Part 31: Autumn 1996-Autumn 1997

    




            Yeah, I like cars and basketball.
            But you know what I like more? Bananas!
                    -- Frankie Muniz


Last time, Linda and Ken finished all the quests, including the stag beetle and the pteranodon egg! So, today seems like a good time to focus largely on hunting. Our goal at the end of today's episode is to have captured over 100 species of animals! While most of the remaining species can be captured normally, there are still a few "tricky" ones, so we should definitely get on with it! So there's definitely going to be a lot of jumping around in this episode as we visit various places where we have still "unfinished business"!



We start in Minago, where we have a short chat with this lady here.

I thought I would be laid to rest here too, some day. But it looks like that's not going to happen now.



We proceed by going into the well, again.



Down in the underground, we are chased by a group of fish!



"Green Fish", to be exact. Yes, this is another of the undiscovered species that we'll give a name to later on!



As you can see, other than that, nothing really special about them.

I should probably mention that this whole idea of "naming" new animal species was not present in the PC Engine version. There they already had their expected names.

Here they are in the PC Engine version:





But our real destination is this little grove to the left of ken. Like Flora Jam above ground, there is one such area down here too.



It's called Fontana...



...and, like Flora Jam, it's also not nearly as complicated to navigate around as it looks on the map.



There's this chest here (I've already opened), which contains an irrelevant consumable. The other chest on the right is only really accessible via that staircase. It must be something good, right? Well, we'll see. In the meantime, let's keep exploring.



Looks nice here, but those "green fish" are a bit annoying.



The only other thing of note here is this waterfall. Of course...



...you can slide down!



There is one new species to be found here, though, which you can already see on the screenshot. Let's see what it is!



This is pufferfish (fugu)!



As expected, they have a number of poison based attacks, being as it is that that's what the real life fugu are well known for.

After sorting this out, certainly our next step is...



...to go behind the waterfall!



This leads to a small cavern.



There is another new species to be found inside here!



Let me introduce you to... "the flying animal". We'll name it later, but personally I think this one is pretty obvious what it should be named!



Further inside...



...we find one of these fancy pedestals with three chests. The left one contains the extra large golden nugget which we will of course sell. The right one contains a weapon, the flying animal sword. It is actually a bit stronger than what we have, but it doesn't hit all enemies, so...

The middle chest, however...



...finally gives us the last ring that we needed in order to complete the four pairs and gain all the extra abilities for Linda and Ken! They sure do hide these rings well!

Anyway, that's all there is in this little cave, so going back outside...



...there's another chest here next to the waterfall.

Ken found the crown of N'Kemol.

Another crown for our collection! If only we knew what they are for... Spoiler alert: figuring this out will be almost the last thing we do in this scenario, so there's still some time until then. Anyway, let's head through that little opening next to the chest.



It leads to another small cave!



There's another chest here. It contains a fugu gimlet, a weapon presumably constructed from one of its spikes.



Finally, a staircase. Can you guess where it goes?



Well, at first to more staircases, but finally...



...it leads right here to this chest!



The game is literally trolling us with this item now. I have no other explanation.

But either way, that's all there is to be found in Fontana, so let's head out.



We'll pay a quick visit to the animal expert in Minago, in order to give a name to our two new species. Thus "the green fish" will become piranha, and "the flying animal" will, somewhat unsurprisingly become the flying squirrel!

After our little "Fontana adventure"...



...it becomes Winter 1996. The time sure flies.

So the next thing we want to do is head back to Minago again...



...or, more precisely, to Linda's house.



Because that's where we find Ken's mum on the last stop of her tour of Neo-Kenya!



When Ann was young, she was once chosen as Miss Neo-Kenya. Back then, I ended up as a runner-up. The difference was just one vote! How unfortunate...

Ann and Hume have nothing new to say at the moment, so we'll head out. Now it's the time to visit a couple of areas which we haven't been to in a while, but where we have still a bit of a job to finish. First we'll head to Lina Valley.



Or rather, we want to head into the cave here again.



