Part 20: Building Up a Little Momentum
Another bit of a tutorial update. This covers the last major mechanic of the game. With all that out of the way, we can start having more progression and, thus, more mousey shenanigans. For now though, let's start...
Returning back to Rococo moves the plot along again. Those teal-haired tykes have gone of on their adventure and gotten themselves into trouble. After the policeman rants to our mousey hero about this, he heads off to try and solve this problem. However, since this is a jRPG, we all know how well that will go.
We have nothing to do in town right now, so we turn around and head right back out.
And head into the new area that has opened up.
Robotrek does random encounters much like Super Mario RPG and Earthbound, where the enemies are visible on the maps. Running into them starts encounters, and most will actually make a point of moving towards you once you get in range of them. It's easy enough to avoid enemies and not fight them at all, but we won't be doing that. Fighting every enemy you come across avoids a lot of unnecessary grinding later.
Aha. A three enemy encounter. This is the perfect situation to show off just how useful that all-enemy RUN command can be. There's 30 seconds of Bonus Time since there's three enemies, so we have more than enough time to hit up that capsule and then get with the murdering.
Whelp, it was a trap - exploding to damage Pinky for 2 and applying the Rust condition, as can be identified by the skull hanging over his head. As the battle goes on, he'll continue to take damage, so we'll want to end this as quickly as possible. Let's run Troz.
Effective. In fact, we'll be using Troz to taking down any basic encounter that has two or three enemies. The faster we kill the enemies, the less chance they have to damage Pinky. In addition, such an effective murder tactic makes collecting in-battle capsules that much easier. So, wandering around and Troz'ing the next few enemies, we get enough Megs for a level up.
Leveling up gets us access to the Portable. The Portable can do everything that the Invention Machine can, save for building robots. The most important ones right now are the Maintenance (battery) and Program (computer) options. Be warned, though, hitting B or hitting the End option before finishing everything you want to do here WILL make it go away. Afterward, you'll have to either hit up an actual Invention Machine or level up again to do whatever you forgot to do.
8 HP, while still looking rather low, is plenty good enough for the first couple areas. So, we pump up Pinky's Attack, Guard, and Speed. This means more damage out and less damage in, which is always good. Nothing in the Forest will be able to hit our robot for more than a single point of damage now. After hitting up Maintenance to heal damage done to him, we're all set to get back to clearing the way towards the riverside.
Swinging around and clearing off another Mushroom gets us access to a capsule with some cash in it. Make sure to pick it up, we're going to need everything we can get. Then it's just a matter of continuing to murder our way north to the other end of the map and out of the Forest.
Which brings us to the River.
This area has a few new enemies, but the biggest one to worry about is the Gel. The Gel doesn't have a range limit on it, so it will stick to the back of the battlefield and drop waterfalls on you. So if you're not abusing Troz like I am, you'll either have to plink away at it with your Shot 1 - which does about 3 damage at distance and maybe 9 or so point blank - or close the gap over the course of a couple turns. That's not the worst of it though.
That waterfall has the added bonus of potentially applying the Stop effect. While it doesn't take away your ability to do anything at all like in Final Fantasy, it prevents Pinky from moving around the battlefield or use RUN commands. In this situation, you're stuck shooting at the enemies or waiting for them to come to you and smacking them with your sword.
It's not all bad, though, since we got a Cure out of the deal. Enemies all have a random chance to drop a capsule after being defeated. Rewards in them can range from consumables (Cures, Cleans, and Repairs) to cash money and even equipment for your Robot. You can get some interesting stuff from capsules - I've seen huge cash drops (Like 1000G up to 7000G, usually off Gels) and weapons you shouldn't even have access to yet.
Also, in the course of murdering that Mine (the blue wind-up robot) and the Rushbirds up the hill, we gain ourselves another level. The plan for stat distribution doesn't change. Continue to pump up the murder potential. This level is actually important for another reason, but we don't have what we need to capitalize on it just yet.
So we collect the cash stored away atop the hill and - crossing the bridge and then circling back below it - a Smoke. Smoke lets you automatically escape from battle when used. There's a bit of a vital flaw in its usefulness in this sort of run, so it won't be seeing use. Just like Big Bombs. And Repairs.
It should also be noted that the mouse can also cheer on your robot just like the human form can. It's rather adorable. But beyond that, we're all done on the River.
