Click Here for Update 13
: I hope you’re all ready for a horrible Link’s Awakening ripoff, because here it comes.
: This entire area is basically a direct ripoff of Koholint Island. It’s less broken than a lot of the other places we’ve been to, but is still just as tedious and un-fun.
: Oh look, it’s the area with the Flying Rooster statue, only now it’s a fish.
: First, we have to make a long and tedious trek across the island to this one house where there’s a dead girl.
: Because we don’t have Mark with us, we can’t just go to the Game Over Zone, so we have to use this bomb. This bomb is a full-screen instakill the second it gets activated.
: “Aren’t you the girl from the island?”
: “Yes… that was my home.”
: “Your family’s very worried about you.. I think it’s time you went back.”
: “Is that possible? I don’t see a way back..”
: “Let me take care of that..”
: What we’re supposed to do is either push her off the edge or push her into one of the holes. Unfortunately, due to this game’s usual godawful hitboxes, I wound up falling off.
: Please note that all of the following dialog lines (apart from where I’ve noted otherwise) are in ALL CAPS. I have gone ahead and not done that because it’s annoying to read.
: “…Mark? How did you find me?”
: “I didn’t.”
: “Ready to head back with me?”
: “…I can’t I’m afraid. This is it for me.”
: The game goes from all caps to regular capitalization for this screen, and I don’t know if that’s a typo or not.
: “Oh.. wow.. I’m truly very sorry…”
: “I would love to continue helping you guys, but I died.”
: “Yeah, but that never stopped us before!”
: “This time they tell me it’s final.”
: “…”
: “Don’t be sad. I just walk through this door, and I start a new life. I don’t know where exactly, but I know I’ve never been there before. That has me kind of excited actually.”
: Mark has gone on to a better place, and by that I mean he’s no longer in Two Brothers.
: “I wish you well then.”
: “…Thanks. Roy, take my bag. You’ll find it on the beach. I don’t need it where I’m going.”
: Yeah, he’s got a job as a structural engineer in Finland now.
: “Of course.”
: “The bag and all its contents belong to you now. Most of that crap was yours anyway. Take care Roy!”
: “You too Mark.”
: After a second run to the bomb screen, I manage to push the girl off the ledge.
: “Thank you for bringing me back. I am so sorry that you are trapped on this island.”
: “It’s okay. I’m just glad you are well again.”
Typo Counter: 110 (There was a single non-typo involving a seemingly missing period in the last update, but this sentence DEFINITELY does not have one.)
: “I..um.. borrowed this key from the Mayor. Take this and stop the sacrifices.. it is your only way out.”
: Now we have to go find three locked dungeons and go through them to get the weapon parts. They’re all pretty short, and you’ll notice that a lot of them are going to feel very much like a tutorial area.
: The chest here has a sidequest item in it.
: When we try to get to the book, the floor collapses.
: There’s a hidden switch under the barrel that lowers the floor again. It probably isn’t obvious what you’re supposed to do here.
: There’s actually a door hidden under the entrance door. This gets us another new ability for Roy.
: I’ll skip the tutorial and explain how it works - it’s basically the same as meditation but with a different end result. See that light brown spot on the floor?
: By the way, I did check the dictionary because I was almost positive that the only way to spell “Archaeologist” was like that, but as it turns out, “Archeologist” is also valid. Doing this opens a teleporter out of the hole.
: When we leave, the dungeon puts up flags outside so we know we’ve cleared it. This entire area (up to the boss, at least) ALMOST goes without a single egregiously bad design element. Almost.
: Here, we have to teleport our way in with an arrow.
: This would be our egregiously bad design element. See these pillars? We have to destroy all three of the ones going up the right side to progress.. but the axe won’t damage them.
: What happens is that three mermaids spawn in this room: one you can see up top, one just below where Roy is, and one near the pillar in the water behind Roy.
: The mermaids shoot fireballs with gigantic fuckoff hitboxes, and only the fireballs can destroy the pillars. Each one takes four shots to fully destroy, and it takes several seconds for the mermaids to cycle.
: Have I mentioned there’s also a second room we have to do this in? And that the fireballs do a shitload of damage if they hit Roy? I died three times in this room just trying to get past this bullshit. The fireballs are so wide that you can’t really dodge them if they come at a bad angle.