First, we have an animal to find!



Around the cave, you will run into stones on the ground, such as this one. Looks just like an ordinary stone, and most of them are, however for some of them, if you touch it...



...turns out it's just a pair of bears in disguise!



Here's what they used to look like:



After defeating the bears, I remember that there is one thing I mentioned about this cave, but never actually showed. So let's do that now.



If you follow a somewhat complicated route...



...up and down the stairs...



...eventually you find this little isolated area with a tent! Going inside...



Hey, the weather is not bad today, right? You look to be in good spirits, huh?
Yeah, I'm good. / Who are you again? / Actually I'm pretty exhausted...

So, as it turns out this is a dealer of illegal drugs. I've mentioned him at some point long ago, close to the beginning of the game, but I forgot to show him. Anyway, if you choose the last response...

I see. Well, I have some medicine which might help you. Would you like to try it? The more expensive ones work better.

So he sells a "luxury item" for 60G, a "medication from rumours" for 120 G and "that thing" for 1200 G. These are all those performance enhancement drugs we've seen before. For example the last one is "Vigour III", which is quite funny as that one has such severe side effects (85% probability to leave you paralysed in battle) that it is much better to actually use it on enemies.

In any case, we don't have a use for him at this point in time any more really, but in case you want somewhere to buy those drugs, here is your friendly neighbourhood dealer who will be happy to sell them to you. By the way, if you choose one of the first two responses, then he pretends to not know anything and will not offer to sell you stuff.

With this, we are done in Lina Valley. Our next stop will be all the way down south.



First, just a quick stop in Laguna Lodge.



Turns out, it was not just talk. Nek and Sachiko have already left the planet.



And so has Dr. Emory, too. It means that we now finally have access to that chest there, but the result turns out to be disappointing. It's just a consumable item which removes status effects. Status effects are generally not a big deal in this game to begin with so... we'll never use it.

Our next stop is to go down to that place called The Sand Hole (you know, where the scorpions live!), to pick up the last couple of species from there.



In here.



First of all, here we can find...



...some armadillos!



Heading deeper, we of course find, sitting in their little, uh, sand holes...



...scorpions! As before, make sure to not get fooled by the "fake scorpions" that are also found in this part of the world.



Check out that fake scorpion rushing to attack Ken! Also, there are three chests here. One is empty, the second contains a large golden nugget and the last one contains the champions medal. Honestly, other than needing to pay for travel until you get the air free pass (not hugely expensive at 28,000 G), money is never a huge factor in this game--you can earn more than enough by simply selling extra animals that you don't need. In this, and other ways, the game really allows you to be much more self-sufficient than in other games, especially considering that for example you can make any piece of equipment yourself, simply by using caught animals. There are NO secret weapons that can be found anywhere--any weapon you can simply craft if you want.



Interesting bit of scenery, but as you can see it does not have a teleporter.



Another one of these, elsewhere in the cave has a chest on it. The chest contains (please don't laugh) ANOTHER WHITE BEASTMAN STATUE! The game really truly is trolling us with this thing now. I mean ok, it does sell for 33,000 G, so I guess if you're somehow short on cash despite everything...



This staircase looks a bit important?



It leads to another chest... which contains another beastman necklace this time around. So not quite as valuable an item as you would expect. But we'll take it, sure. By the way, in case it's not been clear until now, those four statues around the chest represent the four "creatures" linked to the four pairs of "rings of power".

With this we're fully done with Sand Hole and can now leave.

We can go and immediately use this necklace.



If we take the tunnel eastwards from Battle Park, just a few steps to the south...



...is one of those places where we can put the necklace on a statue.



If we step on the teleporter, it takes us...



...it takes us to a small, nondescript cave, where the only thing we can do is go outside.



This is kind of in the middle of nowhere?



So this is all the way up north, so I guess if you want to quickly get there, although you can simply travel to Eterna and walk to the west instead. Unlike the beastman statues (and also, spoiler alert, the crowns), these necklaces are not essential for finishing the game with all species collected, so you can simply ignore them if you want.

