Part 37: The Desert Has Its Secrets!! But Is The Six Star Ball One Of Them?!

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to Attack of the Saiyans! Last time, we finished off the Devil's Toilet and got the Two Star Ball repaired. Today, Team Namek is going to visit the Desert, so let's head out.



Based on the voting, we have Piccolo, Krillin and Gohan heading in here; Gohan is also never leaving the party again, and when we end things here, he's at Level 34. Soon, people will see why I want him at Level 35. We're so fuckin' close!



Keep in mind, when we went to visit Annin to be able to melt the ice in Yunzabit Heights, Yamcha didn't say shit about going through a volcano or visiting the magical furnace there.



Jesus Christ, what is with Krillin and his angry face lately? Dude needs to take a chill pill and calm down.



W-what?



What in the fuck are you talking about, Piccolo? We've found almost all of them and it hasn't even been twenty-four hours yet. I can say that because Goku's dead ass is still around, and I know I haven't spent that long looking for them.



Just punch him in the cock, Yamcha. You've got greater Power than him, so he'll fold like a sheet.



Maybe this is why I'm not allowed to write for video games; there'd be dick punching everywhere when people disagreed.





Anywho, we're in the Desert, so there's new enemies to deal with.



Though, the Desert is definitely meant to be one of your first locations when Dragon Ball hunting.



As this guy only has 680 HP.





To get a better idea of how our folks stack up, here's a quick damage comparison between our current three party members.





The Desert Bandit can pull a Donkey Kong and whip a barrel at someone.



One of the good explosive barrels, too, which does a fair bit of damage, but I also missed the Guard here.



The Female Desert Bandit (yes, that's her actual name) can throw a nasty splitter.



It doesn't deal damage, but can poison someone. It's...Eh. It's an attack.



That sword she has isn't just for show, though.



Granted, it may as well be, for all the damage she can do with it.



Popo's Turban is really paying off for Gohan. He's nearly as high a level as his dad.







And here's the desert part of the Desert; the oasis in the beginning seems a little misleading.



Much like this little patch of dirt down here; no reason to wander down here.



Well, except to potentially get in a fight.



Ah, these guys. If you're patient, you can get a ton of EXP from this fight.



We'll get to that in a moment, though, for Piccolo has a new attack to use.



I'm not sure why he has this attack, since I'm pretty sure he only learns it after fusing with Kami and is fighting Cell. But, whatever, it's cool as hell.





As it's just a giant, fuck-off, ball of energy that does a solid chunk of damage, doing nearly half of the Sandbug's 1,400 HP.





Looks like something gross, right?



It totally as, since this guy essentially just pukes up his young. And there's no real limit to how many he can barf out, so if you're patient enough, you can grind out huge amounts of EXP from one of these guys.



The little guys aren't too tough, with only 450 HP. They can poison someone, though, and drain Ki. They also have a self-destruct attack, but they shouldn't survive long enough to actually pull it off.



This is just from the Sandbug and a single Larva. Shit can get ridiculous if you let it.



While playing it, this sandstorm effect thingy doesn't look too bad. In screenshots, though, I don't think it's looking all that great.



There's also a fair bit of treasure around here, including one fantastic bit of it.





There's also a lot of climbing around skeletons here.





And blowing shit up. Gohan gets a workout on his Masenko here.



Imagine the big red star coming up here. I guess I missed it when I was taking shots.



Yeah, we've seen these guys before. Enemy variety isn't exactly this game's strong suit.



And with 700 HP, these guys last just long enough to be mentioned as being in the Desert.



I'm pretty sure that you're supposed to come to the Desert as one of your first areas.





For instance, the boss fight takes me less than two minutes.





And the enemies are less than impressive. The EXP isn't too bad, but it's nothing spectacular.





Even the heavy enemies are nothing to write home about at this point.



With 1800 HP, this guy survives long enough to be blasted by my party and to do nothing of his own.





Swinging down around here, we can pick up a piece of equipment.



Whoever has this equipped gets +8 to their Speed, which is a hell of a boost.





Moving forward, we see another treasure chest.





And a bigass fish.



