Part 20: Hell is Other Sprout Moles

UPDATE 20: Hell is Other Sprout Moles




Eternal Dungeon





Aww man... now we're all stuck in the Dungeon...

Sorry, guys. It's my fault that we're all in this mess.

No, it's not Hero... No one could have predicted that would happen.




Sweetheart Laugh


Ohohohoho....





MUSTACHE MOLE: YOU FOOLS! Don't you recognize me!?





ROSA: IT'S ME! ROSA!! The #1 Sweetheart fan in the world! I told you that you'd all pay for crossing me!

Curses! We've been bamboozled!

I should've known you were behind this, Rosa!

ROSA: It's true what they say... REVENGE IS SWEET!! Now rot, you peons! Rot in the Dungeon forever!




Sweetheart Laugh





Dangit... How are we ever going to get out of here?

We'll find a way! Come on, guys... Let's think about this.

Where do we even start? It's not like they'd just leave the gate unlocked... would they?


You'd think that Hero, but remember... these are Sprout Moles...





The most intelligent of creatures.





Got to always make sure we get as much ramen as we can when we pass by their sources.







Hitting the switch there unlocks this optional room, which we can investigate to find out...











... That Sweetheart and Capt. Space Boy were NOT in a healthy relationship. The boombox only plays the mixtape, as expected.







There's a second row of cells in front of the one we were in. They're all locked from the outside thanks to Sprout Mole engineering. This door is the only one we can unlock thanks to the switch right next to it.





Inside are the other two contestants who were taken away before us. Sorry fellas, we're only jailbreaking ourselves here.







All the little trapdoors in the dungeon lead to this basement area. There's spikes blocking most of the paths though.





Hey, it's Mari!

Mari! Mari! Help us, we're stuck in the Dungeon!




BY YOUR SIDE


Oh no!





There you go! Now come here and enjoy a nice picnic with me. I promise you'll feel better right away!





I snuck in some pickles! Hehe...

Awww... yuck! I hate pickles! Next time, can you sneak in some jam instead?


Man, I love pickles! Hell I was snacking on pickles while I was writing the last update. When I was younger, my mom had made some BBQ and invited some family over and had a little saucer of pickles, and every like 20 minutes she would have to fill it up because it was empty again. Before finally after an hour of this she asked "What happened to all the pickles?" Only for everyone but me to say they hadn't even had a pickle yet... Hehe.







Hero! I have a question for you...

Was there any chance in the world that you would've said "yes" to marrying Sweetheart?

What!? No way!!

You know I only have eyes for you, Mari...

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...

"Ewww..." is right, Kel!

Hero! That's not what I like about you at all!

What? It's not? Then what is it?

I can't tell you that, silly! It would ruin the magic!

Okay... I don't really get it... but whatever you say...

Mari, you don't have to worry about Sweetheart at all!

Sweetheart is the worst! I can't imagine anyone being in love with her!

Wasn't she with Capt. Spaecboy though?

Hmph! Relationships like that are just shallow!

You can't compare it to the real deal... like what me and Omori have! Isn't that right, Omori?







Probably shouldn't have fallen for a silent protagonist, Aubrey. Or uh, should I say Sunny's manifestation of Aubrey from when they were kids... that makes it sound weird, let's move on.





If you tag over to Kel and have him eat the pickles to heal, he outright refuses.





The ladder above Mari leads to this Jash who will sell us any items we need. I get a couple juice healing items since I used a lot on King Carnivore.







Heading through the ladder in the contestant's cell lets us open up the rest of the area to exploration... but first...









There's a hidden cell you can only reach through one of those cheap "The characters can see the way, but you can't" gags.







Well... at least we know Something is here





Oh good, a torture chamber. Sweetheart, you're one piece of work aint'cha?





Hmm... seems like someone took one of the weapons. Hopefully that won't come back to bite us in the morning!







Heading back down through the basement and towards the other end of the area, we can open up these two cells to get another Hangman Key.







I





It was an incorrect key, sadly. Still, being wrong is helping to narrow down what keys we do need.







