Part 12: Ox-King Can Wait! Sight-Seeing Must Be Done!!

Howdy, folks, and welcome back! Last time, on Attack of the Saiyans, we beat up Pilaf's Gang on Mount Frappe and recovered some of the honey needed to plug up the hole in the magical furnace. Today, instead of going to save Ox-King, we're going to visit West and East City, so let's head out.



I'll tell you right now, this update is more West City than East City. East City isn't much different than when we visited it as Krillin before.



I don't have exact population figures here, but West City is one of the bigger cities in Dragon Ball, much like East City is.



We've only got a few screens to cover here, but there's a lot of NPC chatter and stuff around.





Well...Yeah, kind of.



There's a treasure chest up top. I could see you being unsure how to get up there, because when there's an indication you can jump up something, there's usually a ladder of some sort, or some kind of visual indication. Here?



Just jumping up buildings like it ain't shit.



This raises someone's Speed by 10% when equipped. Meh.





I don't buy shit here.



He's got a lot for sale.



Including the full set of status heals, an item to raise the Rage Gauge, and this thing, which makes you more resistant to status ailments. Advance Guards do the same thing, and they don't require a turn to use, so I'll stick with those.



He also has Energy and Ki Rings, which we know the function of.



He also has these, which I'll buy at some point in the future. There's a few electric floors later on and I'd rather not have to wade through them and heal up later.



I've got some stuff to sell, which is good.



With the Carrot Glove equipped, we're not making money from random encounters, so if I want cash, and not grinding out extra levels, I'm forced to sell accessories and other things I don't need.



Such as the Scrap Irons we got from the Shu and Mai Machines. There's an extra 6,000z.



I didn't sell 'em yet, but I do have nearly 15,000z of stuff here I won't be using.





There are. There's a particular combination later I can't wait to get to. It's so it's not funny.



The combination I'm thinking of does not include this, but that is still a nice accessory.



Finisher Beans are pretty goddamned awesome. They're used outside of battle, and the character they're used on are given +1500 AP.



This guy doesn't like the car being parked here, so he's going to draw a dick or something on it.



We're not going to enter too many buildings in this game, but most of them have flavor text associated with them.



And deeper into West City we go.



That...Doesn't seem healthy, or safe. Like those guys who throw on plastic trash bags in the summer before they go jogging.



The dog man wants to go for a ride.



Aww, they're right.



Over here is an exit back to the world map and Capsule Corp's headquarters, where Bulma, Dr. Brief and Mrs. Brief live.



attacks to execute an Active Guard. If you get it right, you'll earn more resistance against Poison and things. It's worth trying out.

It's worth doing so you don't get your ass beat, but thanks for the tip, old-timer.





And into Capsule Corp we go!



Hey, there's Bulma!



Neat! I like free stuff.



This is also pretty awesome. Instead of having just the two slots for Capsules, we now have three. I throw the Cold Boots into the other slot; we can now flip between our damage-floor safe Capsules and the Carrot Glove. Eventually we'll get a fourth Empty Capsule, but for now, we're at a good setup.



Capsule Corp has these two in a greeter's position.



They're...Kind of polite, I guess.



These two are planning on squatting in the Brief home, despite there being a family that lives there.



Then again, it's just the three of them and this place is pretty huge.



It's charming design has earned it a legion of fans even today.



There's also a little bit of a museum thing going on here.



If you were curious, after recording this update, Goku got all of the Fruits and the Finisher Bean.



I was debating on saving those Fruits for a character further on down the line, but decided they would do me more good now.



For some weird reason, while Mrs. Brief is usually depicted as blonde (as in, she's blonde in every other appearance), she has green hair in this game.



They also have a lot of dogs around here.



Basically, what we're learning here is that you don't always learn skills by upgrading just one; sometimes you have to level up two skills to different levels to learn something new.



For instance, the Meteor Combination that Goku learns requires the Combination to be at Level 3 and the Kamehameha to be at Level 2. Which they are.



Because the Meteor Combination kicks all sorts of ass and will be pretty much my main Ki skill for Goku throughout the game.

Also, this raises Evasion by 10%. And increases by cash reserves by 1,000z.



I only know this is Mrs. Brief because the Dragon Ball wiki tells me so.



And it's really the only person it could be. Still not sure why her hair is green, but hey, whatever.





Jesus, the amount of animal noises is impressive.



Then again, some animals are using the wrong noises.



