Summary
: We’re heading back into the cutscene mines for this update. From the New World has several times the cutscenes of the original Shadow Hearts or Covenant, and I think that’s because the devs never really had the budget for voiced cutscenes before.
: For reference, the original game had maybe two voiced cutscenes per character, and Covenant didn’t have many more.
: “I’m impressed, you’ve got guts. Some guys still haven’t returned yet, so if you see them while you’re out, tell them to come back and see me. And kid, this isn’t the type of town where you let ladies walk around alone at night. Keep an eye on her, OK?”
: By “some guys”, Mao means “you need to find Frank and Natan”. Honestly, “Find Frank” should always be an objective. If Frank’s not on screen, I want to know why.
: Rage is a physical damage buff. Johnny still doesn’t have much else to do in boss fights after he Snaps, so I’ll probably have him use this on Frank.
: Natan is on the corner near where we met the photographer earlier.
: “You’ve done enough for tonight. Come back and get some rest.”
: “Yes, Princess.”
: Frank is in the back room of the bar. I don’t drink, so I can empathize with him. Seriously, Connecticut has gotten absolutely eaten by microbreweries in the last decade or so.
: And with this, it’s back to the cutscene mines.
: I have a lot to say about this cutscene. First, holy FUCK that is a big cigar. Frank could probably put a katana hilt on that and use it as a wakizashi.
: Second, Al Capone looked nothing like that at any point in his life. In case you’re not familiar, this is what he actually looked like around this point in history.
: Third, and kind of the funniest point for me - if you know anything at all about Alcatraz, you’d know that room looks nothing like a cell there. The thing is, it IS a real prison cell, and one Capone was held in.
: This pic is from the Eastern State Penitentiary Museum in Pennsylvania, and is the prison cell Capone spent most of 1929 in before he was transferred to Alcatraz.
: And here we have Eliot Ness, who uh.. doesn’t translate all that well to this game’s style. He looks kinda like Mark Zuckerberg’s demented metaverse avatar. Let’s get a photo up.
: I feel like this is how you should address any cop you see.
: Something I need to clarify here: Eliot Ness did not at any point arrest Al Capone. He was brought in months after Capone was sent to Alcatraz to try and shut down the rest of the Chicago Outfit.
: This actually is pretty accurate - Al Capone was one of the first people to be prosecuted under the “drug dealers have to declare their drug income on their tax return” theory that is still used today.
: Eliot Ness spelled his name with a single L, by the way.
: I guess we know now why they didn’t bother making a new model for Al Capone. Gotta say that I think the whole Irish-flag colored suit and shirt combo might be a bit much. I’m not sure what the deal is with that chain, either.
: This feels like it’s some kind of alternate bad ending to Dagger of Amon Ra.
: I don’t know what it is about this shot in particular, but McManus looks like a rejected SNK villain design from the era between when they were still trying to replace Geese Howard and when they gave up and just went “Fuck it, every game is a dream match now, death doesn’t matter”. We’re talking.. I dunno, 1997 or 1998.
: I feel like Maruki had this exact conversation with Joker about trying to get him to date Akechi in Persona 5. Face it, the art boyfriend always wins.
: Well, that escalated quickly.
: The video cuts away, and there’s a gunshot.
: When I was recording this, I started going, in a stereotypical gangster voice, “Hey! You! Dames can’t do that to other dames! Lesbians ain’t been invented yet!”
: And with that, we’re free of the cutscene mines.
: We could go right to Alcatraz, but we won’t because there’s a new Handy Tool for Johnny if we instead go back to his office.
: “What’s the fuss? Why are you yelling…”
: “This morning, this letter came to the office.”
: “Let me see…”
: “Tinkerbell…? I don’t think I’ve heard of him before.”
: “M-more importantly, please read the rest of the letter!”
: “What… what is this! This really pisses me off! Lenny! Where’s that code!?”
: “Here it is.”
: Let me tell you, there are puzzles I feel like expending effort on, and puzzles I definitely do not feel like expending effort on, and this is one of the latter.
: “Hmm.. so this means that I have to arrange the numbers 1 through 9 so that they match the totals, right?”
: “Yes, I believe so.”
: “All right.. stand back and watch! I’ll have this figured out in a second!”
: Three days later..
: A is 5, and B is 9. Let’s see what’s inside.
: The vacuum costs 44 MP, which is nearly half of Johnny’s total MP, and transfers a stock from the enemy to Johnny.
: “He always makes fun of me… Lenny! Find out all you can about this ‘Tinkerbell’!”
