Part 5: Day 3: Who 2 Trust (Part 2)

Day 3: Who 2 Trust (Part 2)



Music: Deja Vu

"A sloping street flanked by shops tending towards the eccentric. Once, this hill was a popular setting for novels."

This doesn't have too much relevance to Shiki and Neku because...


IT'S FUCKING FULL OF NOISE HOLY FUCK

Thankfully the Pact prevents Noise from randomly attacking. Makes scanning for thoughts annoying, though.


I still catch this one, which will come up later.


There's also a pig, which drops a bountiful 5,000 Yen pin for us.


The store we need to go to now is Ramen Don. It sells ramen. And plot.


Inside, we find a guy in a black tee with a lanyard complaining about being a tech. I think he's our tech.

: Psst! Neku, did you hear that?
: Yup. Looks like we found our man. Guess he’s on strike. He picked the right noodle bar to hide in. Empty in the middle of lunch hour?

: I’m tellin’ ya, I’ve got stage presence! I’m not the behind-the-scenes type, OK?
: Well, just remember, son. The future is a clean slate, and you’re the chalk!

The tech leaves while Ken Doi, the proprietor of Ramen Don, is turned around.


I wasn't kidding. This is only the first of several overly detailed images of bowls of ramen.

: ...up? Hey, where’d he go? Sigh...I can’t win. Young people just won’t eat old-fashioned noodles...

: Neku! The tech just took off!
: What? Dammit! I don’t care if I have to DRAG him back to A-East!


It doesn't stop us from buying ramen.


Each bowl boosts different stats. I buy a defense one for Shiki and a Bravery one for Neku. Neku's extremely low starting Brave means he can barely wear any neato clothing, so boosting it is priority #1.

Other video: Eating reactions

This is something that is entirely audio, with only the vaguest of in-game hints as to what it means. If a character likes their food, the sync rate recovery is higher. Sync rate determines how good the light puck is to start, how big the multiplier is and how long it lasts without fading if not passed.

In this case, Shiki really likes her ramen, doubling its boost. It would be a whole 90% sync!



: Wow. Talk about your negative vibes. He’ll never come back with us now.
: Yes, he will. He has to.
: He seems so down. I wonder what’s on his mind...

Scanning him reveals...



: You’re right! It’s like he’s possessed!
: Man, now I feel all out of whack. It just gets worse and worse.
: We should erase the Noise around him.


That noise is fucking ZOOMING. It's hard to actually hit his thoughts. Anyway, the Mosh Grizzly gets its ass beat.



: I gotta get back to A-East!

: Good. Now he’ll head back.
: And once he does, we’ll have power.
: Pretty weird, though, the way he snapped right out of it.
: Yeah... You think the Noise are out to hijack people’s minds?
: But then what about last time? Remember? They erased the people they attacked.
: Maybe they’re like the Reapers--not all cut from the same cloth. Or maybe-
: Well, either way, they’re not good for you! If we see anyone else possessed, let’s get rid of the Noise for them.
: OK, Captain Sappy. Roger that.
: C’mon, let’s drop by A-East. The tech should be back by now.


I'd love to go into this store proper. It's the biggest dealer of Hip Snake in Shibuya. I hear he even has swag from the Alive in '75 tour!




...Yeah, he won't sell to us. If we had a good reason maybe...


I fight some noise back in A-East and run into some bats. Bats are hard to hit sometimes since they fly.



: But...the stage lighting’s busted.
: It’s what? How’re we gonna rehearse--no, how’re we gonna PLAY THE SHOW!?
: I got a repairman working on it. That’s why I was out--to pick up the part he needs.
: Great! Then we’re ready to rock.
: Huh?
: You got the part, right?
: Umm... Define "got"...
: You nimrod! Go get the part. Move it.
: Right away!
: Uh-oh... More trouble?
Hey!



: You’re welcome, but... Something wrong?
: Yeah, sounds like our lightings on the fritz. The guy just went hunting for a replacement part. Nngh... I’ve been shouting all day long. My throat’s killing me.

777 leaves.

