Part 23: Winter 1992/Spring 1993

    




            My mother always used to say:
            "The older you get, the better you get.
            Unless you're a banana."
                    -- Betty White


Hello and welcome to the continuing adventures of Ken and Linda in Scenario C! Last time when we left off, we had just discovered that there appears to be a network of teleporters on the planet, and at least some of them can be activated by putting the "beastman necklace" on the beastman statues found in those weird ruins. By using the teleporter near Laguna Lodge, we ended up all the way down south!

Well, since we're quite close to it...



...why don't we head over to the nearby cave of Samakia. If you recall, this is the place were ants (and anteaters!) live.



In the cave, you might notice these things that look a bit like a poop emoji (except there was no poop emoji back in 1997, of course). Let's have a look.



Not sure what I was expecting. But we're definitely picking up all of these.



And it keeps going. In fact if you want more of these, you can simply exit the cave and come back in and they will have respawned! There are also other kinds of poop to be found in the game apart from these two.

No, I have not gone crazy. There's a reason to pick the poop up from the floor. But, let's continue into the cave.



As always, on the way we pass by this fence...



...but at the moment, there's nobody around to talk to. Maybe later.



For now, we find here some anteaters.



Then we head down, of course, where the majority of ants may be found.



Before long, we are accosted by a bunch of male ants, as expected. Like before, their minuscule HP poses a bit of a problem. In Scenario B we used mostly Linda's "Cobra Twist" ability to do a few HP of damage in each turn and managed to do it that way. But today, let's try a different strategy.



If you choose the option to use an item in the battle, and then select one of the poops we just collected... the game gives us an option to "throw" it.

It basically "throws" it a one of the enemies, and in the process... does a tiny amount od damage! Just about enough that we can deal enough damage to an ant in a couple of throws to be able to capture it without killing it! How awesome!

On our travels through this confusing maze of tunnels, we find also a chest.



Ah, well, that should be useful! Especially now when we know what they're for!



In any case, eventually we find the ant queen.



She also goes down without much difficulty, simply by throwing poop again a couple of times!

With that done, we can leave this cave. Of course there are more species to be found here so we will come back later.

In any case, we can walk across to Holy Hole and use the teleporter to easily get back to Laguna Lodge and Dogy Figh. As mentioned, this whole area where Samakia is is kind of cut off from the rest of the map by high mountains so normally is only reachable via Bird Line drop off service. However, now that we have a convenient teleporter, things are much easier.

Also, we're done talking about poop for today. No more poop talk in the rest of today's episode! Especially no more talk about throwing poop.

For now...



...let's head back over to Hardia, because we have phone messages piling up that we haven't really been checking!



First of all, let's check that news bulletin, in case there's something new there!

NK NEWS BULLETIN

Ms. Green of Green Pharmaceutical Co., and her husband donate 36,000,000,000,000 G to the refugee relief fund!

Elizabeth, the recently retired chairwoman of Green Pharmaceutical Co., and her husband Dr. Panheim donate to the refugee relief fund an unbelievable amount of 36 trillion G! With this kind of amount, it can be said that the lives and property of the Neo-Kenya refugees will be completely secure.

Very nice of them. It seems that really everybody's lives have turned out for the better in Scenario C. It just warms your heart, doesn't it?

So, now about that message--yes, I know we have several, but let's start with one!



The message is actually from Nek!

Hey, bro! It's me! M-E!
I want to introduce you to a friend... no, to a someone really special to me.
We'll play a game! The prize is one year's worth of hot kisses from me! Don't worry, the prize is not for you!
The location is the church in Minago. I hope you will come, because we're the only brothers of each other in the world!

So this sounds like a much less malevolent mirror image of a similar call we got in Scenario A, when Nek also invited us to Koshikata to "play a game"!

In any case, let's make our way to the church in Minago, as requested!



We'll climp up...





...all the way to the balcony. Here we find Nek and Sachiko, more or less as expected.



Let me start by introducing you... although I assume you have already seen her around.
Sachiko Emory... My... My fiancée!
Surprised, huh? See, I can do it when I set my mind to it!



