Part 9: Subways, Crystals, Ruins, And A Sewer

Yeah, you read that right. We're going through a sewer in this update; last update was better, because then, we went through the caves leading to Langsong, where we discovered True Love, Scorned Love, and gained some levels. Today, we're going through Langsong after our long journey to finally arrive, so let's dance.



Now, I'm recovering from the flue. Influenza B, actually.



The doctor in the ER was adamant that I knew that it was Influenza B, and not just a regular old flu.



I apologize in advance if the quality of this update suffers from that, but I'm writing this as a sort of distraction from my headache.



It's not as bad as it was when I woke up today. When I woke up, I heavily considered getting a power saw and slicing off the top half of my head.



And I'm no longer vomiting for long stretches, which is an even better improvement. Yesterday morning, I knew how people felt when they said they had opened a portal to the vomit dimension.



We've seen these types of enemies before, back in whatever the hell city we found Lita in.





Oddly enough, these guys are still nowhere as dangerous as the enemies in the Motherbound Prison. I'm still not sure what the hell was up with those guys, because we're not that much stronger now than we were then.



Also, cars are machines, so Lita can one-shot these guys. That might be part of what is making this easier.





Their attacks are kind of intimidating, but nothing we have to really worry about.



And Brigands can run away; oddly enough, you still get the EXP and Gold you would if you had defeated them, so this is basically a suicide attack.







This dungeon is the standard maze that we've come to expect, with impassable trees and bushes, since our swords and axes don't count for anything against shrubbery.



On the bright side, we'll be starting Cthulhu Saves The World before too long, and it's a better game in nearly every way.



Doing Breath of Death VII first was a "I told you that story so I could tell you this one" sort of situation.



As I've said before, BoD is not a bad game. It's a fun game, but the writing and the setting is a little...Well, you know how I feel about that.



I wouldn't advise you against playing BoD; on the contrary, I'd recommend it, since it's a lot of fun to play.



However, CSTW is a marked improvement over this game, and I think it is worth exploring both of them to see just where they improved.





I think a lot of people would agree with me; CSTW is the better game, but BoD is still worth playing.







Now, that is a big fuckin' Strength boost.





I have a nice stockpile of Potions for when shit goes south.





Doing an update for a dungeon like this is kind of a pain, since if I lay out the exact path I took, that's not very interesting to see (or write about). But I feel that if I'm not clear enough about it, then you'll all just be lost and lose interest.



It's trying to find a good balance between showing what I'm doing and telling you about what's happening. For now, there's not a whole lot to talk about, since it's a ruined city, just like we've seen before.



Speaking of things we've seen before, here's a level up!





Erik gets the stat boosts; his HP pool is fairly deep already, even if his MP is a little lacking. He'll make better use of the extra strength and vitality, or so I think.



Like I said, there's reasons to take either options, and I'm just explaining why I took what I did. You could make a convincing argument for either option, and if someone in the thread thinks I made the wrong choice, go ahead and tell us about it.





A subway station? Now, that's interesting.





Unfortunately, this isn't a very big area.



You can walk along the sides of the trains, but rubble blocks the path, so you can't really get anywhere.



Now, this is an area that they could have done something interesting with.





Also, the Chat option just gives us this tired reference.



If this game had files or notes or anything like that, this would have been a good spot for some exposition or some world-building. Hell, give me a crazy NPC that lives down here that says something mildly interesting about the world!







Or, no, just give me a new enemy type and call it good.



Now that I'm taking the time to actually look at these things, it feels like they're just giving me the finger.





Uh-huh...And behind door number 2?



Oh, yeah, definitely the option I'm taking.



Sara gets a general stat boost.





Hmm...I like both of these options. The Wolves are stronger, and cost the same, but are only one hit. I take the Bats, since they're two hits and add to the combo count better. If I remember to use this skill past all the SMG'ing I'm doing with Lita in battle...



Somebody once said if you want to dislike a game, you should LP It. I'm not sure if that holds true for all games, but I definitely think it's something to keep in mind.



Especially when you're doing an RPG; you might notice some of these oddities before, but when you're taking screenshots of the dialog and trying to figure out what you're going to say about it, it becomes a whole different beast.



Before, I hadn't really noticed that this game's writing was so sub-par. I'm not sure how, but I guess I was too busy playing it to really think about it.



Which is one thing that this game does pretty well. It's fun enough that you're not really thinking of the dialog and story when playing it, which is a definite strength.



I'm not sure if they did that on purpose or not. I think they knew they were giving this game poor writing, but they balanced it out with the good combat system.



Or maybe I'm giving them too much credit; I've been known to do that sort of thing.



In other news, in the last two days, I've drank enough Gatorade to fuel a sports team.



And I've watched enough Columbo to heavily consider a career in detective work, solving cases through sheer annoyance and noticing small details.



