Part 4: In which The Cutest Idol in the Universe brings a smile to her wardrobe designer

In which The Cutest Idol in the Universe brings a smile to her wardrobe designer

MUSIC: CLUBROOM
Greetings and salutations, everyone! This update will tackle the first dungeon, and also spoils the last few episodes of Love Live Season 1. Y’know, if you care about that kinda thing.


Fortune favors the bold!


Let’s both do our best!
Just don’t talk too much, you’ll ruin my mood.
Hwhaaaat?

MUSIC: NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE BOARD DIRECTOR

On that note, welcome to Kotori’s Dream: This Time For Real! We won’t die in real life if we die in the dream. Probably.


Chun-eyed viewers might have noticed that the cost for upgrading Singing has changed from 2 to 1. This is because our shop costs are influenced by our Partner! Let’s get a peek at the exciting discounts and… counts((?) Is that a word?) our dear bird-themed compatriot can give us!
As we can see, Singing costs less but Dancing costs more. Hand mirrors are also on the cheap, but each time you buy them the cost goes up by 1, so you can’t just stock up like 15 and steamroll the game. But that doesn’t matter right now, since we don’t have a single Noble Phantasm Nico Point to our name! Onwards!


Here’s a Chunslime. We’ve seen it before, but…


Now that we’re facing it at base stats, it’s not a sure shot. We do get the first Nico Nico Nii off,


but it also isn’t enough to convey our feelings properly, so it laughs at us. God damnit.


One more Nico Nico Nii does the trick, though. Kotori celebratorily… Hugs an alpaca? Listen her infatuation with alpacas wasn’t exactly the best set up in the anime either


Here’s the other enemy in floor 1, Chirpy. It’s just a regular bird that chirps. It’s also 95% at base stats, so if fate really hated you you could just keep missing until you died or ran out of time. Let me know if that happens to you though, I have some gacha I need you to roll.


They also barely give any EXP, but it’s free EXP. Wait, do dream-selves even need to eat?


We take care of another Chunslime to get to level 2. Finally, that 5% chance won’t loom over my head!

A quick search for the stairs later…


You’re right.
Well, it’s not like we’re talking much…
Why are you making that “it’s not like we’re talking much” face.
Hweh?!
I-, I was not!


Floor 2 comes with a new enemy type, the Bad Chunslime. You can tell it’s bad because of the Tough Scar on its face. Intimidating you.


Look at it, threatening to commit vague social faux-pas of squeezing lemon juice on your fried food! Don’t they know that’s a matter of personal preference in Japan!? Won’t anyone think of the children?!


As Nico saves the fabric of society one bad chunpple at a time, let’s talk about our partner. Other than the shop pricing, they provide the pivotal service of making my screenshotting harder riffing with our main superstar Nico as she goes dungeon-crawling. After all, going spelunking without anyone to talk to would be really sad. Ha_ha…

Onwards to floor 3!


Hmm? What do you mean?
Well, it’s full of all these weird creatures.
Hweeeh?! But they’re all so cute!
……Right.
C’mon Nico. If you can’t trust the aesthetic sense of your costume designer, who can you trust?


Floor 3 brings with it Sleazymes, a scary prospect for any idol. The battle encounter dialogue is randomized, by the way; so Kotori could be clinging to Nico for protection from… A bird.


They’re a fair bit tougher than the previous encounters, doing more damage and being a lot more slippery to hit. Must be all the hair grease.


The levelling curve in this game is pretty steep, so knowing when and how to grind is crucial. It’s also trial and error.



Oh snap, it’s Three Birds. Speaking of trios, the second-years of µ's (Honoka, Umi, and Kotori) are also all childhood friends. In the manga Kotori was closer to Umi but in the anime swapped it so that Kotori and Honoka were much closer. These three birds however, will take that power of Friendship and beat us to death with it. It’s got like 7 squares!


I still can’t explain the 2ch joke to you, but I can in fact get beaten up. I also misremembered about levelling, it doesn’t heal you fully but instead keeps the same HP percentage you had with your new max HP.


A fact I learned after they showed up again. The text for failing to run is ‘The world isn’t so kind!’. What the heck, game?


We’re almost dead, but it’ll be fine. Probably. There’s plenty of enemies where running is the best option, and we’ve got a mirror to heal to boot.

Onwards!


I’m here to cheer you on!
You should help me out with the fighting too.
Nico-chan, you’re the coolest!❤
……...Tch.


