Part 30: Episode XXX: Nope... Nope! NOPE!

Episode XXX: Nope... Nope! NOPE!



OK... Let’s try that one more time. This time holding onto Koudelka’s Pendant to avoid a face melting fate normally only reserved for Nazis.



Previously steady, it suddenly picks up pace until it feels as though the plant will explode.



I’ve suddenly got quite a migraine. It is making my skin crawl.
<shakes head> For once I feel like punching isn’t going to help here...
<sassy pose>





In this timeline, Koudelka is having absolutely none of this evil ass plant’s bullshit.



Just as before, a very gooey Elaine reveals herself in the Tree of Life flower bloom. Has she just been chilling in this thing for the last year or so? Or was her flower house a recent development? The answer to this and more... won’t be elaborated upon and doesn’t matter.



Events proceed much the same way they did earlier. Only this time...







Hey, did you know Koudelka’s Pendant was actually an extremely powerful magic ward capable of blocking even face melting blasts from an unholy abomination? That’s the reason we needed that thing. You’d think Koudelka would have been slightly more upset she lost it climbing on the roof or had I dunno... any reaction when she retrieved it again.





In any case, the gang succeeds in keeping their flesh intact this go around. So that’s a marked improvement on their situation over last time.



Elaine just cannot BELIEVE this bullshit going down. A magic pendant the importance of which is never mentioned or discussed at any point? Garbage! So what’s next for the naked slimy lady? Well...



What if she cracked her limbs backwards and started running around on the ceiling like some kind of fucked up model swapped Licker mod?





Edward Plunkett is having absolutely none of this freaky The Exorcist spider walk bullshit and immediately opens fire on Elaine as she clatters along the ceiling. For once that’s probably the best course of action.





After quite a few missed shots, Eddie finally manages to peg Elaine and she immediately falls twenty feet, lands square on her neck and flops over dead. Well, then...



Hah! That was easy. I don’t know what all the fuss was about.
......
Don’t go near that thing, Edward.
Why not? There’s no getting up from a spill like tha—







Oh HELL!
Fuck. That!
<already running for the exit>





Welp. It was never going to be that easy, was it? Here on the Church Fifth Floor we have the very final temporary save point of the game. Despite Elaine being hot on the gang’s heels, we do have a moment to catch our breath and prepare for what’s to come.





That’s because this game engine is very limited and they couldn’t actually animate Elaine chasing after us in-game. So instead, at a predetermined point at the top of the stairs, the narration will announce our pursuer has caught up to our bumbling trio.


New Music: Patience (Hey there’s actually a third battle track in this game and it’s pretty good! If not really appropriate for the body horror adversary it accompanies. You should probably listen to it!)



Elaine’s freaky naked horrid affront to God ass is here and she wants to rumble. She even brought her own music track. Elaine comes packing a respectable but not too daunting 11811 HP.



Elaine has a fairly limited moveset. And by that I mean she has exact two moves. There’s a physical strike with her all mondo fucked up limbs which either inflicts poison or will steal some HP. We don’t need to worry about that since Edward is a stout boy and will tank that just fine.





More pressingly is Elaine’s minty fresh Mentos breath which no longer melts all the flesh off our unprepared party. But it will inflict fairly significant magic damage to all three party members. But mostly to Edward and his neglect in learning the dark arts of wizardry in favor of being tough and punching/stabbing/shooting stuff.



This can be remedied fairly easily by casting that Reflect spell we obtained back around the time we chatted with Elaine’s spirit. Reflect in Koudelka naturally has bizarre calculations to its mechanics. Instead of just reflecting magical damage full stop like in many RPGS, Koudelka’s Reflect runs a calculation of how much damage that magic spell would inflict were it cast with the party member in question’s stats. So Reflect cast on Edward does extremely piddling damage because of the poor magic based stats we’ve given him. Meanwhile, if Reflect were on Koudelka or James it would deal some decent damage back from magic attacks.



Gotta have one more esoteric quirk to this awful battle system before we wrap, right? The biggest boon of Reflect is regardless of our character’s stats, it will negate all magic damage. Indeed, a strategy to taking on the Gargoyle is to just load everyone up with Reflect casted on them, have someone out front to tank physical damage and just use items to heal ‘em while Gargoyle slowly kills itself with its own magic attacks.