After a series of "Switch puzzle that unlocks another switch, so you can unlock another switch". We finally unlock the way out of here.





Before we leave, there's two enemies in this area. The first one is a... Marsha. It's a Sprout Mole that has an axe literally duct taped to their body. A little bit tougher than regular Sprout moles but nothing too dangerous.





The other is a Harold. A Sprout Mole that's stuck inside a suit of armor with their sword stuck on their head. I really like the designs of these dudes, but they aren't scary. Marshas do more damage.









We're finally at the exit!

WOO-HOO!! FREEDOM AT LAST!!

Let's get out of here... I never want to see another Sprout Mole again in my life.


Oh Hero...







Wandering Rose











If only you knew what evil you just unleashed on the world with those words...







HAROLD: Did you really think that you could escape that easily!? It's back to the Dungeon for you four!

Darn... and we were so close too!

_{Uh-oh... what do we do now?}

Think, Hero, think! Come on... How do we get out of this? Oh, I got it!





Ahem... On the contrary, sir knight, I think you have mistaken us for someone else! Hm, hm, yes.





Hem, hem. Don't be so quick to judge! We are Sprout Moles, indubitably.

Hoo, hoo, indeed! Ah yes, quite! I am also a lover of Tofu and Sweetheart! Mmm... Delicious Sweethear- I mean, Tofu.

HAROLD: Egad! My eyes must have deceived me. I apologize, brethren. It is rather hard to see through this helmet. Very well, carry on then. I will resume my patrol. You lot ought to return to your stations as well, lest our dear Sweetheart notices...





That was so smooth, Hero! With these Sprout Mole Masks, we'll be able to make it out of here in a cinch!

Do we really have to keep wearing these, Hero? Mine is getting kind of itchy...

Yes, Kel... We should keep them on until we get out of here. C'mon... Let's move.


The masks will be on us for the rest of the castle excursion. They prevent the guards from chasing us down, but if we bump into them they suddenly realize that hey those are just masks and it turns out the 5 feet tall kids are not Sprout Moles.





So let's get this out of the way. I don't like Sweetheart's Castle. It's got some good bits in it, but for the most part the place falls flat for me and is quite long. That I didn't really care for the Sprout Moles to begin with, only solidified my (mostly exaggerated) hate of them. It also doesn't help that, the day one of the real life segment is SOOO good and made me think "Holy shit this game's gonna be special" and then this feels like... it's all a distraction. Which... I mean it is, it's a dreamworld. And there's some very very good story reasons for it feeling like a distraction that I can't talk about for like 20 more updates, but it still doesn't make the experience more enjoyable. I'm going to try and skim this place while giving ya'll as much of the good as I can. Sorry if ya'll want me to talk to every NPC (and oh God are there so many NPCs), but I would like to make it through this with my sanity... ok well I don't have that. Dignity? No, I don't have that either... Look I just don't want to, okay???





First off, Sweetheart's castle is MASSIVE. There are 4 main areas to go to, with one of the areas breaking off into a smaller area. There's the kitchen/servant's quarters, the ballroom, the art gallery/theater/library, and Sweetheart's private chambers.





We'll never get through at this rate! Let's look around for another exit...

Hmmm... Maybe the crowd will die down eventually... We should check back here later.


And this is the reason we need to explore. These Sprout Moles are blocking the way forward until the castle has been fully explored. Granted, if you speedrun through the place, you can probably be done in 30 minutes, less if you use the text skip option the devs have graciously added post-release.





Over on the left side is where we have the art areas of the castle. The Art Gallery is right up here.





With the theater down here and the Library at the end of the hall. The theater... is a special beast.







Seems like we've cornered Sweetheart! There's a full heal of some tea and crumpets so we're ready for the fight!







Sadly, the true fight is with our stomachs to not show our disgust.


Anyway! The theater is pretty cool, outside of that one encounter. There's a waitress selling popcorn, which is a very good and cheap party heal item.









