: Just behind where the Alpaca was is a chest with $1000 in it. This is roughly equal to all of the money we’ve obtained up to this point.
: Here’s our first “break in reality” - YIIK’s version of the Lost Woods, because that’s absolutely what a JRPG needs. This part isn’t at all difficult: you follow the big, obvious Soul Survivor around. It does, however, get real annoying.
: Because I levelled Alex up, everyone got some new skills. Rory has Protest (a useless debuff) and Sacrifice, which kills him but revives someone else, which we can accomplish with an item we have like 10 of without killing anyone in the party. Rory is fucking useless and I’m dumping his ass the second we can do so.
: The second room is only marginally more annoying than the first. The camera sucks, but at least the controls still work. That’s going to change… real soon.
: Third room. Now we’re upside-down, so the controls for movement are inverted. There’s no challenge here: with only one enemy that doesn’t respawn when killed, it’s more a challenge of fighting the combination of controls and camera to reach the bottom-right door.
: Seriously, fuck whoever thought this shit was a good idea.
: The fight in this room I’m going to show off specifically to demo Alex’s attack skill.
: Not before one of the enemies hits him for HALF HIS HEALTH BAR though. Holy shit that’s some garbage - and this is after I levelled Alex up, and I’ve been putting points into defense every level.
: Alex’s new attack is LP Toss, which is basically the reason why we want to level up his PP as much as possible. You can see that barring Rory (who starts with very high PP due to his ability to switch his HP and PP) Alex has the highest PP of anyone in the party.
: LP toss is a shooter. Red enemies are worth more than the green ones, and you can rack up a pretty big combo with it.
: It apparently works by “banking” damage - it’ll take whatever your damage number would be, apply it to the first enemy, and if it kills the enemy the rest of the damage goes through to the second one and so on. Alex did enough damage to outright kill two Samurai Tortoises and nearly kill a third.
: My first thought here was “Oh boy, more Soul Survivors to banish!”… but as it turns out…
: They talk, but I doubt anything they have to say is important, so I’m going to just do this one’s dialog because there’s a choice that isn’t actually a choice involved.
: “No matter how hard we try, we can’t make him happy.”
: “I know it’s selfish… but… the real reason I’m sad is…”
: That you somehow managed to use three ellipses in a single sentence?
: “Who?”
: “…the Infinite Spirit.”
: “The what…?”
: “Master.”
: “I don’t follow.”
: It’s like I’m playing Metal Gear Solid all over again.
: “God.”
: We get three choices here. I imagine they’re all the same, but I picked the last one because Alex strikes me as the kind of tool that would have a Nietzsche quote in his forum signature.
: Just behind where “god” is, there’s a single polygon that is uh… yeah.
: It follows us around, and what we have to do to progress is to bring it to “god”.
: I thought this might’ve been Yiddish, but it’s apparently just gibberish.
: And there’s our exit door.
: “She really is gone, isn’t she? What the hell am I going to do?”
: Honestly, I don’t give much of a shit about his sister either. Rory’s entire character is “My sister is DEAAAD!”. He’s a lot like Batman in that regard.
: “Alex!! What is wrong with you? How can you be so selfish?!”
: I love how absolutely none of these people saw the fact that Alex is a colossal douche coming from a mile away.
: “Argh. You’re an asshole, Alex. I thought you came to help me!”
: “Yeah, back when you didn’t lie to us! You realize you’ve been leading us on this whole time about your sister?! You acted like this was connected to Sammy!”
: “I-- Arghh.”
: I like how the devs were willing to toss exclamation points around like they don’t even matter, but when Rory is actively having a breakdown they just give him an “Argh.”, almost like he just doesn’t give a shit.
: “And Rory, breathe with me. In. Out. Yeah, just like that.”
: I also like how Vella’s entire character is… just really liking breathing. I also like breathing, being a human and not some kind of alien who has no idea how humans behave like David Cage or Andrew Allanson.
: … what the fuck is this shit? WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?! Did I just fucking walk into the end of Dagger of Amon Ra?
