Part 35: Autumn 1998
Welcome back to Linda4. Currently we're in Scenario D, attempting to collect as many animals as possible in the limited timeframe of one year!
When we last left our characters it had just turned Autumn 1998. So let's see what we can do in this season! This time, to give you a bit of an idea about how actually quick you have to be about doing things, I will give you an approximate amount of time that we spend on some of the steps. The time will be given exclusive of the time spent in battles--since the clock stands still during fighting.
Step 1. The ark
From Autumn, on the second floor of the ark, a certain animal starts to appear.
You have to go around a bit and look for them...
...but ultimately here they are.
Bell crickets. As before the clue is the sound they make when they are present on the ark. Their tiny HP means they are probably a good candidate for Linda's "carpet of fire". Just cast it and wait it out, that's it.
Step 2. South Area, southeastern part
We want to finish today with all animals available on the overworld in the South Area.
You might recall that one of those animals is the pelican, which prefers that we do not have any money on us. So before heading down, I deposit all the money in the bank.
After than, we head approximately here. Last time we dealt with the eastern and northeastern part. Now, we want to sort out this big peninsula in the southeast. There are only two species here that we need.
Pelican.
Koala. They spawn a bit more rarely, so just use the "wait" method to get them to appear. If they still don't appear, reload the game to avoid wasting time. I will demonstrate a bit later how it actually looks when you apply the "wait" method.
For this whole part in total, excluding the battle time, we want to spend not more than 1 minute in total. This means that, as during most of the Scenario D, you probably want to keep that sprint button preseed down to speed up your walking. Yes, it does deplete HP, but it does so relatively slowly, so it's not as big of a deal as it seems. If you need to, you can heal during battle without using up any of the precious time. But personally I didn't find this to be a noticeable issue.
Step 3. Samakia
Samakia is just down here on this same peninsula, so it makes sense to do it now, so that we don't need to waste time coming back. You may remember it is the place where ants live.
Male ants are already in the ark, so we need to get the female, plus two other species that live here. This will start to sound a bit crazy, but excluding battle/menu time, we should ideally be in and out of here in 30-40 seconds maximum. I will put a video of this down in the extras section to show that this is indeed completely possible and without any particular issues either!
So the ant queen is down in the furthest part of the lowest level of this cave, but on the way there, we can pick up:
Sea urchin.
Anteater.
After getting down to the deepest level, study the map to figure out the shortest route to the ant queen. She's located in the "chamber" on the very top left of the map. From where we are, we want to go along the rightmost wall about halfway up and then take a left turn and go directly to her location from there.
Ant. As usual, fire carpet will work. You can also try to pick up some poop at the entrance and throw it at her, but picking up will waste precious seconds, so maybe not.
As usual, we use the "escape unit" item to leave the dungeon instantaneously. In fact, the game gives you several of those at the beginning of the game for free and you can buy an unlimited amount from Bird Line.
In addition to these three species, here you can also find hydras if you let them ambush you. They are already in the ark, so it was not necessary for us to bother with that, but it wouldn't really have been a problem either way, honestly.
Step 4. Flora Jam
Situated in the far northwest of the south continent, this place is large and full of distractions with fake animals, but there is actually only one species we can get here.
The best place to find them is around these two trees. If you don't see them around, try the ambush, chances are it will work. Of course, I'm talking about...
Stag beetle. Male only, of course, since females are not found in the world, and therefore we already have one in the ark.
Even here you can and should use the escape unit to get out; for the total time spent, there is absolutely no reason that you should spend more than 10-15 seconds maximum in here. Yes, it's a good idea to figure out the route beforehand, but honestly, this place is really not difficult to navigate around so this should be easily doable.
Step 5. Sand Hole
Now we head southwest.
Head immediately to the lower level. There we find:
Scorpion. We only need a male.
Armadillo. Only if you see them walking around. If they are not around, then don't waste time looking as they can be found easily in the next step too.
In and out in less than 20 seconds is what you want here. Although this place has several levels, you only need to go one level down, catch a scorpion and (possibly) an armadillo and teleport out. Easy.
Step 6. South Area, western part
Now we want to catch all animals which live in the western desert part of the southern continent. Also the reason why we were saving up so much time by being quick in the dungeons--we now need to spend time catching several species on the overworld, where time passes quickly. Here they are:
Centipede. As always, they burrow through the sand so you have to look carefully to see them.
Crow.
Horse. Mostly found along the southwestern coast.
Kangaroo. As before, they only appear when Ken's HP is less than half. Therefore, use previous fights to reduce your HP without using any time so that they would appear.
Camel.
Mantis. They generally spawn mostly around the Flora Jam area in the northwest. They probably spawn the least of all animals in this step, so you may need to use the "wait" method.
If you didn't get armadillos previously in Sand Hole, there are tons of them in the desert so you can easily get them here.
So this is basically the critical/make or break part of the Autumn run. You need to catch a good few different species, and if the RNG really doesn't go your way (camels and mantises can be a bit problematic with their spawn rate here), you may have to go back and reload the game from before this step.
Step 7. West of Hardia
After the gruelling run in the previous step, we use the whistle to come back to the ark once again. If the season doesn't change when you teleport back here, you're on good track, but a failure is still possible.
