One Legged Man in an Alien Wrestling Contest: Let's Play Hybrid Heaven

[Timrod]

“I fear not the man who has skipped leg day to work on his core. I fear the man who has skipped core day to work entirely on his right leg.” - Bruce Lee, probably

“Oh yeah, I played through that on stream. That one leg was really strong by the end.” - Ryan

Hybrid Heaven is an incredibly unique RPG released on the Nintendo 64 in 1999 by Konami Computer Entertainment Osaka, or KCEO. KCEO was a spinoff studio of Konami who developed, among other things, both N64 Goemon games and International Superstar Soccer 64 (which would later be bootlegged into Ronaldinho Soccer 64 and become a meme when Vinesauce streamed it). It was re-absorbed into Konami in 2005.

The game went through two development cycles: there was a beta version (which as far as I’m aware has never been found) that was shown in the January 1998 issue of Next Generation which had a completely different plot and wasn’t so much an RPG as it was a 2.5D fighting game. The beta was developed for the N64DD, which was the N64’s ill-fated disc drive add-on that never released in the west. My guess is that once KCEO saw that the N64DD was doomed, they opted to strip the game down for a cartridge release.

The game is thematically similar to Metal Gear Solid 1, and that’s no coincidence. According to that magazine article, Hybrid Heaven was KCEO’s attempt at outdoing Kojima at his own game. While it didn’t review nearly as well as MGS1 did (it got a 4.1/10 from Jeff Gerstmann when he was still working for GameSpot and a 7/10 from IGN), largely because of the plot being kind of dumb (though I’d argue not much dumber than MGS) and because of a lack of environment variety that was most likely a consequence of the N64’s hardware limitations.

I’d argue the game’s only real flaw is the lack of a tutorial and the fact that it has a number of mechanics that are never explained anywhere, leading most people to play it in a way that I think is different from what was actually intended. It took until someone datamined the game in 2021 to figure out how a lot of it worked, and I’ll be taking advantage of that datamine.

This was another game Ryan introduced me to (along with Aidyn Chronicles, also on the N64, which I did an LP of), and he has kind of a funny history with it: I remember him playing it in like 2005 on Project64 only to discover that the game would consistently freeze just before the final boss. That has since been fixed (and Project64 thrown in the dumpster of history) so I should be good to go.

I will once again be joined by my small army of PNGtubers, and will probably get some art from Salty Vanilla.

[Timrod]

Summary

: Welcome to Hybrid Heaven. I think the title gets dropped once in the game, but it’s kind of a weird title given what actually goes on in it. Kind of like how Sorcerer is a movie about a truck.

: Like Aidyn Chronicles, Hybrid Heaven doesn’t have a battery save and relies on the N64 Controller Pak to save.

: This game also supported the Rumble Pak. Just in case you’ve never personally seen one, the N64 controller only had a single add-on slot in the back, so if you did choose to use the Rumble Pak you’d have to switch it out any time you wanted to save or load.

https://youtu.be/A5X_00E7Bzs

: This game has voiceacted cutscenes and no subtitles, so I did a recording of this so you can see it in motion. Don’t worry if you’re someplace you can’t watch, I’ll transcribe it like I usually do.

: This probably would’ve been pretty weird if you were playing this on a CRT. Unfortunately, I’ve never played this on a CRT.

: We cut to Johnny, who is sitting naked in what is apparently his apartment in New York City.

: I bet this is what all men do when they’re alone.

: The TV changes from cartoon noises to a news broadcast.

: “The U.S. and Russian presidents revealed today that they are all but ready to conclude talks on the reduction of existing nuclear arsenals and are prepared to ratify the historic agreement that promises to be a giant leap towards world peace in New York City on the 24th.”

: “President Weller is expected to arrive in New York City tomorrow and attend the ratification after some last-minute discussions with the Russian president, who is scheduled to fly in on the same day.”

: “In a press conference yesterday, a confident President Weller stated to the media that on the coming 24th, the United States and Russia should be delivering a very merry Christmas present to the world.”

: Two things here. First, this technically makes Hybrid Heaven a Christmas game along with Parasite Eve.

: Second, this is how you know this game was made in the late 90s. Right around this time, it was believed that the US and Russia were going to sign START II (STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty). They sort of did, but pulled out before it went into effect.

: The reason you’d know it’s the late 90s is that New START (the successor to START I) just expired in February and every policy analyst out there has pointed out it’s unlikely another START will exist unless China agrees to it.

: In the background, you can hear a doorbell ring and the water shut off.

: I have forgotten what the guy in the suit’s name is, but Johnny answers the door in the nude.

: This feels like a Hallmark Christmas movie gone off the rails.

: “We shouldn’t be seen talking so I’ll be brief. Let’s go over this one last time. The substitution of the President will be executed the day after tomorrow in New York City.”

: Yes, they one-upped Kojima by making a SNATCHER RPG. Yes, I’m aware Kojima had already made a SNATCHER RPG for the Sega CD.

: “You are not to leave the President’s side no matter what. Everything depends on that moment, when there is no one but our operatives around him. If we miss this chance, it will throw off the timetable for the invasion.”

