Last time, we cured a cow queen of narcolepsy, got a sea map for our trouble, and had a not-so-fantastic first encounter with our third human party member, Gyro. This update is a bit slower in pace and smaller in size, revolving mostly around us finally recruiting Gyro and progressing the plot a bit. No battles here, though we still get to see a couple cool things over the course of events nonetheless.
Leaving off from where we were last time, Gyro's still leering at us from the end of the dock, and we're still down to like half health and HP. So let's make a fast run back to the desert town to heal up at non-price gouging rates. On our way out, we pass that surfer guy's house, which has a red arrow leading into it, but hey, we can check that out later, right?
... Or not, Drippy refuses to let us leave town. Fine, we'll pay the extra 50 G... Stupid lamp tapir. One restful sleep later, and we have headed back to the house of that nice surfer guy who let us see Maru in a swimsuit gave us some local duds to wear. We run in, see him facing a loft as Oliver and Drippy make a couple comments in moonspeak that I won't understand until 2013. Oliver seems to have that green glow again... Wonder what that's about? The surfer guy talks some more... Maru chimes in, probably something close to "hey, we need to get onto this boat!"... Maybe. Surfer dude talks a bit more, which raises a question from Oliver. There's a short back and forth between the two... And then Drippy joins in after about 6-8 rounds of back and forth between our caped prepubescent team leader and this shirtless guy in red pants. More talking... And then Maru chimes in... The Kanji for "Heart" seems to be popping up quite a bit for some reason... There's some more talking... Drippy's talky sprite eventually pops in with Oliver's on a shared screen...
Oh, time to cast something. Er... Heart Peace and then Heart Cure? For those who have forgotten, Heart Peace is the one with the top part of a heart / cardioid intersected by a horizontal slash. We seem to have made our light blue swirl from those guys by the dock glow for some reason.
The surfer guy makes a comment, possibly a "What the hell was that?" Maru chimes in with what is presumably a short, cheerful explanation of what just happened. As does Oliver. And then the game frees us up to move around. Hmm... Looks like we're going outside... To where though?
Following the convenient handy-dandy fourth-wall violating red arrows, we get... Lead back to the docks? What on earth? Oh hey, there's Gyro. Let's go bug him into joining our team like he is in the promotional materials as fate intended him to. We waltz up, imagine something called an 'A button', which prompts Drippy to pipe up and go, "hey Oliver, cast a Heart Cure!" (The one that looks like an "n" over a "V". Or an "intersection" symbol for you mathy types.)
We do so. Get a golden orb from Gyro... And go straight back into a shouting match with the gu- Oh hey, the VAs are back! ... For a twiggy guy, Gyro sure speaks deeply. There's some more back and forth, Oliver still appears to be using Frustration a bit cranky, as does Gyro. Gyro eventually lightens up... Wait a minute, is that face supposed to look like an anorexic Jabba face? Oliver asks a question, clearly less frustrated and more 'Aww, piss' at the moment. And Gyro's chatsprite finally has a face that looks a bit more approachable with a bit of an apologetic smile. Oliver mentions Jabo... And Gyro wasn't exactly pleased about that. Maru tries again with bringing up the topic of Jabo. And Drippy chimes in with something about Oliver. And Oliver starts getting crabby again. ... Which Gyro evidently found amusing. And prompts him to ask us something about Jabo. Uh... 'Yes...? No...? I don't know.' Oliver delivers a retort. Gyro's next lines start out with the Kanji for "Baka". Apparently he doesn't think much about the idea of 11-year old mages prancing around in capes trying to rez their dead mothers or something. As if that weren't the perfectly logical and sane course of action he- Oh wait...
Anyhow, he mentions something about Jabo and the world with a rather skeptical look, which prompts Oliver to give a "What?" expression. And Gyro yells at us again... Maru chimes in trying to defuse the matter. Gyro gives a short "Eh?" and Maru says something about Oliver presumably "eh's a cool guy and doesn't afraid of anything." Gyro gives a line, and judging by Drippy's utterly furious expression in the line after that which brings up Jabo again, it was likely more or less a "meh." Geez. You REALLY don't want to heed the call, do you, Gyro?
There's a line from Gyro, followed by one from Maru that starts with "honto"... A quick Google search reveals that it's apparently "Really." So apparently we just had an O RLY / YA RLY moment. Gyro seems a bit more cheery now, and says a couple of things, which startles Oliver... And Drippy... And Maru... Wait a minute, what are you up to here, Gyro? Whatever it was, Oliver said thanks for it. Gyro more or less says something along the lines of "no problem, kid"... Or something involving "shonen" (少年), apparently. Which Oliver gets annoyed at and demands to be referred to by his name. Gyro humors the request, and Maru and Drippy introduce themselves to Gyro.
The VAs crap out, and we get to meet Gyro's Ima- Wait a minute, that looks just like the second form of that demon we cast out! Except it's red with a green hat! (It's the one right of the girl in white here.
