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the "dharma" is a daruma, another kind of good-luck doll
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May 4, 2022 05:02
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Robindaybird posted:Dr. Flora is either going to create Audrey II or a generic hentai monster - I'm not sure which would be worse to receive. why not both?
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May 4, 2022 05:45
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 My mother always used to say: "The older you get, the better you get. Unless you're a banana." -- Betty White Hello and welcome to the continuing adventures of Ken and Linda in Scenario C! Last time when we left off, we had just discovered that there appears to be a network of teleporters on the planet, and at least some of them can be activated by putting the "beastman necklace" on the beastman statues found in those weird ruins. By using the teleporter near Laguna Lodge, we ended up all the way down south! Well, since we're quite close to it...  ...why don't we head over to the nearby cave of Samakia. If you recall, this is the place were ants (and anteaters!) live.  In the cave, you might notice these things that look a bit like a poop emoji (except there was no poop emoji back in 1997, of course). Let's have a look.  Not sure what I was expecting. But we're definitely picking up all of these.  And it keeps going. In fact if you want more of these, you can simply exit the cave and come back in and they will have respawned! There are also other kinds of poop to be found in the game apart from these two. No, I have not gone crazy. There's a reason to pick the poop up from the floor. But, let's continue into the cave.  As always, on the way we pass by this fence...  ...but at the moment, there's nobody around to talk to. Maybe later.  For now, we find here some anteaters.  Then we head down, of course, where the majority of ants may be found.  Before long, we are accosted by a bunch of male ants, as expected. Like before, their minuscule HP poses a bit of a problem. In Scenario B we used mostly Linda's "Cobra Twist" ability to do a few HP of damage in each turn and managed to do it that way. But today, let's try a different strategy.  If you choose the option to use an item in the battle, and then select one of the poops we just collected... the game gives us an option to "throw" it. It basically "throws" it a one of the enemies, and in the process... does a tiny amount od damage! Just about enough that we can deal enough damage to an ant in a couple of throws to be able to capture it without killing it! How awesome! On our travels through this confusing maze of tunnels, we find also a chest.  Ah, well, that should be useful! Especially now when we know what they're for!  In any case, eventually we find the ant queen.  She also goes down without much difficulty, simply by throwing poop again a couple of times! With that done, we can leave this cave. Of course there are more species to be found here so we will come back later. In any case, we can walk across to Holy Hole and use the teleporter to easily get back to Laguna Lodge and Dogy Figh. As mentioned, this whole area where Samakia is is kind of cut off from the rest of the map by high mountains so normally is only reachable via Bird Line drop off service. However, now that we have a convenient teleporter, things are much easier. Also, we're done talking about poop for today. No more poop talk in the rest of today's episode! Especially no more talk about throwing poop. For now...  ...let's head back over to Hardia, because we have phone messages piling up that we haven't really been checking!  First of all, let's check that news bulletin, in case there's something new there! NK NEWS BULLETIN Ms. Green of Green Pharmaceutical Co., and her husband donate 36,000,000,000,000 G to the refugee relief fund! Elizabeth, the recently retired chairwoman of Green Pharmaceutical Co., and her husband Dr. Panheim donate to the refugee relief fund an unbelievable amount of 36 trillion G! With this kind of amount, it can be said that the lives and property of the Neo-Kenya refugees will be completely secure. Very nice of them. It seems that really everybody's lives have turned out for the better in Scenario C. It just warms your heart, doesn't it? So, now about that message--yes, I know we have several, but let's start with one!  The message is actually from Nek! So this sounds like a much less malevolent mirror image of a similar call we got in Scenario A, when Nek also invited us to Koshikata to "play a game"! In any case, let's make our way to the church in Minago, as requested!  We'll climp up...   ...all the way to the balcony. Here we find Nek and Sachiko, more or less as expected.   Nek goes over to the side and starts shouting from the balcony...  Sachiko joins him in shouting!    Nek and Sachiko return over to Ken and Linda. Sachiko and Nek leave. So it looks like we'll have a wedding to attend soon! Meanwhile, Linda has a comment, though.  Before they can leave, a priest shows up...  Anyway, that was a bit of a fun diversion, but now let's head back to the nearest phone, since we still have one more message which we have received but not listened to!  The message is actually from a person we met some time ago in one of the previous scenarios. Again, this was a very long while ago, back in Scenario A, but you might recall that this guy used to work in the Ozport branch. The problem is that he was fooling around with his female colleague, who at the same time was also his boss's girlfriend or something. One of his other colleagues even told us that he might end up transferred as a punishment, so I guess it's finally happened and now he's working at the G-Factory branch, in the town where only robots live! But, it seems this is our next task, so we'll head over there straight away, while picking up a couple of animal species on the way!  Since we're heading north, we'll take this tunnel northeast of Hardia.  This takes us through the parts where we can find...  ...eagles!  We'll just quickly walk through Battle Park...  We're greeted by some very snowy weather out here!  But no problem! Because it means penguins are on the prowl!  Eventually we make our way to G-Factory, which as we know is mostly populated by robots, except for the Neo-Kenya Bank branch! The bank is located in the office building up the stairs there.  I assume this is probably Yamada? Let's talk to him. All right, well. I guess at this point it should be clear by now what this Scenario C is about for the most part. Clearly, this situation with people constantly giving us errands is going to continue--Scenario C takes the whole "fate of the world hangs in the balance--it's sidequest time!" thing to the extreme. But, yet again, unlike many other games of its time period, this game plays it fair! How fair? Check this out:  If we look at the menu option "Information", we'll see that it now has a submenu named "Schedule". Selecting it...  ...leads to this screen. Yes, this game from mid-1990s actually has a quest list screen which tracks their status for you! Not only that, it even tells you until when you need to finish it and what you need to do to finish it! So, for example, we have 2 years and 2 seasons left still to deal with Yamada's request! We can also see listed here the two previous "side-quests" that we already finished. I think this is definitely NOT something you'd expect to see in a mid-1990s JRPG, but... here we are. In any case, we still have plenty of time to deal with Yamada's situation, so for now we'll go elsewhere.  As we exit G-Factory, it becomes Spring 1993. Actually I wanted to head down south for a bit, but since it's a new year...  ...I figured we could head back to Hardia and check out the new calendar in commander's quarters!  So it's Sachiko this time. Anyway, having done that, let's head down south again for a bit!  So, we'll take the bird line over to Dogy Figh.  After arriving in Dogy Figh, we want to take this tunnel. But first, we'll just talk to this guy here. Hm, yeah, we've been hearing about this already in Scenario B. Hopefully we can find out more later, but for now we'll just take the tunnel west towards the desert.  In the tunnel, we can talk to a hunter here. Oddly enough, Flora Jam is a place we haven't been to yet, but we will adress this situation in due course. The extinct stag beetle sex is if I recall right female, but the thing is... they're not exactly extinct! In Scenario B, we've met that kid over in Rose Garden, who has one! So we just need to find a way to get it from him. Equally important, he mentioned that his father works at Flora Jam (and this fact is used to hide the situation that his parents are divorced). So talking to the father seems like a good idea to start with as far as obtaining a female stag beetle is concerned! For now though, we're on a mission to catch some kangaroos for ourselves.  Generally they live here in the desert, west of Dogy Figh; however, you might remember that also in Scenario B, we've been told that kangaroos only attack those much weaker than them. So the only way to make them spawn is to get your HP low, I think it needs to be less than half. In any case, this is easily done, just run around using the sprint button to deplete your HP and they will show up eventually. So after a few minutes of running around like an idiot...  Ah-ha! I see you there on the edge of the screen!  