Anyway, returning south to the ark...



...we find that it is now already Spring 1997!



As always, we'll check the calendar.



This time it's Elizabeth. I actually can't remember if we've already seen this one. I think not.

Our next destination is again Battle Park.



On the way there, we will have a short chat with the bird line employee. It's been a while.

The main tourist spot in the West Area is the miraculously revived Beastian town of Koshikata. Seeing the beautiful church built over a pond gives the viewer sort of an inner peace. Please make sure to visit it at least once.

I guess if you don't figure it out, here you get a bit of a hint to look under the building (like we already did).



Anyway, we'll take the shoot service over here to the east. It's where that place named Xass is located which we already visited recently.



There was a guy here in the tent mentioning to us before how some years ago he saw a female tree frog here in the cave. The tree frog situation has been going on for a while now, so I think you'll agree with me that it's finally time to get that sorted out.



If you head deeper into the cave (it's only a small one), you might run into a group of tree frogs if you're lucky.



And if you're even more lucky, said group might just contain a female, like here (although it's definitely not guaranteed!).



You can go out and back into the cave to "reset" the enemies if you want to try a few times to see if you can get a female. However, luckily, this is not necessary, as even if you don't find it here, there is another place (I will mention it when we get there--we haven't explored it yet) where they are plentiful and appear regularly, so as long as you make sure to explore all dungeons in the game, the chance of missing a female tree frog is basically 0%. Anyway, that's at least that thing ticked off now.

By the way, note that the "sex change" ability is exclusive to females, which means that even if you do accidentally find them somewhere on the overworld, they might still "disapper" before you capture them!



Since we don't have much/anything going on today in the way of plot, we'll just chat a bit more with some Bird Line employees.

Check your health regularly while watching other people suffer from illnesses--that's the secret of longevity! It would appear that about 72% of the people who come to the hospital even when they don't have anybody sick to visit there think so!



But, all right. Our next (brief) stop is in Paraside.



We're going to harass this guy in his room!

Hermit crabs and turban shells are so similar that even Beastians have a hard time telling them apart! I know that hermit crabs can definitely be found in Yamapit, south of here, but I'm not sure where turban shells might be found?

Huh, well, ok good to know. If you recall, hermit crabs generally pretend to be rocks, so does that mean that turban shells do the same? But where? We do still need to find them.

This is actually one of the slightly weirder situations regarding finding a particular type of animal, but more on that next time.

For now, we'll make a quick hop to Koshikata one last time.



If we head into the hotel...



...we can talk to the singer here.

Murders and stuff happened in this town in the past. Then it underwent a big revival and all that, but... now it's all just going to be turned to ash anyway. Well, perhaps it's for the better.

Not really sure what to say, except that we're done here and won't be coming back any more.

We'll now head back to Ozport.



Although we're not actually going inside. Instead...



...a few steps to the southeast is one more of these.



Here we can use one of our beastman necklaces to get ourselves teleported to...



Uh, well, that doesn't look like any place we've already been to, that's for sure. Let's go outside for a second and have a look.



Huh, it's a skyscraper. Let's check quickly the map, to see where we are.



Well, that's certainly far away from anything up there in the far north-east. The place is actually reachable by walking, but this teleporter saves sooo much time when you're at the ark (the teleporter is at R-11). Otherwise you could use Bird Line to Paraside at W-10 and walk from there.

Unfortunately despite it's somewhat "grand" appearance from the outside, there's not really much to this place. it actually only has three floors plus roof and basement and there aren't really any interesting items to be found (most chests just contain small amounts of money). The two animal species found here are also not endemic and are easily found elsewhere. It's also an annoying teleporting maze inside with closed doors that you have to use switches to manipulate. There's however one reason you HAVE to come here which we'll see in a few minutes.

Bearing in mind the above, I'm going to present a somewhat abbreviated version of our journey to the top (and bottom). Anyway, going back inside.



