In our prior update, we didn't accomplish much that was meaningful finally got around to talking to the king of cats, gained the ability to equip items, and parked ourselves outside of the third dungeon in the game.
Over the last two weeks, quite a bit has happened... Namely, I've gotten brutally savaged by exams Namco Bandai USA happened to reveal some details
about the world of Ni no Kuni for the release of the PS 3 version in the states this winter, which will be affecting this liveblog from here on out. The most immediate change will be that Shizuku will now henceforth be referred to as "Drippy," and that game locations will be referred to by their localized names as they are made available.
Speaking of which, let's tackle that dungeon now...
モエールの森.
- Inside the giant flowers to the Magic Talker.
- Continue indefinitely. You will find the monster egg agencies. Let us take a magic ときよ も どれ.
Uh... Right. I take it that we're dungeon crawling now.
In the very first area of the dungeon, we see a blue dot on our top screen, which is... A pink Piranha Plant with feminine lips? Looks like that's our giant flower the guide mentioned. The game prompts us to cast a spell at this point... OH... We're supposed to cast Talker
◊...
After doing so... We begin to hold a conversation... With a plant. Oliver apparently asks a couple questions... And judging from his expressions, gets more questions than answers. Drippy butts in.. And after a few more text boxes, we get a highlighted phrase consisting of 2 Kanji, Hiragana no (の), and one further Kanji. ... Which apparently freaks Oliver rather badly... Does the phrase mean "horrible beast that eats 10 year-old mages" or something? A few more words from our beloved lippy flower seems to do the trick for calming Oliver down a bit. There's some more banter. Drippy talks some more... And the flower apparently makes a remark that gets on Drippy and Oliver's nerves. The flower is apparently a jerk, as a couple more text lines later, Oliver STILL has that yelling face for a sprite... And then he proceeds to cool his jets a bit. The flower (and game's camera) proceeds to tell us to head in deeper into this fungal deathtrap amongst these massive mushrooms... Oliver presumably says thanks, and we're freed to move about again.
The next place in the dungeon has a map that you need to unlock by exploration again... And br- Uh... Has spear wielding... What is that, a rabbit? A rat? A Scraggy? Some sort of unholy brown and tan offspring of all of the above? And what appears to be an eyed and limbed sunflower with a leafy polearm. They don't appear to be particularly tough... Also, it appears that our limit break gauge fills up by dodging attacks... The left fork takes us to a path that is blocked by an abrupt drop... Drippy talks to you if you check it out, presumably saying something along the lines of "Hey, nimrod! You'll break a leg if you try and go that way!" in nicer and more polite terms. Heading up the right path, we begin to ascend a mound of fungi, and get ambushed by...
... A white... Thing with heart-shaped red and green leaf ears... A bearded pig... And an orange, green, brown, and tan lizard in an ouroboros stance. These guys are a BIT more dangerous than the last monsters we ran into. The lizard did 5 damage to Rucci, the pig did 16, and the clover thing apparently has the ability to heal other monsters. In another encounter, we run into a floating green blob with some nasty-looking jaws. Also, it is at this point that we realize that Oliver has been learning spells, because we can now impale jab enemies with ice spikes from the ground. Another encounter has us running into a thing that looks like a levitating cross between a turnip and a gyroid that can apparently poison your party membe- Eep. Apparently those floating green blobs have a move that can poison EVERYONE on the field if the move connects., regardless of position. After following a mostly-linear path, you'll come to a 2-way fork. The bottom one has a blue chest that you can open via Unlock. Doing so will net you some sort of black orb with... Clouds? Oh, so that WASN'T a real fork... Just the bottom end of a closed loop in a path. Continuing on takes you to a set of back-to-back 2-way forks. The bottom one has a bottom fork near a MP crystal that's presently blocked much like that drop we saw earlier, and another that appears to continue on... Hmm... Let's check the top out first... Unfortunately, it appears that the enemies here will eat through quite a few antidotal herb things... Which we are unfortunately out of. So let's backtrack and get some. Annoyingly, though predictably, we find out through Drippy that you take damage from poison as you move out of battle, which is accompanied by a periodic scratching noise, meaning that we will likely have to visit a trauma inn back in town. Or Ding Dong Dell, or whatever NamDai is planning on calling it.