: “We can’t afford any mistakes. One more thing: don’t forget to make contact with Mr. Diaz in New York. He’ll bring the tools and the weapons you’ll need. That’ll be all. Let’s make this work.”

: “But man, put some clothes on, will you? And don’t forget to act like a human once you’re over ground.”

: “Johnny? Are you there? I guess you’re out again today. Maybe you’re busy, but.. are you doing okay?”

: “Well, it’s Christmas soon. The year’s almost over. Johnny.. you haven’t forgotten our pact, have you? That we’ll meet again this year under the Christmas tree in DC on Christmas Eve? I don’t care how late you show up, just meet me there, okay? I’ll be waiting.”

: It’s incredible how close Johnny’s girlfriend is to Rose in MGS2.

: “Anyway, call me again when you get in.”

: Johnny deletes the message.

: Meet Johnny’s girlfriend. I have forgotten what her name is.

: And this is Mr. Diaz. Diaz is our protagonist.

: The men in black have voice lines here, so I’ll find an icon for them.

: “Mr. Diaz, he’s here.”

: “Johnny? It is you, isn’t it? Why didn’t you recognize me? Is it just someone who looks like him?”

: The camera does a close-up on Diaz, and you can hear a distorted voice saying “Shoot… that man.. kill him…”

: If they’re going to blame it on a demon, I don’t whisper like that.

: Johnny, or.. Not-Johnny, I guess.. starts evaporating once he hits the ground.

: “Why did you shoot?”

: “Not now! There’s something wrong with Mr. Diaz. We’ve got to get him below ground.”

: “There’s a witness!”

: “The evidence is gone. There’s no trace left.”

: The men in black grab Diaz and drag him off.

: Diaz hears whispers in his head again and starts struggling.

: Diaz has the upper hand, but then hears Johnny’s girlfriend say something I can’t quite make out.

: Once Diaz gets near the ground, he starts floating.

: And now the game has started. You can see Diaz’s HP bar in the top left.

: Diaz has a gun called a Defuser that only works on robots and some other inanimate objects.

: Hitting one of the drones (or getting too close to it) will cause it to go into an alert state and fire a laser after a few seconds.

: The devs at KCEO realized what they were working with and made it so that you don’t need to be precise with the defuser: as long as you’re somewhere near the target, it’ll hit even if they’re clearly a bit to the left or right.

: The next room has a tech in it who will teach us about Hybrid Heaven’s primary roadblock.

: No, I’m not talking about how “interact” and “jump” are bound to the same button, or how Diaz has a jump that would put an NBA star to shame. That’s a secondary roadblock.

: Those are some ups.

: Here’s our primary road block: the code key. We’ll see how it works soon enough.

: Down the ladder, there’s a door with what looks like a slot in it on the left. This is a code key door.

: Of course the guy upstairs gives us an expired code key. We need to find a machine to update it with the new code.

: The next room is another hallway with some drones in it, and introduces a new kind of drone.

: These drones will shoot at Diaz if he passes through their light. You can sometimes walk around these, but most of the time you just shoot them.

: At the end of the hallway is a room with a machine in it. This is a code key machine we’ve been looking for.

: Another room with some drones in it. This one has a pit in the middle to jump over.

: We’re going to ignore the NPC and get on the elevator. The NPC only tells you how to use the defuser.

: This hallway is a little annoying if you get turned around because it’s full of drones that respawn every time you leave and re-enter.

: Right across from the elevator is this room, with a chest hidden behind some boxes.

: This gets us a healing item. I didn’t show it, but I’m playing on Hard rather than the standard Normal difficulty.

: There’s another door on the opposite side of the elevator that leads to a ladder. Before we go down, let’s take a look at how the stats in this game work.

: You can see that we have offense levels for each limb, plus “body” and “head”.

: Similarly, we have defense levels for each body part. On my first attempt at this game, I went all in on Body. I’ll show you why that’s a bad idea in a bit.

: We also have a move list. The last part is something we won’t do much with until several updates from now.

: We know four punches and two kicks, plus a short list of techniques.

: Down the ladder, we run into a “puzzle” of sorts. You can see the drone and that big, glowing box up there.

: If we climb up, there’s a laser grid preventing us from going further.

: Shooting the box destroys it and reveals a switch, which we can also shoot to lower the lasers.

: Down below is our first save point. Save points restore all of your HP, but I used one of our spare life chargers to heal some damage I took from the drones.

: The next room is in the middle of a big hallway, and one of the doors is locked. We’ll take the one on the opposite side.

: Another laser grid. Can you guess where the switch is?

: Past that is this big egg thing, and this is where the game actually begins.

: Diaz interfaces with this cube, which gets angry at him in alien gibberish.

: An alarm sounds, but nothing else happens. Let’s backtrack.

: That’s all it took to kill him?

: This thing is called a Spica, and now it’s time for our first fight.

: Let me briefly explain how combat works. The Power bar works a lot like ATB in the PS1 Final Fantasy games - it increases when Diaz isn’t doing anything, and fills slower when you’re moving around.

: You can hit A to attack as soon as it reaches that white line, but you don’t get a full power attack unless the bar is filled completely.

: Before the bar can fill, the Spica steps forward and attempts to attack. We get three options: Step, Guard, and Counter.

