Part 39: Episode 39: Fuck the Chrysler Building
Episode 39: Fuck the Chrysler BuildingLast time, we beat the game. But we're not quite done yet.
You see, upon returning to the main menu, we find this shiny new option: The EX Game.
EX Game is basically just New Game+, with a new dungeon and an alternate ending. So, if you wanted to tear through NYC with your crazy endgame arsenal, GOOD NEWS!
The game starts the exact same way, and we even get a second chance to rename Aya to DONGS if you are so inclined. Outside of the new area, the plot is completely unchanged.
Although we get booted back down to a measly level one (and effectively waste all the BP I foolishly invested in AT and Item Capacity
), we get to keep whatever weapon and armor we let Wayne name for us. Anything else in your inventory at the end of the game is gone, but stuff in Wayne's storage is still there.
Blah blah blah opera
Blah blah blah crazy
Blah blah metal blah blah. You know the deal.
Another thing that changes in the EX game is the enemies. Or, at least, their stats.
You see, in order to compensate for the no doubt ludicrous firearm you built the first time through, all the baddies now get a buff to keep up. It's generally just enough to make them roughly as difficult to kill as they were first time around, with a choice few suddenly becoming actual problems.
Being Level 1 isn't helping Aya any, either.
Oh, and here's that parrot I missed waaaaay back when.
It mimics its owner's agonizing death screams. How cute.
Oddly enough, Eve didn't seem to get the same buff as her minions for this fight. As such, it lasts about 20 seconds.
Crocomire is also an oddball. His defense and HP is definitely higher, but none of his attacks can hit me for more than 1 damage. Why do I mention this? I dunno.
Pictured: The entire plot of Parasite Eve.
Another nice thing about EX Mode is that completing a Day awards you with a truckload of BP for no reason. More BP means more crazy guns, so I approve.
As you can see, Wayne still has everything in his storage waiting for us.
Even a load of Junk that will become very, VERY useful eventually.
The final big feature of the EX Game is an all new location: the Chrysler Building. You remember the Chrysler Building, right?
Tall building? Glowing ominously? Remember that?
So, the Chrysler Building. Well, it has some cool music. That's...that's about the extent of nice things I have to say about the Chrysler Building.
You see, the Chrysler Building is 77 floors of nothing but enemies to fight. It's a massive gauntlet that occasionally rewards you with nice stuff, but mostly just fucking blows.
There's no save points inside, but they do provide you with this elevator to allow a quick exit. But you need the key first. Every ten floors, there's a boss. Beat the boss, get a key to the elevator. Each key allows you to go up to the floor you got in on, or any floor lower.
So, if you have the Level 20 key, you can go to anywhere from Level 1 up to Level 20, but no higher. Also, you wander up to Level 21, and want to leave, you have to go back down to 20 to use the elevator.
This is the extent of the Chrysler Building's merciful convenience, and it's already annoying.
In the meantime, we have to take the stairs.
Oh, one other thing about the Chrysler Building...
It's a fucking maze. A horrible, boring labyrinth made entirely of copy/pasted corridors and dead ends. I had foolishly assume it was just floor after floor of large open room with a tough fight in each one. But, nope, Squaresoft says "Fuck you!" and tosses you into a massive maze. At least the fucking sewers was short, you dicks!
Oh yeah, and there's monsters in here, too. For the first ten floors, they're no big deal, and if your equipment was good enough to handle the Ultimate Being last time around, there's basically no way there guys can even scratch you.
We've got your bog standard Rats and Birds.
And some bats and Dinos.
Along the way, you'll find doors like this. There's one on each floor, and you should seek them out.
Because they contain delicious loot! The Chrysler Building is home to some of the best gear in the game, so it's always worth the time to check all of these rooms.
The loot gets better as you go up, so these low floors only have basic stat boosters.
The blue bird enemies drop Junk, and you will want Junk, trust me. A lot of people say these first ten floors are the best place to farm junk, but the random number generator is not my friend. I had better luck going back to the Zoo.
Either way, get junk, fuck bitches.
Although the Chrysler Building just vomits new guns at us, none of them are nearly as good as our current gun, and by the time we reach the upper levels, we'll already have the best gun we'll ever need. So these are basically just disposable ammo containers.
Sometimes, treasure rooms also contain baddies! Most of the time, they're like this lone bird and complete pushovers. But, hey, nothin' else interesting happens in this hole, so why not.
