Elvira II - If Only I Had a Brain

Last time, I killed a vampire by causing daylight to appear at night via using a tuning fork to break glass.. In retrospect, that didn't actually make any sense and I'm starting this session off with a deep sense of fear. Not of the game itself, though it has its moments, but because I'm afraid I'm not going to understand any of the logic.

I return to the alien movie set and try to fight the worm monsters. I actually can kill them now, but it costs me a lot of health. The new, fun part of the game is that you can take damage in your limbs. Head and torso does what you expect, but if you get a damaged arm, you do worse in combat, both and you can't do anything with your hands. One leg, and your ability to move only occasionally pops up. Both and you're dead in the water. In this situation, I ended up getting taken out by a giant mosquito.

Combat is worse than the original. Say what you will about it, but there was a system to it, it worked as long as you could match the reflexes of the enemies. Here, click and maybe you hit. Wait until the icon pops back up and do it again. There's seemingly no defense. I checked a few guides to see if they have anything different to say and none of them mention anything about combat. It's terrible.  

Since the bug picture isn't going well, what about the witch? That goes better, especially once I start using the no regent spells Healing Hands and Ice Bolt. It takes a while, but I take her out. Her head explodes, and now I can pick up her eye and...eat it. Or use it in a spell. Since the spell in question is Fear, which I suspect is of limited utility here or of absolute plot importance. One or the other. Either way, I'm underleveled for it.

The costume room, after I turn on the light, has costumes. Six of them. Well, that's useless I think, until I realize that this means that these must be in some way be useful. Not just in the "do this when you have the experience to get more experience to get enough levels to handle the evil boss" way, in the "hey, remember that this is an adventure game" way. Though checking, one of the costumes comes with a fencing sword, that of Sir Walter Raleigh. It works, and I actually clear out a few of the hostiles in the alien picture, but I get poisoned by a mosquito. Gonna have to find the ingredients for an antidote. 

In the meantime, it occurs to me that I can probably solve that frozen boiler. "Flammable objects" are the regent for the fireball spell, which paper counts as. I just need to wait until I get enough juice to cast it. I really hope I'm not on a timer here. After the requisite amount of waiting, I cast a fireball and now the room is back to normal. What I get for my troubles? A copper rod. Which, if it doesn't actually do anything in a puzzle, only works for the magical armour spell. Which I can't cast yet, because it's seventh level.

So, the antidote spell needs a natural poison. Which I presume means I need belladonna or aconite or something. None of the plants around are this. There's no poison, technically. I wouldn't drink the contents of a fire extinguisher. Okay, well, maybe, thinking back to that fish tank full of piranhas, I can use telekinesis to get the key out...except I need a magnet for that, and I haven't seen one. Considering I'm probably going to need the poison for the antidote, that poisoning the meat idea is looking less and less likely.

Now, what about the zombie picture? So far I have no idea what to do there. There's a door I can't open, a dead priest, and holy water I can't grab. Well, I try to just grab it, and the game tells me I need a vial. I don't know why, but fine. Maybe I can use the resurrection spell on the dead priest, but for now that train of thought is not helpful. I decide to look up if there's anything I can do here, and it turns out I missed that you can move the pulpit to go below. And to think Elvira hinted at this with her "sermons were very moving" speech. She gives another one about brains and brawn, which is a subtle hint for what's about to happen.

The place directly below the pulpit is weird. There are two hag-like creatures chained up against a wall, with it all just hanging out. I can kill them...which I do. This doesn't seem like the kind of game that pretends to care about killing prisoners, if anything, killing might be best. Then a long trip down a rock cavern, and dirt catacombs deep beneath the earth. There's a trapped alcove with a key in it, but the trap doesn't kill me. The hostile down here, instead of fighting zombies or anything, are just skeletons with axes. Lame. What's not so lame is that they hit like a truck and it takes my all to take out just one. I don't have a chance against these things yet.

I carefully continue in the alien picture, taking out what enemies I can, then retreating back out so I don't get ambushed. I make it all the way to the end of one hallway, which leads to a cave. This has worms pop up out of the ground. They're tougher than the wandering worms, but there's only three of them and they don't surprise you. Inside this is a mushroom, which is not poisonous, and a crystal. Unfortunately, I need to manipulate it so I can get past the area without getting poison damage from the mosquito. Or something, since it just brings a limb down to zero health, and if I heal it, takes it down again.