: Step is a guaranteed dodge if you’re far enough away. Guard takes the hit (unless it would miss because the enemy is too far away) and reduces damage but doesn’t work 100% of the time.

: Counter only works if you’re way higher level than the enemy and interrupts their attack with one of your own.

: In this case, I take a step back (you can pick the direction) and dodge the punch. You typically don’t want to do that, and I’ll show you why.

: Our bar fills up, and now it’s our turn to attack. You can pick from punches or kicks - techniques are a little different and usually require you to grab the enemy first.

: We do some damage and the enemy is sent flying. The game doesn’t show it, but we also get experience to our right leg and to the R Middle Kick move.

: And that’s the strategy, right? Just use one leg over and over until it’s so overleveled that it kills everything.

: You can do that, and that’s absolutely a valid strategy. Ryan beat the game like that on stream, using nothing but one leg.

: However, if you know about the 2021 datamine, you know that you want to level either both legs or both arms equally. We’ll find out why much later when we have access to combos.

: The enemy then uses an Upper L Hook, which I intentionally get hit by. Why? Because in this game, getting hit with moves is how you learn them.

: Notice, by the way, the icon in the top-right with the red torso. The enemy’s punch damaged Diaz’s torso, which stops us from using it.

: I mentioned earlier that my first playthrough went all-in on techniques. Techniques all scale off torso level. If your torso gets damaged, you can’t use them.

: We get a letter grade after every fight, with the highest being SS. Getting an S or SS usually gets you an item.

: We also learn Upper L Hook and Upper R Hook because I got hit by it, but we don’t learn Mid L/R Hook because I dodged that one.

: Some moves (usually techniques) require you to get hit multiple times to learn them. Techniques sometimes require special activation conditions (like being on the ground) and can be hard to get enemies to use.

: Now I’ll reload this fight and show you how techniques work. First, you have to grab the enemy. This is done with the Z button.

: If you’re grabbed, you also have three defensive options: Take Fall (works like Guard), Escape (rarely works but dodges the attack), and Counter.

: You can see that the enemy is stunned, which allows me to get a second attack in for free.

: There are also techniques that require you to be behind an enemy and grab them to use.

: Techniques are really powerful, but are risky because most attacks tend to hit the torso. You can see that they also cost Stamina to stop you chaining them too hard.

: After our encounter with the Spica, we end up in what is apparently a bioweapon storage facility.

: There are enemies in the cells who will get up and bang on the glass if you get close.

: The only way forward has a shutter that’s mostly closed. All we have to do is crawl under it.

: You can see in the distance that there are little robots on the floor. Those are land mines. They’ll chase you and explode if you get too close, but you can usually run past them with no trouble.

: We pass through a command center room which tells us how to bring up the minimap. I’ve already done that.

: The next room is our introduction to enemy spawners. Most enemies don’t respawn once killed, except for rooms that have a spawner in them. This one spawns Spica.

: Because I reloaded to get both the Mid and Upper Hook punches, I take this one down with kicks before it can do anything.

: This gives us enough EXP to level up. If you look closely, you’ll notice there’s a tiny bar underneath the Power bar - at higher levels, you can store Power bars to use multiple attacks at once.

: This hallway has a lock that has to be shot off. You don’t see too many of these from what I remember.

: I’ve seen this one before. The alien’s going to burst through the damaged bulkhead, so you blast right through it before it can try.

: This enemy is called.. a Pollux. Yes, I have Salty Vanilla on it already.

: Pollux has the Middle Side Kick and Low Kick abilities. We’re going to need Low Kick eventually.

: One thing I got to show off in this fight that you don’t normally see before getting multiple power bars is using moves on downed enemies.

: When prone, your defense options are limited to rolling to the side and trying to counterattack. In this case, the enemy was already stunned and does nothing at all.

: Unfortunately, Low Kick is one of those moves you need to get hit by multiple times to learn. We’ll run into plenty more Pollux before long.

: In the next room, we run into this thing. This is called Seginus, and it is primarily a grappler.

: It starts combat by backing off and charging its power bar.

: Once fully charged, it runs in and tries to grab you. If you mash A when this happens, you can get an attack off instead.

: Techniques HURT. On this difficulty, we can take exactly one without dying - a second will kill Diaz.

: I defeat it with techniques instead of kicks, because it will guard every kick you try to hit it with and usually counter with a grab.

: There’s a switch on the wall we need to shoot to progress.

: There’s a save point here, so I’ll call it an update just to get one out. Next time, we’ll go through Area 1-2 and fight our first boss.

[Timrod]

Summary

: Let’s continue into Stage 1-2. For some reason, the developers label every area using an old-fashioned world and level number. The official name for World 1 is “Bioweapons Storage Facility”.

: Down the hall, we can see a guy on a terminal.

: This is a Clone Man. Clone Men have access to a variety of moves we’ve already seen, including hooks and the low kick.

: They can also heal themselves for 100 HP instead of taking an action. Fortunately, they can’t out-pace our damage.

: We get a level up and a new punch I’m never going to use.

: Down the hall, there’s a warehouse with boxes stacked against one wall.

: We can climb up the boxes by jumping - the game is very good about mantling and will almost always ledge grab if it can.