A bigass, 2,000 HP-having fish, at that. And another enemy around here that doesn't get a chance to do much of anything.



Not bad here, though.



I'm sure there's an archaeologist somewhere that is just foaming at the mouth at seeing all of these incredibly intact dinosaur skulls destroyed so carelessly.





Not a bad find here; it's the super version of the Phoenix Feather, and it revives someone with full HP.





A disappointing thing to note here is that, when you get into a fight in here, the background is of the outside desert.



Sure, it's utterly minor and totally nitpicky, but with all the other detail in this game, you'd think the devs would have made another background.





Are you all still impressed by shots of our characters firing Ki blasts at stationary objects? It's lost some of the allure it once had.





This raises someone's Evasion by 20%. I don't think I've ever equipped it, and I don't plan on doing so now. Especially not around here, where I didn't need to heal once.







Even so, a CC point is nice to see. I'll never turn down a free full heal.





To get this chest, we've gotta go forward and loop back around.





And there are two obstacles to destroy!







Which leads to another Capsule that we could equip.



However, less enemies means less EXP, and I have no interest in such a thing. So these go in the pile of Capsules I won't be using.





Oh, hey, is that a nest I see?



It is! And it's made in a little dinosaur graveyard! That seems like a great place to build a nest. Or a house; nothing says, "Get the hell off my property" like dinosaur bones. Especially if they're the pokey ribs like these bones are.



...Wait a second. Why are those eggs--



GOHAN NO



JESUS CHRIST



GOHAN STOP WHAT THE FUCK DUDE







Let's...Ugh. Just grab the Dragon Ball and let's go.



You heard me, Tien. Grab some balls that don't belong to Chiaotzu and let's get out of here.



Oh, the camera is panning up.



And we've pissed off a giant sparrow.



Oh, excuse me all to hell, Yamcha.



Yeah, whatever. Nobody here is worried about it.



ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE







Alright, so, I pretty much just blitzed this fucker into oblivion.



He has 8,800 HP, so I shaved off nearly 1/9th right here.



Though, if nothing else, he got to attack, so I'm not completely boring about the enemies this update.



Yeah, he just threw up an energy blast on Gohan. I don't even want to imagine the logistics of that.



Being a giant eagle, this guy can use his deadly talons to attack.



I guess the Sand Eagle is going for the eyes, since this attack can inflict Blind on someone.







This bird thought he was going to be all Billy Badass and...Man, how wrong was he?



I would have shown off Yajirobe here, but being a boss, you can't just instantly kill him like that. And my characters don't need the HP refill.



In this Ultimate, Krillin just throws a shitload of Destructo Disks at the enemy.



And in case the high damage wasn't enough, this can also inflict Instant Death. I'm not sure if it will hit an entire enemy party, but the Instant Death seems a touch redundant all the same.



I was trying to finish this fight with Piccolo busting out the Special Beam Cannon, but Gohan finished the fight before Piccolo could even get a turn to charge up.



Another indication that you should come here early is that only Krillin gained a level here, and he wasn't far from one to begin with.



After the fight, the Eagle just backs out, like he realizes the mistakes he's made in life and how he should go fix those, instead of going out like this.



Do you blame him, Gohan?









Hey, don't worry about it, Goku; Gohan destroyed the eggs.



Well, physically, he's in pretty rough shape, and probably emotionally, too.



Just next to the nest is our final Capsule upgrade, so we can now have four Capsules equipped at once. In the fourth slot, since I wasn't sure what else to show off, I popped Oolong's Nose in.



It tells you how many treasures are left in an area, which could come in handy later on.



Not sure how much use I'll get out of it, but when I'm combing old locations for Level 3 Ki Blast obstacles, I might use it.



There's one last rock to blow up here, but I'll spare you the shot of Gohan blasting it.



The last treasure is to the west here, and it's a Skill Fruit. Not sure why I don't have a picture of it.



But that polishes off the Desert! There's just one location left to go search!

VOTE OR DIE

However, before we get there, we've still gotta figure out a party. BOLD a vote for the two characters who will join Gohan as they go investigate the mysterious cave in the ocean.

And stay tuned!