Also... I'm not so well versed in the ways of the world, so I need to learn about a lot of things... cooking, laundry, and also... _{the married life things} ❤️.
To tell the truth... Dr. Emory still hasn't given his approval for this marriage. So I don't know when the wedding ceremony will actually take place...
But for now, I would ask you two to be the witnesses of our love! As I said, we're the only two brothers to each other in the world, so I'm sure you will not mind to do this for me!
[ Gladly! ] / Get stuffed!
Then, let's begin! Please make sure to watch carefully!

Nek goes over to the side and starts shouting from the balcony...



Sachiko joins him in shouting!







Nek and Sachiko return over to Ken and Linda.

You have been moved to the bottom of your hearts by our "public display of love", right?
[ Sure, sure. ] / Not quite...
Well then, as you can imagine we're quite busy right now, so please excuse us. We need to go and choose the wedding gown for Sachiko!
Um, so... I think you two will get along beautifully with Sachiko!
By the way, we're thinking to have the wedding in this church right here! Please come to the ceremony!

Sachiko and Nek leave. So it looks like we'll have a wedding to attend soon! Meanwhile, Linda has a comment, though.



Before they can leave, a priest shows up...



Ah I thought it might have been you shouting, Miss Linda. This is a church, you know, and you need to be quiet here.
N-no... It wasn't Linda...

Anyway, that was a bit of a fun diversion, but now let's head back to the nearest phone, since we still have one more message which we have received but not listened to!



The message is actually from a person we met some time ago in one of the previous scenarios.

Thank you very much for your continued support! My name is Yamada, from the Neokenya Bank G-Factory branch. We are currently giving away a free gift to all customers who make a deposit. If you are planning to make a deposit, please contact Yamada at the G-Factory branch. The Bird Line ticket between Battle Park and G-Factory is only 80 G, so please come and visit us!

Again, this was a very long while ago, back in Scenario A, but you might recall that this guy used to work in the Ozport branch. The problem is that he was fooling around with his female colleague, who at the same time was also his boss's girlfriend or something. One of his other colleagues even told us that he might end up transferred as a punishment, so I guess it's finally happened and now he's working at the G-Factory branch, in the town where only robots live!

But, it seems this is our next task, so we'll head over there straight away, while picking up a couple of animal species on the way!



Since we're heading north, we'll take this tunnel northeast of Hardia.



This takes us through the parts where we can find...



...eagles!



We'll just quickly walk through Battle Park...



We're greeted by some very snowy weather out here!



But no problem! Because it means penguins are on the prowl!



Eventually we make our way to G-Factory, which as we know is mostly populated by robots, except for the Neo-Kenya Bank branch! The bank is located in the office building up the stairs there.



I assume this is probably Yamada? Let's talk to him.

Uhm, customer... I would like to talk to you about something... Would you mind listenting to this lowly bank clerk?
[ Sure ] / Nope.
I am Yamada... I had to leave my girlfriend Maki at the head office in Ozport when I was transferred here. My office romance was exposed...
But! If I can achieve at least 60,000 G in deposits, I may be able to return to my old post!
Ahhhhh, what to do! While I'm toiling away here, my colleague Paul is sure to make a pass at Maki...

All right, well. I guess at this point it should be clear by now what this Scenario C is about for the most part. Clearly, this situation with people constantly giving us errands is going to continue--Scenario C takes the whole "fate of the world hangs in the balance--it's sidequest time!" thing to the extreme. But, yet again, unlike many other games of its time period, this game plays it fair! How fair? Check this out:



If we look at the menu option "Information", we'll see that it now has a submenu named "Schedule". Selecting it...



...leads to this screen. Yes, this game from mid-1990s actually has a quest list screen which tracks their status for you! Not only that, it even tells you until when you need to finish it and what you need to do to finish it! So, for example, we have 2 years and 2 seasons left still to deal with Yamada's request!

We can also see listed here the two previous "side-quests" that we already finished.

I think this is definitely NOT something you'd expect to see in a mid-1990s JRPG, but... here we are.

In any case, we still have plenty of time to deal with Yamada's situation, so for now we'll go elsewhere.



As we exit G-Factory, it becomes Spring 1993.

Actually I wanted to head down south for a bit, but since it's a new year...



...I figured we could head back to Hardia and check out the new calendar in commander's quarters!



So it's Sachiko this time.

Anyway, having done that, let's head down south again for a bit!



So, we'll take the bird line over to Dogy Figh.



After arriving in Dogy Figh, we want to take this tunnel. But first, we'll just talk to this guy here.

