Part 62: Futch Hatches the Egg
Chapter 2: Futch Hatches the Egg
"Well not us"
"We're going to feed you to Pohl"
Oh, I am a cheap motherfucker, so I do take three boots.
Ahem, anyway, that's not really gamebreaking, is it? I'm gettin' to it, chillax.
First,
have some furry bait
and
some peculiar attention to detail. Of course it doesn't turn into the Oily Rag until you've wiped up every last spot.
just you wait flik, i'll kick your ass one of these days
no like seriously you think i'm just talkin' shit don't you
•••
So, we're about to something that's very tedious and only mildly rewarding but kind of cool.
We go through the mountain pass,
talk to Rowd's sister,
--ah, yes, Brayden Mohica-Cummings was subject to this punishment all the fuckin' time. Serves that bitch right for presenting a lawsuit against a place and acting like he was tough shit because he won it. That asshole always got the Dracula Quarantine (that is to say, buried so deep that no man could ever disturb his infernal slumber): stuffed in a
get caught by some guards,
give up,
get dirty lickins,
and then make MISTAKE #1: leaving Nanami behind.
Well, if stats like that aren't depressing.
It's at this point that Flik and Viktor cut you loose to go recruit folks.
You can't grab Zamza without Nanami.
So now we go west toward Muse,
aaaaaaaaaaaall the way up to the north, far past it,
and realize, "Oh, hey, that's not the right checkpoint."
West it is, then.
Oh, can't I?
This is the famous Matilda trick. The Muse-Matilda gate is really an interactive object flagged as if it were a pushable box or a boulder. An odd mistake, to be sure, but actually, I'm starting to think that this is less of a weird burp in the code and more of combination of laziness and a post-debug oversight. But more on that some other time.
Long setup short, I'm thinking they made the gate like this for QA convenience, but designed a gate object to block your way and they would take the "pushable object" flag off of it later on. This is also the only physical gate in the game that doesn't have animated parts on it: the big gate is either there, or it isn't. Alternatively, the other checkpoint areas in the game either have a flagged tile to prevent you from going forward and oftentimes a permanent toggling gate. Matilda just has this imposing thing that says, "NONE SHALL PASS" with no actual failsafes attached.
On the opposite side of the gate, we run into (and away from) some scary motherfuckers who can do literally hundreds of damage per hit to us.
You would never, ever attempt this on actual hardware. Or you might, but you would tear your hair out in frustration by the third time a random encounter you failed to escape from sent you back to before fighting the Mist Monster.
And it is here that we see some very familiar faces.
We also learn that Futch is a manbaby who has never even heard of daily responsibilities in his life
After the events of Suikoden 1, it's kind of hard to think about it like this, but Futch is reallly just still a kid.
•••
"................"
"................"
"................"
"................"
"................"
(that's verbatim)
Really, it's the only conversation you should be having with Humphrey.
"Really? REALLY!?! Awesome! I have to go see for myself!"
And I don't know if Humphrey's precognitive or what, but he knows that Kent has gone and gotten himself into trouble.
hah! hah! hah! you're such a card suikoden 2
And now that Humphrey and Futch have joined us at Level 34, we can gain some hells of levels.
MISTAKE #2: I didn't put the Windspun Armor on Humphrey in Suikoden 1, so he's now permanently stuck with the considerably crappier Knight Armor.
We go up to Rakutei Mountain,
blow away a magic fog barrier with a rune we don't even have yet
--a rune which, by the way, Humphrey has also foreseen--
fight some monsters,
gain a good number of levels,
and promptly die.
But what's this?
Well, that's much more like it.
What happened here was, when you die and choose not to give up, you keep all statistical changes from before you died and are restored at the last save you made.
Which is, conveniently, before we returned to Kyaro. I almost called recruiting Elli and co. a mistake, but all the levels every character you've met to the point that you died at are recorded, so you can't get to level 50 and expect the game to give you characters whose level data has already been recorded to suddenly join you at (your level) ±1.
Still, we make short work of... well, everything.
Like I said, unfortunately, Mukumuku still joins at the level he was at before I died. If I hadn't recruited him earlier, he would be something like level 30, I think, and a fucking beast. Had we taken Nanami with us, we could've leveled her up as well.
This time, we fight this asshole.
Unfortunately, Rowd has stupidly inflated physical defense. Our attacks that were doing 90-100 damage to early-midgame monsters only does 50 to him+
And this right here? This is the major roadblock for players trying to beat Rowd legitimately, through scrolls or what have you. He has five or six charges of this spell that heals 100 of his HP, and he starts to spam the hell out of it once you've done about 700 damage or so to him.
Of course, this is a major dick move because if you're engaging him in a straight fight, he'll be doing comparatively high damage to you every turn, and even with everyone dropping Flaming Arrows scrolls every turn, it's just really rather ridiculous and incredibly disheartening to see all the hard work you're doing being reduced to under 40 or 50 damage per turn or, if you're running out of scrolls, realizing that all your work is being completely reversed.
But if you're on the warpath like we are, well, that healing bullshit is just a minor speedbump in your ultimate revenge against Rowd.
SURPRISE he uses plot magic on you anyway
I couldn't have said it better myself, not-Theodor Geisel.
•••
You may remember that I said something about two songs that I used to play on my speakers all day. The other was, yes, this one. With the birds.
If you don't pay for Rikimaru,
he gets conscripted into working to pay his bill off.
•••
Bonaparte is a real pushover now.
•••
There IS a way to beat Flik and just straight out do all of his HP in one hit--actually, I'm not sure if he'll hang on by 1 HP or not--but it's very tedious and we'll be abusing the method later on anyway.
•••
Jowy is happy if you use Orange Army,
but Orange Army is the most retarded fucking name I've ever heard.
•••
leknaat stop speaking african american vernacular english
•••
Now that we have our True Runes, it's time to go pay Futch and Humphrey another visit.
FUN FACT: if you leave Nanami behind, you'll still only take three people with you. The fifth slot is left open for her.
Anyway, last time, you saw some cyclones and shit.
Now, you see what caused them.
And we also get to see something we normally wouldn't until very near the end of the game:
ZZZSSSHSHHHWSHHHH
Jowy picks up his fourth-level spell slot at around Level 28. It's hard to get Viktor them up to 28 even after fighting Neclord's Abomination.
We also toss around Theodor's third-level spell, which heals 300+ HP to everyone in the party and has a reasonably good chance of berserking them.
At this point, with Level 3 weapons, Theodor does about 700 damage on a critical hit while berserked with a Fire rune attached.
"FUCK YOU INTERNET"
"Look, it's Black's scale, the charm Futch gave to me! When I prayed to it, the mist lifted!"
"No, Futch!!! I said I heard the dragon's cry! Last night, there was a tremendous beating of wings, and a cry that could split stone!
It was right ahead! There might be a dragon right there! Let's see!"
"And even if there was..."
"Dragons only lay their eggs in Dragon Caves."
a new dragon
"I don't want to ride on any dragon besides Black!!! He was the only one for me....."
well futch that sounds unhealthily similar to pining about a human lover
"Dragon Pups are weak creatures. With no mother or Knight to care for it, it will weaken and die.
And if it did live, but without a master, it would be no more than a monster that terrorizes humans."
Never heard of a dragon that is white? Man fuck you Humphrey you are officially banned from the deathsquad
"And it's no reason to close the door to the future."
Well I don't know if they just screwed up and put Humphrey's face over Futch's lines or if Humphrey is half out-of-person wise monologuing/being an awesome jerk
no that's a fucking retarded name
just call it, like
white dragon
•••
NEXT TIME
we are fantastic dicks