Part 11: Summer/Autumn 1991

    

Hello again, and welcome back to Linda³!

Last time, we of course finished Scenario A, so now we need to "push the reset button" and try something different!



We're back at the main menu, so I guess let's just select "Start" again!



We of course get the familiar scenario choice menu, but this time...



...we'll be going for Scenario B! Let's see what are the winning conditions.



So, here we go:
- Collect no less than 50 animal species.
- Take off with the ark.

Actually the only difference from last time is that we have to collect 50 species instead of 30--of course that means one male and one female of each species, like before. As always, we'll be playing on "normal" difficulty, but if you do choose the "hard" option, then you have an additional restriction: you are not allowed to have dogs in your party (or indeed any other animal that Linda can train for that purpose); this is in addition to a slightly faster passage of time.

Also, in the PC Engine version these winning conditions were phrased differently and contained surprisingly a bit of a spolier for the plot of this scenario, but in the remake obviously that was fixed and the spoiler removed. I'll mention this when it's no longer a spoiler!

All right, enough talking, let's get started.



The start, however, finds Ken in a familiar situation of eating breakfast at his mother's house.





You'll be late again, even though our house is just behind the Ranger HQ building! I heard that of all the rangers you're the one most often late! Your dad must be crying in heaven!



Mother! I have something important to tell you!
Huh, what? Why so formal?
But anyway, we don't have time for that now, the commander is probably just about to call with a wake-up call for you!

The phone starts ringing.

There he is, just as I was talking about it!

She goes to answer the phone.



What? Oh, commander, I'm just an old lady, please don't make fun of me!

She finishes the conversation.



Three, two, one, go! Come on, go already!



And, so, here we go!



As before, we can talk to this girl here to get a free dog, since her family is leaving the planet and they can't take the dog with them. We'll get the second dog shortly, but for now, let's head into the HQ building.





As it turns out, most people in this town don't have anything new to say compared to what they were saying in Scenario A. Therefore, we won't need to make a big tour this time around. We will however check out a few things which are different or which I may have missed last time. So with that in mind, let's head quickly down into the basement where the prison cells are!



This guy who is imprisoned here I think we haven't come across previously.

I heard that TransCargo on your back is just a modified version of an artifact found while excavating the ruins of Annabis. But how come when I do it, it's grave robbing, but when you rangers do it, it's archaeology?

Funny. Let's quickly check the lady sitting at her desk:



Ken, have you seen the keys for the storage room? It looks like someone must have taken them. Oh well, it's just junk in there anyway so it doesn't matter.

Yeah, there are a couple of chests here in the locked room:



...but we can't get to them as we don't have the key. One of these days. One of these days, we'll find somewhere, somehow, a key that opens one of these locked rooms with chests. Well, to be fair, for this particular door, we could go and get the key more or less right now, but we'll hold off a bit until we get the plot going!

By the way did you know that in this game there is actually a chest in a locked room which simply contains a key for another locked room with chests? Yeah. But don't worry. We'll open all those locked doors when the time comes.

Now, let's head upstairs for our meeting with the commander.



Yeah, so it's the same meeting like last time, where Ken has to apply to be part of the ark crew.



All right, Ken, take your place.



Ken does so.

I guess you all know the purpose of this meeting, but I guess it doesn't hurt to recap it briefly?
Yes. / [ No. ]

If you say yes, the same exact cutscene plays which we've already seen in the first scenario where the commander explains briefly the situation. Since we've already seen it, we can simply say "no" here to proceed directly to what happens after.



There is, like before, no other option here but to push the button and become a crew member. Although if you try to leave, the ranger next to you tells you something like "can you please push the button already, I need to go to the loo". So that's funny.

Anyway, Ken pushes the button.

Ken, are you sure about this? We don't even know where the ark will go. There's no guarantee you'll survive. Is that really ok?
[ I'm ready. ] / I don't think I can do it.
All right! It's been decided hat Ken will be the male crew member! Everyone should help out Ken to prepare as long as it doesn't interfere with their regular work. Dismissed!