So, the Rapslime does 4 damage. With my current stats I can clear it in 2 Nico Nico Niis, so I can tank one hit and reach its heart without dying. I can then heal while Exploring and use my mirror the next encounter, hopefully against an enemy that doesn’t hit quite so hard.


…Or, just not use the mirror and die. That works too?


Nico-chaaaaan!!


Oops.


We did not in fact die, so that’s a plus. The game knows it’s trial and error (it even says so in the README), so there’s no real setbacks for a loss.


A VICTORY HORN, FOR VENGEANCE!

MUSIC: NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE BOARD DIRECTOR, TAKE 2

There’s no new dialogue for try, trying again so…


I’m so impressed!
To think that the so useless Nico-chan could improve so fast…!
………
Ah! Wait, don’t leave me behind! Nico-chaaaaaaan!
This floor sucks.


The only encounter here is Beefymes, the boss of the chuntorial. They only have 1 square,


But their hearts are also needlessly buff. Making fun of a girl’s chest size after whinging about getting their muscles made fun of! What a jerk!

I’ve excised all of the running this floor, but here’s the run quotes:


Hm?
It might be best to prepare before going to the next floor…!
Ah, boss’s next floor.
So blunt!


The final floor has the final enemy type, and this one is actually feasible to grind! This one’s Minalinslimeky, based off of Kotori’s Akihabara Maid Persona, Legendary Maid Minalinsky! I personally would’ve gone for Minalinslimesky, myself…


As they are harnessing the truly legendary power of maid outfits, they also hurt like hell. I debate running…


…Then I remember that I have the power of Looking at Cute! Nothing like having a good look in the mirror to lift your spirits. The idea of Nico just throwing the mirror away after looking at it is kind of funny though, why are they consumable? Do they explode upon coming across Nico’s Cuteness?


So as I do a bit of grinding before the boss, maybe I should properly explain what the heck a “Legendary Maid Minalinsky” is, huh? Well… it's the alias Kotori used in her part time job in a maid cafe in Akihabara. She started working secretly to build her confidence, but it turned out her personality meshed really well with the job and she got famous as a Legendary Maid.


In the anime, the others find out about this and tell her to write a song about her experiences in Akiba: Wonder zone, the 5th insert in the anime and the first song there to have Kotori as the center. The power of the Akiba Charisma Maid, Legendary Maid Minalinsky, The Ideal Maid!


But is being an 'ideal maid' really a good thing? Nurturing, but supportive to a fault. Great at following instructions, bad at making decisions by themselves. Able to take other's feelings into consideration effortlessly, but smothering their own feelings in the process.


Well, I’m probably just overthinking things. It’ll be fine.

Onward and upward.


Finally made it to the boss floor.
Let’s just beat it up and go back.
………
Yeah.

Silence.

All packed up to go abroad.


Huh? Hey, this boss…
Isn’t it just you?
………




So transparent.
…...Well, I don’t really get what’s going on…
MUSIC: wonder zone
But I just need to defeat it, right?!


We face Kotori Minami, ready to go abroad for her transfer to a fashion boarding school, and leave µ's behind.


The game likes messing with you in particular, so she’s not particularly hard to hit and it’s mostly a race of Charisma. If you thought that Dancing being expensive meant it would be important, or Singing being cheap meant it would be important, sucks! Sorry!


There’s no turning back, so it’s just a straight damage race from here on out. Maybe I should’ve stocked more mirrors…


Not having learned my lesson, here’s me showboating at 1hp before using my mirror even though it isn’t even a full heal.


We make it with 3 hits to spare.

The music stops.

Nico-chan! You did it!




MUSIC: SUSUME -> TOMORROW
Exit stage right.
………
……Well,
let’s go back, Nico-chan.
……Hey.
………
What is it?
……Why didn’t you go abroad in the end?
………
……I thought that there was nothing I could do about it.
You brought it out of nowhere,
and caused a lot of trouble for Honoka.
I couldn’t help but think:
“what the hell is wrong with this girl?”


And yet,
just as you went and left us with that gloomy face of yours…
You came back with a huge smile on your face.
I really don’t get what you wanted to do.


Honoka told me not to go.
So I didn’t go.
………………
………That’s it?
Yup, that’s it.
That flimsy reason,
was all it took for you to throw it all away?!
You wasted your dream and came back,
just because she said not to go?!




There was no way that I could go back on it at that point.
And yet…


“That flimsy reason”,
to me,
is much, much more important than any dream.




Hey,
Nico-chan.