Part 39: Update XXXVII

♪ BGM: Wonderful Dead 004 ♫

Alright, the last two times we had a lot of talking. Let's have some more gameplay this time.



♪ BGM: DSO_Beautiful Dead ♫

Yeah. We need to get there for now.



But suddenly, Monokuma kid!

Hehehe...







Oh shit. Komaru's fuckin' pissed that somebody dare challenge her.

Y-You can't seriously be thinking... W-Weren't we going to the subway station?
...
Well... Either way. Do whatever you want.



♪ BGM: Wonderful Dead 004 ♫

♪ Jingle: Challenge from a Child ♫

We'll get into the particularities of this challenge a bit later - it's not something we can instantly solve anyway.



Instead, it's time for a Monoku-Man room.



♪ BGM: It's a Monokuma World ♫



So, this is the part where the game stops fucking around with the puzzles, or more precisely, there's some actual risk of fucking up from now on. So let's see what we're dealing with now.



♪ Jingle: Monoku-Man Activate ♫





This puzzle revolves around using Paralyze and the holograms to set everything up so that everything gets hit by the Paralyze shot when you hit the regular Monokuma in the middle with it. Now, the left hologram is easy - you use that to move the Guard on the bottom left into the water. The one on the right moves the Guard on the bottom right close enough to the regular Monokuma to transfer the Paralyze shock to the other water area and thus hit the Guards at the top right. The one in the middle makes it tricky - it moves the Guard on the bottom middle up, but if you just let it move, it'll move outside the water and then won't be hit by the Paralyze. So you need to time it right, which adds a fuckup risk. I screwed this one up the first time I tried it because I didn't realize you can actually move into the area - I thought that would alert some of the Guards and fail the puzzle, so I tried to set up some sort of trick shot where I hit the regular Monokuma without hitting either the Guards or the hologram generator that are blocking my shot when I'm looking at this from over at the left.



So we set the left and right ones up...



...hit the hologram generator in the middle...



...and blast the regular Monokuma with Paralyze at just the right time!





♪ Jingle: Monoku-Man Success ♫

Success! Uh, not to spoil things, but that won't be a running theme for this update. There's a reason I pointed out that there will be fuckup hazards in the puzzles from now on.



♪ BGM: Wonderful Dead 004 ♫

This chapter also introduces something else - optional Monoku-Man puzzles. This area is not required to progress, though it's a very welcomed area.



♪ Jingle: Skill GET! ♫

Most of the presents have Monocoins, and one has a skill for us!



More EXP! Always welcome.



And one of the present summons Monokumas, which means EXP and Monocoins, so they are presents in their own way as well!



Even if they have picked up a new trick of lunging at me to attack, which does catch me off guard.



Alright, so here's what the kid's challenge is about. Throughout the map of this area, there's these containers strewn about.



When we use Detect on it, we see a letter! Now we just need to use that information to solve the puzzle! ...OK, yeah, it's not that simple. The challenges take a hint from the Monoku-Man puzzles and also have a bit of a step up in difficulty. Komaru mentions something about the paths here being related to the puzzle.



Basically, this means "look at the map, dipshit". The correct answer here is the container in to the top right from where Komaru is right now. When we get to it (a bit later), we'll see that it has an X on it, and the roads it's on form an L if you look at it from a different angle. I'm actually kinda surprised I got this one right on my first try - I'm pretty sure that if you were to look at this longer, you could probably come up with an alternate solution that makes about as much sense.



Moving on back the path we came, we run into a Monokuma kid who has something for us!



♪ Jingle: Truth Bullet GET! ♫

It's a Truth Bullet!



And then he just runs off again.

Is that...a new kind of bullet? This looks pretty useful.
...Yeah, you're right.



It appears you have obtained Burn. Burn is a Truth Bullet that, y'know, burns off Monokuma's generator device. It has a high rate of fire, so it's perfect for shooting at enemies who move swiftly. It's downright awesome against those Beast Monokumas. I think it would also be really good against enemies who are running straight at you... Go try it out!

Burn, Towa City, burn - I smell a riot goin' on, first they're Demons, now they're gone.

