Last time, we left off in New Pork City a maze of factories and buildings in the middle of a polluted industrial wasteland, keeping our heads down to duck and avoid the local grunts. Seeing as this can't possibly end well for us, let's press further on into this ominous steampunk hive.
We progress through a gate... And the party's all out? Gyro starts talking... And fumbles around in his coat for something...? Which isn't there, much to his dismay. There's a short back and forth with Maru, and then Gyro gives a "sorry, kid" look and spiel to Oliver. Suddenly Maru gets rather surprised, and Gyro all of a sudden has a rather peppy-looking demeanor... What's up? And... He bolts down an alley?
Clearly that wasn't expected... Maru's looking like she's steaming again... And attempts to run after him... Only to get cut off by nameless local grunt #74. ... I think that we just got robbed again... There's some talking between Maru and Drippy... Maru tells Oliver something that probably approximates "Hey! We need to get our stuff back before he pawns it off!" Drippy for his part looks surprisingly non-concerned... What's going on? Whatever Drippy told Oliver, looks like it swayed him over... Not so much Maru.
There's a- Oh wow. This place is huge, and it's only the top layer it goes down for miles! More seriously, do take the time to gawk at the sprawl in the background. Oh and check out the local item shop here. It's about the same back in "I Can't Believe It's Not Vegas!", except with 200 HP-restoring cheeseburgers and a bunch of stuff that is probably alchemizable. Everyone here seems to be wearing those Pigmask outfits for some reason... Guess the air must really suck. Also, some of these Pigmasks appear to be wearing skirts. Anyhow, moving on!
The next spot has a three-way junction. Basically, imagine the place as a 'y'. The lower leg is where you came from. There's a house to the left. The right path heads off to the local Bookstore and Weapons shops.. The left- Triggers a cutscene in which a loud whistle sounds, and suddenly everyone bolts indoors. While Oliver and Maru stare wondering what on earth is going on- WAIT, THOSE BUILDINGS CAN MOVE?! They're apparently on rails... And rearrange themselves to form a long avenue, which we ditch pretty fast as a massive railed car with a Pigmask with golden tusks on a throne proceeds by. Judging by the number of guards hovering around him and the fact that everyone is chanting something from the balconies as he proceeds by, I think it's safe to say he's important. Also Gyro came back.
There's a short back and forth between Oliver and Gyro afterwards. Oliver asks who on earth just almost ran us over, Gyro responds with a red name consisting of 2 Kanji that gives Oliver a good scare. He continues on with some more exposition... Which fails to calm anyone else down judging by Maru's startled butting in a few lines later. There's a short "what now" bit, Gyro gives a suggestion... Which makes Maru less than thrilled. Which elicits a few more lines that presumably tell us that this is the only way to do things because of rule of plot. And... Gyro walks off again... There's some more back and forth between Oliver and Maru... Presumably of the "do we really want to do this?" variety. Gyro turns back and yells at us to get our rears in gear. And we follow along... And return to that same guard by the item shop? Who this time is apparently going to let us all through... And lets us down a back alley... But... Before that, let's backtrack and check out that house.
The house at the 3-way intersection doesn't seem to be very functional... You can't go up at the stairs, for one. It does do a good job at getting your guard down with the inviting-looking living room... Right until you see the oil drums and industrial-grade boiler and pipes to the right. Backtracking to the shops, one of the things that you'll notice off the bat is that the trademark birds over the storefront are much darker in color, much like the item shop's owl. The pigmask in the corner between the two gives you something... Though I didn't catch what specifically it was.
Heading down the path where the cutscene was triggered, you can follow the rails a bit. There's that tourist catboy gawking from a balcony... Going left takes you to a dead end with a lazy duplicate identically furnished apartment for show. Heading right takes you to an ominous-looking cathederal palace thing of ominous with two guard statues up front... Yeah... Let's not go there just yet... Anyways, back to the alley!