: Thankfully, the game warps you out of the dungeon once you pick the weapon part up. That’s one out of three.
: The next dungeon is easy, but also badly designed. What we have to do is get that bomb in the bottom-right corner to the boulder in the top-left.
: You’ll recognize the floor switches (which become solid once activated) and the heart-shaped pillars from the first dungeon.
: Pressing any one of the floor switches causes the door to open (it just warps you back to the entrance) and lowers the pillars. What’s weird is that even though a room with these elements caused a softlock in the first dungeon, it’s actually impossible (as far as I can tell) to softlock here: if you get stuck in the bottom-right you can just die on the bomb and retry.
: Several minutes of finagling the bomb around those trees (it tends to get stuck easily) later, and we’ve got it where we want it.
: It was not immediately obvious to me why you’d even want to do that, but the answer is that there’s a ladder here.
: It leads to a boss fight that’s the kind of broken where we can beat it really easily, and not the kind of broken where it softlocks the game.
: All the boss does is launch dust clouds going straight down from its position - it has no other attacks, so we can just stand beside it like this and kill it quickly.
: And that’s two out of three.
: This last one is the one that feels most like a repurposed tutorial dungeon.
: There’s signs alerting us to gameplay mechanics we’ve already had to deal with dozens of times, a really simple layout.. this was definitely a tutorial at one point.
: All we have to do is get the statue onto a switch, and then step on the other one to open some stairs down.
: The next room has an axe, which we’ve already picked up (we also had it at the start of the game).
: Then we have the boss. It’s a dipshit octopus that launches fireballs out of its mouth. I didn’t even get shots of it because the fireballs home in on you.
: The fireballs turn into.. soccer balls I guess.. once they fizzle out, and then you just kick them back into the octopus’s mouth.
: Once we finish the third dungeon, everyone just kinda vanishes.
: “Stop it!”
: “It’s alright.. it’s for the good of the island.”
: “Stop this! I can defeat this dragon, I just need more time!”
: “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?”
: “Friend, why do you forget me so quickly?”
: “Wait.. the swamp?”
: “Yes… I know that you wish to help these poor people… but they refuse to listen to you, right?”
: “They will be their own undoing, not this “Dragon”.”
Typo Counter: 111
: I think that’s the longest we’ve gone without a typo since the beginning of the game.
: “Uhh.. no thanks. I’ll handle this.”
: “Wait - think about this! …Now.. are you sure?”
: “Yes, go away!”
: “…So be it…”
: “If I can assemble it into something useful.. I think it’s part of a…”
: “Ha! I know what this can be used for! I need some space to build this. To the beach!”
: This starts what is, without a doubt, the most tedious bossfight of them all, save maybe the “Missing” boss.
: There’s a spot on the dragon’s back where you can use the archaeology skill to dig.
: Doing that opens up a staircase you can use to get into this room, where you just walk up and whack the heart until it dies.
: Every couple of seconds, the dragon will roar and Roy will come to a dead stop. While it looks like we just opened a new staircase, we actually have to jump out of the hole.
: This puts us back near where all the villagers were. The dragon will rain fire down every few seconds that does a shitload of damage.
: We then have to walk all the way down to the beach, launch out of the cannon again, and then walk over to the dragon’s leg. This is much more complex than it seems.
: Walking off the south side of this screen will deposit Roy back on the island. To get to the leg, you have to exit via a small number of pixels in the bottom-right, near the right-side wing.
: This next screen is one of the most dickish things in this game. Notice where Roy is on the screen here.
: If you don’t walk all the way over to the right on that last screen before going up, you walk right into the holes when the screen transitions. Apart from some mermaids, this heart is just as easy to take down as the last one.
: All those black marks are where the dragon’s fireballs hit.
: On the third run, we have to go back to the leg again and then us that to get to the head. Don’t ask me how this makes sense, I don’t know.
: Oh, right. Remember that screen with the instakill bomb? I set that off by accident trying to dodge a fireball.
: We now have to jump off the dragon a THIRD time and run all the way back across most of the island.
: This time, for whatever reason, there’s a staircase in the dragon’s head.
: “What the Hell IS this!?”
: “It’s a ship?”
: “Why- Why do this to these people?”
: “Inventory? I see. You sell them as slaves don’t you?”