Yep, those are definitely some roos. No doubt about it. As you can see, they're also pretty weak themselves, so not too big of a deal--although they do have that "blow sand" ability which changes the terrain to sand, thus giving them a slight speed and power advantage since it's their "native" terrain. Of course, most of the time you'll be fighting them in the desert, so the terrain will anyway be sand, but... Incidentally, kangaroos also have a 1/16 probability to spawn by hatching a "smooth" egg. I'm not sure why you'd bother with that since they are super easy to just find in the world. The PC Engine version of kangaroos was actually pretty similar, except for the fact that back then they had bird feet:  While we're here...  ...we can pick up also a few crows (does it count as a murder?). Anyway, let's go back to Dogy Figh and see what else we can hear about there.  Let's start with this hunter here. We've heard a bit about this before, that these are the favourite dogs of Mr. Orman, the owner in this place. We didn't get to meet him last time as he was assassinated by Emory, but maybe in this scenario? Incidentally, Taro and Jiro and actual "human" names which mean "first son" and "second son" respectively. It's very funny that Orman gives his dogs human names, but on the other hand gives his children names after different kinds of dogs! There is also that lady on the edge of the screen... Weird. Next, we'll head inside the DGF building.  Of course, it's not the right season of the year, so the actual fighting area is currently deserted. Don't worry, we'll come back later to make one of our dogs a champion--there's a special trick for that too. Gotta earn the right to use kanji to name our dogs, right?  Even if the fighting is not currently going on, we can still go down into the actual Orman family residence.  Here we find some of the usual suspects, i.e. Orman's children, like this guy Beagley here. He doesn't actually have anything new to say for now. Same goes for the naked lady on the bed. The chest also contains one of those performance enhancing drugs.  Here are two more family members: The other person is not so friendly. Well, okay.  Beagley's sister Pomerania is here, as before. She also doesn't have anything new to say yet. The chest also contains some performance enhancing drugs, so we'll move over to the other corner of the floor.  Here, the situation is a bit different from the previous scenario! In this one, Mr. Orman hasn't been assassinated, so although he still seems a bit worse for wear, we can talk to him. Let's talk to the nurse first, though. And then, Orman himself. The family lawyer is not here, so we'll have to come back later and see how this whole situation develops now that Orman is not actually dead. Next on our tour...  ...we'll go over to the hotel. First we talk with the receptionist. Now we'll go and bother people in the hotel rooms.  First, this lady here. A blue beastmant statue, huh? You mean like the one we currently have in our inventory? I guess I was right that these statues got looted at some point and are now scattered everywhere around the world. Probably we should try later to put the statue back in its proper place and see what happens!  Also this person here, another hotel guest. Let's add this to our list. I know the list is still kind of growing a bit, but we HAVE started to check things off, albeit a bit slowly.  Our next stop is the bar!  Hey, it's Angela! It's been a while! Too bad she still only has that one song, as nice as it is. Nevertheless we'll give her a few G. But we can hear the impressions from some of the bar patrons. First the two guys standing together. Well, the song that she sings is indeed called "Lullaby", so these comments definitely make sense! Then the old guy sitting at the table: Next...  ...we'll step in into butcher shop/animal trader.  Just one interesting thing from one of the guys here. We'll try to figure this one also before the end of the scenario.  In any case, let's check with the equipment seller. I keep forgetting to buy something which increases a bit our defence! So let's see...  Prices are a bit expensive, but it seems worthwhile to spend 3462 G apiece to buy two "clam shells". As you can see it gives +38 defence to Ken and +35 to Linda. So I will get two of these and equip them.  It brings Ken's defence up from 177 to 215 with come nice bonuses also in elemental resistance (except fire).  For Linda, it takes her defence up from 191 to 226 with similar boosts in elemental resistance. Note that as they level naturally, Linda will always be ahead in speed and defence while Ken will have a higher attack stat. A character's speed is not possible to change through equipment. Since today we're doing kind of a "zig-zag" tour around the planet, let's now head back north, specifically to Ozport.  In Ozport, we have first this guy here... Well, things on Neo-Kenya are pretty chill right now (other than the impending meteorite), so let's hope this is not actually true!  Inside, there's also this ranger here.  While we're here, we receive another message notification. I've stopped counting, honestly. Also while we're here...  ...let's go through this passage.  The chest still contains the dog sword, and we can still move the barrels to reveal a ladder.  Downstairs is of course the power plant thingy.  There are many catfish here, which we will leave alone for now (we may not be quite strong enough).  It is possible however, to find here another species!  I'm talking, of course, about everybody's favourite, the entrails! So we'll catch ourselves a few of those, too. All right now. We've been told before about endemic species which can be found in Sperm Lina (the slightly poisonous cave in the north). These are basically all new species which we haven't really seen before, so let's head over there and gather a few!  Our destination is in the north, so we'll take this tunnel northwest of Hardia again. Yes, there is a reason for not simply taking the Bird Line this time.  After exiting the tunnel, there is immediately one of these ruins where we can probably activate the teleporter. However, we'll skip that at this time, because...  ...a bit further to the west, there is another one, which will prove to be more useful to us today.  Like the last time, we can activate the teleporter by putting a beastman necklance onto the statue's neck. We won't however step on the teleporter for now. Instead we'll simply leave...  ...and make our way to Lina Valley.  We want to get into the cave, so we have to go all the way around...  This guy has something to say. Honestly, the NPC chatter in this game is truly one of the best I've ever seen!  Anyway, where we're going is down into the poison muck (sigh).  Here we are. And why am I standing literally in the poison? Well, it's been kind of hinted previously that we may want to try camping overnight but literally in the poison. If you do that...  ...you will definitely get ambushed by jellyfish! Surprisingly, somehow they used to look LESS weird in the original PC Engine version:  Immediately after...  ...we find our next new species!  These are, of course, sheep. I mean, what else? All right, now get ready. Because I'm going to show you what sheep used to look like in the PC Engine version. Actually, don't worry about getting ready. Nothing, nothing can prepare you for this. Ok, here we go.  Let's continue through the cave.  At least it's not all poison and has also some solid ground to walk on. Rather than looking for different animals in this cave, it's a good idea to try making a camp in different locations. This way you can get ambushed by a couple of species.  For example, water striders. They belong to the few species which were added in the remake and were not present in the original! Another species that you can get ambushed by...  ...are some pretty vicious looking bats! They too, looked just a bit more scary in the original version:  As we continue to explore the cave...  ...we pass by another teleporter, but this one is active!  Before we leave, just one more species for today!  It's just frogs! Interestingly enough, this is one of the few palette-swapped enemies in the game. Apart from the joke fights like "fake scorpions" and a few others we haven't yet seen, as far as "capturable" species go, there is only one pair with palette swapped colours! For some reason, the game contains both frogs and also tree frogs and they are indeed just the same design with different colours. We've come briefly across some tree frogs, but didn't capture them since we don't know yet how to find the female ones. With that said, that's about all we're going to do today, so let's head back to that teleporter...  ...and step on it!  Of course, it takes us to one of these places...  ...and as you might have already guessed, it's exactly the one I activated earlier today. So this nicely saves us quite a bit of travel time as we're right close to that tunnel leading back to Hardia. So, let's go and hand in all the animals we've captured since--and it's been a while, we still have some from last time that we didn't hand in.  By the way, while we're here...  ...there's this scientist guy here. I can't remember if we ever talked to him, so here goes. Huh. I see. Well, let's just go inside.  Let's hand in everything we've gathered since the last time we've been here.  Subsequently, the robot informs us that we've collected 39 animal species, so about a third of the way to 120! We'll stop here for now, but next time we'll keep exploring and solving sidequests. Despite there being a general amount of time pressure, the game kind of does let you do your thing without having to rush too much, so that's pretty nice. I know that things are pretty calm right now, but don't worry, there is going to be some major content in this scenario too, despite there not being a focused plot to follow!  Today, a portrait of Linda against a collage of scenes from first two scenarios. "We're aiming for the new world" Also, a few storyboards for cutscenes that ended up unused and were not animated in the end: Text in the bottom left: "Elizabeth takes Linda hostage".