But, as everybody leaves, another person comes into the room... Who is that?



Ken! Let's me introduce you! This is aide Kammer, who came from the Federation HQ to help us push forward the ark project!



The future of animals on this planet... no, the future of mankind itself... is now secure! And so is my position in the Federation HQ! T-h-a-n-k  y-o-u! 🎔
If there's anything I can do for you, I will be staying at the Ozport hotel, so please feel free to come and talk to me.

He leaves. I guess we'll go and talk to him at some point a bit later.

Ken, if you're regretting it, it's a bit too late for that. Now head over to the ark and register as the crew member, no take-backsies! Make sure to tell you mum about it too, okay?

All right, we're done with this and can leave now.



Before leaving, I check behind the boxes that Linda is not hiding there again with the intent of beating Ken up with a large stick! But no, she's not here this time, so we can go in peace. Also, I'm not going to check the calendar there in the corner because of course it restarted with 1991, so we don't need to worry about that until 1993. Anyway, as we go down the stairs...



...Linda and her mum are waiting there!





Where did they all even come from? Why is there a little girl among these people?

Me, Linda, and Ken here, we have bravely applied to be the part of the crew of the ark, who will save the animals!

Everybody claps.

Thank you, thank you, you're too kind! On the path these two young people will take, there will be many extraordinary challenges! But, we will prevail! I will show you now the proof!



*kissssss* 🎔

Everybody claps. Loud cheering.

We'll be fine because we love each other! We'll be able to accomplish anything!



Everybody claps. Loud cheering.

Linda starts to leave while everybody claps and cheers.



Just as she's about to leave the building...

Ken! Come soon and visit me in Minago! I'll wait for you! 🎔

And she's gone. But Linda's mum approaches Ken...



Everybody claps. Loud cheering.

Please, Kenny! No matter what happens, please protect Linda! I beg you!

Everybody claps. Loud cheering.

She also leaves...



...and then so does everybody else. As you can see, this time there is no "you have to be level 3" kind of thing, so we COULD just head to Minago right now. But we'll do a few other things first.



Like getting 100 G from the bank and taking out a loan up to a maximum possible 400 G. This gives us a total of 600 G in the pocket, enough to get started. The maximum loan amount, by the way, is equal to your yearly salary at that moment. Ken starts with a salary of 100 G per quarter so the maximum loan is 400. Don't worry, we're going to employ the money making trick in a few minutes and will quickly earn a lot more than that. But we need the loan to get started.



The other thing we should do is get ourselves a second dog. Because right now Linda is NOT in our party so it would be nice to have some backup.



As before, we can only use a maximum of two katakana letters to name our dog, so this time I decide on the name Aki (=autumn). No, I didn't actually forget that the game starts in summer this time, but I have decided that because of that initial mistake I will never ever name a dog "Summer" in this game. Luckily, the names of all four seasons in Japanese actually fit into two letters, so we should be good.

With this done, we're almost ready to head out. But first...



...over here in the hotel, there is something different! If we go inside and up to to the second floor where the bar/lounge is...



... we can see that there's a whole bunch of people here now, including even a singer! Let's first talk to the guests, maybe we can find out more what this is all about. First, the ranger standing by the counter.

There is a rumour that this hotel is haunted during daytime. You know, that guy drinking in the corner looks a bit ghostly to me... but maybe it's just in my head.

Yeah, probably. We can also talk to the guests to see what they think of the singer.

Angela's song reminds me of my mum back home and it makes me cry every time.
Good for her. She's the only singer ever who can keep her audience happy with just one song!
When I hear Angela's song, I fall asleep... because it feels like I'm back in the cradle again.

Well those seem like some pretty favourable opinions. We can also talk to the pianist lady.

Isn't Angela's song beautiful? You too can make a request, you only need to give a little tip.

Awesome. Then, let's talk to the singer herself!

Hi, my name is Angela! Will you let me sing a song for you?
[ Let me hear it! ] / Maybe next time.

