 23:52
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> Ken transforms into a dolphin > Ken uses Smelly Fart > It's Super Effective! ...and yet, considering some of the NPC dialogue you also posted, I'm not actually sure that's the strangest part of this update. Or this game. 
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May 3, 2022 23:58
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Dr. Flora is either going to create Audrey II or a generic hentai monster - I'm not sure which would be worse to receive.
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May 4, 2022 00:42
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Kind of iconic that all these randos are asking Ken to do side quests for them because they know the hosed up wildlife of Neo Kenya isn't worth preserving.
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May 4, 2022 01:04
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This completely normal game still manages to have some of the most... unique NPC dialogue. Also chicken nuggets cures infected weasel bites allergy things, who knew?
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May 4, 2022 01:16
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Those aren't octopuses or ticks, they're obviously octorocks.
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May 4, 2022 03:17
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