: So, this bit here is absolutely fucking godawful. You talk to one of the hooded Alexes, and then he’ll turn his back and another one will turn around to face you. I’m pretty sure what they were trying to rip off here is that scene in Persona 2 where the protagonist takes Philemon’s mask off and it’s him underneath the mask.
: “Man, school really changed you.”
: “It wasn’t school that changed you. Just think about it, dude!”
: “Why are you being such a dick, Alex? Seriously man, keep it together.”
: “I know you got scared because we almost died down there… but can’t you see that Rory is hurt? His sister freakin’ killed herself.”
: When I was recording this part, my brain basically shut off. I didn’t miss any dialog, I just… zoned out. That’s sort of how playing this game is.
: “You know full well that you’re overreacting… but you won’t just back down.”
: “Will it kill you to say you’re sorry? Seriously… just say you’re sorry.”
: Seriously, is Alex’s only motivation in life getting laid?
: “Seriously, just stop being a loser. I think Vella thinks you are a stuck up rich kid, who has never known real world problems in his life.”
: “Okay, so now you’re going back to reality… are you ready to back down?”
: “I want to say I’m sorry. I just don’t know if I can. There’s always time to say you’re sorry… right?”
: Honestly, it’s really hard to see why Alex, or the audience, should care. He’s known Vella for all of what, two weeks? And Michael is just some dumbass who lives next door.
: “Just 'cause you’re cool with Soul Survivors and astral projection or whatever the hell you’ve been on about doesn’t mean everyone else is!”
: “I-- Fine. Whatever.”
: Oh look, Michael’s still alive!
: “You said this isn’t about Sammy, but don’t you think there is a connection?!”
: I mean, other than that there were Soul Survivors involved in both cases, not really.
: “Don’t you realize Sammy was probably taken by one of those Soul creeps!”
: “No. That’s not right. That isn’t how this works. Soul Survivors wouldn’t take someone like that, they have no interest in such things.”
: “They’ve transcended things like kidnapping, or anger, or any other motivation for that.”
: So okay, if they’ve transcended everything… why do they attack Alex? I mean, other than the fact that even I want to punch him.
: “Transcending? What does that even mean?!”
: “Left – Left the reality?! You think she left her body or whatever?!”
: “Then you obviously weren’t listening when I said she was TAKEN by two of those Soul Survivors!”
: “You weren’t there when she was screaming for them not to take her again!”
: “Okay, give me a second to think. I’m sure I can explain it.”
: Bye Rory! No one’s going to miss you! Go ahead and just leave your body and find another dimension to live in!
: “Wait! Come back, Rory! Great, Alex, now look what you did!”
: Honestly, out-douching Rory and getting him to fuck off is probably the high point of Alex’s career as an RPG protagonist.
: “Hey, this isn’t my fault! Don’t blame THAT on me! He’s the one who lied to us!”
: “Dude, he was obviously just hurting - just needed someone to reach out to. Could YOU have said exactly what was going on? Even hiding behind a computer, you can’t help but think what people think of you.”
: Wait, what? What the fuck does that have to do with anything? What the fuck is he even talking about? What does that part about hiding behind a computer have ANYTHING to do with the rest of what is going on? WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?
: “In the mean time, try not to be such a jerk to your friends.”
: “Hey, that kid isn’t my friend.”
: Yeah! I’m not your friend, buddy! I’m not your buddy, pal! I’m not your pal, guy! I thought that was from the 1999 South Park film (which came out a few short months from when this game takes place) but it’s not.
: “Cool it man, you’re missing the point!”
: “Maybe he didn’t deserve that abuse. I’ll admit that much.”
: “I was scared. So many odd things were happening around me and I didn’t handle it very well. First I met Sammy, then I lost Sammy, and then I met Rory, who had lost Carrie.”
: Is this a monologue or a goddamn math problem? I feel like he could’ve followed this up with “If this is true, then what time is it?”
: “For a moment I considered saying that we were alike, but I often have to remind myself that I didn’t really KNOW Sammy.”
