Part 8: Days 9-12 - It's called Hentai and it's Art

Days 9-12 – It’s called Hentai and it’s Art

Where we last left off, we recruited Claire and rescued Rummy from her poisoning situation. We now have a full party of characters to go anytime.

Now we have a few loose ends to wrap up before starting a new loop and recruiting even more.

It is still the night of “9th” day on Pandule, and with nothing else pressing to do, I decide to attend to one of our first minigames.



If we remove Claire from our party and go to the bar we recruited her at the time she’s there, the bartender will allow us to challenge her to a drinking match.


Click here to watch a demonstration of the Drinking Minigame.


Now Playing – Drinking Minigame



The game works as follows: you choose a mixture ratio for the drink that each character will drink during a round first. The numbers will fluctuate randomly and once you press a button, it chooses the one that happened to be on the screen at the time.



Then you select the components of the drink by way of slot machine. Each one will be put into the drink in the amount chosen by the mixture ratio. The different drinks are represented by different colours: from blue, being the weakest (one potential option is plain water), to red being the strongest.

For example, if you have a mixture ratio of 15%/75%/10% (as pictured above), and the drinks you get are a green, a red, and a blue (in that order), then the drink is 15% of the green, 75% of the red, and 10% of the blue.



Drinking increases the drunkenness of a character, as represented by that gauge that filled up a bit. Naturally, the character gets more drunk by drinking something that has more hard stuff in it. A drink that’s 90% water will do bugger all, and a drink that’s 100% red will shoot that gauge up high in one go.

The goal of the game is to be the least drunk person by the end of it. You take turns: first Claire gets a drink made for her and drinks it, then Mouse gets one. If by the end of 3 rounds Mouse is the less drunk person, then you win. Funnily enough, when Claire drinks it’s “Your Turn” and Mouse drinking is “Claire’s Turn”. Perhaps the implication was Claire is picking for Mouse, but you pick no matter what turn it is. And despite that, if Claire wins, “you” lose.

As the characters get more drunk, they start to look it, like so:






Now, as for what we get for doing this:

Our first rewards (first ten?) are map pieces. Normally this would be pretty good, but these map pieces are worthless. They range from maps of featureless water tiles to inaccessible bits of nowhere. That I’m aware of, there are no special secrets we can find on said tiles, they’re just there to buff out the map.

Once we get past those, however, the reward is “Phoenix Potions”. These are items that will completely restore our health on use, even if a character is knocked out. Definitely worth it, but you have to sit through enough of the game to nab them, and even then you only get one per game.



Moving on, I figure I should mention a feature of the weapon system. The concept is taken from Suikoden, but unlike Suikoden, there is no singular blacksmith. Instead, there are different blacksmiths within the city that will work on different character’s weapons. Mouse, Rummy and Claire all get weapon upgrades at different locations, and you have to find out where they are. This is by far the most pointless and unnecessary system I can imagine. All it accomplishes is making you waste time in an already time sensitive game.

With the day having transitioned to day 5 of this week and the time being past 12PM, I finally go to grab Kyte. We have to kick someone out to get him, and I choose Claire.



We don’t get far before…



Monsters don’t usually spawn in town, so this is a very strange event.

You might notice Mouse has a new technique: Ray Slash. This is his ultimate technique. It only hits one target, but it hits hard, and from now till the end of the game, it will be my staple attack for dealing with bosses. It is also the final attack that Mouse will learn. Yeah, we’ve already exhausted the number of abilities he can learn this early.

That is, the techniques he can learn on his own. There are others he can learn when other characters use their own abilities. You can see one called “Hurry” in the above screenshot. This one is learned from Claire after she uses Speed Chain. It basically does the same thing and boosts your speed. There’s a plethora of techniques Mouse can learn from others. One extremely important one will be learned from Rummy, which is why it’s crucial to use her from the start.

