Isn't This How People from Quebec Look? Let's (Not) Look Outside

[Timrod]

Summary

: Huh? What? What was I doing again?

: …Sam?

: I think he’s in some kind of self-induced fugue state. His mind’s cleaning up the mess, as it were.

: It happens every time he thinks about clowns.

: How did I get here? Oh, right! Sybil, do you want to play this terrible anime JRPG I bought off a guy in a fedora?

: Sam, how much did you pay for that?

: $120. He tried to buy it back and then tried to give me his katana, but the katana’s name was Cat Piss in Japanese so I didn’t want it.

: Sam, do you know what emulation is?

: Emulation?

: This is how I imagine this route going. We’re going to start from Day 7 and do nothing but waste time playing Massacre Princess.

: Actually, let’s go do that superboss first. We can also take a break to give Jeanne her laundry back and talk to Pierre.

: Swordmaster Comatus is a reference to The Master from Paper Mario 64, who was an optional superboss.

: Before we fight him, we need to ask him a question. He won’t respond to most of these.

: “Who were you before?”

: “What’s important is who I am now.”

: “I want to know!”

: “My past is hazy. The memories are faint. A mystery even to me.”

: “Nothing at all? Are you sure?”

: “…”

: “…”

: Typical yoga idiots. They’re all in it for chicks. Or twinks. Or both.

: I do yoga classes twice a week for the exercise and stretching.

: My wife tried to have me take one of those once. She’s much better at it than I am.

: “I always wanted to try yoga.”

: “Perhaps I can teach you, if you are worthy.”

: This is the only time I think you can see this portrait. There’s one on the wiki where his cap is up and you can see he has a third eye.

: We need to do this in order to unlock something after the fight.

: Comatus has 3,000 HP. All of his attacks have a chance to freeze and cause bleed. If you have the 8-Ball, USE IT.

: The good news is that even with 50% stun resistance, Audrey manages to stun him pretty consistently with Explosive Shot.

: After his first attack, Comatus begins his yoga routine with Tadasana. Tadasana gives him an 80% chance to counterattack when hit, and reduces incoming damage by 20%. Every time Comatus switches poses, he heals a little and purges all debuffs that aren’t Pain.

: If you do yoga, you might know Tadasana better as “mountain pose”. It’s one of the most basic poses there is, and it’s used as a base to get into other poses.

: Why don’t we all stand up and do that for a bit? You know, just to do it.

: Fuck that. Yoga’s a weird cum cult.

: It is time to call in the 8-Ball.

: GRANT ME POWER!

: Comatus has a four-hit attack that can potentially get really nasty if he manages to hit everyone. Fortunately, we have Nitro Boost.

: Because the 8-Ball increases all stats by 50%, the party barely takes damage.

: Once his HP goes to around 75%, Comatus switches poses to Virabhadrasana, which gives him a 50% boost to attack but increases his damage taken by 50%.

: You see Virabhadrasana in yoga classes all the time, but they usually call it “Warrior Pose” or “Warrior 1”.

: You can chain it into Warrior 2, but I can’t because my wings get in the way so I have to modify. Warrior 3 is another option if you want to do a one-legged pose.

: Warrior 1 is also a really easy yoga pose. Let’s get up and do that one too. It gives you a nice stretch in your legs.

: Oh, the Shiva pose. He came up with that and started showing it off to everybody thinking it made him look like a badass. Then I punched him in the gut.

: Papineau crits him for over 1/10th of his HP.

: And then Audrey does this.

: This puts Comatus into Phase 3, where he switches poses to Vrksasana. Vrksasana regenerates 15% of his HP every turn at the cost of lowering his attack, defense, ballistics, and bullet defense by 50%.

: Vrksasana is better known as “tree pose”. It’s a graceful one-leg pose and is super easy to do. Just make sure if you can’t get your foot that high that you don’t press it against your knee.

: Let’s get up and do this one too. It’s fairly easy, though you might get a little wobbly like I did.

: “You are a.. formidable opponent. I bequeath you my blade. You’ve earned it.”

: Because of the 8-Ball, we don’t see him use his other two poses. The next pose is Urdhva Hastasana, which makes Comatus attack twice a turn. In exchange, he takes double damage.

: Urdhva Hastasana is “upward tree pose”. It’s Mountain Pose except you put your arms straight up. You can combine it with a side bend to do Half Moon Pose and it’s a really nice stretch for your core.

: Make sure to watch your wings and your tail so they don’t hit anyone or knock anything over.

: I think that’s a you problem.