: Guess we’re gonna be in the dark a while longer.
: Think the tech’s got it covered?
: ...Maybe we should check on him.

Anyway, now that we've done that the Support Reaper to the north will start paying attention to us.


Not too bad, these symbols are mostly wolves and junk.


At some point, I get enough battles done that Shiki digested her ramen, bumping her defense from 0 to... 1.

But you see those darkened squares? Each character can only eat so much each day. 24 bytes total, though the last six always remain available. Always room for desert!

Desert though is mostly small boosts to HP, bravery, or sync rate. larger boosts or attack and defense is the domain of stuff that's at least 8 bytes. If you don't play the game much each day, then it shouldn't be too big of an issue, as bytes reset at midnight.


For clearing that gate Shiki gets the ability to jump. It can be used to evade some hits and her air hits are twice as powerful as the ground ones.

Anyway, going north...




Screw that I'm going shopping.


Mostly because it has Mus Rattus. Look at those prices.

This stuff is weak as hell but it's cheap and it has bravery requirements so low even Neku can wear them!


Also next doors is notMcDonaldspleasedon'tsue wherein I buy a ton of ice cream. Like it or not at 1 brave per 2.5 bytes its a pretty good Brave boost at this point.


And Dragon Couture has fine Chinese-style clothing. I buy a Plum Blossom for Shiki since it's really good for this point in the game.


...Except she's only ever so slightly not gutsy enough to wear it. C'mon, it's as embarrassing as a frilly maid's hairband or a blond wig?


Piggy piggy. Another 5,000 yen from this porker.


Leveling up the friendship gauge can unlock either new items or more abilities for clothing. In this case, the quest for Colorful Thread is opened, though it requires Rare Metal pins we don't quite have yet.

Abilities can run from simple stuff like extra attack and defense to things like shortening Shiki's combo, lowering her damage but making her finishers come sooner. Abilities come in countless flavors and interesting ones will get a look.


Hahaha! I finally got the groove going!




He's still pissed over yesterday, huh?

: Gathered any intel for the mission?

: No, not at all. But I know we’ll get through it! We just have to take out the master of A-East, right?




Spend 5 minutes on Tumblr. You'll see.

: ...
: I think Shiki could use our help. We can tell her, right?
: Well...aight. But only ‘cause it’s Shiki.



Memes

: So what’s a "meme"?
: Memes are words or ideas related to the missions. Whenever we see or hear one, it gets sent to our phones.



: Blackout? Huh? I just got mail... You’re right. It showed up on my phone. But what do memes do?
: They’re for imprinting.

This opens imprinting as a topic, but we're going down the list dammit!

Today's mission



: You mean, "defeat the master of A-East"?
: We were there. It’s pitch black. You can’t see a thing.
: Pitch black? Hmm... That might explain the meme...

Imprinting



: Meaning...what?
: Oh. Imprinting’s one of the Player Pin’s powers. You can use it to send words into other people’s heads.
: This pin can do that?
: Oh yeah! When you imprint--



: Phones don’t trust us anyway.
: Beat, don’t be like that. A problem shared is a problem halved, right? If we don’t help each other out, we’ll all... We might...
:: Ahh! No, no! There’s nothing to worry about.
: C’mon, Rhyme. Le’s bounce.

They leave.



: Why? Just leave him alone. Quit worrying about everybody else.
: Well, at least we know how to imprint memes now. That was nice of Rhyme to tell us.
: But what’s the point?
: Well, umm...


This guy. He has no name. He's this guy. He shows up a lot. But I call him this guy.

: Considering the circumstances... But...no...that won’t do.

: What’s tearing that guy up?
:: It looks like he can’t make up his mind.
: Hey! Neku, why don’t we try imprinting on him? Then we’ll know what it does.
: OK... Why not? Let’s give it a shot.


We get our first meme.


And a guinea pig to test it out on!


I think the most memes you can have at one point is four, because the most the game gives you in a single day are four.



: First... I need to, uh... power down. I think. Yeah. First... I gotta...power down... and then, uh... What next? Aww, hell.



And next time is when Ice Blow finally evolves! Fuck finesse, I got damage output!