Part 35: Sidequest Update: Township, Part I

All right. First thing’s first – it’s time to leave Fort Nageur and never come back ever ever ever. That’s a lie, actually – we’ll be back there briefly next update. But in spirit, we have left that place far behind.

Music: 06 – We’re Rangers



Now we can use Tapeta’s absolutely invaluable Warp spell to just warp right on back to Township.



I’m willing to forgive the tedium of Fort Nageur if only because it means we can now massively cut down on our backtracking.



We get a wavy screen effect, and…



We’re back!

Music: 02 – My Home Sweet Home





This is the entirety of the town thus far. Including the original main building, there are now five houses here. We already know that the original building is our HQ, so let’s have a look at the others.





Hmm.





Um…





Huh. Three of the new houses are totally empty. How about the fourth one?





The carpenter has set up shop in the fourth house.



He’s set up a special kitchen / eatery and will offer to cook up items from your inventory.



The player can choose four items to be thrown into the cooking pot. For the sake of experimentation, let’s throw in four Vitamins.



The carpenter’s wife rushes over to the stoves, then comes back with the finished product.



Presto! In exchange for our Vitamins, we get an Ammonia. Vitamins normally cost 50 zenny, whereas Ammonias cost 500 zenny. By exchanging four Vitamins for one Ammonia, we save 300 zenny. Now that’s pretty damn cool.

Unfortunately, cooking items is very much trial and error. If you try to mix the wrong ingredients you’ll end up with one or more useless chunks of Charcoal. In other words, be prepared to experiment a lot (Or consult the all-knowing spergs at GameFAQs).

Before we get into the meat of the sidequest itself there’s one last place we should check out.



The well.

Music: Township Well



Sombre music plays as we reach the bottom of the well. There seems to be some sort of ruin down here.



Further exploration reveals a strange, somewhat ominous looking device. There is also a panel that looks a little like the one in the depths of Fort Nageur. There’s currently nothing we can do here – neither the device nor the panel respond. Surely there must be some significance to this place, though.



Anyway, it’s now time to begin the main event. We have a number of empty houses here. Scattered across the lands are a number of people in need of new homes. Perhaps they’re tired of living where they are and want a change. Perhaps they’re merchants looking for a new place to hawk their wares. Maybe they have nowhere else to go and are just looking for a little kindness, a helping hand if you will. The long and short of it is that we can now begin to populate our little town with people from all over the world.

First I’m going to run through all of the currently available tenants, including their locations, what they bring to Township and whether or not it’s worth it if you let them live there. Buckle your seatbelts, ‘cause there’s quite a few of them.

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Azusa



We met Azusa the hunter early on in the game. He’s still chilling out in his cave on Mt. Futabi. If you let him live in your town he’ll let you visit his secret hunting spot that’s chock full of boars and deer. You can go there repeatedly, too. Whilst this sounds attractive at first, to be honest it’s not really worthwhile. A Gonghead will always attack you once you step foot into Azusa’s hunting grounds and in the end the cost effectiveness of hunting game begins to decrease as money becomes more plentiful and better healing supplies can be more easily afforded.


Heckler



Heckler currently lives in Newhaven, in the house right next to Ryu and Bosch’s old haunt. Heckler aspires to be a weapons salesman, as evidenced by his punny name. If you invite him over he’ll set up shop and offer an array of powerful fire-elemental weapons for all party members, as well as fire-resistant armour and shields. Like Azusa, Heckler sounds like a great option…but there’s a catch. Whilst his inventory is excellent at this point in the game, it’s also all he’ll ever offer. He won’t update his equipment. Heckler is not a good long term investment.


Whoopi



Whoopi also lives in Newhaven in a small room above the Church. Whoopi is a fortune teller, and if you invite her to Township she will provide gameplay hints and give you advice on where to go next. In other words, she’s useless, since any old priest at one of the many Churches scattered across the world will do the same thing.


Wynn



In the depths of Joker’s Hideout Wynn scrapes out a feeble living. If you decide to make him a tenant, Wynn will allow you to change the colour of the border around the text box. And, uh, that’s it. Yeah, he’s useless.