: “We met only once, but still, I can’t get her off my mind.”
: I understand that the panda is supposed to be sentient and not just Alex speaking through an imaginary proxy, but damned if it doesn’t feel that way. Alex is too much of a tool to even have a yes-man so he has to invent one.
: “How could you tell something is troubling me?”
: “You’re making your ‘I"m thinking’ face.”
: “Mainly, I’m thinking about what Vella said - about detaching your soul from your body, or whatever.”
: “She seems convinced that Sammy had done that. But somehow that just feels wrong.”
: I really, really want to make a joke about the early 2000s Sega-Sammy merger, but no one would get it. The Atomiswave was a mistake.
: Here’s what I don’t get. Why is he telling the panda this? The panda was ostensibly there when it happened!
: “That doesn’t seem like she willed her Mind to separate from her Body. And I don’t know, it’s just-- ever since then I’ve just had this terrible dark gloom following me. No matter what I do, I can’t shake this feeling.”
: “I just feel like all my focus has been on the wrong thing all this time.”
: That pisses me off! We should be out there looking for her.
: “Where do you think you’d look for her? Do you really even know anything about her?”
: “Arghh. I don’t know maybe I’ll–”
: I haven’t been keeping track, but I’m reasonably certain that by now, we’ve had more scenes of Alex talking to himself either directly or by proxy than we have anything resembling a plot.
: By the way, we’re almost four and a half hours in.
: “Did you get taller? Always getting taller.”
: “Haha, I don’t know, Mom. How was work?”
: “Terrible. I’ve slept at the office for the past few weeks. I smell, I need a shower, and I don’t even work in fast food any more.”
: “How’s the project coming? Everything done?”
: “Yeah, it’s done. Alex, would you mind sitting down for a bit? I need to talk to you about something serious.”
: “What’s wrong?”
: Is it just me, or does this feel like a conversation out of The Room?
: “Holy crap!! Can they do that?! Weren’t you, like, the project lead!?”
: “Well, everyone has a boss, Alex. But it’s going to be okay. Just things are going to be tight for a while.”
: “But don’t we have savings? Like, you have money, right?”
: “Yeah, I have a bit. I spent most of it on your last semester.”
: “But I had a college fund. That should’ve been separate from your unemployment fund!!”
: “Well Alex, it was.”
: Welcome to the “everyone is taking a shit on Alex” segment of the game. Unfortunately, the game isn’t self-aware enough to know that Alex really is a colossal douchebag - it’s going to be portrayed largely as people being unfair to him.
: “So what do we do?”
: “I paid a LOT of money for that fancy degree of yours.”
: “Doesn’t have to be today. But by the end of the week, you should at least have some interviews lined up. Okay, you can go.”
: But mom, how am I supposed to be a protagonist in this dipshit RPG world if I have to get a job? It’s not like I’m the protagonist of Persona 4 and/or 5!
: Seriously, does Alex do this shit every time anything doesn’t go his way? Does he do this when he goes to the fridge and they’re out of ketchup?
: “Come on don’t you want to work for yourself… put that degree of yours to use?”
: “Mom did everything for us… and now we can’t repay her this way. Just be nice. Play it cool.”
: “When did you start acting this way, man?”
: “You love your mom, and you’re grateful for everything she’s done. Why can’t you just do a better job of showing her that?”
: “Sounds pretty simple to me. Just don’t be mean.”
: “Yeah, it’s easy to not be a jerk… but I just want to know why you’ve changed?”
: “Have you changed though?”
: “Yeah. Yeah, you’ve totally changed. But… can you change back?”
: So one, this makes me feel like the developers assumed anyone playing this game would be a loser like Alex. Second, what the shit?
: Instead of getting a job, I figured I’d spend the rest of this update exploring. There’s a couple of rocks we can Amp at the construction site, and one of them has a box with nothing good in it.
: There’s also this completely nonsensical path that we ran into earlier. This is the one I was going to try and explore back when we were in Windtown, but couldn’t. Let’s do that now.
