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"Doomy Times" cracks me up every time 
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Nov 7, 2018 05:31
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Mraagvpeine posted:Wait, did they skip over the prophecy from the Light book? IIRC, it's the same, except you read the light book when you have the dark power.
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Nov 7, 2018 18:39
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Bellmaker posted:"Doomy Times" cracks me up every time That IS how the best books of prophecy always seem to begin. 
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Nov 7, 2018 21:03
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Well, great. That update made me crave cheese, but the little bit of mozzarella I have needs to last 'til next grocery day...
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Nov 7, 2018 23:29
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Welcome back, everybody. I hope you've done your daily Molercise, since we're going to be diving into a dungeon today!  Yeah, right... You're just telling me what I want to hear. We've got a pretty safe area right away, to let us grab a few free supplies.  There's a pair of frogs here that we can collect a couple of times if we want some without spending money or drop-farming.  Provolone is a smoked Italian cheese. Also, hey, I see a pot there. Pizza mentioned something about this!  So we'll have Lassi use her Wild Magic to conjure the winds.  Doing this by a pot makes 4 Sugarstars spawn. This can't be done over and over again in one area, but 4 Sugarstars is more than enough for the time being so it's fine.  South of there we can get 3 Yellow Gummy Worms for good measure, even.  Left of the pot, we can find a door that's got a crown marking on it. Plus Feta will tell us that we're about to enter the Ant Hole.  The game doesn't tell you that this is called the Ant Hole on the map, mind you. It only lets you know that via the in-game Bestiary.  As you might have noticed on the map before, this area is also fairly short and linear. There's only one real diversion and that lets us get some nut spread for our toast. It's an item you use in-battle to give a Defense boost. It'll be useful later, I imagine.  Ther's only two enemy types in here and they're both Ants.  ...Soldier Ants aren't particularly interesting though. Both Sugar and Lassi can one-shot them without the starsign bonus from being in the day or having her planet in alignment, respectively.  Magician Ants are the only other enemy down here and they're a little bit very different at least! But, eh, it's just an Earth starsign enemy like everything else here, so Lassi will probably just oneshot it.  ...Is what you'd probably think, but nope. Magician Ants are functionally immune to magic and will always take 1 damage from all our spells at this point. Gotta give 'em two kicks to drop, which isn't really that big a deal. Both Ants are level 3, so they give average-ish EXP which is to say, not a lot. Soldiers drop Green Frogs and Magicians drop Yellow Worms, naturally.  That's all we have to deal with in here, so we'll follow the simple path around until we find this chest on the one main path. Thunder Bombs are combat items that hit every enemy with Wind damage.  Immediately to the left of that chest is another door with a crown symbol on it. If there was more than one path to take, this'd be a good sign that this is the direction to go.  Lying on the ground right next to that we have a Wakey Tail. This cures unconsciousness, which is to say its a revival item. It... doesn't seem like something that'll get overly much use for a while, so I'm not gonna complain about that.  Through that door, we've already gotten to the Queen's Chambers. The Ant Hole is a REALLY short area, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.   Would you like to take a sip? Yes. If you care about being fully healed, you might consider heading back to the pot. It's a free full heal after all, but like it tells you it's just for HP. The inn is only 5 Bira and a single Ant gives 10... and they often come in pairs anyway.  But, hey, here's the... ant queen...? The front bit is definitely an ant, but the giant maggot-y body is more akin to a termite queen. Weird.   Ant Queen So, the Ant Queen starts off with a Soldier Ant and a Magician Ant lackey. They're the same as the ones that we can find in the Ant Hole 'cept with a slightly different colour palette for... some reason.  So, with that in mind we can just remove the Soldier immediately.  The Ant Queen herself is... really kinda boring. She has a whole one attack!  It's a pretty simple attack too, honestly. It just hits one person and sometimes inflicts a Defense Down debuff. We could counter it with that Nutty Spread but we really don't need to thankfully.  Leaving the Magician Ant alive here is, uh, well it changes what he does at least.  So long as a Magician Ant is alive with the Queen, he spends every single turn dealing meh damage to one person so she can heal for half of it. Which, uh, is really cute when Lassi is over there dealing ~130 a turn. Even more if she has planetary alignment.  It's not really a problem but it is inconvenient, so we'll get rid of that too.  If she's alone, then the Queen doesn't even attack. She just summons more adds!  She just gets 2 more minions to die for her, and be inconveniences. It's any combination of Soldier and Magician, so 2/0, 1/1 or 0/2 are all possible and all have equal odds.  Oh and Soldiers don't do anything different in this fight to what they do normally.  It deals more damage than the Feast, but it doesn't heal the Ant Queen for a completely negligible amount. I'd say go with whichever you want, because it really doesn't matter, but the Magician is technically less annoying.  And that's it. The Ant Queen is level 5, but it takes some active and serious grinding to get here over level 3 in the first place so we get an all-but-guaranteed level out of this.  End  Shouldn't we at least take a peek inside?The newly spawned chest is the only thing in the area now, so we might as well claim our post-battle spoils! The semi-raised platform where the queen was is completely empty, sadly.   With our new clawed glove in hand, as I guess proof or something, we can head on out of the Ant Hole.  Stray ants still wander around sometimes, but we can take care of them easily. Yeah, right. Enough with the jokes.Not everyone has updated dialogue to match our new titles of Queen Slayers, but it's no big deal.  The King and Minister Munster have returned to the one-room mole palace, though.  I'm sure he must have heard by now. News travels fast, and good news even faster, but let's go tell him just the same!What's this "us" business, Parmesan? You don't get to come.  At least someone's learned the right lesson. Colby getting taught that space exploration owns is a really good thing to come outta this.  O bringers of peace and stompers of ants! Why do you weep? Why do you cry? What sorrow can the tears of a hero hold? These heroes will not say.And we even have a bit of a ballad in our favour! I think it could use some more work, but it sure is a start. We'll leave Gruyere to do that and report in to the King.   There is little left to do but to declare you a mighty hero, Sugar! Allow me to extend our most sincere thanks! Please, you must tell us, did the foul queen have something... special on her personage? Could it be? Have you recovered the great digging tool of legend? could exist... But here it is! What? The diggy claws? Allow me to explain! Spiny moles are excellent diggers in soft soil, but even we have trouble when it comes to hard soil and rock. We've dug everywhere we could on this planet. We've dug up every last worm that could be found in the softer soil. But they are useful only in the hands of a spiny mole! But... you did fight so very hard to retrieve the diggy claws.There is no part of that sentence that is correct, but okay. Go on... Take them. No, really, we couldn't... You're the ones who are so crazy about worms. Huzzah! Did you hear that? They refused our kingly reward! Do you think that, perhaps, they truly are... There can be no doubt. They are indeed the heroes foretold in the Book of Light! Minister! Fetch me the Book of Light! With all haste, Your Clawfulness! Huff... Puff... Wheeze... Here it is. Read it immediately! Ahem! "caring not for their own happiness and thinking only of the well-being of the spiny moles." "And then... The heroes..." Awa wa wa... Wa wa wa... Keep reading! I can feel time... Nay! History itself is on a cusp! "All dreams of all men shall come true at that moment." That's so moving. So poignant! Heroes! You are to journey to new horizons, or so the legend says. And so, we will do whatever it takes to send you to the planet of winds! The Kahve Ruins center around a tower of great power. When the tower lost its power, While I know few details of this legend, I am sure you will be able to unravel the mystery on your own! Great hero Sugar! Grant these regal claws the opportunity to help you. We shall dig you a hole to the land where the stars sleep ourselves! Would that we could do more to repay our people's debt to you. We shall begin at once! To the digging grounds! Oh, and take as much time as you like preparing. It may take us a while... See you there, on the digging grounds!Sadly, there's nothing new in town at all. No updated dialogue, nothing new in the shop, no... anything. So, to the digging grounds we go!   At once, Your Majestic Moleness! Are you ready? Then let us go! By your leave, Your Majesty. Not to question the power of your claws, but... are you feeling well enough to do this? Ah, my trusted adviser, you worry too much! We have the diggy claws, so we have nothing to fear. WHere you lead, we follow, Your Majesty!  Havarti and 4 other Spiny Moles all come running in, in unison. There was 6 moles on the previous screen, including Havarti, so I wonder who got left out. By all means, my friends! We shall all go together! Right! These diggy claws are as fabulous as the legends said! I... feel like this may be both an appropriate analogy and also maybe the least appropriate one, all things considered. Allow me to extend a most regal thank-you! Look at that twinkle in his eyes! He must really like digging! Come along, young mages. The place you seek is here. We are sorry to see you go, but the time is upon us, so... good-bye! We'll head down the latter in a moment, but first we have some treasures to collect!  Hair Clips are the most important of the three by far. They're an accessory, and they give us a 1% increase to MP regen! With these, Sugar regains 11% of her MP a turn and Lassi regens 14%.  Slippy Oil's next and it's not really all that bad either but it's not like it's great or anything. It just doubles the chance of an enemy giving you its item drop at the end of the fight. There might be something worth this later, but for now don't bother.  And last we have some footwear giving both Sugar and Lassi a full set of equipment! This is just an Agility boost, which is probably useful.  Nothing else up here, so we'll head into the new hole dug by King Gorgonzola and co. and see if we can't find the Land Where The Stars Sleep!
