Part 13: Merry Times On The Way

Of course you can be the Final Starman!

Update Thirteen: Merry Times On The Way

Welcome back! Last time, on Mother, we made our way to Snowman and saved our game. I think that about covers the excitement. Today, we're going to get another party member and take a quick journey back to Magicant, so let's rock.





Snowman isn't too terribly big, and it's not terribly hard to find Merry.



I wouldn't say we're carefree. We're saving the world. Or something.



This is our major clue as to where Merry is; both of these jerks can also give Leo a cold. Champ stays healthy, thankfully.



So, east we go!



Over to the east, more confirmation we're on the right path to finding Merry.



All that sign says is "Snowman Church ahead", so I hope you forgive me for omitting it.



There are no encounters on the path to the church, surprisingly; it's just a nice walk through the snow.



And it's not even a balls-long walk or anything.



Well, comparatively speaking to some of the walks we've taken so far.



But, here we are. Behold its churchey glory.



I'm willing to bet Merry is the one wearing purple. I think that's a girl, at least.



Were you fifteen years older, I'd ask you to go on about this dream.



But, if we show her the Hat from our inventory, she seems to know our name.



As we'll see soon, she'll need this help.



Fun fact: until I was taking these shots, I had forgotten where I needed to go. So, what follows from here is partially me having a plan and mostly me forgetting where the fuck to go. I think Duncan's Factory has fried my fucking brains.



Merry leads us over to this guy.



It's apparently her dad.



I hope he knew that Leo and Champ were coming, otherwise, this could be troublesome. For him, at least, because I don't want to see what Leo could do to a regular human being.



Merry goes and joins the end of the line, as our third party member.



And promptly pushes Champ's pussy ass to the end of the line. She also put her hat on, which I find to be such an adorable touch.



She comes with the standard (I guess) Telepathy, but also Lifeup Beta. Jesus Christ, she's better at healing than Leo is.



She also gets the Easy Ring, so the encounter rate should be back down and our experience gains should be boosted.



She needs more equipment, though, so let's head over to Magicant.



Oh, yeah, Swimming Cat over here had something for Champ.



Swimming Cat, I like the cut of your jib.



Good Lord, Champ, you must really suck if even item descriptions are sassing you.



Shit, though, a +5 boost to Fight is definitely going to help him not be a weakling, though.



Leo still has that cold, so let's get that fixed up real quick.



I'm glad this guy doesn't charge anything. Right now, I don't have enough cash on hard to get Merry a Magic Coin, so I've gotta run to the old man in the fountain to get money.



On the way there, Merry gets into her first fight.



But, she gained herself her first level, too.



Now, Merry learns a fucking shitload of PSI powers. In one level, I saw her learn two powers; granted, due to the way PSI powers are gained, it's not always guaranteed you'll gain a power after a level, but still, two after a level was still kind of surprising to me.



She learned PK Thunder Alpha. So, she can now use PSI PK Thunder Alpha. Somebody on the translation team didn't think through how fucking stupid that sounded. She also has Brainshock, but I don't give a shit about that.



On my way to there, I also made sure to stop by and see Ground Swimming Cat, since he has something for Merry.



She gets all sorts of fancy PSI powers, and Force helps determine the amount of PP you gain during levels, so this is perfect.



Also, the guy with the guitar has changed his dialog a bit.



Listen close, because this is actually important.











Now, wasn't that lovely? And, hey, doesn't it sound familiar...



Yeah, sure, whatever. I gotta go see a man about my money.



Nothing else interesting happened along the way, other than Merry gaining some levels and learning some PSI powers, but we're ready to buy her a Magic Coin.



I don't know why I grabbed $1,800 more than I needed, but there you go.



Shiny new Magic Coin sitting wherever Magic Coins sit, we're ready to move along.



You're supposed to be able to fight the Dragon when Leo is at level 25.



Now, Leo is above level 25. I'm sure he can survive the fight, but I worry about Merry and Champ.



Mostly about Merry, though. She's a hell of a lot weaker than the other two.



Are you guys ready for some fucking dragon slaying?



Yeah, well, I was, too.



Nothing I did...



Including having the properly leveled guy trying to speak to its mind.



And I got nothin'. I don't know what I did wrong, if anything, but maybe everyone needs to be level 25 or something. Or maybe the level requirement is higher in the GBA version.



So, fuck it, I'm grumpy now. I wanted to murder a dragon.



It's about there that I forgot entirely I needed to go to Easter.



If you'll look, I'm way far away from Easter right now. I don't know what my grand plan was here, but here we go.



The game didn't seem to appreciate me not having a plan.



Which I didn't expect; normally, this encounter wouldn't be too terrible, except for one thing.



Vehicles expelling exhaust fumes is not a good thing.



In addition to this, it does a bit of damage, too. It does right around 30 damage.



Enough to kill the new party member, at least, which was not cool in my book.





I'm not sure what an asthma attack does to Leo, but I'm not going to risk Champ fighting things by himself, so I finally use that Asthma Spray I bought at the beginning of the game.

I did a bit of reading about Leo's asthma attacks, and all it seems to say is that he'll miss attacks in battle, which doesn't sound like too terrible of a thing, but certainly something you'd want to get rid of, as Leo is going to be the hardest hitter for a long time, in addition to his buff/debuff and healing PSI powers.



Merry is now a ghost and I'm embarrassed.



So, let's check our money and exp for next levels and be done for now. Thankfully, the Healer's house was close by.



We still have a lot of cash, so we'll be good for a while now.





And so, we're done with this (useless) update!

Next time, on Mother, let's see what's shakin' in the town of Easter, shall we? Stay tuned!