Holy crap, I'm alive! Yeah... Sorry about the delay in updates, people. My computer is very prone to overheating, and it took a lot of coaxing in order to get it sit still for long enough to do an entire recording session.
But back to business!
In our last episode, we rescued our friend Gil, who can walk underwater! So this episode, we're gonna go find us some water! And since there's going to be a lot of underwater exploration in this installment, I figure, seeing as how water levels tend to be rather atmospheric, we could use some mood music. And what better song for traveling beneath the waves than that classic tune, about the wonders of the ocean, from a certain well-loved 1980's animated movie...
"Underwater Fantasy
" from Animalympics!
...Come on! What song were you expecting?
Won't you join me under the waaaterrr?~
But first, we begin things above water, in the room where we found Gil. He's not made for above-ground exploration, generally. He moves slowly and jumps less than spectacularly. In the water is where this freakish frog-anglerfish mutant belongs.
But, curiously, if you kneel (by pressing Down), he moves much faster while hunched over than he does while walking normally! So don't be surprised if we end up frequently butt-scooting from place to place while using him.
"Hey! I'd better cut this out, or I might get to like it!"
Let's go swimming.
Let's also get skewered, because I forgot why it's a bad idea to jump directly into this particular pit.
Thankfully, that spike-pit is right next to a pond, so let's take the plunge!
Under water, Gil moves at a more reasonable pace. He can even move faster (and rise to the surface, in less-constricted areas than this) by tapping the A button. Holding Down still allows you to stomp.
Which I would've done well to remember when that little tributary promptly dumped me over that waterfall.
Plus side: I can now grab those health orbs that get dumped into the water! Suck it, game! (And by "it," I mean one of those "butterscotch"-flavored Dum Dums. I normally like butterscotch, but man those things are gross. Gimmie the root beers any day.)
Care must be taken when attacking enemies under the water, though. Gil bounces far when he attacks bad guys down here. If you're not careful, you'll get booted back a screen, making the enemies respawn. These submari-mice are especially big offenders of this, since they lurk near entrances.
Like so.
But when we finally manage to crush his helmet without getting thrown away:
The spikings are invalidated!
Now that we have Gil, this is actually the quickest medicine in the game to get to (since we only have to go to the left of the starting area, and climb, to get to it)
There are only two medicine pickup locations left in the game by this point that we haven't seen, though one of them is so out-of-the-way from anything else we need to go to that I'll probably show off that one in its own mini-installment.
Let's head back towards the starting field...
...Because that will put us conveniently next to the very first obstacle in the game: The pool of water with the platform above it! And the underwater path below it.
And it empties into... a waterfall, surprisingly enough. One wonders what feeds the rest of the pool, since it never seems to drain away.
There's another hole down there we can go into, but let's see what's in the rest of this cave first.
Gil's not actually that great at jumping out of the water, so you'll probably end up switching to Freeon just to get out.
Schatz!
Oh, baby. Finding a heart is never not a good thing! (And look how happy Gil is! He clearly agrees with me!)
Hell yeah! Or should I say, Health yeah?
AHH! I told you to cut it out with the tomatoes, man!
With that, we've gained an empty space above our health counter, which can hold an additional 50 points of life. On the downside, a single medicine is no longer enough to make a full heal for us. On the plus side... dude, we're twice as burly!
So down the hole it is, then! (Oooh, anachronistic screenshot!)
Wooooaaaaaaaah! The hole, apparently, contains a current so incredibly strong, we are rocketed downward with a force even greater than gravity can provide. It's not so much a Long Fall as it is a Long Being Shot From a Freakin' Water Cannon.
And that lands us flat in a water-filled cavern, deep beneath the surface of the world. (Also, amusing graphical glitch: I grabbed a head-ball on the way down here, but it vanished in the high-speed pipe. However, Gil's still making his "holding" animation.)
What if we keep going down?
Gil seems to be having quite a lot of fun in these tubes.
Hey, guys! Do you think Gil will be the one who gets an item to break these blocks?!
We can't do that now, though, so back we go...
Sometimes, it's tricky to fit into those tiny little passages.
The sideways pipes are similar high-pressure affairs.
Well, will the way down here be less clogged?
Yes it will! And since that mouse isn't lurking near the top of the screen, it will also be more dead.
And hey! Look where that pool popped us out! Long time no see, mines!
The underwater system in the gameworld connects pretty much every area in the game, with one or two areas that, naturally, can only be accessed through it. It's actually one of the largest areas in the game (presumably to give Gil plenty of screentime), and can be a bit confusing at first.
Luckily, this is just the place we need to be, since there's a submerged treasure here! Not to mention, a pool of water in a hard-to-reach alcove...
Treasure first, though.
No Gratuitous Foreign Language exclamations for this one. C'mon! We found it all the way back in episode 3! That's not a surprise anymore!
Hooray! We found a... um... helmet? Pacifier? Blue shell from Mario Kart?
Oh. A ring. Well, let's... check the map, I guess.
Yeah. See that blue spot on the map? That's where one of the keys we need to open the boss door is located. Which seems fine, until you consider the fact that keys are treasure, and we already found the Power of Insight which allows us to see treasure chests. So we just picked up an item whose only function is to point us to a different item.
