RPG Progress Report

[pierrot]

Star Trek references, ahoy!

I finished Scenario A, and I'm a bit perturbed by how much of the story I could see coming from a good distance away. Either there was really good foreshadowing, or my brain is as twisted as the developers'.

I had Ken take Linda to a couple of key places in an attempt to jog her memory: her room, a tree that people carve their names into to be eternally tied together. (Ken's father's name was also found there alongside Linda's mother's name.) It seems the Chief of Medicine at Hospico did give the Memorin Z to Linda, but doesn't remember anything about witnessing the murder of Ken's father, or even how he warned the Rangers who were on duty.

Anyway, after expending some tissues while sleeping out in the wild (there are some items called "tissues" that don't appear to do anything other than disappear the morning after sleeping outside, once Linda joins the party) and staying at a love hotel, Neck called and said he had a game planned for everyone at the ruined town west of Eterna. Basically amounted to running from some wolves, and once I had done that, he put Linda back into a trance, and whisked her away on a fanciful journey. At this point Linda's runaway father shows up to help find her. Apparently the Ranger Chief low-jacked her when he had her change into the Ranger uniform.

Neck is also recognized by the ark as Ken, which allows him to fly it alongside Linda. In his giddiness, he starts chanting things about "The Enterprise," "warp 9," and "engage." What follows is a Catch Me If You Can style bird on ark chase sequence where Neck prepares Linda to be his bride. This all leads, eventually, to Green Pharma, and Miss Elizabeth's mansion. Linda's father, Hume, and Ken split up, and Ken walks into a trap where Elizabeth and Neck are waiting to kill him. Turns out Elizabeth is actually about 73 years old, and has been keeping the appearance of a 23-year-old through the help of Vanheim's cosmetic wizardry, and praying on the life-force of young women. This is all revealed after Neck kills her, because he has no intentions of handing Linda over to her. Vanheim is fairly distressed by this for various reasons that aren't really too important.

A chase to the rooftop ensues, where, along the way, Neck airs out his grievances with Ken for being able to enjoy a normal life where he didn't have to find dead bodies: Something Neck eventually found was easier to "make," rather than "find." Suddenly, a giant, bearded, masked, santa claus runs Neck through repeatedly with a sword/really big knife. Neck is initially rather nonchalant about it, thinking that this man, who he is acquainted with, certainly has confused him with Ken. No dice. However, the Chief shows up with reinforcements, and scares the mad santa away. Neck is breathing long enough to give Ken an idea of what the keyword is to break the spell on Linda: "I love you more than anyone else." There is much rejoicing.

Back at the Ranger HQ, while the group is wondering what's taking Hume, they receive a call from him, in which he reads from a pre-written letter stating that Ken and Linda should come to a specific location if they want to save Linda's parents. After making it through the letter, Hume tells them to stay away, because it's a trap, as Linda's mother, Ann, is being violently accosted in a way that sounds to be one of two manners: both physical, but one being a bit more vile.

After arriving at the designated location, Ken and Linda are met by the masked santa claus, who is revealed to be none other than Hume, hopped up on some good ol' Hustle II--possibly Hustle III. (Think, "lunar red-eye.") In his doped up stupor, he becomes distraught by not knowing where Ann is. He finds her, but she appears, mostly, surgically implanted into his chest. She tries to tell Linda and Ken to run, but Hume smashes her face in with his biceps, and becomes enraged that Ken and Linda would hurt his precious Ann.

A boss battle ensues, which was rather tough, as he spent a lot of time vomiting on me to reduce my attack (and apparently broke some of my weapons) so I had to fart at him, in kind, in order to bring down his attack. It was really one of my only recourses. Thankfully, Yuki did pretty consistent damage throughout the fight. (Good girl, Yuki; That's a good dog.)

After the battle, Hume snaps out of his drug induced mania, and becomes pretty remorseful. He's somewhat at piece in believing that Linda is his child, and jumps into a vat of something that resembles acid. There was a doctor in Hospico who, early on, was waxing philosophic about the psychology of a father: Having a child who resembles him too much can be unsettling, but resembling him too little can send his mind into a frenzy at times. --Did I mention that Hume has very dark skin, and Linda has very white skin and green hair, like her mother?

After visiting the graves Linda built for her parents, it was off to the ark, but not before talking with an off-duty Ranger about going in from behind on enemies, but not to get taken from behind themselves. Although, she likes being taken from behind, she says, but can't speak for Linda. Okay--.

So, Ken and Linda fly off in the ark, and watch as "Shinigami," the meteor, crashes into Neo Kenya. The master of the ship does some tricksy things I don't understand, to stop time, and send them to a planet that appears to be Earth.

--And that's Scenario A. I finished with 39 groups of animals, in the summer of 1993, and Scenario B appears to have a minimum of 50 pairs, so I'm guessing there's potentially a little more story to that scenario. It doesn't seem like anything would actually change if I managed to get all 120 pairs of animals in Scenario A, but after I finish the other two scenarios, I might check a walkthrough or something (if one even exists for this game).

