The Let's Play Archive

Soul Blazer

by ddegenha

Part 20



“…I don’t know that else I expected, but this is a dump.”

“HEY! Do I come into your house and talk about how run down it is?”

“No? For two reasons. First off, I don’t have a house. Secondly, you’re an inanimate object. You wouldn’t come into my house unless I brought you.”

“Technicalities. Now listen.”



“Zantesu Sword can defeat. First of all, talk to a certain door to get you into the room.”

“That’s just great. I’ll just keep chattering at every door and see what happens.”



Pushing past the mouthy door, we enter the dungeon section of the laboratory. It’s… unique. You’ve got little islands and multiple lairs visible as soon as we go down the stair. It’s immense, and it’s weird, and it’s completely different from anything else we’ve dealt with before. Off to the right we can see the Fangbot, our first new enemy. We can’t defeat them yet, but when we can they’re worth 145 experience. They also attack by staying in one position and then charging at you before returning to their starting location.




The entire place is crisscrossed with purple ducts that are big enough for 3-4 people people to walk abreast. For some unknown reason they’re covered with Inchworms, which we can defeat right now and who give us 150 exp each. We also get a chance to meet our next enemy.

“Some kind of… cleaning mechanism?”

“Unauthorized biological entity detected. ELIMINATE!”

“GETAWAYGETAWAYGETAWAY!”



That was the Broombot, which can be destroyed with our panicked flailing and has an 8 direction attack to use on us. Still worth it, and something we’ll see a lot of soon. Next up we have Helibot, captured here its rotors hidden. It will fly toward you and chase you down, and can’t be touched until we get our next sword. Clearing up a nearby lair releases a cat, which is always an improvement.



The other pathway we cross throughout the factory is a series of linked pipes, also covered in monster lairs. OSHA would have a field day with this place. Clearing up the lair just lets us continue on, where we find…



“More worms? What are they ea…okay, never mind. I just don’t want to ask that question.”



Ignoring the maze to get this lair, we can also wipe them out with magic. Clearing the lair releases a potted plant, which at this point doesn’t even seem odd. We also release a door on the way, and not just a door… a great door.




As you can see, this area can get a bit chaotic. It doesn’t help that enemies you can defeat are mixed in with enemies you can’t, leaving you no choice but to fight what you can and run from the rest. We’re about done with what we can do for now, so it’s time to head back.



“This house has a second floor and an attic.”

“You didn’t mention the multiple basements.”

“We don’t like to talk about those. I’m supposed to chase things that look like mice. Not the other other way around.”




“Ha.. haha.. HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“I’ve got some housecleaning to do, and this isn’t the only house.”

“And like that, he’s lost it.”



“Two models of the same town? That’s kind of weird.”

“No, no, no. Different towns. Many creatures were swallowed into the models.”

“Surviving a childhood here is starting to explain a LOT of things about Lisa.”

“You’re only scratching the surface, buddy.”

“I’m curious, but there’s some metal monsters that are long overdue for a bludgeoning and I’m not waiting any longer.”




Without further ado, it’s now time to go back and clear out all those metal monster lairs from previous worlds. In practice there aren’t that many of them, whatever it may have seemed like at the time. First up, we start at the beginning with the metal octopi from Leo’s painting. The metalpus are the easiest of the metal enemies, but they’re still worth 250 experience when you kill them. Clearing this lair opens up a chest that gives us a new spell.



It looks kind of like this, but I never found much use for it. As you’d imagine it’s named Tornado.



There’s another set in the next area…




And two interrelated screens of them in the next, both of which release ivy to allow you to reach parts of this town that you couldn’t before. It’s also very good for the experience bar, as you can see.



Our reward for all of this metal murder is another Master’s Emblem right off the bat. That’s five, and we’ll be getting the others soon enough.



To proceed to our other reward we have to go through a process that starts with using telekinesis. You might not realize that we have telekinesis since the game never tells you or requires you to use it, but the L and R buttons can be pressed to do things like pull in far away gems or in this case to move a plant out of the way so you and search under it for a pass. We could have done this on our first visit to Grass Valley, but I missed it and you can’t actually get this treasure without the metal sword so it wasn’t a big deal.



The pass lets you enter some children’s clubhouse, which is a tunnel that would have led out onto a blank ledge before. You can get a strange bottle there,but now that we’ve released the ivy we can also climb up and find a blue gem.




For this we get a sword that we can’t even use yet. The Recovery Sword heals you when you beat a monster, and it’ll be very welcome once we’re past all the metal monsters. We’ve actually skipped a sword this way, which would be a pretty awesome reward if we could wield it. That said, you can still equip the Recovery Sword but you can only hold it out in front of you and run into enemies.



Next up is the Fire Shrine in the second area, where you might remember a number of metal scorpions running around free to spread their spite and venom. They’re worth 350 experience each, and there’s some additional experience available in a blue gem that clearing this first lair opens up. To be precise, 1 additional experience point. You can collect this as many times as you want, but there’s no point to it.



Down in the catacombs you’ve got another lair of scorpions that gives us a Strange Bottle…



And this scorpion paradise releases a bird back into the woods whose got an important message for us.



“That’s great, but I already kno…”

“If you collect the three symbols, you should visit the Mountain King.”

“I KNOW! Master, If I could unkill those scorpions and stuff him back in the lair, I would be sorely tempted at this point.”

“Trust me, I know the feeling.”



The final metal lair was located on one of the islands from the third area, with the one group of metal gorillas that we couldn’t kill using the lightning ring. Since the rest could actually be killed, they’re only worth 35 experience points. The lair releases a mermaid, however, who has an item we need to have to finish the game.



“I’ll take your word for it, since this pretty much just looks like a stick to me. It’s not even warm.”

“The name’s a bit deceptive, but that is definitely the Red-Hot Stick. It’s just not Red-Hot until it needs to be.”

“Any clue on the other two items?”

“Eh, I’m sure they’ll turn up eventually. These things usually work out one way or another.”

Next update: Cat and Mouse, and some backstory.