For some reason, that reminds me, I've gotta get to the video store tonight. Got some rentals to take back.



I'll have to take another time to watch Mad Max: Fury Road, because my wife and I tried watching it yesterday, but I was hovering between snoozing and dying while watching it, and didn't see the big deal about it. I'm sure if I'd been capable of paying attention, I would have liked it better, but even my wife said she didn't see why it was said to be so great.



For now, I'm not going to further comment on Fury Road. I wasn't able to give it a fair shot, so I can't really say much about it.





Just your standard upgrade/palette swap enemy.



Though, we also rented Predators, and I watched that before getting sick, and I liked it quite a lot. It wasn't a perfect movie, but I thought it was fun and worth watching.





There's a treasure chest to the south here.







On the way back, we encounter a new enemy.



Mutants! And not in the fun, sexy, X-Man way.



Aside from hitting hard, I don't think they do very much.





Mmhmm, good, I like that.



Eh, not that useful for Erik. I don't use either of his spells. If he's not attacking, he's just using Smash!, which is good enough for my purposes.



Up in the lefthand corner is a new piece of armor for Sara.





She loses that Strength bonus, but I'm okay with that.



There's not many weapon and armor upgrades in this game, now that I think about it.



Which, to me, is just disappointing. That's one of my favorite parts of playing an RPG; I love getting new gear.





Was this a school? Are there schools now? What is on the undead educational curriculum?



Urgh. I hate that ladder.





Just because you assholes point out that RPGs always have a crappy sewer dungeon doesn't make it fucking cute that you've put a sewer dungeon into your game, while pointing out that fact. It just makes you an asshole.





And this is what it looks like. Green water, bricks, and thin paths.





There's one new enemy down here, but not in this update.





Now that's a nice amount of power. What's the other option?



But never mind that shit, we're taking this option.







Both of these are good options, and I can't see much of a downside to either one. In this case, I take the Magic and Agility, since it never hurts to make our speedster that much faster.







Now this seems like an outfit that would be best qualified as "pimptastic".



Ooh, ooh, new enemy!





At first, I thought this was some bonus enemy, kind of like an Omega Weapon or whatever, but he's just a regular enemy.



Who is weak to the Aqua element.



Being made of ooze, he's resistant to physical attacks.



While he has a full party attack that does a bit of damage.



And he's easy enough to beat, that the rewards are friggin' fantastic.





Shitload of damage, but breaks the combo? Okay, what else is available?



Ugh. Just a 40% chance isn't enough for me to warrant taking this one, so I go with the Dark Blast, which also sounds more metal.







Hey, something appropriate to give to our healer lady.



Though, apparently, I shouldn't think of it that way.



Let's get the hell out of here.





Meh, pass.



And here we are. Something I'll be using!







Hmm. Both of these are good choices, but I take the smaller stat boosts over the two bigger ones.







Sara gets a HP and Vitality boost from this level.



These levels all came at different times, but since I was just wandering around, I figured I'd put them all together.





Lita gets the general stat boost, since I like that sort of thing.



Okay, let's get the hell out of here.



I've shown you enough of this shitty sewer.







Y'know, for the building holding these super special crystals, it doesn't look like it's holding anything more important than your average garage.



Umbrella! And, yet, they don't make that kind of joke here...



It will be soon enough. That's a turret, if you couldn't tell.



Yup, all eight of them. Representing something important, I'm sure.





I'm not sure what you were expecting, but I hope you're not disappointed at how unceremonious this is.





Quick, Lita, study them!



Those are two separate enemies, even though they're placed like they're one entity.



Well, that's not too bad.





This could be very bad, though.



Especially when they don't hit one of your tougher members, and they've had a couple of turns to boost their strength.



And when one Turret goes down, the other gets stronger in response.



Not that it makes much difference, since there's only one bastard to focus fire on.



And a full round of level ups!



Well, that could be handy.



But, fuck all that, we're taking this!







For this one, I had to go back and look up which option I took. Oh, hey, I took the Magic and Vitality option.



Combo boost, you say?



But a chance of Stun...Eh, I've already got plenty of options for when I want to lock something down for a turn, so I take the combo boost Lightning option.



I've never once used this ability. Never.



Which is why I take this option.



Calm down, Lita. It wasn't that bad.



...Excellent question.





Now I've gotta walk all the way back to fucking Motherbound!? You sons of bitches!



Yeah, the tip that'll pad this game out by another twenty minutes, because that's so entirely worth it!



I feel better when Dem agrees with me. Probably because he's the only one who's not a complete dumbshit.





Well, that was much simpler and easier than I expected.

And this is where we're cutting off this update. Next time, we'll see about getting over to that desert and if we can get something done with these crystals.

Stay tuned!