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May 24, 2022 22:26
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ivantod posted:In the cave, you might notice these things that look a bit like a poop emoji (except there was no poop emoji back in 1997, of course).  ) midway through reading this update to say that the poop emoji did indeed make its debut in 1997! (It looked pretty different, though.)
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May 25, 2022 01:10
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Weirdly enough the PC Engine version of sheep looks more sheeplike to me.
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May 25, 2022 02:46
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Hypocrisy posted:Weirdly enough the PC Engine version of sheep looks more sheeplike to me. I'm surprised the remake left out the stingers, that's like, the defining trait of a sheep. What do you think when you thunk of a sheep? Their fluffy fur and foot-long venomous stingers,
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May 25, 2022 02:51
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ivantod posted:
It's a reference to the huskies Taro and Jiro who survived for months on their own in Antarctica after an ill fated 1958 Japanese expedition there. It is a fairly well known story in Japan that was turned into a movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica_(1983_film)
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May 25, 2022 06:11
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Hirayuki posted:Shitposting ( Thank you for this info, this is the best kind of shitpost!  I wasn't aware of it, and it was even first used in Japan too!For the curious, here it is:  Item Getter posted:It's a reference to the huskies Taro and Jiro who survived for months on their own in Antarctica after an ill fated 1958 Japanese expedition there. It is a fairly well known story in Japan that was turned into a movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica_(1983_film) Thank you too, I wasn't aware of this either, what an interesting story! I guess people in Japan playing this game would probably have been a lot more aware of what these names refer to.
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May 25, 2022 09:54
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ivantod posted:All right, now get ready. 
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May 25, 2022 22:21
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I caught up to this over the past few days, what an interesting game. Easy to see why it had a cult following. I'd seen Bogleech's monster review for this game ages ago, but I didn't recognize it until seeing the Pigs....he certainly steered clear of the actual plot, at least so uhh uhhhh *gestures vaguely* all that, was new. Thankfully I also forgot all the monsters he showed off other than the Pigs and Tigers so it's been quite the journey seeing all these weirdos Weirdly, the game reminds me of, like...RPG Maker games? It's hard to pin down what exactly, maybe it's just the offbeatness of everything from the world to the dialog to the designs or the general aesthetic of the game or how generally ancillary the combat is. But it has this vibe of something I'd probably see made today...but in the past! Knowing that the game was originally conceived closer to Scenario C explains some things about A & B to me, namely how even though they had a plot it still felt a little tacked on and a bunch of plot beats just coming at you that suddenly and aggressively resolve. And also why despite being the name of the game and heavy focus on the marketing, Linda herself feels kind of tacked on. Just constantly being taken out of the plot and briefly put back and so on. Also explains why there's so many side mechanics; it was originally concieved purely as an open world collection game so it needed a lot of different ways to collect monsters to encourage exploration, talking to NPCs and other avenues than battle. A lot of people called A+B an extended tutorial but to me C feels more like an extended "free mode". There's no real plot to tie you dow nso its just you and the world and side quests across 7 years, with some of those sidequests only being notable because you have context of alternate "what ifs" from the other 2 scenarios. It sounds like you could even make some headway on exploring a few mysteries in the other routes if you were so inclined. Anyway my read on the plot is all the animals are familiar-but-freaky because Neo Kenya is earth but it keeps dying and getting recreated. The ark picks up all the animals and then does a bunch of genetic engineering on them so there's genetic diversity and not instantly running into inbreeding. Same likely happens to the humans but on a smaller scale, which is why they get beast traits and it resolves the Life Force problem by rebooting humans and making them hardier and live longer. We'll probably learn something like "our" Earth, the one that already died and got remade to Neo Kenya, was probably the xTh time this has happened and our "normal" critters are just the weird genetically manipulated off spring of "more normal" creatures before; and that for hte life problem the humans are having now it was even worse in the past. Presumably the "end result" from Scenarios A & B (& I presume C) will produce even freakier critters, and then when THAT Earth dies, even WEIRDER and so on and so forth. The remake making a lot of designs more recognizable/tame might've been to help sell the idea better.
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May 27, 2022 22:17
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rannum posted:Anyway my read on the plot is all the animals are familiar-but-freaky because Neo Kenya is earth but it keeps dying and getting recreated. The ark picks up all the animals and then does a bunch of genetic engineering on them so there's genetic diversity and not instantly running into inbreeding. Same likely happens to the humans but on a smaller scale, which is why they get beast traits and it resolves the Life Force problem by rebooting humans and making them hardier and live longer. We'll probably learn something like "our" Earth, the one that already died and got remade to Neo Kenya, was probably the xTh time this has happened and our "normal" critters are just the weird genetically manipulated off spring of "more normal" creatures before; and that for hte life problem the humans are having now it was even worse in the past. what if both versions are canon due to time travel/loop fuckery? some of the animals have stayed the same because they worked during the last series of arkloops but some didn't so it's trying again and hoping that something changes so they don't have to remake the game a second time and change things up yet again
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May 28, 2022 05:55
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Raitzeno posted:what if both versions are canon due to time travel/loop fuckery? some of the animals have stayed the same because they worked during the last series of arkloops but some didn't so it's trying again and hoping that something changes so they don't have to remake the game a second time and change things up yet again I wonder if there's some other versions planned out there that we could add in to this ball of confusion.