: “Huh? So, you mean to say…”
: “I’m gonna catch him myself! I’ll make him regret calling me a pee-wee detective!”
: “Understood. I’ll contact you as soon as I find anything.”
: “I’m counting on you!”
: I feel like it would not be very hard to fool Johnny. Now we can go off to Alcatraz.
: “I think just the fact that there’s no risk to our lives is pretty good.”
: “Ugh.. I get it, so let’s move! Otherwise, I’m gonna barf…”
: Have we run into a single door in this game that wasn’t locked?
: “Is it locked? Well, I guess that’s to be expected.”
: “So what are we gonna do? Can you open it?”
: “This kind of old lock isn’t anything to get worked up about. Move aside.”
: “Oh! Just like Master! You’ve already MASTERED the art of unlocking doors!”
: Is that a Resident Evil reference?
: “M-my eyes are playing tricks on me! Did you just have a pouch on your belly? You just pulled the key from there?!”
: If we go back to just before that door, we can find this hidden in a corner. Seal is Shadow Hearts’s equivalent of Silence.
: This is another annoying fight - not because of the enemies, they have something like 36 HP each and can be killed in a single hit by everyone who isn’t Johnny (though Natan will need two Strikes).
: No, it’s annoying because we only run into the prison guards twice, and we need four snaps of them.
: For some reason, the game gives me four turns in a row with Johnny that I spend doing nothing but using Snap.
: I thought for a second that the guards were carrying katanas, but they’re actually telescoping batons.
: The next door puts us into a fight with six jail guards, which we promptly beat down.
: “We should be all right now. From what I’ve heard, Capone’s jail cell is just beyond here.”
: Before we go into Capone’s cell, there’s an item in a chest on the left.
: He earned the title of Big Underworld Boss after killing his master, The Underground Boss.
: This really is coming dangerously close to a MGS3 cutscene.
: I love the expression on Natan’s face. “Why did I let my agent talk me into this?”
: “Drunken Fist? By a cat!?”
: Frank! He’s gonna let that fucking cat know whose game this is, and it’s not the cat’s.
: Right after he says this, the alarm sounds and you can hear people screaming in the background.
: “Oh! NOTHING’s as reassuring as hearing that Master Meow’s going to fight with us!”
: I know that Frank is incapable of sarcasm, but I’m just going to pretend he is.
: This is fucking character assassination! This is Frank’s game! Fuck this!
: The game then allows us to compose our party.. except we have to take the fucking cat. I refuse to drop Frank for any reason, and we need Johnny for Snaps, so I take Shania as the last party member.
: If we go back into Capone’s cell, there’s a very, very well hidden chest behind the bed.
: We get into a forced encounter in the very next room. These are Byakhees - I only know this because the PS1 version of Eternal Punishment made the same translation mistake.
: It’s weird too, given that X-Seed localized this game. They’re usually known for being pretty good at what they do.
: Mao has no special abilities, though she does come with an upgraded star chart that is going to be immediately taken off her and put onto Frank.
: Her gimmick, which we haven’t run into yet, is that she gets a special ability that turns enemies into coins if it lands the killing blow.
: Her star chart comes with a second Red Nova. We’re going to want to upgrade those for no particular reason at all.
: We only need one Byakhee snap, but there’s another enemy here we need SIX snaps for.
: Mao has a weaker physical attack than Natan, and has a maximum of 4 attacks per Ring. If it wasn’t for the fact that you need to farm coins to get her later abilities, she would be perma-benched.
: That dress doesn’t really scream “the kind of thing you’d wear to a murderous rampage on a prison island”, but okay.
: What I want to know is how that thing on her head stayed on this entire time, between being shot, dragged into an alley, and then somehow making it halfway across the country to Alcatraz Island.
: I know Tatsuya’s Scenario isn’t canon, but if the Byakhees he had fought in Zodiac looked like this, he probably would’ve laughed at them and they’d have fucked right off.
: We’ll handle the rest of Alcatraz next update, because it’s got a lot of backtracking, but I’ll at least show off the rest of the enemies.
: These things that look like a bug fused to a pile of entrails are “Womps”, apparently. The game’s enemy database (which I’ll show off next update) claims they’re some kind of alien virus.
: They have Red Nova, which means they can nuke our stock if they ever get a Double off. This is kind of a problem because we need six snaps of them.
: Then we have.. these things. They’re called “Chon Chon”, and have around 40 HP. They’re Dark element, and Johnny has a Light-element spell that can easily wipe several of them off the board in one go.