Yes, this ring is entirely pointless. All of them are, since if you know where the keys are already (or you just, y'know, want to explore a little), you don't need the rings. However, I'm going to get them all anyway, for completion's sake.
Now, to this pond over here!
Masked cats with harpoon guns? By this point, I think something as plain as that is Sure, Why Not? fodder.
Oh? What's up here?
....I really hope we get Gil's secret weapon soon.
We surface on the other side.
Hot frog-on-frog action!
...Wow. That was an abrupt change of scenery.
Yeah. Remember how, waaaay back in the first episode, Bop-Louie mentioned that Freeon can walk through snow and ice in addition to her Super Not-Drowning Skills? And that only seemed to be helpful in that one transitional little cave area? Well, now it's come back to bite us full in the face, as we enter the snowy mountains. I wanted to type Snowy Mountains there, but then again, I don't actually know the names of most of these places.
Upwards yields nothing, so down into the pit we go!
...Down further into the pit we go!
New Super Mario Bros. Wii called. They want their powerup back.
Those little penguinoids will be responsible for the majority of the damage we take in the rest of this segment. They slide faster than you can react sometimes, and they're not above dive-bombing you. Annoying, basically.
Let's see what lies to the right. When All Else Fails, Go Right, right?
Walls that only Louie can climb. Sandwiched between ground only Freeon can walk on. Sure—the abundance of ice might lead you to believe that this is Freeon's show, but in reality, you end up needing Louie a lot to climb things. He's got a stocking cap and... he kind of looks like a snowman, I guess. So it sort of makes sense.
Also necessary—Gil for walking underwater. I was going to kill that duck first, but its toxic feathers knocked me underwater anyway, so, eh, I guess I'll just switch over.
I didn't think amphibians liked cold temperatures, but what do I know? I've only been learning biology since I was 8 or so; I'm not a game designer or anything.
Going upwards puts us in this area that looks like we'd probably end up here if we hadn't taken the Long Fall option back at the second pit.
Going rightwards leads us to this otherwise-hard-to-reach place, and leads to Gil faceplanting. Back to Freeon to jump off, then.
Oh, dick move, game designers. The only way to beat these mice is with a Secret Weapon. Freeon doesn't have hers yet. You have to switch to someone with less traction to wipe them out, and then progress as Freeon, if you don't want to take damage.
If you can avoid it to begin with, that is.
Thankfully, the Mouse-Filled Walks are not as long as the Falls, and we find ourselves next to a sleepy button and a snowball stockpile worthy of Calvin himself.
WAKEY WAKEY, MR. BUTTON! And he hasn't the slightest objection to being woken up via 200 pounds of antifreeze lizard on his head.
The snowballs pile on to a nearby field of spikes, thus rendering them harmless... somehow. Maybe "Snowball Spike [Something]" is the local varient of Rock Paper Scissors or something.
Ooh la la. So cushiony soft. Now let's find out what we would've seen had we come here without fixing those spikes first.
Screw you penguins. That's what we find.
As well as a pair of platforms who look properly unnerved by the fact that they're hanging above spikes.
What about that area above the pool?
I am just not having good luck with ducks.
Oooh, check it out—another door!
That... inexplicably... teleports us... back... here. Uh.
This place is a slippery mess. Let's just press forward.
Even in here, we cannot escape... THE WRATH OF THE WADDLERS!
Ok, now why are these platforms freaking out? Are they just really afraid of slopes?
Did somebody order a clown on the rocks?
WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM TO BRING TO THE FOLLOWING ANNOUNCEMENT:
Drink Medicine! It's the quenciest!
THIS HAS BEEN A SHORT ANNOUNCEMENT, COURTESY OF FFALT PRODUCTIONS.]
Right, then. After committing suicide to get the medicine to respawn to top us up and then trekking all the way back to this passageway...
Oh snap!
Presenting! For your delightment and/or derision: The Third Boss!* We'll call him Jolly Jerry, on account of his jet-black Santa suit.
Much like Gil, the way ol' Jerry chooses to make himself a pain in the ass is by taking little jumps all over the stage. If we could pull out Shades to fight him, this wouldn't be a problem, but thanks to the slippery floor, this fight's 100% pure Freeon.
Aim well, Freeon old girl.
Thankfully, what he adds in annoyance he makes up for with his lack of HP. It's back to five-hit bosses for us, and one final ricocheting ball spells his end. (Also: Check out how much health I finished the battle with. If I didn't have a life container now, I'd be hanging on by barely a thread.)
Trezoro!
A snowman in an icy level? Why, that almost... That almost makes sense!
D-D-Double sense!
A-and... And it gives her... ice breath?
T-t-triple sense!
Everything I know is right. My mind is reassembled. I know what to believe.
Clearly, this is a sign of the apocalypse, except for the fact that this game is twenty years old.
Next time, on Let's Play Ufouria: I go out of the way to show off the second-to-last Medicine item! And then maybe a real installment sometime!
- Characters updated!
- Enemies updated!
- Bosses updated!