[Exhuminator]

I might check a walkthrough or something (if one even exists for this game).

Welcome to my world.

[pierrot]

Yep.
There are actually a few walkthroughs, but I was reading the manual the other night, and it pretty much answered all my questions. At least for unlocking things: There's a Scenario - D that opens up after clearing Scenario - C with 100 or more pairs of species, it also unlocks a gallery mode that includes all the cutscenes from the PC Engine version. Needless to say, I HAVE to unlock those.

There's also some stuff scrawled around the text in the manual, which is pretty colorful. In particular, there's a multiple choice question that goes like this:

「In truth, we had intended for this [gallery] mode to be in the Playstation version, too. So, what was the reason it wasn't included?
1) Not enough memory. ; _ ;
2) It was too much work.
3) To make people buy the Saturn version too.

Answer on the page after next.

Answer: 4) Oh, yeah. We forgot all about it.」

I also enjoy this other one that basically says, 'We don't care how you collect the animals. Be as underhanded/lazy about it as you want. You're not a hero, you're just an employee.'

There's a mode that was added to this version of the game that I didn't really understand until reading the manual. It's called Kokubu Meijin, and it's essentially a mode where one tries to beat the record of one of the developers, who they say was the first person to ever get all 120 pairs of animals in Scenario - D. The thing about Scenario - D is that it requires the player get over 100 pairs in one year, as opposed to the standard 7/8. (I'm assuming this staff member was from Kokubu.) I can't even begin to imagine how this is possible.

The story for Scenario - B is pretty straight forward. It's kind of tame, really. Mostly just investigating a mystery, but Dr. Emory is starting to show his true colors. He might start to blow the lid off the thing.

[noiseredux]

Skyrim

DAY 7

Skyrim is lucky that I enjoy it so much. I've never stuck with a game that has offered me so many glitches and crashes. While it had been working fine for a while, now I was seeing floating animals again. More Googling led me to just switch my monitor back to 60Hz and that seems to be helping. Of course it's kind of a hassle to switch the resolution every time I want to play this one game. Oh well.

I promised Delphine that I'd help her kill a dragon. So I continued to our destination, killing a party of bandits along the way. It's funny; every time a thief approaches me I try to intimidate them. They never back down. Shrug.

We me up and killed that dragon. Actually it was pretty easy - perhaps because Delphine is a lot more competent for backup than Lydia is on her own.

At any rate, we split up again and decided to meet up at that River-town again in a while. Me and Lydia ventured off and - oh no! - stumbled into another dragon. We weren't really prepared to take him on as a duo so we started backing away, hoping to escape. The jerk kept following us, breathing ice magic our way. And then all of a sudden - what's this? We stumbled into a cave that led to an underground sanctuary of some sort. There was an underground waterfall and beautiful greenery. We talked to a few friendly folks, but there was nothing much to do. We peeked outside the cave and the dragon was gone. So OK, we really didn't accomplish anything, but it was fun exploring.

[Ack]

Skyrim is lucky that I enjoy it so much. I've never stuck with a game that has offered me so many glitches and crashes.

Welcome to Bethesda games. This is pretty much the norm.

[isiolia]

Welcome to Bethesda games. This is pretty much the norm.

Can definitely be worse due to hardware though. Oblivion got a ton better after I got my Core2 system coming from my Opteron (also see: why I will never go AMD for my primary machine again).

[noiseredux]

Skyrim is lucky that I enjoy it so much. I've never stuck with a game that has offered me so many glitches and crashes.

Welcome to Bethesda games. This is pretty much the norm.

That's what I hear, yet I've been lucky with all other Bethesda games I've played. The "crash on first boot thing" has been common for me. But besides that, I've had great luck.

[ElkinFencer10]

Skyrim is lucky that I enjoy it so much. I've never stuck with a game that has offered me so many glitches and crashes.

Welcome to Bethesda games. This is pretty much the norm.

That's what I hear, yet I've been lucky with all other Bethesda games I've played. The "crash on first boot thing" has been common for me. But besides that, I've had great luck.

When I played through Fallout: New Vegas on PC, the game would crash at least once every few hours. Thank Atom for auto save.

[Xeogred]

I pirated New Vegas back in the day and even threw some mods at it, and it worked like a charm. Very lucky I guess.

I own it now. I saw there's a mod for the Fallout 4 quick loot menu now which is a mega game changer. Looking forward to replaying NV for the 5th time again someday. Still my favorite.

I only got about 30 hours in on my last replay of Skyrim. It was way better on PC over the 360 version, but yeah. The story/dialogue ends up getting really boring. It's still a fun filler game though and the atmosphere/music is outstanding.

[BoneSnapDeez]

New Vegas came out "back in the day"???