Part 21: You May Say I'm a Fool, Feelin' the Way That I Do
Update 21: You May Say I'm a Fool, Feelin' the Way That I Do
So we resume our journey with Mark, Lisa, and Isaac relaxing at Mark's house. Let's see how they're doing.
Mark's had a...notable increase in his levels, but it won't matter too much overall. Lisa and Isaac are pretty reasonable for this point in the game, though, especially since they earn levels quicker than Mark. Our equipment isn't quite where I want it, either, but that's an easy fix.
I have to make a quick stop by Easter to get something nice, but first I need to get there. It can be a bit hard to get a good Teleport run, so my preferred method is to go to Magicant and set up like so, since it's an easy reference and it won't cause you to run into anything.
Back in Easter, just a short bit north of the exit to the swamp, there's a house where you can sleep for free (because the kid doesn't understand money) and this shop. The Toy Air Gun is Isaac's ultimate weapon. Yep, you read that right: he just buys his ultimate weapon at a shop. So how good is it?
Pretty good, but stacked with Isaac's pitiful attack, it's still not much. It gives a +42 to Offense. The previous high we've seen is the +31 of the Boomerang.
Out in the middle of nowhere, north of Easter, we come across a funny formation of trees. What's so funny about it?
It makes a big peace sign. Just one of those fun things hidden aways where you can't normally see it. There's also an infinity north of the desert, but not as interesting.
So there's a chance I may have told a lie that caused that lie to be passed on to all of you. You can actually just walk all the way from the desert to Easter. However, that's for boring people and Communists. Real adventurers fly around in planes, blow up robots with tanks, and teleport to magical lands to kill dragons.
The real reason why you don't want to walk the whole way is it's a really long walk and the encounters here are tougher than you're typically expecting. THey wear you down quickly and frequently. Especially assholes like DeathBarbot there that like to use Beam Gamma on you.
So why am I even in the desert? I'm going back to check on airplane/tank guy, but while I'm over in the eastern area, I decide to see if I can find something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pevEh_H2x8c
I found it.
I honestly didn't know where it was. I was about 30 seconds from just continuing along on my merry way when I came across it.
Oh shit, you guys aren't going to tell Shigesato on me, are you?
At any rate, after your tank adventure, our friend here has packed up shop and is nowhere to be found.
Now, for my next trick, let's head off to Thanksgiving.
Next to the department store, we find this fellow wanting us to answer his survey.
I don't think the answers really matter, so I chose whatever.
For our time, we get the Phone Card. What does it do? It lets you use the green pay phones without needing to waste a dollar on it. If you're like me and are obsessed with never carrying money around, this is a great time-saver, even if you have to use the item every time. I've heard it's limited to about 30 or so uses, but on my original run through the game, I had no problem using it every time from my first time in Merrysville (Thanksgiving) until the end of the game.
Careful observers will have noted earlier that Valentine wasn't on my Teleport list, so in order to actually pretend to make some progress for a moment, I have to run through the swamp, but it's not so bad if you know the general way to go.
Sorry if any of you were just absolutely dying for this to remain THE GOONS, but I decided to have a small amount of input myself.
Anyways, in Valentine, we have this guy lying to us. There is absolutely nothing at the harbor. There's something near the harbor of interest, but that's it. Also, despite how hard it is for me to use the Japanese names for the towns, I'm going to keep it up, but no way in hell are you going to see me say "Holy Loly Mountain" more than this one time. It's Mt. Itoi and will stay that way for all time.
The town and its people have all started to go crazy
Does this seem vaguely familiar to anybody? Let's think back, way back, to the top of Twinkle Elementary.
It's an easy detail to miss. Even more so when you're playing on a GBA and the aspect ratio is less than ideal for showing it off to a normal player. I just love how early in the game they plant this little detail before you ever get anywhere near Mt. Itoi.
At this point, I remembered something around Reindeer I wanted to show off. Again, it's not in my town list, but a short walk and a train ride later will make that better. Remember what I said earlier about Teleport not always being the easiest thing to do?
Oh, oops. Well, at this point, I'm going to follow my own advice and go to Magicant first, right?
Nope! I do it again.
And again. I seriously don't know what my problem was, but at least I got out of there eventually.
While I'm in Reindeer, I decide to empty out this annoying inventory I have. Repel Rings? Those are for the weak who can't stand frequent random encounters.
And they can get a nice bit of cash in your pocket for other things.
