We don't always like being nonplussed

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Mother (Earthbound 0) Flailthrough - Day 8 (The Slot Machine Was the Hooker.)

And we return to the grind once again, and I welcome you all back with open arms, and dripping insanity. I can't make too much of a promise on the quality of this week's post, because to be entirely honest I've been sleeping about as well as a martian lumberjack all week. How well do they sleep? Not much at all, since they don't exist.


To start this week off we have a little adventure! What adventure is that, you ask? Why it's me going back to the magical cloud kingdom, because I seem to have misplaced my ATM card! This is quite important if you want to do anything, or buy anything, so I take the long trip back, and hope to God I find it because I don't remember the symbols for it at all.

It's on the way back through the dangerous area with the needle monsters I mentioned that I run into this fella right here.

Why does the face remind me of John Candy?

This bear seems to have reasoned that the best way to survive the winter isn't to eat salmon till he grows fat, but simply to eat another bear that did this, thus saving himself the time and effort of catching all of those delicious little bastards... and he seems to have eaten it whole as well, which is good for making sure you got all of nutrients out of them.

I'll also mention that he's also pretty tough, and doing around 20 to 25 HP worth of damage a hit. That's really not too shabby since it takes me three or four hits to take him down, and I only have 110HP around now.

Speaking of not too shabby damage, here comes another one of those needle guys, killing me on his first attack before I can run away... God damn it.

Anyway, it's time to start looking around for the next place to go, so I guess I'll search town first and see if there's any sort of noticeable plot hook.

Well, the Teen Titans don't live here. Maybe the bottom half of the village Idiots.
And since this was the first place I saw when entering the town, I'll search here.

Ok, this place seems to be a school, and we're pretty far into the game... Do I meet a party member here, or is this for a plot event? Probably both, since there seems to be either a strange, otherworldly force keeping me from exploring large portions of this school, or possibly signs from the janitor about barf... I don't see any sawdust, so I'll go with otherworldly force for now. Time to go and look around for some other plot hook, but I'll come back to this place in a bit to see if I trigger the event.

And after quite a lot of searching, I find that I am quickly becoming stumped as to where to go next. Though I did manage to stumble onto the set of Cars.

Actually, it's the set of the Korean dollar-bin classic AUTOS.

I haven't seen a Pixar creation so enraged since Wal-E killed that hooker after he lost at slots, but that's an entirely different story, and covered under right to parody, if I'm not mistaken.

Insanity and possible lawsuits aside, I manage to kill the car with one swing of my baseball bad, as most 12 year olds do, and take out the truck in two or three hits... and then take one step before I'm attacked by...

'Hmph. You call THAT a noose?'

A suicidal mime and his pet rope, it would seem... well, not a mime, but the outfit is definitely stereotypical French, and that's reason enough to want it to die. Not that I have anything against the French, just stereotypes... Panasonic, Magnavox, any type of stereo. Did I mention that I'm sleep deprived?

And the Frenchman killed me, because apparently he has some sort of magical power that puts me to sleep, and I wasn't able to do anything at all... lovely. Well, I'm not about to lose half of the almost five grand I was carrying, so it's time to reset and hope I had the sense to save after getting back from magic cloud world...

I did.

And I start searching again, and after what seems like an hour manage to figure out where I'm supposed to be.

Uh... more bars in more places? I got nothing here.
I think... well, I might as well explore. It seems to be some sort of factory, and every two or three steps I'm attacked by rats. Thankfully they seem to be the only sort of monster in here, but it's seriously like I'm taking a step and getting attacked. Also, the rats sort of have a strange look on their faced.

Aw, who could stay mad at that face? I mean, after they beat it in with a baseball bat that is.
That look right there? That's the look a two year old gets on his face when he realizes that his mother is standing behind him, and he's elbow deep in the box of cookies. It just screams, "I know I'm going to get into trouble for this, but maybe if I look cute they won't notice." and trust me, that never works. I still try it with my girlfriend.

I find at an intersection, a trashcan. I don't know what it had inside of it, but I'm sick of rats and ladders. By the way, you have to get all the way to the top to find this, so if you're looking to get in and out as fast as you can, dash there like a little monkey.

Now, I don't want to have to deal with fifty thousand rats again, so I use my... whatever it is, to get back to cloud world. Now that I have all of my money, I think it's a good time to go and buy an Item from the shop. I check out the three that sell what I guess is equipment, and decide to buy the most expensive thing and hope I can equip it... and I can! Not only that, but it really seems to boost my... I don't know, I can't read katakana, and I'm so tired that I'd swear the symbols look like they say "tofurkey" so I guess it boosts that.

So I and my newly boosted Tofurkey make our way across the field of holes, battling eyeballs and candy snails, then into the cloud dungeon and through their eyeball family units.

I'm reminded of the old cartoon where the eyes belong to something truly horrible when the lights finally come on.

Out of the poop spiral cave, carving a swath through the evil sombreros, and back to the town of... crap, I don't know. Would this be Twoson, or Threed? Anyway, I don't know what to do next, so I'm going to be a little while here... not that any of you would notice.

Wow, sorry to keep you waiting, but God damn that took a long time. I had to find a way to get into the far right room on the first floor, and I spent the next twenty minutes trying to figure out what combination of yes and no would get me... anything. It would seem I have to get the janitor, let's call him Scruffy, to open the door to the roof for me. After telling him yes, yes, no, yes, I follow him up the stairs and he unlocks the door for me... And I have to say, the view is pretty nice.

If you squint, you can probably make out a pair of pixelated Hobbits.
I think the mountain of impending doom is a rather nice touch, but I'm more interested in the vibrating trash can.

Finally, a second party member!
And with good reason! Who would throw away a perfectly good nerd!? I collect them myself. And hell yes, it is our first named party member, Jeff. He leads me down and to a lab, walking through many people on the way, which only impresses me with his skill. He then proceeds to blow the room and its contents to bits... So this is the guy I'm going to be working with? Awesome.

He's also level 1, so this is the time where I call an end to our adventure for the day, and run off somewhere to cry for a bit. I'll have more for you all tomorrow, and hopefully I'll have slept a bit more. Let me just leave you with this bit of wisdom: As a man once said, "Don't crush that dwarf! Hand me the pliers."

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