Mouse shuts this fight down too quickly for me to show off what Kyte does, but we’ll get to him in a bit…



“I know most of the island’s monsters. They’re not the enemies of my fish here, so…”

What is he even saying here? “Not the enemies of my fish”???

“You’re very impressive!”



“Didn’t mean to surprise you. I’m Pattimo. I’m a talking instrument. I’ve been this guy’s partner for years.”

“Wow! So this is a talking instrument. I’ve heard rumors about you, but…”

“Even though we’re pals now, once the time loop repeats, we’ll revert back to the beginning again. If you’re really going to lend a hand, you must awaken from the spell of time.”

I just want to remind you all that Pattimo mocked Mouse for taking the direct route and just telling Rummy about the time loops. That is all.

“Huh? What the heck are you talking about?”



”…and that’s why Xelpherpolis is the biggest bastard I’ve ever met.”



“Demons who can stop time or manipulate time don’t exist in this world.”

”Wouldn’t you say the same about talking instruments until today?”

”Not really. In my line of work, I’ve heard legends and rumors from all over the world, and I’ve never heard anything like that! If it does exist, I’d like to see it with my own eyes!”

“If he didn’t believe me when we told him the truth, he probably won’t awaken from the spell. Isn’t there some way we can prove to him the existence of the “Spell of Time”, Mouse?”

You would never guess what we need to do here intuitively. Sure, showing someone the demons in the palace would make sense, but if we could just do that, surely we could do it for anyone? As far as the player knows, people just don’t notice the demons working their magic mojo.

But that’s exactly what we’re expected to do, and so it’s off to the palace.



Just to add another layer of unintuitive design to Kyte’s recruitment, he will refuse to go in through the main entrance to the palace. It would be natural to assume that he won’t go in at all, and that you have to find some other way to show him the truth.

But you can take him in. You just have to use the side entrance.





“Kyte, you said if a demon of time existed, you’d want to see it, right?”

“Yea.”

“What are you going to do when you see it? Will you believe us then?”

“Well, sure, if I see it with my own eyes.”

“Ok, then please…!”




Just a generic encounter, nothing special to it.



Kyte manages to get an attack in. His weapon of choice? A fish. Yeah.

Kyte’s not too bad in the early game. As his fish don’t come with weapon levels, they do max damage without needing to spend money on upgrades. This results in him doing more damage than Rummy at this stage. Of course his starting fish isn’t the best, so how do we make Kyte better? By feeding him new fish. Yeah.



Kyte has to sit down after all that excitement.

“Did you see it, Kyte?”

“…Yeah…Didn’t you see me swing at it? I can’t believe it! I guess there are still things I haven’t seen in the world. Yes! You got me all excited like back in the old days!”

“Well, are you OK? It didn’t frighten you off, did it?”

“Get real! You got cotton in your ears, and that eye just for show? I’m right here, aren’t I?”



“Real seamen are tough and reliable! Don’t know what the young seamen are like these days, but that’s the kind of man I am! So, what do you think, Mouse? Want a seaman as part of your group?”

”Well we went out of our way to recruit you, so it’d be dumb of me to say no now!’




And that’s a wrap.

This is by far one of the more silly recruitment segments. Why does Kyte just get to see the demons where others can’t? Because he’s open to the idea? Pattimo usually refuses to talk until after we’ve sealed the deal, so him coming out like this is out of character, and raises the question of why he never just does this with the others. A magical talking instrument adds credibility to our claims, surely.

The rest of the day has nothing much in store for us, as there’s no characters to recruit or cutscenes to see.



When the wedding time rolls around, Pattimo offers us a choice on whether to go or not. There’s some differences to how it plays out on our second time…



We get to choose which song we play. Nothing significant about which one you play or how well you do.



We also get to choose whether to pick a fight or not.

“NO”




“Let me congratulate you, from the depths of my heart, on finally becoming a full-fledged member of this world.”

“That’s….that’s how it should be.”

The crowd freezes in place, as before.



As does Mouse.

”Really? Is this necessary?”