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Nov 9, 2018 01:57
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The dual screens make it easier to have big bosses, which I appreciate. Don't underestimate Slippy Oil, it's real good. I'm pretty sure multiple uses stack too!
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Nov 9, 2018 06:08
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Those are some surprisingly adorable moles. I like how they all tag along with the king even though he's the only one who can actually dig rock. They're just so happy to be there.
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Nov 9, 2018 11:31
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naming the protag sugar makes me think everyone is speaking like a kindly southern female barkeep.
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Nov 9, 2018 12:43
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So...is the combat system ever going to get any significant depth to it? Or are we just here for the plot?
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Nov 9, 2018 18:09
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:So...is the combat system ever going to get any significant depth to it? Or are we just here for the plot? They're just easing you into it. The character/party mechanics in this game are pretty unique, it gets hectic fast.
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Nov 9, 2018 22:36
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Bellmaker posted:They're just easing you into it. The character/party mechanics in this game are pretty unique, it gets hectic fast. It's just as this dude says; we're still in the fairly early game, without a full party or access to all the tools we'll eventually have at our disposal, so combat at this point is necessarily kind of simple
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Nov 9, 2018 22:54
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That's good to hear. I'll look forward to seeing the curveballs the game throws our way.
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Nov 10, 2018 00:09
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 Good afternoon, class. I sure hope you've remembered to do your daily Molercise this time!  We're going to be taking a short trip through Gorgonzola's Hole-a, which is possibly even more linear than the Ant Hole was.  ...Which I mention mainly because Cheddar couldn't be more wrong if he tried. He might be the most mole-like spiny mole here, in this case.  Edam used to hang out in the store, which makes his inclusion here a bit weird. I guess Havarti had the time to grab as many spiny moles as he could.  That's so awesome. Everything you do is out of this world.There's four more clustered together by the exit, jeez. We only saw 5 appear, but there's 7 down here. Talk about packed.  But, uh, they mostly don't say too much really. You'd think Gruyere of all spiny moles would have something more to say.  They opted to turn up from all over the place, at least. That's nice of them, I guess.  Gouda just remains in constant surprise of everything that happens. Wait, hang on, behind his portrait is that...  It is a HP Pot! We can take advantage of that to get 4 more Sugarstars before we need to use any of the ones we have. How nice.  And if we go a little bit more to the right, we can snag 3 more Yellow Worms. We have like 13 of these things now, which is honestly a lot more than we realistically need.  Gorgonzola even left us some extra treasure, as a reward for coming this way too. How generous.  Free money is never a bad thing, but we don't need to use it right now at least. Alright, let's backtrack and say goodbye to our moley friends.  "power, the rocket went to sleep as well. Only a star that has been buried in the land where stars sleep can wake it." When the heroes decipher the riddle of the word, it is time for the great farewell. Alas... We did not fully believe the minister when he first told us of your coming. But when you brought us the diggy claws, we had no choice but to believe! You will achieve something great. You may well save our world from the dark times. And we will tell our future generations of the hero named Sugar. I'm... so sad. Do not cry, Minister. Let us send them off with a hero's farewell. Huzzah! By the way, heroes, do you know where your journey takes you from here? No. You will blast off into space, heroes. We suggest you ask the minister for the legendary words. Is everything clear? Yes. A very encouraging reply, but we must be certain. If you are lost and the fog of indecision clouds your path, see us. We will offer you royal guidance. (Gouda) Heroes! Hip, hip, hurray! (Colby) Good luck out there, Sugar!Before we take the ladder and leave to find the Land Where The Stars Sleep, King Gorgonzola has minor updated dialogue.   We will tell them of the glorious hero named Sugar!Okay, NOW we can leave the hole-a and seek a way to the rocket.  Once on the surface, we're immediately next to Pizza. No reason to ignore him, so let's open a warp here for later. It might come in handy.  Over to the left, we have a big open area and 3 ways to go. We'll head south first...  But rather quickly it comes to an end and hits a gate. We'll get through here later I guess.  Heading on back and going north instead, then.  ...As we're walking, this thing just appears right behind us.  Bean Pops are important, but we can't do anything with them yet. They have a use in one fight and only one fight. We get like four of them in rapid succession here, so I'm okay with that.  But, alas, the north path ends in a dead-end as well. In that cast...  We'll head back down to the open area and head to the left. If only we went a tiny sliver more in that direction to begin with, we'd have seen this sign!  The Land Where The Stars Sleep sounds like it'd be a dungeon, but nah. It's just a simple path through a safe cave.  There's even a tiny little Brownie and his 2 Radish friends living in here!  All radishes are connected by a giant root network. That's why we know so much. You see this cave? The brownies there piled up about three mountains to build it.Radishes from this point on serve an important function.  When you cast a spell and tap yourself at just the right time, you'll make your spell way more powerful. When you are about to get attacked, tap yourself at just the right time to pull off a reflex guard and take less damage.They give us tutorials on game mechanics that you might easily have missed. These ones on Timed Hits are available in the in-game tutorial text in your Now that we've been told about this by the Radishes, I will start using them. It's kind of a good idea to from this point anyway.  Anyway, worry about that when it becomes relevant. For now, let's see what this star buried in here is.  ...Well, that's not what I was expecting to see here.  But what's it doing in a cave? There's no wind here!That... is a very good point, actually. Huh. Weird!  Well, we can examine two of the three things on the outcropping here.  As you'd expect, they're not exactly functional right now though.  I especially like the complete vagueness of this one. It's just... a machine. It's pretty sensible; Sugar and Lassi wouldn't know what the heck this is after all.  But that's so dumb! What's the point of building a windmill underground? There's no wind here.Yeah, weird. A giant windmill with... no... wind...  