At coordinate C-21, there are ruins of a town named Garex which was built by the Federation. It's a place where the biologists were studying the animals of this planet until some years ago. At one point, there was a sudden explosion... it was heard all over the desert with how powerful it was. Naturally, all scientists were no longer of this world as a result.

Hm, yeah, we've been hearing about this already in Scenario B. Hopefully we can find out more later, but for now we'll just take the tunnel west towards the desert.



In the tunnel, we can talk to a hunter here.

I think either female or male stag beetles have been made extinct due to a minor mistake by a security guard... If you want to find out more, you should go over to Flora Jam at B-14!

Oddly enough, Flora Jam is a place we haven't been to yet, but we will adress this situation in due course. The extinct stag beetle sex is if I recall right female, but the thing is... they're not exactly extinct! In Scenario B, we've met that kid over in Rose Garden, who has one! So we just need to find a way to get it from him. Equally important, he mentioned that his father works at Flora Jam (and this fact is used to hide the situation that his parents are divorced). So talking to the father seems like a good idea to start with as far as obtaining a female stag beetle is concerned!

For now though, we're on a mission to catch some kangaroos for ourselves.



Generally they live here in the desert, west of Dogy Figh; however, you might remember that also in Scenario B, we've been told that kangaroos only attack those much weaker than them. So the only way to make them spawn is to get your HP low, I think it needs to be less than half. In any case, this is easily done, just run around using the sprint button to deplete your HP and they will show up eventually.

So after a few minutes of running around like an idiot...



Ah-ha! I see you there on the edge of the screen!



Yep, those are definitely some roos. No doubt about it.



As you can see, they're also pretty weak themselves, so not too big of a deal--although they do have that "blow sand" ability which changes the terrain to sand, thus giving them a slight speed and power advantage since it's their "native" terrain. Of course, most of the time you'll be fighting them in the desert, so the terrain will anyway be sand, but...

Incidentally, kangaroos also have a 1/16 probability to spawn by hatching a "smooth" egg. I'm not sure why you'd bother with that since they are super easy to just find in the world.

The PC Engine version of kangaroos was actually pretty similar, except for the fact that back then they had bird feet:



While we're here...



...we can pick up also a few crows (does it count as a murder?).

Anyway, let's go back to Dogy Figh and see what else we can hear about there.



Let's start with this hunter here.

As for your own hunting dogs, don't even think about giving them the names of legendary hounds, Taro and Jiro!

We've heard a bit about this before, that these are the favourite dogs of Mr. Orman, the owner in this place. We didn't get to meet him last time as he was assassinated by Emory, but maybe in this scenario? Incidentally, Taro and Jiro and actual "human" names which mean "first son" and "second son" respectively. It's very funny that Orman gives his dogs human names, but on the other hand gives his children names after different kinds of dogs!

There is also that lady on the edge of the screen...

I've heard that there is a sneaky thief in this town who specialises in taking shiny things. But the thief is a bit weird... I mean I can understand taking gold coins and jewellery, but he really goes for anything shiny, even pieces of glass!

Weird.

Next, we'll head inside the DGF building.



Of course, it's not the right season of the year, so the actual fighting area is currently deserted. Don't worry, we'll come back later to make one of our dogs a champion--there's a special trick for that too. Gotta earn the right to use kanji to name our dogs, right?



Even if the fighting is not currently going on, we can still go down into the actual Orman family residence.



Here we find some of the usual suspects, i.e. Orman's children, like this guy Beagley here. He doesn't actually have anything new to say for now.

Who dares to come into the rooms of Mr. Beagley with their dirty shoes like that! I'm going to beat you up!

Same goes for the naked lady on the bed.

Beagley is the perfect man for me... rich and from a good family. Also, he... doesn't usually last very long...

The chest also contains one of those performance enhancing drugs.



Here are two more family members:

Huh? Oh you're the guys from the ark, I read about it in the newspaper! It's truly extraordinary, I wish you all the best!

The other person is not so friendly.

Stop talking to me, you're distracting me! I'm trying to solve the crossword puzzle!

Well, okay.



Beagley's sister Pomerania is here, as before. She also doesn't have anything new to say yet.

Oh! You're quite a handsome fellow! I'm Pomerania, the lady of the house! Please come and pay me a visit some time... alone, of course! ❤️

The chest also contains some performance enhancing drugs, so we'll move over to the other corner of the floor.



Here, the situation is a bit different from the previous scenario! In this one, Mr. Orman hasn't been assassinated, so although he still seems a bit worse for wear, we can talk to him. Let's talk to the nurse first, though.

Every time Mr. Orman talks about his sons, his blood pressure goes up to 250... It's not good for his condition...

And then, Orman himself.

I'm proud of the dog fighting arena that I build after my third wife ran away from me too. Thanks to that, I'm pretty popular in these parts. But the only thing that bothers me is my sons... they don't appreciate how hard I worked to earn all that money and are spending it like it's hot water. The thought of those bastards inheriting all this when I die makes me sick!

The family lawyer is not here, so we'll have to come back later and see how this whole situation develops now that Orman is not actually dead.

Next on our tour...



...we'll go over to the hotel. First we talk with the receptionist.

This hotel and the dog fighting arena are owned by Mr. Orman, but I'm afraid he doesn't seem to be in a good health. All three of his children are greedy and the moment he passes away the dispute over inheritance is about to start.

Now we'll go and bother people in the hotel rooms.



First, this lady here.

There is an archaeological site to the east, called the Red Pole. The Beastians say that there used to be a blue beastman statue on the pedestal inside.

A blue beastmant statue, huh? You mean like the one we currently have in our inventory? I guess I was right that these statues got looted at some point and are now scattered everywhere around the world. Probably we should try later to put the statue back in its proper place and see what happens!



Also this person here, another hotel guest.

I heard there is a bandit hideout over the mountains to the north. They say it's elaborately designed to prevent intruders. Well, I guess a bunch of bandits would know how to protect from bandits. There are probably many traps on the way in.

Let's add this to our list. I know the list is still kind of growing a bit, but we HAVE started to check things off, albeit a bit slowly.



Our next stop is the bar!



Hey, it's Angela! It's been a while! Too bad she still only has that one song, as nice as it is. Nevertheless we'll give her a few G. But we can hear the impressions from some of the bar patrons. First the two guys standing together.

When I listen to Angela's voice, before I know it, I fall asleep... it's like being in a cradle.
Angela's singing reminds of my mum back home and makes me cry...

Well, the song that she sings is indeed called "Lullaby", so these comments definitely make sense!

Then the old guy sitting at the table:

When I want to escape from life, I long for Angela's songs...

Next...



...we'll step in into butcher shop/animal trader.



Just one interesting thing from one of the guys here.

This "ribbon flower" can make even the corpses dance. Everyone who practises medicine in Neo-Kenya has heard of it: the mysterious herbs that no one has ever actually seen! Anyway, there are many medicines out there that can kill you, so I would not consider it surprising that there's one which can do the opposite!

We'll try to figure this one also before the end of the scenario.



In any case, let's check with the equipment seller. I keep forgetting to buy something which increases a bit our defence! So let's see...



Prices are a bit expensive, but it seems worthwhile to spend 3462 G apiece to buy two "clam shells". As you can see it gives +38 defence to Ken and +35 to Linda. So I will get two of these and equip them.



It brings Ken's defence up from 177 to 215 with come nice bonuses also in elemental resistance (except fire).



For Linda, it takes her defence up from 191 to 226 with similar boosts in elemental resistance. Note that as they level naturally, Linda will always be ahead in speed and defence while Ken will have a higher attack stat. A character's speed is not possible to change through equipment.

Since today we're doing kind of a "zig-zag" tour around the planet, let's now head back north, specifically to Ozport.



In Ozport, we have first this guy here...

The airport staff have heard rumours that an A-class bounty hunter called "The Puppet Master" has sneaked in on Neo-Kenya. They say he's a war criminal who killed millions of people during the war, by cloning people and using them as terrorist.

Well, things on Neo-Kenya are pretty chill right now (other than the impending meteorite), so let's hope this is not actually true!



Inside, there's also this ranger here.

Why did the Federation pick this kind of planet for settlement, especially when they should have already known about the meteorite impact 100 years ago? I don't think we common folk can understand the thinking of people in high positions.



While we're here, we receive another message notification. I've stopped counting, honestly.

Also while we're here...



...let's go through this passage.



The chest still contains the dog sword, and we can still move the barrels to reveal a ladder.



Downstairs is of course the power plant thingy.



There are many catfish here, which we will leave alone for now (we may not be quite strong enough).



It is possible however, to find here another species!



I'm talking, of course, about everybody's favourite, the entrails! So we'll catch ourselves a few of those, too.

All right now. We've been told before about endemic species which can be found in Sperm Lina (the slightly poisonous cave in the north). These are basically all new species which we haven't really seen before, so let's head over there and gather a few!



Our destination is in the north, so we'll take this tunnel northwest of Hardia again. Yes, there is a reason for not simply taking the Bird Line this time.



After exiting the tunnel, there is immediately one of these ruins where we can probably activate the teleporter. However, we'll skip that at this time, because...



...a bit further to the west, there is another one, which will prove to be more useful to us today.



Like the last time, we can activate the teleporter by putting a beastman necklance onto the statue's neck. We won't however step on the teleporter for now.

Instead we'll simply leave...



...and make our way to Lina Valley.



We want to get into the cave, so we have to go all the way around...



This guy has something to say.

The four seasons are like nature's facial expressions. Like a woman's make-up: eyebrows, mouth and even the position of a mole. Even the snowfields with permanent snow are the same--walk around them enough times and you'll start to recognise the changes... maybe.

Honestly, the NPC chatter in this game is truly one of the best I've ever seen!



Anyway, where we're going is down into the poison muck (sigh).



Here we are. And why am I standing literally in the poison? Well, it's been kind of hinted previously that we may want to try camping overnight but literally in the poison.

If you do that...



...you will definitely get ambushed by jellyfish!



Surprisingly, somehow they used to look LESS weird in the original PC Engine version:



Immediately after...



...we find our next new species!



These are, of course, sheep. I mean, what else?



All right, now get ready.

Because I'm going to show you what sheep used to look like in the PC Engine version.

Actually, don't worry about getting ready. Nothing, nothing can prepare you for this.

Ok, here we go.



Let's continue through the cave.



At least it's not all poison and has also some solid ground to walk on.

Rather than looking for different animals in this cave, it's a good idea to try making a camp in different locations.

This way you can get ambushed by a couple of species.



For example, water striders.



They belong to the few species which were added in the remake and were not present in the original!

Another species that you can get ambushed by...



...are some pretty vicious looking bats!



They too, looked just a bit more scary in the original version:



As we continue to explore the cave...



...we pass by another teleporter, but this one is active!



Before we leave, just one more species for today!



It's just frogs!



Interestingly enough, this is one of the few palette-swapped enemies in the game. Apart from the joke fights like "fake scorpions" and a few others we haven't yet seen, as far as "capturable" species go, there is only one pair with palette swapped colours! For some reason, the game contains both frogs and also tree frogs and they are indeed just the same design with different colours. We've come briefly across some tree frogs, but didn't capture them since we don't know yet how to find the female ones.

With that said, that's about all we're going to do today, so let's head back to that teleporter...



...and step on it!



Of course, it takes us to one of these places...



...and as you might have already guessed, it's exactly the one I activated earlier today. So this nicely saves us quite a bit of travel time as we're right close to that tunnel leading back to Hardia. So, let's go and hand in all the animals we've captured since--and it's been a while, we still have some from last time that we didn't hand in.



By the way, while we're here...



...there's this scientist guy here. I can't remember if we ever talked to him, so here goes.

In order to try and determine the material the ark is made of, I had a few grams of the outer walls scraped off. The result was completely astonishing: it was just oak. The same one that grows everywhere! But the even more astonishing part was that all the marks where I've scraped off the sample had completely disappeared by next morning!

Huh. I see. Well, let's just go inside.



Let's hand in everything we've gathered since the last time we've been here.



Subsequently, the robot informs us that we've collected 39 animal species, so about a third of the way to 120!

We'll stop here for now, but next time we'll keep exploring and solving sidequests. Despite there being a general amount of time pressure, the game kind of does let you do your thing without having to rush too much, so that's pretty nice. I know that things are pretty calm right now, but don't worry, there is going to be some major content in this scenario too, despite there not being a focused plot to follow!




Today, a portrait of Linda against a collage of scenes from first two scenarios.


"We're aiming for the new world"

Also, a few storyboards for cutscenes that ended up unused and were not animated in the end:


Text in the bottom left: "Elizabeth takes Linda hostage".