Flailthroughs - Jump Superstars! (Part 5)

Alright, it's onto one of the next stages! At this point I've gone through stages 1-1 through 1-6, so I might as well try 1-7 before I move on to what seems to be stage 2-1. I enter the stage in hopes of more box combat, but am instead met by another treasure trove left by the fruit pirates, so it's not so bad. I beat the barrels and poorly constructed chests into piles of goo, collecting their fruity innards, including several items I have never seen before. Curious as to what the victory conditions are, I decide that it must requite me to beat the clock, not literally, and wait to get out of the stage...

I am wrong.

Three tries later I'm fed up for the time being, and I decide to head to the next stage to see what I can find... and discover yet another green box. At this point I'm already strategizing, doing my best to figure out which of the possible super attacks I'm supposed to use, or which items I'm supposed to tap in which order... and the stage ends... What? The stage literally lasted long enough for the pirate to babble at me for five minutes, then end completely... I have no idea. Well, time to mess with some menus.

I press the start button and discover that the previously blacked out option is now lit up, and I'm curious and excited to see what happens... A fifty minute walk through... Neat. On the plus side, at least I got to see them reattach Luffy's severed head to his zombie like torso, and I think once the therapy that it will require to repress that mental image is paid for, I'll be better off. It takes me a bit of time, but I've realized that this is the menu option where you do stuff with panels... What? Who knows? But on the plus side, I don't know what else is going on anywhere else and it still hasn't stopped me.

After playing around for a few minutes, I manage to re-capitate three people! Neat! I now seem to have Bobobo, who I had before; Luffy, who I had before; the other guy from One Piece (have fun guessing that one), and a pile of people, including the the girl from One Piece with mutant proportions, another Luffy and... people. I'm sure they all have personalities, but we'll learn about them later... OH! I did learn that our friend, Generic Kid, is some sort of football manga, and that the strange blur that took out the evil cardboard box was apparently him flying at it full force, like some sort of dorky bullet shot from a tornado.

I return to stage 1-7, where I spend the better part of 2 hours trying to figure out what the hell the stage wants me to do. As my mind starts to go, I find myself simply wandering around and trying any insane thing I can think of: destroying barrels and chest by only hitting them with a specific button, only collecting one kind of fruit, not collecting ANY fruit, ect. Finally, I get bored with this and see how much of the walls I can destroy, hoping the world will collapse down and kill me like the falling sky... "CLEAR!!" WHAT?!

Here is where I pause to have a minor conniption fit, but recover with the aid of Pepsi, which is the source of all of my power and sanity, at least some days. I don't seem to have given this stage a crown, but I did open up a new path to a bomb stage, so I'm hoping it'll turn out interesting.

SWEET! Bobobo! This stage is like liquid insanity, and I think I want to drink it. The moving walkways that do nothing but drop enemies onto bombs if you've rigged it right, and the background that seems to be a castle in some sort of pumpkin, not to mention the cast of the manga all having the most insane, and pretty disgusting attacks all support this analysis... But then, what do you expect from someone that beats you to death with nose hair? As usual, Goku turns out to be my hero for this mission, because he's the only one I've found so far with a really kick ass long range attack.

Well, it looks like I've opened up a new stage, and at this point I'm going to guess it has fruit pirate loot in it, since that seems to be the growing trend. Let's see what happens...

I was not disappointed! I still have no idea what it is I'm suppose to be doing, but at least I know those wacky, syphilis-ridden buccaneers are all over the place still. After a few minutes it seems that, purely by accident, I have learned the key to winning: shoving treasure chests around like some sort of school yard bully on crack, and beating up other objects with them. I feel somehow accomplished that it took me less than fifteen minutes to figure out what five year-olds have always known: if you knock a fat guy into a skinny guy, it hurts them both.

As I watch the end of the stage information roll by, it would seem that I've unlocked a number of things about which I'm quite confused. Not a big deal, so far I've been confused about everything else that's going on, why should this be any different? The only thing that worries me is that one of the things seems to have a heart in it, and I've started to wonder if the game is falling in love with me... Well, I am god after all, it's only natural to love your savior.

Sorry this update wasn't too interesting, but here's hoping tomorrow turns out to be more confusing.