Inside, next to the teleporter, there is this staircase. Also not the coloured door in the bottom right of the screenshot.



Downstairs, there is this room. Interacting with the four statues of different colours changes which colour doors will be open in the rest of the tower. We can turn on the third statue in order to explore a bit first.



This opens the door which gives us access to this chest. It only contains 623 G. However, notice that there seems to be another teleporter on the other side of the wall to the left. This is the real reason to come here.



Most of the tower looks like this. Here you can also see what I mean by choosing which colour doors will be open.



Other than that, mostly you have rooms like this with a teleporter and sometimes a chest. This one has 430 G.



Or this one with with 480 G. There's even a couple of empty chests lying around.



Eventually, we get to the roof where there is a nice garden.



Cool water fountains, though.

Here on the roof, you can catch two animal species.



Bees!



Also, cabbage white butterflies! The second and last kind of butterfly present in the game.



These guys are a massive pain to capture due to their tiny HP pretty much no matter what level you are. One strategy which works is to use either Linda's "fire carpet" ability which literally changes the ground into lava and does a small amount of damage in every turn and then just wait them out. The somehwat annoying part is that they have an ability ("screaming paranoia") which is kind of like "confuse" in Final Fantasy. This may make your character attack them and thus fail to capture them due to too much damage. However, we have also that ability, so that's another option to make them literally "kill themselves" in this manner.

Also, the "champion's certificate" is the lower tier award in hunter fights in Battle Park.

Anyway, now we go back to that room with four statues.



We'll now activate the fourth statue.



After a bit of navigating around, we get to this room. We'll employ the old trick from games like Final Fantasy IV and similar...



Go through the door...



...and literally walk around the building!



Hey, a hidden staircase!



The staircase finally leads to that other teleporter we saw at the very beginning!



The teleporter finally leads to this place! Finally, we can activate our last two rings! This, indeed, is the only actual reason to come to this tower.



Ken absorbed the power of Adamade!

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

In addition to that, Ken also receives an ability, "The Gold of Adama", which is a full heal for the whole party.



Linda absorbed the power of Adama!

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

In addition to that, Linda also receives an ability, "The Light of Adama", which is also a full heal for the whole party.

With this, we are done here and don't need to be visiting this place again.



And a good thing too, since it's already Summer 1997!

Before we continue with our hunting, I want to show you something. We'll head quickly to Eterna.



As we're getting a ride, the Bird Line employee has a warning for us!

Currently a heavy snow warning has been issue for the central part of the West Area! Please exercise caution on your travels!

Huh, heavy snow, you say? Where have we heard that mentioned before? Could it be that we'll finally be meeting the mysterious snow monster? (Spoiler: not yet. There are additional criteria we need to fulfill.)



Anyway, if you go to Eterna to the cherry trees room (by the way note how they are no longer blooming but are now green because it's summer--this game sometimes has crazy level of attention to detail), you can get another ribbon flower; I believe it's one per season. From now on, you can use it simply as an item in battle. If Linda gets knocked out, the flower will simply revive her like you would expect. Ken getting knocked out still means you "die" and get healed back in Hardia while losing some of your captured animals to "make room" for your own body in the backpack.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to show here, so now let's go to our real destination for the moment, which is G-Factory.



As we step to the Bird Line counter, we are again given an announcement!

Dear customer, after a long time, this desk will be closed in 1998 when the evacuation of residents will be completed. Thank you for your patronage!

Huh, does that mean we lose the Bird Line service in 1998? Not exactly, but what actually happens, we'll discover in 1998!



For now, we find ourselves outside of G-Factory.



On the eastern end, there's this very oddly shaped island in the sea. You are right to be suspicious, because...



...if we throw some meat, the island will approach us and it turns out...





...it's actually a pair of whales! I mean they do look like a piece of land, so it's an easy mistake to make. (By the way, check out the cool looking advanced beastly form of Linda and Ken over there at the bottom!) In case you are wondering, you don't have to use meat, Linda's "animal cry" ability will also work and so will pheromone spray or anything else that makes animals chase/come to you.



