Update 4: From The Crumbling Bridge, No One Escapes
Before we get to the dungeon itself, we still have one more tutorial thing the game makes us do.
Here, we get our first healing item. Soreaway is the lowest-level healing item in the game - though unlike a good RPG where you can carry around and use a massive stack of them in battle, we’re limited to using 5 per battle (though we can carry up to 99). Typically, we won’t need healing items except on certain bosses, as there are a bunch of ways to regenerate HP during and after combat that don’t rely on healing items.
Uh-oh… looks like Nemesis found us.
So yeah, he’s basically Nemesis. I’m sure we’ll never see him again until the end of the game when we hit him with a magnum several times in the head.
Roland gets one of the mouse guard coats, which will be his standard outfit for the rest of the game.
We also get the Arms Band, which is what really opens up combat. With the Arms Band, each character can equip three weapons rather than one. We also get access to zing. What’s that, you ask?
Each weapon a character has equipped comes with a “zing gauge” that charges up when you hit something with a light or heavy attack. At 100%, you can use your zing to power up a skill, which usually causes it to do slightly more damage and (usually) guarantees a knockdown on an enemy. This can be really useful against certain bosses later on. Zing charges regardless of which weapon you’re using - every weapon a character has equipped will charge whenever you hit something (though some weapons charge faster).
Aranella teaches Roland how to equip stuff to his band… and then asks him about his ranged weapon. This was one of the few moments where this game actually surprised me. You would think this would be a thing like Star Ocean where the protagonist starts with a laser pistol but it breaks ten minutes in.
For a moment, I was overcome with joy at the thought that Roland could just cap motherfuckers in the face - unfortunately, ranged weapons in NNK2 suck for a whole host of reasons.
This is Roland’s current equipment screen. I won’t be showing this a lot. His pistol is the one weapon that is not allowed to be sold… even though as we’ll see later, the residents of this magical isekai kingdom already have firearms as a thing.
You can’t see it very well, but NNK2 uses the same save system as Final Fantasy - you have save points in interior areas but can save anywhere outside. Save points also fully restore HP.
Outside, the Black Knight has vanished.
This room is actually a double circuit, with an outer ring we could use to avoid all the guards. However…
Aranella is a fucking BEAST in combat and Roland is nearly at level 3. Plus, these mouse guards die really quickly.
Once we have more official party members, the AI will take control of anyone we’re not actively using. The AI is fairly good at managing things, enough that you usually don’t need to worry about micromanaging.
Midway through the fight, Roland hits level 3. Levelling in combat will fully restore HP and MP.
I also wanted to show this off quickly. When your zing is full, your weapon glows red.
Aranella finds a secret passage behind a completely inconspicuous bookcase, and on we go!
Or we’ll get another cutscene.
“Grimalkin” is the term NNK2 uses for cat-people, like Persha in the first screenshot of this update. Evan is half-grimalkin… and also the only half-human we see at all.
Evan is a dipshit.
So yeah, Evan is a dipshit.
With that, we enter our first dungeon - Ding Dong Well.
As soon as we walk in, Aranella casts a “potential unlocking spell” (Super Kami Guru, anyone?) on Roland, unlocking his first special attack, Flatliner.
Flatliner is a large, sweeping horizontal attack that hits a wide area in front of Roland for decent damage. At maximum zing, Roland follows up with a vertical slice that effectively doubles Flatliner’s damage on enemies in a line directly in front of him.
There’s also a few chests lying around. Chests in this game are… mostly pointless. Enemies drop a ton of gear, and the game has a sort of MMO quality system for drops where some have different-colored names (and thus higher stats). This broadsword was actually worse than the Ratslicer we started the game with.
We also get introduced to a new enemy type - Goos. Goo enemies typically have a large area of effect on attacks and are also capable of ranged combat. In most cases, they’re elementally aligned and can harden themselves to stop physical damage until you use magic to knock them out of it.
I mentioned earlier that ranged attacks suck, and here’s why. Ranged attacks cost MP, and do jack shit for damage. Right now, Roland hits for somewhere between 30 and 50 damage with his sword, but only 10 with his pistol.
Eventually, we wind up here… at a destroyed bridge.
And oh look, it’s the old villainous monologue right on schedule.
Oh boy, he’s got a battle aura now. That’s never good.
Man, the Black Knight really sucks at his job. A proper villain would’ve run forward and skewered Evan during that dialogue. Where’s Luca Blight when you need him?
Roland, being thoroughly fed up with this shit, grabs Evan and jumps off the bridge.
So, I’d like to talk for a second here about character death. Yes, I know the update is already getting long as-is, but I’d really like to just talk about what we’re seeing here. Usually, when a character shows this much emotion when someone else dies, it’s because we (the audience) are invested in that character. At this point in the game, counting the time it took me to run through the dungeon, Aranella was on screen for all of maybe twenty minutes.
Here, we see Evan after a tragic accident trying do to that “nya!” catgirl pose and getting tendonitis.
Unfortunately, this is not Roland pile-driving Evan into the ground.
: “Calm down. If we go back there, we’ll be captured for sure - and she’ll have given her life for nothing.”
: “I… I think we have to assume that. Come on, we need to keep moving.”
Next update, we’ll fight a Deviantart furry OC and watch Evan cry some more. That Evan, not me. I’m not crying. You can’t prove it.