We try to go back, and... Wait... What's this stupid password stuff? There's three options... Er... The first? Nope. Second? Yep! And that red arrow is still there... Anyhow, let's save before we go off and get run over by a house or something. And... We see a bunch of back alley shops... Most are just for show, but the map's pointing out a (literally) pig-headed one for us to go into... Wonder what's in it? (Whatever it is, it's next to a Junk Shop.) We head in, notice the lack of music and the junk crammed everywhere, and- Oh, so those are people under those suits. There's a guy in green behind a table.
It's some burly guy in a leather helmet with a 'stache... 'Karudoso'... Who seems to know Gyro. Which startles Maru. There's a chummy back and forth... And Gyro brings up a "Bogu"... Something or other in red... Karudoso seems impressed, and Gyro goes on... There's silence... And then a rather panicked expression from Gyro. Karudoso continues on... And Gyro yells at him... That one Kanji that follows the '# whatever' bits pops up... Is this guy outfitting local guards or something? He turns to the group... Oliver seems a bit puzzled as to what's going on... Maru's frustrated... Gyro's friend continues on... Oliver still hasn't lost that 'wat' face of his... And Drippy pipes in. A short exposition... Which prompts Maru to mull some things over... Karudoso mentions something about the Bogu's... Something. And continues on with some more exposition... 'Bogu City' popped up once. Maru has a bit of a despairing look after that. A little more exposition... And then Gyro asks a question. There's a couple more lines with him and Karudoso, and then Oliver asks what's so important about whatever moonspeak just happened. There's some more talking from Karudoso... Which seems to lift everyone's spirits... Oliver seems happier... As does Maru- Well that was short. Karudoso goes right up and pops our bubble about this next part being easy judging by Maru's shift in attitude. There's some more exposition with a few more 'You're kidding, right?' looks... All of which would be rather delicious were it not in moon runes. Eventually, Gyro asks Oliver a question... Judging from one of the Kanji, i think he asked if we understood what was going on... Nope- Oh wait, no, it was different. Because whatever it was, Oliver and Maru just enthusiastically agreed to it.
We get taken into the back... Where we see- OH! That's what was going on with that "Rukora" that kept being repeated! It's a girl's name! It's a young black-haired girl in white... But who is she? And what's with this music that was playing back when we saw Sherry's father making up? It seems that she's rather young... There's a mobile in the right corner of the room... There's some back and forth between here and Karudoso... She keeps repeating some name over and over... But I missed what it was... Oliver chimes in, offering to help with... Something. "Gohotsu"? I'm not sure I follow here... And judging from Maru's look, I'm not sure the party does either. Karudoso says a few more things... And then Rukora says a few more... And repeats "Gohotsu" a few times at the end for some reason... Is she cursed or something? There's a little more talking before we're lead out of the back room.
Maru pontificates a bit... And gives a rather irked-sounding "HEY LISTEN!" (I think), to Oliver... Ooh... He didn't like that much, apparently. He's kinda crabby himself. Gyro tries to calm the two down and pass things off as okay to Karudoso... But it doesn't look like Oliver's having it- Oh. So we were here for a reason. We took a page from Lucas' infiltration of the Chimera lab and got ourselves some Pigmask gear. Oliver gets the full suit, Drippy just gets the helmet. (Hopefully we don't get chased around by a pink abomination too.) We backtrack to the item shop... And...
Oh, there's some more arrows... Which... Lead us to that palace of ominousness we didn't go into earlier... Oh hey, Gyro and Maru did get outfits too. We show up at the gate, Gyro yacks to the guards posted there... And we get waved through. And make our way in, with Oliver and Gyro talking... Until a guard shows up in front of us... Ruh-roh... There's a noble attempt to BS our way through... Which judging by the amount of yelling from the guard and from the party, might not have worked... Oh wait, he let us go... Moral of the story is, if you can't win with reason, go with volume.