Strongest, yes, but it lacks in speed, giving us a chance to deal with them before they can do too much to us.

Only one group of whales may appear in every season except summer (when there are none); the group will usually contain one male and one female, but sometimes not. If you don't get both to appear you can either try in the next season or alternately just reload the game and try again. The actual formation of the enemies is not decided until you trigger the battle. Anyway, just buff yourself and go all out basically.

And if you ask me how the heck are you supposed to know to do this, well, your answer is as good as mine. I guess you're supposed to be intrigued by the unusually shaped island and try to do things with it? Or perhaps notice that the island is not there in the summer? The game really really wants you to explore every single centimeter of the world, doesn't it?

Anyway, while we're here, we'll head back west...



...to Swallowm.



Here we can get ambushed...



...by a bunch of owls!



This also concludes everything in Swallowm. We'll head back outside.



Finally, one more species can be found wandering around.



I'm actually glad I've saved this one almost to the end. Because any other animal design would completely pale in comparison.

These are reindeer. Yes.



In any case, that concludes all species from the West Area, except one. Why except one? We'll see later today!

So now it might be a good time to take a break from hunting. Last time, we spent some time on training our wolf, so let's put that to use by heading down to Dogy Figh and participating in some dogy fighs.



We just go inside...



...and talk to this guy. First he can explain us the rules.

The point is to win a match between hounds. You get some money for winning each round. If the dog dies or the owner presses the X button to stop the fight, the dog loses and you lose all the money collected so far. The entry fee is 50G. If you place in the top three, you will get a big prize. Come on, you won't make any money by just standing around and looking.

So it's basically dog vs. dog. Here too, like always, you can't issue commands to the dog, so it will do what it does. However, you can "throw in the towel" by pressing the X button and stop the match. Of course it means you lose all the prize money collected up to that point.

Ok, let's give it a try. The game asks us to choose who will compete, we of course pick our wolf Natsu whom we have trained last time.

We go straight into battle.



Interestingly, the game designers made some special dog designs which ONLY appear here in the arena. But this is a fight we easily win, in any case. After each battle we get the option to cash out or to continue. Of course we continue. In general the enemies will be harder and harder as we go.

The game continues to use here the sumo wrestling terminology, so "top division" is in Japanese a reference to "maegashira" in sumo. I know almost nothing about sumo, so please forgive any mistakes!



I'm not showing every rank as some designs do repeat.



Also as you can see, the monetary rewards for individual battles are hardly even worth the mention.



Now we are in the top five! So we proceed into the next battle.



The fourth ranked dog is referred to as "komusubi", which is the fourth ranked wrestler in sumo.

Now here are the congratulations from the Dog Fighting Centre to our new komusubi! Starting from next seasons, Natsu will receive a salary of 2,500 G. In addition, it can continue the glorious tradition of inherting the ring name "Yamato"!
[ Us the name! ] / Keep as Natsu.
The 19th generation of "Yamato" is born! CONGRATULATIONS!

Of course, this is another sumo tradition where have special "ring names" (shikona) which get inherited over time by different wrestlers. So natsu gets to inherit the name "Yamato" at this time, written as kanji! Unfortunately, we can't choose the name ourselves, but atleast we get to use kanji finally! Anyway, on to the next battle!



Third ranked, in sumo terminology "sekiwake". Also, we win, of course.

Now here are the congratulations from the Dog Fighting Centre to our new sekiwake! Starting from next seasons, Yamato will receive a salary of 5,000 G. In addition, it can continue the glorious tradition of inherting the ring name "Zero"!
[ Use the name! ] / Keep as Yamato.
The 29th generation of "Zero" is born! CONGRATULATIONS!

Next!



We also win against the second ranked dog ("oozeki").

Now here are the congratulations from the Dog Fighting Centre to our new oozeki! Starting from next seasons, Zero will receive a salary of 10,000 G. In addition, it can continue the glorious tradition of inherting the ring name "Suzumushi"!
[ Use the name! ] / Keep as Zero.
The 11th generation of "Suzumushi" is born! CONGRATULATIONS!