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May 28, 2022 12:45
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Raitzeno posted:what if both versions are canon due to time travel/loop fuckery? some of the animals have stayed the same because they worked during the last series of arkloops but some didn't so it's trying again and hoping that something changes so they don't have to remake the game a second time and change things up yet again Also possible. There was that brief camp dialog akin to "Hey Ken if we were reincarnated, would you still marry me?" not a time loop just so happens that over a course of 30,000 years things happen to keep working out the same, but different, way
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May 28, 2022 15:14
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Just wanted to say how much I have been absolutely loving this LP!!
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Jun 15, 2022 14:20
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Waffles Inc. posted:Just wanted to say how much I have been absolutely loving this LP!! Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoing it. Also, I want to apologise for the slightly slower update schedule lately, I just had stuff going in real life more than usual (nothing bad), but the pace should pick up again from now I think.
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Jun 15, 2022 16:13
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You're doing a lot, don't worry about delays.
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Jun 15, 2022 20:49
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Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. -- Groucho Marx Welcome back to the adventures of Ken and Linda as they try to collect all 120 animal species, while also helping out the people of Neo Kenya with their errands! First of all, let's check out our next message! Well, it looks like our next "client" is probably still in elementary school. Nevertheless, we should help them. So we'll make our way to Eterna. We'll take a walk via Battle Park today. So let's go through our usual tunnel. Incidentally, it's now Summer 1993. As the game helpfully tells us, we have exactly six years left to finish our task! It also says that we still have 61 species to collect, but of course that's based on the requirement of 100, so for us it's actually still 81 species remaining to the full 120. Still a lot to do, although when you think about it that's about 30 species per two years and we're already making better time than that, so things are not looking super grim! Anyway, let's be on our way towards Battle Park. Incidentally, I don't think we've spoken to this lady here before! This reminds me that we should try out the battle arena here at some point! Anyway, we'll exit the town through the tunnel leading eastwards. Additionally, here's where our characters are at the moment, stats-wise: We're only a few steps away from Eterna, but while we're here... ...let's get a start on capturing yet another species. These are tree frogs, but as you can see there is a slight problem: they're all male. Nevertheless, we'll get them for now and will have to figure out how/where to catch the females at a later date. You can also compare with regular frogs we caught some of last time to verify that they are simply pallete swaps of each other! Quite a rare case in this game, so I guess it was done like that on purpose most likely. Anyway, a short while later, here we are in Eterna. Before we head to the mansion, there are a couple of new things to hear from people here. For example if we head to the upper floor of the hotel on the left side... Well, we already know that the Federation is not necessarily trustworthy, so... Hotel on the opposite side has two guests... And the woman on the bed: So now we'll head into this third hotel... The woman on the sofa has a VERY interesting comment this time: Well, as it turns out, we have several of them, even in different colours. And you say that according to the legend, we can use them to "descend into Eden"? You wouldn't happen to know how we can achieve this? No, didn't think so. Oh, well. In any case, this seems important to remember. There's also this lady, cleverly hiding behind the building... Yeah, he probably was. He keeps giving them to us too, every time we talk to him! Heading inside... ...we find an older gentleman and a little girl in this little courtyard with dead trees. Let's talk to the man first. So I guess these are all dead cherry trees, then. Let's talk to the girl. Of course we'll help! I have no idea how at the moment, but I'm sure we'll figure it out! Sure, sure. Checking our quest screen... ...we can see that we have a new quest "Sophia's Request" with the deadline of 5 years and 2 seasons. So we can pretty much finish this one any time before the end of the game, which makes sense too, since the goal is to get the Grandpa on one of the shuttles, so it's logical that we can do it up until the last minute. The description is "For Sophia, somehow make the cherry threes in Eterna bloom." Which is nice, but it still doesn't tell us how. On the other side is one more person... Ah, so... Flora might be able to help us here, then? We'll see. Before, we leave, one last word from the grandpa... Ah, Dr. Flora is able to breed talking flowers, I'm sure this will be very easy for her to solve! So let's continue for a bit upstairs... ...where we have again this lady in a blue dress. So looks like this lady is Sophia's mum and she's annoyed that the grandpa (her father) doesn't want to leave the planet! Continuing further up... ...we run again into that guy who was trying to propose to a woman! So, then, the Nek and Sachiko wedding seems to be on? Anyway, if we go all the way up to the top and walk across to the other tower... ...there we'll find the woman who that guy was trying to propose to. Well, ok, I'm sure we'll catch up with these two later on again, but in the meantime since we're already here up north... ...let's make our way back to G-Factory and see how Yamada is doing. Ok, let's finally sort this out, so we'll choose to make a deposit. Incidentally, that number of 79 years does change in the dialogue as the years pass in the game! I mean, let's not beat around the bush. We'll just give him the full required amount of 60000 G. It will leave our finances a bit depleted, but no worries, it's only termporary. Ken received a tissue. As mentioned previously, I guess this might be a reference to a common practice in Japan to hand out tissue packets as form of advertising. Also, it's an entirely useless item, except for the fact that one will get used up each time Ken and Linda spend the night together. Ken received a packet of flower seeds. This seems like it would be more useful. Although exactly for what, we'll have to figure out. Yamada explained to Ken how to use the "whistle" ability. Alrighty, that's all the rewards we get here. We've discussed the others, but for the "whistle", I will demonstrate it in just a few minutes. But before that... As you might recall, G-Factory is literally two steps away from the Swallowm cave, where we have made sure to get rid of rats some time ago. This should have enabled the actual swallows to finally return to their old nesting ground, so let's go in and have a look! Inside the cave, we find that yes, they have indeed returned, so let's catch a few. As you can see, like our swallows, these ones too have two pairs of wings each, as expected. Also, they are neither particularly strong, nor do they have any kind of special abilities, so this is pretty easily done. The only problem is their tendency to run away at the slightest touch, so you may need a few tries until you manage to capture a pair. Back outside, let's make a camp with Linda! It's been a while! Nice. But now is the time to try our new ability, "whistle". It can be activated anywhere on the overworld, simply by choosing it from the ability menu: These are all the abilities which are not used during the battle, such as the making camp, processing animals into meat or equipment, or the ability to startle awake when attacked during the overnight camp--this last one allows you to not have to leave Ken to keep watch during camping as he'll awake anyway if attacked. Anyway, by using our new whistle ability... ...it simply summons one of those large birds used for transportation... ...and you get deposited straight back at the ark. To summarise it's basically an instant (and free) return back to the