Part 14: Punishing Puntaros and Rainbow Rescuing.

Last time, on Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue… The sinister villain Red Punster kidnapped the girls during a visit to Hamstarr Manor, holding them hostage with the aid of his Puntaro crew! Now, the continuation…





Help me, Maxwell!



See ya! Bye-bye!

Fleeing once more, huh? Time to give chase!



As with many minigames, the ideal strategy for this one is to act on the first pass while everything’s still nicely synced up. At 10 + time remaining times 2, it’s a quick and easy way to earn some points here.



Drat, looks like that Punster eluded us! But still, we didn’t come away empty-handed.





But don’t worry! We’re here, so you’re safe!

Um, Maxwell. You’re talking to a doll…



Oops. We were tricked again! Huh? The doll is holding something? What is it?



Aha! We can use this to pursue the Puntaros further… Their hubris will be their downfall!



...I’m going to choose to ignore that.



Hammmm hmmmm.

The special ring, hmm? Sounds mysterious!



The second version of Star-Studded Swinger is the same as the first, just in the opposite direction. Doing one after the other over and over is definitely the best source of sunflower points if you want to farm up the stickers in this area.



You may pass!

Alright, let’s see what devious challenge awaits us in this so-called special ring.



Aaa! I can’t eat that much. Someone help me!

Ookwee!



Firstly, Penelope is in danger too, Dexter. Secondly, what the hell is that?



And watch out for his Gobble Drop and Pork-Out Punch!

...Uh… Mean Oxnard, sure. Well, an evil clone is certainly a new one for us.



It’s an eating competition, so why not?



Hey, guess what? This commentator is actually worth our while to talk to despite their generic dialogue, because…



Pressing B, L, A, B, A, R after talking to them earns us the ‘Too Much Good Stuff’ picture! Man, Oxnard looks like he’s gonna be sick.



Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Let’s take on Mean Oxnard!





Ookwee! Ookwee! Ookwee! Ookwee! Ookwee!! Ookwee!!

She said that she’s ready to do battle!

Gwaha! So these guys are my opponents!

Yikes! He looks exactly like Oxnard!

Hee hee! We’ll beat you for sure with Mean Oxnard on our side! You won’t know which one is the real Oxnard!



...That does sound like a rather large flaw in the Puntaro’s plan.

Behold my powers of eating! Gwa! Gwaha ha!



Pffft, as if anyone could out-eat the real Oxnard! Time to have a chow down showdown!

I’ll show you my power!



So, remember back at the fair when Bijou faced off against Sparkle in that heart-gathering game? This is basically the same thing.



Messing up the dodge is no big deal; if you get it right about half the time, you’ll still win.



You’re so careless, Mean Oxnard! This calls for a…



Pashmina! Penelope!



Something’s just not right!

Aaa! I can’t eat that much. Someone help me!

Ookwee!



Just where did the real ones go?



Hey, finally someone who isn’t going to be a little bit creepy about it. With both of these, we now have four Ham-Ham dolls in our possession.



I really like dolls.

Good for you…?



If you want to watch the show, enter the room this way ◄.



Here it is at last, the final showdown with the Puntaros! (Also, the area’s flyer is on the wall there… just out of our reach.)



And of course, what kind of climactic face-off doesn’t happen in space?







Oh, you better believe it! You’re going down, Puntaros!



And of course, they pull their pose one more time. Oh, and I also prepared…



The avatar-sized version! Oh, and about the “D” that appears...


Sounds like a fair assumption to me, so let’s go with it.



Now, on with the show. Let’s see what the Puntaros have to throw at us.



Raise Your Flag is a fairly straightforward game to begin with, requiring you to press whatever button is on the flag the Puntaros hold up. Red Punster handles A/B/L/R while the ladies cover the four directionals.



After the first four inputs, the ladies will begin to spin. Of course, this means you may have a flag to press right on the left side of the screen (for example), plus there’s the spinning motion and the moving background that may make players a little dizzy.





The last four inputs involve two flags at once (requiring simultaneous button presses), though Yellow Punster will try to throw you off with a blank flag at times. In that case, just press whatever’s on the other one.



And yes, Red Punster can be the one holding both flags. All in all, a challenge where the main difficulty comes from the mind game aspect of it.



Eventually, we manage to make them cry.



But I won’t lose! Get ready to see what we’re made of!



Heh… You didn’t really expect a final boss fight to have only one stage, did you?