After a bit of a long detour to heal and restock, we re-enter the the dungeon, and apparently learn that the way to defeat those green poison-spewing hellspawn is to mercilessly kill them with fire. After making our way back to the last point we were at before we ran with our tails in between our legs, we find a series of diverging paths. The north one has a red chest with a cup of coffee in it (which will restore 30 MP). Continuing along this northern fork will take you to another split. The long upper one takes you to a red chest with some sort of rock in it and a path with a purple chest. Which appears to be cursed with some fiendish magic that our present wand cannot overcome. A further battle with one of those green blobs reveals that whenever one of those things starts to cringe and shiver, what it's REALLY doing is boosting its defenses to keep Oliver from burninating it in one turn. The southern split from earlier is rather important, it takes you further into the dungeon! At this point we see a tree icon on our map, and head towards it to find... ... What is that thing anyways? It's a gnarly old thing with some sort of blue orb stuck in it. Whatever it is, it's apparently something Drippy found rather neat... And Oliver found rather worrisome. The two enter into a bit of a back and forth. Oliver going from concerned, to "I'm okay with this," to rather beleaguered sprite-wise, while Drippy bounces between excited and "Ugh, seriously?" After the exchange we get prompted to cast a spell... Uh... Help me out here guide...
Okay, so we've got this thing to cast... Unfortunately, Google Translate didn't give it a name, so we shall refer to it as "the mirrored C and broken Y
◊" for now (on page 36 of your spellbook). Were the lines a little more cleanly connected, "Pacman" could have also worked. A few failed attempts which served to reinforce the golden rule of "fat before skinny", we manage to sketch a spell that satisfies the game's demands. ... So now what?
- Walk back. Down the south side will have to use magic mushrooms マッハ さい ばい to open the way to go further.
- Take time to find the safe and get rid of my boss.
... Oh boy... Whelp, this is going to be interesting... Wait a minute, what's going on with the o-
... It broke! And a... What is that thing anyways?
- Continue indefinitely. You will find the monster egg agencies. Let us take a magic ときよ も どれ.
... Monster egg agency? ... Uh... Well... We got SOMETHING... Examination post-banter reveals it's... A yellow blob with a red ribbon? ... I honestly can't tell. Anyhow, the map is telling us to backtrack, and so we shall. As we leave, the thing that came from the orb follows us. Oliver apparently yells at the thing, Drippy yells at Oliver, and we proceed to run away. After going to one of those broken paths, we get prompted to cast a- OH, so THAT'S what the guide meant by "Magic Mushroom!
◊" It causes a mushroom to grow and fill in the gap in the path (which as you can probably guess, is located on page 33 of our beloved Trope-tan)! Let's use our newfound arcane powers on that southern one...
After heading south, we stumble onto another save point... Which is our cue to shuffle our party members again for the upcoming boss fight. Since we know nothing about what we're up against (thanks a lot, guide!), let's play conservative and have Drippy around to buff our defense. In the next area, we come to a rather nasty looking black pond with a smashed-up dead tree on a small island. Oliver and Drippy talk a bit, and then proceed to get cut off by the sound of a monster's call. The two promptly freak out as a massive... What is that anyways? A red moose with purple pants, a sword and shield? Oliver and Shizuku apparently get into an argument in front of the 9-foot tall sword bearing... Thing, and are promptly snapped out of it after it roars at us- Wait a minute, is that that blob from the tree? How did it- ... So we apparently have stalker fanboy blobs... How... Cute. Whatever moose boy is up to, he's apparently not sure what to make of us, seeing as he hasn't turned our heads into paperweights yet.
We get prompted to name our stalker blob... Which turns out to be a green thing with a wand with a red gem in it... Uh... What IS Japanese for 'Stalker' anyways? Huh... It's apparently "Sutoka"... (ストーカー) ... Sounds like it must be a rather recent addition to their vocabulary. Oh wait... Only four character slots... Uh... Don't Care option, I choose you! We get a set of 3 Katakana, that a little digging tells us apparently says "Totoko" (トトコ)... Good enough! There's a 9-foot tall moose with anger issues breathing down on our neck!
