Update 11: The Plot Climbs Mount Dumbass
So we’re at a point when the plot is about to go straight up Mount Dumbass to Dipshit Peak.
: “And by the look on yer face, ye didn’t come home empty-handed!”
: “No. This is my Kingmaker, Lofty.”
: “OY MATE I’LL HOOK YA ONE RIGHT IN THE GABBER SWEAR ON ME MUM MATE”
So yes, Batu has gone from “Oh hey this kid showed up time to make like a North Korean dictator and execute him” to throwing Evan a feast because he brought Boy Sampson back with him.
I’d like to imagine that Fred went to his boss at this point and was like “Boss, we already have a ton of cutscenes. Couldn’t we just.. you know.. show them feasting rather than just having a text screen?”
His boss replies “What are we, Naughty Dog? We don’t have the budget or the talent for that, get back to ripping off Nausicaa.”
: “Y-yes?”
So yes, the plot just reached Dipshit Peak and is raising the celebratory flag. Batu and all of the pirates, who I remind you again were ready to execute a ten year old boy for no reason, now decide to swear their eternal loyalty to him after knowing him for maybe a day.
Oh boy, another cutscene for morons!
: “I am! It happened just as you said it would! I met lots of new people, and made lots of new friends.”
My theory here the first time I played it was that the blue-haired kid really is a Watcher and was using cthonic runes or something to mind control the pirates so they can later feed the giant pregnant demon lady and her flying demon babies in Ending D.
I took a photo of me flipping off this screen but I think it got deleted. Oh well.
: “Now, that’ll be an awful pain in the neck, won’t it? Why, ye could just raid a village somewhere, use that as yer base..” : “We’re not pirates, understand? Anyway, if we’re going to build a kingdom, we’re going to need a good spot. Location is everything.”
I swear to god, the first time I read this I thought Roland was going to pull what the author of Fables did when he had Bigby spend no fewer than three full pages talking about his views on Israel. That’s an actual thing, by the way.
: “The only way for it to grow is to put itself somewhere out of harm’s way. Anywhere else, and you’ll be overrun before you know it.”He acts like this is something he actually has experience in.
: “So what kind of place do we need to look for, then?”
So yes, there is apparently an area of the world that is perfect for settling.. and no one has done it yet.
We’re now in Chapter 3, where we’ll begin Evan’s master plan to conquer the world.
: "Can we fly there?’ : “Well now, it ain’t exactly that we can’t fly there, but it’s the winds o’ Cloudcoil Canyon that set the ol’ sky-skimmers a-soarin’, see. Beyond the bounds o’ the valley, things can get a mite.. hairy.”
: “I… see. I think I’d prefer to walk.”
So, someone on Twitter pointed this out because it wasn’t something that I really thought about at the time, but Batu implies that there are already people living in the Heartlands, and..
: “Bandit versus pirates, huh? Sounds like quite the showdown.”Minus twenty points from Roland, no stupid meme references on my watch.
: “Yeah, and it won’t be pretty.”
So yes, Evan is about to raise an army to go conquer the Heartlands and kick out the existing inhabitants to claim it as his own.. so that he can create a world without war where everyone can live happily ever after.
Posting that video was practically obligatory.
: “BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE FEED THEIR SOULS TO SLAANESH! WE DO IT FOR CHAAAOOSS!”
We also have Gerel join in. Gerel is actually not part of Evan’s army - she’s the item store owner in the pirate base, and is going to be our first completely willing and not at all forced on the pain of death and the execution of everyone she has ever loved citizen of the new kingdom.
And, in addition..
We also get Batu! I’m going to end this update before we actually reach the pointless minigame section coming up, because it’s time to decide who our party is going to be.
Right now, we have Evan, Roland, Tani, and Batu. As much as I hate Tani, both Evan and Roland use swords.. and usually, it’s more efficient to have no more than one party member using a given weapon type at the same time. However, I’m going to let the audience decide.
On my first playthough, I used Evan, Roland, and Tani up until I got a different party member that we won’t be seeing for.. probably another 50% of the game.
Tani uses spears, which typically have a lower attack rating than swords but have different specials that usually focus on ranged attacks. She shares a ranged weapon type with Batu - both of them use bows - but that’s not as big of a difference.
Batu, on the other hand, is a hammer user - hammers have the highest attack rating of all melee weapon types, but are also incredibly slow and leave the user wide open to attacks. They’re hell to play as, especially on extreme, but not terrible as party members.
Tani has a bunch of skills that are very difficult to screen capture. She’s the only party member capable of stealing items - though even with items to boost her success rate she’s still pretty bad at it and there’s no good unique steals like in the earlier Final Fantasy games. Interestingly, both of her weapon skills use her bow rather than her spear. One of them fires an AOE explosive arrow, while the other fires a piercing arrow that hits all enemies in a line.
Her spear also has a wide, sweeping arc that can hit flying creatures from the ground.
Batu, on the other hand, only has one useful weapon skill - I have absolutely no idea what his second one does. His weaponskill is.. if you’ve ever played DOTA2, it’s Juggernaut’s ultimate. He spins in a circle with his hammer, doing damage to anything caught in the arc.
I’ll leave this up so people can vote on party members. In the meantime.. I’m going to need to grind a bit offscreen. You’ll see what I mean.