“There is a great gulf between us Mouse…..The truth hurts doesn’t it?”




“I look forward to hearing your magnificent song again, my friend, Mouse. AHAHAHAhahaha….”

And then we cut to a new loop. Alternatively….

“YES”

(Are you sure about this? Do we have any chance of winning?)



“Why can’t you understand? The outcome isn’t ever going to change!!”

“Stop it! Give it up right now. There’s too much of a gap between your abilities.”



Your current party members rush the stage and join you in battle.



It all ends as expected.

Now let’s finally move on to a new loop…



“Well, you’ve come to the right place. The islands are about to celebrate the first royal wedding in decades, so things are hopping.”



“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!”

“….Kyte! You tricked me, you rat!”



“Now, I can be of use to you guys!”

“Look forward to working with you all, my new comrades….!”

”Pattimo, there’s no one else here but Kyte….”



On the start of a new loop, one of the characters you recruited will show up to prove they’ve broken out of the loop. This time it was Kyte, but you can easily get Claire or Rummy or whoever else you recruited to show up like this. I don’t know what criteria the game uses to pick who shows up, though. When I reloaded to see who would show up without Kyte, it was Claire. Kyte was the last character I recruited, but Claire was the first, so it’s not chronological. No idea what it is.

On the first day of your third week (second loop), provided you recruited somebody, they’ll go with Mouse back to the hotel for a scene…



“A few new folks have joined our group but…”

“There’s no two ways about it! You need to tell the islanders the truth just as I was told! Tell ‘em Xelpherpolis is evil itself! If you tell ‘em that their memories are being controlled with magic and as a result they are being trapped of (sic) the island….!”



“Why is that?”

“Just because they hear the truth doesn’t mean anyone’s going to suddenly awaken from Xelpherpolis’s spell. This kind of magic adapts to one’s constitution. Unless the person has a certain amount of strength, hearing the truth is only going to make them doubt our motives.”

And yet Kyte saw demons for no particular reason, and none of the recruitable characters bar Claire will take our word for it regardless of “strength”.

“Besides, why get the islanders all excited so unnecessarily.”

“But, there are those, like me, who have awakened from the magic of time.”

“This is only my guess, but I think that those hearing Mouse’s words…no, only those trusting him with their hearts will be released from the spell of time. Right from the start, he never lost his memories or experiences. That strength might be transferred to those who believe him. “

Translation: only those the game arbitrarily deems worthy of recruiting will join us.




Suddenly, there’s a noise outside the door. Mouse goes to check.




Mouse decides this is not worth investigating and heads back inside.



And thus begins the series of events to recruit Rinna.

We regain control, with whoever greeted us at the docks in our party. Immediately after going downstairs…




Rinna runs off. If we talk to her dad….



Rinna’s Father: “Oh, that’s my daughter Rinna. Did she cause any trouble? She’s always getting into things.”

”Well she just ran off.”

Rinna’s Father: “What?! She ran off? That’s odd…she’s been so excited. She was saying, “When the musician comes, I’m going to ask him all kinds of things!””

And that’s that. You would be forgiven for thinking we can go search for her. There’s even an obvious place to go: her secret place, where she goes when she’s feeling sad or whatever. But she’s not there now. This cannot be followed up on until later in the week.

With nothing else to it, I get my squad together (Rummy and Claire), and head off to set up some scenes.



Plosi can’t be spoken to if you have anyone with you, so you can’t bring him a sacrifice before seeing his scene. But as much as we all hate it, see his scene we must, and recruit him we shall.



You must still visit Xelpherpolis in the third week. With Rummy awakened, her dialogue changes ever so slightly.

Xelpherpolis’ scene is truncated: he doesn’t bother recounting your backstory, and you’re given no choice whether to accept the job. He brings Loreille into the room, and she touches Mouse’s hand, and…that’s it. You don’t even have to play a song. You still get an advance, but only the standard 10000G rather than the modified sums for performance.



