The Ups and Downs of Ufouria
Welcome back, bizarrophiles! In our last episode, we accquired the suction cups for Bop-Louie. As you might imagine, this opens up quite a lot of gameworld to us—if it's vertical, Louie can climb it, no exceptions. As you might expect, this means there are a lot of places we can go now where we couldn't before.
So let's head toward the most immediately obvious place we can: That place with the giant faucet from the last episode!
This one.
This means heading back through the trees, but no worries. The Suction Cups make getting around here stupidly easy, as Louie somehow suctions himself to the random collections of leaves and branches that make up this tree and easily surmounts them.
And yet he is completely unable to climb along the tree trunk like those outfit-thieving bears can.
Walls schmalls—cross over this, Tayo! We know this is a realm of Long Falls, but does this mark our very first Long Ascent?
Slimes and birds. A pretty typical setup (as well as an incoming Long Fall[TM])...
But wait! What's this?
Sweet water of life! I was looking a little low. Here's the location of the game's second Medicine. There's four in total, but you can only carry one at a time. So if you were planning to attempt to stock up, sorry, no dice.
OK, so the fall wasn't actually that long.
But there's an over-congestion of slime here anyway. This game world needs some Mucinex.
A rope to help you get back up, even though you can climb literally any vertical surface by the point you can get over here.
And now, to turn on that—
—Oh, for cripes' sakes, game, I know! I know! Geez! If you would just GIVE me a second, I would've done as you ask by now! You're so demanding. Sheesh.
Finally! A nice, hot bath awaits! Fill 'er up!
Oh, stop flailing, Louie. You know you needed it.
Former Long Fall location Number #5 now becomes a Long Haul, as we lug ourselves somewhat-effortlessly (minus the repeated tapping of the artificial A button) up this former insurpassable pit.
Despite a weird glitch which temporarily knocks Louie under the water after the faucet vanishes, we cannot actually do anything with that water for now, so we'd best go exploring elsewhere.
Hmmm... Wait! How about that evil little cliff in the mines from back in Episode 3?
Yep. That's the one.
Time to start luggin' off to the mines again!
Oh, and if anyone's curious, those unbreakable breakable boxes from back in the same episode? Shades' weapon doesn't really work on those, either. Despite it being, you know, a hammer. Like the kind you use to smash things. They're going to take some different maneuvering altogether.
But on to the mines!
As you might imagine, the ability to climb makes this place much easier to navigate.
But within?
More water. Freeon, seriously, it's not that difficult. Unless you've got a lung condition or something. Are you athsmatic, Freeon? Because it's nothing to be ashamed of, but seriously, you should get an inhaler or something or else you're going to have problems.
Well, drat! The two most immediate places close at hand turned up absolutely nothing! Well, except some water we can't dive in. Where on earth should we go?
...Wait a minute.
The lips. The lips and the hideous blinking arrow. The very first Long Fall. The unseemly licking from the two first installments! The answer's been in front of us this whole time! It's been in front of us since the very beginning of the game!
Oh, you're good, Ufouria. You're gooood.
But just in case, I check the ledges just outside of the two caves I have to go through to get back there. Which, of course, contain a fat lot of absolutely nothing save Louie bopping his head against the solid sky.
It's nice to be able to look around this area at our own pace now. For example, see the lovely underground river, laid bare to us through the magic of 2-D viewpoints.
Slurpy little bastards. They've been spending too much time with the waddlers.
Adjskfadjl—double bastard! It is much more difficult than it looks to properly hang on to the edge of a small platform without slipping off it, and timing your jump back on properly to as not to hit the stupid lips.
There's a soothing little pool here, and for once, no diving's required. Take us for a swim, Freeon!
Cave Behind the Falls, now an afforadable 300 million years! Powered by Geography, in partnership with Trope Co.
Plotblocking bricks, furnished by game designers.
Let's try this airborne stalactite land-strip... thing that always kept us from jumping over there. There were lips up there! They wouldn't put enemies up there without something to guard, right?
