The Let's Play Archive

Linda Cube [Linda³]

by ivantod

Part 29: Spring-Autumn 1995

    




            No fruit dies so vile and offensive a death as the banana.
                    -- Kiran Desai


Last time, Linda and Ken explored a bit in the underground and found what looked like a hologram of Ken's adoptive father. He ultimately was not able to tell us much, other than the fact that he ended up down there by accident and that he was the one who sent the ark. He also mentioned that all the robots we have seem around remained there after their previous "masters" were already dead or gone and he just assumed the role. We also explored the abandoned hotel on the southwestern coast.

And so, as we start todays episode...



...it becomes Spring 1995!

Before we proceed, I want to make a small correction. Last time I mentioned that Linda's "Moon of Yabasa" ability is a big heal for the whole party--but actually I got that confused with another ability. Moon of Yabase actually puts all enemies to sleep with good probability! These new abilities obtained from rings are really powerful, as you can see.

And now, being that it is a new year, we should as always go...



...and check out the calendar for this year.



I'm pretty sure we've already seen this one before.

Before we proceed, there is one other thing I wanted so show you.



This is our inventory, and the highlighted item is basically an "oval shaped chocolate". Each spring this item appears in your inventory, presumably as a Valentine's day chocolate given from Ken to Linda or vice versa. A neat little touch in a game full of them. The usage of the item is just as a consumable that heals your HP when you use it.

So, with that done, we'll head down to Dogy Figh again.



Actually we'll head outside of Dogy Figh...



...where we find another one of these.



There is a silver pedestal here.

Would you like to put the silver beastman statue on the pedestal?

We certainly do.



This, of course, activates the teleporter. If we use it...



...we are teleported again down into the underground, but at a different location.



Here we can see on the map that we are in a totally different place from last time (our location is the black rectangle). In fact, if you look carefully at this map, you can see that there are some areas here which are completely blocked off by mountains and or water. So they cannot be accessed by walking, and you need the different coloured statues to be able to get to everything. Well, that's not entirely true, there's one other way, but we'll see about that later.

Anyway, on the previous screenshot you can already see a familiar animal species we can catch!



I am talking, of course, about lions. As you can see some species can found both over- and underground. But in general that is not the case for most of them. On the whole, the ones which can be found down here tend to be a bit more on the "exotic" side as far as the game is concerned, so quite a few of them will be in Class A. Here is where we will also find some as yet "undiscovered" species (which nonetheless cound for our total of 120!).

The other thing we can do in this part of the underground is... let ourselves get ambushed.



Most of the time this will result in an attack from a bunch of buffalos!



They rely mostly on brute force, but also have that "eject" ability which we've already seen with snakeheads. If the ejected person is Ken then this will end the battle prematurely, which can be a bit funny when it happens!

We'll now head back out as we really came here for now to get those two species in our backpack.



Back on the surface, we'll head again to battle park.



Or, rather, again just outside of it. Going into that ruin there...



...we can place here another beastman necklace. When active, this teleporter leads to Xass, so it basically saves you some walking, if you want.



A bit north is one more of these.



In this one, we can place the red beastman statue for another way into the undergound!



Here we are. If we check the map...



...we can see that this has taken us to that northwestern part which is not reachable by walking!

Well, first let's get a couple of species here for the ark and then... I will reveal the true reason for coming here!



Hey there, what are you?



Oh, right. Cicadas, of course.



I do like that the game often tries to tailor the animal's abilities a bit to their real world counterpart. So buffalos use brute force, cicadas make weird sounds to attack you and so on!

And yes, those are hooves on their feet of course. It can be seen even more clearly in the PC Engine version:



The other thing here are...



...these flying creatures.



Turns out, those are eels.



Again, unsurprisingly, their attacks are mostly electric-based!

As is often the case, the PC Engine version is just a bit less cute and a bit more horrific looking:



But anyway...



...as it turns out, there are also caves/dungeons down here too. And they are a little bit more unique than those overground.

So let's head into this one here.



This place is caled Melt Pot. Let's have a look.



So far, so ordinary...



