Part 5: Bonus 1
Bonus update!
Okay, so, next update should be the last for Flint's side of the story. We've been tasked to go all the way from Hinawa's funeral to Alec's house way out in the boonies, and from there were have to go looking for Claus.
But there are a few things we can do before we leave. As is customary for most RPGs that are separated into "chapters" or "scenarios" (Paper Mario, Megaman Battle Network), there is going to be a boss at the end of this one (three guesses on what it might be). We have to prepare ourselves for it! And with the village more or less under control, and with it being daytime, there are lots of things to do before leaving.
Let's start with paying a visit to old man Wess. He and Duster live to the east of the central square in Tazmily and up the first hill you see.
Go in and talk to him. He offers his condolences and laments that it's difficult to see people so much younger than him pass away before he does. Which makes sense; they say one of the worst tragedies a person can experience is living longer than their offspring. Poor Alec.
But anyway, Wess appreciates you visiting an old codger like him so much that he offers you a "useful item used in the Thief Arts".
Good deal! The Thunder Bomb will hits all enemies on the screen for powerful electrical damage. It's a one-time-use battle item, so be careful when you decide to use it. Wess will only part with one of these wicked items when you speak to him, too.
But screw that. Wess would be in trouble if he only had one useful item used in the Thief Arts, right? He's gotta have a stash of them somewhere. Just gotta find them. A quick glance around the room tells you they're not in the house, and you can't enter his basement. So they must be outside.
Hang a left (west) just outside Wess's front door, and circle around to the back of his house. Investigate the ground when you're just around the corner of the building and...
If you leave Tazmily and come back (which is to say, enter Sunshine Forest then immediately leave), Wess will have replaced the Thunder Bomb, allowing you to stockpile as many as you like. As far as I'm aware, you can start hoarding these things as soon as you can head east from the square - so, just after Isaac speaks to you about Hinawa in front of the Yado Inn. The Reconstructed Caribou is weak to lightning, so if you're ever having trouble with it (which you really shouldn't unless you're low-level-running the game or something), stockpiling these things might be a good idea.
Now that we have enough electric armaments to make Electro jealous, let's take a look at the rest of the eastern half of Tazmily. Just a few steps south of the hill is this stray dog.
D'aww, you're welcome
In the house just behind us is a sickly old man with a parrot. I think this guy might be Bud's father, but I'm not positive. Even though he's never been in any scene yet, he's surprisingly well informed for a bedridden guy like him.
Myrna is his pet parrot. Talk to her and get the chewing of your life with a mouth dirtier than Lighter's.
That's the extent of her vocabulary.
Head further south from here will get you to Tazmily's only farm, not counting the sheep Flint has at his home. There's a bunch of nothing here except for some pigs and cows. There isn't anything in the house, so it's not worth time out of your extremely busy schedule to take a peak in.
The animals have some decent things to say in their own little language if you talk to them.
(Talking to frogs is how you save your game in Mother 3. You might have noticed a frog in a screenshot or two)
...okay, so maybe the cows aren't all that entertaining. Aside from that one, all they do is talk about drooling. But how about the pigs?
The pigs seem well informed about some secret that Flint cannot hope to comprehend with his feeble human mind and pathetic methods of understanding, but, for obvious reasons, they cannot divulge any of their secrets to the common man. Even as uncommon as a guy like Flint is, the risks would be far too great.
This one's just a bit of a jerk to his own kind, though.
Mother 3 breaks the fourth wall like this a few times, particularly during tutorials. It's just part of its brand of humour. Like this one earlier scene that I took pictures of but never found the opening to include:
Which leads to some awkward moments in later areas:
And the way the game tells you to press a button to do this and that is pretty wall-shatteringly unique, as well.
As for that new guy,
He's totally unimportant. There's nothing to him at all.
That's all the east-end has to show us. Let's go back to the square and say hi to good ole' useless Thomas and his Bazaar.
It turns out Thomas isn't in at the moment, so he's letting some guy called Mike handle his shop for him. That's very dangerous for a small business like Honest Tom's! Just putting some guy you found on the street in charge of your entire building, looking after your wares and handling your money! What if he takes all your money? What if he steals all your wares?
Oh, he's letting us take his wares. And for free? Hey, sweet deal.
The thing about Tazmily is that there is no concept of economy or currency. If a person needs something, someone else makes it and the first person can just take it without needing to even barter the creator for something in exchange. Presumably, to make this fair, everybody in the entire island does something to benefit the others, so it all evens out. Maybe in a village as tiny as Tazmily, where everybody knows everybody, this idea might work.
The Bazaar offers a single Nut (restores 5 HP, but can be made into something else that restores more), a Running Bomb, and a Flea Charm. The bomb
One last place to check in the village. Going west from the village square, you'll come to the screen with the prison. In this area is also Reggie's tepee - Reggie is the local aboriginal/Jamaican witch-doctor-person. No RPG is complete without one! He's not home at the moment and I think the only thing he offers anyway is flavour.
Going even farther west...
...we come to the End of the World. We reach the island's western beaches here, and since the Nowhere Islands are the only places that exist in the entire planet, this is, ostensibly, the edge of everything right here. Here is Fuel (pictured, above), along with travelling stand-up performers Bud and Lou, and Lighter is on the cliff just a bit past them.
He goes on to say that Claus is probably running off to slay the dinosaur that killed his mother, and that we should hurry up and go after him. He offers use his Manly Bandana for talking to him, which is a headdress you can equip in place of your Ordinary Hat. The hat offers +3 defence and the bandana only offers +1, but the bandana also grants +2 offense. If you're a
kinda guy, the bandana is just the thing for you.The only thing left in this side of town are some houses with nothing and nobody in them, so Tazmily is all wrapped up. Before I put this update to bed, though, there are still some things left for us to do. To Sunshine Forest!
(That buzzing, like a fly's wings, in the music isn't a glitch or an error; it's actually there)
Right out the gate, you encounter an enemy unlike anything you have ever seen:
It's the weakest enemy in the game, weaker than the Mole Cricket. One hit is all it takes, and it can only deal 1 damage to you at a time. It offers 2 experience and it may drop a Nut. But its music is kinda good. Our actual business is farther north, to where Lighter's house used to be.
This thing is a Soot Dumpling. It is this game's Metal Slime: it's quick to run and has ludicrous defence with massive payouts if you can win. It has 36 HP, and you can only deal 1 damage per hit, meaning you need to get up 36 hits in total before it can run from you.
Also, on the overworld, do not run into it; walk into it. If you run, it'll poof away in a cloud of soot, robbing you of a battle.
It's not hard to get a free turn on it, at least.
This thing has an annoying habit of "scattering soot all around", which can make Flint cry uncontrollably. This is the game's way of saying your accuracy has been lowered.
Fighting this thing is a test of patience. And the rewards aren't even that great - I mean, 1000 experience points is pretty gnarly and all, but considering we won't be using Flint after this the point is kind of wasted.
Anyway, after
ing the hell out of save-state/load-state, I finally manage to beat the sum-bitch. 
Aaaaand, that about wraps up this bonus update! Hopefully my next actual update won't take as long as my previous one. See you then!