: Go ahead and do that one too - you can throw it in with your Tadasana if you haven’t done that yet.

: His final pose is called Astavakrasana, sometimes called “8-Angle Pose”. This makes his attacks (not his skills) hit twice and also boosts accuracy and crit chance by 50%, which negates Painful Stab and Nitro Boost. In this pose, he takes 15% of his current HP in damage a turn.

: I would not recommend doing that last one. I actually tried it only to discover my legs do not go that way.

: I can’t either because of my wings.

: I won’t because I value my balls.

: I can do it easy.

: You don’t have bones in your legs.

: The Whisperblade has four break stages and can’t be repaired. It gets stronger every time it breaks.

: The reason it turns black is a reference to the Comatus mushroom, which turns black and dissolves very quickly once it reaches maturity.

: It’s also currently bugged. A few weapons (like the jawbone club we got off Baby Teeth) are meant to inflict status effects but instead provide protection against them. The Whisperblade is supposed to do both bleed and freeze, but only inflicts freeze while providing bleed resist.

: This is also true of the Hellsword, Azure Greatsword, Combat Knife, and the Ocular Tetherblade we saw last update. I didn’t know this until just now and it explains a lot.

: This goes on Leigh, even though there’s not much we can fight with it at this point apart from maybe the Furnace and Boiler Beast.

: Comatus shows up at the basement camp the day after you beat him. If you asked him about doing yoga..

: “And although the past is the past, I admit that I still draw strength from that practice. It may have even helped me retain my sanity as I.. became what I am now.”

: “You have the countenance of a warrior, but I feel many things weigh heavily on your mind. Perhaps those teachings could help. My new form is somewhat incongruent for its practice now, but it would gladden me if I could still teach someone to do it in my stead. Are you interested?”

: It’s funny to me that Sam would need to learn to use Mountain Pose, because chances are you do it several times a day without realizing.

: This unlocks all of Comatus’s yoga poses for Sam. They all start by using Tadasana, and then you have to go through chains of poses to get to the later ones like Astavakrasana.

: Tadasana is definitely useful by itself, but the other poses take too long to set up when Sam has a more important job in the form of Nitro Boost and Painful Stab.

: I reloaded after fighting Comatus only because we aren’t going to need the Whisperblade for this ending. Let’s check on Pierre.

: “Hello again my scaredy friend! I think maybe I could help you a bit. So, are you ready?”

: “Today, we’ll talk about clowns. My favorite topic!”

: “…how are you feeling? Maybe you’ve had enough for a day. I think you’re getting used to the subject matter a little! How encouraging!”

: “Tomorrow, we’ll try something a little more scary still. We’ll take a big step.”

: Tomorrow we’ll see Pierre’s true form. Let’s go back to the apartment and play Massacre Princess.

You play as Rush Braver, a spiky-haired youth who practices swordsmanship in his spare time. His best friend, Blast Armbrust, is the strongest hunter in the village.

: I think I’ve told this story once before, but I played on a World of Warcraft private server once and was farming achievements because I was bored.

: The server was mostly South Americans during the hours I could play, so I got in a group with a bunch of Brazilians to farm a raid I had never done before.

: I have no idea what I’m doing, and the raid leader looks at me and says two words: “MAGE BRUST”. I took those words to heart and.. I’m gonna be real, we absolutely failed that raid achievement.

: We can put in a new name for Blast, but we’re doing this all in one update so I’ll go with the default.

: The dialog window changes during Massacre Princess.

: “The Cave of Trials? Isn’t that dangerous, Blast?”

: “No!”

: I love this exchange. Just “No!”

Rush and Blast set off for the cave in search of a boar. Predictably, the cave is filled with all kinds of creatures that you have to fight in turn-based combat. Eventually, you find a boar. It’s a tough boss fight.

: Massacre Princess isn’t meant to be any one anime or JRPG, but this is absolutely the part at the start of Final Fantasy 8 where Squall has to fight Ifrit in a cave.

: It’s also the next part of FF8 where Squall has to fight a T-Rex in the training center in Balamb Garden because Final Fantasy 8 was a lot of things, but one thing it was not was a compelling story.

: “You’re too slow, Rush! You’re not fast enough to pull off a Meteor Strike yet! Stick to the basics!”

: “(Damn… I’m never gonna be good enough..)”

: And this is, of course, the scene in Final Fantasy 10 where Tidus learns the Jecht Shot.

Rush and Blast carry the boar home, but there’s smoke on the horizon…

You race back to the village, dropping the boar. The town is ablaze and bodies litter the streets. A tall man in a strange, black costume with a giant sword grins devilishly as you approach.