...but after coming downstairs, we can see that this place is practically floating in lava! Therefore, as you can probably guess by now, we have come here for one single reason. To get some hot poop. You know, for the cherry trees in Eterna.



Just lava everywhere!



Walking through the dungeon, we pass by some random poop on the ground. But if we pick up the one in the middle...



...it turns out to be exactly the hot poop that we need for the cherry trees! It's not actually random, it's always this one here. The other two are just "warm" poop instead of "hot".

Nevetheless, let's continue through the dungeon, as there are two more inportant things to be found inside here!



You can also find this teleporter as you walk around! As you can already expect, it leads to...



Ah-ha! Looks like here we can use two more of our rings!



Ken absorbed the power of Harabade!

Maximum HP +5, Maximum BP +3, Attack Power +8, Defence +2, Speed +6

Of course, in addition to this, he also gains an ability: "The Foam of Haraba". This ability causes all enemies to be ejected from the battle with high probability, thus likely ending the battle. You might ask, what's the point of this, when there is an "Escape" command in battle? Well, the escape command works only when you're not surrounded on all four sides. So this is kind of an "emergency" ability if you really need to escape the battle!

Anyway, let's see about Linda's ring.



Linda absorbed the power of Haraba!

Maximum HP +4, Maximum BP +7, Attack Power +5, Defence +6, Speed +3

In addition to this, she gets the ability "The Water of Haraba". This one gives a big increase in speed to the whole party.

Now then, I'm sure that chest in the corner has not escaped your attention. Let's have a look.



Hey! Nice! Unlike the white one, this one does belong with the others and will activate a teleporter!

There are some animal species we'll come back to capture later on, but at this point let's just push on and reach the end of this dungeon.



Indeed. In order to reach the chest, you'll have to pick up the poop from the ground to clear the passage. The top and the bottom chest actually contain just more poop, but the middle one...



Oh no. Just as we managed to figure out what one related set of items does, it seems... well it certainly seems that we've got a first item of a new set that we again have no idea what to do with. Oh well. Let's keep it in our inventory for now. I'm sure the opportunity will present itself.

In any case, we are done here for now, and having obtained the higly desired hot poop, let's just head back to Eterna to deal with the cherry trees!



Here we are. If we talk to Sophia, she immediately notices we have hot poop with us.

Eh? Let's spread the hot poop into the soil!



She is a little bit impatient...



However, all she needed to do was wait a few seconds, because...



Yay! The cherry trees are back!

Waaaaaaa! Beautiful!
Grandpa! Look! Look! The cherry trees! The cherry trees have bloomed!
Now you have to come with me, just like you promised! You must! I'll take you with even if you don't want to!
Brother! Here's the key to the room where the promised money is hidden! So don't lose it!

Ken received the mansion key!

I've also spread some poop in the flower beds, so you can grow some flowers! Why don't you give them to her as a present? Women go for that! ❤

Yeah we should definitely go and get those 300 G that she promised us!

But before that. You would be forgiven for forgetting as it's been a while, but... we actually have been carrying a pouch of flower seed for quite a while now--we got it from Yamada after giving him 60,000 G! So let's have a look...



Use the seed pouch here?

Yes / No

Sure. Let's see what happens.



And in just a few seconds... a flower grows here! Well, since we have no immediate use for it, we'll just leave it here for the time being. We wouldn't want to risk it wilting over time in our inventory (as flowers do). In the meantime, we'll just have a chat with the gardener there.

When my father, my mother and I moved to Neo-Kenya, it was spring and the cherry trees were in bloom like this. It's quite nostalgic... I hope they bloom again next spring...



We can also talk to the grandpa...

Well, for as long as I have lived, I have never seen a dead tree bloom like that...
Maybe I should try to make another flower bloom... If possible, with a young woman. What do you think, Linda? I still have good technique!

Don't answer that, Linda. It's a trick question.

Anyway, let's just go quickly and get our reward.



This new key allows us to unlock all the locked door here in the mansion. This one is where our immediate reward is. The first chest contains the 300 G, as the girl promised us. The second one contains an air free pass. But I already have one since the beginning of the game, so I'll just sell this one.