Well, we can fix that easily enough!  The strong wind conjured, uh, leads to the windmill powering on and everything lights up. Suddenly the name for this place makes a lot more sense, huh...?  I really can't disagree with Lassi's assessment here, either. There's nothing else in the cave, back out we go.  The pipe's now glowing, so we'll follow it around up the northern path again.  It appears we've caught some unwanted attention from doing this!   Trespassers detected. Beginning purge routine. So, now we've gotta beat up two more of these bots. The timing of this will pretty much guarantee that the next stretch of the game involves Earth getting a power-boost from its planetary alignment.  It doesn't really help these guys, though. We don't even need the Spellstrike to decimate these things, but it's very worth it.  Even Sugar can one-shot them right now without a Spellstrike, and she doesn't do near this much damage!  Probably won't even realise for a while that these things are even upgraded Sentries.  They do have a new trick that... they'll probably never get to use, though.  Once someone in here has been Locked on, any living mk2 Sentries can use this as a follow-up.  It's not particularly powerful, but it's something new at least. (A grey-ish swirl here means a successful reflex guard)  After beating the first two sentries, we follow the path further up and... meet a Terminator 2 reference, of all things. And then fight two more mk2 Sentries, which is a bit of a disappointment.  ...But this thing wasn't here when we came through here before. What even is that?  Oh it's just a treasure chest. This is a special type of chest called a Mysterious Chest. They only appear when the relevant planet is in alignment.  Since we're on Erd, that means we need Erd in the right place. There's only these two available, though. We can't do anything with Putty Peas right now. We'll need to wait a long while before they have any use at all.  Back along the main path, we've got 2 more Sentry Mk 2s to one-shot. Very simple.  Just past the gate that they opened for us, we've made our way all the way back to where we started. As a result, we can find our old rockets! Lassi's still has the free full heal attached for good measure.  This, in turn, also means we've made our way back to the Kahve Ruins.  But, of course, we have to get jumped by more robots before we can enter.  The only difference between this fight and the past three is that this one gives us 4 Sentries! That just means that two of them get a turn.  Naturally, power has been restored and there are a few sentrybots walking around for good measure too.  Even with the power being on, we can't go into this central area though.  Since we need to head around, there's a bit of a chance to get into a fight one of these things.  These four are all mk 3s, which are functionally identical to mk 2s, but they have Bigger Numbers.  Their basic Rocket Punch alone outdoes everything the mk 2 could do!  Oh and we can't one-shot them with Lassi, even with a Ah well, Sugar can finish it off immediately afterwards anyway.  Up on the second floor, we find an old friend.  If that thing catches us, it'll throw us out on our ears!I dunno, I think at this point we can take this guy. We're way stronger now than we were before!  ...Oh, uh, never mind then. I guess we can't fight D12S yet after all.  We can examine the console in the centre of the room now, but all it tells us is about this thing called Neumann.  And up on the 3rd, we have... this thing's back?!  Eliminate! Eliminate! Securitron 2 We're already up to our second boss, and it's a straight upgrade to something we've already fought.  Disappointingly, its skills are identical to the ones the original Securitron had. They're just a bit more potent this time around.  We can hit it pretty hard in kind, but it has about 1500HP so this is going to be fairly quick one way or another.  ...The missiles all hitting one person is pretty dang mean, really. Lassi only just survives by the skin of her teeth here, yeesh.  Timing blocks on multi-hit stuff is also pretty mean, because you can only block one of them.  The same applies to MT attacks, of course. Gotta pick who to block for, and 99% of the time it'll probably be Lassi because she has the least health and all.  What doesn't help is that this hits about as hard as single missile. At least its split across both Sugar and Lassi, which mitigates it somewhat.  Despite the Securitron 2 being level 6, we don't get great EXP out of this one. Another screw for a functional 55 Bira reward is, uh... nice of it? End We've got an opening to take the rocket, and Lassi is absolutely right. Time to blast off!  Just a small CGI scene as the camera pans around the rocket here.  It definitely looks a lot bigger and more impressive than the old rockets from school.  > Spacepod Neumann prepared for liftoff.> Please execute a command. Hey?! Who's there?! Who's Neumann?! AGGGHHHH! THIS THING IS BLASTING OFF! After Erd I appreciate that Neumann... which is the rocket... is running mostly on autopilot right now. I guess we lucked into getting on-board when we did.  Erd outside seems like even more of a barren wasteland than it normally does. Kinda impressive, really.  D12S and some friends opt to run in at this point. We've really caught their attention now.  In a move that just gives me a ton of deja vu the top of the Kahve Ruins begins to open up to let Neumann out.  As we take off, the blast sends D12S and co. flying.  They mainly hit the walls around the launchpad.  See ya later, Erd. We'll obviously be back later since there's an entire southern half on the map we never got to!  > Visibility: 7 miles. But, uh... where are we going?That's an excellent question, for sure.  And something to ponder for all of a few seconds as we leave Erd's atmosphere and Neumann takes off towards a new location.  A giant glacier is the closest planet, it seems. The game tells me its a Water planet, but it sure doesn't look like one to me... End
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Nov 12, 2018 02:03
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Man, I'm getting this feeling it'll be a really long time until we can roam the stars freely.
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Nov 12, 2018 02:30
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I believe there are are conversations explaining why Neumann automatically goes to Cassia, but they're hard to find and I'm not entirely sure where they are. Maybe it's talking to the Dwarves at just the right time?
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Nov 12, 2018 03:19
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Dragonatrix posted:
If I remember right, it was this sole mechanic that made me eventually put the game down. I love timed hits, but having to use the stylus to do it just grated on me so much. Just let me use a button, game! 
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Nov 12, 2018 04:43
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Oh good, you got those hidden chests! It's an interesting mechanic with some great risk/reward. That one with the putty pea eluded me for quite a while. Bellmaker fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 06:14
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Guess as to why the spaceship is named the way it is: Is it a Von Neumann device?