ark from anywhere on the world map. Of course it doesn't work from within towns or dungeons. Even if you have the "air free pass", this is still nice as it saves you even the time to have to walk back to the nearest town with Bird Line facility--this is particularly important in the south area, where there is only one such town, Dogy Figh, so going back to the ark (or anywhere else for that matter) when you're south, could involve a long walk first. This allows you to avoid that. Also, it's entirely free to use any time you want! It also has a weird (and helpful) bug associated with it, but more on that next time. Anyway, since we're here, let's head into Hardia and talk to a couple of people who are new! Like this person here, loitering in front of the Ranger HQ buidling! Ken makes an unsteady signature on autograph paper. Nice callback to the part in scenario A, when Nek was pretending/wanted to be Ken! Or, this person in front of DOG shop. All right, time for more hunting. This time we'll head east of Dogy Figh as there are a few species which can be found there. Here we can find species such as: Leopards! Boars! Zebras! Sea slugs! And so, now we can simply use our "whistle" ability to go straight back to the ark, to hand these in! With this, we have obtained 44 out of 120 species! After exiting, we find that it's now Autumn 1993. Shortly afer, we also get a notification of a new message! Let's immediately listen to it! We have actually already met this guy. It's the guy who had a very sick father, whose health was destroyed in years of working in Lina Valley. Apparently, the father has now died and revealed this about Mario's mother. So, we'll head straight to Lina Valley to talk to him, of course. Here we are. And here is our friend Mario, too! Because you can come here without listening to the message, the second option above simply allows you to get the full story regardless. All right, looks like we have a new task, so let's check out quest screen. So, our new task is "Look for Angela" and we only have one year to do it! The description says: "Check about Angela in the bar in Paraside. Inform Mario in Lina Valley." Since this side quest is clearly a bit more time-sensitive, let's get started on it already (although we'll make a bit of a detour at one point still!). So let's head to Paraside and see what's up there. Before we do that, I will also (off screen!) go and improve our finances slightly by hunting down and selling a few animals--we're going to need a little bit of money in the upcoming part of the game. Ok, now on to Paraside! Here we are. To remind ourselves a bit, let's quickly talk to this hunter standing in front of the hotel. After this let's head inside the "Junk Palace". Looking in the bar, Angela doesn't seem to be there. But the person sitting at the table has some info for us. We'll follow that up in a second, but first, let's have a look around here for a bit. There's still some tutorial to be had from this guy. This game is a bit weird in that there are only a few status effects and most of them are indeed related to what happens after the battle. For example (and I will actually tell you), the pheromone status which makes animals chase you on the overworld after the battle, and so on. Here in the storage area, there is also a chest which is somehow NOT behind a locked door. It contains the "dragonfly cutter" weapon, but it's weaker than what we already have so there's no real need to equip it. If we struggle with overkilling some particular animal species, then we might use it as a backup weapon. But for now we can store it away. Then we have also this guy here... Those two chests, by the way, definitely are behind a locked door. But no matter, we'll definitely get all the keys this time! Upstairs is the room where all the hunters for hire are. I haven't really been using them, because they aren't really that... useful. You only know an approximate area where they go for hunting, but there's no guarantee what they will bring, so you can't really plan around it (and you have to wait two seasons to find out, too). The only (slight) exception is Gomez, where you definitely might get something a bit more unusual--it was mentioned that he might have some kind of secret place where he goes to hunt. But with him, on the other hand, you have to pay him a lot of money (six digits), so again the whole thing is of questionable worth. But let's just quickly see what a couple of them have to say (some of these are repeats, so I will omit those) This may not immediately ring a bell, but actually we've also seen this, except we got to a couple of those dome shaped enclosures via the secret route in Marblepolis, which we opened up by moving the stone blocks around. However, we were not able to do anything with it, so we'll definitely try again in this scenario! As mentioned, in the room upstairs is the Beastian Elder. Oh how I wish he would not speak in riddles constantly... We can also go over to the hotel area and harass people in their rooms! I mean, it's true. It's one of the reasons why it's worth buying the air free pass as soon as you can. There is a lot of travelling back and forth that you have to do in this game! And the guy in the other room... This does actually work. Gomez will often bring you some valuable animals (especially class A protected ones), which you can then breed at BB ranch and sell the offspring. It's essentially free money, if you need it. The only drawback being, as already mentioned, that you do have to pay low six figures to Gomez to start with! Over here are two equipment shops. They have things to say about each other! And then the other shop... Anyway, going outside and around the back... ...we can talk to this homeless guy. You know what, we will. We will donate you a whole 20000 G! Ken received the "dressing room key"! Yep. Give lots of money to the homeless guy and get back a key! I don't really think there are any hints to this anywhere in the game, so in a typical 1990s JRPG style, you just have to try everything. In any case, it also works with a smaller amount, but the probability you will get the key goes down the less you give. With 20000 G it's basically 100%. On the other side is another homeless person, so let's hear them out too! Eh, I think you might be taking this a bit too literally, lady. Nevertheless, let's look at a couple of graffiti that are here on the wall! IT IS FORBIDDEN TO WRITE GRAFFITI! ⬆⬆ It is forbidden to write it is forbidden to write graffiti! And another. For as long as I live, I will never forget the name of this planet, even when I go to live on another planet! Farewell, Neo-Kernia! All right, that was fun, but now let's keep following Angela's trail to Ozport. We'll head over into the shopping mall! Immediately after coming inside, Ken and Linda are approached by someone. So the wedding seems to be definitely happening. Anyway, we can also talk to the lady looking at the dresses. Downstairs in the casino/bar area, there is clearly no Angela around, but there are the two people here! And the other person... A quick chat with the robot lady at the information desk... Well, I can definitely see the two chests, but this is one key we DON'T have yet, so... ...we'll just talk to this guy here in the casino. Thanks buddy. However, you might notice another chest behind a locked door just here. Turns out, we do have the key for this one! It's the "dressing room key" we just got! So let's see what the chest contains, shall we? Ah. It's another one of those mysterious rings! However, I do have some good news. It took me a while, but I've finally managed to figure out what's up with these names. Turns out they are all named after various biblical terms. So for example "yabasade" comes from Hebrew "yabbashah" (יַבָּשָׂה), meaning "dry land". Additionally, if you have played Persona 3, then you will have already encountered all of these names as they also appear in that game, although there they're used as names for dungeons. Either way, we have no clue what to do with these rings, so that will have to wait just a (little) bit longer. For now, though, we'll be heading over to Koshikata, as that's the next stop on our tour. Unlike in Scenario A, this time the town is not abandoned after an incident, but instead has been rebuilt. Let's see what it's like! Arriving in Koshikata, just a short chat with the Bird Line employee! Yeah, so this is a thing in the game. As you use the Bird Line flights, you might at some point be told that you're the 100,000th passenger and receive an air free pass