Part 21: In Which Nothing Happens

I have fulfilled my statistical expectations in order graduate and I am now technically A Linguist By Profession with the exception of the university-exit paperwork that remains to be done, so have a celebratory update. I can now get a job completely unrelated to my field of study and instead based in my vocational record and local connections, probably working out of the back of a Hawaii news van.

or flashlight press or dial or boyds mills can pick up my captain dad manuscript come on guys

No, seriously.

Well, except for this.







You know, it's very probable that the real Iz ate frogs once.


Failing that, probably something equally repulsive, like picked pigs' feet or balut or some cat manapua or maybe even dog--y'know, roasted on a spit and everything--there's a lot of gross foods to choose from in Hawaii. It comes with the territory.


But, Iz won't be eating any of that here. Only frogs.






you can tell he wants something because he's not making himself invisible


"Shit man is your family tree a fuckin' GMO or what"


"You gotta stop taking what I say so literally, that's kinda gross"


... You could say that


"Yeah I know one Quan, I play Dynasty Warriors all li'dat"








"Don't worry about it Makakao, I bet Quan's his brother or something and he's just salty that his brother ended up marrying some Black Mage chick instead of another Qu"

With that, Iz officially joins our party.

The Needle Fork is pretty crazy. Its bonus status effect is Petrify, which means easy kills if it activates. This requires equipping the passive skill Add Status, but whatev'.

The downside (which is an upside if you're doing a Level One Playthrough like Orange Fluffy Sheep is) is that you don't get EXP for petrified enemies. You do, however, get AP and items, and I think Gil but don't quote me on that one.


You can also now play the frog-catching minigame whenever you come to a Qu's Marsh.


Frogs are classified by age and gender, and can be differentiated by their markings. You generally want to keep one Male and one Female frog in each marsh so they regenerate their numbers considerably more quickly (if you harvest them all at once, you probably won't see new frogs until the end of the game).

There is also a Golden Frog, which makes the repopulation move even faster.


No matter which marsh in the world you're at, Quale shows up and gives you a prize for catching a certain total amount of frogs. You get something like an Ore for catching one, and an Ether for catching four.


Iz will also comment on the population of the marsh when you leave. We took four frogs and left one male, one female, and one gold.


just a cool screen


Iz's unique battle commands are Eat and Blue Magic. You start with no Blue Magic, and you learn more by Eating enemies.




Unfortunately, this isn't that easy. You have to whittle them down to 1/4 (1/8?) of their max HP, which can be difficult to hit without percent-damage spells like Demi or Matra Magic.


Frog Drop is pretty strong, but only if you really invest work into it.

The damage formula is (Iz's level * # of frogs captured), so you have to catch over 99 frogs to max your damage. We may or may not be doing this, frog catching is a pain in the ass, and it isn't too fun.



So now we run around getting Blue Magic.






We don't even have enough goddamn MP to use this, and because our Sprit (and Iz's magic) scores are so low, Shell and Protect would barely even last a single round.


Of course, some enemies don't teach anything at all.


And now, we go and do the best minigame ever made.



"And this is..."







"You in a hurry, kupo?
Then take Choco. You won't run into monsters if you ride Choco."


"no fuck you"






"He just said 'no fuck you,' how does that even mean that he likes me"


Thvsly did we brave the hideovs slowdown and use Gyshal Greens on the world map.






Oh, that sounds... kinda creepy.




you fucking ripoff




So, this fucking game.


It is SO ADDICTIVE FUUUUUUUUCK


Basically you run around pecking at the ground and the more excited the Kweh, the closer you are to the treasure.


And when you get the treasure, you mash Square as fast as you fucking can.






"This place must have tons of treasure..."


no that is fucking retarded let's call it


So we can now dig up the treasure detailed in this image as long as we have the image selected.

But fuck that.



We are Chocobo Hot & Cold-ing.


So every item you dig up is worth a certain amount of points. You can trade these points for very valuable items. As you can see, we only have like 54 right now, and the best stuff costs thousands and thousands.


HOWEVER, if you manage to dig up eight treasures in one minute (really hard at the moment), you get a GIANT POINT BONUS.


You also get bonus Beak Levels, which makes each dig do more "damage" to the depth of the item so you can dig it up faster.


I, uh, got a little carried away.