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Nov 12, 2018 14:28
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 So, the next stop on our class field trip brings us to Cassia. Alternatively named Rig Maha, which... is one that I don't particularly understand, really. It took a while, but forums user Polsy figured it out by taking the syllables and reversing them: Polsy posted:backwards. [...] Rig Maha [...] is a variety of clam called hamaguri.  Hey, Sugar, is this Puffoon? Hm... Doesn't look much like a wind planet. I guess these rockets go where they want, and not where you want 'em to. I guess for the time being, we're focusing more on the "ship" part of "rocket ship."  Maybe it's a little breezy, but I doubt that's enough to qualify it for being a wind planet.Meanwhile...   Thar be a rocket incomin'! We got us some meddlin' spacefarers, methinks! Nar, it be no Space Police rocket from the looks of it. Then we've nothing to worry about. A handful of space tourists won't trouble us, I daresay. Dangit Lassi, I already said that before!  Anyway, uh, we're on a single part of what I presume is an ice floe right now. Can't really go anywhere from here...  So, let's re-enter Neumann. There's something we can do in here.  We could head down the ladder in the bottom right, but alas that's... not very helpful for us, unfortunately. We also can't leave Cassia, so there's not much point in trying to fly away now.  But if we examine our robot-y friend over in the corner, he'll give us a free heal whenever we want. That's nice, but what we want is this other option.  That lets us do a bit of an RNG search of the ship to try and find loot.  ...Sometimes its a bit too good for how early in the game we are. Jeez.  This is just straight up a full heal for a long while, yet.  I opted to press my luck a bit further with Scavenging and got a Blue Frog next. This isn't as good as Red, since it's "only" a 400HP heal instead. That's still complete overkill right now though.  But yeah, that's a thing you can do. It just gives you free stuff pretty much whenever you want. You are the mercy of the RNG and its only for healing items (and tiny amounts of cash), but it's an option.  Doesn't seem to be anyway off this tiny bit of ice, so we'll just... I dunno, see if we can't do something? Not sure what we're trying to achieve here like.  But, it... works and blows more of the floe into our tiny sheet.  Lassi makes us a bit of an ice-y bridge to get outta here. Sweet, let's go!  Seems like we're connected to the mainland of Cassia now, so we can probably find something here. Not sure what we're looking for right now though. Maybe something to help Neumann take off from its precarious positioning would be a nice start.   You came here on that rocket I saw earlier, didn't you? That must be the life... When you're tired and beat up from fighting, it must be nice to warm your feet inside that toasty rocket and rest up, huh? No. Ha ha ha... You're just being polite, aren't you? Ha ha hah-hachoo!Not really. It's not exactly something that's had even a modicum of a chance to come up. But, poor Freddie here is the only person around. Kinda wonder why he's just sat out here wish his little campfire, really.  Oh, wait, Pizza's over here as his kinda neighbour. We'll set up a warp back here which will almost certainly prove useful whenever we want to get back to Neumann.  There's a bunch of frogs here, but they're all frozen solid. Can't eat any of these. They'd break your teeth!  Ah, but we do have random encounters! Kind of.  Much like with the Ant Hole, we only have 2 different enemies to deal with here.  Unlike the entirety of Erd though, we already have Starsign variety! The Mossling isn't a Water sign enemy, oh my. Since he's a Wood sign creature, he resists Lassi's magic which is a problem. The water boy there is completely neutral so she can blast him at least.  ...Well, if you want this to take forever she can. Frozen Coral resists magic, it seems. Not as well as the Magician Ants but enough to be a nuisance. So we'll give them a swift kick and then a second to finish them off. Mosslings generally drop from a single Arclight, but the trick is that that's quite expensive at 7MP a cast.  The Frozen Coral has a whole one move it can do, which is a bit unfortunate.  Also unfortunate is that it's not really an attack. It's just that it, ironically, has a cold and we're just kinda in the way.  Mossling don't have much move variety either. They do have more than one thing they can theoretically do...  ...but that requires them to get turns. Which is a tricky prospect, right now, to say the least. Maybe it'll use its second skill later? I'm not counting on it though. Frozen Corals drop Green Frogs, but Mosslings drop something much more special. Hopefully we'll get one or two before we're done here...  Anyway, by all the frogs we also have a frozen Pot friend! This is bad for two reasons: we can't get a free heal AND we can't get Sugarstars here either!  So, I guess, we'll just continue along coming to a Frog Pot which also has a bunch of frozen frogs.   And also a Will-o-Wisp Academy rocket. Wait, hang on, what?  This one also has its healing machine working just fine. Sugar's rocket is the only one to not have that. Don't we just have all the luck! Plus side is that this means we've got at least one classmate somewhere here as well.  Keep on going east for now, I guess. Not much in the way of alternatives, and this screen has Many Radishes that are all fine and dandy.  You see, not all treasure chests are visible right away--or even all the time. Some chests may be visible or invisible depending on where a particular planet is in its orbit.Sadly, most of them don't tell us much of interest or anything new. This one isn't really new now either, since she tells us about Mysterious Chests. We just saw a couple before leaving Erd thanks to that naturally timing itself that way, but this is how we know the mechanics behind it. There is even one on this beach-y area, but Cassia left its aligned area just before we got here so we'll have to come back way later for it.  Nothing else of note along the beach until we get to... a crime scene...?   Wha... Where's your head?The robot lying on the ground looks like your classmate Mokka.  Oooh, Sugar! It's Mokka!!! It has to be, don't you think? Yes. I knew it! I knew it! Poor Mokka! Wahhhhh! What happened to him?! Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave Mokka's body behind. We're going to need to solve this heinous murder of a schoolchild as quickly as we can!  Fortunately, we have a port town right here! Addendum: Correction courtesty of forums poster GimmickMan: GimmickMan posted:Belated, but "pescato" is not spanish, that would be "pescado" which might have been what they actually intended in the JP text? It is easy to confuse To and Do in katakana so we could be looking at a small translation mistake here. Similarily, it could also have been "pescatto" which is fish in portuguese. Otherwise, "pescato" is italian for "having fished" iirc, which is related to food but not actually a food word.  There's a lot of folks around town to talk to, who almost all give us useful info of some kind of another. Like with the spiny moles before, there IS a naming theme for the otters here. Unlike with the spiny moles, they're not named after food; no, they're all named after musicians.   Only reason I came trudging into town is that rocket I saw fly overhead.Bechamel the Dwarf is a bit different, of course. He's named after the proper name for white sauce.  Long Johns are a type of donut, by the way; they look kind of like eclairs but presumably are different somehow They're the idiots who brought b-b-back that danged hermit lab. It's all their fuh-fuh-freezing fault. Brrrrr!..."Hermit... lab..."? I know what those words mean separately, but...  No, suh-someone else is behind it, and everyone's tuh-turning a blind eye to it.So, Mokka's head has been stolen from his body. Less important things have also been stolen from the town. Whatever a "Hermit lab" is, is presumed to be behind the thefts. Hmm, I wonder...  Tony attempts to persuade us to not leave town via the north. His vagueness is rather convincing, as is the fact that he actively blocks you if you try to ignore him.  In the top-left corner of town we can find Caldarroste. This guy stands out for many reasons, not least of which that his name is just "roasted chestnuts" in Italian.  Just below him, we can find Ian who notably does not prevent us from going in this direction. We won't do that just now, though. Nata de Coco (a dessert from the Philippines) seems a bit more important than everything else here, other than our Investigation!   Mick was telling me how great his furnace is, but I guess it stopped working. He said something about the battery dying. He was really mad, too, because all his spare batteries are locked in his toolbox, and he can't find the key. But everything seems to be all right now. He said he found a replacement battery.Well, all's well that ends well for Mick, I guess? That he lost his key is unfortunate, but at least he still was able to find a spare battery.  Well, now, what's this just over here?  I just know that hermit lab's behind it all... I just know it! beignet are a type of french choux pastry appetiser basically Wait, who said anything about dogs...?  