So yeah, like the tutorial says, Burn is basically rapid-fire Break without the ability to score Nice Hits. Can be useful in tight spots.



Also, some Bling Bullet usage can basically double the damage each shot does, which given the firing rate is very effective. If I wasn't fixated on Nice Shots, this would be a primary option for taking out enemies, particularly annoying ones like Junk Monokumas or Beasts, like the tutorial mentioned.





Heading further down the road triggers a cutscene!



It's a new enemy type!



Destroyer Monokumas are a fairly simple enemy type. They fly around and shoot shit in your general direction. They also suicide dive into you if you hit them with a shot that doesn't kill them and give them enough time to start the attack. It doesn't happen here because they're kind enough to just stay still and let me line up Nice Shots, but it really catches me off guard later on.



With them dealt with, we continue exploring the area, and find a collectible!







♪ BGM: DSO_Beautiful Dead ♫

Even with the S&M bits, it's beneath me. It's probably just some sloppily-written, wish-fulfillment fanfiction garbage.
Oh I'm sure it's not going to be *that* bad...
No, it's definitely going to be *that* bad. I can feel the lack of talent from here. Any book with a title this bad has to be just as bad on the inside!
Well, if the Ultimate Writing Prodigy says it, I'm sure it's true...
A tasty subject like S&M, boiled down to this crap... A true masochist like me would do better. How did this even get published? They must *really* be getting desperate to put this out.
Hey... As a um, "true masochist"... Have you ever had that kind of experience?
What, like being tied up or suspended? Th-There's no way I'd do such...indecent things!
But then how do you know you're a masochist if you've never done that stuff before? Isn't that like someone saying they love cigarettes, but they've never smoked before?
You underestimate my imagination. Every spare moment I'm being stepped on, tied up, suspended by my Master... In my head.
...You sound pretty proud about that.
But that reminds me, one time, I was really tied up and suspended.
Huh!? By Byakuya!?
No... I don't even remember his name now. It was when I was in 3rd grade. Someone's lunch money got stolen, and it somehow ended up in my desk. My classmates thought I did it, so they tied me up to the jungle gym with a garden hose.
That's horrible...
At the time, I felt a...tingling sensation... But I'm sure that's not related.
No, that *definitely* sounds like a formative experience!



♪ BGM: Wonderful Dead 004 ♫

Next, we head through a side street with another shift in style, going to high-contrast black and white buildings.



Heading through that, we get to a different area, which first gives us another collectible.





Well, looks like Towa City got caught with their pants down.



That area leads back to the side streets, and brings us to a collectible and a Monoku-Man room. First, the collectible.







♪ BGM: DSO_Beautiful Dead ♫

...That's right, it's my novel. Got a problem with that?
No, not at all! I'm really impressed! I've read this! It was sad, and really good too! I can't believe it, you were the writer of So Lingers!
So Lingers? You're abbreviating the title of the book I wrote to my face? And of *course* it's really good, who do you think wrote it!?
A-As expected of the Ultimate Writing Prodigy, you sure have confidence...
But I mean, if you can write a beautiful romance like this, you can definitely marry Byakuya!
Don't be an idiot! What's written in there is pure fantasy! There's no way I can act like that in reality!
...Oh, really?
What I write in my novels is my idea of an ideal world. Because I know it will never be reality, I have to write it in fiction.
So you write it because you can't have it? But don't most writers write from experience?
Not necessarily. My theory is that happy people can only write happy, shallow novels. But the downtrodden can vividly imagine their ideal world, perfectly envision true beauty... And that's the spirit that I put into my novels.
Well, I kinda get that... But I kinda don't.
But based on my theory, I wonder if I can keep writing interesting novels...
Hm? What do you mean?
L—Like I said, I'm concerned! If I have a friend like you, and I'm happy...
So you mean... Making friends with me made you a little happier?
What!?
N-No, there's no way a crybaby schoolgirl like you could actually interfere with my writing! You underestimate the intensity of my novels!
But you said it yourself...
Well, if you're that confident... I'm sure you'll be just fine.

Next, let's check out the Monoku-Man room.