: What I didn’t know at the time I recorded this is that what we did has a very minor effect on a cutscene coming up when we advance the plot next.
: A radio tower. At this time of year, at this time of day, localized entirely on a mountain path that can only be accessed from behind Alex’s house.
: The reason the sky is so dark is that… we’re actually not supposed to be here yet. I don’t know why the developers didn’t just lock it off until after we advance the plot. When we do come back here, it’ll be night time.
: The radio tower is basically a maze with chests in it. There’s only one with anything good in it, which I’ll point out when we get to it.
: This game uses so many words, but it couldn’t be bothered to tell us this until after we fought the first real boss.
: There’s also some enemies in the maze. I was going to retreat and wait until I had the whole party, but later I realized we won’t have our party when we come back through here. The skull (with a crown) and bat aren’t really anything we haven’t seen before: they’re both single-target attackers and go down in one hit to Alex and his overfilled strength stat.
: Here, we run into another new enemy type: aliens. Aliens fucking suck to fight, and you should immediately just LP toss them to death.
: As you can see, not only do they have an undodgeable attack, but they also fucking HURT. That’s almost a third of Alex’s HP in one hit.
: Thankfully, while their speed is high enough that they’ll usually go first, Alex can take them down in one decent combo.
: Nothing interesting here, just a running shoes and some healing items, but I figured I’d show this just to give you perspective of how the maze goes.
: There’s a chest over here we need Dali for that has a pog in it. The two encounters are both two bats, but one of them gives you a whopping $1000 for beating them.
: I don’t get why Alex doesn’t just, you know, give his mom the $3500. It’s not much when you’re a homeowner, but it’s definitely enough for a mortgage payment.
: We can see a Dali bridge up there, and we want to hit that Dali bridge, as it contains the only item we want from this place.
: To get there, we have to go up the path and cross another Dali bridge, then drop down from the far side.
: The Back Alley Boiz LP is a straight upgrade to the Sergeant Salty EP. There is some new stock in the record store, including one that has two less attack but has +5 PP on it, but this one has the most STR on it.
: There’s another chest behind it that we can reach from the other side (top of the path) that has a Bike Helmet in it. Fuck defense, I want to load up on STR for maximizing LP Toss damage.
: Onward through the maze! We have no real reason to come this far, except that there’s more enemies.
: This right here is why I’ve been levelling up STR and PP first.
: The last chest before the radio tower has $200 in it, bringing us to $3900 overall.
: Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do in this beaten up radio station. Let’s go look for a job!
: Let’s try the arcade first. Surely Korean Man will hire us. I mean, Korean Man is the name of a robot master from Megaman, right? He’s a renegade Korean BBQ robot that slings bibimbap? Alex could be Whine Man, with the power to complain so loudly that Megaman loses interest in going any further into Dr. Wily’s base.
: That’s okay! Surely, Alex can make pizza and/or pasta… right?
: Yeah, you know what? I don’t think I’d trust Alex to make a pizza.
: Even the burger place refuses to let us work there! It’s almost like this is a really, really ham-fisted commentary on the fact that millennials got fucked out of jobs… even though Alex would be too old to be a millenial!
: Also, I’m going to post this NPC’s dialogue because I love him.
: We can keep going, but after… I think one more stop, Alex will give up.
: Also, you want to see something that pissed me off?
: Fuck you, Allanson! You don’t get to reference Mother 3! Only good games get to do that, and most good games wouldn’t because they don’t need to compare themselves to something else like that!
: Next time, we’ll advance the plot some more. We’ll also the first part where our choices at the beginning come in! Sort of.
: Well, actually, there is one more thing I want to do. Someone pointed out in the thread that Alex’s voiceactor is a guy named Chris Niosi. As I was making this LP, I found out that he recently got patched out of Fire Emblem: Three Houses both because he had broken an NDA with Nintendo, but also because of multiple accusations of sexual assault and abuse against him.
Therefore, I figured I’d just cut him out of this game too. Here’s my demo tape. I apologize for nothing, except to Tim Curry, Tom Hanks, and possibly Grant Goodeve.