: The upper ledge is guarded by a line of drones. You can either shoot them from below or just sidle past them until you find an opening.

: After shooting that red switch, there’s a door off to the left with a new enemy in it.

: This thing is called a Naos, and it’s kind of like the Clone Man we just fought in that it uses both kicks and punches.

: When it 's knocked over, Naos drops healing items. It can also heal itself multiple times, which makes it a little annoying to fight early on.

: They’re also worth a ton of EXP and I get the Low Kick off this one, bringing us to two out of the three kicks I’m ever going to use.

: Back in the warehouse room, there’s a hidden path up this way.

: We need to jump over and climb onto the box, shoot the drones down, and then sidle over to the door on the other side.

: This leads to a bunch of boxes and a green switch we can destroy. There’s a really annoying jumping puzzle as well, but I’m not touching that because it’s not worth doing.

: If you head away from where we fought the Clone Man earlier, there’s another door.

: This leads to a room with a drone in it that has about a 50% chance of being in a position where it instantly shoots you when you walk through.

: We’re now in a big hallway with stairs on either side. We can go up or down, so let’s go down first.

: That weird looking grey thing is a locker.

: Opening it gets us our first ranged weapon. Guns in this game are single use, but are the only way to attack an enemy without being next to them.

: There’s a Spica down the hall, and at this point something interesting happens.

: I’ve been alternating between left and right kicks to keep Diaz’s legs roughly equal, and in doing so manage to damage both of the Spica’s arms.

: So now what’s it going to do? All it’s got are punches.

: The answer is that it switches to a much stronger High Kick. I take two of these on purpose.

: We now have all the kicks I need to finish the game. My plan is to level up the two Low Kicks (L/R), the two Mid Kicks (L/R), and the two High Kicks (L/R) while ignoring almost everything else.

: This is the easiest way to pull off something later, when we have access to combos.

: There are two side rooms in this hallway. One is just an item room, the second leads to a second Naos fight.

: We get yet another new kick. The Side Kick moves are also useful for doing something later, but they’re not really any more efficient than the regular kicks.

: This room has another Pollux on the ceiling, but we already know all its moves so I just kill it as efficiently as I can.

: The far side of the room has a code machine and another locker in it, behind a barrier you have to crawl under.

: If we go back to the main hallway, we can take the stairs going up now.

: This room has a Seginus spawner in it, and a code key door.

: I ran into some weirdness here: as it turns out, damaging an enemy’s torso doesn’t stop them from using grabs or techniques.

: One drone hallway later and we’re at the first boss.

: Procyon has a mix of punches, kicks, and throws.

: At the start of the fight, all it’ll do is approach you and give you plenty of time to kick it while it goes for a grab.

: After it takes a couple of hits, Procyon will start using this attack, which has a deceptively large hitbox and knocks Diaz down and back. It doesn’t do HP damage, but it does do torso damage. This is one of the first fights to punish you for technique use.

: Staying out of its grabs isn’t particularly hard unless it manages to follow up a green fire attack with one. Fortunately, the fire knocks you back far enough that it’s unlikely to happen.

: If you’re using punches or kicks, Procyon really isn’t hard. If you’re using wrestling moves, this fight is hell.

: This cutscene kind of doesn’t make sense if you think about the positioning involved.

: Pff… nothing personnel, kid.

: “Failure in us Hybrids, the new human race, cannot be accepted. The invasion plans that were going smoothly could fail altogether because of you.”

: “Are you out of it that bad that you can’t even remember that? It isn’t easy switching an analogue with a real overgrounder.”

: “The Master has been working towards this President substitution project all this time.. are you trying to end it all in failure?”

: “A liaison shooting a comrade.. it’s beyond my comprehension. You’ll pay dearly for this, Diaz!”

: “Hunter, what about the plans…?”

: “As you know, Diaz, who lost it, shot and killed the copied analogue of the Secret Service man slated for substitution.”

: Oh look, the three forbidden words. They don’t let you use “as you know” anymore. I stopped in the early 17th century because I was ahead of the curve.

: “However, everything will proceed as originally planned. Kevin, the presidential aide, will now perform the kidnapping and substitution of the President and support the plan.”

: “And with that, the power to control the entire world. So it won’t be long now until the time comes when we rule the earth…”

: This is how you know these guys aren’t thinking hard enough. If I wanted to be President all I’d have to do is run.

: I’m not letting you run for anything.

: “I don’t particularly want to lose those amazing physical abilities of his. Do something about adjusting his consciousness and cognitive processes after examining him. I’ll leave you to take care of it.”

: I wish I could say this is the only guy I’ve seen with a literal boner for world domination, but…

: “So, Diaz. Managed to hang on to your life at least. But you won’t be able to get out of having your thoughts tweaked by a little brainwashing. Bite the bullet, buddy.”

: “Hey you. I’m sending Diaz up to the adjustment room. Take him to the pod. We’re moving him to Floor 10 right now!”

: “Get with it, Diaz! You released a biological weapon in the confinement cell block! How many comrades do you think died because of you?! Just come back and do as you’re told!”

: “Mr. Jerry! It’s too dangerous to use a gun inside an underground shelter!”

: “I know that! If you did your job, this wouldn’t happen. Here, take him away to the pod now!”