I haven't been playing very long and this game is just throwing levels at Lisa and Isaac. It actually was making me a bit uneasy for them to be gaining levels so rapidly. Also, you'll notice I equip RainPendants on everyone. What they do is reduce fire damage by 50%. That doesn't sound like such a big deal, especially since fire tends to seem a bit feeble compared to ice and thunder. The thing is, it's pretty hard to heal your party at once. Lisa can do it in battle, but she's so slow things can turn against you quickly, especially with Fire Beta (which is about to become incredibly common) can do 60 damage to each party member without the mitigation from RainPendants or defending. Two castings of Fire Beta back-to-back without RainPendants would wipe out 2/3 of my party without me being able to do anything about it. So if you ever play this on your own, trust me on this and take advantage of this pendant. But enough about that, let's carry on.
On the street, this fellow is wandering around
If you run into any cops, act like you never saw me. Don't run off with it, now!
Riiiight. You can trust me, buddy.
*cough*
Of course, the only cop we find is lazy. But hey, free money!
The only reason to really enter into the town of Reindeer is to visit this shop here. Laser Beams suck by now, dealing a base damage of 35, but Death Beams could be useful, dealing about 80 to a single target. Too bad they have a 1/8 chance of breaking each time they're used, so they could quickly become useless if you're unlucky.
Okay, so onto what I actually want to show off over here. Mainly, just head west from the train station.
Head past the northward turn the tracks take and there's a doghouse next to a healer's hut.
After the hut, it's basically a straight shot north.
Also, while I was in Reindeer, some asshole gave me a cold. Luckily, I'll be able to take care of this shortly.
I'm heading to the nearby little black dot near the map key.
We have to climb a small "mountain" to get up here, to find...
A pretty nice house, actually.
You aren't being too helpful here, buddy.
But this is even less helpful. Let's try something else.
Letting his brain talk directly to us, so we know what our immediate goal is. We need to find the old man's dentures. This is pretty easy.
We take this ramp down and loop around the top to the other side. It's pretty straightforward.
Almost there...
We find...a sign.
Oh, and it actually has the dentures underneath it. Gross.
I'll share with you my secret to living a long life. And that secret is...
...to gargle all the time.
He then proceeds to fill EVERY SINGLE EMPTY SLOT in your inventory with Mouthwash. If you have a lot of empty slots like me, this takes a while since there's a chime for each one.
Naturally, I use one and sell the rest back in Reindeer. Actually, I used two more on accident because selling is tedious and it's easy to get mixed up.
Okay, enough loose ends for now. Time for actual progression. I actually didn't run into anything this time, amazingly.
Up on the top floor of the department store in Valentine, we have this shop. See that Knife and Survival Knife? They're both worse than that sword that was found in Magicant ages ago. We care about that Show Ticket, though. We need it to get into the Live House (assuming we don't want to pay a scalper $1200 for a ticket, of course)
Oh, and I pick a few fights on my way because I feel like it.
Hey, it's our friend from the desert! Let's see how he's doing.
Oh. I guess I'd be pretty sad about that, too.
Well, that's kind of a dick move, but it's pocket change by now, so it's no biggie.
See you later, dude!
As he walks away, he takes a moment to look back.
And now we're inside. This place is very...purple.
You have to use your consumable show ticket to get in. The lady doesn't even say anything interesting if you just talk to her, instead just saying you need tickets. Other people in here are more intersting, though.
I just love smartass NPCs.
He had always been such a nice boy before then.
Well, I guess there are far worse reasons to start up a gang.
This guy doesn't understand what I just went through.
And worse yet, his rumor is spreading.
Back in the main room, we find this lady. I think she likes me!
I am always up for a free beer, especially if it's dark.
She leads us to the middle table and giggles.
Shit. Quick, someone get me a breath mint!
And I think he saw me.
He takes the longest route possible by walking left, down, right, and up into the table.
Well, this can't possibly be good.
He then walks us all the way over to the police station. In the NES prototype, holding dash would cause all movement to speed up, even when you're being led like this. In this version, you have to put up with the slow pace he takes across town.
So pushy! He acts like I'm an actual criminal or something. Doesn't he know I'm going to save the world? I think I'm entitled to a beer for that.
We get a free sleep out of the deal, though. Well, almost free. You'll see.
If you promise not to do it again, then you can go.
Yep, he just stole my $1000 bat.
Luckily (I guess), this guy just happens to have the exact same weapon for sale. At list price.
Yeah, I'm just SO lucky. Thanks, jerk.
A quick trip to the shop for another ticket I'm back in the club, but no more free drinks. Still one person I haven't talked to in here, so let's take care of that.
Anybody remember when I mentioned there was a bit that just absolutely had to be in this LP?
Yeah, it's what happens when you say yes.
I'm definitely going to sing my blues away.
You got it!
FUCK
This is a screen many of us saw when we first played the NES prototype ROM. In order to make it functional, a small patch was done. No big deal, right? Wrong. Nintendo actually incorporated a copyright check into the game that would look at a checksum and compare it to the correct value. If it was wrong, you couldn't progress in the game. Something in the patch caused the ROM to fail the checksum test, so we were just stuck here. I would have beaten this game about a decade ago (instead of last month) if it weren't for this screen. Luckily, it's fixed in newer versions, but I've never been so crushed by a game before or since.