With Rummy in our party, we can get past this bloke who would usually refuse to move. He guards the way into the larger part of the island. Until now, we could only really explore the city itself and a limited outside area around the two ceremony shrines. Now, we can go far and wide. Right now, we don’t need to leave the city like this, but it helps to explore in advance to make travelling easier later.



This enemy is an Elf. Yeah, Elf. I assume it was meant to be a contraction of Elephant (it might be an earless, mangled thing, but it’s an Elephant) and the translators were drooling into a bucket while making this game.

Elfs have one annoying attack where they spout water and it can cause paralysis. Yeah, paralysing water. The baffling decisions don’t stop coming.



Cactus Guy. It is a guy, and he is a cactus. Yeah. And they’re carrying a trophy because…they won a contest? I guess for bodybuilding, cause they sit there flexing while idle.

Despite being a batshit enemy design, Cactus Guys do nothing interesting. They just attack normally.

I end my excursion early, as we have scenes to see and characters to recruit.

I rush out to the Holy Gem Ceremony first because we need to talk to Bagoth, even if we otherwise know what we need to recruit him.



Rummy has one new line here, reflecting her awakening from the spell.

After that, well, I must apologise for the horrors you are about to witness….


Now Playing – Plosi’s Theme



“Yes. Yes. So this is the girl who will help me! Good! Good! Is she your girlfriend? Oh, sorry, sorry! Hee hee!”



“It’s a shame to have her as only the subject of art!”

The prior lines vary depending on who you brought here. For instance…



That’s the comment Rummy elicits. Otherwise, this scene plays out the same for every character, bar a handful of minor dialogue differences. I’ll be showing off Claire for most of this.




”So this guy wanted me to bring him a girl and I needed his-“



”Art?”

“He’s not a “master of art” he’s called the “master of pornopgraphy”.”

”I…..should have realised.”

“No. It’s….It’s all for art.”

“Be quiet! I said I’d join you, but I never agreed to do anything like this! Just what do you think your friends are for?!”





Haha, geddit? Cause sexual assault is funneeeeeeee.

We cut to outside the hut.



“Oh, here it is! So this is it! I’ve got it!!!”



We hear punching sound effects.



“I’m leaving!”

“Now, now, calm down a bit there, Claire.”



“How many decades has it been since I’ve seen one?”

“I’m this guy’s partner. My name’s Pattimo. Nice to meet you. Claire, he’s a bit strange, but we really need his help. If he’s with us, we’ll be able to get into the inner reaches of the castle. We’ll be able to get some new information as well. And in order to do that, we have to grant him his wish. It’s the old “give and take”.”



“Having this instrument shows that you’re not an ordinary person. These days young ones are such bores, but you seem different. OK. OK. This sounds interesting. If you’ll help me in the creation of my painting, in turn, I’ll do whatever you ask. I’d like to have not just her help, but your help as well. You’ve had an audience with the Princess, so I’d like to hear your impression of her. Well, do we have a deal?”

Mouse nods, entirely without considering the opinion of the girl involved.






…is Pattimo implying he’d get off to seeing Mouse get hurt?



“…come back between 6 and 9 in the morning on the 3rd day of the wedding festivities. I’ll be waiting for you. If you’re late, you’re in trouble!”

The scene ends there, and we are mercifully ejected from Plosi’s house.

Here’s a tidbit from Rummy’s version of this scene:



Japan honours the time old tradition of making women concerned with getting married, and implying that no man would take her because some old man touched her boobs. Although goodness knows there are real men who would judge her for it maybe they made this game….

As it happens, I decided to keep playing with Rummy being the sacrifice to Plosi. It’s all equally horrible in the end. Funnily enough, the game deliberately changes the tone of Rinna’s scene to avoid making Plosi a paedophile, but it still has him, uh, “attacking” her.

I think that’s enough horror for one update.

Join me next time, where we recruit Rinna and…..ugh, Plosi.