Part 29: Episode XXIX: Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies

Episode XXIX: Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies


Music: Much Hatred Still Rankles



Yes!! They finally started something!
...Is that good? It doesn't sound good.
You don't ask those kinds of questions when winging it with those dabbling in occult practices.
That isn't reassuring, ma'am...
<turns to the troops> All right, Lieutenant Suketani!!

Suketani steps forward and salutes.



Take your troops underground! We don’t know what’s down there, so proceed with extreme caution!
If it has more than four limbs, has any manner of unearthly glow or possesses a translucent body – you shoot it!
Yes, ma’am!

Suketani departs with his men.



All right. Let’s move out!! <runs after the others>
Lt. Colonel Kawashima...

Meanwhile...



Back in the temple, Xifa managed to teleport all of the important characters back to the entrance of his dumbass trials that got him killed. Hmm... the evil sorcerer we barely beat last time and forced me to live in a magically sealed storeroom in the back of some monster filled temple ruins with a cat child as my only company is back and clearly more powerful than ever? Well, I'd better dick around with the people trying to stop him because I'm really bored. That's productive! Old bald fucking idiot. I'm glad he's dead.

Everyone picks themselves up off the ground.



…Where are we?!
<inspects the area> It's the Samsara Pavilion!
Master Xifa transported us here, didn’t he…?
Hey... umm... Was kinda caught up in the old guy dying and the place collapsing but... where is Alice?
<looks around> She is... uhh... well.
Dehuai... probably took her... Probably...
That isn't reassuring, old man!
We’ve got no time to waste! We’ve got to get back to Shanghai before this place collapses.



Calm your ass, Zhuzhen. There's no time limit for the temple collapsing and we need to do a brief bit of mission prep before proceeding. Particularly, you remember those Leonardo Bears that prevent Instant Death? It might be a good idea to equip those on the whole party right about now. Just as a precaution, you know?


Music: Misfortune - Psycho Temple



We never hear Wugui of Kowloon That Man have any spoken lines. But given the JRPG equivalent of a kung fu adventure movie this portion of the game has going, I'd to think he speaks with a completely unfitting voice that is extremely poorly synced to his mouth movements. Dehuai naturally just sounds like Lo Pan from Big Trouble in Little China.

Wugui of Kowloon strolls onto the scene.



That Dehuai doesn’t miss a beat, does he… leaving Wugui behind to block our return…
I'm getting sick of mid-bosses.
You don’t know when to give up, do you? You here for another beat-down? You’ve caught me at a bad time. I won’t forgive you over my dead body!
My sentiments exactly, boy. You will pay dearly for what you did to me.
Yeah, yeah... I've gotta busy schedule. Just get on with it.
You have no idea what you're about to face, boy.
Is it a powered-up second form? Or a Yamaraja dude? Ya know like I called last time you ran away with your tail between your legs...
You think you're so clever, boy? But you're wrong! It's BOTH!
Wait. ...Doesn't that just make me double right?
That checks out.
Mhm.
SILENCE!
Graaaaaah!!




Music: China Ogre





Meet the actual boss of the Wuhan Temple Ruins -- Yamaraja: War. You can't have any localization confusion if you don't use an element name. Except... this guy wasn't denoted as a Yamaraja boss at all in Japanese. He was just referred to as Unrestrained/Unleashed/Super Saiyan Level 2 Wugui, so whoops! In any case, Shin Wugui is a Dark elemental enemy packing a quite stout 840 HP.





Our first order of business is going to be switching Yuri over to Inferno and buffing his physical attack strength with some Shonen level Fighting Spirit. We may be done with the trial gimmicks of this chapter, but we're not quite finished with the annoying gameplay limitations being present.





Remember how Wugui could absorb all magical special attacks? Welp, he still retains that ability in his Yamaraja: War form. Which means all anyone is allowed to do is physical attacks as everything else will just heal him. Meaning, Zhuzhen is stuck on healing duty and Margarete just kind of chips away for middling damage. Most of this fight is going to be on Goro Yuri repeatedly punching Wugui in the dick until he submits. Not that the Kowloon native is going to take that lying down, mind you.