There are a few more locked rooms with chests in the mansion, but I won't bore you with that as they all contain just various stimulant drugs that you can use to boost your stats temporarily during the battle.



Instead, we'll go upstairs and talk to the girl's mother.

I heard you made the cherry blossoms bloom for my father. You guys really like doing weird things, don't you?
Maybe you should try digging around the cherry trees. Who knows, you might find a pot of gold or something, huh? Not! The world doesn't work that way, you know! Things don't come so easily!

Digging around the cherry trees, you say? Well, this game is funny enough that now I would exactly expect to find gold buried under one of them!



We have to check! (By the way, not sure why that flower has moved. It's definitely the game and not me doing some weird editing or something).

After a bit of trying...



Huh, well what do you know. There WAS gold buried under the cherry tree!

Oban and koban are names for the old Japanese gold "coins" minted during the period of Tokugawa shogunate from 1600 all the way to mid-1800s. Here is a real one:



By PHGCOM - Own work by uploader, photographed at Toi Museum, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7555742

This one in particular on the photograph happens to be from 1601.

Oh right, before I forget, in order for this to work and to be able to find the coin, you also have to have a dog in your active party. Apparently it's the dog who sniffs it out and digs it out from under the tree!

Anyway, as far as the game item itself is concerned its only purpose is that we can sell it for some money. So even if you miss out on this, it's not a big deal--you only lose the 36,000 G that it sells for.

All righty then. We are basically done with this quest and can head out now. So the only active and unsolved quest that we have now is to bring some pteranodon eggs to Bronco at the farm. But that one will have to wait for just a little bit longer.



While outside, let's make a camp with Linda!

We still have no idea where the ark will take us... Doesn't that make you feel a bit uncertain?
[ A fair bit...] / Not really.
Well, I know that even if we go all the way to the end of the universe, I can survive as long as I have a bit of food... and Ken!



Also... we get another message notification! Perhaps a new quest awaits us?



Back down at the ark, the season switches to Summer 1995. We now have only four years left until the end and still about 50-ish species to collect!

Before we check out the phone message, let's first finish a task which has been outstanding for a while! Some time ago, we gave about 100,000 G to those scientists who were digging for water in Karagoram. So, let's go and see if they've succeeded!



Well, that certainly looks like water, so they must have succeeded. Let's go inside the tent and talk to the guy.



How about it! Didn't I tell you? Just look at that daphnia! Her clear white skin and lovely round eyes! Her body, her face, even the shape of her bottom! Just like my late wife!

All right, calm down. But for us, the important part is that apparently the species that water has brought back is daphnia (a.k.a the water flea, despite the fact that it's a crustacean and not an insect!). Certainly we need to collect them for the ark!

By the way, I forgot to mention, if you take too long before you donate, the professor gets eaten by the dogs that live in this cave and you miss out on daphnias.



Ah, here they are.



Funnily enough, they don't even look that different from "our" daphnias! The real-life ones also do indeed have mostly transparent bodies like this, so their internal organs like the heart etc. can be easily seen.



So this wasn't actually an "official" quest, but obviously you have to do it if you want to capture all 120 species.

In any case, now that that's done, we'll head to Ozport for a bit of a break, because local NPCs suddenly have some VERY interesting things to say about this planet!



Welcome Neokenya!



This person near the (closed) egg shop.

It seems that before the school trip season, young mothers rush to the red cedar tree here. It's quite a sight as they try to quickly erase the names of old boyfriends that they carved here on the spur of the moment, before they got married.



And then this guy by the tree...

It was actually the Federation Tourism Board and the people from the hotel here who gave the tree the name "red thread cedar" and spread the rumour that it guarantees a love match! They are pretty good at this, ho?



Inside, in the airport waiting room, we can talk this person.

All animals on this planet, excluding humans and dogs, are not able to survive when transferred to another planet! Apparently it has to do with the fact that they cannot synthesise certain proteins in their bodies.



Let's head quickly up to Ozsat via the teleporter.