We do need to give a small tip, but if we do, she does indeed sing a song for us! It's yet another (third) different version of the "Lullaby" song we've heard last time, and you can listen to it here:



Well, I liked that. I think that's probably my favourite among the three versions of this song. Incidentally the vocal for this version is also performed by the game's music composer, Ryouko Kihara.

Angela travels around the planet and visits different towns, so maybe we'll run into her again later on. But for now, that was a nice break and yet another cool touch in a game full of them.



As we pass through the entrance area, we can read the announcement posted there. As always, it gives us an update about the current situation of the world:

N.K. NEWS SPECIAL BULLETIN

A massive pathogen spill in the west area!

A large quantity of a mysterious pathogen has leaked from a Green Pharmaceuticals research facility; already the fourth investigation team has been lost. It is now certain that the entirety of the West Area will be declared a special danger zone on a semi-permanent basis.

Ah, well, there we go. So this means that the whole West Area (which really should be called North Area because it's actually in the north) will be inaccessible to us in this scenario. But instead, we have access to the South Area, which we didn't have before!

Anyway, before we exit, there is one more thing we can quickly do.



If we go up to the Bird Line counter, and talk to the person on our RIGHT side...

I will explain you how our company's menu works. On the left side you have the names of the destinations, in the middle is the price for a direct flight and on the right is the price for a flight with changeovers. Please use it!

So that's pretty inconsequential, right? You can figure it out wihout needing an explanation.

However, if you talk to her twice more, she will just repeat the same thing again. But on the fourth attempt...



...this happens! What could it mean? Well, if you check the destinations specifically with her (and not with the person on the LEFT side), you see this...



Basically, we have now unlocked the Bird Line route to Nebul! If you recall, Nebul is that "secret" town built inside a mountain that we had to traverse a cave to reach. Well, if you talk to this person 3 times, you unlock fast travel to that destination also! Pretty cool! This does work regardless of which scenario you're in!

Ok, now that we have done this, we can head outside.



We should go and register at the ark!



As before, we can talk to the floating robots, but this all the same as before, so we simply go to this room...



...where Ken uses his right hand to register!





Ken Challenger Human ♂ Registered.
The ship welcomes you as a crew member and master.
Ken, welcome to the ark!

Ok, now that we're taken care of all the preliminaries, we can finally get started.

First, let's break the game's economy a little bit. I have talked about this previously, but now let's see it for real!

As you might recall, I said that it's possible to quickly gain whatever amount of money you want, right now at the start of the game (and also it doesn't even cause any time to pass!).

Here's how that works. First, we take the Bird Line over to Ozport.



By the way, completely unrelated, but while we're here...



...you can actually walk through this passage here.



If you do so, you reach a little secret area with a chest in it! The chest contains a weapon--the dog sword! If we equip it on Ken...



...we can see that it's a fair bit stronger than his initial weapon! I'll equip it for now, but we'll replace it with something else before he even uses it. Still, not bad to keep it in reserve at least.

As far as this secret area goes, there is in fact a secret within a secret, but we'll leave that for later. For now, let's go where we originally intended to...



And that's over here, where the animal trader is.



We'll buy as many female rats as we can, while leaving just a bit of money for the Bird Line trip to Minago.



In Minago, in this house, you can find the animal dismantler!



Dismanle all the rats, chances are probably about 30-40% of them will result in a "swallow cutter", a weapon we're already quite familiar with. While a single rat costs only 20 G, this weapon sells for around 1400 and has a pretty good drop rate when dismantling. So now we go over to the equipment shop in Minago...



...and sell all the weapons you got for lots of money. Now just go back to Ozport and again buy as many rats as you can...



Unfortunately, you can only hold a maximum of 99 of any animal--as you can see it only costs 1980 G for that, but we already have 7077 from our first trip! In any case, you can now go back to Minago and repeat the whole process until you get bored or until you decide you have enough money!

Here is where I stopped (it only took about 20 mins to get here):



Just short of 100,000 G. Anyway, I did keep two swallow cutters to actually use. I equip it on Ken:



It's just slightly less powerful than dog sword, but as we already know, it has the benefit of hitting all enemies in front of us, instead of just one!