♪ BGM: It's a Monokuma World ♫



Alright, this is the part where I start fucking up.



♪ Jingle: Monoku-Man Activate ♫



This one is relatively simple in theory. The Bombers move from left to right so there's always two on one side and one on the other. The trick is to hit the single one with Dance when it's at the left side, then wait until the other two move to the left. Hit the single one with Break so it blows up, that blows the other Bombers towards the Destroyers and kills all of them in one clean shot.



I actually did all that just fine, but the problem is I did it from the front, which means the Destroyers spotted me, and that apparently just straight fails the puzzle, even if I did kill everything with a single explosion. Oh well. We'll just have to redo this on the second run through the chapter. I couldn't be arsed with retries this time around given that I was pretty sure I would probably fail a few of these puzzles (turns out, I was right).



♪ BGM: Wonderful Dead 004 ♫

This area also has a collectible for us.



It's another Hit List entry! Probably not hard to figure out who this one belongs to. This area also has a barrier we can blow up with a kindly provided Bomber, letting us go back to where we were before and head to another part we haven't explored yet.



♪ BGM: We Can't Change The World ♫

Even if they were, would it matter? Even if their parents were murdered, it doesn't give them the right to kill people.
You're right... No matter the reason, this just... It's unforgivable.
And not just that... It's peculiar. I don't doubt the ringleaders had terrible childhoods... But I can't think of any reason for all these other kids to suddenly be motivated to kill.
So...why are the other children going along with this?
I have a bad feeling about this...



♪ BGM: Wonderful Dead 004 ♫

Next stop, a nearby Monoku-Man room.



♪ BGM: It's a Monokuma World ♫



This one is one where I just didn't have the slightest clue how to make it work when I was playing.



♪ Jingle: Monoku-Man Activate ♫



We have some regular Monokumas, some Guards and a Siren. The Siren is the only one looking at the hologram to the right, and we also have a car. I think the idea here is you move the Siren over with the hologram, then Move the car to open up the regular Monokumas, hit the Siren with Dance to get all the Monokumas to move over, with the regular Monokumas being near the Siren and the Guards standing on the water next to the car. Then you shoot the Siren with Paralyze and it should be able to hit everything.



I did not do that, and things did not go well. Oh well.



♪ BGM: Wonderful Dead 004 ♫

However, after the puzzle area, we find the correct container for the challenge. It's one that has an X...



...and it's also with the letter that looks like L on the map. Kinda. Close enough. Let's open it up!



♪ BGM: We Can't Change The World ♫

Ha! I believe I can handle this riddle myself!
...Well, good, because I wasn't planning on helping anyway.



♪ BGM: Wonderful Dead 004 ♫

♪ Jingle: Skill GET! ♫

Our reward is a gold Monocoin and a skill.



More mobility in combat. Neat!



Moving through the side streets again, we find the way we're actually supposed to take to get to that blue building. We get some Junk Monokumas dumped into our path just for the hell of it, and they get shocked to death.



Also, a collectible!





Well, that's not very nice.



Our path to the blue building leads through another Monoku-Man room.



♪ BGM: It's a Monokuma World ♫



Now, this one I just straight fucked up.



♪ Jingle: Monoku-Man Activate ♫



This is an amped up version of the "find the kid" puzzle from before. We have four small areas with places where the kid could be, and Beasts are patrolling. The top left and bottom right area are being patrolled by a Beast moving left to right, and two Beasts are going around the entire area, stopping for a bit after passing through the two areas on one side.



♪ BGM: Absolute Despair Girl ♫

I'm sure there is a simple pattern to get through this, but I just wasn't in the right mindset when I was recording this, I guess. Oh well, another one for the pile of "shit we'll have to go through in the cleanup update".



After a bunch of ammo wasting, we take out all of the Beasts and are allowed to move on to the blue building.



♪ BGM: Wonderful Dead 004 ♫

This will bring us to the subway, but before that, we have a shop!



♪ BGM: It's a Kids' World ♫



We buy everything!

And that'll be it for this update. Next time, we head down into the subway, and Komaru tries to take her friendship with Toko to another level.