without having to pay for it. The probability is quite low, though. I think only like 1/64 or 1/128 or something like that. Anyway, let's head into town! We're looking for Angela, but of course we'll take the opportunity to do a tour of the town, especially since we haven't had a chance so far--in the first scenario it was abandoned and in the second it was inaccessible along with that whole part of the world. So let's start by talking to this lady here. Then we have this person here, who has the absolute best NPC dialogue in the entire game if you ask me! NPC, you're amazing and I love you so much! Here's our next conversation partner... Well, let's have a look... At first glance it looks empty, but... Ah-ha! Let's check what's at the bottom of these stairs! Just a chest... but what's in it? Ah, another key, fantastic! This one is for the Beastian church here in Koshikata, and not the one in Minago. We'll check that out shortly. I should mention though that in general the game does NOT give you hints about which key is for which door, so that's up to you to figure out! I mean here I guess it's sort of obvious, but mostly it isn't. In the meantime, let's head into the church for a moment. For some reason, the church is full of dogs. They are tame, but annoying as they will flock around you and make it difficult to move around. Still, we can talk to the person in white. Wellll... this is a little bit exaggeratted really. The tigers CAN be found and they are not quite THAT strong. (For that matter, neither are lions, but...) Next, we'll talk to that priest that's standing there. Another priest is over here... Yes, and to block you in! Upstairs, there is another priest! Somehow, I have a bad feeling about this... In any case, that room in the top right that has two chests has a locked door, BUT it can be opened with the key we just got! Ken found a beastman necklace! Ah, another one of these! The other chest contains just some carrion. Going further upstairs... ...we find another priest! People keep talking about this stuff. There's got to be something to it, right? On the other side is another chest, which you also need the key to be able to get to. Ken found a golden nugget! Nothing special, but we can sell it for a few thousand G. Let's head back outside... ...and behind the church, where we find this person. Anyway, a bit futher to the east is our next NPC: Let's head into the trap shop, helpfully labelled "TRAP". We won't bother talking to the owner as he just tells us the standard stuff about using traps to capture animals. However, we'll talk briefly to this hunter. On the other side is the owner's wife... Next, let's go into this house--the residence of the current mayor. First the little girl... The joke in this sentence only works in Japanese: the words for "butterfly" and "mayor" are pronounced the same, so the little girl confuses them! Also the pregnant lady... There is one other person in the house, but we won't get much out of them! Next stop is the meat shop! First we'll talk to the meat guy. It's been a while, but you might recall that eating meat can have both positive and negative effects in this game, hence the game of Russian roulette... but with meat! And then the animal trader on the left. Well, who knows, we might find that key ourselves? It may or may not be obvious (probably more obvious if you have already played a 1990s JRPG), but... since the church building is on stilts, you can in fact walk under it! It's full of catfish here, but we'll avoid them for now--they are not really aggressive. More importantly, we can access these two chests under the church building! Opening the first chest... Ken found "storage room key"! Oh. I didn't think it would be so quick to find this! The second chest: Ken found "tiger fur". This is an item of equipment that we can put on our characters for increased defence. It is however not better than what we already have, so we won't be equipping it. Getting back out into the open, let's continue by heading into the hotel building. Here we also find the bank. Moving on to the bar area, let's start with the bartenders... So it seems that the waitresses are dressed as nurses in this bar then. Let's talk to the first customer... And the nurse next to him. And the other customer... And the other nurse: Uh, what kind of business are these guys running here anyway? Well, I don't know, but let's continue by talking to the woman in the blue dress, who happens to be Angela's piano accompanist. Ah, ok I see. I guess we're playing "Where in the world is Angela?". Next, let's head upstairs! The hotel rooms are located here. That chest there in the corner is behind a locked door. Luckily, we just got the key! So... Another piece of clothing we can equip on our characters. This time, it's actually a lot better than what we've been wearing, so I'll equip it on Ken since he has lower natural defence than Linda. And then let's talk to this person in their room! As we are finishing our tour, we'll make a stop also at the equipment shop. We'll start with the lady on the left... And the equipment seller... Ugh. So if we ever come into possession of one... uh, should we equip it or not then? Finally, let's just talk to this boy here. Right, anyway, our next destination as far as Angela's quest is concerned is obviously Dogy Figh, so that's where we'll head next time. In the meantime, take care! For today, first we have the pencil sketch version of the same illustration we saw last time: And then, some more unused storyboards for cutscenes: These ones look particularly nuts and it's a shame they never got made. But, to tell the truth, especially those with Hume, I'm not even sure where they would fit in the story. So it may even seem like they were looking to expand/change the story a bit from the PC Engine original, but in the end decided not to do it for whatever reason. So now the remake version closely follows the same story as the original with only minor differences.
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Jun 15, 2022 23:37
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hahaha oh wow, that Hume in the first storyboard panel at the end, we got a spot for him in our XCOM squad!
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Jun 16, 2022 01:22
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Huh. I can see what's going on in the first 2/3 (depending on if the cloaked figure is supposed to be Hume or Ken) but... the 4th seems out of place. Linda seems afraid of Ken? Is that part of the expanded Hume/Nek storyline from Scenario 1?
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Jun 16, 2022 02:41
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Might have been a tweak on the "traumatized, amnesiac" linda storyline. Less "afraid of Ken", specifically, and more "nervous around people, in general" or maybe "had a bad flashback". Could also have been us coming in just as she crawled into the corner and knocked over the flower vase
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Jun 16, 2022 03:26
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Could be from Scenario 2?
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Jun 16, 2022 06:03
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quote:Hey, I'm Mario! I knew you guys would come! You got my call, right?
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Jun 18, 2022 01:40
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TapamN posted:If I was translating this, I'm not sure I could have resisted adding, "It'sa me." Hahaha believe me, the temptation was very real. It took every ounce of my strength to not do that!
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Jun 18, 2022 06:28
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Just had someone in a Discord I'm in mention they're scanning in a feature from an old magazine previewing the PCE release of Linda! I'll share it here when it's done
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Jun 28, 2022 17:19
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Waffles Inc. posted:Just had someone in a Discord I'm in mention they're scanning in a feature from an old magazine previewing the PCE release of Linda! I'll share it here when it's done To be honest, I don't know which particular preview you're talking about, but perhaps it would be better to hold off on that for now in order to avoid inadvertent spoilers. I would really appreciate instead of now, if this is posted after we finish the game. This probably won't take more than 2-3 months still. Thank you.