...My, aren't you eloquent.









Kitties aren't supposed to be on the table!



..._Sorry.



And upstairs we go!



There are animals everywhere here. Most of them don't have dialog beyond their cries or whatever you want to call them, so I omitted some here and there.



A lot of NPC dialog and flavor text is just world-building, but it's really cool. It adds a nice amount of depth to the Dragon Ball world.



I guess this is a student or apprentice of Brief's, but I couldn't tell you for sure.



And he sounds like me when I was replacing my hard drive during Chrono Trigger. I had a buddy who helped me with it and he was trying to explain it, and I may as well have been looking into the human brain.



Here's one of the notes scattered about the world about the different S-Combos. We can look at these through the Crystal Ball in the menu and try to figure out what skills we need based on that.



Hmm. The name gives a better hint here than the description; the other move needed for this is Krillin's Destructo Disk.



Or it could be a combination of all three.



This is Bulma's dad, who invented Capsule technology, and is richer than shit because of it. He's a pretty cool guy, too, and Bulma inherited her smarts from him.



For whatever reason, he doesn't have a portrait, but here's what he looks like. He's basically always seen with his cigarette and Scratch, the cat on his shoulder.





Alright, that covers Capsule Corp. Let's go see the real important thing around West City.



It's not these children, but they're on the way to the important person here.



These kids are freaking out about nothing.



I've heard that Coro is a common dog's name, but I'm not sure if that's actually true. CoroCoro is the name of a Japanese manga magazine published monthly for children. Korokoro is a phenomime that means something like rolling, and also represents something that is spherical, fat, or small, according to Wikipedia.



Either way, a dog lives here, so these kids are just being weird.



We won't be encountering any of these dangerous things, just so you know.







Yeah, this definitely seems more like of the run-down part of town, where money is a bit tighter and people don't have the advantages of others, but I'm not sure why that guy would say it's dangerous.

The only thing I can think of it that maybe in the Japanese it was referred to as a slum or ghetto of West City and it was translated weird.





This dude, however, is super-creepy.



Did I mention I like all these different animal noises? It seems a little more immersive than every dog going "Woof!" or every cat going "Meow!"



Sadly, you cannot help pick up the garbage.



Oh, kitty!



Over here, this couple is arguing about what this closed down business will become.



For those of you who don't know, a maid cafe is a type of restaurant, which are typically found in Japan. In these restaurants, the servers are dressed as maids, and they serve the customers not as you would at a regular restaurant, but as mistresses and masters in their homes.



Wikipedia has a full article on them, if you're interested in that.





Up here is one of the best things in the city. It's not this cat.



Nor is it the people behind this door that we're eavesdropping on.



Despite them having good advice.



It's this guy over here. He's the only reason to collect carrots.



He's, uh, he's got a bit of an obsession.



Basically, he's asking us to bring him as many carrots as we can. I'm guessing we don't tell him that they used to be living creatures.



He does have some good stuff to give us later on.



So, periodically, we'll pop back here to drop our carrots off with him.



Hey, cool, we've killed at least 56 enemies since defeating Monster Carrot.



Okay, the first prize isn't exactly stellar, but a free item is a free item. And since 300 HP is still a good chunk for most of our characters, I'm okay with this.



After this, he'll want 500, and then 1,000.



This isn't too great, as I don't run very often, but the item after that helps us earn money (which is nice, since we're not making any from fights with the Carrot Glove equipped, barring boss fights), and the final item is the one needed to access the hidden dungeon, which has some really good stuff inside of it.



Has it been established this guy likes carrots?



I'm pretty sure this is his carrot repository, too.

But, that covers West City. We're moving onto East City now, which doesn't have much different about it.



The bottom screen is the one that gives you the specifics on where you're going when on the world map; this top screen is just more of a world-view.



We're only here for about five shots. Seriously, not much is different.



These two still argue about this.



It's been a few years since we were last here, so either this person is still debating on making that pot roast, or else radishes have become cheap again.



The Orin Temple influence is strong here. Little does this kid know that in this series, the more hair you have, the stronger you are.



And this covers the last of the interesting things here.



What, did you think I was kidding about being here for five shots? Seriously, East City hasn't changed much. It will eventually, but not any time soon.

But, enough of the sight-seeing. Next time, on Attack of the Saiyans, we'll finally get around to plugging that hole in the magical furnace, so stay tuned!