Rejection: Bloodshot Eyes

And we're back, after a frankly far too long delay that was out of my control. Believe me, I've been eager to get back to this the whole time, and now we're finally going to get to see what lies in the section I've been neglecting...Which means figuring things out again and getting used to how my usage of the save system went. It only took a few minutes, which is good. (Note, I forgot how the screenshot function worked for a bit, so the early part is missing anything)

There's an obasan guarding a medikit, then a Hell's Angel guarding some kind of danger box. You can knife the former, but not the latter, possibly just this stage of the game. The box is an ammo box, and since ammo boxes reload regardless of how much ammo you used, like say, if you've only used one magnum bullet to kill a zombie guarding it, I reload. Glad I've kind of got the hang of the Python's recoil though. More medikits, first a Tobi then another Hell's Angel.

Suspicious, there's a box in a room all by itself. It's a shotgun. A 12L shotgun? 12 liter, laser? Don't tell me the guys who made this don't understand gauge? I didn't for the longest time, but then I never really made anything that depended on the measurement. Counter intuitively, higher gauge is actually smaller, it's referring to how many items you can make out of a certain amount of material, which I believe originated with wiring. Here at least, that's actually a surprisingly important part of our electrical grid that nobody really thinks about. As to the gun, they didn't know, because it's a SPAS-12, which I place where my old shotgun was. I'm getting all the classic cool guns.

That said, I'm going to do a bit of grinding, since I'm about to get rid of an old gun, and that one has 31 shells I haven't used, why not take out some Hell's Angels? Answer, because you can't hurt Hell's Angels with my old shotgun. I can kill the obasans with it, but man does this gun have a poor chance of hitting something outside of the range it can attack you. Maybe there's something else around? I find the path to the next area, but I can't go there yet because K-ko wants to find the camp. Oh, right, I had an actual objective here. Also, level 4 now.

The log on the left stays on-screen so long as the game continues, so any time you see it like this you know I recently loaded a save.

Once I fill in the map, it's clear there's nothing I need to activate, I just need to get out of here. Back through the sewers of Meguro. Doing what I should have done the first time and map the area out. It's not something I mind, this is the first game since Dungeon Master with nothing but fun in mapping. The game is also giving me motivation by making it so that enemies here drop too little experience to level up in any meaningful amount of time, while also being a pain to fight.

"I see! We'll go there as soon as possible!"

After a long trip back, I'm finally past the sewers, I did Shibuya at the start, but not the camp. This proves tricky when I get confused by the camp entrance dialog, but I'm back. K-Ko informs him that the route is secured. The commander says they'll go to Shinagawa Pier. Then, in a dialog box K-Ko brings the group to the pier, but...

"Rescue boat? You won't escape from here, the Tokyo Purification Force won't let you. You will all die here."

They're greeted by a military officer who's glad they arrived. (This dialog is all voiced) The refugees ask if they can get on the rescue boat. The officer says they can't leave. The purification of Tokyo means they can't leave, they'll die here. They're zombies, which the refugees object to, since they're still alive. The military isn't there to protect the refugees, says the refugees. Another says that they're taxpayers, surely they wouldn't kill taxpayers. The commander says that the time has come to receive the orders of the purification force. There's some more screaming and more dialog, this time not subtitled.

If everything is animated, it's not impressive that it's animated, if it usually isn't, it is impressive.

Holy crap, they animated them getting gunned down. I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting them to kill them, because zombie media has a pathological aversion to competent military forces, but this is a surprise.

"H-how awful...what causes this to be normal for humans?"

K-Ko is apparently watching this, because she says how horrible it was that a human would do that to someone else. The officer says that their work is not done, for how many have escaped to the underground? Search for all of them. K-Ko, who is apparently actually talking to the officer, says she won't do that, she'll protect them. Then the cutscene fades away.

My controller has been loose in my hands, and this startles me. I'm not gunned down, as I quickly recover. I switch from my knife to the Beretta 92F. I'm not sure if I'm missing or if they're too strong for it. Then they gun me down. Right, I guess I'll restore...

"Are you well, K-Ko?"