Our foe charges us while slashing to reveal... Wait, that's no moose... But then what IS that? Our present foe is pretty hard to really pin down... He's got a massive set of web-like horns, a tail with a haired tip, hooves, and a rather reptilian head... You know, the sort of face that only its mother could possibly love. His fashion sense is a little better, he's got the aforementioned purple pants, a long... Necklace? Extremely unfunctional breastplate? But the REAL thing to watch out for is his black and red shield, and sword that looks like it's made for the express purpose of shish kabobing a 10-year old and his band of Poke-rejects. A fast check of our new blobby addition reveals that EVERYONE is tougher than Totoko on this team, he's a full level below DRIPPY (who is level 9), his HP is a rock-bottom 47 points and his Physical Attack / Physical Defense / Magical Attack / Magical Defense / Speed spread is 19/22/33/31/26, which puts him in dead last / tied for second last in all 5 categories on the team. Then again, he DID kinda just hatch from an egg. ... Considering who we're up against, I think we'll try to play without him for a while.
Round one against our chimera swordsman has Rucci and Oliver dealing about 60 points of damage combined while Drippy buffs Oliver's defense, and Rucci eating a 18 HP slash. Yeah... Let's stay out of the front rows for this one... Doing so proves to be a pretty hefty mistake, as our horned assailant proceeds to sweep 2 entire rows with his blade. Oliver and Rucci eat about 15 HP a pop, while Drippy is out almost 30... Yeah, he is so getting benched after setting up for Rucci. Round 3 has Rucci reassuming the front line and dealing about 80 HP of damage through a slash + icicle spearing from Oliver, and Oliver eats a 9 HP jab from antler face. We swap Drippy out for Taillow and deal a little under 50 HP of damage to this sword wielding sin against nature, while Taillow eats a 20 HP slash. Hmm... Looks like this guy's not going to go down easily... His health gauge is still just over halfway filled!
In this next turn, we have EVERYONE gang up on our swashbuckling attacker, which for the first time does over 100 HP in a single go (the final total was somewhere between 110-120 HP). UNFORTUNATELY, we also learn that moose head here can attack in vertical lines too, and everyone not named Taillow loses 12 HP from what has GOT to be one of the most hax displays of swordsmanship. Hmm... Let's try a diagonal attack pattern then... This time, we had Oliver heal Rucci, seeing as he was down to sub 50% HP, and had Taillow and Rucci use their offensive spells. Once again, the moral of the story for Rucci and his spell on singular enemies is "don't bother," as it's actually slightly WEAKER than his default swat. We use Taillow's Aerial Ace offensive spell (which has apparently been dealing boosted damage this entire time) to bring this boss down into sub 25% HP territory, and cause him to visibly totter. From there, we go out on an all-out offense once more as our bladed foe here attempts his 2-row sweep again. (It missed Rucci, Taillow dodged it, and Oliver ate the -14 HP.) Taillow also apparently had a bit similar to Oliver's limit break notice back with rat boy pop up... While the boss is down to his last 30 or so HP... Whelp, no kill like overkill! Let's give Taillow a chance to show off and discover that his limit break is apparently to generate a massive tornado that deals 123 HP of damage, which drops our chimera buddy to his knees, gives everyone 194 exp (enough for Drippy to FINALLY break out of single-digit level territory), and makes us all 38 G richer.
After being jabbed by a steak knife wielding death god midget, stabbed repeatedly by icicles from the ground, and being spun around in a gigantic vortex, our boss decides that he's had enough, and lurches off somewhat disoriented away from us, learning that there is no wrath quite as painful as that of a scared 10-year old and his Imagines. Meanwhile, Oliver and Drippy yack a bit, and formally add Totoko to our team of misfits that are being perennially outdone by Rucci.
- Then give us a casting ときよ も どれ again.
