Part 15: Bonus 3
Bonus update!
So! After three in-game chapters and 11 LP updates, we're finally allowed to play as the advertised main character of the game, Lucas. He starts at level 10 and has decent stats all around, and is one of the few characters you get that can use PSI (we'll be getting some neat tricks next update). Right off the bat we're given our trusty dog Boney to join us on our fantastic voyage; the only thing left for us to do is just ride out the plot and see where it takes us!
But would you look at that Tazmily village! The three years have been very kind to it: prosperity is at an all-time high, and everybody has known material pleasures unlike any generation before has known. Everybody has a job and everybody is bringing home the money.
And that right there is the biggest change introduced to Mother 3 once Chapter 4 begins. In Earthbound, if you defeated an enemy you would get the experience right then and there. You would receive money by your father depositing ludicrous sums directly into your account for every enemy you defeat: the game never told you how much money each defeated monster coincidentally had your father put money into your account.
Mother 3 follows the exact same tradition. Defeating an opponent will get you experience and dragon points, but you could only pick up your DP at different locations. In Earthbound, it was at any telephone: in Mother 3, it's at
You're given 30 DP at the very beginning of the chapter. It's not much, but you can stock up on some healing items if you need. Any item you had Boney hold onto in chapter 1, when he was with Flint, would still be in his inventory. So you have three-year-old baked yams and antidotes to rely on should you ever need them. They're just as good as ever.
Let's start our bonus journey with some trips to the olde shoppes that have sprung up around Tazmily. For starters, Thomas's Shop, no longer a simple bazaar, is looking pretty spiffy.
Thomas himself isn't here; he's off working a second job at the factory down the way. Nichol is looking after the place for him.
It's a pretty straightforward shop screen. Your money is at the top, the prices are on the right, and your options are on the left. Weapons and armour are different for every character, but everybody can switch their accessories and hats between them, unless otherwise specified. That includes Boney the dog.
Bronson's place is still as workaholic as ever. It's been modernized, though: increase productivity, decrease danger, and all the other wells-and-goods of today's society.
The Yado Inn has probably taken the largest transformation out of everything in Tazmily. With the introduction of economy and with tourism booming, the only inn in the area has seen success unlike any other.
Jackie's a bit of an asshole, though, although that's probably Fassad's fault. This is the only inn in the entire game, and unlike Earthbound, there are no hospitals: a simple hot spring is the catch-all for your medical needs. Of course, there is the odd exception here and there: blue pillows on couches or beds indicate rest-areas, so if you examine those,
you can take a quick breather and restore your health.
In the lower right corner of the lobby, you'll find a present that contains this:
There are I think five of them in the whole game. Collect them all! Using them on human enemies (Pig Masks, for instance) may cause numbness.
In the left room in the back of the Yado Inn is a woman who gives you a multiple choice question. It serves no purpose, but I thought it was a good example of how funny the game can be when it wants to be.
That's enough with here. I've covered just about everything that needs covering in the east side of town, and almost everything on the west. There are two or three things I'd like to mention about the beaches.
In the first screen, if you follow the sand all the way to its end, you'll come across another present. This offers you nothing material, however: it instead offers you the soothing strength of music as your ally.
There's gonna be all sorts of different rhythms hidden in these presents, and you bet your ass I'm going to get them all.
Going even farther west - a song plays that I apparently didn't manage to upload. The directory I have for it says it doesn't come up until chapter 6. Well, better late than never.
Not much else to report here. A pig is sunbathing on a beach chair, and two lovebirds are ogling each other from a safe distance.
How will this epic housewives' drama of unrequited feelings, longing for love and emotional hardships ever conclude?! Will our hero and heroine finally find happiness, or will their hearts be torn asunder?! This turns into something of a running gag throughout the game.
And also this weird sign:
Goin' north now.
Near the train station is a bulletin board containing whatever anybody feels like writing down. And that's a lot of it. Here's a massive text dump of each and every bulletin it has to over.
"I say we remodel the old ruins of Osohe Castle and turn it into a Tazmily Resort facility." - Anonymous.
"If you wanna ride the train, go to the station! You can ride the train if you go to the station! The train speeds along! Along speeds the train! Let's go-go-go to the factory on the train!" - Train Station Attendants
"Is the lightning helping us? Thanks to the lightning, all the dirty, old houses are being cleaned away. So, in a way, the lightning is helping all of us. That's what I think." - From a popular citizen.