Oh, I'm still alive. And so are the refugees. K-Ko is as confused as I am. Apparently someone took K-Ko here after she collapsed. She apologizes that she wasn't reliable. The chief disagrees and then idly speculates how they'll escape from there. "The military...what's the matter with those guys?" K-Ko says. The chief says they if the military gets in here, they'll get bloodshot eyes, that is, in a frenzy. They need to find arms and food...and something about not continuing to be the bottom. For the time being this place is safe, but for how long? They need to escape, and there's something I don't understand. K-Ko says she'll find them somewhere that they can escape to. The chief says she's too weak, but she says she'll scatter them this time.

Then I'm sent back to Shinagawa. It has a new music track now. I reload because I want to check two points. Can I actually go through that door beforehand in Shinagawa? No, I genuinely can't. Can I fight off the soldiers? Yes and no. You can shoot them, but they respawn like the zombies, so there isn't much point. You can't flee either. I also discover that you can't skip cutscenes. Good, that's probably the only way to do this, short of bruteforcing your way through Shinjuku. Obviously, my next destination is the door that was previously unenterable...only a quick search reveals that this a new area entirely.

I start just south of the new camp, which I figure out upon entering. Still just the chief and the doctor. The Chief asks how it is outside and K-Ko says that the army is out there with bloodshot eyes, but she thinks it'll be okay. As I leave, the chief says that it's impossible to do with the remainer, which I don't quite understand. K-Ko says that they should strike the pier, put the remainder to zero. I missed something, but okay. I do a quick run about the area to see what's going on...

The rest of the soldiers are of course, not Japanese.

...and I suddenly think that everyone was incredibly optimistic about their survival in real terms, because this place is crawling with soldiers. This is going to be this area's foe, soldiers. We got Soldier Japan, who fights with a knife. Soldier Mustache, who has a Mac-10, hits hard but dies harder. Soldier Alice, who has high defense, but doesn't shoot that often. Finally, Soldier Sniper, who don't move and hit pretty hard. Enemies with ranged attacks are becoming more frequent, but the amount of experience the game is giving me is reasonable. They also have a good enough respawn time that you won't get caught out.

Man, I really messed up getting shots of the guns this week.

The game continues with it's problem of being too generous with the guns, and surprisingly the medical capsules. Most drop the latter. I pick up a M-16 off an Alice, I drop the shotgun since I can't imagine it being useful ever. Then a Mustache drops a MP5A3, and I wonder why I need a pistol when I can have three machine guns. The M-16 is genuinely an improvement over the shotgun, it doesn't shoot as fast as the P90, but it does hit very hard. The MP5 meanwhile, burns through ammo. I don't see how it's better than the P90. As it should be!

Also, checking my discarded guns against these guys, the Beretta is hardly worth the effort, not much point in having a single fire gun when you can deal as much damage with the knife. I imagine the Glock is similar. The SPAS-12 is interesting, it's autofire, but because of the kick, unreliable. And you know, the pellets never hitting their target. The P90 and the MP5 seem to be the same from a damage standpoint, but the MP5 shoots more bullets per burst.

Basically just the evade line below.

I'm just bopping around at first, seeing the lay of the land rather than mapping it out. Just by going through the rightmost doors, I find myself talking to the commander again. I wasn't expecting that. He says that she couldn't evade his forces. K-Ko minces no words, she promises to kill all of them. He says that her friends will be caught in his net soon. It's futile to stand against him. He calls someone called W (in very poor Kana) to strike her down.

Is this supposed to be a sunset?

Surprise, surprise, it's a boss fight. This guy seems intended to be pretty weird. Threatening to kill my friends again isn't saying anything new, so The soldiers die, but he doesn't seem to take damage, at least not that I can tell while fighting, looking at the screenshots it's clear that he does. I don't think this is a fight I can lose, as dying freezes the game. Well, that or the game bugged out again. Stopping now, because I now have my next real objective and some grinding to do. This could be unpleasant.

Gotta say, even if this is pretty cliche, I'm just digging the way this game was setup and executed so far. It's one thing to say the army is corrupt, it's another to show it in a game that's been sparing with real cutscenes, especially this this is the first real animation. The whole way they force the player to die is the best way, where you can fight them off but there isn't much point since they'll never run out. Though I must admit that I am finding it annoying that two of the game's three major characters might as well be The Commander and The Chief.

This Session: 3 hours 40 minutes

Total Time: 7 hours 50 minutes