OFF Part #9 - Zone 2 - Shopping Mall

Part 9: Zone 2 - Shopping Mall

Hi and welcome back! It's time for us to go check out the commercial district!

Music - Desperately Safe

From the double arrow on the library wall, you can tell we're on the north side of the library.

Going down causes us to head up into this screen

: It's terribly frightening.

Well we're pretty great at fixing that kind of problem. Let's head inside.

Music - Windows Licking (This track takes about a minute to pick up but it's pretty great once it does)

It's our best buddy Zacharie! Hiya pal. From him we buy an Emmanuel Bat and a David Tunic for the Batter, and three Colour of Sadness for everyone in the party.

Heading into the second room, this area to the left is blocked off for now.

This is the fucking understatement of the year as you're about to see.

The shopping center is a god damn nightmare. I literally don't understand how the mapping works here. I'll try my best to explain what kind of fucking bizarre insanity walking around here is.

This entire area is a maze where every corridor looks identical.

I think that door on the bottom is where we end up going. I'll show you why this is fucked up through a series of screenshots. The path to the left here is a dead end.

And the path to the right just leads down to another dead end with a chest. We have to head back to where we came in.

Oh, right. A Fortune ticket is a better version of a Luck ticket. Think Super Potion.

Agh, fuck, and we're attacked by giant rats on the way back as well. Get out of the way we're busy here!

Don't even want to deal wit' ya'll like you don't even know!

Oh, well, I guess this is okay then. Converted Chain is a more powerful version of Saturated Chain.

All right, anyway, let's try heading south from the original entrance.

Left and up just takes us to another dead end with a chest.

Heading south from there we see... an open chest to the left. Isn't that the room where we got the fortune ticket?

And that below us looks a lot like the door where we came in.

I haven't screwed up the screenshot order, this is the way the maze works. The floorplan has repeating sections and you can get lost as fuck down here.

The best way to tell where you are is to read the signs around and to open every chest. Leaving landmarks for where you've been is useful.

Oh thank god.

Just a mid-way save point but having a room I can see and understand all the dimensions of is nice.

From this point on I'm going to try to cut down on the screenshots of this blue hellhole. Just picture identical hallways, me getting confused and ending up at the same doorway like 4 times, and getting punched in the dick by stupid rats.

Here's a door I haven't been in yet.

Oh, huh.

: I could make a fire with the boxes... to ward off the ghosts... But... that would be too dangerous.

I don't know man, is fire more or less dangerous than ghosts? This is your call.

I wonder if it's just because I tend to try to build a physical map of things in my head, but there's something about this area that just infuriates me and makes me dizzy.

We know we're going the right way when we find Japhet pacing up and down this closed off area.

There's no way to get to him. It also leads me to believe that the shopping center map is randomly generated to a degree. The first time I came through here Japhet was pacing the left side of the map.

Oh thank god an exit.

: ... "For silkier hair: The meat fountains of Alma."

: Oh, you can read? Anyway, I am glad to have found you. Maybe you can help me unravel the mystery that fate has placed before me.

: It turns out that my brother has been living in this area for many years. He has a special affinity for colours of the cool kind. Unfortunately, I have so far failed to cross his path. I have tried to betake myself to the roof of the library, where he resides. However, I found the door closed. Even the long hours of intensive, repeated meowing and compulsive scratching did not do a thing.

: My request is as follows: If at the bend of a corridor you happen to see Valerie, give him my greetings.

: Okay.

Well, we've only seen one other cat and he... well...