Mother 3 Part #5 - Desperate Search (2)

Part 5: Desperate Search (2)

And so Boney braved fearsome storms to fulfill his mission.

Navigated through ruined lands...

And twisted through difficult social situations...

Until at last, he reached his destination.

He attempted to rouse the man to action.

...To no avail.

...So Boney took matters into his own paws.

Eventually, Boney returned with Duster in tow, though at least not literally by the end.

At long last, it is time to put the thief skills you've studied since childhood to the test.

I hope this works...

Flint! Be careful coming up!

The Thief Arts are an incredible thing.

Oh, did I not mention Wess is a master thief, and his son his apprentice? Yeah, that's a thing.

Another neat thing about this game is having one of the PCs be handicapped, in this case with Duster's bad leg. It'll come up a bit throughout the game.

That said, he's no slouch in combat. His attack stats are decent, but Duster is all about status effects, though right now he can only use Wall Staples to stun an enemy for several turns. Still, it's incredibly useful and works surprisingly often. I didn't fail to stun once in the next batch of enemies.

Duster's regular attack is "Kick," and he attacks by kicking enemies with his bad leg.

Well, this isn't good. Maybe she's in the cave?

No, but there's some notable stuff in this one-room cave. First off, the pattern on the floor resembles the shape of Japan, as the walkthroughs I'm using helpfully pointed out. Second, the music is straight from Earthbound.

Third, there's moles.

These guys don't have a lot of HP and are easily dispatchable by three party members.

They're weak to fire and are incredibly prone to weeping. They get within a hundred feet of an onion, they burst into tears. The music name is quite appropriate for these sadsacks.

Wall Staples pin them down long to stop them from further tears.

I said no crying until the end, thank you.

Nothing else of note in the cave besides yet more bread, so let's take the northern path.

Uh oh!

What're they doing...?

Let's ask!

...Maybe that wasn't the best idea.

Yes, our boss fight today is a cyborg caribou. It's pretty strong and quite beefy at 512HP.

Boney's offense is pretty limited here, so he works best as a healer tossing out food items to whoever needs them.

And you'll likely need some, because the Caribou hurts. That was close to outright knocking out Boney!

That said, it's pretty simple to trivialize this boss by using status effects. The Reconstructed Caribou is pretty susceptible to wall staples, and they'll stun it for two or three rounds.

I put my buffs on Flint, as he's my main source of damage this fight.

Two of Flint's Power Smashes plus the damage from Duster and Boney are enough to beat this guy.

With the cyborg caribou crushed completely, the pig-masks panic and perfectly prance away.

Flint picked up the notebook and read it. The following is written in poor handwriting:

quote:

All the creatures around here suck. We need to make 'em cooler. So the theme will be:
-Tougher!
-Rougher!
-Badder!

We'll mix and match this and that to create whole new things no one's ever seen before! I dub it the "Fascinating Chimera Project". Let's reconstruct and modify stuff slowly and steadily.

So the Reconstructed Caribou is the precursor to what will be the theme of a lot of the enemies in this game, being hybrids of various objects and what-not. Trust me, the enemies we'll meet will get pretty dang weird.

Unfortunately, the pig-masks get away before we could figure out why they have a cyborg caribou on this mountain in the middle of nowhere.

But there is a sparrow!

(Allow me to explain "Skills" to you. Oh, sorry for being so sudden. Anyway, you and all your party members have special skills you can use during battle. These skills might be centered around items, physical actions, or whatever else. Basically, it's different for each person. For details, press Start to bring up the menu, and from there you can check everyone's skills from the "Status" screen. It'd be a real waste to neglect your special skills, so give it a try. Well, now to end this with a sparrow-like...chirp!)

What the bird said. Flint's skills are great for groups of enemies or high-HP foes, while Duster's great for stunning enemies. That said, some characters have PSI powers instead of skills, though they end up being the same thing anyway.

There's nothing else up there, so might as well get down and see if any progress has been made on the trees.

...doesn't catch cold too... *sniffle*

It seems they fell into the river and washed up here.

Come, Boney.

I don't know why Boney doesn't get to see the kids, but whatever. At least the boys are safe! Doesn't seem like they've found Hinawa yet, though.

With everyone working together, there's nothing we can't do!

Oh, yeah, NOW you say that!

This forest would never do anything to hurt the people of Tazmily Village. If anyone ever dares hurt Hinawa... I'll... kick their butts. Even if it's a pillbug or an ant.

Well, that's nice.

This way! This way!

And so the father and his sons were reunited. And yes, Lucas just spoke. The way this game handles its silent protagonists is kinda interesting, and I'll get into that later.

Here, everyone else should take a break and get warm, too.

After spending some time warming up, now we can talk to everyone.

I hope she comes back soon.

...In any case, I'm just glad they're okay.

If you keep this up, you'll wind up worse off than her.

That's how WE grew to be adults, after all.

Oh, right, we should see how the boys are doing.

You have to talk to them a bit before they actually start saying anything.

But even then, you won't get much out of them.

Suddenly, Bronson runs in.

Do you think maybe they finally found Hinawa?!

Everyone else either repeat themselves or say "I wonder what Bronson wants," so let's talk to the man himself and see what's going on.