Mother Part #22 - Just As Long As We're Together We'll Be Fine

Part 22: Just As Long As We're Together We'll Be Fine

Update 22: Just As Long As We're Together We'll Be Fine

So last we saw, we were about to enter the final bad place. Well then, let's get to it.

We enter the caves at the base of the mountain to some unique music.

If you don't know where you're going, this place could get a little demoralizing as it's effectively a teleporter maze. However, it only has about 10 "rooms" so it's far from the worst thing ever.

Almost immediately, I run into our primary enemy of the area: a Blue Starman. These guys aren't too bad, especially alone. At appropriate levels, Mark and Brutus can one-shot their ~100 HP pretty reliably.

We're taking this right path. It'll circle up and around to a nice present and the way we want to continue.

Here's a more typical scenario of how you see Blue Starmen. They really like travelling in threes, so get used to seeing this as you travel through here. So Mark and Brutus can handle two of them pretty easily, what about Lisa?

Naturally, she cheats, since she doesn't have any PSI abilities that can straight-up do enough damage to kill these guys in one shot. The 12 PP per shot can start adding up pretty quickly, though.

That path up will be our way out of this "room" after we get our present.

Speaking of which...

FUCK YEAH!

Oh goddammit, I guess I should actually use some of my medicine or something. This is why I always spend so much effort keeping my inventory clean in normal circumstances.

It certainly keeps me from using items inefficiently.

Real quick, here's where Mark is sitting statwise. Pay particular attention to Offense. This is a bit inflated compared to usual simply based on him being level 51.

With his shiny new katana, Brutus almost matches him, despite being 30 levels down. It's hard to put into words how much I appreciate having Brutus in my party. The katana, by the way, has an offensive rating of +56, making it the strongest weapon in the game by far. If I have to mention this is Brutus's ultimate weapon, I think you're not paying attention.

It's so nice, as a matter of fact, that really nice basic sword is just garbage, so off it goes.

Anyways, onward and upward!

The next area almost immediately presents us with another binary choice in progression.

We're heading left. It's another path that loops up and around to the next door.

On the way, we replace that Medicine I ~~wasted~~ used thoroughly and efficiently.

On to the next room!

We came in on the right and we're going down. I'm not about to be lured in by such a close exit from this area.

In case anybody was wondering why I didn't suggest the Blue Starmen were complete pushovers, they have their ways of staying around. Namely, they can enter a defensive stance, completely ruining your mojo.

And while your speedy bruisers waste their turns...

It's entirely possible the non-defending ones can act before your slow-as-molasses psychic death machine and instantly take out a party member. They really only have four things they can do: attack, defend, Beam beta, and Beam gamma. Needless to say, they choose gamma more often than you want, which is why I spend so much effort trying to one-shot them when possible.

Here's a trick we haven't seen, though. While the various levels of Healing take care of most normal status ailments except cold...

...Super Heal will completely revive a fallen party member. At 36 PP a pop, though, it's not to be used on a complete whim, especially if you're unsure of your ability to replenish your PP.

See that little outcropping on the right? That's next to that door that was on the left of where we entered this area. Up this way, we have a present, then we're continuing on through that door to the left.

Our present contains Lisa's ultimate weapon, the Best Frypan.

It's nothing too special, I won't lie. It has a +36 for offense, so it's only marginally better than the Boomerang.

Speaking of which, that Boomerang that has served the party so well since the first trip to Magicant is finally worthless.

Oh, hey, something other than Blue Starmen!

As you might expect from a brain in a jar with legs, it relies heavily on PSI powers to piss you off. Naturally, the key is to block this ability.

He also has really high physical defense. Oh, and he really like Fire beta.

Remember my advocacy for Rain Pendants? This is a significant portion of it. Without the pendants, I'd be taking roughly double that damage. These guys seem to use Fire beta more than anything else and unmitigated, it would do more damage to a single target than most of their other PSI abilities.

Of course, my brilliant plan didn't pan out this time, but I clobbered him to death early the next round, so it wasn't that big of a deal.

Oh, right, there's this whole cave thing we're doing.

Believe it or not, we're almost through these caves.

We'll be taking that cave over on the right in order to continue on to the exit.

Braingers are dicks, by the way.

Before we go up to attempt to leave, we go right...

And through this door...

Over this way...

To find our last weapon of the game, and Mark's ultimate one, at that.

At +48, it's no katana, but it still helps further cement Mark's pretty great attack power.

In my third fight against a Brainger, I finally got PSI Block to work. I just wanted to prove it was possible. Typically, I've had better luck with it than you're seeing now.

Right, so back through the door and on with the saving the world thing.

