Part 9: Matataki Village and Wise Owl Forest Part 1

Toan pulls out his magic map.



Toan feels a strange pulling sensation!




We get a nice panning view of the barren shithole that once was Matataki Village, when suddenly Toan notices someone looking at him and then running away. Well, there's not much else to do here, so let's follow him!





He's convinced we had something to do with the destruction of his village, which leads to another Duel minigame.



Once you show him who's boss, he retreats to his treehouse, and tells you his name. This is Goro, the fat, stupid, annoying little turd of the village.

You know, this is the second game I've LP'd with a character named Goro in it. Maybe I should keep the streak going and LP Mortal Kombat next.

And what's this?



Oh no... He dropped a shiny thing, which turns out to be a Hunter's Earring. Well, in the interest of plot progression, let's go visit him and see if we can return this.



On second thought, he doesn't look like he's worthy of having such a shiny object.

Goro reveals that the earring gives a person the ability to communicate with forest fairies, and then makes mention of something called Treant being all "dried up."

We also find another Pocket in his home, adding another 10 slots to our inventory.



This is Treant, or what's left of him, anyway. Simba (heh) shows up and reveals that we need to reconnect the river to Treant to save him, and the Atla for it and the rest of the village is in Wise Owl Forest. So once again, it's time for more dungeons crawling and town rebuilding! Hooray!



Despite being an outdoors environment, the paths layout is just like that of the caves. Still, it's a nice look, with the thick overgrowth of the woods and the tree branches looming over you.



Our first new enemy, the Cannibal Plant. For obvious reasons, this is a stationary enemy, who attacks when you get close by spitting poison clouds that can Goo you, or whipping its vines around.



The Moustache Key is this area's key for locked doors. It sadly does not unlock moustaches for Toan to wear.



Friday is one of 7 different imp/gnome thingies (called Laughapockles) in this place, each named after a day of the week. They're mostly the same, but each attacks you a different way, from fists to boxing gloves, to knives, axes, and spears, to ranged attacks with blow darts and poison apples. I'm pretty sure each one also has a mug attack where they can attempt to steal money or items from you.



Now here's an interesting twist; To advance to the next floor, you need to give an item to the owl. However, there are actually THREE different "gate keys" on each floor, and each one as a 1-in-3 chance of being the right one. Usually, you'll just collect all three and try them until one works, but on more troublesome and dangerous floors, you'll want luck to be on your side and try the first key you find and hope it works.




Heading right on to the next floor. With an established village and an abundance of items, you can be a bit more daring in dungeon crawling.

The biggest concern when in the dungeons is letting your weapon break, but now we have a nice handful of repair powders and our weapons have pretty good endurance. The only other concern is death, with just takes half your gold as a penalty. You can buy gold bars for a 1:1 exchange ratio to save yourself from losing as much.



Aww, dick move. Limited Zones can now show up at random with random effects.



Fli Fli are little muchroom men to blast gas and flop on you. Incredibly lame enemy.




And then let's do another floor. There's some irony in using repetition to provide variety in these updates.




King Pricklies will hang from the trees and then drop when you get close. Then they... swing. Yeah, another lame enemy, but I'm certainly not complaining over the lack of difficulty.

Hornets are big and fly low, so Toan has little trouble making contact. They try and hit you with their stinger, but you can probably imagine how well that goes.



The Sun Dew is this dungeon's backfloor key. The backfloor entrance is a leaf in a brook, and you use the Sun Dew to make the leaf grow into a boat. It doesn't sound like much, but I appreciate the little differences they put into each area of the game.



This village has a huge hardon for signs and torches, but we don't have many buildings to attach them to yet. But we might as well get started on the whole Georama thing.




Bunbuku acts like a pretty big douche when you talk to him, but when you talk to him again, he's decides to be your friend and then tries to hook you up with his sister. He's pretty messed up, and that's BEFORE addressing the fact that he's draped in animal furs. However, that's not uncommon in this area, as Matataki is a village of hunters/furries.



Pao is... Well, he kind of reminds me of Link Hogthrob from the Muppets for some reason. I think it's the eyes and square jaw. He also seems a little effeminate, with the pink headband and kitty boa draped over his shoulders.