Up on the satellite, a quick chat with this lady sitting at the controls.

The scientists say that this device is not moving anything physically but instead it's only moving the information. In other words, to this device, a human being is nothing more than a mass of information that can be disassembled and reconstructed!

The essence of TransCargo technology which also powers our backpack!



Here we can talk to these two ladies. First the one with the ponytail.

The Federation may have screwed me over this time around, but I will not give up! I'll start over somewhere else and succeed! Even if I don't manage... my children will! That's how I will raise them!

And the one sitting down...

I heard that they found something interesting at the bottom of the ark... the root tissue from a plant. But it was not any plant from this planet. That means that the ark must have flown somewhere before! So now at least you know that it works somehow and that it's worth doing all this.



Upstairs, in the departure area, we can talk to these two scientists...

We've found traces of clever genetic tampering on a lot of the animals here. So I thought... I examined the bodies of Beastians and found the same kinds of marks. That was about 25 years ago; at that time already the third generation was born to Beastian and settler couples, so there was no going back any more. In fact I'm also one of those children!

And so is Linda. And we did notice that many animal species have unexpected organs/appendages in strange places, so...

The other person:

Why would the Federation support a thing like the ark project is something I find difficult to get a handle on. Certainly they would not just be swayed by an altruistic idea of animal protection. But then, why? Well, I have an idea. Come and visit me in the year of the arrival of the Grim Reaper and I will tell you what I think why that is.

What a tease. Ok, sure. We'll put it on our list.



And finally this person here.

Someone who left the planet has left you a message. Would you like to hear it.
[ Yes. ] / No.
Kissing Dr. Flora 256 times will not give you the ability "identify poop", but perhaps it might make you a better kisser!

Nice little meta joke about Linda's "identify plant" ability, coupled with sometimes silly secret requirements in JRPGs--dodging 200 lightning bolts, anyone? Not to mention about Dr. Flora's propensity to want to kiss everybody who comes along!


All right, we'll head back down to the planet. In the hotel part of the airport...



...we'll definitely annoy people in their roooms, like always!

The fossils of animals on this planet, reveal some strange things. It seems that about 20,000 years ago, there was a sudden drastic change in this planet's ecosystem. Like somehow God created new species of animals, or...
Or, perhaps, they were actually brought in from somewhere else?

Good question, and I think I may already know the answer...



I also stop by the bank to withdraw our money. But since this is the bank branch where Yamada used to work, we'll just quickly have a chat!

In my case, I can safely say that unlike Mr. Yamada, I will never end up having relationship problems with women, hehehe! ❤



And if we go behind where the bank offices are...

I really don't get what these young people are doing nowadays. Just the other day, Yamada and Maki got married and then divorced the very next day and they both retired. Then Yamada's colleague Paul married Maki the day after, and also retired. I don't understand this at all.

It's a mystery!

Ok, well, we're now ready to check out the next message...

But before that, there is one person I forgot to talk to.



It's this pregnant lady over in Hospico.

You should have children as soon as possible, because they give you a lot of happiness each day. The greates happiness of all: the ability to relive the depth of love your parents had for you!

All right. NOW we go and check out the next message.



My name is Kevin and I live in Rose Garden. Um, my little pet Poroporo is acting kind of weird... Big bro, please help me!

You might remember from Scenario B that Kevin is the kid who has a pet stag beetle (which we need). We couldn't do anything about it then, but now we may be able to! Looks like we have our next quest, therefore our destination is Rose Garden--it's been a while since we stopped by there!



Let's head inside for now.



Of course we'll talk this scientist here.

This is Dr. Flora's friend, MC Alice, the talking flower. She's like minah bird and can learn to mimic words and will brighten the atmosphere in any house! She's quite the charmer.
Normally the price is 400 G, but since this is the last one, I will give it to you for 100 G. What do you say?
[ I will buy it! ] / Nope.
Then we'll deliver it to your house in Hardia. It will provide you with lots of fun, just make sure to take care of it regularly.

Of course we want to get the talking flower! Even if it really is just for fun and has no influence on the gameplay!



Over here is Kevin's mother.

