Part 12: Matataki Village and Wise Owl Forest Part 4

Returning to Floor 9, we can now advance to the next one, compliments of Goro. Like Xiao, he has a special ability; This one being that he can hit stump switches to open gates.



A new enemy on Floor 10. The Earth Digger moves around the ground, popping up to shoot smoke at you or dive after you. You can either wait for an opportunity to strike, or just use Xiao to hit him while he's still in the ground.




One of the benefits to catching Mardan Garayans is, well, this. If a chest is locked, you'll be tipped off as to which trap the chest has on it. From my experience, it appears this is permanent after catching your first Mardan, but I may be wrong.




Heading right to the next floor for more Atla, and another new enemy. Halloween hops around and throws pumpkins at you. Get in too close, and I think he swipes at you with his pitchfork. Generally pretty easy to deal with.



I realize that I really have underestimated Xiao. Her ranged attacks are a godsend, to the point of necessity. And the little bit of leveling up I've done on her weapon has gone a long way towards efficiently killing enemies.




And as I'm remembering how useful Xiao is in the early game, I'm also remembering how awful Goro is. Goro is the "slow but strong" character, except someone forgot to tell him about the strong part. He has a charge attack like Toan, but not even that can help you when the enemies attack faster than you can.




The game sees a GREAT opportunity to be a jerk by putting Goro up against two enemies he can barely handle. This is one of those cases where you want to exit the floor as fast as possible.



Unfortunately, that plan is hard to execute when you're stuck with a slow dumpy asshole. This calls for some... added firepower...





You have no idea how satisfying this was.

And while we're at it, let's clear another rather uneventful floor.




After some more screwing around with the village, I complete the Baron's house, which results in a lot of talking, followed by a Gourd.




Completing Bunbuku's house, we find out he ate Kululu's candy. Well, it just so happens we have some candy we got from Claude! Our reward? An Ointment Leaf.



Heading back through the forest (almost done here I swear), another new-ish enemy. The Werewolf tries to attack you but he fails hard. Sorry, I couldn't get a good screenshot because I was too busy owning him.



Pretty poor haul, so let's just add on one more cleared floor.




Momo looks like Yuffie, and if you get off on anime characters, I think she's supposed to be pretty hot. She lives with her senile grandfather, Kye.



Kinda sad, really.



Grass Cakes are Goro's defense-raising item. I find 2 of those, 2 Fish Candy, and 1 Fluffy Doughnut for Toan. The amount your defense is raised it random, so I have a lot of resetting ahead of me.