: “What! That’s impossible! …why? Why isn’t it moving? Floor 21 is Dr. Bross’s research floor. Why Bross’s floor of all places…”

: “Send a transmission to Bross. Tell him to capture Diaz! Tell him that he can use Diaz as a research subject.”

: “All he has in his mind is research. Make sure to tell him so.”

: “Who cares what happens to Diaz. He lands a plum duty like liaison with the overground and still loses it.. oh man, wish we could go overground earlier!”

: This floor is a direct homage to Resident Evil. Most of it uses fixed camera angles and the game switches to tank controls.

: Is he supposed to be some kind of nonbinary Joker?

: I think they did change his design a bit from the boxart, where he’s wearing what looks like a one-piece swimsuit and stockings.

: “But I don’t want to be troubled. The square Jerry says I’m to catch you. Not that what Jerry has to say holds any interest for me, but it’s a bit different when I get to use you as my guinea pig.”

: “Experimenting with just normal clones has been such a drag lately… sorry, but it’s a blast to be able to experiment with someone like you, Diaz - a hybrid in top athletic condition.”

: “Hey! Isn’t it huge! It’s so much more powerful than you. Don’t even think of fighting it. It’s really none of my concern what happens to you with this experiment.”

: The game gives you a few seconds to get oriented, but I already know where we’re going.

: This enemy is a Gomeisa, and is an upgraded version of Seginus that is also all wrestling moves.

: I eat a Bridge Suplex to the face. If I remember right, this was the move I used on my first run where I tried to wrestle everything.

: Behind the Gomeisa are some boxes. I’m only bothering to show this because one of them has..

: A Ring Eraser. These items are the only way to run from combat.

: Down another drone hallway, we run into another new enemy. This is Mekbuda.

: Mekbuda uses kicks as its primary form of offense, and has a really high defense against being grabbed.

: At low HP it will try to use an item to boost its attack.

: Now we’re on the other side of the big hallway we first encountered the xenomorph-looking thing in.

: It’s hard to show in screenshots, but there’s a raised hallway up on the right, and as soon as you get near it the game goes into tank controls mode.

: Getting run over by the monster does 40 damage or so.

: This Naos is here entirely so you can restock on healing if you need it. You can run right past it without fighting.

: Leaving the room with the Naos puts us on the other side of the closed blast door we saw, and gives us a tiny path to the elevator that’s honestly kinda hard to make out.

: The monster simply jumps down after us.

: If they’d been following building code when they built this place it wouldn’t.

: We then get another tank control screen. We need to reach that platform with the lights around it.

: What’s funny is that people complain about the yellow paint thing being endemic to modern game design, but this game came out in 1999 and has it.

: Of course, the game spawns the monster directly behind us and I have to juke it after taking a bunch of damage.

: Climbing up the ledge brings us to the only part of this game I would genuinely consider to be badly designed.

: See that ledge Diaz is facing? That’s a death pit. Dropping into it instantly kills you. The thing is, we’re still on tank controls, so pressing up on the stick makes him go into the pit instead of back to the wall.

: Must suck if you forgot to use a savestate. You did remember to savestate, right?

: …No.

: Get a load of this guy.

: Instead of falling, we can go to the right for more healing and a door.

: We’ll use this save quick and keep going. I’m sure nothing will randomly fall on us.

: You might notice something different about the UI. There’s a little red bar underneath the power meter. We now have a second power bar.

: If you have more than one power bar (at least one fully charged and another that’s over the white line) you can perform a combo.

: This lets you do multiple attacks while the enemy is paused, which helps bypass things like Naos’s healing.

: You can also save combos for convenience. I’ll keep this one until we get some more power bars.

: This hallway has a ton of mines in it for some reason.

: As soon as we go through the door, we run into yet another new enemy type. This thing is called Kitalpha.

: If you’re doing a punch build, Kitalpha has a couple of moves you probably want.

: Arm Bar is one of those moves that’s way stronger when an enemy uses it. I got really confused when I played this the first time because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t use it even though I learned it.

: The reason is that Arm Bar is a technique you have to use when your opponent is on the ground, but enemies can use it from a standing position.

: This room has one of those locked doors you need to shoot to open.

: Of course, as soon as you get close, the monster comes out.

: This room has a bridge that retracts from behind you. I think it’s possible to fall to your death here, but I’ve never had it happen.

: And finally, this room. The bridge retracts from the far side, and you’re not intended to make it across.

: They had the budget to put rails around this death pit, but not the other one?

: This must be the part they showed the building inspector.

: We then get a sequence where we’re chased by the monster down a long bridge.

: The end is probably going to trip you up because it abruptly switches to tank controls.

: “I’m glad I made it in time to meet you. You must be very surprised and confused of your situation right now.”

: “Meaning that what you see, yourself, is not the real you. We are in New York, underground in an area called Manhattan. I heard our enemies saying this.”

: “…In any case, we must leave this place. Do not worry. I am not your enemy.”

: They’re adorable.

: “What is the matter? I see misgivings in your heart. I cannot blame you for feeling it. I will tell you something of myself.”