Uh... Oh right, the spell from back at Totoko's tree. After about a dozen tries (it's late, don't judge me!), we finally get the spell out. Which restores that nasty looking lake into something that looks clean enough to drink from. After this, we get a notice to save and an arrow telling us to head to the southeast corner of our now denastified pond's clearing. Which...
Takes us back to the overworld? Interesting... Looks like it's a bit of a change of scenery too, we're in a desert. The foes here are different from the last time we were out in the overworld. Our first battle pits us up against a black-armed green acorn, a brown two-legged goat-dog with impossible bal- Oh wait, it's got a long tail... That's how it's standing up... And what appears to be a bipedal yellow, white, and purple cheetah. Another encounter pits us against an undead swordsman that's more or less all bone, a green and yellow uni-cobra, and a blue, yellow, and red spike fire... Spirit? UNLIKE that first encounter, these guys aren't to be taken lightly, as everyone here deals double digit damage to party members. Fortunately, the fire thing can be easily ganked with a ice spell.
... So what now?
- Map out the scene. Walk a little longer to see Baba in Ocean Basin ババナシア 王国.
ババナシア王国.
- Follow the red arrows until the Event, we will come through マル (which later would become of us).
- Then use the Magic Gate to return to the original.
Hmm... Well... We're IN the town that we need to be in... It's got a bit of a Middle Eastern vibe with some sort of trippy cow horn / bell motif... We walk through the main gate and- OMIGOSH THE VAS ARE ACUTALLY DOING SOMETHING! Oliver and Drippy yack a bit, the former being rather impressed with his surroundings. ... Well that was short, we're back to boops again. Oliver goes up to talk to some old codger in an orange turban who apparently blows us off judging from Oliver's "Hey, what the-" expression afterwards. It is at this point that the game prompts us to head further into town. But considering the wretched hour that it is now, and the fact that there's an inn in the top right corner of this plaza, this seems like it might be a good place to heal up and conclude this update. We go into the inn and... ... Is that the SAME cat-lady as back from the first town?! If she's not, she's a dead looker for her. Rates are more expensive here, 40 G a night. Apparently extorting travelers that are half-dead from the desert sun makes for good business. We pony up the 40 G, call it a night and- Hey, what the- ... We're now in some trippy drawing land with an anorexic rabbit in a top hat... Oliver goes up to talk to the Slender Man rabbit, and is immediately freaked out the rabbit's response. (The fact that his facial expression is about as static as a statue's probably didn't help either.) There's a lot of things to check out... But all of them apparently involve trivia questions involving Trope-Tan, so let's try and figure that out another day... We promptly run up to tell the bunny we want out, and get steered to a save screen.
Takeaway Points:
- Some name changes from Japanese -> English:
- Shizuku -> Drippy
- Hotroit -> Motorville
- Town Ruled By King of Cats Whose Name Eludes Me Due to Moonspeak -> Ding Dong Dell
- Imagines do hatch from eggs... Whether or not the one we found last time will also hatch eventually remains to be seen.
- If you're taking on the fungal pit of death, bring antidotal herbs and HP-restoring items. 80% of the enemies here either A): Can poison you. B): Can hit you for over 10 HP per attack.
- Defeating Ni no Kuni's third boss, TL/DR version:
- Unlike a certain other RPG, 10-year olds in Ni no Kuni appear to be remarkably resistant to heatstroke.
- The innkeeper from Ding Dong Dell is either a serious ninja, a stalker, or has an identical twin lurking around. Whether or not she's part of a family where everyone looks alike and does the same thing remains to be seen.
- Oliver has a pencil-drawn dimension of
evilweirdness in his mind. Whether or not it has any useful functions remains to be seen.
Stats:
- Oliver: Level 11: 69 HP / 46 MP
- Rucci: Level 13: 100 HP / 40 MP
- Taillow: Level 12: 77 HP / 32 MP *
- G: 1360
- Play Time: 18 hours, 10 minutes, 50 seconds.
Next time, we will skulk around a bit around Gleeba our Middle Eastern(-ish) surroundings and venture into uncharted and more heatstroke inducing territory in-game.
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