This my son Kevin in the back. I told him that his father is on a long term assignment in Flora Jam... but that's a lie. He died some time ago. It was in a freak accident when he stuck his head between the antlers of a stag beetle. Pretty dumb way to die, right? But still for kids of his age, it's difficult to talk about it.

The story is a little different from the previous scenario. There the parents were divorced. In any case, this finally gives us a reason to go to Flora Jam!



On the way to Kevin, we can also stop to talk to this guy.

Have you already met Dr. Flora, who created this park?
[ Yes. ] / No.
Then, has she ever kissed you?
[ Yes. ] / No.
Then, did you ever feel that the doctor's lips had a sexy, mysterious scent?
[ Yeah, that kind of feeling. ] / Not at all.
So you noticed it too...

So, uh, poop lipstick? I mean she is a poop expert, so...



I think it's better if we just talk to Kevin at this point!

Oh hey, big bro, it's me Kevin! You must have heard my voice mail!
My poor Poroporo won't eat anything and has stopped moving. I asked Dr. Flora and she thinks it's a nutritional disorder specific to female stag beetles. She told me that if I can feed her fresh blood fruit from the trees in Flora Jam, she would be able to quickly recover.
Dad is not home and I don't know what to do.
[ Leave it to me. ] / Sorry but another time!

So it seems this kid has the last female stag beetle in existence. Clearly we need it, but it seems first we have to solve whatever ails her by getting the fruit.

I know what you're thinking, we just need to go to Flora Jam and grab the fruit (like we did e.g. with that dog's collar thing). Unfortunately, no, it's not quite that simple. Nevertheless, let's head to Flora Jam to see what we can find there.

The chest by the way has a grasshopper mask. It's not better than what we already have.



So, here is our new quest. Nothing too surprising, we are supposed to save Poroporo by finding the fresh blood fruit and bringing it to Kevin in Rose Garden. The deadline is a bit on the short side, only 1 year and 2 seasons. But let's see.



Flora Jam can be found in the northwestern corner of the southern continent. It's that little grove of trees which are of slightly different colour. Going inside...



It's like a park/forest thing.



Checking out the map might scare you, but the whole area is definitely a bit more open than it seems and not especially frustrating to navigate.



As we walk along, we run into a security guard.

We lost one guard because of a stupid accident so now we have to do even more work! And on top of that, it seems that the female stag beetles have gone extinct before we realised! We didn't notice it becaus their number was anyway small compared to the number of males... but if the authorities find out, we'll probably get a big pay cut or even lose our jobs.

Well, not quite extinct, but certainly not far from it considering there is only one left.

Also, it seems that we might be able to at least find some male ones here, then? We'll, let's keep going.



There are also trees with red fruits, like this one. We can definitely pick up the fruit.

Ken obtained a red fruit.

Well, yeah, as expected.



Soon, we find a second security guard.

I don't know why it's so funny, but once we had here a security guard who liked to stick his head between the antlers of male stag beetles. But he died in an accident. Do you want to hear the story?
[ Tell me! ] / I don't really care.
He ate a bit too much the night before accident, so he got a bit bloated and at one point farted very loudly. It just so happened that at that moment he had his head between a beetle's antlers. But the loud sound startled it, and then well... it was "snap" and then "roll" and that was it!

You might also remember the conversation about Dr. Flora keeping her animal experiments here in this park. So as we walk along we can run into some of her genetically modified creations.



Like for example these not-ants.



Or the not-giraffe. There are also not-gorillas, but I didn't happen to run into any. In any case, none of them count towards the total of 120, so feel free to completely ignore them.

Also, as we walk around, we find many other trees, but all of them have only the red fruits.



Eventually we come to this tree, which does look very slightly different. Let's check it out.

Ken obtained the blue fruit.

Oh. So this one is just blue. And, well, to cut a long story short, no matter how much you look, the only thing you will find on trees in Flora Jam is a bunch of red fruits and this one tree with blue fruits. Definitely no "fresh blood fruit" anywhere to be found.

In fact, there are actually TWO different ways of obtaining the fresh blood fruit, but they are both a bit non-obvious, so I will leave that for now until we come to that point.