For instance, Wugui still possesses the Game of Death attack. Yuri still has immunity when he's Dark Elemental (so default status with no Fusions), despite every guide for this game telling you to have three Leonardo's Bears. So in a pinch, he can just remain normal or swap over to Death Emperor. Not so much for Margarete or Zhuzhen. And if you didn't know this fight was coming, whoops they're immediately both dead thirty seconds into the battle. When was the last save point? Oh, before all of the crap with Xifa, huh? That's unfortunate. Definitely didn't have to redo this fight my first time through and get annoyed it was before five minutes of cutscenes.



But since we prepared properly by giving everyone teddy bears, we're good to go! Nice try, idiot! We have the protection of Benjamin Spooner Briggs the King of Limbo.



Beyond that, War hits quite hard with his weird chitin axe but he doesn't seem keen on doing more than a single strike at a time. So that's nice of him.





He also possesses a new ability: Nightmare. Which is just... Dark Messenger, that darkness gas spray attack every Dark element enemy has in their move list, but this version hits the entire party. It does do around 60+ HP of damage to the whole team, so that's nothing to sneeze at when Wugui pulls it out. But that's why we have Zhuzhen on healing duty. Nourishing Potion's high MP cost isn't quite the factor when it's literally the only productive thing he can spend MP on in a fight.





Everything aside, just insert three minutes of Yuri furiously punching Wugui in the dick as a flaming Goro while Margarete takes potshots and Zhuzhen puts in work keeping everyone's health topped off and you've got this fight in a nutshell. This jobber is retired.



Post-battle, our EXP, and Cash prize resulted in Zhuzhen reaching Level 17 and gaining Life Sucker. If that sounds like a nifty attack where he steals HP off an enemy to heal himself... that'd be a decent guess, but you'd also be dead wrong. It's a Dark element attack that hits a single enemy for OK damage and has a chance to cause Silence. Yeah... I dunno either.


Music: Wind Which Blows From the Dark II



Is your entire win record just beating up Zhuzhen?
N-no...
<raises eyebrow>
...M-maybe.





Roger Bacon warps into the room. It's been quite some time since he's popped up. I wonder what kind of nefarious speech he has for this reunion with Yuri.





Oh... He's just going to Hadoken him and immediately fuck-off with Wugui. Huh... That's a pretty concise speech. Unless we follow a very specific set of choices in the coming chapter, that's the last we ever see of Wugui of Kowloon. He and Bacon might have buggered off to sidequest country. We'll worry about that for another day. We have more pressing issues at the moment...



Oh no!!
Hurry, before everything collapses!!
Just gimme a s—



And that extremely abruptly concludes Chapter 7! Well, I'm sure Alice can get herself out of a kidnapping and sort out Dehuai on her own. Military intrigue and sidequest triggering will commence next time in Chapter 8: Shanghai Again! May we never go to a temple ruins dungeon again.





That chapter was a big wet fart and things honestly would have gone way better if the party just didn't bother showing up. But it did fill out quite a bit of the Library entries... even if many of them were palette swaps. Let's see what we've got here...

MONSTER:



Dead? Dying? He ain't picky! These human teeth are made for chewing!



Wait, back up... How did a man drown on land? Did he trip into a puddle? Why did that turn him into a gross oily tentacle rape monster? I've very confused.



Is this what is kicking my ass when I make the annual mistake of ordering some Chinese food?



I imagine it just sounds like Dr. Girlfriend from Venture Bros repeatedly going "boo!"



Uniform shockingly clean and up to dress code despite their zombified status.



It knows when you've been wanking to the REAL weird stuff on the internet. It knows!



Honestly, just avoid puddles of water that can potentially house creatures the size of a small cow. Just walk around that shit!



No curse or malevolent spirits involved here. Just a frog that took a full heel turn and decided it was going to eat some brains. I can respect that.



It guards Master Xifa's weed stash.



An unfathomable Dark power that can delete one's existence... unless they're carrying a teddy bear. Then said powers are rendered impotent and sad.

NPC:



Turns out getting transformed into a boy burned through about eight lives. Xifa never brought that part up until it was too late.



Dead idiot with a bumper sticker stuck on his big stupid head.




Video: Episode 29 Highlight Reel