Part 6: † Corona 6:44 †

After doing absolutely everything (this is where, as mentioned earlier, the two looks at the ceiling held me up), returning to the hallway reveals that being able to broadcast things across a ship is unusual and weird which in this game is probably true. We've managed to make The Lost Age look like a shining example of things getting done.



>Search Consle
Odd. The tape's turning. Who did that?

Sadly, the music is the same as when the ship launched first update, not the Mega Man song on the tape. I'd link the song anyway but it might take away from the impact when it actually comes.

>Search Tape
Eline's tape. Let's leave it be.



After literally walking around aimlessly for a while (this only triggers when you've left and re-entered the hall a few times, a beautiful allusion to Luke's Parable of the Lost Coin), Milakov (Newt) calls. Are you ready for the fight of the century?

Hayao here. Where are you, Captain?… Nothing. We should go!

By the way, the music's still upbeat.



In case these four colors don't terrify you to the core, rejoice in the long awaited Newt-Monster confrontation (that ends with a Deus ex Machina (spoilers)). Rejoice!

Captain!
Hayao! Carson's hit! My freeze ray won't work!

Just tell us this. Visual cues in games are highly overrated.

The monster?
There!

Thanks, Eline. I don't know what I'd do without your help.

Damn! My gun's got plenty of energy, so if I can…




It's fleeing! For now.



That was my cassette, but there was more music.
There was a tape before, but who turned it on?



Because, you know, that report would have been so helpful. Weren't we pretending the thing was weak to cold?

What does a true warrior do? We stay calm and regroup.

>Look
Don't be restless.

>Search
Nothing new here.

>TlkElne
It make take your DNA too. Will it gain your cuteness?
Please don't say that.

So hey, there's a fairly real chance you're going to die soon alone with me up here in space. There's a terrible monster who's murdered the crew of this mission, and extreme courage and foresight are needed to have any chance of making it through. You have breasts. I'm Hayao!

>TlkElne


(On the bright side, it's still not as bad as 6 Days)

>TlkMkov
I talked to Carson and..
I heard it. If it's true, it's a terrible monster…

>TlkMkov
It took humans so long to evolve. That thing did it instantly!
It's horrifying.
It was inside the gas from the comet… so, then, eggs of those monsters are in the gas.

Not really. We know it can reproduce asexually since it grew from the tiny shard it Left Behind, and I'm pretty sure that in my obsessive following of the TVTropes community I've seen better supported theories about Friendship is Magic being a sequel to Dragonball Z, and I'm pretty sure I've written a better supported theory about Friendship is Magic being a sequel to Dragonball Z, and you aren't a mug-owning Xenobiologist so I'm less inclined to believe you unless you start wars with some galaxies since Andromeda's not backing down. I don't know, sorry for nitpicking, but these small quibbles do get in the way of what could be a well written yeah I'm not finishing this sentence and Enix can't write.

>TlkMkov
Could it be impossible to defeat it now?
Maybe.
Halley's Comet is approaching. The plan could be to crash it into Earth!

Speaking of writing ability, welcome to conflict and what I think is the actual reason we went into space. The comet (not Comet) is crashing into Earth so they sent two ships to look really close at some gas, I believe. I feel we would have mentioned this before, but if that isn't what's happening I'm not sure why we think that's its plan when it left the comet to kill us and probably isn't sentient enough to plan.

I'll be honest; I have no idea what this means. Like, this isn't my usual facetious commentary used to segue from one idea to another in overly verbose affected ways; I've played this twice and I'm honestly not sure whether or not the Earth is in imminent danger from a comet (not Comet). I think it is, and I'm pretty sure that's what those last lines mean, and going with that makes my title about the end of days make actual sense. But I suppose it could mean that the monster left the comet to kill some guys to go back to the comet (not Mercury) and crash it into Earth (...somehow), and that Halley is just approaching in the usual way it does every 70some years.

If the comet isn't crashing, were extrapolating even more absurdly from the presence of some spit and contracting everything we understand about the alien as well as comets and the steering thereof. If it is crashing, this is the worst mission ever even described. Occam's Razor leads me to the latter. The comet (it's not yet a bolide) is crashing towards Earth.

It's best to assume, for now, it's a dim beast. If that's so, then it thinks only of its next meal.
Cold guns don't work. The odds.
We cannot give up! We must contact Jesus. Follow me to the cockpit.



Well, that disaster I mentioned through LPer fiat will happen, but on the even brighter side we get my favorite shot of age-lines-as-space-mustache galaxy man and can talk about nothing some more. We need a Newt Gingrich Warrior emoticon. (We in no way need or would use a Newt Gingrich emoticon).

>TalkElne
What happened to the auto repair?
It's broken..

>Look
Don't be restless..

>Search
Nothing new's here.

>Go
Don't go off alone.

>TalkElne


Eline is clearly uncomfortable here and waiting for Gingrich to step in any day now, while Hayao is trying to show off his cat ears and get his surrogate space dad to tell him he did a good job. Dinner time, particularly if dreadful things happen again, will likely be awkward at best.

>TlkMlkv
What happened to your tranceiver?
Oh? Hm. I must've dropped it before.

>TlkMlkv
Shall I go and find it…?

>TlkMlkv
Hayao! Whose voice is that?

As always, there's no sound cue here at all.

But we're the only ones left..2
It's Carson. Come here, I know its weakness.

I'm using that picture since the speaker's unclear; in game it isn't attributed to anyone and Carson's surely dead as was told to us anticlimactically and never confirmed.

W.. What.. Carson's surely dead.
Bellini left a message for us on the Comet. Could Carson do the same on this ship?
For now, we need to find out. Hayao, take a look.

Please decide whether or not splitting up is a good plan, thanks in advance.

Yes sir. I'll take care




>Search Flr
Eline's cassette. It's smashed into pieces…

>Search Tape
No tape here. Where'd it go? Let's look.

Hayao is remarkably bad at this whole object permanence thing. Anyway, in order to advance plot stasis we need to go to the Machine Room and then leave, being trapped in a place we visited just to be trapped there.



In fact, while I won't bother to Tindeck it, we actually get a dramatic music cue --not for the five deaths or a monster being loose on the ship (which Carson, for one, didn't seem informed of), but just when the lift doesn't work. I'm suspecting the fragment system of warnings was a team-building exercise gone horribly awry.

>Search
No joke! At this rate we fry!

>Look
Damn… It's too hot!

Hayao can apparently see infrared. Good to know.

>Speak
Fojii, you look strange.
Not related to this in particular; you just have an ugly design.
We need to lure it…

>Speak
Did it use Carson's voice? It speaks?
Well… Its evolving.

Who's to say it isn't just a lifecycle thing like caterpillars? After all, it isn't really more human-like, and Carson's understanding of evolutions seems to owe more to Pokemon than to actual biology. We just didn't hit B while it was growing so it's now Jesus 2. Maybe we need to go back and train Synthzr some more.

>Speak
Anyway, let's go
Lift's broken.

>Speak Fojii


Before this line, we were just choosing Speak. For the rest of this conversation, Speak brings up a submenu with one option -- "Fojii" -- to pick. Also we apparently left our gun in the fridge.

Mmm, feels good… I'll head on up to the ceiling.
Let's try it.

>Use FrzeGun
I'll shoot the floor, too

>Look Rope


Again, the submenu only gives us "Rope". The three frames of animation here offer probably the most intricate visual cue outside of a cutscene and two-thirds of. Art budget for the game.

>Search Rope
Returns to the top level



So kids, what did we actually discover? Not exactly sure. We left, saw a tape was broken, went into a hot room, and then came back to "report" on having walked some steps. How did our robot on wheels even get up a floor?

Good work. The monster is wandering..
By the way, Did you contact Jesus?
I just finished it.

>Look Eline
What is it?
..Nothing.

>Look Eline
Stop staring.

>Look Eline
Captain's looking.

We need to do this three times to move on, something Hayao never will.

>Look Screen
Void of space.. Stars beyond number..

>TalkElne


Her attempt to talk gangsta was met with the same looks as every other thing.

>TalkElne
Did I miss anything?
More signals and contacting Jesus. It was busy.

All of these names are under the TlkMlkv menu:

>Hoka
Did Hoka say anything when I was on the Comet?
She was worried about you.

>Carson
Carson say anything?
He had a new game he wanted to show you.

God, Hayao's coworkers are sick of him. Why didn't he show me when I was talking to him? Too busy holding his arm and pretending to read a report?

>Carson
Anything else?
He said he could run it on his capsule's computer.
So his capsule's computer can link to the main computer then…
Anything wrong?
I can't look now...

>Commander
What's Cmdr say?
He wants us back and it dead. "Do your best"

>Status
What do you think?
We must find out why so much of the ship is breaking

It... it is? See, it's this approach to things that makes me accept "we never mentioned a comet is hurling towards Earth" as an actual plot point they tried. We're told remarkably little about minor things like threats to life on Earth compared to, say video games, but I still get the impression we're not supposed to hate the whole non-Gingrich crew.

The monster…?
No idea. But life support works, so we can reach Jesus.

>WhatNow
What should we do?
We'll rendezvous with Jesus. Then we leave it to the Defense Forces?

Jesus consists entirely of Cmdr man sitting in a chair. Aren't we soldiers? Aren't the Defense Forces us?

>WhatNow
In the worst case we can retreat to the air and watertight capsules. The monster can't get in.

...

This game does a poor job of building tension. The ship's breaking! But all the important things work. And if anything bad happens there's an easy way to stay safe. And Jesus' eternally vigilant defense forces can take care of the threat pretty easily when we arrive, which will happen pretty soon and without any work. Here's an aside about gaming. Oh, the ship's breaking. I guess one day we'll want to tighten screws

>WhatNow
And the monster?
We must pray it doesn't come.

Come on, Mkov, you're supposed to go into private to pray. Thou hypocrite, Soviet Praying in front of your coworkers other guys on the ship? Verily you have your reward

>Search Ceiling







Thinking of who to kill?
Let's fire!



Oh, and horror is happening. Our first glimpse of Gingrich's warrior prowess comes as he dyes his hair offscreen and refits his collar to disguise himself as an orchid rather than a man, with surprisingly solid results .

Yes.
Eline's safe now.
Good. Hayao.
I'm by the door. Captain, hurry.
I'm fi… ugh!



Meanwhile, the monster tries its own tactics by enticing the three with a rave, but Hayao's never been to a party and it's ineffective at best.

I need to get you safe first
I was lying four lines ago by saying you already were! Also your other boyfriends don't respect you. Have sex with me.
I'm perfectly fine! Go save him!
OK, I'll give it a taste of this.







Didn't Gingrich tell us these weapons didn't work? I mean, granted, I'd probably also complain if we took that on faith, but if we can't trust Soviet Galaxy Man then what hope do we have?



I'm o.. ah!
What?
It's still fast! Captain's in danger.




It can speak! It has become intelligent!
But why aim for Eline…?
It knows something we don't. Its weak point. Run, Hayao!! And protect Eline!
And… Leave you here? I can't do that!
I'm a soldier like you. I can't run.

Come to think of it I'm not like you at all. Go away.

But…
That's an order! GO!
Agh!
What…?
Captain pushed me out.
The door's closing. Captain's inside!



If nothing else, the video at the end is worth watching to see how this door closes on Hayao as he stands stock still, horrified at his captain's sacrifice but not enough to move his arms or blink. We apparently spent that whole time talking at the back of his neck from another room, which is still [played out joke about Hayao's ineptitude here].



Monsuta (if this didnt come across, you're supposed to be frightened by now), recently evolved from spine-crab to dinosaur and having lost most of its eyes, now vigorously uses a fleshlight under a mattress in a shot which makes us question how different it is from Hayao (and you didn't listen. You were warned). Having stolen DNA from a cross-section of humans apparently, it can now feel shame and is currently wide-eyed at the emptiness of its warmth-seeking but ultimately everyone-alienating (ha!) life. Incidentally, I've taken the time to recreate a conversation between King Records employees as represented by a go kart and some bread:

Hello coworker to whom I've been talking regarding the game we are to design known as Jesus at the company employing us to be employees making games. My idea for where the story should go is that now the alien gets rather large and evolved.
Wouldn't he need to consume something? He's not getting the mass for his new form from the luminiferous aether, or from heat.
Sci-Fi.
Also, even humans who have all that DNA need a few months of gestation ti-
SCI. FI.
I'm sold. Let us implement this plan.

Oh, and the warrior's dead. Alas!



Probably not.
Sacrificed… for us?
No, for humanity. Not just him. Balkas, Bellini, Huyler, Hoka, Carson… For their sake, we must beat that monster and rescue the Earth.

Poor Space Gingrich. The only character I actually liked, you nobly sacrificed yourself for your faith that we could be saved for a week or so pre- comet hitting Earth. Just like the great religious figure Tegh Bahadur Sahib (What? I can skim Wikipedia for ill-thought-out references too), your death will be remembered by all perhaps three.

Not just him. Balkas, Bellini, Huyler, Hoka, Carson… For their sake, we must beat that monster and rescue the Earth.

Bonus: The Saddest Scene