: “Wind Crystal? What’s that?!”

: “Forget it, Rush! We’ve gotta get this guy!”

A boss battle begins. Ominous and kind of rockin’ boss music plays. But it doesn’t last long. The strange man takes out Rush and Blast in a single hit each.

: “D-damn you!”

: “R-Rush.. is that you? I.. I can’t see. I don’t think.. I’m gonna.. make it… don’t let them.. have this…”

: “Blast, nooooooooo!”

: This scene is, of course, a reference to Final Fantasy 7 when Sephiroth burns Nibelheim to the ground. There’s also a bit of the scene in FF4 where Kain gets demolished by Titan.

: I was VERY into Final Fantasy until around the end of middle school. Then I realized how utterly stupid it is.

: At least you didn’t run a Sephiroth fan-shrine.

: Unlike most games, Massacre Princess drains morale. On my first playthrough, I marathoned it and never had a problem.

: The next morning, we go visit Pierre first thing. I am not joking when I say we are going to spend the entire day playing Massacre Princess.

You nearly faint at the thought.

: “You can do it! I believe in you!”

You approach it. Him. Pierre. You hold out your hand. And you feel something round, cold, and rubbery.

: “Hee hee hee! You’re making great progress. I’m proud of you! I think tomorrow, we can up the ante a little further.”

: I want to go get Lyle’s D&D set, so let’s go see Jeanne while we’re down there.

: Jeanne is now a giant hydra and most of her heads are insane. We need to kill them all off.

: At this point in the game, they’re not much of a challenge. You’re meant to do this a lot earlier.

: Alternatively, you can see Jeanne’s body right across from her. You can kill it to kill all of the heads, but this also kills Jeanne.

: There are certain spots where Jeanne will lift her neck for you.

: “Y-you’re back. Uhm.. things went f-from bad to worse. It’s over. They’re all gone. Thank you SO much.”

: “I don’t know how I can repay you. You saved me from hell. For now, this is all I have. Take it.”

: She gives us an elixir.

: “I need some time alone, I think. I need to.. process this. Sorry. I don’t mean to kick you out or anything. You did so much for me.”

: “Can you please, uh.. check on me tomorrow? I just need some time.”

: “Oh, Mazes and Wizards? I actually used to play that with some college friends.”

: Audrey is one of two characters who have played Mazes & Wizards before, not counting Lyle.

: “Well, I like video games…”

: “RPGs feel very different around a table with f-friends! It might be fun to p-play again… it’s hard to keep a group together for a full campaign.”

: “I haven’t been able to run a game in years. I have a full campaign and a lot of notes, but my last group only played two sessions before it petered out.”

: I have never gotten to play a custom D&D or Pathfinder campaign.

: “They didn’t even get to meet the bad guy! So much work wasted..”

: “We should play it. Now.”

: “Like.. TODAY? I can’t do that!!! We can’t do that. That’s… I’m not ready! I.. you… I don’t think I’m in the headspace t-to play make believe about wizards at a time like this.”

: “Some escapism could do us good.”

: “…maybe you’re right. …okay! I mean, there’s five of us. We have enough to play. I still have all of my campaign notes, but I need to prepare a bit.”

: We can’t play until after.. I think it’s 6PM. Keep in mind that when you play, you will play with whoever is in the active party.

: The setups I’d recommend are Joel, Papineau, and Sophie (Sophie is a door encounter we haven’t met) and Ernest, Audrey, and Aster.

: Dan (who we also haven’t met yet), Phillippe and the Roaches are all joke characters and are pretty funny if they’re all together.

You start where you left off. Reeling from the destruction of his village and the loss of his best friend, Blast, Rush heads towards the only clue he has: Hyrcania. This is your first time on the world map. It’s gigantic. You wander around fighting grindy battles until you stumble upon a village.

In the village, you meet two mercenaries - a tough soldier with a huge axe named Zonrath and a beautiful Elven sorceress named Himiko. They’ll join you if you help them fight some goblins.

The three of you set out for the goblin cave, which is labyrinthian and filled with all kinds of traps and encounters. After a grueling slog, which requires about an hour of grinding to get through, you reach the boss: the Goblin King.

: Himiko is pretty clearly Deedlit from Record of Lodoss War. I don’t think Zonrath is a reference to anything in particular.

A boss battle commences. Himiko’s water magic, which had so far been useful for taking out goblins, is completely ineffective in the battle. You’re forced to rely on your items, and in the end you just barely win.