Since I can't, I decide I'll head back here later. I decide to go up to the second floor and look for more objects I need to cast spells, then bring them down to the area between the studios. I start with Elvira's room, since it's messy, and I find out I can look inside the make-up case. Oh, look, there's stuff in there. The silver four-leaf clover's for a luck spell, or possibly Magical Armour, but the other seems to be an actual item, a curling iron I can use. Which generates heat. Speaking of which, don't I have a room in the mansion I was supposed to open from the inside?

First I check it with a fireball. That works, and in comes one of the developers whose palette has been changed to corpse color. I wonder which of the developers is the face of my protagonist? The guy who ended up assigned to be the role of hero and Elvira's boyfriend. A few applications of ice darts and a few whacks with my sword and he goes down. Outside of here leads to a hallway with a door to the kitchen and to downstairs.

The kitchen has surprisingly little obvious stuff, no real foodstuffs beyond flour and a few mysterious items, just a lot of pots and pans. Copper, which means they should be useful, but mostly I'll have to go over it a bit to figure out what's what. There's the little sliding small door I used which "teleported" me to the cooler, but it's one-way. There's a door which leads to the hallway with the killer zombie, and he's still there and kills me.

The basement, meanwhile, has three rooms. The one straight from the stairs is a cell with nothing in it except a message written in blood on the wall. Maybe message, I can't read it. Then we have a laboratory with a mad scientist who kicks me out whenever I try to talk to him or do anything, the third involves a little Frankenstein's monster on a table. I kind of already know what I need to do here, since this bit is pretty commonly spoiled. I have to bring him to life, but I have to be careful not to cut his wires ahead of time, lest I end up in an unwinnable state. That said, I'm also in an unwinnable state right now because I have no way of dealing with the zombie.

So I decide to try my luck with the ghost of the guy in one of the upstairs bedrooms again, and despite the magic seeming to not work, a few stabs with the fencing sword do. Huh. Anyway, the scripts themselves are useless scrap paper, but he also has photos. Of every character who belongs in one of the costumes in the costume room. Including the guy in the white coat, who I suspect is the lab assistant.

There's also a button under the bed which opens a secret passage to an altar room, which might be important later. For now, I decide not to hang around here, there are vampires hanging around on the ceiling and I don't want to wake them up. Right, well, that's enough actually solving things, now it's time to look up a walkthrough to see where that darn brain is. It's in the mad scientist's lab. No, couldn't do that first, I just had to know where the brain was.

So I get the costume and go to make-up to do my face up like the lab assistant. The first time around I don't use the teeth, since they aren't showing up the same time as the mustache, but that's important. Unfortunately, every time I click on something, he asks what I want. Every time he does, I need to ask if he needs any help, or he'll kick me out. I can, if I bring the note from the book with, have him whip up some poison, but then he kicks me out. If he kicks me out, the door is locked.

Disgusted with how little information the walkthroughs give me, I check a longplay. The stuff I need isn't in that room, it's in the one with the monster. Finally, I've found a brain. And all the parts that fill up our insides. I test the spell on the zombie, and he's gone. I go through and back through the area, and he doesn't show back up. Huzzah! Now, to poison those fishes and grab the key. This doesn't seem to cause any change there, but I can grab the key unimpeded.

The use of this key was not obvious to me, so I checked to see if there was something I missed. There was, turns out one of the paintings I checked behind is hiding a safe, it's just that you need to click the wall after removing the painting. There was no sign that there even was anything. Inside is an Indian peace pipe, which the Indian in the basement doesn't actually want. It's probably important, so I'm going to leave it in the lobby.

I'm level 5, which means I can cast resist fire and check out the burning room. Which has nothing in it. Another trap, unless whatever meager experience I would get here was supposed to be important. Since I seem to get more from casting spells, that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm starting to suspect that this game isn't timed, which is a rare mercy.

While reading the books in the library again, I've figured out how to change pages. See, you have to click on the book icon above the words in order to get more words. This is obnoxious and annoying, and took me until I opened up the spellbook to find it. That said, this reveals a lot more, like how to cast the resurrection spell I'll need for the priest, how to summon and unsummon a demon and a few more interesting things.

Of relevancy right now, is that it reveals the method of reanimating the dead like Frankenstein, which, if you've seen your horror films, is to use a lot of electricity to charge the corpse. This is what the seemingly irrelevant tasks of getting the copper rod and reaching the roof were for. Use the rod as a charging point on the roof. It would be nice if the game told me there was a hole on the roof for this stuff, but hey, that would be telling the player.

There's no storm around, so there's no lightning. I do have a spell to summon a storm, which is seventh level. It's going to be a while on that, which means I have to start going through the crypts or the insects. First though, I'm going to need to recharge and prep some spells for that, a lot of busy work. So see you in a week on that.