These names are a bit of a joke. "Suzumushi" means "bell cricket".

Our final battle.



And we win this one too against the first ranked dog ("yokozuna").

Now here are the congratulations from the Dog Fighting Centre to our new oozeki! Starting from next seasons, Suzumushi will receive a salary of 20,000 G. In addition, it can continue the glorious tradition of inherting the ring name "Minami"!
[ Use the name! ] / Keep as Suzumushi.
The 24th generation of "Minami" is born! CONGRATULATIONS!

Our wolf is female anyway, so "Minami" definitely fits.

But this is basically it. Again this is all a bit of fun, with no influence on the capturing. However, it does mean that your dog/wolf/etc. now gets a monthly salary of 20,000 G which is way more than what Ken is getting (Ken's salary is just level x 100!).

All right, back to hunting! Just a few more for today!



By the way, it's also now Autumn 1997.



We'll head underground for a bit, using this teleporter near Battle Park.



It takes us to this area here. Yes I know there is a cave entrance also here, we'll go there next time.

There's a particular species we want to catch which appears only here. They do have a propensity to masquerade as trees, so it's a bit hard to see them. However, using again Linda's ability to imitate animal calls...



...it will make them show themselves.



Somehow, these are antelopes. No, I also have no idea what in the world is even going on here.

To be clear, technically these are supposed to be serows, which is a goat-antelope sort of thing animal native to Asia, but honestly in this case I think we can keep it simple since they are closely related anyway. (But watch me get super specific about something just a bit later today!)



But check out the PC Engine version:



I know what you're thinking. Wait a minute, but aren't these...? Yes. Yes they are. This is what reindeer look in the remake, except they are different colour. Well, check the "extra" section at the end of today's episode for more details about what's going on here.

Our next species is found nearby...



...mostly in the water.



This is "the star-shaped", another unidentified species. Of course we'll name it later. Is it just me or do we coincidentally have some of the weirder looking animals on the list today?



Anyway, we'll get out of here back to the surface...



...and use this other teleporter in the lake east of Dogy Figh.



This is also an unnamed species...



...for the time being, know as "the little".



We'll give proper names to both of these in a few minutes. But for now, we'll again head back out.

It's time to address the blizard situation.



One of the services you can get on the phone is satellite weather. Checking the weather right now tells us the following:



So, looks like good chances of blizzard in the north (and I will never stop complaining that the game refers to it as "west").



We head over to Eterna...



...where it's clearly snowing heavily (although it's a bit hard to tell on the screenshot, but trust me on this).

So it turns out, after you capture all other animals in the West Area, AND it's a heavy blizzard like this...



...THEN you can finally meet the mythical snow-monster! But this is for sure one of the situations where you DO NOT want to go in blindly. You have no chance of surviving even the first turn. You MUST approach the animal from behind--this gives you a guaranteed first turn instead of them. So let's see what we're dealing with here.



Probably don't need to tell you that these are in fact panda bears. Their HP is not super huge, but they have pretty ridiculously high stats otherwise. The reason I mentioned you need to get the first turn is because one of those stats is speed. So the first thing you need to do is buff your speed up by using Linda's "Water of Haraba" ability. This gives Linda +166 in speed and Ken +123. Linda also transforms into her strongest beast form which additionally gives her +133 in speed and +176 in attack and +172 in defence.

After this, Ken can also transform into his most powerful beast form and gain +153 in speed, +199 attack and +175 in defence. At this point Ken can start attacking with his normal attack.



The ultimate beast forms of Ken and Linda still look awesome!

But anyway, at this point the battle is basically won--sure pandas still have some nasty abilities, but let's say if you don't get spectacularly unlucky, the battle is basically won. The main thing was to get all those buffs in before the pandas can have a turn.

To speed things up, in the second turn Linda can also cast "Flame of Zia", which gives a further attack boost of +163 to Ken and +145 to Linda. At this point we definitely shouldn't lose.