I'm on special assignment, keeping a watch out for monsters on Mandarin Beach up north. It's the same thing every time I talk to this guy! "It's outside my jurisdiction!" Can you believe it? Ugh! Hey! You can't just cut in line like that! I was here first. Right, officer?I guess it's nice that Mick is still trying to find his toolbox key. I'm not sure Beignet is running a lost and found kinda thing, though.  I guess it is really weird that he's more focussed on how he's going to deal with the cold temperature than this spate of thefts. I guess the Space Police are going to be comedically incompetent or something.  But, hey, there IS a bit more of town over this way so we'll go check that out before we go shopping and maybe meeting those Long-John Brothers.  Yes. ...Worth it. Completely, very worth it.  We'll head down those stairs to talk to Jimi here next. He's important!  Because he gives us our first Rainbow Shell. This is what Mosslings drop, by the way. Collect 50 Rainbow Shells and I'll make you a Pooka String. Oh, a Pooka String is a magicla accessory that makes your love come true. Whoa... that's deep.The Pooka String is a very absurdly good accessory that I would love to get as soon as possible. We could get it before we finish up here, but it's... very unrealistic. There are some fixed Shells we can find but they're most only available right now from random encounter drops. Blech.  Oh and Pizza is here too, so we seem to have no reason to ever actually walk along the Tangerine Beach ever again.   Anyway, the Baklava solar system contains a sun, five core planets, and Kovomaka, the planet fathest from the sun. In the past, people traveled between the planets all the time. Cassia had the best ships in the solar system. You see, only Cassian spaceships could handle the scorching temperatures of Razen, the fire planet. Yep, history can be pretty interesting.Wow, yeah, that's some useful information alright. We can't do anything with it now, but I'm sure sometime in the future it'll come in handy.  And lastly, over here, we have Jeff. Thanks, Jeff. So, we'll head on back upstairs and check out the building next to the ice-cream seller.  Actually, that would be pretty useful... except I get the feeling my hands would shatter, so that's probably out. But sometimes I wonder if all of us are just gonna get gobbled up one day by the cold. Or yetis. Could be either.I really hope there are yetis here. That'd be pretty rad.  You'd think you'd stay a little focused on your job when you're AT WORK.And Worcester is clearly annoyed with Bechamel. And, yeah, the Dwarves here are all named after various sauces. Neat! Anyway, there's nothing else here so we'll head on back to the main part of the town.  Hey! I said no cutting! I am trying to talk to Detective Beignet here! Oh...sniff...sob... That's it! Sniff... I'm going home! Waaaa! And sure enough, Mick runs off home. We'll worry about that in due time.  First, we're gonna go shopping! We've got a decent amount of Bira compared to before, and I'm fully expecting there to be some upgrades available now.  We can buy Wakey Tails now, but they're, uh, very prohibitively expensive. We could also buy Slippy Oil but I'm not gonna bother right now with that.  But there is some newer equipment available, so we'll buy 2 of everything that is an upgrade here.  And then after selling the older stuff, one pair of Rubber Boots for, I guess, Lassi so she can outspeed everything even faster. So, how about those Long-John Brothers?  Don't know about the Dragon God? Gene will tell you all about the whole thing. We've been hearing about pirates loitering by the Dragon Road lately. We went over there to scare them away, and who do we see? The hermit lab! He's a cute one. Sure, he can be a little mischievous, but he'd neve do anything to get the whole town mad at him. It's got to be those stupid pirates behind the nasty cold weather. I see them skulking over by Dragon Road a lot.Well, if that guy isn't Gene (and instead a bit of a conspiracy nut), we'll head on over to the one building left that isn't Mick's house. Namely, the one next to Caldarroste.  What would you like to hear about? The Dragon God. Sometimes it raked underwater volcanoes with its great claws, making them erupt. Even so, the dragon and the otters coexisted peacefully... for a time. One day, a young otter was fishing near the ocean. He thought he had snagged his line on something, and after reeling in his line, he saw the dragon rise before him. The dragon pulled the poor, terrified otter under the waves, and he was never seen again. The fire otter was determined to avenge his brother's watery demise. He hunted and fought the dragon bitterly for three days and three nights. In the end, the fire otter stood amidst the waves as the victor. On his way back home, the fire otter made a small grave site for his brother. There, he also built a shrine in the name of the mighty fallen dragon. The fire otter? Ages and eons ago, our planet was covered in thick ice. They say it was because of an undersea eruption that changed the climate. People suffered, although none are still alive today to tell the tale. They didn't have stoves to keep them warm, like we do. They only had tiny campfires that barely warmed them. And that wasn't enough, so one by one, those otters died in the long, cold winter. You would've thought that would be the end of the otters. But one strange day, an otter shot fire from his hands.  The otters used that flame to stay warm and last out the end of the ice age. And that otter, the one who mastered fire magic in that desperate moment, is known to us now as the fire otter.Whew, that's a lot of info to take in. I'll give you a bit of time before we go visit Mick. Instead, we'll go see Nata de Coco first.  My tongue is frozen! Ask that storyteller if you want to hear about it. He lives in the northernmost house in Pescato...okay fine I wanted to get this out of the way now as well.  So we'll head right on back and ask Gene about it.  Thanks to magic, that water didn't freeze no matter how frigid it got outside. It never evaporated either, no matter how hot and dry it got outside. The fire otter called this strange water aquarino. But the aquarino was also dangerous.  If it somehow mixed with the ocean, there would be no clouds. Without clouds, there could be no rain! In the wrong hands, it could destroy the entire planet. That's why it is kept safe in a place where evil minds can't get their creepy hands on it! The aquarino is sealed away behind the rock door of Nata de Coco. Dwarves. The dwarves of the fire planet, Razen, showed a particular interest in the legend. Some enterprising dwarves went to Cassia to determine if they could use the aquarino with their projects. They did find uses for it, but then the sun changed orbit. The dwarves found themselves unable to return to their home. In fact, they didn't have a single ship that could withstand the intense heat of Razen's surface. The dwarves decided to use the aquarino technology on a ship, upgrading it to be able to survive the trip home. But it was all in vain. Dwarves back home learned that these dwarves had practiced secret dwarven engineering away from home. The exiled dwarves, unable to return home, decided to stay in Pescato and pursue a life of stoic shipbuilding.So, yeah, I think that's pieced together all that in the most sensible order to make that story make sense. It could do with being less wordy though, really. Anyway, uh, enough of that. Let's go see Mick at last.   It is! I knew it! So that WAS Mokka we saw collapsed at the town gate! It has to have been Mokka, right?! Don't you dare touch my furnace! I just got it working again!...Gonna immediately touch that furnace, now.  Hey, hey! Hands off! I just got that battery installed, and I don't want you breaking anything! No way! This IS Mokka's head! Wha--?! What?! Brain thief? What are you talking about? I didn't steal anything! Especially not anyone's head, bunny girl! Bunny girl? Ooooo... You did NOT just say that! Hey, Sugar! You have to do something! This head belongs to Mokka! Anyway, it's mine now, and if you don't leave me alone, I'm calling the Space Police! That's a big, fat lie, you big, fat liar! All right, fine. If it's so important to you, I'll give it back. BUT! You'll have to do a little something for me, first. So if you can find it and bring it back to me, I'll let you have this battery. What kind of deal is that? Sigh... OK, fine! Just tell us where you lost it, and we'll see what we can do. That's the problem. I've had all sorts of stuff go missing lately. I have a pretty good idea who's been taking it, but... That's... what even is that...? A hermit crab? Maybe? I don't want to say anything more about it. I'd hate to get anyone in trouble... Especially myself, for snitching. Wait, am I going crazy, or did I just see a dog rummaging through your dresser just now? What's that supposed to mean? Oh, we'll figure it out later... Come on, Sugar! I bet that dog has the key!So, I guess "lab" means that it's a hermit labrador, or something. Okay, sure. To recover Mokka's head - that he needs to live! - from this big brain bandit, we need to catch a dog. That is also a hermit crab. Welp, let's get right to it then! Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Nov 30, 2018 |
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Nov 14, 2018 08:54
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It's a good thing Mokka is a robot or that'd be really dark. It still is, a little.