In the meantime, let's focus on finding at least a male stag beetle. This is not quite a ladybird situation, since it was made very clear by multiple people that they live here in the park. However they are EXTREMELY rare and it may take you a good while of wandering around until you find at least one group.



It helps when you know what they look like on the screen. Anyway here's one, and it's important to remember they're definitely there and to not give up, even it may take some minutes of looking before you find them.



Yep, those are stag beetles.



Also as you can see above, the game does have the full stats defined for females too, and you can even sell them, but since there's only one in the entire game, it's not really advisable to do so!

For "reasons", I want to capture all three. But they're prone to running away, so first I use Linda's "Moon of Yabasa" ability.



This puts them all to sleep, so the can then be captured more easily. For the actual capture I use Ken's "Gale Cutter", since it's a fairly weak ability. Obviously, for the ark, we only need one, but as I said, we may need a backup for something else that we'll talk about next time.

Anyway, we've found what there is to be found here for the time being, so let's head out and do something else for a while!

As we return back to Hardia...



...it is now Autumn 1995! Huh, the time sure passes quickly lately.

However, that doesn't mean we don't have time for a bit of rest. So let's go to Linda and Ken's house.



Here, of course, we now have also MC Alice! Let's see what she's heard in our absence!

"Let's not do this now...."
"Ah, it's fine! My brother is away all the time, collecting animals!"
"But..."
"Come over here..."
"Weeelllll..... ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤"

The flower certainly seems to have a very particular topic it likes to mimic, doesn't she.

Anyway, that bed over there, Ken and Linda can definitely use to sleep in it and recover HP and so on (instead of an inn or a camp). So let's have a rest.



[ Yes. ] / No.
Night! ❤

Later, during the night...

Hey Ken, I should probably let you know... what your roaming hand is squeezing right now, that's actually the pillow.
......
That's my chin.
......
That's my neck.
......
That's my shoulder.
You silly! *kiss* ❤

Hehehe.

All right, now that we're refreshed, let's keep going. Our next destination is Parside.



Because that's where Ken's mum is hanging about at the moment as par of her Neo-Kenya tour.



I used to tease Gomez by making him pretend to be a dog!

Ah, so that's where he got it from, huh?

Anyway, let's try to uncover a bit more of the "secret of the ark" to finish up for today. This time we'll access underground via the well in Minago.



Although, before that.



We can have a quick chat with the priest up here.

Ken, both of your brother's weddings were quite unique. Nek and Sachiko are now in Laguna Lodge. Make sure to visit them as they are about to leave the planet.

Well, I think we did do that already, so...



The other person we want to check in with is this guy who studies animals.

I don't think there are any undiscovered animals anywhere in the whole of Neo-Kenya. But maybe there is. If you happen to catch such an animal, come and show it to me. As the first discoverer of a new species, the honour of naming it will go to you!

All right then, let's go and discover more secrets of the ark AND in the process find some undiscovered species? How's that sound?

So as I said, we'll just head down the well again.



From here...



...we'll head past the big pyramid...



...and over to where the two smaller ones were. We'll enter the one on the right.



It's just a large area of hallways and walls.



Again it looks a lot more complicated than it is.



The important part is here. Looks like there is a passage guarded by several layers of doors. There is also a switch to the right. If we press the switch...



So, it seems all we need to do is find other switches to open the rest of the doors?



The next switch is down here in a corner.



The third one is here behind these awesome statues.



And then, if we follow these narrow passages...



...we go past a room containing lots of those dangerous guys.



Ultimately, we find the last three switches.



This door is now open, so we'll use Ken's camouflage to quickly grab whatever is in that chest!



Oh, hey! That was definitely worth it! Don't worry, we'll come back and fight these guys in a moment.



The road here is open now, though.



Obviously it's a teleporter.



It leads to a hallway with three possible destinations--there is a teleporter at each end that is not visible here. Top and left actually go to the same place, so let's go there first!



It's just a big empty area, but...



...there is a unique animal species we can catch here! Let's see what it is!