We're now on one of the side stairs in this room... But... What's here anyways? A short round of moonspeak from everyone, and we're freed to move... Let's see what's on this balcony up ahead... We rush into an elevator dead ahead and- ... Uh oh... I hear boss music... There is much shouting as we are confronted by a guard... Who promptly chases us down a hallway with red arrows... Oh joy. We keep running, with that guard occasionally catching up with us every now and then in cutscenes... And reach a dead end... ... Maybe he's not as tough as he looks? The boss music abruptly cuts out with the normal music of ominousness as we try our hand at BSing once more.
We get cornered by the guard... Who we are busy ringing... There's a bit of banter back and forth... Wait, is he seriously letting us go? There's some more talking... And we got... A bottle? Huh. Okay, that went a bit better than expected... What else is there to do here? There's a manhole to jump down on... But let's backtrack and check what else is here first...
... Or not. Drippy (and the guard outside too, presumably) won't let us. Er... Guess this part should have been planned out a little bit better... But... Here goes!
We gather at the manhole, wondering what to do next, when Drippy interrupts us to give an idea of some sort... Magic? ... Or not. We just ditched the Pigmask gear. Alright, into the manhole, then!
We reach some sort of nice-looking lobby with fountains up front in a cutscene. Ooh... Wonder what's-
O_O
And we promptly almost get run over by a blue and gold porcine tank (with snout turret and arms that seem to have some sort of gun on them) while heading left... Which whirls around wildly and focuses its turret on us... ... We might be kinda screwed here.
Alright, don't panic. Set up with Rucci and Taillow, and let's figure out how to fry this thing. Okay, so it resists Oliver's 6 MP spell... And it can apparently hit in horizontal lines (fortunately, it was a bad shot and missed us all). Rearranging! Rucci moves up front, Taillow and Oliver hug the left middle and middle back cells respectively to keep us from getting hit by a potential cross slash. We try Oliver's 4 MP spell and abuse attack with Rucci and Taillow. ... And it resists normal attacks too... Fantastic... And Rucci ate 46 HP worth of pain... Uh... (Thank goodness, he's also a tank.) Er... Let's try that again, but with Firaga Fireball. ... Okay, that one is less damaging, but not resisted... Uh... I guess we'll just stick with the first attack pattern and heal as necessary? Rucci being in the side pocket concerns me, so let's do a fast rearrangement and put Rucci in the center top and hope this thing can't hit vertically. In case you're wondering, we've been averaging around 140-150 HP per round here... And the boss' bar is about a sixth of the way out. Repeating last time deals 170 HP damage... And Rucci eats a 48 HP swat... Alright, Oliver needs to go on healing duty for this next turn... We'll live with the 100 HP scratch damage- Wait a minute, why is that thing SMOKING? It's at 80% health! ... Oh, that's why... It flamethrowered us.. >_>
Okay, so Rucci and Taillow got hit for 63 and 55 or so HP each... Er... Why don't we all hug the back for this one...? This time Taillow is also in the back row with us (more specifically, back left. Oliver is in the back middle), and Rucci is in the middle left. We repeat last time... And... 51 HP from Rucci, 21 from Taillow... :/ Fortunately, Rucci only took 30 HP damage, so he had a net gain of 20 HP thanks to healing (that horizontal dakka spam finally hit for once). Er... Why don't we bench Taillow and see who else can do stuff on this team? Uh... Kree looks like he has good attack and defense, so let's use him! We heal Rucci again, play with Kree's 12 MP spell... And have Rucci attack. ... Okay, we did a whopping 26 HP of damage that turn, Rucci NEEDS that attack buff of his to do anything. We have Oliver use his 4 MP spell, Kree attack, and Rucci set up, since he's back in triple digit HP. ... We dealt 13 HP damage from Kree and 73 from Oliver... (We're going to need coffee soon here!) On the plus side, the tank's now at around 60% health.
Okay, heal and... Let's see what Kree's OTHER spell does... Rucci does 47 HP. Kree do- OH! It's that Fire Plume attack that he was roasting us with back in Mordor! Except it doesn't suck now since it did 63 HP damage (it costs 8 MP by the way)! Also, Rucci hit his limit break. Alright, let's go all out for this one, witchcraft spells from Kree and Oliver, and what is hopefully MURDER from Rucci- Oh crud, the thing's on fire again... Let's move Rucci to the middle center and Kree to the bottom right and hope that the flamethrower misses. Alright, let's knock this design abortion back into the scrapyard it came from!
