Mother Part #17 - Tanks For Nothing

Part 17: Tanks For Nothing

Update Seventeen: Tanks For Nothing

Welcome back! Last time, on Mother, we took some plane rides and talked to a cactus that had a face (and a dong, as someone decided to point out and I thought I'd try and remain classy and not mention). Today, as you could probably tell from my horrible title, we're going to fuck around with a tank, so let's rock.

If you'll notice here, all ten ticket stubs you collect are actual, physical items in your inventory and they take up ten slots. If you don't have enough slots, I don't know what happens, but I imagine it's frustrating and stupid. I didn't know this before, but I just happened to have ten slots open, so that spared me some fury.

Somehow, he's fucking surprised we have ten ticket stubs, even though we just finished riding around with him in his plane four times. Maybe he was just throwing random amounts of stubs at us and he's surprised he actually threw out ten.

A group of teenagers, excited about being able to ride around in a tank with impunity? Frankly, Mr. Pilot, I'm shocked as shit that they're excited.

Anyways, let's roll. We have a Goddamned tank.

I reckon that Champ probably knows how to drive a tank. He was horribly bullied in school, remember? It explains how he knows how to use bombs, lasers and bottle rockets, too. I think it's a good thing that Leo got Champ out of that school, otherwise Columbine would have just been a footnote.

In the tank, you can roll around the desert area and just the desert area; you can't go onto the grass, otherwise Leo and co. will just hop out of the tank and go back on foot. There are no random encounters in the tank. There is actually only one encounter we can fight with it, so having a tank turns out to be a fairly "meh" experience.

Anyways, it's east to where we need to go with the tank.

These ruins look awful suspicious, don't they?

Let's see if we can find anything neat about these; maybe we'll get a mummy acapella group to sing our next melody.

Sweet Jesus, Pharaoh's Curse!

Of a Goddamned robot. That's one advanced Pharaoh and he definitely didn't want Brenden Fraser dicking around in his tomb.

Well, this fight is off to a lovely start, isn't it?

The tank is required for this fight. If you don't have it, R-7037 is going to crush your party into a fine paste.

Just hammer the attack button and you'll win; the team will take turns firing the cannon at it.

I couldn't find an HP value for this guy, but I also didn't look very hard; it seems to be around 1,000. Since he's having so much damage reflected back at him, just go through the fight normally and he'll bite the dust soon enough.

Unfortunately, that's also the end of the tank.

But, hey, Merry gained a level!

As well as learning a new PSI power. Now is as good a time as any, so I'm finally going to list out all of her powers, as she has a ton of them.

Anyways, Merry's list of PSI powers is as follows:

Telepathy, Lifeup Beta, Lifeup Gamma, Lifeup Pi, Healing Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Pi, Super Heal, PSI Shield Alpha and Beta, Brainshock, Hypnosis, Paralysis, Darkness, PSI Magnet, Shield Off, PSI Block, PK Freeze Alpha, Beta and Gamma, PK Fire Alpha, PK Beam Alpha and Beta, and PK Thunder Alpha and Beta.

All of those powers are also pretty self-explanatory and she is a pretty good support PSI character, just like Poo was. She's also the only source of offensive PSI, as Leo only has support and healing PSI powers, so Merry is a valuable, if fragile, member of the team.

Let's continue on, without our tank. I don't know what we're going to tell the pilot, but maybe we just won't let him know. We're going to explore some ruins, so we'll just let him think that we died in there.

Do all ruins have nice wooden ladders for easy access?

Let's head to the left here; maybe we'll find a Morph Ball.

This place is also a gigantic maze, but it's not too terribly hard to navigate around in. There are a ton of twists and turns, though, so it's okay if you get a bit turned around.

There are also monkeys wandering around here, too. He's right about it being peaceful, too. There are absolutely no random encounters in this area. Maybe that's why I enjoyed this section more than I thought I would...

I'm sorry if I'm seeming like I'm coming down too hard on this game. I do like it, just not very much. It's not an awful game or even really a bad game. I just don't like it, as it is quite dated and it hasn't aged terribly well. The music isn't half-bad, though.