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Jun 28, 2022 22:44
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Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling 'banana', but didn't know how you stopped. -- Terry Pratchett Hello and welcome back to Ken and Linda's adventures! Right now we they are on a quest to find Angela the singer, who is apparently the mother of this guy Mario from Lina Valley. We also learned last time about the "Tiger's Claw", the symbol of the town of Koshikata. Apart from side-questing, we'll also take the opportunity to do a fair amount of hunting today, with a good mixture of old and new species, so... let's get started!  We were told that we might find Angela in Dogy Figh, as that is the last stop on her final tour of the planet, before she leaves for good! So let's head down there on the Bird Line, as always.  By the way, the employee of Bird Line down in Dogy Figh has a pretty funny thing to say. All right, let's have a look in the bar!   Then the pianist comes over... The pianist leaves.  Ken tells Angela about her son in Lina Valley.  All right, guess our next stop is Ozport then!  We're supposed to be in a hurry, but as we know, the time does not actually pass when in towns, so let's check a couple of small things first before going up to Ozsat. We'll enter through the shopping mall side.  Over here in the corner is a locked room with two chests, but it can be opened with the storage room key which we now have! Apparently, all storage rooms can be opened with just one key. The chests contain another bestman necklace (which we now know are used to activate the teleporters) and some ostrich meat.  The granny here also says interesting things. I'm not sure I believe you. If you knew the number why would you not just use it yourself then? We'll continue to the airport side of the building.  We can talk to the lady on the sofa. The rainbow is of course the multicoloured teleportation bean emanating from the airport building! As bwefore, the poster on the wall says: The last paradise in the Galaxy! Mother nature awaits you! -- Neo-Kenya Tourism Board The dude staring at it is not impressed, though.  All right, enough of that. Let's step on the teleporter and head up to the Ozsat satellite once again!  On the satellite, in the departure area, we find one of the animal traders. I guess he must have already closed up his shop. This is certainly a thing in this game, in Scenario C. As the time passes, more and more people will leave--and that does include shopkeepers!  Getting over to the actual departure gate, it seems like the shuttle is ready to leave. The ranger standing in front of the door is quite strict about it... Well, all right then. Shouting it is. On the way back up...  And then...  Ken and Linda start shouting Angela's name... but people just proceed with boarding the shuttle. They shout again, but with no result.  But the last people board the shuttle...  ...and it departs soon after.  Well, nothing we can do here at this point, so...  ...let's just leave.  But we are intercepted by a just-arriving Mario!  But then a woman appears running up the stairs! From here the conversation is between Mario and Angela, since neither one has a portrait. Mario then addresses Ken and Linda. They leave.  And that concludes this particular quest! All that's left to do is go to Lina Valley and check out our reward! Over in Lina Valley...  ...this is the storage shed he was talking about.  There are two chests here and also on the right one of those cryo machines that keep frozen animals. The chests contain a "gorilla punch" and a "shark crush". Both are weapons and both are in fact stronger than our swallow cutter. However I will not equip them for now since we are doing well enough and swallow cutter still has the advantage of hitting everyone. Although we probably do want to upgrade at least to eagle sabre soon since we might be running into some stronger opponents soon. But these two weapons are pretty strong, so I will keep them in case we need them for anything. The cryo storage on the right contains a male/female pair of buffalos. But as before we won't be making use of this and will capture the animals ourselves in due course. After leaving Lina Valley, I come back to Ozport because I remember that there is a couple of things to sell for a bit of money (golden nugget, etc.).  After exiting from Ozport, it's now Winter 1993! This means it's time for some hunting! And for that we'll first head down south to Dogy Figh.  Just as we're about to board a bird, we receive another message notification. We'll check that out later today. For now we head to Dogy Figh.  Over in Dogy Figh, if we go inside to the bottom floor...  ...we can find a familiar person! Ken's mum is visiting Dogy Figh on her travels around the planet!  Not really very cute these days, unfortunately. Anyway, that's it here, so let's head out.  Outside, just a few steps east of the town is one of those ruins containing a teleporter.  Of course, we'll activate it. Stepping on it...  ...leads to a place we do not seem to have visited before. We'll leave that for later and just return back where we were for now.  A bit further east from Dogy Figh is this cave entrance, leading to Dark River, a place already familiar to us from the previous scenario.  As always, near the entrance you can find a whole bunch of...  ...shrimp! Continuing further through the cave, we find a chest.  It's (of course) a piece of equipment. Ken already has something better, but...  ...we can equip it on Linda for a nice defence boost!  After finding a snail hat, we also find...  ...some snails, of course! They are rather happy looking, too! I mean hey have webbed feet for easy swimming, sure, but who's counting at this point, right? Incidentally, the design is unchanged since the PC Engine version. Like earthworms, snails too have the ability to change their gender--which can be annoying if you're trying to capture a specific one that you're missing, but it does fit with the real life characteristics of their Earth versions too, so can't really complain. Continuing deeper into the cave on a lower floor...  ...we find some species we mostly already know, such as...  Turtles.  Clams.  Crocodiles. These are as always a bit of a pain as females are pretty rare.  Leeches.  Going further in, we pass by this chest which is actually empty, and it annoys me every time I see it. For real.  This one here however is not empty and contains the leech whip, a decently powerful weapon (also stronger than swallow cutter). For now, we'll keep it in our inventory. Continuing to explore...  ...we find even two more chests! On contains a hippo tomahawk (a weapon) and the other has hippo shoes.  The shoes do provide a bit more defence, so I give them to Ken to replace his starting squirrel shoes (yeah was still wearing his starting shoes, believe it or not!). At some point, I decide to make camp to recover HP and so on. We also get a short comment from Linda. As we continue battling through the cave, Linda helpfully ends up also learning the ability to "startle awake", which Ken alreary learned before. This simply allows you to not have to have anybody keep watch when overnight camping as now both characters will "startle awake" if attacked. Neat. When nobody knows this ability you really need to have at least one person keep watch in case of attack. Of course, keeping watch means they don't get to rest and recover HP, so you have to find a balance. Luckily for us, that is now over and we can always sleep happily.  Continuing still deeper in, we find some more extensive dry ground (this cave is otherwise more like an undergound river). If we overnight here...  ...we can get attacked by cats! You can also sometimes find them walking around here, but it's easier just to make camp and get ambushed. Finally, just a bit further in...  ...we can find this odd looking thing.  Those are some rather amazing looking sharks! They have muscular arms which help with swimming, of course. Surprisingly, also, this design is not changed since the original release! By the way, you probably noticed that chest which was next to the shark. It's a joke. It contains 1 G. But I won't complain since we found a bunch of nice equipment upgrades in this cave too. All right, at this point we can say we have indeed explored this cave fully, so let's head out.  But we're heading out only to simply head back in! This entrance leads to Samakia (place where ants live), because we have some unfinished business here.  First of all, let's pick up a bunch of poop again.  And then, there's one last species here which we didn't get.  The sea urchins. So we'll fix that ommission now. I also want to go down into the ant tunnels one more time.  The season has changed since the last time, so that means there is a new ant queen available since they only appear one per season. We've already handed one in to the ark, but...   ...you really really want to get a second one! Trust me on this, you'll see soon why! (This is of course why I picked up that poop again!) Ok, now we're done with this cave too. So let's head back north for the time being.  Coming back, we find that it's now Spring 1994. I guess all that hunting took a bit of time, huh?  Before we continue, we'll head over to the Ranger HQ to check out the new calendar. So a bit of a warning: this one is slightly more risqué than the others, so maybe be careful depending on who might be looking over your shoulders. Especially if you're reading this at work.  All right, here it comes now.  Yeah, it's a bit borderline. But not to worry, since this is basically as far as it goes--the rest of them are back to the same style as we've seen previously. Ok, now. We've been told a while ago to go talk to Flora regarding those dead cherry trees in Eterna as she might know how to revive them. Well, might as well do it now, let's head over to Hospico!  In Hospico, as we approach the hospital, we get another message notification! They for sure are not letting us have any free time, are they? We'll check that out later, for now let's see what people are doing around here!  Like this older lady here. It is quite an interesting question, what year even is it? We only know that it is 1994 in the context of "death of Earth", but what year would that be in "our" counting? Or maybe it doesn't matter given the very real possibility that some sort of time shenanigans might be going on anyway. Well, no matter, let's head back outside...   ...and visit Dr. Flora! So, no help here then, I guess? Might as well leave.  But as we leave, she stops us! So you want to be sure to answer with this particular answer here, because... Linda learned from Dr. Flora the ability "identify plants". So this is a passive ability to allow us to know more accurate names of plants/fruit. It is not actually possible to capture all 120 species without it, but I'll explain more when we come to it. Other than that, regarding the rest of the conversation, we definitely don't know any place where lava might be found, so that's definitely a problem. Luckily we still have plenty of time to finish the cherry tree quest, so I'm sure we'll eventually find something. In the meantime, there's still a few interesting things to be heard from people in Hospico.  For example down in the morgue, there's this guy in blue. So uh, twin babies, huh? I wonder. But anyway...  ...back upstairs in this computer room: So, 2000 years ago, considering that it's now 1994, puts it just around the year 0, doesn't it?  And finally, just this lady on the roof. Cute. Well, that's all for here for now. So let's head out...  ...and listen to the next message! So, while the cherry blossom situation is on hold, this is our next task, I guess! Let's go immediately there.  Inside the farm building in Battle Park...  ...we can talk to the wife. The husband is over there, sick in bed.  The details for the quest confirm that we need to find 3 turtle eggs and bring them to Louise at Battle Park. We can also see that we only have 3 seasons to accomplish this, so this quest is a bit more time sensitive than the others. Therefore, let's get to it immediately.  We can quickly check in on the husband before leaving, though.  By the way, you might remember that there's this guy in battle park whom you can sell champion's belts to and stuff like that. But he's only there sometimes, and finally he shows up and I can sell a couple of those which I've accumulated over time and free up some inventory slots! Now that that's done, we can finally go and get some turtle eggs. But where would we do that, you might ask? Well... it was mentioned by an NPC a long time ago in Scenario A!  After exiting from Battle Park...  ...we want to go that little island, in the northwestern part of the big lake. Luckily the lake is shallow so we can walk across it.  Here we are!  This place is called North Kamenos and it has a slightly different colour scheme than the previous caves we've visited--I guess it's supposed to be ice? Let's check out that tent to start with! Incidentally, "kame" also means turtle in Japanese, so that's a little hint in the name too.  Well, at least it seems we're in the right place, huh?  Let's proceed onwards then, deeper into the cave!  Well, there are definitely turtles here.  But also some new species, too!  Like these foxes! Proceeding deeper into the cave...  ...we find another tent!  After wandering around the cave some more...  ...we find another as yet unseen by us species!  These are seals! I mean, they have human noses, sure, but... These guys are a little bit stronger, so I make camp after to recover. Again a dialogue from Linda is triggered! Eventually...  ...we finally get where wanted to be! Those are some very large eggs, but we'll just pick up a few. Luckily there doesn't seem to be any turtles in the immediate vicinity! And so I know it's a bit abrupt, but we'll stop here for now. This update ended up cut a bit awkwardly because it was originally going to be a part of a longer one. But then I realised it would end up just too long so I decided to cut it in two. So this one is a bit shorter than usual, but in return the next part will be coming much quicker than usual since it's already basically done! Until then, take care! Here are some more pencil sketches, I guess these were tests for possible advertisements, since some of them say something along the lines "Coming Next Spring" and so on.
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Jun 28, 2022 23:20
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Those seals are just the walrus from Pingu, you can't fool me.
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Jun 29, 2022 03:46
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Lotta Yonic Energy in Dark River, huh.quote:
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Jun 29, 2022 03:49
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Posting to say this game is super interesting and I appreciate you lping it!
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Jun 29, 2022 03:57
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Dragongem posted:Posting to say this game is super interesting and I appreciate you lping it! Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it! By the way, I wanted to ask... I know that I sometimes may gloss over some things here and there, so I was wondering if there's anything that people here would specfically like to see as we play the game so I can try to incorporate it into a future update? If there's anything you'd like to see more/less of, let me know and I will see what I can do!
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Jun 29, 2022 19:37
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I would like to see some cool editing effects and snap zooms and things of that nature. Jokes aside, can't really think of anything, I think you've been doing a great job at being comprehensive, and if you are skipping anything, it's enough that I wouldn't know what it is.
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Jun 29, 2022 19:43
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I've said it before and I'll say it again. Sometimes I completely forget I'm reading an LP of a Japanese game until a status screen or inventory suddenly snaps me out of this high quality translation fantasy world. You're doing an amazing job and I don't really know what more I'd want to see added. Though maybe I'd like to see more posts in this thread (I know, I know, be the change you want to see) so my poor phone doesn't have to load a gazillion pictures when I'm reading the LP while I should be working.
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Jun 29, 2022 20:39
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Yeah, honestly, can't think of anything you need to improve. I'm just enjoying the ride.
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Jun 29, 2022 21:38
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Going to +1 that this is an excellent LP that I look forward to every update of and I can't think of anything in particular I'd like added or that could be improved on.
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Jun 29, 2022 23:44
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Mark me down as another "excellent LP, can't think of anything to add". Right amount of detail, skips over the irrelevant/already seen stuff, and just high effort all around.
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Jun 30, 2022 02:41
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TurnipFritter posted:Lotta Yonic Energy in Dark River, huh. wow they really are the same the animal art in this game continues to be impressive, weird, and impressively weird but I like the sharks, they're hilarious
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Jun 30, 2022 03:21
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I have nothing to add beyond more praise for the LP, how clean the translated screenshots look, how interesting the game itself is, etc. Can't wait to see how much more ordinary this extremely normal game gets.
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Jun 30, 2022 04:28
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I have nothing to add except I always get a chuckle when you mention the tiger's claw:
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Jun 30, 2022 04:46
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I think the only notable thing that feels glossed over is the actual combat, and I get the general impression that there's not too much there to gloss over, aside from the couple of boss fights. There's the minor puzzle of not killing the animals and some animals you don't want to fight too soon, but it feels like that's about it. This has been a very enjoyable LP.
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Jun 30, 2022 05:06
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Thanks everybody for the comments, good to know that the current format is (mostly) working for everyone! I do have a couple of specific answers though: sb hermit posted:I have nothing to add except I always get a chuckle when you mention the tiger's claw:  Trust me, I also have always the same association because Wing Commander 1/2 was a game that I played a lot back in the day.Einander posted:I think the only notable thing that feels glossed over is the actual combat, and I get the general impression that there's not too much there to gloss over, aside from the couple of boss fights. There's the minor puzzle of not killing the animals and some animals you don't want to fight too soon, but it feels like that's about it. In all honesty, many "regular" battles in this game are pretty easy and don't really require a specific strategy so many times they can simply be solved by "brute force". I do try to make some notes (or even a video) in cases which are more interesting. For the most part, the game puts a lot more emphasis on finding the animals rather than making you use some elaborate strategy to defeat them once the fight starts, apart from normal usage of debuffs etc. when needed. I am planning though to add a bit of an extra section about the beast transformation and special abilities as I feel it might be interesting to at least give an idea of those things more than I have so far. Otherwise, any interesting fight will probably end up as video, even if, as you can see so far, there are only a couple of fights in this game that can even remotely be called a "boss fight". I mean max HP anything in this game can have (both you and enemies) is 999!
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Jun 30, 2022 09:46
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