Rucci's Limit Break is apparently the mother of all sword spams, he hacks away at the tank doing 198 HP... WITH RESISTANCE. Kree does around 60 with his fiery craftmanship, and Oliver's spell crits for 93 HP. Unfortunately, that flamethrower attack hit everyone but Oliver. Kree got off easy with 23 HP damage, Rucci... Ate almost 40 HP... But hey, at least this thing's down to 1/3 health! Let's use this next turn to heal Rucci and take potshots at the tank... And then we'll deep fry it with Oliver's limit break afterwards. Rucci deals 53 HP out with that steak knife of his, while Kree's plume does 59 HP. This turn, we got hit by the turret spam again. Which actually connected. Kree got hit for all of 8 HP and Oliver took 23 HP... Kinda underwhelming, but hey. Also, the tank is having trouble supporting its arm / flamethrower turrets, so the end's almost in sight here. Let's see if a Limit Break can deep fry this metal piggy!
... Not quite... Rucci did about 50 HP damage again... Kree did 73 with a crit fire spell... And Oliver's Limit Break ALSO did 198 HP damage (unresisted). Unfortunately for us, that tank is still ticking at about 10% health and Rucci ate another 8-ish HP from getting smacked around (wow, that obscene defense stat and physical attack resist IS useful!). Alright, once more! The light at the end of that tunnel's visible, and it's glorious. ... Wait, STILL?! BUT THAT ADDED UP TO ALMOST 200 HP DAMAGE! Oh whatever, its dakka attack hit Kree for 9 whopping points and its health is a miniscule sliver, let's just do that again...
FINALLY! The tank seizes up for a bit, and then has its treads come off as it slumps over useless. Woohoo! For that long ordeal, we got 1980 exp and 177 G... As well as some thoroughly dented HP and MP bars.
In the following cutscene, we can hear the tank blowing up offscreen... Gyro was none too thrilled with that experience... And there's a glowy... What is that? On a snout design on the floor of some sort. ... A red gear? Which Gyro seems to be rather happy about... What's it do? Whatever he said about it, Maru's surprised. Drippy yells something that gets on Gyro's nerves... And then Gyro gives some more words to Oliver before we are freed... Since we're kinda weak here. Let's save and see if we can backtrack- Er... Looks like we won't be saving... How about backtracking? ... Nope. Gyro didn't like that... Uh... Is there anywhere to save and heal here? Nope. going anywhere but the indicated direction doesn't sit well with him.
There's a cutscene of the party hastily ditching a group of guards coming for us due to the tank... And a cutaway to a long-haired blue guy having a nervous bre- WAIT, THAT WAS THE GUY ON THE FLOAT?! Oh wait, no, no tusks... So why's this guy important? Anyhow, the pigmasks really do have people underneath... Also, he kinda has a wardrobe malfunction and has his helmet come undone, revealing his face... He promptly yells at the party to look away and buries his face in a sofa while we're busy being freaked out.