With that, the Goblin King falls to the ground, dropping a small blue crystal. Zonrath walks over and picks it up.

: “Huh? What’s thi-”

Suddenly, a giant sword rips through Zonrath’s guts, killing him instantly. He drops the crystal, which is snatched up by the large man in black from before - the man who destroyed your village!

: “Maldark…”

: “I knew you were keeping the crystals from me. Hand me the Wind Crystal and I’ll let you go.”

: “Never! Not after what you did to my village!”

: “So be it.”

A second boss fight ensues. Once again, Maldark easily defeats your party. He smiles smugly as he takes the Wind Crystal from your hand.

: “Pathetic. Your Meteor Strike has barely improved. Farewell.”

The man in black saunters off, leaving you and Himiko to regain your composure in the cave. A single tear trickles down Himiko’s eye as she holds Zonrath’s tattered body.

: Let’s keep going.

: “If we want to find Maldark, we’ll need to go through the Cavern of Calefaction. We’ll need to be careful - fire monsters block the way.”

: “Fire monsters, huh? They’re no match for me!”

: Says the guy who gets his ass kicked every episode.

An old man with a kind of.. squirrel-rabbit thing on his shoulder approaches Rush and Himiko. He wears a wizard’s robe and carries a wooden staff.

: Zalatar is a reference to Tellah from Final Fantasy 4. Rabu is a reference to Poshul from Chrono Cross.

: “Blessing of the Mana Tree be upon you.”

: Secret of Mana, anyone?

: “Rabu!!”

With your new companions, you set off to the Cavern of Calefaction. Unfortunately, the new area has an unbelievable difficulty spike and you’re only able to win two or three encounters before you have to rest at an inn. You spend a miserable hour grinding. Himiko’s water magic is useful, and Zalatar’s buffs and debuffs are kind of nice, but Rabu is totally useless. It almost seems like a joke character.

: We then get jumpscared by this guy at the door. This is Dan. Unfortunately, we missed the best moment he has.

: I feel attacked. Dan is a weird freak who has a bunch of unique mechanics. He has a “viewer count” bar that determines how strong his skills are.

: Dan can either go Calm or Irate to access support or damage skills. Calm lowers his viewer count, while Irate boosts it.

: We’re not going to keep him because I fucked something up and had to reload, but his best moment is if you bring him to the roof. Dan has a skill called “Poll Viewers”, which is the only way to scan enemies.

: Because he never stops streaming, this means that if you bring him to the roof, you can use Poll Viewers and it will cause his chat to mutate. Dan’s ending in the Promise route is that he gets banned from Twitch for exposing people to the Visitor.

: He also has a quest to retrieve his “NeoDuo”, which makes me feel even more attacked because I own a consolized Neo-Geo.

After a brief grinding session, you’re finally strong enough to attempt the Cavern of Calefaction. As expected, it is incredibly difficult, even after gaining several levels, and the layout is really confusing.

: “Rabu Rabu??”

The earth shakes… red stalactites fall from the cavern roof. A flaming red form erupts from a fissure and charges toward you!

: “No.. it’s the Flame Golem… I had hoped we could avoid this…”

A tough battle ensues. You fight a giant flame thing that can use an area fire attack that nearly wipes you out. Himiko’s water magic saves the day, but Rabu is as useless as always. When the flame golem dies, a red crystal falls from its chest. Zalatar leans over to pick it up, but..

: “Maldark!”

: “So you’ve retrieved another of the crystals for me. You’re quite the useful pawns, you know.”

: “I’ll show you who’s a pawn.. Meteor St-”

: “No, rush! You mustn’t! Run now. I’ll stop Maldark. We have business to discuss.”

: “A-are you sure, Zalatar?”

: “I am sure.”

: “Rabu..”

The party runs off through the cave exit, leaving Zalatar alone with Maldark. Maldark approaches the old man, a smug grin on this face.

: “Always one to play the hero, aren’t you, father? Your heroics won’t save the day this time.”

: Tetsugoro Kusabi would be a way better JRPG villain than this.

: “Tetsu? Hah hah hah! How long has it been since someone called me that? Enough with the pleasantries. Hand me the fire crystal or join mother in Hell.”

: “Never!”

You watch a cutscene of the two battling. Zalatar is able to hold his own with magic, but alas - it’s not enough. Maldark cuts him down with his giant sword and takes the crystal from his body. Maldark confidently struts away from his fallen father, glimmering red energy coursing throughout his body. The screen fades to black.

: This is very obviously the scene from the end of The Last Jedi where Adam Driver kills Harrison Ford. I hated that movie.

: At this point I remember that Phillippe is hungry, so we feed him one last time.

: We did it! We saved Phillippe!

: “So.. um.. can I.. can I crash here for a while? I’ve never been - uh, I mean, I haven’t been on my own in a long time! I used to be, uh, surrounded by friends. It’s hard out there for a little moth!”

: Let’s talk to him again because there’s some more dialog. I don’t know how Francis Coulombe (I realized too late I’ve been spelling his name wrong the entire LP) was so on point for Phillippe, but he was.

: “Oops! I-I mean, um… even moths need a little ‘me time’ sometimes! Hee hee!”

: If we insist on talking to him..

: “It sure is a good thing I killed the princess.”

: “Ohhhh, definitely! Thank you SOOOOooooOOOO much for freeing me from her evil clutches! Now I get to be a happy widdle moth again, and not the magnificent viceroy of eternal fungal glory!”

: Phillippe is in his own personal hell and we are his tormentor. Just wait until we try and play D&D with him.

: If I was writing this, I would have had a scene post-Fungal Lair where if you talk to Pierre after Sam is spored at least once, it does something to his brain where he can actually recover from his coulrophobia.

: Sam is now all in on clowns and sees Phillippe being depressed and goes “I know what’ll help!” and brings him to Pierre. It ends with Phillippe begging for death.

: “Huh? Princess? What princess?!”

The team runs outside and finds a lone swordsman battling hordes of demons. He has long, black hair and a cool scar over one eye. The tail of his badass trench coat billows behind him.

: Blatant reference to Auron in Final Fantasy 10. My favorite part is how the portrait does not match the description at all.

Together with the swordsman, you fight wave after wave of demons and skeletons. After a grueling battle, the village is saved.

: “You there. Your swordsmanship has potential, but your timing is off. I’m Musashi, a travelling ‘ronin’ from the East. It seems the Princess torments even this land..”

: “The Princess? Who’s that?”

: “An evil demoness who nearly destroyed the world 999 years ago. She was sealed away in the Tower of Hyrcania, but her minions keep appearing throughout the land.”

: “Hyrcania? Huh.. that’s where we’re going. We should team up.”

: “The Tower of Hyrcania is north of here. We can get there by su-”

: This seems a little ridiculous even for a 90s JRPG.

: I like how they all die before they can become annoying.

: “Rabu!!!”

: Except that one for some reason.

: “I searched long and hard for the bearer of the Earth Crystal, but never expected him to be here…”

: “I.. I never got to tell him I loved him…”

: “You bastard, Maldark! I’ll get you this time!”

: “I have no interest in fighting, child. Time is short. I must make haste to Hyrcania before it’s too late…”

: We play one more time, but there’s no dialog, just a generic message. This puts us exactly halfway through Massacre Princess, which takes two full days to finish.

: We run into Harriet at the door. Harriet is Sophie’s mother, and Sophie is another door encounter party member.

: Sophie uses a slingshot and marbles, which can also be equipped to Joel as his only means of ranged attack.

: I’ve never used Sophie at all. She’s also odd in that she counts as a party member for rank points, but if you meet Harriet and choose to let Sophie go with her, she no longer does.

: There’s a chance Harriet is mutated, in which case you can no longer see her shoes and her dress is longer. If you give Sophie to mutated Harriet, Sophie dies.

: This is where I fucked up. I forgot to save, and had the wrong party. I want to do this with Audrey, Ernest, and Aster for screenshot purposes.

: Because all of the dialog has been dumped, I think what I’m going to do is an update that is just the Mazes & Wizards campaign as if every character is participating.

: Instead, let’s end the day. We have a lot of stuff left to do.

: We can visit Jeanne the next day, and the dialog auto-advances which is really annoying. She’ll try to hug Sam.

: We are 2 for 2 on bad hugs (Fred Who Bites and Joel) so far.

She hesitates, but then decides to try it. She sways her sinuous body towards you and awkwardly attempts a quick greeting hug, keeping her myriad claws away from your skin. You get uncomfortably close to the zipper-like line of fangs running down her body.

You can’t help but think back to the scenes of horror you witnessed when you fought her other heads. The people that were torn apart in jaws just like these.

From this close, she could disappear you in an instant. Nobody would ever know what happened to you.

: I’m sure Leigh and Audrey would kill her before that happened.

: Let’s give her back her laundry that we’ve been carrying around for over a week.

: “You.. what?”

: "…My laundry…?’

: “Umm.. err.. I forgot about this. I… Th-”

: “You.. God. Why am I even laughing? Hee hee. This is horrible. God. Ugh. Okay. I’m done. Ooof.”

: “I feel like I’m holding my old life in my hands, and it looks so foreign to me already. God. I shouldn’t be laughing.”

: “But you standing there and handing the basket over… Man. I think I really needed that. Thank you so much.”

: “What am I going to do with these now? Can I wear clothes at all anymore? Well, I can figure this out later. This really cheered me up. Maybe I’ll be all right after all.”

: “Oh. Before I forget. I did say I’d pay you fifty dollars for this.. here! As promised!”

: This isn’t the last scene with Jeanne. If you come back the next day…

: “So how do I look? Not bad, huh?”

: “Suits you well!”

: “Come on. Have you seen a more stylish worm-snake-eel-hydra thing before?! Heh heh. Don’t think you have.”

: “Well, as for the rest of me, I think I’ll need a tarp. Or some bed sheets. Maybe a big tent would do.. I"ll figure something out.”

: You can probably see why Jeanne is a favorite among fanartists. Let’s go talk to Pierre now.

: I know he’s probably secretly hideous, but I’d hug him.

You feel so very ill.

: “If you can hug a clown, you can do anything! Come on! Bring it in! Show me all you’ve learned!”

You give Pierre a hug. Something feels weird about him. His body seems completely inhuman. Weird moving lumps. You feel a set of teeth at his back, under the robe. Limbs growing in all the wrong places. What the hell is he. What the hell is this? What are you doing. Are you in danger? Is this a trap? Will he eat you? You are in danger.

: “I’m so proud of you! You are really putting in the effort. Look at you, can you believe it? You just hugged a clown! Incredible! You only yelped once! and it was more of a whimper, really.”

: “You will never fear clowns again. That’s my promise! I can’t wait! I’m so excited!”

: Let’s never come back.

: “Alright! Here goes. It’ll feel really good to finally get to stretch out a bit. Can you close your eyes for just a moment? It’s a little embarrassing to do in front of somebody.”

: The screen goes black, and you can hear honking noises interspersed with what sounds like bones snapping.

: “Okay. Uh. Hang on. Agh! I’m stuck! Hang on. Wait, no. I got it. I’m fine. Alright! You can look! Be strong!”

: If you don’t want to know what Pierre looks like, I blurred the picture.

: “Phew! Alrighty then! I don’t have enough room to fully come out here, but this will do for now. Baby steps!”

: “Sooo… how are you feeling? You look a bit.. off.”

: We get an entire menu of “KILL IT”. Pierre has 1200 HP, but we only need to take out around half of that to end the fight.

: You can’t die to him, as he’ll end the fight and heal you before you would game over.

: “Wait, what? What’s wrong?! Hey!!”

: “Did I do something wrong? I’m so sorry! I was really excited to finally show someone my real face!”

: “I’M NEVER SLEEPING AGAIN!”

: “Ah, well. I mean, you didn’t run away. And you’re still here! I’m starting to suspect I don’t have the know-how to help someone overcome an extreme phobia. Do you think it helped a little, at least?”

: “MAYBE A LITTLE BIT.”

: “To celebrate, here is a little gift from your clown friend! Maybe embodying the thing you fear could help you a little bit. Something to try!”

: “Well, good luck conquering your fears! I think I’ve done everything I could..”

: The Clown Wig and Nose is a head slot item that gives a ton of different status effect skills. Pie Throw in particular is great with Nitro Boost and Painful Stab.

: Giant Revolver is a weird skill that has a 1/7 chance of doing a bunch of gun damage. Any time it misses, the chance goes up, but it resets once the battle ends.

: Let’s finish Massacre Princess.

: “Rush, before we go any further, there’s something I need to tell y-”

: “Rabu Rabu!”

A beautiful ninja with long, brown hair and a pair of sai backflips from the top of the tower and lands before you. She raises her weapons.

A pretty easy boss fight ensues. She creates multiple copies of herself, but the real version is the only one with a shadow. You win after a few minutes.

: Mei is a reference to Shadow in Final Fantasy 6.

: “Huff… huff.. s-so strong.. maybe you truly are the one who can end this tower’s curse. I.. I must join you!”

With Mei in the group, you begin your ascent of the tower. It’s an insufferable teleporter puzzle that takes a lot of trial and error. After at least an hour, you make it to the top.

: This is a reference to Kefka’s Tower at the end of Final Fantasy 6, which was a teleporter maze.

: “With the four elemental crystals, I can finally..”

: “Maldark!”

: “You again? Why did you follow me? There’s not much time left - the seal will soon be broken!”

: “Seal? What are you talking about? I don’t care about that, I just want revenge!”

You battle Maldark again, but this time you’re on more equal footing thanks to your grinding. The four crystals are enemies, and each time you destroy one, Maldark gets weaker. You finally shatter all four and win.

: This is, of course, Culex in Super Mario RPG.

: “Wh-what have you done?! You destroyed the elemental crystals! You’ve.. you’ve..”

: “Rabu?!?!”

The tower quakes and pieces of masonry fall from the ceiling. Mei calls you over to a balcony.

: “Quick! Get on my airship! There’s no time!”

: This is another FF6 reference. At the halfway point of FF6, you fight Kefka on a floating island before he destroys the world.

: Once you fight him, the island self-destructs and you have to extract using your airship. If you have Shadow, he goes off on his own. You have to wait until the timer is almost up in order for him to make it back to the ship so you can save him.

You run to a conveniently-positioned airship on the balcony, but you’re not fast enough. Maldark swings his sword and unceremoniously gibs Mei into a thousand pieces.

: “Mei! Dammit.. my Meteor Strike wasn’t fast enough!”

: We’re doing nothing today except playing Massacre Princess, so let’s keep going.

You pilot your fancy airship around the world map, checking out all the cool new places you unlocked. You discover Golden Valley, a casino town filled with minigames. You spend some time playing minigames until you’ve won some overpowered equipment. The best game is Rabu Racer, and the worst is definitely the skateboarding half-pipe.

You ride a Ferris wheel with Himiko. At the very top, she turns to you.

: This is, of course, the Gold Saucer from Final Fantasy 7 (and later the Manderville Gold Saucer in FF14).

: “Rush.. there’s… something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while.”

: “You fool.. do you know what you’ve done? By destroying the elemental crystals, you’ve freed the Massacre Princess Catholicon!”

: “What?!?!”

: “I was using the crystals to seal her for another thousand years! She’ll be free at.. the stroke of midnight! We don’t have much time!”

: “Damn… but how do I know I can trust you, Maldark?”

: “You’ll just have to take that risk. Come on, we need to take your airship to Celestion, her evil sky palace.”

: “Rabu Rabu!!!”

: “Come on, there’s no time to spare!”

: The next three plays don’t have any interesting dialog or references, apart from possibly one to Shadow Hearts.

You navigate your way through a tiresome dungeon with lots of pits. Every time you fall through a pit, you have to start back at the beginning. Finally, you reach the Princess’s throne room.

: “Spare me the tough talk. What’s your plan, Massacre Princess?”

: “So.. you haven’t figured it out yet? You never told him, Maldark?”

: “N-no.. you.. you can’t say it…”

: The ending is that he’s Steven Universe?

: I can’t believe Rush was Shadow the Hedgehog all along.

: “Wh-what?! But how can this be? I…”

: “I..I’m sorry, Rush. I should have told you…”

: “Rabu… Rabu!?!”

: “Wrong, Massacre Princess!”

: “Wh-what!?”

: “Rush may be your son.. but there aren’t four elemental crystals..”

: “N-no…”

: This is a reference to the moment Hazbin Hotel jumps the shark.

: “NOOOOOOO! You’ll pay for this, Himiko!”

A boss battle begins; as you fight the Massacre Princess, the background warps through time and space. Stars and planets explode in the distance as energetic anime prog-rock plays.

: You need to play one more time to finish it, so I’ll stitch it together.

: We get a door encounter with the evil version of Morton. Morton is the final party member we haven’t seen yet. He is a perfectly normal Canadian cricket.

: He trades for Junk, and needs 14 to join you.

Rabu dives in front of the black wave, absorbing the blast in Rush’s place.

: “Rabu! Noooo!!!”

: “…Rabu…”

The Massacre Princess fires two more black waves, this time targeting Maldark and Himiko. They disintegrate instantly.

: This probably isn’t meant to be a reference, but it comes alarmingly close to Persona 4’s final boss.

: “Maldark! Himiko… I never got to say…”

: “Blast…?! But.. but you’re gone…?”

: “I’ll never be gone as long as you keep me alive in your heart!”

: “Come on, Rush! Show that Massacre Princess how strong you’ve gotten!”

: “You’re so much stronger now, Rush. I always believed in you.”

: “Don’t let my death have been in vain, Rush. Believe in yourself..”

: These characters all had like three lines before dying.

: “Rush! I know you can do it!”

: “Rabu! Rabu rabu!!!”

: “This is it, Rush. Humanity’s last stand. There’s no second chance here.”

: “Rush.. do it.. for me.”

: “I.. I can do it. I believe in myself. I HAVE to do it!”

You won. You beat the game. It’s over, and yet you don’t want it to be. You feel like you’ll never be the same again. You wonder.. the {Meteor Strike}… could YOU perform such a feat? Would you even dare to?

: We go through the same final boss rush as we did in the Promise ending, except this time we don’t tell Jasper about the promise.

: Sam winds up in space, with the Exalted Four crashing back down to Earth and dying. This is how both of the 1.0 endings worked.

: …Wait, the Visitor could fix these people the whole time?

: We could talk to the Visitor - that’s how the original game ends. But you know what? We can kill it.

: We need to last around 3 rounds with the Visitor. I believe there’s also a certain amount of damage you have to do. The Visitor is very weak to the magnum.

The Visitor: I feel something new. I feel anger. I have never felt this before. I don’t like it. I’m going to make you disappear.

: Normally, Meteor Strike takes 999 stamina to use. At this exact moment, it instead switches to 1.

: The Visitor hits Sam for 9 million damage. Leigh, Papineau, and Audrey are nowhere to be found.

: “N-no.. this can’t be it.. this can’t be.. the end.”

: Blast shows up and revives Rush. Our goal is to stay alive long enough for Rush to use Meteor Strike again.

: “Blast? But.. but how? I thought you were gone!”

: “I’ll never be gone as long as you keep me alive in your heart!”

: Rush has two useful skills. Hero’s Will is a 200 HP self heal that boosts Attack and Ballistics by 50%. Rushing Wind does a lot of shock damage.

: Blast has Beat Down (high single-target damage, hits 4 times), Demon Haymaker (single powerful attack, 80% stun chance) and Demonic Rage, which works like Leigh’s insanity.

: Each of Rush’s party members is loosely based one of Sam’s - Blast is Hellen, a character we never met.

: The Visitor kills Zonrath in one hit. Zonrath has Guillotine Chop (high single-target crush damage), End of Yggdrasil (even higher single-target crush damage, but costs 80 stamina) and Warrior’s Rest, which restores his HP and stamina one time.

: Zonrath is Papineau.

: Zalatar has a bunch of spells that do varying amounts of damage (based on his Ballistics) and a self-buff that increases his Ballistics by 250%. He is the Roaches.

: Musashi has three skills that do varying amounts of single-target slashing damage and inflict bleed. He is Leigh.

: The Visitor can mutate party members, which changes their skills.

: All of Rabu’s skills are useless. Rabu Cake actually heals the Visitor, Rabu Dance does nothing, and Rabu Bonk is the same as his physical attack.

: Rabu Poison inflicts poison, and is the only skill you should use. Torment Beam does a lot of damage, but..

: I think we should throw him into the Vivisection Pit. Rabu is the Rat Baby.

: No.

: Mei has the ability to hide, and then a very high-damage attack that hits three times which she can only use when hidden. She is Sophie.

: Himiko has a skill that reduces all damage by 50% and provides a heal over time. She also has a skill that pierces all defense. She is.. kinda a mix of Xaria and Dan.

: And finally, Zondark. His skills are outright named after Magus’s skills from Chrono Trigger. He’s the only one to not be one of Sam’s party members.

: “I’ve always believed in you! And.. and there’s one more thing.. I’ve always..”

: “Save it for later! There’s one more thing I gotta do!”

: “My friends believe in me. It’s time to show them they were right. Meteor… STRIIIIIIIIIIIKE!”

: We did it! We killed the Visitor! Sybil won’t need to worry about the promise anymore.

: What adorable little sparklefurs!

: And that’s all there is. We’ve done the True Final Ending, which is only worth 1000 ranking points. Except..

The gamer closes the game, pulls up the wiki and begins the solemn task of adding a new page for this ending. Grimly, with a heavy heart, he labels the page correctly as “Final True Ending” and begins writing out the events that just transpired.

For some strange reason, he decides to leave the final four messages of the ending out of the article. “They don’t need to know,” he thinks. “It’s better this way.” The gamer is correct.

: If Rabu uses Torment Beam, his portrait changes every time he does.

: And if you do use it, his ending slide changes.

Rabu never quite recovered from the final battle. He returned to Rabu Village a despondent man, rarely leaving his home. Eventually, he disappeared without a trace.

: Next time, we’ll see what happens if you only have the four correct offerings and don’t make the promise or play Massacre Princess.