Part 3: FINE, we'll go rescue your stupid boyfriend.

Alright everybody, meet Kid. Kid, meet everybody.



And you never bought me a pony!

Why yes, Kid has family problems. Why do you ask?



Moving on to the throne room, Jema is already there waiting for us. Evidently the witch is draining people's energy and making them head to the ruins in the southern part of town. We're told to bugger off and go to Gaia's Navel.



I beg to differ sir. Your people are not eating each other's flesh and spreading their curse through infected saliva. If these are zombies, they're the lamest ones ever.




Kid throws a bitch at the king. Yes, he didn't send one of his officers out to pay a percussive visit to an evil witch to try and save his kingdom, he did it to try and keep the two of you apart. Obviously.



The story you aren't seeing here is about the impertinent girl who was given a sound thrashing for being rude to royalty.



The queen appears initially more sympathetic.



Until she tells us to get the hell out too. It might be meant as sympathetic and trying to make sure that he doesn't suffer from remaining in the kingdom, or it might be an attempt to get rid of Boy before his bad luck somehow makes their kingdom worse. Take it as you will.



Attempts to raid the royal treasury fail. We'll be back. Oh yes.



Exploring the town we find this little nugget of tragedy. These kids are either going to starve or be eaten by zombies. I'm hoping for the second option.



At any rate, heading south of town to look around we can also check out Kid's equipment. I've gotten used to thinking of her as a healer and support character, but when you combine the knuckles with the fact that she comes with a kung-fu suit for armor, Kid's really more like a martial artist.



Since she's computer controlled, we can tweak her AI a bit. It's a fairly simple system where the x axis controls whether she's defensive or offensive in nature while the y axis determines how she responds to enemies. I shifted her more toward approach and attack so that she'll go chasing after them on her own. On the right hand side you can determine how far she'll charge her weapon once she gains levels in it.



At any rate, there's nothing at all ominous about these statues south of town. I can't imagine why people are so freaked out about it.



Continuing onward there's a structure with more of the creepy statues scattered around. A couple of silent guards keep us from going onward, so we might as well follow Jema's instructions.



Heading west out of town we get a new enemy, the poisonous Buzz Bee. Kid has an unfortunate habit of running directly into them trying to land a punch, so she gets a spear to keep her at a bit of a distance.



After a decent walk we come to a quaint little village between Gaia's Navel and Pandora. It's really more of a bump in the road, but it can be a welcome rest.




Kippo Village is mostly notable for being the home of the Cannon Man and Dyluck. Despite Cannon Man's bizarre appearance, his wife looks normal.



The armor shop has our first real upgrades, a chain vest for Boy and a Kung Fu Dress for Kid. I like to think that it's a cheongsam.



Just a bit further down the road the entrance to Gaia's Navel is hidden behind a pair of waterfalls.



Kid once again throws a fit. Its like she wasn't listening during that whole "Go to Gaia's Navel exchange with Jema.



Since she's threatening to make us go alone, we have to give in to her demands. Going toward the witch's castle we find this douchebag wandering in a field of flowers. His main crime is wandering in an area with monsters and the fact that the button to talk and the button to hit things are the same. Confusion ensues.



There's a Cannon Travel Center here, but we've got nowhere else we really want to go right now. Might come in handy later, though.




An apparent dead end transports us into a creepy forest filled with thorny enclosures. It's actually a nicely atmospheric place.



It's filled with Chobin Hoods, annoying little rats that shoot arrows at you if you approach them directly. You can also see a tiny flaw in the AI here. The other characters often have some difficulty pathfinding, and you can't go too far away from them. There are occasional moments where you have to wrangle your companions carefully around obstacles to continue.



Kitty! Neko is here to sell us some overpriced goods and some of the same armor we could have picked up earlier for twice the price. I suppose if you suddenly found yourself really regretting being a cheapskate on armor you might go with it.



Once again you have to pull out the sword in order to proceed. The witch has certainly went through a lot of trouble to install teleporters all over the place.



Can we leave now?



FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU




Before we leave, further exploration gets us two new status effects. Balloon is a small annoyance that freezes us in place for a few seconds that is caused by bats (Blats). Moogle is substantially worse, as it reduces defense to zero. The enemy that causes it is called a Wizard Eye, and unfortunately we get hung up on it.