Typo Counter: 112 (Theses? What are you, a Warhammer ork?)
: “No! I’m putting an end to this right now. Hang in there Madam!”
: This phase of the fight is.. extremely bad, both in terms of coding and design. The boss will block in whatever direction Roy is facing, and then will “attack” with his sword - he can’t actually hit you.
: The only things that can are cannonballs that shoot out of the three holes in the wall.
: What you’re supposed to do is get him to attack, and then run around to the other side and hit him to knock him off the platform. This took me a good few minutes to accomplish due to how slowly Roy moves.
: I thought this was a ripoff of Broken Age (as bad as that game was) but then I realized that Broken Age came out in 2014. The Allansons beat them to the punch, though I’m sure they got it from somewhere.
: “The Dragon was a machine!”
: “Yes clearly. But I was referring to my brother.”
: “Ah. So it is.”
: “Greetings Roy Guarder!”
: “Ceila? How did you find me?”
: “A man dressed in green and gold came to me in a dream. He told me of the storm. I came looking for you Roy, when I ran into Bivare again.”
: “I’m glad you came Ceila. You see there are some girls here who would like to go home, only… somebody blasted this ship full of holes and I don’t know how to fly it anyway.”
: “Oh! Coming!”
: “I knew you could do it!”
: “Hey, I never got your name…”
: “I am Keilani. You should have asked me before.”
: “Yeah, I was distracted. Sorry.”
: “It’s okay. I gave up my name before the ceremony. But thanks to you I have it back. I am Keilani again!”
: “That’s sort of strange, you know that?”
: “You must be exhausted. Go get some rest. Tomorrow we celebrate!”
: “Celebrate?”
: “You defeated the Dragon God! You were also reunited with your friends! We have so much to celebrate!”
: “Yeah… we do.”
: “There will be dancing and music. Oh… Roy?”
: “Yeah?”
: “Could you meet me by the [statue of the Queen of the sea] tomorrow, before the ceremony?”
: “Sure.”
: “Oh, and Roy?”
: “Yes?”
: “Don’t blame the islanders for the sacrifices. It’s not their fault.”
: Such riveting fucking dialog. I’m already asleep. I am doing this LP in my sleep.
: “If that’s how you feel.”
: “It is! It really is! I love them, and they love me. I’m getting tired myself now. See you tomorrow.”
: “You’re embarrassing me!”
: “Don’t joke! I’m going to miss you. Perhaps it’s only because you saved my life twice..”
: “Oh, I’m sure that’s all there is to it!”
: This entire thing feels like it was written to be like Indiana Jones without realizing that Indiana Jones has a lot of issues.
: “Would you marry me Roy Guarder? Hahaha!”
: “Alas, I am already married Keilani.”
: “No you aren’t.”
: “Huh?”
Typo Counter: 113
: “People are married for as long as each is still alive.”
: That’s horrible grammar, but not a typo.
: “When I met you… I’m just not sure you even CAN be married, Roy.”
: He can’t be because he’s a fucking cardboard cutout with no personality beyond occasionally spouting stupid one-liners.
: “Oh no! I’ve upset you.. look.. I didn’t mean it! -I’m sorry! That was so stupid of me!”
Typo Counter: 114
: “Everyone left is alive and well… let’s enjoy ourselves on your last day here!”
: “Yeah, I’d like that.”
: Now we get to sit here for like.. probably four minutes while this song that is a total ripoff of Ballad of the Wind Fish plays. You can still move around during it.
: Oh, and PhisPhace is somehow here. I checked all the NPC dialog and there’s no typos in it.
: “You’ll need somebody to carry your items now, right?”
: “Oh… yeah…”
: “Well… as you know I’m on a journey.. to help people and see interesting things. The thing is, all the interesting stuff happens around you two!”
: “So I’ll carry your stuff, but only if you take me with you.”
: “Can I borrow the color shard you carry when I give my presentation?”
: “Of course! …If you give it back when you are finished.”
: “Sounds good to me!”
: “I do have other things to do on my journey but.. when you want me.. Bivare, play the [Clay Flute] using the item bag button to call me!”
: “Great!”
: Next time, it’s back to sidequests. We might encounter a game-breaking bug or two (if the guide and Steam forums posts are correct) and hopefully a couple of softlocks because boy do I love softlocks.