Oh hey, the party's VAs are back! Oliver and Maru are rather floored that under that stuffy outfit is some sort of bishie guy (who looks kinda like Rukora). Gyro, on the other hand, apparently saw this coming. And our lucky reclusive pretty boy's name is... "Buhiideso"? Well no wonder his helmet fell off, that hair looks long enough to be a girls haircut! After a few words, Buhiideso pulls his head out of the sofa cushions and actually looks at us. There's some talking... 'Bogu' pops up a bit... What are Oliver and company after here? Maru mentions something about "Ni no Kuni no Maho Sekai"... Uh... Something about the world? Buhiideso mentions something about someone dying 15 years ago... There's a little more talking... And Oliver sounds rather dissapointed afterwards... Pretty boy starts to yell at us a bit, which spooks Drippy. There's a little more talking... And a red phrase... 1 Kanji + 2 hiragana... What's this, a spell? "Shinjiru"? Okay, maybe not. There's a little more talking, and the party ditches Buhiideso. We promptly run into another guard... OUTSIDE of our disguises... Strangely, no one seems concerned about this... :/
The guard asks us a question, and- Oh, there's the concern... Kinda late, Oliver! We get lead off by the guy... And more guards show up in a ranty mood (in black, to differentiate from ours in green). And cue the cutscene back to the palace approach. There's some short chatter amongst the group... And then we're freed to head off, the game beckoning us down the parade route. BUT! Since we're kinda hurting, let's go back to the hotel and rest up and save here. Wait... These arrows also match up with that general direction... Are they leading back to Rukora? Ah... Looks like it... But we'll pay her a visit when we're feeling healthier.
Wait a minute, what? I'm back in that place with the freaky dream rabbit again... Let's hit the 'no' option and save here.
Takeaway Points:
- Once again, the motif similarities with a certain RPG revolving around a psychic boy rear their head again. That said, Level 5 and Studio Ghibli decided to make an entire society of Pigmasks rather than simply a group of flunkies.*
- As in MOTHER 3, Ni no Kuni's pigmasks are humans in suits. Whether or not the extreme aversion to their true forms is a broader phenomenon or not remains to be seen.
- Also, burgers are high-end healing items. And a culinary constant across universes.
- The layout of the industrial pigsty:
| Gate | ||||
| Inn | ||||
| Weapon Shop + Bookstore | Path and Scenic Apartment | Item Shop | ||
| ↕ Between Parade Grounds and Apartment | ||||
| Palace | Ominous Approach of Ominousness | More Parade Grounds | Parade Ground | Dead End + Apartment |
- Defeating the Pig Tank, TL:DR version: This fight isn't so much challenging as incredibly long and potentially nerve-wracking. First off, the tank will tank (ha ha, lame pun) any direct attacks. Meaning if you directly waltz up and poke it with a steak knife unbuffed, you'll do about as much damage as you'd expect to do in reality. If you're looking to do as much damage per round, you will NEED to be using spells (and by extension, MP). Avoiding the tank's attacks can be a bit irksome. Leaving anyone in the first row is generally inadvisable (expect to eat 50+ HP in damage if you get hit!), keeping everyone in a horizontal row leaves you vulnerable to that one turret spam attack (though it's fairly inaccurate and meatier Imagines should be able to shrug those shells off with ease). The one attack that seems to be a crapshoot to predict is the flamethrower attack. You'll get a turn to prepare for it (you'll see flames coming from the tank when it's readying the attack), but the only place that I saw that consistently wasn't hit was the lower center movement cell (and that might have just been luck). Damage varies depending on location and the imagine you use, but remember that this did over 40 HP damage to Taillow in the second row. If it connects, it has the potential to be VERY painful. All in all, the fight is long, but still manageable. Heal when HP is low, restore MP if you have to, and switch party members if that's not an option. Given a little time, and a limit break or two, and you too will be able to turn that blue hunk of junk into scrap!
- The animators from Studio Ghibli were unusually active this update. With two very pretty cutscenes. The VAs weren't total slouches either.
- Rukora seems to have some sort of plot importance... (Seeing as she shows up in artwork for the Japanese budget printing of Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch.) Just what it is, I remain presently oblivious about.
- Come to think of it, what is Buhiideso important for? He seems like he's important given his posh digs... Perhaps he's tied to the head honcho in this horrid pit? And what's with the blue hair?
Stats:
- Oliver: Level 21: 118 HP / 81 MP
- Rucci: Level 24: 171 HP / 87 MP
- Kree: Level 21: 120 HP / 69 MP *
- G: 3526.
- Play Time: 46 hours, 49 minutes, 01 seconds.
Okay, so I kinda lied about there being grinding, for better or worse. Next time, we'll get to the bottom of a blue-haired pigmask's self-image problems and yack some more with a little girl.
Comments