Here is the real reason you want to check every treasure room: Rare Trading Cards. Wayne loves these goddamn things, and will reward you for bringing them to him by giving you two upgrades per card instead of one.
There's 14 in total, and if you bring Wayne all of them, he will bestow upon you the best item in the game. You'll see.
On the tenth floor, we find this large open room. Guess what it's for!
Every ten floors, there's a boss. For our first fight, we get a rematch with the Queen Spider from the hospital.
Her color is different, but her attacks are all the same. She shoots fire balls and swipes at you with her claw. More importantly...
She dies.
There are only 2 new bosses in the tower, so the remaining five are all rematches against baddies you've already stomped. The Chrysler Building is an exercise in boredom.
Here's the elevator key for the first 10 Floors. How many elevators actually have keys, anyway? Wasn't this a public place before Eve cavalcade of critters came to town?
Now, the first ten floors are cake, but the Chrysler Building does get pretty tough, so I decided to bail and go prepare. How do you prepare for the climb?
Just keep playing the game! First step, you'll want to play all the way up to our old pal Rex.
After Rex, you have a window before the point of no return. Once you confront Eve in the museum, you're railroaded into the admittedly awesome endgame. If you just avoid the 4th floor of the museum after killing Rex, you can go anywhere and do whatever you want.
Now, here's why we want to kill Rex. By the time you reach him, you'll generally be level 32. Taking down the King of the Dinosaurs is enough to push you up to level 33, where you'll learn Liberate aka "The Win Button". But we're not done yet.
The Museum enemies give out the best EXP in the game, and are complete pussies, making it ideal for a bit of grinding. You want to hit Level 38, because there's a quirk in the game's programming to be exploited.
You need roughly 200 thou experience points to go from lvl 37 to lvl 38, which is huge. Normally playing the game, you'd probably hit 36 at the most before beating the game.
To reach lvl 39 from 38 only costs 4,500 experience points, which is nothing. That's like one fight in the museum, maybe two. And the best part? That's the same amount you need to level to ALL SUBSEQUENT LEVELS. Exploiting this, you can go from level 39 to level 99 in the span of an hour just trolling around the museum. It's insane!
You're better off fighting baddies in the Chrysler Building for the last 60 levels, though, just to snag more BP.
Alright, back to the Chrysler Building. Floors 10-20 have Monkeys...
...moles, and bats. Yawn.
As for loot, they haveWAITWHAT?!
This is a mimic. Mimics suck. They can hit for 200+ damage easily, and hide out in treasure boxes.
They can jab you with their feelers, or do a little helicopter spin. It's not that impressive, but it can hurt. They are vulnerable to Tranquilizers, however, so they can easily be cheesed into a non-issue.
My preferred Mimic tactic, though?
The nuclear option
Here's another Rare Trading Card. They're all based on guns, so there's apparently a gun called a "Bhawk" for some reason.
Floor 20 features a battle against not one, but TWO crocs! Even though we already did this back in the sewers. And all their attacks are unchanged.
Eh, let's just get this over with.
: CORKSCREW PUUUUNCH!
Welp.
Another key, and a Revive. Revives turn out to be key in my final boss strategy, so it's good to stock up.
After a few hours of killing zoo animals, I manage to scrounge up 300 pieces of Junk for Fonzie.
Apparently, 300 pieces of scrap metal carried by mutant birds is the perfect material for making firearms!
You can only pick one, and each one is the best weapon in their category, so it's largely just personal preference. Although the Rocket Launcher option is largely useless given the low limit of rockets available, and just never pick "Leave it to Wayne". He's a retard who will likely just turn the whole batch into a massive Super Junk (really).
I have him make me the P90 because I like more dakka, but something not quite right...
There we go. That purple grenade type is Cyanide, which will insta-kill some enemies.:Finally, the gun I've always wanted...
credit to my awesome sister for this awesome picture
: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Anyway, floors 20-30 is loaded down with enemies that can cause status effects. By now you should've found status resistant armors by the dozen, so it's no big deal.
Another Rare Card I forgot to screencap.
A sleepy Mimic.
Another trading card! Isn't that grezzzZZZZZZ
Next up, the centipede makes a return. His attacks are unchanged, except now his lighting can inflict Blindness.
He does the splits again, too.
I decide he's boring and needs to die.
New key, time to move on.
Floors 30-40 are crawling with cats and chameleons.