We COULD continue on to the Cave Mouth. But I mentioned this level is important. We're going to return to Rococo to show off exactly why.
With the two new levels comes two new schematics. Both are going to be very handy in the future, if you have the funds to do it. What do I mean? It'll make sense in a moment as we make our way down into the basement.
We're hitting up the Invention Machine to actually do something beyond making robots and powering them up. So, I think it's time for a quick breakdown on what it can do.
CREATE: This lets you build items effectively from scratch by spending a little cash. Everything you learn how to make from books and ideas can be found here. They're separated into two categories: Things our hero can use, and things our robot can use.
COMBINE: The big ability. This lets you combine things together into new things. There's no need for schematics or anything, just pick two items and see if you can make something out of it. There's no real error chance - the game will tell you if a combination won't make anything.
RECYCLE: This is the game's "sell" function. You pick stuff you don't want anymore and recycle it for cash. This is what I'm going to be doing with most of the consumable items I can't effectively use out of combat, like Big Bombs and Repairs. You should rarely recycle robot equipment, though, unless you're strapped for cash. Mainly because you can probably combine them into something neat.
ROBOT: Build a robot. This is what we used in the beginning of the game. You pay money and you get yourself a robot. The second robot costs 3000G to make and supposedly has a minor hidden boost to melee attack power. The third costs 4000G and is said to have a minor bonus to RUN commands. Can't be used with the Portable, and won't be used for the rest of this run.
MAINTENANCE: Fix up your robot. For a fee, you can heal all damage and status effects, including Scrapped (i.e. Dead). The cost to do this is usually much cheaper than the purchase cost of items that do the same, so make use of it when you can.
PROGRAM: Adjust the stats and RUN programs of your robot. Robot stats are never set in stone, and you can always adjust them to fit a situation with this command. Having a problem with doing or taking damage? Reprogram your robot and see if that helps solve the problem.
Our first order of business is to make us a couple Shot 1s using the Create command.
Next is to combine one of our newly created Shot 1s with that Scrap 2 we got from the Shop's back room to make ourselves a Shot 2. This is, understandably, a more powerful Shot whose base power is about on par with a Shot 1 Lv 4.
A bit confused by this Weapon X Lv Y thing? I'll take a brief moment to explain, using our two Shots here. As mentioned before, weapons have a Level system that goes from 1 to 9, which can be upped by getting those Equip Level Up capsules in battle...
And by combining weapons of the same type. Two Shot 1 Lv1's can combine to make a Shot 1 Lv2, and better "versions" of the weapons can also benefit at a fraction of the cost. For example, combining our new Shot 2 Lv1 with our Shot 1 Lv3 makes a Shot 2 Lv2 - since it's a grade higher, the new Shot takes half the level of the lower grade item rounded down. However, it will never increase a weapon less than one level. This means with an even higher grade weapon, a Shot 1 Lv1 will always increase the other one by a level. This is ripe for abuse later in the game.
For now, though, we don't have the funds to push it up all the way to level 9. Instead, we just upgrade it to Shot 2 Lv 5 for now and keep some cash for some later combining shenanigans. Equipping this new gun has increased our base ranged attack power by 10.
So, remember doing 7-9 damage on enemies point blank with our Shot 1?
Not anymore. For a little more technical breakdown, here's the attack levels of the equipment we've seen thus far at both Lv1 and Lv9:
Sword 1
Level 1: +5
Level 9: +17
Shot 1
Level 1: +4
Level 9: +24
Shot 2
Level 1: +10
Level 9: +30
Bomb 1
Level 1: +10
Level 9: +50
As they level, they increase at roughly an even rate until they reach max damage. So, while a Shot 2 is equal in power to a Bomb 1 at level one, the higher max damage means that it'll be outpaced with each successive level gain. Still, Bombs eat a LOT more Charge Gauge than Shots, so that's still pretty impressive. You can actually see these numbers in the robot's item menu by mousing over them and pressing X.
With our new toy in tow, we head on back to the Cave Mouth and murder everything there before ducking into the cave entrance for plot.
Dr. Einst blows up the wall.
And then it caves back in.
So he gets mad and kicks a helpless mouse to vent his frustrations. He storms out, followed by the villagers who need to plan. However, we're much more pro-active and are about to take matters into our own hands. Our own, mechanics-abusing hands.
The pace is about to pick up, and there's quite a bit to show as we tackle the Caves.
Next Time: This is Not a Drill