We only have time for one species here.
Dragonfly. The main problem is that you need a female and they spawn rarely. Luckily, you're right next to Hardia and a telephone, so keep reloading the game until they spawn. Therefore, since you will reaload between each attempt, this should in the end take less than a minute total.
Step 8. Western Area, Central Lake
Next, we want to head to that big lake in the north. If we're lucky, the conditions will be snowy with the lake being frozen--this will allow us to catch one extra species which only spawns during snow.
In order to get there, first take the Bird Line to Battle Park.
Then take the tunnel leading west.
Upon exiting the tunnel, it looks like we were lucky and it is snowy here! Nice, we can save a tiny bit of time later on!
Also, this Autumn has been somewhat hectic, but if the season doesn't change into Winter when you exit the tunnel, then you can finally relax. From this point on, we're on borrowed time and there's no more chance for the season to change, unless we do something stupid like use the camp on the overworld.
We can now take our time, first to pick up several species in this part of the overworld.
Penguin.
Polar bear. They only spawn if it's snowy; during Autumn it usually won't be unless you're super lucky. If it's not snowy, you will have to come back here in Winter to get them, because it will always be snowy during Winter. But, we got lucky, so we don't need to do that!
Weasel. They mimic trees, so walk through clusters of trees to trigger them.
Hyena. As before, they will only spawn if you have carrion in your inventory. This game is so nice that it even gives you one piece for free when you start the scenario! Normally you would have to process a caught animal into meat and then wait a couple of seasons for meat to rot; so to avoid this problem, the game simply gives it to you already. Just... don't throw it away accidentally!
Goat. They spawn on the far northwestern peninsula.
Step 9. Lina Valley
Since we're on borrowed time, it means that we can still do more, as long as we don't return back to the overworld. First, we head to Lina Valley. Remember not to use the whistle or anything like that. By this point, the season change is definitely overdue, so you want to exclusively walk to Lina Valley on foot! And still don't accidentally use the camp!
We want to go inside this shack.
There is a cryogenic storage machine here. Activating it gives us a pair of buffalos! This shack also has two chests with two weapons: gorilla punch and shark crush. They are decently strong, so feel free to use them against more powerful enemies later on.
Step 10. Sperm Lina
Of course, Lina Valley is a bit unique in that it has a dungeon entrance (Sperm Lina) right in the town! So we'll definitely take advantage of that and keep going on borrowed time to get a few more species which are endemic to this dungeon.
Here's what we can find around the cave.
Jellyfish. You have to make camp directly while standing in the poison muck in order to trigger them to ambush you. They do not appear otherwise.
Sheep. They are EVERYWHERE in this cave, you will not have a problem at all.
Water strider. Often you'll see them wading through poison muck, but ambush also works. Your choice.
Bat. Get yourself ambushed on one of the deeper levels. They do not appear normally outside of that.
Bear. They take form of rocks in the deepest level of the cave, but will suddenly start rushing towards you when you come near. Just check out all the rocks you see on the ground as you explore the cave.
Before continuing, I did a camp with Linda to recover HP, and it actually triggered some dialogue we haven't seen before. I'm not actually sure if this is specific to Scenario D, or just RNG never picked it, but either way, here it is:
Hey Ken... What do you think of me when I transform into a beastman? I can't really see that well myself what I look like, but it's not too terrible, right?
It's fine. / Don't worry about it. Every time I transform, I think how I can just do anything for you, Ken!Interesting. I'm glad I caught this one.
Anyway, one last species here.
For that, we have to come over here where the teleporter is.
Here you almost HAVE to use the "wait" method to make them spawn. There are currently no animals around.
So we point Ken like this looking towards the right where there is some open space. We let him stand there for a few seconds without moving.
And then, when we walk to the right where he was looking towards...
...well, look at that! A whole bunch of them have spawned! This is how the "wait" method is really useful to force an animal to spawn that doesn't spawn so readily sometimes! It is absolutely essential in order to reduce time you spend "looking" for a particular species.
Frog. Females spawn rarely, most groups will consist only of males. Unfortunately, we need a female for the ark. So you will probably spend a few minutes here until you find one group which does contain a female. But it's not a problem, since we're on borrowed time anyway!
With this, we're done here and can now make our way back to Lina Valley and the overworld!
Upon exiting, of course, it turns into Winter 1998, but again this was planned and expected, so no need to worry!
Let's just use the whistle to get back to the ark.
We hand in everything...
...and afterwards, we find that our total now sits at 76 out of 120. Not too bad, and it shows you actually how much you can do with careful planning when you're laser focused on collecting!
Next time, we'll finally head down into the underground, but also finish up with the West Area, and you know what that means: whales (again) and pandas (brrr)!
Hope you didn't find today's episode too stressful though! Because we still have a bit to go before we reach the goal!
So, I guess some of the required maximum times I mentioned above might seem just a touch crazy. However, here's a video of me completing the capturing in Samakia (which I've used to prepare this update). You will see that in the video, excluding the time spent in battles (where the clock is stopped anyway), the total time spent walking around Samakia is just under 40 seconds only!
The video includes explanatory subtitles, as always.
Then, take care and see you again in Winter 1998 when we continue our challenge!