Part 16: Episode 16: Riberto and Chameleon

Leveling up to maximum has seemingly turned the boss battles into mush. D'oh. We still have another six bosses to get through, so let's plow through two of them right now!

Next Target: Riberto (Rank 6)



We met Riberto earlier in the DOASys. He had a couple interesting things to say. Similarly, Venus and David had some tidbits.

("What Is: Stunya") Riberto: "My greatest fear, and darkest nightmare."
("Where Is: Stunya") Riberto: "It grows everywhere. The Stunya that will one day slay me."

We've already heard the rest to be known about Riberto:
("Who Is: Riberto") Venus: "He's the one who looks like he's made of a single long ribbon. Six is his rank."
("Where Is: Riberto") Venus: "He's in the south residential district, in a place we called "The Circle of Death". You don't want to get stuck in the center, because you can be attacked from all directions."
("Who Is: Riberto") David: "He's the one who looks like he's made of ribbon. His rank is 6."
("Where Is: Riberto") David: "I saw him in the south residential district once. There's no telling where he is now."

I'll be sure to give Stunya a try! Also, we'll allegedly have to careful at the Circle of Death. Sounds scary!

Riberto's time has come. Let's go get him!

Riberto Battle

Watch the Battle of Riberto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84pFdSi-Lno



Riberto is just a bit to the south. To fight him, you approach the phone booth.



There's a quick animation of flying down a tunnel.

So, in fact, there was pretty much nothing to the Circle of Death being a hazardous area. It was just another hollow piece of advice.



The game plants us down in an wacky looking arena. Here you see a bouncing spring as well as a arcade cabinet.



Also, there are bouncing skulls, as seen here.

None of this decoration matters as far as the fight goes.



While I'm documenting the scene, Riberto is plodding around and ineffectually attacking me periodically. It's almost as if he doesn't really care that I'm here.



Like the other bosses, a quick volley of Hex shots takes him down.



We're then treated to the same tunnel-style animation, but in reverse!



Then a hole and a plume of red light swallow the phone booth.



Thus, Riberto and his lair are wiped from the map.

Oh, and I go back and try Stunya. I'd remembered correctly from my previous playthroughs, it really doesn't do anything special to Riberto. I had tried Stunya out on Balkan just for kicks. If you manage to hit someone with it, it does keep them from firing for about 5 seconds (including bosses, like Balkan). That being said, it did nothing special to Riberto. It's another one of those disappointing empty leads.

One could argue that Riberto was just trying to trick you. This is stupid to the degree of moon landing denial or the "Squall dies after the parade in Final Fantasy 8" crowd. There is enough erroneous information in the game to point to as the real culprit of the discrepancy!





We head back to the lab, but the goons are unimpressed with another boss being taken down, so they don't utter a word. They're probably too busy squabbling about ethics anyway.

A pity, really. Riberto is one of my favorite looking characters, and he's pretty underwhelming. Pretty much just a placeholder.

Next Target: Chameleon (Rank 5)

Chameleon is an interesting case when it comes to interviewing her in the DOASys. The game claims it's a woman, by the way.

Chameleon's gimmick is that she's somewhat-predator-style invisible. Even so, you can interview her.



I do not know how to trigger this encounter. As far as I can tell, you run into chameleon randomly if you just stand in the DOASys minding your own business. Luckily I got this to happen once during the playthrough.

Being hard to see, I figured it may be more interesting to see a picture of the actor behind-the-scenes:



Well, the actor is clearly not a woman. The voice is also definitely not a woman too, by the way.

Number Five - interviews - Chameleon

(When you show up, Chameleon says: )
Chameleon: "Hello my pretty. Come to Chameleon a social call, yes? Not going to try to kill her, are you? Wouldn't be friendly. Wouldn't be nice."

Number Five: "What Is: Perfect?"
Chameleon: "Ugly Garden where we live. Full of nasty things that try to kill us."
Number Five: "Where Is: Perfect?"
Chameleon: "Wants to know where The Garden is? Can't see it all around us?"

Number Five: "Who Is: Perfect 1?"
Chameleon: "The viper! Wants to kill chameleon. Wants to kill all of us!"
Number Five: "Where Is: Perfect 1?"
Chameleon: "High up in the tower. The most high of all. Comes down to hurt us, he does!"

Number Five: "Who Is: Chance? "
Chameleon: "Bad priest Chance! Worships the evil once who brought us here, he does!"
Number Five: "Where Is: Chance? "
Chameleon: "Ugly tall church! Full of devils! Wants to go there, yes?"

Some of the others had some input on Chameleon:

("Who Is: Chameleon?") Venus: "He blends into the background. The only way you can see him is if you move around. At least, that's what I hear. He's supposedly the 5th-most powerful rhythm in all of Perfect."
("Where Is: Chameleon?") Venus: "I don't know. A lot of people have been killed around the east residential district lately though, and noone's seen anything. Makes you wonder."
("Who Is: Chameleon?") Tork: "She that has no shape. She's fifth in the heirarchy. She wants to be perfect one, but she can't. She's not strong enough."
("Where Is: Chameleon?") Tork: "The mansion in the east residential district. This is where she keeps all the rhythyms she's killed."

Er, well, now I'm confused. Is it a man or a woman? Augh, this game can't keep its facts straight. I suppose since Venus was allegedly a programmer of Perfect, I'll concede that it's a man.

Anyway, we could always get caught up in worrying about the fact that we're killing the actual person behind the Chameleon avatar. But, we must conjure trust in the bearded doctor back at the lab. The mission must go on.

Killing Chameleon

Watch the Battle of Chameleon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHkxO-6Sn6M



MORE PEMS!!!



As we've heard, Chameleon is off to the east in the mansion.



I rather like the mansion. When you enter, you have a direct face-off with Chamelon. At this point it's very simple to just kill him. This time, though, I showed restraint and had a look around.



First of all, Chameleon is hard to see, so here's a view of him being more visible in the lighting effects.



There are several heads mounted on the wall of a long hallway in this mansion. Here we see the common Goner.



I was particularly interested in this one. It's a little hard to make on this simple 160x160 or so sprite, but I think that's Number Four's bust on the wall!



There's a decent amount of furniture lying about. Not much of a conversation piece, though.



Eventually I plug Chameleon with some Hex and finish him off. There's a rather odd death animation in which there's a guy with his pants down. Okay, so, it's definitely a man.

It's just too bad the ambiguity of the facts is requiring more attention than the actual bosses. I must have really screwed up by overleveling us. *grumble* *grumble*



Like many bosses, we're treated to the lair crumbling in front of us.



And Chameleon's lair is wiped off the map.





Here are our stats after returning to the lab.

(By the way, there IS another lab video preceeding these stats. I'll be posting that video in the next update.)

A rare moment of lore consistency...

If you believe that it truly was Number Four's bust on the wall of Chameleon's mansion, then the game has lived up to some level of continuity!

Simply recall this lab video from just before the game's first jump:


Doctor: "We haven't determined what happened yet. But, be careful in this area. This is where we lost contact with Number Four."

He's actually pointing to the area of the map where Chameleon's mansion is!

Next time: Some end-game-countdown plot dumps!