Part 4: A whirlwind of emotion.
Oh boy, it looks like Gori’s gone wandering in the middle of the night. Good thing that like most RPG protagonists, Ayla has a small touch of insomnia.
A much quieter and more subdued version of Nice Weather, Isn’t It! plays while Ayla wanders around, which isn’t actually on the soundtrack. Fortunately there’s no sound effects to get in the way of recording it myself.
Since everyone else is asleep, we can sneak into the Elder’s room and make off with the rest of his stuff.
And it turns out he has the ingredients for the Buzzing Knife, Ayla’s strongest weapon. So uh, the game is basically telling you to go nuts.
Using our powerful nose reveals two scents coming from the larder… and there’s not really anywhere else to go, so let’s investigate.
Hmm.
Despite being found at the sense of the crime, Gori denies having helped himself to a midnight snack.
Something in here also smells of flowers, but there isn’t anything in any of the haystacks we can reach. Oh well.
...Wait a minute.
We seem to have lost another piece of meat. (Also, the Bone can be picked up now.) And when we examine the newly exposed haystack…
An intruder! And a rather familiar one at that.
She proceeds to make us play the cups game with haystacks, but isn’t actually in any of them the fourth time unless you sniff her out. (Colloquially known as ‘The Riddler Special’.)
Damn it, Gori. We’re trying to catch her, not beat her to death.
When we approach, Ayla stops to think and lets us choose an item from our inventory.
Despite the violence, giving her another Meaty Bone to enjoy is the correct answer. The one on the floor can be collected and used now, just in case you had none.
After leaving and coming back again, she’s finally willing to come out and see us. And Ayla likes what he sees.
So does Gori.
She’s not into apes though.
Ayla knows how to treat a lady right.
After we pick Chuckles here up off the floor, we actually have three people in our party.
Say hello to Bel! She’s a lot smarter than the guys, but she badly needs new gear. I crafted some ahead of time, so…
Yeah, that’s more like it. That high IQ will make her pretty handy once she gets moves that actually use it. But for now, let’s just head back to Ayla’s room.
...Or not. Some dope has fallen asleep outside the door, and bringing a stranger into the cave at night is probably grounds for being clubbed to death or something.
We can’t just sneak past him as we are, so alternate tactics are required.
Something something, sneaking mission, boxes, metal gear.
Hey, dingus. We have a trick we want to show you.
...I’m just a little sad we didn’t hear him crash into the far wall. That would have been great.
Oh. We seem to have an occupancy issue.
It’s easily fixed.
Wait, Ayla has an even better idea.
And thus the double bed was born. And Ayla got to spend his first night sleeping alongside a lady.
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...So what I’m getting here is that caveman society was basically a sitcom.
Also, we probably ought to find Bel before someone else finds her first.
Good thing Ayla is evolved enough to have pattern recognition skills.
But man, has he got it bad.
At least she likes him too.
...Oh, right. There’s that small issue of how Bel ate everything the tribe had stored.
And what you can’t hear here is the loudass rumbling noises her stomach is making. She’s still hungry!
And thus Ayla forms yet another brilliant idea: to get Bel a nice meal so maybe she’ll kiss him again. Like I said, he’s got it bad.
The grinding earlier has left us with plenty of Meaty Bones to give her, but Bel actually has responses to a couple of other items as well. (All others will just be refused.)
There are a pair of craftable items that will get Ayla slapped. Either some Thick Chest Hair (Beast Fang + Hide) or a… “Clack Case” (Beast Horn + Stone Knife/Leather Cord). The latter is body armour.
So naturally I’m assuming it’s the prehistoric equivalent of a speedo.
The game will progress if you either feed Bel, or you give her a piece of equipment she can use. The latter result is… Well, very mildly
.Here, I’ll link the .gif just in case a split second of SNES pixel lewdness offends you.
Of course, the correct answer is just to give her some food to quiet her rumbling stomach. But yes, the other non-slap approach works too.
At that point, this guy turns around and interacting with him will result in plot progression.
Gah, what a jerk.
What the hell were you looking at anyway? And what’s that rumbling noise?
(Music stops.)...Ow.
Ayla’s dead tired now, I bet.
Down in the main cavern, our visitors are busy searching the place and bullying the elder.
And while the elder has no idea that we have Bel, the prettyboy isn’t buying it.
Bel is understandably not too enthused about seeing him again… not that he cares.
Control returns to Ayla at this point; we could go and grind up a little if we needed to, but what kind of person would leave someone in distress?
The rest of the update is also available in video form.
Just gonna figure out how this thing works, and…
...Exactly as planned.
Ayla is pumped up for what comes next.
Namely that we’re going to beat the paste out of this guy. Thanks for taking part in Ayla’s demonstration, Gori.
This jerkface still doesn’t think we’re any threat though, and sics his mooks on us.
(Kiss of Jealousy continues uninterrupted.)The Ku Tribe members are, well… pushovers. They have 40 HP and deal basically no damage.
Even Bel can murder these guys with ease, and she’s level 1. (BonkBonk is like Ayla’s Bash Bash, and Teh! Teh! is the same knockback + low damage as Bang Bang.)
Alright, let’s get to the main event.
Yeah, you’d better run!
The big guy remains undaunted however, so… Time for our first boss fight!
Say hello to Zaki, smuggest douchebag of this era. He’s actually reasonably dangerous if you don’t have top-notch gear, with a total of 322 HP (if I’m not mistaken). He has six different attacks, but you’re probably only going to see one or two.
Because he loves using this one above all others, where he throws his… Wait a second. Let me bring up this dude’s concept art.
…
Why are you wearing a live lizard as underwear? A lizard you apparently trained to attack people?!
You know what, Ayla’s just going to cave your face in so I don’t have to think about that.
Enjoy the monkey poop and caveman farts too. (Sidenote: Poison fields always deal 16 damage to anyone standing on them when their ‘turn’ comes up. Unless someone is immune or healed by these fields, anyway.)
Even Bel gets in on dogpiling Zaki, though he harasses her with his lizard.
Seriously, look at this. Zaki is actually still kind of threatening even with all our fancy gear.
The next attack finishes him off though. Ayla does far and away the most damage at the moment.
Yeah, and don’t come back, you lizard-abusing creep!
(Music stops.)Hey, just because Zaki came in and beat up all the other caveman looking for Bel doesn’t mean you should throw her out now! ...Well okay, maybe it does. But like hell is Ayla gonna let that happen!
...Goddamn moody old fart, ain’t he?
Well, I think Ayla, Gori and Bel just got themselves exiled.
And yes, the game’s sad music starts playing.
Let’s just take a moment to think about this, and how to survive without the tribe…
...Well, so much for poignancy. See you all next time!