Duck and Throw is a seriously nasty little game for people who want a good score, because getting hit means losing a Ham-Ham and therefore points. You need to dodge both the peppers and the Puntaros as they charge toward the bottom of the screen; it takes three hits to defeat each Punster, and there’s also a UFO to hit for bonus points. There’s a video of the no-hit run here.



This can’t be! How could we lose!





Red Punster went out the way he always wanted to… Making awful puns. (This pun is dedicated to Leavemywife.)

Mmph…



Everyone! Snap out of it!



Hamtaro, don’t tell me you don’t see what’s going on here!





Who ever would have guessed?

We were helping Howdy out with his part-time job.

That was fun! Right, Penelope?

Ookwee!

This mansion’s goin’ to open up as an amusement park soon. Everyone helped me get the Ham Games ready for y’all’s amusement.

I see. Well, it’s safe to say that we were fooled.



Wow, changing in and out of costumes that fast must take some practice.





Ah, so Hamstarr is the ham in the moon?





Ohhh, right! We totally forgot to look for ingredients after the girls got ‘kidnapped’.

We’ve done it, Hamtaro!

Umm, so, umm...about my paycheck…

It’s not much.

It’s OK! Forget the crystal ball. Now, about my pay…

It’s not much.

I told you, forget about the crystal ball! My paycheck…

It’s not much.



It’s a classic, but my favourite version of this bit is still Slappy Squirrel’s.





Finally, we have all seven ingredients! Now we just need to add this one to the umbrella, and Bo can go home… A meaner person would make this a cliffhanger, but let’s just continue on!

-------



This time, everyone except Jingle and Snoozer are out on the Ham-Ham Lawn to witness this momentous occasion. You can watch a video of this scene here.



Everyone, thank you so much!

Hamstarr Manor was really fun! Who would’ve thought Howdy was behind it all along!

Uh, well… I knew it right from the start! But how much fun would it have been if I had said some…

OK! At last, I’ll make the final color!

...

Bo still isn’t having any of your tall tales, Boss. Had to get one more in for the road.



And here comes the umbrella. Since this is the final ingredient, let’s see it in motion again.



There it is, the rainbow umbrella in all its glory.



I can’t stand to wait any longer!

I hope you’re all ready to see Bo work his rainbow magic, readers.































...uh…












Well, that isn’t suggestive at all!



So, uh… Bo, are you still alive?





Is Rainbow Land on the other side of this rainbow?

No, but there’s a station connected to Rainbow Land! I’m taking a train from that station to Rainbow Land, my home!

There’s a magical train in the sky?



We’re friends forever!





We’re friends forever and ever! Adios, hamigos!



Even if he leaves, he can always come back, right? OK, then! Let’s all go and send Bo on his way home!



And now it’s time to let the ending play… This part deserves a video, so you can find it here.


































The entire time you were gone, there has been a terrible problem.

What?! Bo is actually the prince of Rainbow Land?!

I remember he said that he’s Rainbow Land’s big star, but a prince?

Minister, what happened?

Follow me, and I will fill you in.





If there’s a problem with Bo, we’ll all help!

We want to ride that cloud, too!







Welcome to Rainbow Land’s Rainbow Theater! Thanks to the Ham-Hams, I was able to get home!

I’m glad we could help!



Wh-what’s wrong?

It’s good that I got back to Rainbow Land, but while I was gone, not a single visitor has come to visit our land!

Yep, it’s as empty as can be.

That’s right.

And so, it’s time for this!



Mm? What is that? An invitation?

That’s right! This is an invitation to Rainbow Theater!

I want you to take them and hand them out as a gift to all the hamsters we’ve met!

OK. So, hand these to all the hamsters we’ve met.

That’s right! And we’re thinking about starting the play when everyone gets here!

I can’t wait!

You should also look for rainbows in new areas. The rainbows will take you to areas that you haven’t been!

That’s great!

There are a total of 40 invitations. I want you to give them to all kinds of hamsters. Got it?

Got it! The invitations are for all the hamsters we’ve met.

Thank you! I really appreciate it!



When you get back, look at the Rainbow Art, everyone! Well then! See you later, hamigos!



So, with all seven ingredients gathered and Bo returned to Rainbow Land, it’s time for the Ham-Hams to embark on a whole new quest! We’ll be revisiting all the places we’ve been and exploring them further, even visiting whole new locations while we hand out invitations to Rainbow Theater, and the special play Bo has planned. There’s still a whole lot left to do, folks! So, I’ll see you all next time… Take care!