: “Our planet is in another nebula far away from this star…”

: “In those cases, we would enter hibernation capsules and await arrival at the destination in stasis. Such was the case when we traveled to this planet… but we had a traitor among us.”

: This is what happens when they don’t do all their tasks.

: “We were all made to sleep several extra decades longer than we were supposed to. When we awoke, we were under a dictator’s rule, forced to assist an invasion.”

: “Have you seen the ceiling of this underground shelter? No, you have not seen it yet. On the ceiling is a huge saucer shape: that is our starship. And this underground shelter is what we use during stays in other stars. It is usually stored inside the starship.”

: They managed to fit all this into one of the densest cities on the planet?

: “However, it has already suffered many subversions of its original design by the traitor and the clones he created. We are, in all probability, far more advanced scientifically than your civilization.”

: “And of course, the traitor has the same body of knowledge. The traitor harvested the cells of this planet’s inhabitants, created copies of you humans.. in other words a clone species of the human race. And he controls his creations absolutely.”

: I’m going to cut a bit of this only because the Gargatuan explains the same “replace the President” plot that we already know about.

: “We really cannot comprehend how someone who could plan an invasion of another planet came to be born of our people. On this planet, there is this force that turns organisms belligerent.”

: “Now let us go. It is not safe to stay here.”

: Again, I’m going to skip some dialog because it describes things we already know: that the Johnny who died on the subway platform was a clone.

: “It is possible you still do not recall anything. But don’t worry. In a short while, we will return you to your original form - your memories, your everything. We will never insert strange programs in you again. Please do trust us.”

: Where have I heard this one before?

: “We traveled to many planets to collect all kinds of samples. But it has always been a strict policy of ours to refrain from interfering with other ecosystems, cultures, or politics on these planets.”

: “This time, we had no choice but to do exactly that. We found it necessary to fight in order to prevent further damage to this planet. However.. as absolute pacifists, we have never experienced a battle.”

: “We needed the help of the people of this planet. That’s exactly when we were able to rescue you from the enemies who abducted you from above ground. We do not have the strength, but we have the brains.”

: “It is hard for us to beat the enemies, but abducting them was not impossible. Capturing and imprisoning one called Diaz was not that difficult either.”

: This part has always seemed a bit weird to me, since the Gargatuans are apparently incapable of violence yet managed to capture the real Diaz.

: The game never explains who Diaz was or why the traitor wanted to clone him.

: “We made a temporary recording of your memories in a mnemonic device, and inserted a program in your brain to allow you to act in such a way as to sabotage the enemy’s plans.”

: This is a direct reference to the film Johnny Mnemonic, which hit theaters in 1995 and is kind of a quintessential bad sci-fi film. It had Keanu Reeves in it and was bigger in Japan (to the point where it had a separate Japanese cut) than it was in the US.

: “The fate of this planet is about to change.. but there is nothing more we can do. All we can do is aid you, a native of this planet, to the limit of our powers.”

: “I do not want to sound irresponsible. I am not exaggerating - you are the last hope for saving this planet.”

: I’m amazed the gargatuans have the ability to dress themselves in the morning.

: They have a machine for that.

: I want to light them all on fire so badly.

: I’m going to summarize the rest because this is a long-ass cutscene.

: Johnny goes into the tank and the coating is slowly removed while he has a vision of his girlfriend. Try not to think about how the aliens took a white guy and put him into hi-tech blackface.

: The funny part of this is that even with the suit, you can see that Diaz is significantly taller than Johnny is.

: Jerry explodes a wall and captures the gargatuans before the process can complete.

: Of course, the gargatuans had a plan for this. The plan is to blow everything the fuck up. I’m not entirely sure how Diaz survives this.

: And now we’re in World 3. We’ll do that next update, when we start running into guys with guns.

[Timrod]

Summary

: We’re now in World 3, which is the Clone Storage Facility. This area starts with a gauntlet of fights.

: This thing is a Muphrid, and it knows a couple of kicks we don’t have - namely the Low Front Kick and Mid Front Kick.

: It also knows Arm Bar and Bridge Suplex, and will use them if its legs get injured or when it’s at low HP.

: Continuing past that room, we can either go down the hallway or into the side rooms, which have fights in them.

: The first room has a Mekbuda in it, which dies quickly to the kick combo.

: The second room is a spawner. It’s pretty easy to get turned around after combat, and given that all these rooms look the same it can be hard to tell which way is progress.

: Just after that is a code machine.

: This is a Dubhe, which can be either an extremely easy fight or a nightmare that hits you for a ton of damage.

: Dubhe tends to stay at a distance, and if you’re lucky it’ll do that the entire fight. If it does attack, it has a kick that can do over 100 damage if not guarded.

: You can go back to the hallway as soon as you have the code key updated and take this ramp to another part of the level.

: This room has a big unkillable roomba that spits fire. It’s pretty easy to avoid.

: Ah damn, they stole my idea.

: The door to Johnny’s left is progress, so let’s go that way.

: The door on the left brings us to another code key door, except we don’t have the code to open it.

: Instead, we’ll use this conveniently placed ladder. There’s a Pollux on the ceiling, and I should probably take a second to explain scaling in this game.

: We can hit this Pollux for over 100 damage per kick, yet it takes maybe one fewer kick to kill it than it did in World 1.