◊ Oh yeah, did I mention that Ni no Kuni's PS 3 version is getting a budget re-release in Japan? Because it totally is.) Which startles Oliver in an understandable "YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO EXIST ANYMORE!" kinda way. The two join our party and- Oh, apparently chicken legs here is known as "Buroshiku". There's some more talking... Gyro mentions two red phrases. One apparently reads "batorumesoba" the other reads "hikaemesoba"... Whatever the heck those are. There's a further red phrase consisting of a Kanji character sandwiched between two hiragana... And we got something represented by a red phrase with 2 kanji and 2 katakana that apparently is pronounced "ikusei kago"... O... Kay? There's now a red phrase with 4 hiragana... "Inekae"? What?
Oh hey, Oliver's just as bewildered as I am! So I'm not alone here! Gyro explains some stuff... And... Points out a green treasure chest floating on some boards? What does he want there? Also, the game tells us to do... Something. When we see an exclamation point. But before then, let's check the new meat's stats. Gyro joins the party at Level 18 with 133 HP and 37 MP (granted, he's not wearing Maru's clothing of +50 MP, so...) with a spread of 68/55/48/43/54. Between him, Oliver (+1 level), and Maru (-1) level, he leads in physical offense, is dead last in magical offense, and is in the middle for everything else statwise (he's got LESS physical defense than an 11-year old kid? Geez). For all the folks who were convinced that Ni no Kuni was influenced by a certain third installment of a trippy RPG series... You might be onto something, as Gyro's role on the team appears to be similar to that of a certain thief / bass player. If outshined by the likes of Felis and Rucci in dealing raw damage. As for chicken legs, he joins the team at level 15 with 112 HP and 33 MP and has a spread of 71/58/40/35/29. Looks like he's intended to be a Mighty Glacier. After our stat-cheking derail, we run up to a point on the dock right by the boards, Imagine something called an A button once we see the exclamation point. And get treated to a brief rendered cutscene of Gyro fishing out a stylish-looking bronze grappling gun, which he uses to force the chest open from afar. For our trouble, we get some sort of orange feather thing.
Oliver gives a short "What on earth?!" face. while Gyro responds with a "Cool, huh?" and launches into an explanation of just what that thing was. Maru and Shizuku give a short "You seriously dragged us all the way down here to show that off" look, and then Drippy and Oliver start talking. Apparently we're not out of the woods yet, or at least Drippy pointed something out about something that seems to have dampened Oliver's spirits a bit. And then freaks him out. Oliver asks a question, possibly a "Do we have to?"... And elicits a rageface from Drippy. Maru butts in, takes Drippy aback a bit. Whatever she just suggested, looks like Oliver's game for it. Drippy for his part remains unamused. There's a bit more talking, and then we're called to board that boat that we've been trying to make our way onto for the last 2 updates.
There's a neat rendered cutscene of Mr. Annoying at the helm taking us out of this port town and the party (or more accurately everyone other than Gyro, who's loafing by a mast) gawking at their surroundings. Apparently the local boats have wing-things that allow them to get airborne for a short time, as we see a couple of them splash down into the water beside our lovely ship. Captain Jerkface orders the sails be lowered, and we pull out of town, into the open sea... Out into the unknown.
The game asks us if we want to save here. Afterwards, we get treated to a scene that we've been waiting for for two updates: We're on a boat! You apparently put into port with the A button and steer with the D-Pad. As on land, there's a map with landmarks for you to go to. Let's leave off and call it an update here for purposes of devoting a small mechanics-oriented update regarding getting as lost as possible at sea as we can and lurking a casino that is mentioned next in the text of the guide-that-was, you know, generally doing things beyond simple plot progression.
Takeaway Points:
- If you're impatient, get ready to spend money to heal yourself either in the inn or through items after throttling Gyro's demonic passenger. Drippy won't let you leave town until you talk to that surfer guy. (Whether or not you can do that between meeting the him and recruiting Gyro is unknown, since I forgot to make the attempt.)
- Drippy has more or less firmly established his role as Navi-esque fairy of exposition and general plot railroading at this point. Thankfully, at least he doesn't say "Hey, Listen!" every 10 seconds (and can actually fight and provide genuinely helpful stat boosts).
- Gyro's addition to the party apparently gives us the ability to open ranged chests. Unfortunately, it remains to be seen how often the game will give us the chance to put that (stylish) grappling gun to work.
- He's also apparently a bit crabby, considering all of the hoops we've had to jump through to recruit him and his Imagine into our party.
- Captain Jerkface has finally started to (somewhat) redeem himself. Perhaps we'll put off that whole 'throwing-him-overboard at the first chance' for a while.
- The place we're supposed to go to on the map looks kinda sinister. Just what's up with this Bogu(s) Empire anyways?
Stats:
- Oliver: Level 19: 105 HP / 79 MP
- Rucci: Level 21: 151 HP / 82 MP
- Taillow: Level 19 128 HP / 63 MP*
- G: 6386
- Play Time: 37 hours, 43 minutes, 51 seconds.
Next time, we'll be on a boat. When we're not busy philandering away our hard-earned G and getting horribly murdered by going off into unknown deathtrap islands, that is.
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