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Nov 14, 2018 10:38
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 So, we're gonna have to catch this hermit lab. It's busy being a bit of a nuisance, though, which should make our job easier...  Is what I'd say, if these guys didn't get to it first.  Although, huh, seems the lab has some tricks of its own. Maybe for the best that they took this for us.  And this gives the hermit lab the opening it needs to keep running off.  We'd be going after it anyway, so we might as well do it for these guys too.  I thuh-think it's because he's been following some evil master's orders. Whoever it is, they've never shown their face in town, that's for shuh-sure. Brrr!!!I think that's a bit silly of an idea, really. It's just a dog with a shell. And, uh, ice magic maybe?  Ah well, there's nothing else in town so we'll head off to the north to catch us a doggy.  Gotta appreciate that Dickinson and Palmer still aren't really giving up, despite it being very plausible that they would.  We'll follow them in our own time, but Caldarroste is here so we'll see what he's up to first.  Yes. Pff. That's the problem with strangers. You just don't get how things are done around here. That li'l hermit lab, he's got a terrible ice monster under his command. If I were you, I'd turn right around and go home! Tempting, but we'll keep on keeping on. We'll head to the right here, first.  But before we do, there's one new cute little enemy that can turn up around here.  The Hearty dog keeps up the Starsign variety, as it's a Light sign monster!  It has possibly the most variety of things it can do out of every regular ol' enemy we've seen thus far.  Love Shower is primarily what gives it that distinction, since this is the most new thing:  It's a healing spell! Granted, it's not particularly useful or anything, but it's the thought that counts.  It also has this skill. This also happens to be the skill Mosslings have.  It's just a weak AoE attack, but it also has an IQ Down effect. Since this weakens your spells, you'd think this would be annoying. Against something that isn't a weak random encounter, it very well might be.  Oh, and the Hearty Dog is worth quite an awful lot of Bira! Even one on their own gives us enough to let Sugar have some Rubber Boots as well so she can get a bit quicker too.  So, over on the left of that minor intersection we come to the rad named Dragon Beach (definitely no biases here).  Who knows. Just snack on them. No mercy!It's... basically just a hang out spot for Radishes, I guess? We can't do anything with this one's info at the moment, but remember it for later.  There's a bunch of Radishes here, but we'll just talk to some of them. The rest just repeat stuff we already know.  That'd be a bean pop. It'll help you get experience points. It may sound weird to drink mystical oil, but... bottoms up! Also we have Pizza here too, so we can quickly get back here later. If we ever need to, I guess.  ...And what's up here is a giant dragon head. Okay this is insanely cool. Nice to see the Dragon God still finds a way to be relevant long after it get beaten up by that Fire Otter fella.  Anyway, nothing we can do over there so we'll double back and follow Dickinson and Palmer after the hermit lab. This brings us to the very misty and oddly named Lover's Cove...?  (Palmer) You got that right!  At the sight of, uh, whatever this thing is, Dickinson and Palmer immediately book it. I really can't blame them.  But it's probably our boss fight for the area, huh... Sugar, what should we do?! Well, we're not immediately thrown into a fight against this thing so we'll give it a poke first. That usually triggers stuff to happen.   Ouch! Nope. Doesn't seem to have any effect, Sugar. Any other ideas?Nothing immediately comes to mind. Might be easier if we could actually see what's in the area, though...  So, I guess we should clear out all this mist first. It's quite in the way!   That's a bit disappointing, but it sure explains why it didn't try to fight back. At least we can see the hermit lab now, and it doesn't have anywhere to run...  ...but that won't stop it trying to fight its way out, through us. Fortunately, the game doesn't consider the hermit lab a boss fight because it really, really isn't.  The lab is a Water Starsign beastie, appropriately enough.  Though, uh, it really doesn't show it for the most part. It doesn't use any Water attacks. In fact, it doesn't use any magic at all. Not even that frost breath thing it did before!  It's a bit of a hardy creature, but it does have a big shell on its back so thats expected.  Once it loses ~400HP, it has an automatic trigger in which it acts like a Pokemon.  It just retreats inside its shell, which makes it take significantly less damage than before (and, no, sadly this doesn't make it take more damage from physicals than magic). It, uh, doesn't do anything at all when in this state so good for it, I guess. It doesn't even get a free heal or anything.  After it gets wellied a bit more, it just pops back out automatically and takes turns again like normal. Because the pupper is so fast, it most likely will get to go immediately at this point.  But that's it. It's not a very difficult fight or anything. It makes sense though; it's a cute dog... hermit crab... thing that is, at best, a bit of a bother.  Fortunately, we didn't actually kill the hermit lab. Instead, we just gave it some overly physical training that I would not endorse doing on any non-magical hermit crab dog things.  At least the hermit lab seems to have learned some kind of lesson out of this.  Hopefully its not (just) that "if you misbehave some children from a different world will come and make sure you behave in the future."  Although, I must admit that the hermit lab has much better manners than I would've expected!  And true to their word, the hermit lab does give us back the toolbox key we need!  And, uh, the unimportant other stuff that they also stole.  During our brisk trip back to Port Pescato, Sugar and Lassi both hit level 7. This doesn't mean much for Sugar, but Lassi gets her second spell! It uses 100% of her current MP to heal 1 person (the whole party if she's in the back row). The amount healed is proportional to the actual remaining amount of MP she had, so she'll heal a lot more with full MP than if she only had 8MP left, for example.  But that's all that remained out there. We'll give Mick his key back now, so he'll give us back Mokka's head. Hold on. Cross this wire here, and...  What else is that you've got there? Looks like the others' stolen goods. Wow. You guys do good work! Here, I'll make sure these wind up back with their rightful owners. So now we can go and give Mokka his head back. I hope either Sugar or Lassi are good at repairing robots!  It... It didn't work? But... he can't really be dead, can he? MOKKA!   Bee-eep... Sausage synapse thermonuclear yolk explosion. My name is Mokka. Oh, thank goodness! You're alive!!! Don't scare me like that! My circuits are frozen. Is that why the air tastes like peanut butter and engine coolant? Here we are, reunited at last, and I'm cryin'! What's wrong with me? How'd you even get on this planet?! You came after US? Pico, Sorbet, Chai... We all took off after you in those rockets back at the academy. Of course, my rocket had to break down in the cruel, bleak depths of space, and I was forced to land in the frigid cold.Yeah, uh, I get the distinct impression those rockets were not very well made. Hopefully Miss Madeleine used a better one...  Someone thwacked you on the head?! That's awful! Oooh, just wait'll I get my hands on whoever did that! This is the water planet, so we might as well call it water under the bridge. Are you serious?! Well, I guess it was your head after all, but... still! I still do not understand how you got here. Did you crash a two-seater rocket here? Ummmm... not exactly.And so we fade to black as we go show Mokka our new rocket!   Heroes? You? Who got to decide that? I suppose I'd better come up with a  You may be a great robot, Mokka, but you have absolutely no talent for coming up with a good name! Besides, our rocket already has a name! It's called Neumann. It was built by the Esspazzo civilization... or something.  Are you being serious or sarcastic? I can't even tell anymore! Whatever. As long as it can get us to Puffoon, it does not matter to me. Well... it's not exactly that simple. ?And so we head on inside.  It does not even have a navicontrol system. This will make getting from planet to planet somewhat challenging. I've got it! You have got what? That sounds like a sensible plan. All right, let's head back to Pescato and see if the dwarves will help. I am capable of shaking the very ground we stand on if I use it. The little celebratory arm-raise makes Mokka look so happy to be able to flip over frogs. ...  Unfortunately, Mokka joins at level 5, has piss-all MP (13) and no gear! Well, I guess he is a robot... at least he has the highest HP out of everyone here? Like, his only spell costs 4MP right and he regens 8% a turn right now. Which means 1. The hairclip would increase it to 9%... which means 1. Hopefully Mokka's physical skills are up-to-snuff because he's gonna need 'em I reckon. Ah well, next time we'll go see some bearded sauces about fixing up Neumann. I'm sure we'll have no further complications to deal with. Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Nov 16, 2018 |
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Nov 16, 2018 02:03
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Mokka is a truly great character. half the time he's so sarcastic you can't even tell what position he's taking in an argument. my kind of hero
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Nov 16, 2018 02:14
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I like Mokka already. 
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Nov 16, 2018 04:15
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Venuz Patrol posted:Mokka is a truly great character. half the time he's so sarcastic you can't even tell what position he's taking in an argument. my kind of hero It's also the only thing wrong with Mokka since IIRC sometimes his sarcasm gets in the way of hints. But yes, Mokka is great just for taking the piss out of the more exuberant students (see: Lassi standing right there.)