: The reason is because every enemy in the game has a huge stat spread that scales with you. This makes leveling certain things (limb defense) counterproductive.

: Raising your limb defense makes the enemy’s limb offense go up, and since offense out-scales defense it’s generally bad to level limb defense.

: I also asked Salty Vanilla to draw a very different Pollux trying to wrestle. That’s in the works.

: With Pollux presumably wrestled somewhere by his boyfriend, we can take the ladder.

: This takes us to another hallway with four doors. The first one on the left leads to an otherwise-empty room with the code machine in it.

: The others lead to a fight with a Mekbuda (first door, right), a Kitalpha (second door, left) and a Spica (second door, right).

: I fight them all because there’s a save point right around the corner.

: Before we continue on, let me show you what happens if you take the other door back in the room with the fire roomba.

: Instead of making progress, you wind up in a big circular room with nothing in it.

: Except for one of these guys. These are Men in Black, and they SUCK to fight.

: Men in Black are the first enemy that has access to a ranged attack. Technically, Dubhe (the weird tentacle-faced thing) has a ranged poison attack, but I don’t think it can use it yet.

: Other than this fight, there’s only one reason to come in here and it’s not really worth it.

: If you look up here, there’s a breakable box. There’s a chest on top of it that we can’t see which will drop down into a room past the code door we skipped.

: Past the code door, we run into a room with a bunch of mines in it. These ones are upgraded and do 60 damage if they hit you.

: To the right is a chest on a narrow platform with no apparent way of getting to it.

: Getting to that chest is progress, and we need to climb this scaffolding to get there. Even sped up, it takes over a minute to get there because of how slowly Johnny moves when hanging on it.

: It’s only once you climb all the way over that you can see this chest hovering on a block in mid-air. The chest isn’t worth it because it’s suspended over a death pit and the nearest save point was back where the code machine was.

: If you choose to get it, you want to stand right here and walk off the edge.

: Several minutes later, we’ve climbed over to the other side of the pit.

: The drones drop healing items, and there are two lockers on the side with guns in them. You can probably guess what’s coming up.

: There are five breakable Metroid tubes on the left with signs we can read.

: The tubes for the Press Secretary and two of the presidential aides are empty, while the ones for the CIA director and Secretary of Defense are still full.

: I bet the evil aliens would be better than the current administration.

: The pod for the defense secretary is probably full of whiskey.

: You might’ve noticed that there’s a code key door at the end of the hallway. We need to duck into a side room quickly.

: There’s an Onion article here somewhere about how the aliens couldn’t make a president as bad as the current one.

: As I was writing this update, the New York Times put out a profile on a guy named Victor Marx who won the GOP primary in Colorado for their senate race.

: Victor Marx claims he killed a man at the age of 7 and also claims he can exorcise demons over the phone.

: My first reaction was “I don’t think the aliens could have made something that dumb”, and then my second one was “Wait.. is this The Dark Id?”

: This is actually a neat little bit of level design - you’re unlikely to notice the code key machine here on the way in.

: Beyond the code door is a single Muphrid that we demolish in a couple of kicks.

: This sure looks like a boss arena, but is in fact merely a reference to Metal Gear Solid.

: Remember that scene at the very beginning of the game when Ocelot comes down the elevator?

: Johnny is no Solid Snake, that’s for sure.

: “Weren’t you killed in the station by Diaz? What’s going on here? What’s happening? The clone of Johnny Slater no longer exists…”

: Couldn’t he just say he’s a second clone they made after the first one died?

: Not likely. The fastest alien cloners take weeks to work, and those are pretty much permanently reserved by the A-listers. Superman has three of them.

: Wait, are you a clone?

: They tried cloning me back in the 80s and it didn’t work. They told me it’s the same reason they can’t clone Wolverine.

: Now, you’d think we’d be in for a boss fight, but..

: “I can figure out why you’re here. Those Gargatuans.. never know what they’ll do if you don’t keep an eye on them.”

: “Well, I guess I can’t keep hiding that I am not the real Kevin, your superior. My pride doesn’t allow myself to use the term ‘clone’.”

: “Johnny, don’t even think of resisting. I know you’re working for the Gargatuans and causing trouble. But again, you must understand what you’re up against. It’s us, the Hybrids who were born to rule all humans.”

: “And you know what! I have bad news for you. Ha… ha ha… I was sent to switch the President - and I’ve succeeded!”

: “Of course none of the stupid humans are aware of what’s happened. The human race will be manipulated to the utmost, and a new era in history will begin.”

: “The substituted President will begin a worldwide invasion with the strongest military power in his hands. I think it’s safe to say this planet is ours now, and the entire human race is to be placed under our control.”

: Johnny spends around a minute doing this very awkward duckwalk forward.

: You might notice that we now have three power bars. Normally I’d do a combo, but for this particular fight we want to stick to single kicks.

: The reason is that this particular Man in Black is extremely trigger happy even compared to the non-miniboss versions.

: After taking a shitload of damage, I get a three-hit combo off. This will be the new primary combo until I get access to four hits.

: I didn’t get a cap of it, but the enemy took something like 20 turns to my 4.

: There’s a save point up ahead, and we’ll need it because the next part is pretty bad if you’re not playing on an emulator.

