Part 21

Alpha Crateris. The final destination, the end of our journey, the site of our destiny. One last hand to be played, with everything at stake and nothing of importance to lose.

Gee, wonder which planet's the important one.

The Dnyarri's Distraction Plan
Dnyarri: I sense the presence of my ancient slaves. It is time, Captain.

Captain: What now, Dnyarri?

D: Oh gosh, gee! I don't know. Let's just sit here and talk a while AND IGNORE THOSE THOUSANDS OF DREADNOUGHTS THAT ARE GOING TO CREAM US IN A FEW SECONDS!

C: I'm scared Dnyarri. What if this doesn't work?

D: "I'm scared Dnyarri. What if this doesn't work?" My species have waited two hundred centuries for this moment, SO STOP BLUBBERING! Let's get to work.

C: Employ your powers! Confuse the Ur-Quan!

D: Okay. Now, whatever you do, once I've started, DON'T LEAVE THE STAR SYSTEM! We've only got one chance at this, let's make it good! Here I go...

The Sa-Matra from the screen. Oooh.

There're 3 of each Ur-Quan still guarding it. Here's a video of me killing 2 of them with a Spathi. Then here's a video of me killing 1 of them with a Chmmr. Obviously, the Spathi is the safer bet here, even if the Chmmr does it much, much quicker. The Chmmr vs. Ur-Quan matchup kinda sucks, because both Ur-Quan outrange it, and both of them use projectiles that can't be picked off by the Zapsats. The Kohr-Ah are especially deadly, because of their corona attack.

Afterwards, the Yehat show up, with some unexpected news.

Yehat reinforcements

Yehat: Greetings human friend! We know ye are about to be attacking the Sa-Matra, and probably don't like being interrupted, but we have important news! The rebellion is WON! We are VICTORIOUS! We have pulled the Veep-Neep harpy Queen and her cronies from the High Perch! And better yet, we have found a new Queen! A Queen who will unite the Clans in peace and harmony as never before! You will never guess who it is, Captain!

A PKUNK! Yes! It is TRUE! They survived their absorption into our culture and are now providing us with insights into ourselves we never dreamed of! We only THOUGHT we were being happy birds of prey! We were fooling ourselves!

Our new Queen's name is Braky Girdy the first! And her first command was to rush here and bring ye these ships, Yehat Terminators and Pkunk Furies. Now, Captain, together we can attack the Sa-Matra!

A close-up of the Sa-Matra, which, like many things in this game, is vaguely Lovecraftian in design.

The Dnyarri goes over what you need to do to take out the Sa-Matra.

Dnyarri Battle Plans

Dnyarri: Okay, human, you've made it past the Sa-Matra's guards, and now you can attack the vessel itself, so listen closely. The Sa-Matra is protected by a thick shell of fused asteroids reinforced with a weak stasis field. You will never break through that.

The only opening through the asteroid shield is covered with a powerful force screen. One touch of that screen, and you're history, Captain. To destroy the Sa-Matra, you will have to destroy the shield generators embedded in the asteroid shell. To drop the force screen, you will have to destroy all eight of them. When the screen is down, bring in your flagship, move into the asteroid shell and then press the Big Red Button on your controls that starts the detonation sequence.

Your escape pod will eject automatically. Just hope you're far enough away before that ship blows. Ok, human, this is it! The last battle, your final moment of triumph! Don't screw up. And in case you're wondering, I'm not going with you, Captain. I'm staying on board. Why, you ask?

BECAUSE I'M LOCKED IN HERE YOU IDIOT! GET ME OUT!! HELP!!! HELP!!!

The Battle Against the Sa-Matra

So finally we fight the Sa-Matra itself. As you can see, the Chmmr aren't going to be doing much of anything, as they just get bounced around too much by those green ball things. And those fireball things fucking hurt.

Luckily, the Furies are fast enough to evade both, so it's a matter of just hit and running, hit and running. Eventually, all the shields go down, and you magically maneuver your flagship over the opening.

And then sit back and watch the ending sequence.

Ending Part 1
Ending Part 2

And of course, the legendary credit sequence.

Credits Part 1
Credits Part 2

Thanks for reading and encouraging. I wouldn't have done it if you guys didn't keep encouraging, and dammit, people need to see this game so we can get a sequel. There are still a good many things they can do in the future, including delving into what the Arilou are protecting you from, what happened to the Precursors, the general fucked-uppedness of the Orz, the creators of the Mycons, and whatever else I'm missing. So get on that petitioning and letter-writing campaign.

"But GrandpaPants," you may ask yourself, "you bastard, you got me addicted to this game and now we won't get a sequel in any decent time, if ever? At least give me some methadone to ease the pain."

Well, you're kinda out of luck. If it wasn't kinda obvious, the game is pretty unique, hybridizing many styles of gameplay. If you liked the exploration aspect, there's Strange Adventures in Infinite Space and its sequel, Weird Worlds, but they're very "casual gamer" types of games, and you can probably see everything the games have to offer after an hour or so.

I'd say the Fallout games are probably on par in terms of scope and awesomeness. Unfortunately, sci-fi RPG types not set in the Star Wars universe are few and far, and the good ones are rarer still. Guess it's easier to crib off Tolkien than to come up with original games.

Subspace has the same basic fighting style, but minus the variety and style. Toys for Bob also made a PS1 game called The Unholy War with similar combat, but good luck getting a copy of that.

Many of the classic Lucasarts games have the same style of humor, but their collections are either rare or lackluster. Anachronox is also pretty rare, but damned hilarious, and is also another game in need of a sequel (no, I'm not planning an LP of that anytime soon).

Or, you can be like me and not play the game for about 5 years, replay it, and then be flooded with awesome nostalgia and memories and maybe even find something new!