You can also watch actual movies! Or, well... little shorts the devs created. You can leave your seat and sit back down to see a new one. They're pretty cool, except that the next short you see is random so you could get the same one in a row trying to get a new one to appear. It took me 30 minutes of trying to finally see all of them... there's an achievement locked behind seeing them all at least once

The shorts are in the Supplemental updates for your own perusal. There's a decent mix of funny, weird, and cute shorts mixed in there. I would prefer if the shorts cycled between new ones rather than random chance to see a new one.







Stationary Rose









Welcome to the Library. I'm... not a fan. Did you see all those Sprout Moles that were in here when the camera scrolled through?







Any Sprout Mole wearing a color that isn't pink, needs to be talked to and escorted out of the Library.







And, of course, you need Hero to do it since Omori and talking go together like peanut butter and hydrochloric acid.





Here's all of the Sprout Moles collected up. It reminded me of the old snake games where you'd grow your snake without hitting the wall or touching one of your links. That brought me immensely more entertainment than this little quest.







I wonder how long it will take before the captured Moles realize the doors aren't locked? After completing the quest, the Library clears out of all Sprout Moles besides the guards so you can finally access some items that were sparkling. There's a poetry book (battle item that makes a friend/foe sad), an interesting book (quest item for Demi - they were in the Pyrefly Forest), and a book! The book is an interesting item of equipment that lets the wearer gain more XP in battle. You get it quite early in this game, compared to other JRPGs.





The Art Gallery has a bunch of servants patrolling the area instead of guards. Thankfully, a bunch of guards don't show up here if you clear out the library first. Makes it easier to avoid the fights.





That's quite a statue there! According to the sign it's... made of the crystallized tears of her enemies. Considering the torture chamber we found... that has some disturbing implications.





Finally, an art critic I can understand.





There's been several ghosts scattered throughout the different areas in Headspace. You can tell because there will be floating objects/facial hair. I love them because you can position a character under it and let them "wear" it, like Aubrey is wearing the crown above. It reminds me of being a kid and having just an infinite imagination, as compared to now where my imagination is planning when to take a day off from work...





Hey! There's that guy we saw in the Junkyard! It appears he found his fine art.





And we found ours.





From top to bottom on the left side: A Sunday with Sweetheart, Sweetheart Night, Mona Sweetheart, & Screamheart.

From top to bottom in the middle: The Creation of Sweetheart, Sweetheartnica, The Birth of Sweetheart.

From top to bottom on the right side: Sweetheart with the Heart Earring, Sweetheart Crossing the Delaware, Sweetheart Eating a Burrito, The Swing (Sweettime).


I may have complained a lot about this place, but I love this wall. The Venus having a hole in its stomach is just







K





We're getting closer! Just a few more now...





Uh... Go in? As in... jump into a dark hole? S-Sure??























These are... the photos from Basil's album? But... there's a few we haven't seen yet. And they're all marked out... why? Who did that?





And just as quickly as the mind-fuck started, it ends. Gotta say, they're definitely getting... stranger as time goes on. Now then, let's get out of here.









Did I skip a conversation here? Yes. Did you lose any context as to why we're now chefs? No. The sparkling item on the floor is a pearl, we'll need to remember to sell that.







Who's ready for the best recipe on how to make a cake! Make sure to follow along at home for a nice dessert for yourself!




PRANKED







Look, I always thought it'd be 350 degrees, but I'm not a sous chef. So make sure to set your oven to 75 degrees. If your oven doesn't go that low, try unplugging your refrigerator and sticking the cake in there.







Well, strawberries are a flower... right? And eggs are close enough to ping-pong balls.





I assume the smell of death means we are progressing well?







I'm sure there's some salt in the old boot, and there's maybe some mold spores in the garden soil we can use to make cheese!







I'm not sure how we're going to cut up fruit juice, but the chef demands it!







I hope you've been following along at home just like I have! I just KNOW this is gonna come out great!















See? What'd I tell you! It came out fantastic! How many cakes have you baked that have killed Sprout Moles?

You can bake the cake correctly by either inferring what's supposed to be the correct ingredients... or just knowing how to bake a cake (Flour & eggs, butter & sugar, cut up the strawberries). If you get it correct... nothing happens except the dumb and confident Sprout Mole takes all the credit. Which literally doesn't matter as soon as you leave this room, but it's the principle of the matter damn it!