: We run into a new kind of drone. These ones drop bombs on you if you go underneath them, but they take so long to do it that if you just run by they’ll never hit you.

: There’s not much to say about this part, it’s just a lot of climbing.

: Again, this part is a lot of traversal. The drones in here drop items and there are mines on the floor.

: This room is effectively a roulette wheel. The door we’re closer to right now has a Dubhe spawner behind it.

: It didn’t happen this fight, but this Dubhe can and will poison you even at melee range. It uses a couple of new kicks, including the High Side Kick and High Front Kick.

: The other door has a code machine and a ladder in it. Make sure you don’t miss the code machine.

: Here, we run into a Naos that for some reason has incredibly high stats compared to normal ones. It’s faster than Johnny and charges power at roughly 4 times the rate we do.

: Kevin detonates this bridge, forcing us to go the long way around. World 3 is one of the longest in the game, with 6 sub-levels.

: This room has a spawner in it and we want to avoid fighting if we can. This thing is called a Mira.

: Mira will happily stand still while you charge your power meter to full, because the second you run in it starts spamming poison breath.

: Poison does a shitload of damage (I think it’s something like 50% of max HP) and ticks down at a rate I can best describe as.. you know the rot lake in Elden Ring? Like that.

: We reach another code door shortly afterward.

: And now we’re in the room Kevin was in. There’s a save point we can use because there are more annoying fights coming up.

: “What loads of fun you are. How about it, Johnny? Is the beauty of our plan evident even to you?”

: “I saw several stories and movies created by your race when I was above ground - and I must say I was surprised. Does this planet’s race really believe that those flashy and utterly ludicrous interplanetary wars could ever occur?”

: Tell that to all the assholes writing “Hell invades Earth” plots. What would I even do with Earth?

: “Very typical of a primitive and foolish species that you are.. brute power holds no meaning in an invasion of planetary scale.”

: If this game released any time between 2022 and today, people would assume this was commentary on the AI bubble.

: “So it follows that all of you, living on this planet and caught in primitive delusions, have no future!”

: I mean yeah, it’s a stock market bubble just like the one that popped maybe a year after this game released.

: Right after this hallway is a three-room gauntlet with a Dubhe spawner, a Mira spawner, and a second Dubhe spawner. I avoid the first two and then get fucked up by the third one.

: Then there’s a final room with a Muphrid spawner, which is a decent grind spot because there’s a save point right on the other side of the door.

: The door on the far end has a code door behind it that we can’t open.

: There are a couple of doors and a narrow hidden passage up here.

: The one on the right is a grind room that isn’t as good as the one with the Muphrid in it.

: This is a Peggy Hill, who is effectively a Man in Black who is slightly less likely to shoot you.

: Peggies can’t combo, but they can try and knock you down and follow up with a stomp.

: You’ll notice through the window that there’s a yellow laser grid. Let’s heal and go into the other room.

: It’s just another Man in Black. This should give you an idea of how many actions enemies are getting compared to me.

: And here’s the yellow switch.

: This opens up the path behind both of those rooms, which is on the far left of the upper platform.

: “You want to keep on listening to me? Then fine. What shall I talk about? How about talking about your girl? Yes, let’s talk about Holly. An intelligent, beautiful woman who works at the U.N. headquarters in New York - don’t I know a lot! Surprised?”

: This part confuses me a bit, and it makes me wonder if it isn’t the writer didn’t mistake the Rockefeller Center christmas tree for the DC one.

: Holly works for the UN, and Johnny is ostensibly going to be in New York because that’s where the president is supposed to be for the conference, but she wants to meet him under the christmas tree in DC.

: “I have data on her in the memories I inherited from my original. I don’t know if you remember, but she was there when you killed your own analogue, you know…”

: “She’s not waiting for you anymore. You’re the only one waiting to see her. She thinks you’re dead. And with humanity’s fate sealed, Holly’s life will end too, in all likelihood.”

: “I’m sure you would love to tell her that you’re alive, and then protect her.. but that isn’t happening. You know why? Because you’ll die alone, down here in the bowels of the Earth!”

: This room is a small maze that’s easy enough to navigate. Kevin taunts Johnny one more time by saying he could send another Johnny clone to Holly.

: I skipped a lot of text, but Kevin unveils his true form and we get a boss fight.

: Kevin is fucking bullshit. In most cases, if there’s distance between you and an enemy when the enemy goes to hit you (and especially if their attack happens while you were already in the process of moving away from them) they can’t close the distance and miss.

: Kevin can initiate an attack and then run halfway across the room to hit you. As far as I’m concerned, avoiding him is probably impossible outside of a TAS with one exception - you can dodge his grabs.

: Kevin can also heal himself for almost the full damage our combo does to him. He’ll only do this at low health, but it’s annoying as shit.

: By the way, he also has a mechanic that a few other enemies (I know Muphrid can do this) have where hitting him does damage to your limbs. Notice that in this shot, Johnny’s torso is damaged but nothing else is.

: This is the same combo, and by the third hit Johnny’s leg is damaged even though Kevin never got a hit in.

: I’ll stop this update here, because there are a couple of long cutscenes coming up. Next time, we’ll save the president.