That’s a lot of talk about preserving Edward considering there is another little wrinkle to this fight -- Elaine is completely immune to all physical damage. Ignore the fact Edward just shot her in that previous cutscene and she completely ate shit from it. She’s no-selling anything Edward can dish out for the duration of this fight. So he’s just relegated to a punching bag for this bout.





That’s OK. We’ve got magic to make up the gap in damage output. But ONLY certain spells are allowed during this fight. Elaine is immune to Earth and Water elements. Only Fire and Wind work for this fight. That suits us just fine. Koudelka has gotten very good at burning things lately and James has a blooming pyromaniac streak.



Elaine eventually falls... For now.

Music: ENDS



Naturally, we didn’t unceremoniously slay the final boss in some random stairwell. That’d be a touch anticlimactic. No, we’ve got to keep climbing upward to the top of this... burning clock tower. Guys, did you think this one through very well...?



No time to worry about how the hell we’re getting off the top of the largest building in all of Aberystwyth. Elaine’s back and she’s still pissed. Or an emotionless husk that only has some primal urge to murder. There’s really very little difference, honestly.


New Music: Patience ~ Live (Yeah... the concert version of this doesn’t fit at all.)



"Pupal form of Elaine. Her skin hardened against magic, she possess no intelligence and works only on animal instinct. Her presence is anathema to humanity."
Apparently a lot of enemies had overly elaborate descriptions in the Japanese guide for the game. It’d be neat if they had incorporated that into some kind of database in-game. Maybe with a model viewer of some kind. Maybe I’ll LP a game that does that again someday...



Elaine Round 2 comes packing the exact same stats and HP. But she’s remixed her immunities this go around. Regardless, we’ll still immediately cast Reflect on Edward to keep him healthy. He’s at least useful beyond soaking up damage this go around.



That’s because Elaine is now vulnerable to physical attacks and since we’re two fights from the end of the game, I felt it a good time to equip him with the Soul Edge Sacnoth Sword. Which does a pretty decent job dishing out the damage. Time to redeem yourself from that last poor showing, Edward.





This go around Elaine is invulnerable to both Wind and Fire, so we’ve got to have our remaining mages delve into their Water and Earth Bending abilities to get the job done. Those two spells aren’t quite as leveled up with Koudelka because... well... we got them later and they’re further down the menu when casting magic.





But that’s no big deal! Edward could probably handily solo the fight himself. Once more Elaine howls and vanishes from the field. Quite the awkward reunion with a lady James wanted to bone back when he was young, eh?





At least, one more flight of stairs and we’ve reached the top of the clock tower. Be on the lookout for Pirate Grandpas or dancing serial killer spirits.



So uhh... there was a plan, right? Climbing up onto the top of the tower? Like using the bells to stun her or something, maybe? Surely you chucklefucks didn’t just start running in a random direction and whoops! We’re on the roof!

...

......

That’s totally the case, isn’t it? You goddamn bunch of buffoons!



AAAH! It’s hideo—oh wait... It’s just Koudelka’s CGI model. False alarm.



Oh hey, Elaine. You’re here too, huh? Can you believe these morons just set the bottom floors of the building they were on ablaze than ran to the top without thinking about what to do next? Ridiculous, isn’t it?



You’ve been kind of packing on the pounds since our last fight thirty seconds ago, huh? You’ve got to cut back on the carbs. They’re going straight to your thighs.



Elaine is not taking her recent losses well... Nobody likes a sore loser, Elaine. Take it down a notch!



Tentacles... It always has to be tentacles with the body horror, doesn’t it? Someone should really tell game and film makers that rowdy spaghetti noodles has been played out.







Now bug folk... not enough of that, in my opinion. Jeff Goldblum? Intensely creepy dude on his own. Jeff Goldblum as a BUG? Shit’s fucked!



Meet True Elaine. She’s a large angry bug-human homunculi hybrid... thingie now. Why? Huh? Wha? Yeah, I got no answers for you. Don’t mess with alchemy. It is ALWAYS a bad scene! Without fail! If you see someone lose a loved one and they even look side-eyed at a flask or some occult text, smack them upside the head immediately and get them off that shit!





I’m not sure if True Elaine can summon lightning bolts or this is just an inopportune weather event common to the Welsh countryside. It could really go either way. Regardless...





The gang really should have thought this through harder. Tune in next time for the conclusion to Koudelka! Assuming they aren’t immediately crushed by falling rubble and a collapsing tower. No moral.






Video: Episode 30 Highlight Reel (You should watch this.)





Elaine and Patrick Manga Art – Good going, Pat. Nailed it in one!