As soon as I can avoid running into said door like an idiot.

Twice.

Through this door is the last area of the Mt. Itoi Base caves.

Nothing too special, just a straight stairstep setup leading us to the upper right.

With a free PSI Stone on the way, just past the halfway point.

And here we have it, the exit to the first part of Mt. Itoi.

We find ourselves on the Mt. Itoi Plateau, or as I started thinking of it after my first time here, SHITKICKER PLATEAU. The enemies here are a significant step up in difficulty, but there's one enemy in particular that gives this place that particular moniker. It'll be a while since we see him, though.

The color palette here really makes everything seem pretty grim and lifeless.

The Mega-Borg here is our first new enemy of the area and one of the easiest, especially alone. Mark and Brutus can handle this one easily.

In case you couldn't guess, we're climbing ropes here to progress.

Sorry, there isn't much to say out here other than find rope, climb rope.

Now we're in a bit of a clearing, so it actually takes a little bit of effort to find the next rope. I may have forgotten it was effectively just straight up and went hard right because I thought this was where the ropes stopped.

And I was punished for my insolence. Titanians have crazy high defense, over 200 HP, pretty decent PSI resistance, and a couple of nasty tricks.

This is basically the only way you're doing more than about 15 with physical attacks.

So, I said something about nasty tricks, didn't I? Well, here you go.

Mark is confused. This confusion isn't like normal RPG confusion where you randomly attack things. It's more like sleep in that you can't do anything until it wears off and physical attacks can make it go away.

Oh, and they can turn you into stone. Did I forget to mention that? Stone is bad.

Even more so when it leaves you helpless against enemy attacks.

Long story short, I got tired of their bullshit and use my guaranteed runaway ability.

That was an abject failure, but at least I got to show off why I never fight those jerks.

I suppose it would also be a good idea to fix everyone up.

Ah, there's that stupid rope.

And with that, we're done climbing ropes here.

That little ramp down is what I was looking for last time.

And what do we find over this way?

A house!

With a man!

Handing out free healing!

Oh yeah, money isn't even close to a worry at this point.

It's going to take a long time for Mark to reach level 53. He might end up doing it by the end of the LP, but I'm skeptical.

So before continuing on properly, I want to show off something up here to the north.

This little faux canyon is the divider between Shitkicker Plateau and this next little area.

You know you've changed spawn zones when you start running into Mook Seniors almost exclusively. They aren't so bad, honestly.

Sure, they're annoying.

But they don't typically do too much damage.

But still a little annoying.

This area is a pleasant little lake on the mountain. Didn't someone say something about the lake? Oh well, I'm sure it wasn't important.

Hmm? What's that up there?

A boat...that doesn't work.

At any rate, when I got back to the house, I decided I absolutely had to show off why I fear this area so much. These guys? Not it. Far too easy to worry about them.

These guys are bastards, though.

They hit pretty hard, but not too bad.

This is the real problem with them, especially if they both use it at the same time.

Remember, I'm cutting that damage roughly in half with pendants. Fire gamma is the worst thing that enemies will use on your entire party. At least, I've never seen anything worse.

But even that isn't really enough to make this place so terrible. They can do insane damage to your party, but you can still take them pretty readily. No, there's badder motherfucker up here.

This guy.

My very first encounter outside of the caves when I played the NES version was a Grizzly and he invoked the fear of god in me. I have Mark shield the party from full damage.

And even then, Lisa falls in one turn.

He also has high defense and a boatload of HP (340!).

He can do a significant amount of damage to anyone.

Every time Lisa is alive and tries to do something other than defend, she's dead.

After a long and arduous battle, I finally get a break. Note that Mark started with 155 PP and only spent 9 on putting that shield up at the beginning. The rest was spent reviving Lisa and some healing.

It's so satisfying to not just immediately hit him with something like Beam gamma or Freeze gamma. Still, not doing that again.

With that out of the way, time for an event.

When you try to enter this side room, Brutus pops out of place.

Uh, cool. I guess you earned a nap by breaking some monsters in half earlier, though.

So only Mark and Lisa enter the room.

Mark can walk around the room by himself, but with Lisa blocking the door, talking with her is the only real option here.

Sure, let's break out the second song and dance in as many updates.

So, this may seem pretty hokey and out-of-nowhere, but remember, this is 2012. To really think about this properly, you need to put yourself in a late 80's mindset. Most games told most to all of their stories in the instruction manuals because they literally couldn't waste the memory space for text. Due to limitations like these, you don't get to dictate every moment of a story to a player as they go through it, so sometimes, you just have to put in a beginning and an "end" and let them fill in the rest themselves.