So basically you want to avoid them using "war cry" on the first turn before you are fully buffed, more or less. After that it's not so bad if you boost your stats as described above.

Take note of how much they sell for, though. Of course the problem with this is that pandas are considered Class A, so they can be only sold to the illegal trader in Nebul. The problem with THIS in turn is the he's most likely already left the planet by this point. However, as it turns out, panda meat also sells for like 1 million a piece and meat you can sell in any shop! So you can just process them into meat and sell that, for a very similar result if you need money. We'll need still a couple of million, although that's not for anything mandatory. Nevertheless, I will catch a few more pandas to sell (or at least their meat).

Well, all right. It might be quite hard to believe, but we are done hunting for today!

So let's just head quickly to the animal expert in Minago.



As for "the star-shaped", it's kind of obvious that it should simply become "the starfish".

As for "the little", well, it's pretty obviously some kind of a cat. So, uh, let me introduce you to the sand cat. It lives in and around the Sahara desert in Africa, but it's better known for the fact that it's the kind of a cat where adults look like kittens and kittens look like cuter kittens! I mean, just look at them:



Also, who wants to see more sand cat kitten pictures? Well, here you go.





So with this in mind, I think we'll call "the little" as "sand cat" from now on!

All right now, finally...



...let's hand all of this in at the ark!

Oh and by the way, remember how I showed you at the very beginning of the game how the captured animals are kept in pods like this:



So you might be wondering, what do we do with the whales, since they are so much bigger? Well, turns out...



...they get nice big water tanks to be in! Anyway, as we finish registering the animals...



I have a feeling that something good will come from all of this!

Of course, Linda is basing this on the "official" requirement of 100, but as for us, we still have a little bit to do. For now, however...



...the friendly robot confirms that we're indeed at 103 out of 120!

So today episode might have been a bit disjointed, but it was necessary so that we can now go towards the ending in a more relaxed way with the last few captures and also last couple bits of plot. I hope you enjoyed seeing all these weird looking animals today, though!




So, since we stumbled today a bit on the fact that PC Engine antelopes look the same as the reindeer in the remake, except for the colour, I wanted to talk a little bit on that topic. Well, two topics really, related to the animal designs back in the PC Engine original.

The first is the odd thing (for me), that there are actually a few palette swap pairs of designs. For example, we've seen previously the sea slugs, and here's what they look like in the original version:



So that's all fine and good, they look the same in the remake. But then later you run into some giraffes (which we haven't seen yet in the remake), and they turn out to look like this:



So that's literally a palette-swap. The same situation happens with antelopes and reindeer and a couple of other pairs. I have no clue why they did this, since if the remake fits comfortably on a single CD, even including prerendered video cutscenes, then there's no reason why the original shouldn't be able to do the same when the graphics are lower resolution with fewer colours. Incidentally the only palette swap in the remake is frogs/tree frogs and that one even makes a bit of sense to begin with.

The other thing is this. I've mentioned a few times how some animal was newly added in the remake. But in fact there are a few which were present in the original but were REMOVED in the remake and replaced with some new ones. As it turns out, these are mostly a couple of gimmick ones, such as this monstrosity:



"The Hand".

Or this monstrosity:



You guessed it, "The Stand"!

But then, some were simply removed for reasons unknown to me, such as this one:



The hedgehog.

So there you go. I put this in the extra section because there wasn't really any other good place to put it in!




The list is going down quite substantially!

• Visit the lady on Ozsat in 1999 to hear the rest of her story.
  
• Figure out how to capture aye-ayes. Apparently they can disguise themselves as humans.
  
• Figure out how to capture turban shells. Supposedly they look similar to hermit crabs (pretending to be a rock?)
  
• Explore the "untrodden wilds".
  
• Explore more the "pyramids" in the underground.
  
• Investigate more about who built the management system of the planet.
  
• Find what the "crowns" are for and where they may be used.
  
• Visit the auction room (for fun).
  

Some design sketches of the ark: