Part 8: Update VIII - She's fine! I just rescued her.

Update VIII - She's fine! I just rescued her.

Music: World of the Abyss


Last time, I got tricked into getting a plot item.



To take my mind off such a betrayal, we'll start off going through the actual optional door.



It has the same basic layout as the last one, but this one lacks the water room.



This is the last security console in the dungeon. Even this gimmick only got a handful of uses.





Thank goodness. Thanks to you, that is! Looks like you‘ve fallen for my trap!

Bamboozled again.



Dober Man, SOS, yawn.



They‘ve got a guy called Steel something-or-other locked up in this prison. I heard he‘s a real monster. They‘re probably holding him somewhere down in the lower reaches.

The plot thickens.



One room up, we find a lady.



Oh, Massimo... This has been terrible on you, Massimo. Have strength.

Obtained Force Metal 「Water Guard」

This one is real. Also what the hell is up with Massimo? Has this been The Sixth Sense all along? Do we see cyber-dead people?

Anyways, I give X the Water Guard.



Across from her is a normal storage room.



Above her is this guy.



X, please! Defeat Silver Horn! Promise me! He must pay! He destroyed our comrades... One after another... Making them suffer! You must... Take revenge!

Epsilon is all 'ohhhhhh our vision for all Reploids ohhhhh' and then the first two Rebellion big shots we encounter are Wild 'tries to blow up a tower filled with civilians' Jango and Silver 'tortures POWs to death' Horn.



One last cell holds a Jack of Hearts. I stick to Spider's Jack of Clubs for the double hit.



With that out of the way, time to finally use that ID.



With yet another lift.



We have to be getting close to the lowest levels by now.



Despite the name, it isn't much of a maze.

Music: Irregular Battle I




On the way, we get our first First Strike! Which is a god send, since the D-Shark here is an utter bastard. It has the heavy hitting Smash! for a guaranteed critical, Ultra Blizzard to put the hurt on the entire party, and finally,



The completely attack Mini Shark. Mini Shark creates 1-3 sharks, and the damage each one deals is based on the D-Shark's current HP. At full HP and 3 sharks, it deals just shy of 750 damage. And just to make it even worse, Mini Shark is one of the two attacks in the entire game that can punch through Spider's Trickstar.

The other attack is the same move from a palette swapped D Shark, so I think this is actually a glitch.

The animation also takes forever to play. I had to speed up the footage by four times just to make it fit in LPix's size limit.



Mini Shark does have a weakness, at least. Landing one C-type attack gives this message, landing three in total will break the D-Shark's jaw entirely and disable Mini Shark.

Granted, actually landing those three hits is a challenge, given that our only C-type unit is Massimo and he's as slow as molasses, needing X Fire to back him up to get those hits in.



And if I have to use Hyper on a normal enemy, I might as well use Hyper on everyone and burst it down to save on Hyper turns.

Music: World of the Abyss


Heading south from the lift, we find yet another locked door. We'll have to put this on our to-do list, alongside the Lagrano Key and Central Key.



So we head north instead. The crystal holds a Tank Energy 50, and just past the door on the minimap is a fade to black.

Video: Nana and Silver Horn
Music: The Rebellion's Fate


We come in on Nana sitting in a strange techno-chair, with scans of X floating around her.



Silver Horn drops in.



He's big. Hey, remember way back in the first update? This bit here:


How the hell did Silver Horn fit in there? Jango was around X's size, but this guy would have trouble fitting in Epsilon's pod a floor up!



Master...

A better look at the chair. Are the leg restraints really neccessary?



If you try anything funny, the POWs'll be turned into scrap!

Seriously, Silver Horn is huge.



Good... The Rebellion Army owns you now. Don‘t forget that.

Music: World of the Abyss


Meanwhile, X has spent the past few minutes standing around.



There's loot up ahead, so we go that way.



That's twice as good as the storage room back at Central! Man we're really rolling in dough now.



A side room nets us some Build items. That item marker on the mini-map is in the locked door's area.



This 'maze' consists of just these two zones. Hell, the door out of here is directly in front of us!



So, naturally, that'll be the last place to go. This side room has a Warm-Up, Boost Shield, and Boost Power.



I guess you could call it a maze, since there's actually two separate entrances between Maze 1 and Maze 2.



The other half of the zone has this single Tomahawk as a reward.



And a quick bit of Tank Energy to cap the area off.



Yet another lift. This place must be seriously well designed to withstand the water pressure.



This lift is so long I had to play it at double speed!

Music: Dangerous - Machine - One - Hair


Stepping in here kicks off a sudden music change. Hey, you know what room we've recently seen that was dark?



Nana's room! Silver Horn just left a handful of guards and called it good. How did he even leave the room anyways?



This Reploid is mine! Take this!

Music: Event Battle


We've seen the Spark already, but the Preon Pod is new. The Pod's gimmick is to spend their first turn readying the hard-hitting, Freeze-inflicting Freeze Shot, which it fires on their next turn. If you deal 500 damage before that, however,



The attack gets canceled entirely, and has to make do with the much weaker Bull's Eye and Mega Blizzard.



The Pod also has two new items to drop. The Liquid Suffocation is a very good item, inflicting Freeze on an enemy unit. If it lands on a major threat, it completely takes them out of the fight and gives you time to deal with any enemies it came with safely. The Ice Missile finishes off the elemental trio.

Video: Saving Nana
Music: Resistance Line


I‘m X. I‘m here to rescue you.

Wait a second. I‘ll let you loose.



Oh god her eyes are blank.



I managed to reprogram the system so that the alarms wouldn‘t go off.

Oh hey, she was able to mess with their system because they hooked her in, what a shocker.

I was captured... and they told me, if I didn‘t cooperate, they‘d kill the POWs. I... I couldn‘t...

We understand. It‘s all right now. We‘ll rescue every last one of them.

Let‘s go get that creep!

I'll stay here and back you up.

Nana?

I can‘t forgive what he did. I‘ll help you the best I can.

OK. You check up on the Rebellion Army.



Is there any record... of me being held here?

Massimo... Steel Massimo, right? It says you were captured 10 days ago, and subsequently placed in solitary confinement. It also says that after 5 days of refusing to cooperate, you were executed.

Executed?

I know how this goes. Massimo has to deal with some unfinished business before he can go to Robot Heaven. Bold move of Capcom to make an entirely new character that's in the party for a single chapter.



they killed somebody else instead? This is unbelievable!

Or that. Mistaken identity also works.

Music: Dangerous - Machine - One - Hair


Even though Nana has been saved, we still have the panic music playing.



With this device... It might be possible to get information on the Rebellion Army. If something comes up I will contact you with a transmission. You destroy Silver Horn, please.



Gladly.



A save point and Tank Energy 50.



I‘ve found something out about the facility up ahead. Listen carefully...



If you step on the panels in the correct order, you can deactivate the lock and proceed. But the wrong order will activate an alarm, alerting the security guards! You must be careful. This is the correct order for that room. Please watch carefully.



That's right, our final dungeon gimmick is Simon. The panels play musical notes and everything.

So, just step on them in the order that they light up, right? Sounds like a piece of cake. Just follow the commands. Ball‘s in your court, X.



It really is that easy.



Getting the right input makes the lights flash high, a chime plays, and the door unlocks.



There are a few of these puzzles before the end.

This is the correct order for that room. Please watch carefully.



The panels are flashing faster this time, although they added something new to this one.



If you look at the minimap, you can see that there are two locked doors, one with a lot of loot behind it.



The combination Nana showed us opens the plot door.



While the other door has to be guessed open. This one needs Yellow, Red, Blue.



Dealing with it is worth it, this room has a Build LE, Build Power, Build Armor, Build Shield, and Build Speed all in one place!



A third puzzle, but now there's a locked crystal to go along with the two locked doors.



The panels are flashing even faster.



Get the main door.



Screw up guessing the password for the others.



You get a quick fight if you fail the puzzle. If you fail enough times the game shows pity on you and just resets the panels if you mess up.



On the plus side, we get a number of drops for our trouble.



Red, Yellow, Blue unlocks the side door.



While Blue, Yellow, Red unlocks the crystal.



We're just one set of Tank Parts off from an extra tank!



Oh hello, 100z, 200z, 300z, 400z, and four Figure Tokens are the full haul from this.



One final puzzle, this time with four panels.



This one moves very fast. Off in the corner is another locked crystal.



Get the door.



Green, Blue, Red, Yellow to open the crystal.



The Queen of Diamonds is a step up from the Jack of Diamonds Spider started with. Stat wise, it has slightly less power than his current Jack of Clubs, but wins out in all other stats. I swap him over to it.

Music: World of the Abyss


And with that, we're almost at the end of the chapter!

Next time: