Yeah, I noticed that after I posted it. I’ll use a lower resolution for my emulator from now on. I’ll also work on making the ones in this update smaller when I can.
I think I figured it out. If you copy the link to the image itself, as opposed to the imgur page (like in my edited post), the whole thing will appear.
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Yep, that did it. Thanks!
I love that tiny mammoth
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The best apart about the tiny mammoth is that Bonk and Gori weren’t even targeting it. They just had to go after an adult, didn’t they? Also, an update!
Bel
When we last left Bonk, he was looking for his lost friend.
This guy can’t help. Guess it’s up to Bonk’s nose!
Good, now we can start tracking him.
Of course, Gori went straight for the food. But what’s that other smell?
Flowers? Did Gori pick flowers before raiding the food stock? Anyways, it’s pretty obvious what Bonk should do next.
Rob the venerable elder while he’s sleeping! These are the ingredients for the Buzzing Knife, which is the strongest weapon in this chapter. I won’t be making it; I’ll be using the knife for a Smoulder Spear instead. I prefer the speed boost; Bonk needs speed more than he needs attack.
Oh Gori. Why can’t you be smart about your thefts, like Bonk?
Gori. You didn’t even leave the room. It’s obvious that you stole a sneaky snack!
…OK, maybe I owe Gori an apology. We should examine that haystack.
Looks like clubbing small puppies to death didn’t prepare these guys for a real fight.
Unfortunately, our meat thief is too fast to track with sight alone.
Good thing Bonk has at least two senses.
I think these two have the thief under control. Bonk has decided to try diplomacy now that the situation is defused.
Nothing we have is good enough though.
Bonk’s already stolen the elder’s private property, what’s a slab of meat to him?
Our thief doesn’t want to be seen eating, so we need to leave and come back.
…Of course Bonk is smitten with her. The saying is “Thick as Thieves,” after all.
Gori, no! She’s not a threat!
…Gori, no! She’s too big of a threat for you to handle!
OK, this is clearly not a romance for the ages, but overall I think these two are cute.
After Bonk recovers his weird gorilla friend, we’re up to three party members!
Bel’s stat distribution is the opposite of our cave boys’; she’s quick in both body and mind, but she’s very fragile and weak.
Thankfully, I already have some better armor prepared!
On the way back, Bonk’s room is being blocked by a sleeping caveman. Again.
He didn’t just pass out or anything either. He specifically wants to sleep in the least convenient place possible. As a result, we can’t sneak Bel back to safety.
Bonk, I don’t think this is any less suspicious. Also, I love Bel’s look of dignified acceptance before she hides herself. She’s not happy, but she’s also not upset.
Don’t mind me! Just had to go contain my two pets: the gorilla and the walking haystack!
Bonk is the smartest person in the tribe, and that’s horrifying.
Yeah, even if you weren’t smitten like a kitten, giving your guest a bed is more important than giving your pet a bed.
Bonk? You already solved the problem. There’s no need for another idea.
BONK! That’s incredibly forward and more than a little creepy! I mean you’re a literal Neanderthal, but still!
But of course, Bonk’s brilliant(?) plan came apart.
Gori, why are you so shocked? You climbed into bed after Bonk went to sleep!
I know Bonk’s worried about Bel, but I think we should check in on Gori. Make sure he knows we don’t hate him and all that.
What is so attractive about our doorway? Why do people keep sleeping here??
They’re glad to see each other! This relationship might not be as one-sided as I thought. But their reunion is cut short.
I don’t know where the meat went! I had nothing to do with the elder’s missing knife either!
There’s a grumbling sound here; Bel is somehow hungry again.
Bonk is now a man on a mission!
It’s time to revisit the hunting grounds! On the way, I make that Smoulder Spear. I also use the Leather Cord to make a Swish Whip for Bel.
While I’m hunting, I decided to make a GIF of Bonk’s new attack. Bang Bang is weaker than Bash Bash, but it moves the enemy away from Bonk.
Bonk levels up, which gives me another move to show off.
Yeah. This is not the chapter for highbrow jokes. Oo! -Burp- has a wind-up time; it doesn’t go off immediately, but it’s great crowd control.
Gori levels up too, but I’m going to hold off on showing his new move.
This is the way the game expects you to progress; giving Bel a piece of meat leads to this scene. Although this paints their relationship in a transactional light, I think it’s kind of cute and innocent! To me, Bonk doesn’t seem like that much of a creep, he just seems like a cartoon character. However, there’s an alternate scene you can unlock by giving her a piece of equipment she can use.
I’ll just link to the GIF so it doesn’t show up on this page. This is for my sake.
In addition to being weird and out of place, Bel does not equip that item and you don’t get it back. There is really no reason to see that scene ever.
Bonk decides to go back to the training ground, but it looks like something’s up with the guard here. He seems distracted.
Not distracted enough to keep him from smacking Bonk silly.
The red-haired tribe has gone to war.
They even captured the elder! If only he had a weapon he could use to defend himself! Like a knife!
The situation seems dire, but I still have a chance to grind levels if I want. As long as I don’t touch these cars, I’m safe.
I immediately touch the car because this is one of the best sequences in the game.
This group took out our entire tribe, but they’re no match for Bonk’s terrible driving!
Now that Bel’s untied, Bonk’s conscious, and Gori’s not acting like a douchebag, the gang’s ready to defend the tribe!
This is our first encounter with the Ku Tribe! It’s a good thing we just got a good crowd control technique for Bonk, huh? That reminds me, it’s time to show off Gori’s Eeeh! technique.
In addition to having better range than Bonk’s burp, this attack is immediate and creates damage tiles! Once Bonk’s burp goes off, I’ve taken out 4/5 of the enemies in two attacks.
They waste no time retreating.
This leads to what I consider our first boss fight!
Meet Zaki. He’s got confidence to spare and the strength to back it up. I’ve never fought him without top-tier equipment, but the strategy for this fight is easy.
Gori lays down some poison tiles, then he and Bonk work together on keeping Zaki on top of them.
Zaki has four attacks, but I could only capture two of them. Barideen! is the most dangerous because of its range and strength; just a couple hits brought Gori to the edge of death.
Because of the way I have equipment set up, this is a high-damage damage race. Bonk has his second strongest weapon, but no real armor to speak of. Everyone is hitting really hard except Bel, which is why she’s in the back. She has useful techniques, but she hasn’t learned any of them yet.
Our heroes have driven the invaders off, but their victory is short-lived.
The elder does not approve of outsiders. Knife-stealing, though, that never gets acknowledged.
In honor of their brave and goofy defense, our intrepid heroes are sent to die in the wilderness.
Thankfully, these two have better equipment, so they’re ready to at least try and survive.
Will these three survive? Or do they face certai-oh my god they’re already under attack.
I played through this part twice, and this happened both times. It also happened in Yapping Eevee’s LP. I think this encounter is scripted to spawn right next to you, in case you didn’t understand how dangerous the wilds are.
Anyways, these three need to work on finding a campsite and not getting mauled. We’ll see how they survive…next time!
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I really enjoy how fleshed-out the combat mechanics are, with positioning, directional attacks, moving enemies around, and now creating hazardous terrain. It’s nice that the devs put the effort in when the game could’ve just coasted on its “multiple stories across time” thi- wait is that dude wearing a lizard thong???
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I love this chapter just because it puts “caveman slapstick” on the same level of genre pastiche as “kung-fu movie”, “sci-fi horror”, “giant robot anime”, and “cowboy”. I’d never really thought about how prevalent it really is, huh? Even Japan has Jungle King Tar-Chan.
OK, where were we?
Survival
Oh right, Bonk was getting mauled. Surviving in the wilderness is surprisingly easy; just wait until night falls
In the meantime, we need to deal with the local fauna.
I should take this time to explain another part of the combat system that I really like: HP refills at the end of every fight. This, combined with the only limit on techniques being placement and time, puts more emphasis on tactics than strategy. I mention it here because it does kind of interfere with the implied challenge of survival here. It’s hard to believe that these guys are in danger of starving to death since their HP never goes down, but that’s an immersion-break that I can handle.
This is basically a grind session that’s built in to the story. It’s not too bad; levels come quick and with them come new techniques.
First are Bel’s techniques. BonkBonk is a weapon attack, so it is usually stronger. Teh! Teh! is a kick; it’s weaker since she can’t use her weapon, but it’s more disruptive. It doesn’t move the tiger, but I think it can move some smaller enemies.
WaveWave, on the other hand, is what makes Bel a useful party member. In addition to healing party members in the area around her, it increases their strength. I realize that they’re going for a Magikarp-like character, but I really wish she started with this move. Since you can pass turns, there’s no point to using her until she learns this at level 3.
Bel has one other move, but I’ll cover that last. Instead, here’s the only move Gori learned during this session. Uki! -Burp- has a charge time, but it’s Gori’s most damaging area-attack for now.
Anyways, it’s time for the real star of the show. Bonk’s first new move is Zzz Zzz. This is not Pokémon sleep; any attack will wake these moas up. When the enemies are too strong to kill at once, Zzz Zzz is the best crowd control we have.
Push Push reveals that Bonk is an ancient Bulbasaur. This attack has a chance of paralyzing the enemy, but I couldn’t get a GIF of that. I guess the bison was too good at getting free.
Boom Boom reveals that Bonk is also an ancient dragoon. It can’t be used on adjacent enemies, it can only be used on diagonals, and it has a chance of lowering Bonk’s speed. It is still a viable technique.
People make vampire jokes about Gotcha! but I’m pretty sure Bonk is just taking gigantic bites out of these bison. It steals health and stats, but it’s not usually the best option.
RubSticks is incredibly strong and creates a damage tile, but it also has an absurd charge up time. It can still be useful, but I tend to prefer versatility to overwhelming firepower.
Finally, it’s time to show off Bel’s ultimate technique.
Laa Laa is the strongest technique in this chapter, and I’m not sure if that’s because Bel is an amazing singer or if it’s because Bel is the worst singer.
There’s also another exile out here. He’s a craftsman, so we can take our item drops and make better equipment.
Once night falls, we’re supposed to take shelter in this cave.
Here is the post grind load-out for this party. I moved Bel’s swish whip to her off-hand so she can get a speed boost from it. I never did make the wild bag, which is her best weapon. I also made some armor for Bonk; wild armor lowers his speed, which is why I gave him the speed-boosting smoulder spear.
I should also mention that this game has a level cap of 99, but you will never see it. Instead, the game has a soft cap at level 16. All of the main characters who level up will learn their final technique at level 16. If you hit level 20, you are over-levelled for any point in the game. I wanted to give the levels here some context. In most games, level 8 means you haven’t hit the first boss yet. In this game, level 8 means we’re over halfway through the story.
Oh good. Zaki hasn’t given up yet. I was worried he had.
Gori, why do you even put up with Bonk?
…Never mind. Gori clearly doesn’t put up with it.
These two sharing a laugh over beating the shit out of a gorilla is on that thin line between kind of cute and kind of sociopathic.
And now we see how Bonk feels when he’s with Bel: like he’s in a field of beautiful flowers. 
Unfortunately, Bonk’s daydreaming left him completely open to a surprise attack!
Zaki’s not going to make getting Bel back easy.
But whether it’s a point of honor or a point of pride, he insists on fighting Bonk by himself.
This is a grave mistake. Even without the level grinding, Bonk’s got a shiny new suit of wild armor which destroys Zaki’s chances of out-damaging him. He doesn’t stand a chance.
I did get a GIF of his counter attack, and I got a better look at his kick attack.
Counter attacks work like you’d expect, but there are two different kinds of counter techniques. There are techniques that can only be used as counters, like BariBruuun!, but there are also characters that can use regular techniques as counters.
Zaki has one more attack that I haven’t been able to record yet. It’s a flying butt stomp (because of course it is). Hopefully, I’ll be able to record it later in the story.
Three attacks and he’s down. Bonk has really earned that strongman pose.
…Never mind, he can’t even break down this door. What a wimp!
Surely our gorilla friend, who we can easily beat in a fight, can break down this door.
Don’t get made Bonk, he’s just making the best use of your wild armor.
Hah! What a fool! Zaki’s just sitting there, out in the open!
Huh, I wonder why Bel would be worried. She’s helped us fight mammoths, surely she knows we can tak-
Oh. Whoops.
I think Zaki’s happier about pulling a fast one on Bonk than he is about completing his mission.
Meanwhile, Bonk’s having a real dream instead of a daydream.
I’m going north, but going in any direction will move the scene forward.
Yeah, I’d probably wake up after that too.
Depending on your computer’s brightness setting, you might be able to see that we fell into a maze.
Our sense of smell gives us an idea of what we’re in for.
Two of these clouds are meat. We can collect them if we can reach them.
Most of the clouds, however, are these. These are the enemies we’ll encounter down here.
We’ve got two new enemies to deal with: the moles are annoying, but the crocodiles are the real threats.
Gori gets a chance to show off his newest technique. Blum Blum has a chance of lowering his strength and it has a charge up time. I think it does more damage to enemies based on their gender, but I can’t remember if it does more damage to female enemies or male enemies.
This is what we’re looking for. One of the walls smells like arrogance and prehistoric hair-care products.
This wall is weak enough for Bonk to break.
Yeah. OK. Sure. Whatever.
We’re close to the Ku Tribe now. We’ve just got to navigate this cliffside.
There’s one last chance to craft new items.
As an accessory, this increases your evasion of all attacks while lowering your stats. It’s also a multi-use healing item, which is what I’ll be using it for.
Oh good, the guard’s asleep. We can just waltz right in.
Never mind, they’re also guarding the guard. Let’s try and sneak around them.
No entrance but we did find a good lookout point. Looks like they don’t sacrifice humans exclusively.
…MAN that’s a weird villain to have for your slapstick-heavy romance story, isn’t it? It’s not enough for them to be kidnapping people, they’re also a ritual sacrifice cult!
I think Gori’s concerned for his fellow gorillas. He won’t follow us.
I forgot, Gori’s reality-warping only works during cutscenes.
Anyways, this is the only door those guys didn’t interact with. Plus, we saw Zaki come out of here in the opening cutscene. Let’s check it out!
haha whoops
Thankfully, Bonk learned a new attack in the cave Ohh! Ohh! hits the entire screen. It’s most useful for this exact encounter.
oh shucks oh geeze oh shucks oh geeze oh shucks oh geeze
WHOOPS
crapcrapcrapcrapcrap
Those rooms will spawn those guys infinitely until you leave the screen. The encounters aren’t strong, but they can still be annoying.
Look Gori, Bonk tried to ask nicely. Cartoon violence was the only option you left him.
Uh-Oh. I didn’t realize Gori was so popular here.
We’re in the home stretch; the door on the right leads us to one last gauntlet.
This corridor has ten cavemen in it. Kiss of Jealousy plays until we beat all of them. They’re the last thing standing between Bonk and Bel. There’s nothing special about them, so they go down without ever landing a hit on Bonk.
Clearing this room does unlock some bonus content, but I won’t be showing that off until after I finish this chapter. Some of it has tangible benefits, and I want to try and finish this chapter without them.
This is it. Bel is on the other side of that door. We’ll see Bonk make his heroic rescue attempt…next time!
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I can’t not read “Ohh! Ohh!” as the second part of That Noise From Down With The Sickness
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Just fyi one of the gifs is broken. You have to post a direct link to any image for it to show up properly.
e: it shows up in the quote but not the main post itself
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When we last left Bonk, he was seconds away from his daring assault!
Rescue
I wasn’t kidding! Bonk can solo this entire crowd at this point, and the game knows it.
Even Zaki is reluctant to fight Bonk.
As well he should be! Zaki is just as strong as he was last time, but Bonk is even stronger.
[Music Stops]
Unfortunately, Bonk doesn’t quite get the clean victory he was hoping for.
He does use the interruption to free Bel though. Also, now that the Ku Tribe elder is facing sideways, I can see where Zaki gets his outrageous fashion sense from.
Surprisingly, Zaki comes to his elder’s aid before Bel and Bonk can even try to help each other.
Although I don’t think he appreciates it as much as he should.
Oh. Zaki’s still worried about his chief, right up to the second he died.
But now, we’re left to deal with what killed him.
The creature that he worshipped as a God!
The creature that Gori just pissed off!
The last dinosaur on Eath! The Tyrannosaurus Rex, O-D-O!
Across all of my playthroughs, this is the happiest I’ve been to see Zaki.
I promised a gif of a butt-stomp, and here it is! I also forgot that Zaki has six attacks, not four.
He has a basic punch that he has no reason to use, and a kick that’s his strongest attack.
I also wanted to include some lizard-on-T. Rex fighting.
Now, onto O-D-O himself. You want to stay away from his diagonals.
Amazingly, leaping ten feet into the air and stomping on Bonk’s face is not his most dangerous attack.
This is. Crushing Bite does more damage and lowers stats. Staying off of the diagonals will keep him from using either attack. Instead, he will use a weaker claw attack.
Then, it’s a matter of assigning roles. Bonk and Zaki are our main damage dealers, Gori lays down poison tiles for consistent minor damage, and Bel keeps Bonk from keeling over. Zaki’s isolated from our healing, but I’m sure he’ll be fi-
Oh right, O-D-O has a tail.
This attack can also paralyze. Sorry Zaki. Thankfully, paralysis doesn’t last forever.
He recovers in time to avenge the Ku elder 
The dinosaur god has fallen.
And our heroes can celebrate their victory.
Zaki’s our friend now, but he’s still not quite willing to put up with us.
Oh right. Zaki declared war on us.
Thankfully, Bel and Bonk are willing to forgive and forget.
Now that Zaki’s officially in charge, these two tribes can co-exist peacefully.
I don’t care if it’s heavy-handed; I’m really glad that the first word to exist in this universe is “Love.”
And that’s it for the Prehistoric story. I still have one more update about this chapter’s bonus content, but that’ll go up tomorrow, followed by my final thoughts on the caveman chapter. For now, it’s time to decide what to do next!
SELECT-A-LIVE
I’ll leave the poll open until Thursday at noon. Remember, I’m keeping track of all name suggestions; so even if we aren’t playing a certain chapter next, feel free to suggest names for it!
- Kung Fu!
- Ninja!
- Cowboy!
- Wrestler!
- Mecha!
- SciFi!
0 voters
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As I mentioned earlier, I played through on an older translation patch. In that, they translated the chapter’s one spoken word as Sweet!
I think that better captures the slapstick feel of the chapter, but Love is much more heartwarming.
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OK, time to show off what I missed: a bonus scene, a bonus item, and a bonus boss!
Mammoth Hunting
We’re going mammoth hunting, so this duo needs to be stronger. I eventually unlock the rest of both of their movesets.
Gori’s last move is his own version of Gotcha!
Zdogeradien is another jumping attack for Bonk. It does more damage, but it also comes with a charge time.
Dodegesden is basically an ultimate version of Bash Bash. It does an absurd amount of damage, but it reduces Bonk’s stats afterwards.
While I’m at it, I show off some of the item attacks. In addition to crafting, stones and stone knives can be used like this.
And here’s the Venus Figurine in action. It’s a poor man’s WaveWave
Now that the grind session is over, it’s time to head back as far as we can; to the area we were originally exiled to.
On the way back, we come across these two.
Remember this, it’s important
This is our end goal, the King Mammoth. We’re not going to fight it quite yet though.
First, we’re going to get one last piece of equipment. And this rock is the key to finding it. We need to touch it 100 times exactly. Once that happens, you’ll here a sound.
It’s the sound of a door opening.
Inside is this…rather unimpressive monolith.
Approaching it opens our item menu. Bonk gives it a bone.
In return, Bonk gets a rock.
As an item, the Basic Rock can scan and cripple an enemy. But that’s not its best use.
Instead, Bonk needs it as an accessory. A +50 IQ bonus is what we need to hunt mammoths.
The mammoth moves faster than the other enemies, and you can’t just rub up against it; you have to press A while your facing it.
Which is probably for the best, because fighting this thing by accident would be horrible. This is the King Mammoth!
As you can see, it’s one of those fire-breathing, exploding mammoths that’s also a volcano.
This boss has 992 health, about 300 more than O-D-O had. He also has access to healing through these fire tiles.
Thankfully, Gori can deal with the fire tiles by replacing them with poison tile.
Since the attack itself missed, I should point out that I tried to fight this thing at level 14. The vast majority of my attacks missed. I had a pretty clear advantage over this chapter’s final boss at level 12, but now I’m suddenly underleveled. I eventually decided to try again at level 20.
This is the reason we want the Basic Rock equipped. PushPush is an IQ-based attack, so it gets a huge bonus to its damage. IQ also affects the rate of status effects, and we really need to get this mammoth in a paralysis loop.
Even at level 20, this boss could kill me in three attacks at any time. If he’s not paralyzed, he can end you.
Thankfully, his random drop triggers the first time.
We also get this, but that’s a guaranteed drop.
The King’s Fang provides a pretty hefty boost to Pw. But the real treasure is the Cola Bottle
This is already more useful; Bonk can benefit more from speed at this point. But let’s see what happens when we use it as an item!
We can just one-shot the final boss by firing lizards out of a glass bottle!
Even if we don’t do that, Bonk is strong enough to solo O-D-O at this point. Not quite a one-hit kill, but pretty close.
And even if we ignore the bonus boss entirely, Bel can make this boss a joke with her Laa Laa attack.
The amount of ways to chump this boss is a little absurd; this let’s play is actually the first time I fought him in a reasonable manner. It still wasn’t too difficult, but it was at least a fight!
And that’s it for Prehistoric content. I’ll do a write-up for this chapter as a whole later today; I think it’ll be easier to do “final thoughts” for each chapter than trying to sum up the entire game at the end. In the meantime, keep voting! Any chapter could be next!
When you get around to the Cowboy chapter, name our hero The Nineties Kid
Contact
The Prehistoric chapter is a good introduction to this game as a whole. It’s similar enough to most RPGs that players understand how to progress through it, but it has enough gimmicks and differences to neatly introduce why Live-A-Live is going to be different.
Let’s start with the gameplay gimmicks. The smelling gimmick is a neat way of pretending to have random encounters. It gives the player the same sense that a fight could break out at any moment, but it gives you a fair chance at avoiding or hunting them if you want. It also has enough puzzle solving uses to make it feel like it has a place in the game instead of being a surface-level gimmick.
The crafting system is probably the best idea, but it’s also the one that I feel needs the most work to fix. Using item-crafting as a means of upgrading equipment just feels right for a caveman, and even if you don’t abuse it like every guide tells you to, you can still easily get a lot of useful items from it. But it needs an in-game way of knowing what your items will make. There just isn’t enough time in the story for experimentation, so using a guide is the only feasible way of creating useful equipment.
Finally, the movesets in this chapter are a great way of introducing the different mechanics. Bonk has a really good mix of charge, instant and status-effect causing techniques, Gori introduces healing tiles, and Bel shows how healing is different in this game than most other games. Zaki’s moveset is a little more obtuse, but he also shows how counter techniques work.
As far as the story goes, I love its presentation. That’s probably the best way to describe the stories in Live-A-Live: cliché, but with good presentation. The lack of dialogue leads to a couple of great gags, moves the story along faster than it would otherwise, and leads up to an ending that sets up the game’s major theme. The story itself, however, is probably the most cliché. Even if you couldn’t predict exactly which way it would go, you probably weren’t surprised by how the story went. I think that’s a side-effect of the lack of dialogue; the story needs to be really simple so the characters can properly convey it. However, there is still room for interpretation, even in a story as simple as this.
The first time I played this, I thought Bonk was just a creep. He kicks his beds together to make his crush sleep next to him, he only fed her because he thought it would make her kiss him, and I’ve already made it clear that I hate that one scene. The whole thing just felt weird and gross and I was glad when it was over.
I had to replay this chapter a lot because my saves kept screwing up, and I eventually warmed up to Bonk. I realized that Bonk’s thought process seemed more naïve than malicious; after all, the first time he helped Bel he thought she was a dangerous intruder, so he couldn’t have expected a kiss from her. The whole “give food, get kiss” thought process is laid out in a way that helped me justify, at least in my own head, that Bonk wasn’t as bad as I thought he was. Even the scene were he forces his two beds together has a moment of regret; Bonk shifts around a lot before facing away from where Bel would sleep, as if he regrets his actions. Also he’s a literal Neanderthal, so I can probably cut him a little slack as long as everyone agrees he’s still a little creepy and should not be imitated.
The plot thread I completely missed, though, was Zaki’s character arc. On a surface level, there’s nothing to interpret. He’s the pretty rival, of course he helps Bonk in the end! But I noticed something while I was editing this LP: Zaki seems to have a strong relationship with the Ku Elder. They both have unusual codpieces (Zaki’s lizard and the elder’s red spike), Zaki doesn’t fight Bonk the third time until he’s ordered to, and even after being shoved to the side, Zaki cares a lot about the Elder’s condition. At first, I thought that Zaki became the Ku tribe leader because he was the strongest. But now, I wonder if he was intended to be the Ku Elder’s son, or something along those lines. This plot is the most bare-bones plot, but I still found something to theorycraft about!
This is a really solid chapter, but I think I’d put it 4th out of the seven chapters. It’s not as experimental as some of my favorites, but it’s not as obtuse as some of my least favorites.
What do you all think? Whether you’ve played this chapter or not, do you have different thoughts on it? And while I’m at it, what do you think of this thread so far? Am I conveying information well enough, or do I need to explain what’s happening more clearly?
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I’ll admit, the The Gods Must Be Crazy reference threw me a bit.
So are all the chapters going to be about this long?
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I think this is about the middle of the road as far as chapter length goes, maybe a bit on the shorter side, at least gameplay wise. It’s been a while since I played through the game, so I’m not sure how it’ll stack up to the other chapters as far as the number of updates.
My headcanon is that the whole time, Zaki’s trying to make up for letting Bel escape at the beginning of the chapter. He’s clearly someone special in his tribe, and that’s reflected in his arrogance at the start. He think’s it’ll be easy to get Bel back, but time and time again Bonk proves his better. At the end, he’s reluctant to fight Bonk because he knows he’ll lose, but doesn’t want his Elder to see his weakness.
After his Elder is eaten, he’s unsure of what to do, but ends up sucking up his pride, and fighting alongside his rival. That’s why he isn’t with the party when the battle screen first appears.
No, but I’m having a hard time thinking about how long each chapter actually is. I know that Wrestler is really short, and I’m pretty sure Cowboy and Kung Fu are shorter as well. Mecha is about the same, but will probably have more updates because it has a more dense plot. And I can’t pin down the actual length of Ninja and Sci-Fi. They’re probably shorter to actually play, but they might have more updates because of the way they work.
I can never pin down how long this game actually is because of its chapter structure.
And @Unpronounceable that’s a good way to interpret Zaki as well. I just think it’s crazy that his character can even have alternate interpretations because it’s so by the numbers in so many respects.
Voting’s closed, and the Kung Fu chapter is next! I’ll start working on the update tomorrow. As for names, we have the Jostar, the Matrix, or the Wrong master so far. Feel free to suggest more names!