McCotti



McCotti makes his home in Colossea. Specifically, the toilet of Colossea’s Pub. He’s a worthless, feckless sack of shit who will repay your kindness of inviting him to your town by doing absolutely nothing. There is literally no reason to let this damn dirty poor anywhere within ten kilometres of Township.


Wastrel



Wastrel spends his days patrolling the hallway above the Pub. Like McCotti, he’ll do nothing to repay you if you invite him to Township…at first. Later on in the game he’ll come across Breath of Fire’s most potent restorative (MoonDrop in the original script, haven’t run across it yet in Ryusui’s one), which he’ll sell to you for 1000 zenny. Honestly, a MoonDrop is pretty great to have, and there are far worse tenants out there…


Kay



Above the Colossea Church lies Kay. Kay wants to set up a hospital in Township. This tenant is another that falls under the ‘Sounds great, but…’ clause. In short, Kay can give the party shots that will give them poison immunity. Poison immunity that lasts for all of one battle. In a game where poison isn’t really that crippling. Yeah, she’s not very good.


Beretta



Beretta spends her days wandering around Wyndia’s weapon shop. She has dreams of starting her own armoury somewhere, and leaps at the chance to establish herself in Township. Unfortunately, her weapons and armour are shockingly shit compared with Heckler’s. There’s no contest – Heckler has her beat hands down.

However…

Unlike Heckler, Beretta updates her stock once in a while. She has four separate inventories, with the last being some of the best equipment that can be bought in the entire game. She’s the opposite of Heckler – a bad short term investment but a great long term asset.


Remington



Remington is an old merchant staying at Capitan’s Inn. He’s tired, world-weary and just wants a small, quiet place to settle down and sell of his last few remaining items. His inventory is terrible, weaker than Heckler’s and without Beretta’s updating mechanic.


McLean



McLean hangs out in an area we haven’t actually been to yet and can only access with Tapeta’s frog transformation. Similarly to Azusa, McLean is a master fisher and will take Ryu to his secret fishing spot full of rare and valuable fish should the player choose to invite him along. Since fish are a key ingredient in many of the better cooking recipes it’s a good idea to ask him along.

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Aside from the above there are a number of other potential tenants we can’t meet yet. They include:

A guy at the Circus who tells riddles.
A thief who will steal your money from the bank.
An old man who will increase the defence of the lead party member by 4 (For all of one battle).
A cat that will infest one of your houses with kittens.
An old man who starts a dojo in your town (Who nobody ever visits).

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So those are our potential tenants. We can’t recruit all of them, and each tenant will set up shop in a specific house. After they’ve moved in it will become impossible to recruit anyone else who also wanted that house. In short:



Heckler, Kay and Wastrel can live here, along with riddle-man and defence-dude.



McLean, Wynn and Remington can live here, along with thief-guy and dojo-dude.



Azusa, McCotti, Whoopi, Beretta can live here, along with the cat.

With that in mind, we have to decide who we want to recruit. The choices will obviously differ depending on personal preference – you can fill your town with vendors and helpers who will aid you on your quest, or you can invite the characters you think are lively and give your town a personality beyond a glorified munitions dump. So in the end, who did I choose?

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Heckler







As I said above, Heckler isn’t the best choice for an armourer, but the other potential recruits who share his house of choice are so terrible they make him look amazing by comparison. Plus, in all honesty, his gear will come in handy for at least some of the game, which is more than can be said for some of the other tenants.


McClean











McClean is a pretty good tenant. His fishing spot is full of rare fish that can’t be bought from the fishmonger we will later be able to recruit.


Beretta







This one needs no explanation. Beretta is a great choice and her wares will pay for themselves many times over.

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Back in Township, on the outside not much has changed, but…







Inside is a different story. All three residents have hauled ass across the world at the speed of light and set themselves up here. The tenants we have now will be extremely useful to us in the future, but…don’t you guys think we could do with a few more?





That’s right! Once you fill the first three houses, the carpenter will offer to expand the town still further.









It costs 1000 zenny and will take a while, but eventually Township will gain additional houses. Once that happens a second tier of recruitable characters will open up, so expect another update like this one sometime in the distant future.



Well, that’s it for Township for the time being. It’s an interesting sidequest to say the least.