Oh. It's the... um... "the shining guy".

So, as you might guess, welcome to our first "undiscovered species"! Instead of a proper name, the undiscovered species will have some sort of description, like "the shining guy" in this case. But other than that, the battles proceed in a normal way.

Also, I'm sure you've already noticed their HP. That's right, they literally have 1 HP. And in order to capture them... you have to do exactly 1 HP of damage, no more. There are a couple of options here. One is probably to throw some poop. Most poop does single digit damage, so you might get lucky here. The second option is to simply set up a trap here and you will almost certainly catch a few. And the third option is to use the weakest weapon in the game. If you use Ken's starting weapon, the squirrel needle, because of how their stats work out, you will typically deal 1-2 HP damage depending on the RNG, thus allowing you an easy capture of these guys. In this case, I also equipped the squirrel needle on Linda because she has a lower attack stat to begin with.



Anyway, that's all there is down here, so let's head back up!



Now we'll take the other teleporter.



It leads down here. But... is that another ark to the right of us?



Linda is confused too.



Yeah... it seems to be a whole bunch more arks in storage, somehow?



If we check the map of this place...



...and yes, it's just arks as far as eye can see! Well, nothing else we can really do but get on one of them and see what's up!



Well, so far looks the same as what we already know. Let's go into the main room.



Yep, that looks the same. Except that we can't hand in anything here. We just get a message:



Well, all right then.



Let's head upstairs.



Maybe talk to the robot?

From the moment the crew is registered, the ship begins to operate as a whole, as part of crew's body and soul. It continues to grow with the crew, and when the crew despairs, the ship dies too.

Well, that's more or less the same thing that the robots on "our" ark are saying. The ark also does have those capsules where animals are stored, but they are all empty, so there is nothing to be found.

And then suddenly we start hearing a noise. It's a bit similar to the noise the crickets typically make--if you've never been in a place with lots of crickets, let me tell you, those buggers are LOUD! You wouldn't think being so small and everything, but no, they are L O U D!

Anyway, following the noise...



...we find the source of it, too!



Indeed, it's the crickets. Although the game is a bit specific here again, so these are, very specifically, bell crickets!



So, uh, to quote myself, this is "not quite the ladybird situation", since at least there is the noise to indicate you should investigate further until you find the source. But yes, this is the only place where these guys appear!

Anyway, after capturing the crickets, there's not really much left to do here. So let's head back all the way up and see about those menacing looking guys.



And by that, of course, I mean these guys. Let's find out what they are!



Ah, so another unknown species! This time they are described as "the ultra strong". As I mentioned, they do have the ability to increase their strength further and if you're unlucky they may one-shot you. So, what to do? Simply transform Ken into whatever gives him the strongest attack (normally, dolphin) and then just...



...spam "The Earth of Yabasa". It will only take a couple of casts. Remember also that it does hit all enemies on all four sides!



All righty then, we've had quite an adventure today, but let's get out of here now.

We'll head over to Minago again to talk to the animal researcher!



Oh! The animals you've caught seem to be genuine new species! As the first to discover them, you can name them!



And, we're given the opportunity to name the new species! We can use a maximum of four katakana letters. I should mention that this naming thing is just for fun. It doesn't matter what names you use or even if you don't do it at all. But we'll do it, because why not!

So "the shining guy" will become... firefly!

Firefly, huh? I had a friend once with that name. He used to fart a lot...

And "the ultra strong" will become T-Rex!

T-Rex, huh? I don't think that name makes any sense to me...

Yes, he always has a stupid comment. What can you do.

Anyway. We've done a lot today. Let's head back to the ark.



After handing everything in...



...we're now at 75 out of 120! So we still have 45 left to find.

As you can see, the capturing has become moderately harder since discovering the underground, and indeed, this is where most of the remaining species will be found (but we do still have some on the overground that we haven't yet got, so there's that). There are still some "undiscovered" ones too, although as you can see that is only for the player's amusement and has no gameplay impact.

Anyway, until next time, take care!




Again, it's two steps forward one step back!




Linda and Ken, looking cool: