Part 29: Robot - Update # 10 - Bonus stuff

Robot Chapter, Part 10
In Which the Universe Gives Huey a Posthumous Wedgie

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Last update, we finally got a boss battle, and it was boring. However, even though we've restored order to the ship, there are still a few things that Sphere can do before handing Darth his coffee.



For starters, since Huey is dead, we can go into his room and sift through his personal messages. We technically could have done this immediately after the Behemoth mauled him to death, but what with fetching the password for the captain's room, triggering that convoluted sequence of events to spawn Sphere 2.0, and facing the Mother Computer in a battle to the death, there wasn't really a moment when it would have been appropriate.

: The results of the test that I took back on Earth should be ready soon. If I pass, I'll become captain of my own ship. I'm keeping it a secret at the moment. When we get back to Earth, I'll surprise them.



: Before I leave this ship for good, I'd like to have a nice long talk with Rachel.

Yeah, we all know how well that worked out for him. He never did get to tell Sphere why Rachel broke up with him, and since both of the other people who would have known what happened are dead as well, that little secret will die with him.



But wait! It gets even better!

Shipmaster Authority: Greetings. We regret to inform you that you did not pass the exam for qualification as a ship captain. The next exam period is in six months.

Ouch. Believe it or not, this game's not yet done with kicking the poor sod in the teeth.



Our next stop is the computer room, where we see that Darth wasn't lying about taking down the Behemoth. Apparently, the military's big pet project was more than a little vulnerable to bullets. Which, given that the Behemoth only knew how to walk slowly towards people, puts it on the same level as a zombie in terms of combat efficiency.



: All conflicts within the system to be resolved by Sphere.

So apparently, defeating the Mother Computer turned it, effectively, into our slave. The less said about that, the better.



More importantly, the computer gives us the password for the door to the main computer up on level 3. That room has been locked off since we saw Kato working on it, and at that point, he was parked in front of it, preventing us from tampering with it. The computer doesn't do much, unfortunately, giving us a choice between a self-diagnostic (wherein it says that everything's hunky-dory) and entering in a password.



This is the only clue that we'll get for the password, but it's all that we need.



Recall that the password didn't work on the captain's door, but that was probably because the computer was intentionally locking Kato out. Now that the computer is neutralized, this password will work fine.



: Maintenance system test data, crew data. Evaluation:



"Exemplary attitude:

Huey: Negative
Kirk: Negative
Rachel: (blank)
Kato: Positive"



"Sense of solidarity:

Huey: Negative
Kirk: Negative
Rachel: Negative
Kato: Negative"



: No possibility for improvement. Rearrangement deemed necessary.

So to summarize, Huey's job involves working with crates. His girlfriend left him for the ship's pilot, who never missed a chance to insult him and taunt him about it. He failed his captaincy exams, and Captain Hol didn't see one redeeming characteristic about him either, so he was probably going to get fired. And to top it all off, when he tried to rescue his ex-girlfriend, he ended up dying for his troubles, and she didn't even make it either. This game freakin' hates Huey!



And on that cheerful note, that's all that there is to see here.



As the credits roll, we pan over the various locales that we ended up running back and forth between. It's not exactly that exciting, all things considered.



I mean really, at least the Western chapter had something interesting going on. The whole thing with the kid talking to people was nice. But here, the only thing that's different is that Darth and Sphere might occasionally be in the shot, often staring at one another.



I don't even recognize a quarter of these names, and researching them online doesn't yield a whole lot of information. For instance, all I know about Takaharu Tanaka is that he worked on Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Romancing Saga 3, all of them made by Squaresoft/Square Enix. This pattern holds for almost all of these people.



Why do we even list the credits every time? It's not like Squaresoft outsourced a chapter or something like that. The entire game was made in-house by the same development team, and we're really not treading new ground by doing this.



In fact, the only reason that I'm doing it is because there's an epilogue after the credits are over, currently in progress...



: XXXX, picked up while derelict near Earth.
Mother Computer -- Haywire.
Onboard Cargo -- Unknown Life Form

I don't see why the game developers are so coy about what year this game takes place, given that the Captain Square video game has a copyright date of 2099 right at the bottom. It's not like people a hundred years from now are going to be playing this game and laughing at the game developers for assuming that spacecraft are going to have sliding doors.



: Kato, Mechanic, currently undergoing medical treatment.



Wait, how far in the future does this log take place? Did Darth just dump Kato off at a hospital and immediately go into the robot business, or is Kato still in the hospital weeks after his heinous tiny robot-related injuries? Oh well, it doesn't matter. We're three lines away from the end of the chapter anyway.



: Within the ship, a small worker robot was discovered. Its name was registered as Sphere.