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Nov 16, 2018 09:30
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Yeah Mokka is great, he pours on the sarcasm and does exactly in combat what you expect him to do. He's the bedrock of your team  Also these otters are super adorable and are the best NPCs in the game 
Bellmaker fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Nov 16, 2018 |
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Nov 16, 2018 17:00
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The hermit lab is obviously the Best Boy 
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Nov 16, 2018 19:32
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I too am very appreciative of Mokka.
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Nov 16, 2018 19:35
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Well, if nothing else he's good at taking a punch.
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Nov 18, 2018 05:37
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You'd think a robot would be better able to keep his head on his shoulders, but welp.
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Nov 18, 2018 11:55
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Belated, but "pescato" is not spanish, that would be "pescado" which might have been what they actually intended in the JP text? It is easy to confuse To and Do in katakana so we could be looking at a small translation mistake here. Similarily, it could also have been "pescatto" which is fish in portuguese. Otherwise, "pescato" is italian for "having fished" iirc, which is related to food but not actually a food word. Glad we've got the
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Nov 18, 2018 13:46
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This Let's Play theorises it's short for pescatora, which is probably as good a theory as any. Not sure what this Rig Maha image is actually of, though (the text just says 'Water planet Rig Maha') 
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Nov 18, 2018 16:58
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 So, we've repaired Mokka and can continue on our snowfield trip. We can't warp at all right now, so we have to walk back which isn't too difficult at least.  Along the way, we'll make a quick stop of the rocket that Mokka used... I brought these with me, just in case. Not super necessary to collect, but they're nice for if you didn't buy a pair for one reason or another.  ...Like, say, not going back after getting the key for the toolbox. It does give Mokka a whopping 5 speed now which is absurdly slow. They ARE a clunky robot, after all.  Anyway, once we get back to Pescato, we're stopped by Caldarroste. Say, you kids are magicians, aren't you? ...Why do you ask? Hold on there, girlie. Hear me out. I'm on your side here. You've heard about the pirates, right? Well, I'm sure you've already guessed it but they're the ones who turned this planet into a great, big freeziepop. The pirates? Why would they do that? I think the locals will thank you... and I mean thank you with cold, hard cash... if you took care of the pirates for them. What do you think? Not a bad deal, am I right? No. Hey, your loss. But at least let me pass this bit of wisdom on to you, just in case you kids come to your senses.  That's where they've stashed their freezing machine, too. If you can smash it, this untimely winter will be at an end!Hmm, nope, I'm not seeing anything suspicious about this at all. I'm sure there's a sensible and logical explanation for how Caldarroste can be so confident about this. Not like it even really matters here, though. We just want to get Neumann fixed, which means we gotta go back to the dwarves' over on the right.  A coupla thousand years ago, shuttles were used to carry water from this planet to Erd, the earth planet. 'Course, back then, if you wanted to go Sadly, we don't get much more of a hint about this "mystic mouse" thing. At least not directly...  Bechamel doesn't really have much else to say specifically, but he does let us know that Neumann could be fixed if it wasn't so dang cold. Hmm...  ...Dangit, Tony. We were just about to go be helpful!  Here, take this. I want to show how much we appreciate everything you've done for us.Another pair of Rubber Boots for free? How, uh, generous. We don't have a use for these right now, but it does mean you can skip out on buying 2 now. One more and we just wasted money earlier! Oh well, I'll just double back to sell these and while I remember we'll get the rest of the gear for Mokka.  Yes. That's... That's great! I figured I should tell you that the pirates are probably holed up way back inside Dragon God Cave. But before you head out, you should go talk to my older brother. You know where I live, right?I do! In case you don't, Malcolm does show you on the map but we'll just head there on our own.  And, hey, the hermit labrador's found its way back home as well. How nice for it!  You guys punished my hermy something fierce, and the ice is still here! Do you finally see it was the pirates' fault? Yes. I mean, other than the bond of brotherhood. We get a nice, comfy new pair of long johns of our own. This is a pretty nice upgrade to get, all things considered, and it's just handed to you for good measure.  They're not better, armor-wise, than what we can just buy but they do have a +30 HP bonus effect. We'll give these to Lassi, since she needs it most.  I'll show you the way!We sorta already know the way, but okay I guess. Let's just follow Malcolm for now since there's nothing else to do.  The legends always said that the fire otter would return in times like these to save the town. So where is it, hm?It does sorta suck from their perspective that a bunch of kids are the ones that turned up here, instead of their local legend. It'd be a bit of a reality shock if you think about it...  Heck, lately, I've been wondering what it's like to feel your toes! I'm freezing!I suppose it is a bit weird that no one here at all has any magical skill, but it's an obvious gameplay conceit so I wouldn't dwell on it too much.  I'm sure the pirates are hiding in there! It would take the whole planet shaking to open this up! But you guys are magicians, right? Maybe you could bust out some magic? You can always just babble some fancy words and then it's like... Man, I better get going. You be careful!Shaking with magic, huh? Alright, let's just get closer and...   There's, uh, a lot of shaking. A lot of shaking. Understandable from the spell, but it just keeps going. And going.  Even after the kids get a, uh, very safe distance it just keeps going.  ...Totally worth it, though.  Smoke and lasers would have been a nice touch. So... he just lost a tooth, is that all? Oh, well... I expected a little more... something, at least. Who cares? We can get inside now! Well, we kinda can't. The tooth is still blocking the entrance!  Just give it a quick smack and we can head right on in.  Dragon Road itself is incredibly straight-forward. It's a linear path because, well, it's a road.  Rather notably, is that the only enemies here are all encased in ice. They don't attack, they don't really get turns, they never thaw. There's no risk here, so we'll just beat 'em up with physical attacks to save MP and if we need to regen any, we can just pass turns without worry.  ...But, well, there's not just some ice statues in here. And, yes, this is Morris' only line of dialogue before he throws us into a fight.  Pirate Battlethere isn't actually an ost available for this game as far as i can tell (i checked. a lot) so the scant few music links are just gonna be gamerips sorry  So, we get to fight a Pirate Otter! It's not fan favourite Dumpy Dave, so he's not gonna be as strong unfortunately.  Sadly, pirate otters aren't actually very strong! This one little weak jab is all Morris gets to do before he gets completely dunked on.  Not even worth a lot of EXP or money. That Rainbow Shell is a nice drop, though, since it gets us ever-so-slightly closer to being able to grab a Pooka String.  Honestly, this entire path is on-paper kinda boring. It's a simple straight line broken up by random encounters against things that are too frozen to move.  And then you get the occasional fight against a Pirate Otter.  Glen here kindly demonstrates to us that Pirate Otters wearing red are just the same as their blue brothers.  The only difference is Glen's numbers are slightly bigger. So he gives theoretically more EXP and money. That's it.  Hank decides to try something radical and bring a friend.  Sadly for him, Bob isn't really much in the way of assistance so we just take 'em both down and move on.  And, hey, this is a bit different! It's still a linear path with no branches, sure, but we're outside now.  Being outside means we get to fight new things. Technically! The seahorse here can appear inside as well, it's just not frozen solid when outside. How peculiar.  So, the Seapony (heh) is a bit focussed on stabbing dudes.  It, uh, isn't very good at it though. It needs to get turns and then hit. It usually fails at the first hurdle, but this one I let get past it... and it failed at the second. Welp.  