It goes about as well as one might expect. Luckily going to an inn will fix this. Somehow.



Returning to Gaia's Navel we can find Neko waiting for us. I'm not sure if it's one Neko or if there's an entire family of them.



The other entrance has us almost running straight into a couple new enemies. The Kid Goblins aren't anything to write home about, but the Green Drop enemies can and will reproduce themselves by splitting.



Kid Goblins will always be asleep when you first see them. Sometimes they'll remain that way until you start beating them to death. It's rough being a Kid Goblin.



A sea of magma blocks progress. The one thing you can say about this cave is that it's pretty good about not letting you get lost.



A switch on the wall releases some water from a pond to cool the magma and make it walkable. Unfortunately, this doesn't result in a steam-filled cavern.



Two Goblin Kids guard our first treasure, a magic rope. These are useful to get you out of a dungeon in a hurry, but I'd rather go through the hard way. Amusingly enough the Kid Goblin on the left slept through me murdering his friend.



Killing a few Green Drops nets us a walking chest. These try to run away from you, and you have to chase them down get the goods.



At length, we reach our destination.



You think you should be a bit more worried about this?



This will in no way be important or have a lasting affect on us.



Here in Gaia's Navel we find Watts the Blacksmith, who is kind enough to reforge our sword for the measly sum of 100 gold.



The fact that his hammer started to glow after working on it clues Watts into what he's working on.



Like a true Dwarf, his first thought is "I bet I can make a kick-ass axe with my new magic hammer." Dorf on, Watts.




This gives us a dramatic increase in our weapon power. The Dwarf Village Store also has some armor upgrades for sale.



The Elder refuses to answer any questions until we go next door and see the variety show.



This is going to be expensive.



I don't even want to know how you go about combining a Rabite and a man. I can only imagine a great deal of alcohol is involved.



After that lame opener, we come to the real show...



Indentured childhood slavery? This game is going to a very dark place.




The poor Sprite Child asks for a 100 gold donation. It's a But Thou Must choice, so you're going to have to cop it up.



Naturally the whole thing turns out to be a scam.




The Dwarf Elder is apologetic, but the Sprite seems more impressed with his own cleverness than anything else.



The important part is that you get all your money back, including the 50 GP entrance fee. So.. free Rabiteman show I guess?



Going back to check on Watts we're interrupted by one of the earthquakes that was mentioned earlier.. but this isn't exactly a common earthquake.

Boss Battle: Tropicalo

Tropicalo Battle Video




Meet our second boss battle, Tropicalo. He appears to be some kind of spiked gourd/pineapple and attacks with his creeping tentacle and exploding pumpkins.



Naturally, he's poisonous as well. Kid had a worse time with the tentacle than Boy for some reason.



I'm not even sure how he ended up exploding, to be honest. His hit detection area is really wide, but the fact is that I was an entire screen away when he started to explode and didn't even see the explosion start.



Our prize is an upgrade for the spear. Luckily Watts can do just about any weapon for you.



Its a bit confusing, but it seems as though the Sprite was somehow involved. Did it think it would be fighting the monster itself?



Amnesia does not equal assholery. I call shenanigans, good sir!




The upside is that we now have a way to get to the Underground Palace that has been mentioned a few times. The downside... well, that's pretty obvious.



We've got a little squirt calling us brother and following us around.



Evidently since he's an amnesiac he's quite comfortable with the of us giving him a name? Makes as much sense as anything.



You know the deal by now. At this point, we're done with acquiring our cast of characters.

Third Naming Vote


The original name for this character is Popoi. Gender is a matter of debate, as nobody's quite sure. A lot of people have mentioned that in Japanese it's quite easy to refer to somebody in a gender neutral manner, and that's quite true. It's made more complicated by the fact that speaking patterns for women and small children share certain similarities and that tomboyish figures will use masculine self-references. If you think its attire looks somewhat wizardly, that'd be a pretty good guess. What shall we call it?

Tropicallo Sounds Like a Mixed Drink, or a Sunny-D Flavor