Enough of my complaints; I signed up to LP this game and dammit, I'm going to finish it.

Oh, uh...Sorry, ma'am.

Sure, yeah. I mean, I usually don't, but that's because I'm terrible at talking to women I don't know; the bar scene is just so awkward and uncomfortable for me, too.

...Never quite that awkward, though.

This place sucks. Did I mention that? Because it does.

A new friend, you say? Well, isn't that interesting, since we still don't have our fourth party member...

There's a path leading down, which leads us closer to getting the hell out of here.

There are just more monkeys down here and more maze-like paths.

Still no random encounters, though I should mention this now; nearly all the monkeys are fucking liars. That monkey we just talked to might not be lying, but that monkey who was actually a man kinda lied to us about his gender and that monkey that said it seemed peaceful, but was too dark down here was a liar too; it is perfectly peaceful and the lighting is quite nice.

Maybe that's just being nitpicky, but seriously, the monkeys lie.

They're not the awesome monkeys from Earthbound, who were always helpful, kind and full of love and bubblegum.

Dammit, I want a piece of gum now.

I don't know why. I just finished eating some pizza and it was really good; it was a Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust Supreme, and that's one of my favorites.

It's really the Stuffed Crust, I think, that does it for me. It's so simple, yet elegant and tasty.

Awesome, a present box!

We found one of these way back near the beginning. It still restores some PP (about 20 points), so it's still useful and I give it immediately to Merry, as her PP is the most valuable.

Eighteen points is a good bit, too. That's enough for some Freeze Gamma action. I don't think I explained what Freeze Gamma did, actually. It does damage of a sort, but now how you think it would; Freeze Gamma actually just lowers the target's HP down to critical levels, leaving them with a slim chance of survival.

Down a dead-end, we find an inquisitive monkey. It hasn't taken that long, actually, Monkey.

I wasn't looking forward to writing this update and I think you can tell why; there's not a lot to actually say here, other than, "Look, more corridors with a black floor!"

Holy sweet jumpin' fucking Jesus, there's more stones!

Oh, thank God, a monkey.

Now I don't have to think of more inane things to say that you all probably stopped reading forty images ago.

Also, fuck that monkey, we're going to keep going straight.

I wasn't even aware we were trying to catch this monkey, but whatever, I like free shit.

And I definitely like that kind of free shit; Leo is going to get this Speed Capsule.

It's mostly due to his massive physical power and his healing abilities; some of you may have given it to Merry, and I considered that, but with Leo's excellent Lifeup PSI, having him go first and heal before an enemy can break someone in half is a better idea to me.

At least the tune isn't too bad. I actually remembered to include it when writing the update, instead of after Explosionface asked where his music links were.

Well, shit, now Leo has a PSI Stone of his own, which is awesome in my book.

Now, if I could find something that made me excited about still having Champ around...

There's another monkey around. I wonder if he'll be helpful.

I ran like hell all around this maze and couldn't find what he was talking about, unless he meant the PSI Stone.

So, let's just move on.

Probably a good idea, Monkey. Though, what if you're lying to me...

Once again, I have no idea what the hell this monkey is talking about. All I found were those two PSI Stones, so I'm sure I missed something wonderful that someone will inform me of soon.

I have "Five O' Clock Somewhere" stuck in my head right now.

It's kind of inappropriate, since I have the Silent Hill 4 LP going in the background, and some woman has just died with horrific wounds all over her; I bet she could use a drink.

Leo is very flattered, but I don't think he swings simian-style, you pervert.

We're almost done with this area, and there are just a few more monkeys to talk to along the way; you don't have to talk to any of them, but I didn't feel right passing up a conversation with a monkey.

Too late, pal. I don't trust a single one of you fuckers.

I-Is that a penguin? How did it get here!?

But about that penguin, Boss...

Boss-Monkey gives some directions on how to get out of here, which is pretty well appreciated.

I'm wondering how you got past the guard robot. Unless he's only programmed to attack people and tanks, with penguins being left out of his "kill on sight" algorithms.