Now that we have so much money, let's do just one more thing back in Ozport.



In the Ozport item shop, apart from the normal stuff, they also have this thing here for 28,000 G. It's the "Air Free Pass" item I've mentioned before. Let's just buy it! It lets us use the Bird Line services completely for free!

Indeed, if we go to the Bird Line service desk...



...we find that the prices for all destinations are now set to zero, as expected. Nice.

All right. It's time to do get a bit of a start with animal collecting. To begin with, we'll collect a bunch of species which are easily found here around Hardia, Ozport and Hospico. These are all species we've seen before (and not very strong ones either), so I will not go into details other than listing them here.



Ostrich.



Pig.



Rat.



Squid.



Squirrel.



Stonefish.



Monkey.



Mole.



Crab.



Rabbit.

That'll do for now, I think. We can head back to the ark to hand these in.



On the way back, we are informed that it's now Autumn 1991.

Over in the ark...





...we'll hand in all that we have (and I'll just sell the rest afterwards!).

Talking to the friendly robot...



...informs us, of course, that we've collected 10 species out of needed 50. So we should be ok on that front for the time being.

After doing all of this, I remember that I should really go around these few places here and see what the animal traders have for sale, to save some time with species that we've already had the chance to encounter. First I pick up a male/female pair of dragonflies, they CAN actually be found around Hardia, but are a bit of a pain to get them to spawn, so it's an easy shortcut especially since they cost next to nothing. I also buy a female dolphin, just in case we ever find anybody selling a male--dolphins are mostly in the West Area, thus not really accessible to us in this scenario. The final animal that I buy is a female crocodile. The crocodiles can actually be found in Nebul Road cave, but I have a vague impression that females are a bit rare, so we have this one as backup.

Speaking of buying animals, I had a chance to watch a Japanese LP of this game where the player actually manages to collect ALL 50 species needed in this scenario without ever fighting a single battle. He obtains all species through other game mechanics, such as buying, auction house, eggs and so on! So even that is possible in this game!

Anyway, I know. We should really go and see Linda. But it's really weird right? Time passes in this game, but not for the plot itself. You can actually take YEARS before going to see Linda in Minago and it won't be a problem! Funny.

So with that in mind, before going to Minago, let's make a quick trip again to Ozport. Specifically, we'll go and visit that bar/casino area in the basement of the hotel/shopping mall building.



There, it turns out that Angela the singer has now moved! We won't ask her to sing for us, since she does indeed have only one song, but let's just talk to the other people here. First the two guys sitting in the middle. Last time they had for us some conspiracy theories how it wasn't a satellite crash but a targeted assassination! Let's see what they say today.

The West Area has suddenly become an exclusion zone... looks like some kind of pathogen or a parasite escaped from the Green Pharmaceuticals laboratory...
Apparently none of the people who went to the West Area to investigate have returned... Brrr... I'm scared just thinking about it.

Really? No conspiracy theories today? Disappointing.

Then the other guy sitting on the right...

I love to listen to Angela's song to escape from daily life...

Pianist has nothing new to say, so... we're finally going to Minago!



Here we are. There is a ranger here who has some not so nice things to say.

The people in this town are always saying things like "the legend says..." or "according to the legend...". It's no wonder that these Beastians are so backwards.



Downstairs, there's another guy here.

Three people have thrown themselves from the top of the church and committed suicide in the last month. It's terrible. The first woman who killed herself was the worst. She fell on her face... splat! She was actually still alive, so they took her to the hospital... but I doubt she made it. Poor thing.

Wow, ok. Let's go inside.



It took us a while, but we got here in the end! Before heading to Linda's house, let's make a quick tour. This place is quite small compared to other towns, so it will not take long!



Over to the right is the inn. But if you go in they don't even let you stay over and just tell you "aren't you staying at Linda's house anyway?". So we'll head instead into that building behind the inn.



That's definitely a bit messy, but we can talk to the guy in the lab coat.

If you're a ranger, you must be carrying an illustrated guide to animals with you. I've made it for you to use, but it's definitely got a few flaws. But I'm sure you'll be able to fill those in yourself. And also... but let's talk about that next time if you want. Just visit me when you're free.

Yeah, Ken actually does have an animal guide with him! I didn't really show that, but when you're on the overworld you can press a button on the controller, and it allows you to scan any animal you can see around you, to find out what it is and some of its stats. Of course, the more "unusual" the animal, the less information is available on it.

You can also check the animal guide here in this house by using that computer next to Ken.



It allows you to search for an animal by the first letter of it's name!



And then you can see some of its basic details and stats (like in this example for a mole). Of course, for "rarer" animals there will usually not even be a picture much less anything else, until you encounter it personally. This guy does have one other function, but we'll probably not encounter that until Scenario C.

All right, let's go outside and continue our tour of Minago.



Next, we'll head over into this building.



This is the butcher shop. Let's start with the guy sitting there on the side first.

We Beastians say that our ancestors came from the underground through a long tunnel. But I think that's a childrens's story, because I found out the truth when I was 13... my friend's mum and sister taught me.

Uh, do you actually mean that... actually, no, don't answer that, please. Let's just talk to the shop owner.

Unless your ancestors were hyenas, it's probably better to refrain from eating rotten meat. I mean you're not going to die or anything, but it may have other unpleasant effects on your underwear.

I assume this is how you're supposed to know about how to catch hyenas.



There is this lady behind the shop, so...

The ark must have been sleeping deep underground. The legendary "Mother of all Flesh" must have sent it down to us. And I thank her for that!

This whole story about the ark's origin and all that did get a bit neglected, but do not worry! We'll get to it.

Also, I seem to be saying "we'll get to that" a lot, but the game just has a bit of an unusual structure, so there's no other way to say it really.



Next we go in here...



It houses the animal trader and the equipment shop, just barely visible in the corner. We can also talk to this person sitting at the table.

A scholar was proposing a theory that the savagery of an animal is proportionate to the number of different animals it kills and eats. But then he looked at his dinner table and decided to abandon that theory!

The animal trader:

The sale price of a rare animal could keep you fed for many years, so you wouldn't have to worry about your salary.

True story, there are animals in this game which you can sell for millions of G! But the trick is how to find them!



Let's move to the other side, where there are two more people. First the guy in white shirt:

Apparently the ark is also a legendary ship mentioned in the primitive myths of the human settlers. But even in the early days, they would call us Beastians "outdated" or "clinging to tradition". I'm not really sure who is more outdated...

The equipment shop owner mostly has a small bit of tutorial.

With so many animals and pieces of equimpement to choose from, it's important not to forget: if you're not good enough, no equipment will help you!

Certainly another true story!

I also randomly buy the "rhino cap" from this guy because it increases Ken's defence +16:



(Even if it does cost 3300 G!)

Anyway, we continue our tour outside...



...with this lady here.

It seems that many people heard the sound of that woman slamming into the ground when she jumped off the church. But nobody went to check... I'm sure if she was helped earlier she would have survived.



Back across the bridge to this guy here...

Oh, hi! I'm Dr. Oid, an ethnologist! I'm sure that there is something more going on here in Minago! When I find it, I will definitely tell you about it! And when I do, you'll help me out, right?

I'm always up for another mystery! So, yeah, definitely!

We're almost done with our tour! Over here is...





...our old friend, the animal dismantler.

We Beastians are proud to have the blood of animals in our bodies, which we inheried from our ancestors. It seems that many of the Federation settlers also have the blood of a beast in their veins, but in their case it's more kind of a blackness in their hearts.

There does seem to be a bit of a tension between the Federation people and the Beastians, doesn't there?



Finally, we're going to Linda's house. For some reason, there's a person loitering in front of it!?

I had no idea that Linda's mum and dad had divorced about four years ago... but they've recently got back together! I guess it's true what they say: the children keep a marriage together!

All right! We're going inside!

But this update is horrifically long, so it doesn't actually fit into one post! Please continue reading in the next post!