Except maybe they would. The area above the future boss temple is a strict No-Fly Zone.
Well, I suppose there's always this. But c'mon; who puts the fun stuff above the waterfall?
...They do, apparently.
There are so many lips in this place, I half-expect a disco ball to descend from nowhere while they all get together and start singing "Funky Town."
And we keep going up. And up. As does that invisible river we can totally see.
Ducks: They're not lips! Which is why we're... going to ignore them, I guess. Instead, let's all point and laugh at Freeon's ludicrous jump animation.
Rats. More needles. I thought we were done with those when we left the mine and its stalagmites behind. And... The hell is that in the bottom of the screen? It looks like one of Shades' eyeballs gone rogue.
Louie hitches a ride on the happy floating face, and... cripes, it's still there! I have literally no idea what that thing is, or where it came from. I didn't even notice it during my initial recording. Random apparitions in still photographs? Shades really is a ghost! Maybe... maybe he's trying to break free from the game! BEN DROWNED
No safe little platforms to aim for here. Leap for the wall, and climb like your life depends on it, tubby!
Yep, we're officially in Long Haul territory. This game is all about the vertical element, man.
Eventually, though, we do reach a point where we can jump ship to a different wall.
And then just fall. Remember to hold Down for maximum lip assassination!
His remains will take care of the rest.
We make like Spider-Man and start to clamber along the outside of this weird, U-shaped structure.
More narrow-ledge facials. This time without taking a hit!
Getting up is quick business, whereupon Freeon gets to take over and do what she does, if not best (due to her inability to dive), at least passably well.
Looks like a giant cheese ball. Too bad I forgot to bring crackers.
Oh, alright, game. It can be a rock if you want. Up we go, then!
Freeon's too posh to just shove the rock (after all, she likes masquerade balls)—so she opts for the more reasonable path of jumping up and down on it repeatedly. Even if you attempt to push it from the side, it won't budge until you jump on top of it and push it with your feet. No matter what angle you jump on it from, it always moves steadily to the left.
Physics: They Totally Work That Way.
Freeon quite easily dams the headwaters of an entire stream system with a single bolder, which then instantly drains without flooding. Also Totally Works That Way. I suppose this is a world with giant faucets on cliffsides, though...
And now for a very calculated Long Fall. If you don't cling to the walls and angle yourself in the correct direction when you're dropping, you'll actually miss the area you want to land in.
But thankfully...
...I made it.
Louie has no problem scaling the damp, muddy walls of the river's former channel. He's just plain good like that.
Uh-oh. I recognize these room dimensions.
Frogman is not happy about you draining his home.
Did someone call the doctor? Because I heard something an epidemic of amnesia! Luckily, Dr. Louie does house calls!
Freeon also attempts to add her two cents to this discussion, but thanks to the magic of limited palettes, her face turns a very unusual color. You might say she's... green around the Gil.
Ahh! Oww! Ouch! You bastards! Those tomatoes are still fresh! They hurt, dang it! Cut it out!
Third verse, same as the first where Gil's concerned. Of the three minibosses, he's appropriately the trickiest. His trademark gimmick doesn't get a chance to come into play since you drained his hideout, but he compensates by bunny-hopping very erratically all over the stage. Unlike Freeon, who never seemed to hurt me on contact, Gil can, so his unpredictable hopping is actually somewhat dangerous.
I took a few hits, but I'm made of sterner stuff than in the last two fights. You LOSE! Good DAY sir!
Um, Louie? That's the wall. It cannot walk underwater, because it is a wall.
Just before joining us, Gil (whose lips appear to be melting off his face in that animation) also saddles us with what will be our task for the remainder of the game. Find the three keys!
With our amphibian ally safely back under our control, and the "Four" of the title assembled, we now have the tools at our disposal to explore almost all of the remaining game world! But we're still missing two vital components for our exploration. Which we will be obtaining... soon!
Next time, on Let's Play Ufouria: Gil gets to come out to play a little, and we begin collecting utterly useless trinkets! Same Ufo-time, same Ufo-channel!