Anyways, without further ado, a big musical number!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POPE5YLBWoA
For good measure, here's a link to the vocal version of the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16npWeuPVCE
When we finish, this brick of a man barges in.
Oh, thanks, man. We didn't even take time to practice or anything.
Oh, well, I guess that's true. It wouldn't be good manners to lie to this guy after his compliment.
Oh, gee, we have to fight the gang leader. Big surprise there.
Of course, it's a gimmick fight. Even though the whole party shows up, Mark is the only one who can take action or be hit here.
Basically, you just plink at each other for about three rounds and it's over.
Mark, was it? Whadya say we call it a draw? I really wanna avenge my parents.
Hey, the more the merrier.
Well, I wouldn't put it like that, but okay. Just hop in the back there and let's boogie.
Uh, hey. No talking back there. This is getting weird.
That's neither nice nor friendly, mister. I'm not so sure I want you in my party.
But yeah, that's a big secret the game hides from you for a long time. You get three party members at a time and that's it.
Luckily, where Isaac was a wet paper bag that could do some additional damage to guys, Brutus is a full-on physical powerhouse. Even though Brutus takes Isaac's inventory, he doesn't take his gear. Even so, with no equipment, he's about as good as Isaac fully kitted out.
Naturally, his weapons are knives and that sword from way back when. The Survival Knife is a +38 to attack, which far exceeds the Boomerang (and Lisa's ultimate weapon) in strength. The Basic Sword is +46, which almost beat's Mark's ultimate weapon, and Brutus still has a weapon after this. He also has the best stat growth and leveling speed in the game. Remember how it was mentioned that Pippi had pretty good stat growth? She has the same rate of advancement as Brutus. I'm dead serious.
When I went back to Magicant to get Brutus some gear, I decided to take care of a little bit of business that's been bothering me. The game is just throwing levels and my characters and it feels way too much like cheating for me. So unless I need to get a couple of levels quickly, the Easy Ring is staying in my inventory for the rest of the game.
Okay, one last sidetrack before we go head toward the last area of the game. First, I want to buy three Berry Tofus from the food store. Never eat these yourself, as you'll lose 10 HP for doing so. We're doing this for science.
Remember, the harbor is pointless, so we're going to the observatory. It's much more northwest than west, but whatever.
A short walk later, we're there.
I wonder if someone lives there. Man, if only I'd looked through the telescope...
HINT HINT
I think I'll do just that. Thanks, lady.
The first telescope isn't anything special.
The second one, however...
Nets us a pretty sweet ride.
Now we're on a tiny island with just a house.
Oh, I wish they'd start selling it out here...
I wasn't kidding about the science bit earlier.
I, too, would love to try some strawberry-flavored tofu
I really, truly want to try strawberry-flavored tofu too.
So yeah, all these guys want some Berry Tofu, so let's indulge them.
I'll show the gift in a minute, just bear with me.
An awesome robot at Mt. Itoi you say? That will get me there quicker than telling me it's where the plot is!
So we got some Love Words and Curse Words. Intriguing.
More intriguing.
Lame. The Love Words and Curse Words don't do anything other than have you say nice or mean things to the bad guys. It's a funny addtion, but nothing of consequence comes of it. Needless to say, they're being stored at home for the rest of the game.
I know this has been a bit long of an update, but hold on for a little bit longer. The remaining updates shouldn't be near as lengthy.
We're on our way to the end. It's not even that long of a walk from Valentine. Mt. Itoi is the black dot farthest on the right and we get there by going past the one just down and left from there.
So let's get going.
The enemies aren't anything we haven't seen before and aren't too bad with Mark and Brutus kicking everything in the teeth.
I'm going to note the level disparity between Mark and Brutus here. Notice how they're doing close to the same damage? Yeah, Brutus is pretty awesome.
As we get closer, we start seeing groups like this. With the Starmen using PK Beam alpha and the Death Barbots using gamma, they can turn nasty quickly. That is, if you don't take out two enemies before they can act.
Another bridge and an increase in trees means we're at our second to last destination.
It is but a humble house, but it's one of the best places in the game.
It's not much, but I have food, medicine, and some plain beds here.
This is what makes this place so special. Not only do you get free rest, but you get free Medicine. Medicine is a full heal for any one character, so to call it handy is a bit of an understatement.
Needless to say, I fill up on the stuff.
A short walk later and we're here, at Mt. Itoi.
So, we'll stop here for now. This will take longer than you might expect, as you'll see when we do it, but we're almost done with this game. I hope you guys are ready for some rapid fire plot bits, because they litter this last little bit of the game (not necessarily next update, but the following ones).
I'll leave you guys with stat shots of the current party now.
