Part 5: Episode 4 Racing in the air

Episode 4 Racing in the air

Welcome back! Last time we finally landed on Namek, so let's head out!



Phew, we are finally on Namek! Hey kid, what are we doing here?

Gather the dragonballs and summon Shenon to free the Earth from the tyranny of my mom. The set on Earth still has a long time before it activates again. I can't wait that long or else everyone on Earth will have a bad hair cut like mine.

Oh no! That is terrible! Can't we defeat her?

No way! See what happened to Goku and Vegeta! And my company will go bankrupt if Chi-chi makes more claims! Our best bet is the dragonballs.



We have a signal!

Bulma, which way is the closest signal? Let's start with that one.

That direction... WHAT IS THAT? It's a gund-, sorry wrong anime.



Two alien space pods. Can it be Vegeta? But who is in the other space pod? His girlfriend? No way...


Meanwhile


I'm hopeless. I'm hopeless. I'm hopeless...

Don't worry Vegeta. I'll help you. Just collect those dragonballs, right? What do you do with them? Eat them?

Meanwhile


Gohan, what are you going to wish for?

Infinite Tsukuyom.

Huh?

Better Than Life from Red Dwarf?

Huh?

Human Instrumentality Project?

Huh?

The Matrix?

Oh, you are going to put every one in the VR and enslave them before Chi-chi.

No, just my mom. But enough talk. Let's move!


We start at the northeast corner of the map.


But we are not alone here. Cui is at the northwest corner of the map and for some reason he has a dragonball.


And Vegeta is at the southeast corner of the map. But isn't he with Cui in the cut scene?


Our target is the village at the southwest corner of the map and Vegeta and Cui will move towards the village too.

At this point, the game plays like a multiplayer game. The three teams will take turn to move around the map and draw card, and the first to reach the village will get the dragonball. Sounds fun? In theory yes, but the execution of this idea is not that good.

The biggest problem? We don't have to win! It is not game over even when the other teams get the dragonball and it doesn’t make any difference to the later stages.

There are three such stages in total, and instead of Cui, we play against Dodoria and Zarbon in the other two.

The computer controlled teams move along a fixed path but the length they move for each turn is random. Here, the map favors Cui as Vegeta’s path is more winding and we are the furthest from the village. To counter that, our party has a new “Fly” command on the top right. With this, we can move 4 extra squares on top of number given by the battle card we choose and we move on any terrain. The catch is that since we are flying, we are more likely to encounter enemies. The chance increases from 1/2 to 23/32 for flying and decreases to 3/32 for walking. In this stage we fight the same enemies as the ones in the last map. While we are on Namek, we won’t find the Vegeta card in the card draw. On the other hand, we have three new cards in our card draw.


The first one is a blank card. It does nothing.


The second one is the Grandpa card. If we draw this card, we can choose to stop one of the other two teams for 1 turn. If one of the other two teams draws this card, then that team will stop for 1 turn.


The third one is Guldo card. It is the opposite of the Grandpa card and will stop our team for 1 turn no matter who draws it.

For walking, we have all cards except Guldo and Ginyu cards so there is no negative card. And for flying, we have Freeza, blank, Guldo, Ginyu, Oolong, Grandpa and Porunga. The most beneficial choice for flying is to pick the left most cards as it only has Grandpa, blank and Freeza cards. So we won’t have training mini-game if we fly. Speaking of which, we have another one of the training mini-game back from the last game:


As we can see, instead of being an added bonus, training becomes the main method of gaining BP for walking. If our priority is gaining BP, then flying and fighting every turn is a much more reliable choice. So the catch is not really a catch after all!

On the other hand the other two teams can draw blank, Grandpa, Guldo, Ginyu and Oolong as well as the following two, which are available only to them:


The Cui card is the opposite of Enma card, it turns the attack and defense of the best card to 1.


The Burter card will make that team move further in the next turn.

Since the other two team can draw Oolong or Cui cards, any good battle cards in our deck will be taken away easily so it will be a waste of effort to build a good deck. Instead, by flying with the best battle card every turn, we can over take the other two teams easily. However, winning the race is not the only objective on this map, we can also choose to intercept the other two teams. We can do that if our team pass over their location or block their path and wait for them to pass over us:



Are you looking for dragonballs too? If you find them, can you let me use them first? Pretty please?*puppy dog eyes*
Of course!
Baka Bulma!

Yes, if our team has a dragonball when that happens then Vegeta will snatch it from us. Since we don't and the team which pass over the other team will stop moving and skip the card draw, we can keep moving just one square ahead of Vegeta for a few turns to seriously hinder his progress and quickly fly to intercept Cui. This time, we immediately get into the battle screen against Cui's team.

Remember the mini-boss in the last stage? He was a tier 2. And Cui's team consists of him and three tier 3 goons:



Last time, we learnt enemies usually has a higher effective BP than the BP value given by the scouter. So even the three goons are a big threat against our team. And it is hopeless to fight this team normally; the best choice is to retreat. However the success rate of retreating is not 100%, so don't pass over them if not prepared. And it doesn't take long for this to happen:

It is no surprise that he is the first to go.


But even if he is alive, he still won't get pass this one. This attack is the same as Vegeta's "Explosion Wave" from the last game. This attack is now multi-target and is used by many of the bosses in this game.


This is a scene which the first time player will see often. Why else would the development team make the game over scene so long?

We'll see how to deal with Cui in the next episode of Dragon Ball Z2 LP