"Happy Boxes are the greatest! Now to develop even bigger screens!" - Abbot and Abbey
"I want too bee a Pigmask too. How can I bee wun? I no I can bee a gud wun. Please let me bee a Pigmask. Also, I thought Omelettes is good. Well, gudbye." - Fried Pork Kid
"After a hard day's work, there's only one thing to do: spend every last DP you own at Club Titiboo! Club Titiboo is a paradise of music, and other stuff, too! Come see the DCMC in concert, live!" - Club Titiboo
"I have sand in my shoes, and I don't know what to do. Somebody do something!" - Nana
"Why not consider working at the retirement home? Veterans of life are waiting for your kindness. But please stop quitting one after the other." - Retirement Home Director
"Who in the world is Leder? Try as hard as I might, I just can't remember anything about him. It's keeping me up at night." - Mike
"We've been slowly running out of friends at the castle lately. People of Tazmily, please pass away at a faster pace, if you would be so kind. Thanks." - Anonymous Ghost
"Notice. Scamp has died. That is all." - Staff
"Select, cheerful police officers wanted. Start a new career as an officer of the Tazmily police force! Do well, and you could even make some Pigmask friends!" - Pusher, Tazmily Police Dept.
"Watch out for Chimeras. Strange animals known as Chimeras seem to be increasing in numbers lately. They are dangerous. Be careful of them." - A brave person
"Show courtesy to Mr. Fassad. There are many ignorant people who complain about him. I think that is a very bad thing to do. 'Tazmily is nothing without Mr. Fassad.' Please take this to heart." - Isaac
"Titiboo news. DCMC to debut a new song soon?! Desperado! (Reckless!) Crash! (Powerful!) Mambo! (Sensational!) Combo! (Guys!) No one can stop DCMC's momentum now!"
Phew! I had no access to an info dump when I got to this part, so I had to type that all out by hand.
Just to the left of this bulletin board is a man with a brown hat and a covered wagon.
This solitary man is this game's Escargo Express: if you have an item that you cannot discard or for some reason don't want to hold but don't want to throw away, give him a shout. He will appear in increasingly unlikely locations all over the game, where it would be convenient for him to be. I believe he has no capacity, so just force all your junk on him if you like and take it back when you need it. And he doesn't even charge for it! Still, this is probably inferior to the Escargo Express since it was available wherever there was a phone, and you don't have that luxury this time.
As for the monsters: everything in Tazmily has undergone some sort of change in the past three years, and of course, the enemies are no exception. The two "dungeons" we have seen so far (the Sunshine Forest and Osohe castle) are both open to us to explore and grind on our whims.
We actually have plans for Osohe castle later, so we won't be visiting it for now. Sunshine Forest has no such restriction, however.
Gone are the Praying Mantises and Mr. Battys and Yammonsters. One of the messages on the bulletin mentioned chimeras, right?
This is what he was talking about. Recall what Flint found immediately after the fight with the Reconstructed Caribou:
All the animals around here suck. We need to make 'em cooler.
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.
Instead of cranky old men and new-age hippies, we'll be fighting all manners of unfortunate what-has-science-done creations on our way to the story's end. Somebody on SA has an avatar of an ostrich with an elephant's head and snout for a body and neck: yep, that was from here. The Pigmasks have succeeded in their mission to 'make the animals cooler': the caribou and the Drago were only warnings of things to come. These two creatures, by the way, don't have any new music.
I tried a couple dozen times to get the slitherhen to drop an egg for me, but it never did
But you can purchase Fresh Eggs from Caroline's Bakery, so I'll just go with that.
If you get a hold of an egg, you have three options with it: you could either eat it right then and there to recover 80 HP; if there's a hot spring nearby, you can turn it into a Hot Spring Egg by just taking a dip in it, and you can eat that for 100 HP; or you can wait and hatch it.
There is no difference between a store-bought egg and one dropped from a slitherhen, so apparently slitherhens give birth to normal, healthy chicks. Chicks do absolutely nothing other than be adorable; they simply take up inventory space. On the overworld, occasionally your little chick will chirp. That's it, though. It does nothing else.
Letting it fully mature into a chicken also does nothing. You'd think you could use it for an infinite supply of eggs for eating/boiling/repeating, but no. The only difference is that it clucks instead of chirps. Once you get yourself a full-grown chicken, though, you can sell it for five times the eggs' worth, so there you go.
Since the story doesn't call for us being in the Sunshine Forest yet, most chimeras we find there are waaaaay too strong for us to handle right now, so we'll have to turn back.
This used to be Alec's log cabin, by the way.
One last thing before I wrap up this update. The Soot Dumpling is no longer at Lighter's place: that was solely a Flint thing. The Beanling is gone as well; however, the Beanling's cousin, the Black Beanling, is in relatively the same spot.
This thing has the same "gingerbread man" gimmick in that it's hard to catch (good luck getting its rear sprite) and hard to kill before it runs. It comes with something like 400 HP and knows PK Fire Alpha and Beta. Since I don't have PSI of my own, I'm not even going to try and fight it; however, I will be back to squash it dead eventually, because this thing gives you mountainous piles of experience - 16,080! No way am I going to let that get away from me!