The squid buddy just uses Water sign magic, so we've already seen his one trick before. Sorbet used it during the Magic Dummy fight way back when, as you might recall.  The most interesting thing of note is this crab bandit. He has a big ol' bag of swag and is offering to sell us things!  His shop isn't super-great, or anything, but it sells everything of obvious use right now.  But, well, we're more interested in the information. Dragon Road. Sometimes, you can find rainbow shells on Dragon Road. If you see any, grab 'em! "Tropica"? Anyway, if you just muck around out there, you'll find a ton of wakey tails all over the place, so grab 'em!That's a nice thing to keep in mind whenever we get to Gren, I guess! We'll definitely grab as many rainbow shells as we can while we're here for good measure.  Around the corner from the crab broker, we can find a regular ol' chest that gives us a neat new hat.  It gives more IQ than the regular Straw Hat we can buy AND it gives +25MP for good measure. You could give this to someone that isn't Mokka, but that'd be really dumb*. He can cast more spells now!  That's all for the outside, though. We're now back inside, so fights are back to a buncha statues.  Tim now decides to up the ante a bit by bringing with him a friend that's also dressed in red! Notably we've not had a cross-uniform team yet.  Maybe that'd be better than the friend he brought, though.  After Tim and Trevor, we're back outside though. Notably, this outside area covers both screens. Hmm...  This area otherwise keeps up the trend of everything else. At least the dual screen stuff lets us see the pirate's ship is definitely here.  So, Angus and Malcolm came running up at this moment and brought us something useful! (Malcolm) Long ago, those legendary long johns were soaked in the waters of these pots. If you drink the water they carry, it will heal your wounds and fill your soul with fire! So, we've got a usual, ol' HP Pot here. But that red one is a bit different.  This one is an MP Pot, but unlike the HP one he's not free. He wants a... green frog. Sure, we have enough of those and they're not a super-big deal in practice.  The only other thing of note and importance here is that the path leads us to this very conspicuous cave. Well, let's head on in then!   Gasp! Dumpy Dave's back! Ye know, I been thinkin', this whole fire-otter nonsense, it was nothin' but rot, were it not? It be time to set sail fer new planets and find ourselves some more magic flingers on other spaceports!Wait, so, the pirate's plan is to... go from world-to-world to kidnap spellcasters? Is... is this secretly a Kingdom Hearts game?  (Dave) What be ye doin' here, eh?(Chris) Yar, an' I don't like the looks of ye... Let's take 'em like sharks in a frenzy! Unfortunately for Kurt, Dave and Chris we're, well, competent and they're pirate otters. It's tragic, but it's true.  Notably, Sugar hits level 9 from this fight and becomes kinda terrifyingly powerful. You'll see!  Speaking of seeing, I notice someone's joined the party right now...  Look! On that machine! There's someone up there! Fascinating. Let's test how much power you possess! Master Chard So, our boss fight today is Chard himself. And he starts off by standing on top of the machine as he should.  This is how you make an entrance to your boss fight!  Chard himself is a Dark starsign enemy, so if you're using the Light sign definitely come here during the day. Just do that anyway, so he's not buffed to be honest.  A phys attack doing over 70 damage, to a physical tank no less, through a timed guard is... not really a laughing matter. Chard can hit pretty hard, and he's a magician remember!  This stalactite up on the top-screen occasionally just sorta has turns of its own. Kinda. It slowly just drops further and further down for a couple turns.  Then Chard spends a turn to... point at it. Huh, that's weird.  And then, uh, this happens.  It's an interesting idea, for a one-time skill. It does take some time to get to trigger and then takes two turns to happen. It's also very hard to guard against, since the timing is very tight (I think it's when the stalactite is falling between screens but it's hard to say for sure).  So, uh, Chard's a Dark starsign guy. Sugar's got Light, it's daytime right now and Crystal Laser is her new spell and it's... VERY expensive, jeez. Let's try it out!  ....Well then! This is with a proper Timed Hit, sure, but that's still ridiculous! For reference, Chard has 3000 HP. So, uh, yeah. Sugar just nearly did half his health in one shot. She's pretty powerful!  Chard is worth a pretty decent chunk of EXP, plus he gives so much money and drops a special hat. Neat. End Hey, uh, Master Chard? Who are all these-- I mean, Cap'n, who be these lubbers? Yar! That's what I meant to say. Yar. Caldarroste brought these young magicians to us as a gift. Caldarroste?!Gasp, what a shocking twist! I never saw this coming!  They are powerful beyond their years. They must be if they can do me so much harm. Ah... Music to my ears! So how about it? Can I be a pirate now? Hrrmph... Cap'n? Men, we're pulling out. Freeze this place solid, and pack your gear!It is pretty brave of him to give that order when we're right here and all. We did just beat all 3 of these pirates AND Chard himself in succession...  You keep dreamin' there, fancy hat! Master Chard! You promised me, Master Chard! Ye think ye be pirate material? Hah! You'd dent yer hat and be nothin' but a bucket o' tears yer first minute on a ship! ...And then they just leave. And we let them. These non-interactive cutscenes, I swear.  This'll be puttn' the ice on any pirate pretenders 'round these parts.(Dave) We be the most yarrrrful pirates in the big, briny galaxy! Well, that's... a bit different. I guess this is what Chard wanted, but it sure isn't what we want.  Bleebloobeep... This must be the work of the freezing machine we heard about.So, we regain control but we're sorta trapped in this room right now. Let's see if Caldarroste has any ideas about to do.  Guess not, but at least they're determined to become a pirate. That's almost admirable! Just a shame it's not something significantly better.  Anyway, let's prod this machine. Well, we have to shut it off! But... how? Once again, the robot has to step in and take care of business. You guys will want to take a step or two back. Unfortunately, Mokka doesn't seem to have much of an idea either. At least at first...  Well, that sure seemed to do... something. Whatever that remote control is, it didn't turn off the machine though.  At least we have it now, and it's conveniently that Mystic Mouse we needed for the dwarves! What's this? The input device that controls the machine. It could be useful. We should take it with us, just in case. Ah, NOW the machine is turned off. And exploding...? Sure, okay. What? What?! Oh. Sorry. Hey, Mokka! Exactly what did you do? Ha-whaaa? Since the machine's broken and is now jettisoning ice, Angus and Malcolm take the pots and run off. As they do, the pirates are flying away in their ship which looks like its laughing. That's pretty cool.   It's a little hard to see through all the space debris, but Cassia's gone now from a frozen wasteland to the water planet we were always expecting!
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Nov 19, 2018 02:11
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Yeah, that's how it works. You just throw out all the ice and you're left with the same amount of water. It's not even cold anymore! Then again this universe seems to run on Looney Tunes physics.
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Nov 19, 2018 03:07
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The party has access to literal magic whose strength is determined by astrology and that's what you think is unrealistic?
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Nov 19, 2018 03:29
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Glazius posted:Yeah, that's how it works. You just throw out all the ice and you're left with the same amount of water. It's not even cold anymore! MAGIC!!!1 *snort**snort*
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Nov 19, 2018 03:47
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goty
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Nov 19, 2018 04:09
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Venuz Patrol posted:goty He's pretty good, but he's no Craaaaaaazy Chris
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Nov 19, 2018 04:18
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Or Dumpy Dave. I mean, the real reason Caldarroste didn't become a pirate is because he doesn't have the right name. Or maybe they were gonna call him Crappy Cal or something.
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Nov 19, 2018 05:08
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I can understand why you'd trick some kids, cause being a pirate is cool. Isn't that right penguin buddy?
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Nov 20, 2018 02:38
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 15:28 |
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The Pirate Penguins were so cool, I can't blame anyone for wanting to join.
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Nov 20, 2018 11:28
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