Also these goofballs from the hospital.
More Trading cards and a Metal Gear Solid joke that I'm too lazy to think of right now.
The Triceratops is waiting for us on the 40th floor, and marks the point where things actually get challenging. Well, bosses, at least.
For one thing, Liberate doesn't one shot him.
And he still has his headless phase 2.
Dinosaurs are extinct for a reason, though
Even over halfway up the tower, the random battles are complete non-issues.
More Yugioh for Wayne.
So what repackaged boss awaits us here? The worms?
What the? I've never seen that before! Is...is that a NEW monster?
The Roach can whip you with her antennae for decent damage, but the real issue is that log she's dropping.
After depositing the larva, she takes to the air, moving much quicker and spitting poison clouds.
Worst of all, the larva will hatch and quickly grow into and full-sized twin, giving you twice the shit to dodge.
Good thing I'm an unstoppable death machine
Suck it, bugs!
Next floor up, we find another brand new foe! A squirrel! Wait, seriously?
Okay, it's a squirrel with a Spread Gun. Aya would probably fit right in to a Contra game. Anyway, if you don't kill the little bastard fast enough, he'll flee from battle, leaving you with diddly shit. So, hit 'im hard, and hit 'im fast.
Along the way, Rattigan stops by to say "Hi".
Card.
The next boss is the giant enemy Crab from the warehouse. No new attacks, but loads more health.
The Barrier glitch still works, so he's completely helpless against Aya's attacks. Didn't even bother to use Liberate on this chump.
The Wolfmen return at this point, and their Defense Down attack actually means the enemies are a slight threat.
Also, bears.
By the way, this is what Cyanide does. I love it so much.
Some more cards and the final club.
And our final new enemy! The Queen Bee!
Her Highness can spawn little babby bees to help attack you, but she's tough enough without them.
Largely because of this energy blade thing. It takes up half the screen, so if you're on the wrong side of the field, you're pretty much boned. You need to be careful about when you attack, too, because you do not want to be stationary when this thing is coming at you.
Ouch. See what I mean?
She can also trap you into some sort of weird black hole. I had no idea bees had such abilities.
I'd wager that Queenie is actually tougher than any of the normal endgame bosses, just because of how quickly she can wreck your shit through sheer damage.
Oh, look at that. Max level, bitches!
Before we finish, let's drop by with Wayne as see how he's enjoying his new complete collection of Rare Trading Cards.
Goddamn right.
: Still would be nice to collect real guns, though!
Teehee
The Super Tool kit is basically a Super Tool with infinite uses. You can juggle weapon stats and abilities all fucking day with this thing, no penalty. Very handy for making sure your stuff is just right before the last boss.
On floor 70, the music cuts out completely, and our scenery changes drastically.
Apparently, Eve's been marking her territory.
It gets progressively grosser as we ascend.
Seriously, is Eve just hemorrhaging this stuff?
[i]At last we reach the 77th Floor.
: Well, ain't dat some drama! I'll try ta make up fer dis cliffhanger wit' some stories 'bout dese new guys.
: I ain't neva seen dis guy in my life! Guess he's really good at hidin'! Although, I do seem ta rememba some guys luggin' around big ol' crates during da last few days o' shootin'. Plus, dat whole pizza disappearin' from da box at da wrap party...
: Dis kid was crazy, I tells ya. Dis was his first big picture, an' he was da most energetic little schmuck ya ever saw! He'd do anything fer a dollar, too. Dis one time, I gave 'im five bucks streak through da lot, an he did it, no hesitation! Even tea-bagged da director's Porsche! Good times, I tells ya. Good times.
: Ricky's been a friend o' mine since foreva. I rememba back in high school, Ricky got caught bangin' a teacher. Ricky was always like dat, though, skeevin' on da ladies. I got him a job on da set to help him pay off some o' his child support, and da director liked his look, so dey put him in da picture! After it came out, though, Ricky got slammed wit' sexual harassment charges from three different extras, two key grips, an' half da Craft Services folks. Dey never got any money from 'im, though. Da syphilis got ta Ricky before da courts did.
: Oh, jeez, really? I forgot she was in dis. I guess that is where we met, though. Look, I still feel a little funny talkin' 'bout my ex-wife, okay? So, let's jus' say she was a very pleasant gal.: ...when she was sober.
: DEM KIDS AIN'T MINE, I TELLS YA! NOT MINE!