The frying pan is an upgrade for Hero - it does like 1 more attack over the baking pan, but gives Hero an extra 20 HP and causes snacks to heal 50% more HP in battle. An incredibly useful weapon. The watermelon you can see on the table at the bottom contains a Coconut. That's a weapon for Kel that, just by picking it up, teaches Kel "Juice Me" - an ability that does minor damage to a friend while healing them 50% of juice. It's a really nice support ability that I think pairs nicely when you want Hero to do a full party heal anyway. However, remember how I gushed over the Blood Orange giving Kel an extra 30 juice? Well, the Coconut gives Kel 50 juice!! Kel has like 150% of his health value in juice, it's insane.





This simple roach introduces a mechanic I haven't talked about yet, and am probably going to talk about in much more detail at a later date. You see, this roach only appears if you have a specific variable in your save game. How do you get that variable? Well, it's a random number between 1 and 13 that's assigned to you the moment Omori walks out of the treehouse for the first time. The only way to ever change this value is save game manipulation. As I mentioned, I'll talk about it more in detail later, but I wanted to bring it up briefly for now. For reference, the "WTF" value I have for this playthrough is 10. The value I had on my first playthrough file was 12. That... definitely spiced a few things up.





Behind the kitchen is the servants' quarters where, get this, the servants are hung, drawn and quartered. Or they sleep here, one of the two.





I tried offering one some food earlier, but she called me a peon and threw it back at me...

Sprout Moles are peculiar creatures, aren't they?


Peculiar is one word, monstrous is another. No picnic this time, sadly. Still, this is the only Mari spot that isn't in the dungeon so it's good to come back here for some healing and saves just in case.





We have to bring out Aubrey to smash the bars open so we can grab whatever key this is.





J





That was... another wrong key I'm afraid. We're actually at 5 right and 5 wrong right now. Still got a lot of leeway, but uh it's getting tighter!





OTHER BUTLER MOLE: You spout delusions, twin brother! It is I who is going to marry Sweetheart!

BUTLER MOLE: Oh, please! This will be no contest! When it comes to the two of us, I am by far the more dashing!

OTHER BUTLER MOLE: Don't be foolish, brother! We look exactly the same! I just know that Sweetheart is going to fall for... my personality!

BUTLER MOLE: Tsk, tsk, tsk... Nonsense, brother! When the time is ripe, she will fall head over heels over my fashoooonable new mustache!

OTHER BUTLER MOLE: Hmph! A fashoooonable mustache, you say!? What mustache!? All I see are a pair of nose hairs!

BUTLER MOLE: Dear brother... You're really getting on my last stem! But I know how to settle this!







Uhhh... any many miney moe... catch a sprout mole by the toe... you!


BUTLER MOLE: Ha! What did I tell you!? I'm going to go ask Sweetheart to marry me right now!







This is 100% what I would do to get a room to myself. Cannot tell you how much I enjoy a room all to myself. On the bed is a bow tie that you can pick up and will help you land a slot on prime time fox news while also raising defense by 4. It's a pretty multi-faceted use piece of equipment, though I feel like defense up items aren't as good anymore now that one-shots aren't a fear.





Ok, we've still got a bit more of this place to expl- wait, what's that spotlight in the middle of the hallway?







SIR MAXIMUS: Stop, imposters! I know what you are... and you are not Sprout Moles! Hmhm! You must be wondering how I am able to tell... You see... I am above those feeble and inexperienced Harolds and Marshas! I am Sir Maximus... and with my impressive lineage, I will be victorious and bring honor to my family!







Valour Against All Odds









Despite seeming to be set up as a boss fight... Sir Maximus is a joke...imus.





I wasn't kidding. Though when you do enough damage to him...









The power of PARENTHOOD infuses the Sprout Mole with the ability to do any kind of damage and he actually hurts us a bit. The power of ____ unlocking super moves kinda owns, I'm not gonna lie.







And we never heard from Sir Maximus, ever again...