This Session: 1 hour 45 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours 35 minutes

Elvira II - The Jaws of Cerberus - Introduction

It's kind of strange finally getting to this, a year after finishing the original. Elvira I was something I played very slowly, very deliberately, over the course of years, and that's something unique to it. Something I can't afford to give a game like this anymore. Unlike the original, I'm going to have to do a lot more looking things up. Simply because I like to keep a weekly schedule and that's not going to work if I let every thought stew.

The story is, after the events of the first Elvira game, the player and Elvira are now an item of some sort, and now own a horror movie studio in Hollywood. Because what you want to do after discovering magic is real and it nearly killed you a thousand times over is to make horror movies. Maybe it's just me, but I think if I nearly escaped getting killed by a battalion of ghost knights, I'd be cautious about making movies involving anything horrific. Maybe some musical comedies.

Like clockwork, strange things are going on at Black Widow Studios. On House of Horror, a stage hand got stuck in a revolving bookcase; On Kiss of the Spider, she says the spiders look so real that they should be issuing cans of Raid; On It Came From Beyond The Grave, a catering truck knocked over some tombstones and found an old catacomb. On top of it, she's lost her necklace in my car and there's a stray dog that looks like Leatherface wandering around. Little shock that this dog seems to have turned the place all upside down.

I started off with both the Amiga and DOS version, which both started off with immersion breaking soundtracks. The Amiga's like to some platformer, not...this. Since the Amiga version looks better, I'll be playing that one. I noticed, looking at the credits, that the musicians aren't the same as the ones for Elvira I, but hopefully it won't be this more electronic action game type stuff as I get further in.

The intro shows the company logos, then a scan of the box, and I'm at the front gates of Black Widow Studios, Elvira's in-game movie company. There's a selection of four classes, stuntman, private eye, programmer and knife thrower. I pick private eye, since that seems most fitting to the guy who plays shooters and adventure games. According to the manual, it's the balanced option, which, considering that the different between my balanced stats and the max you can start with is 1-2, may just be the best option period.

Stats are, Weapons Skill, ability to use equipment; Accuracy, self-explanatory; Will Power, some sort of way to avoid getting scared (Will this matter? I'd be pleasantly surprised); Magic Resist, resistance to supernatural charms, or possibly what it says; Strength, Constitution, Poison Resist and Intelligence, self-explanatory. Constitution makes up my health, while Intelligence makes up my power points, or spell points. Levels and experience are self-explanatory for anyone who's played a RPG before. Which I sincerely hope anyone picking up this game has.

The GUI is, counter-clockwise from the game screen, various health indicators, limb damage is important, current spell, radar, inventory, movement buttons for those who think the keyboard beneath them, save/load, adventure action buttons, and the important buttons. For lack of a better term. Right now, it's just combat stance and character inventory/room inventory. For combat stance, I'm picking standard, because I don't know what I'm doing yet.

Click anywhere and Elvira pops up. The first couple times it actually made me jump a little, simply because I wasn't expecting it. She tells me what I already figured out, I need to go and save her from the...humanoid dog creature that's after her? Whatever, it doesn't matter what it is, what matters is that I'm going to have to kill it. She gives me her spellbook, which is added to my starting inventory.

The opening area is surprisingly large and surprisingly empty. It's the entrance to the film studio and there's nothing except a door I can't open, because I don't have the key. The answer is to find a rock on one screen you probably won't notice until Elvira contacts you and tells you to find a rock. By calling you one. I get the feeling that there are some serious downsides to this relationship in-universe.

 

Inside the office, there's a jacket and cap I can wear, if I wanted to. Not sure it does anything. The stuff on the wall looks important, but beyond a nice drawing of a girlie calendar, it's just red herrings. Behind the desk is a computer, a filing cabinet and a breaker, all useless. The real task here is to open the door, and when the guy falls out, take the key off him. Keep that in mind for later. The key is used on a nearby numberpad, which requires a code from the codewheel. SCUMMVM makes it so you can use any code, apparently. 

Past the gate is the parking lot, which is completely empty save for Elvira's car. In the trunk is a set of pliers and a wrench. Both very convenient tools. I wonder how the game is going to think up a puzzle solution with those in my hands? Further on is the office. There's not a lot to actually do, but there's a lot to look at. I spot a fire extinguisher, and in the lady's bathroom, there's a coin-operated tampon dispenser along with another kind of dispenser which I think is for condoms. There's also a gentleman's bathroom and an elevator. The former has nothing, but the latter is locked, apparently.

Past that, there's a fork in the road. Each door, locked by another code. I messed around with these a bit at first, but I'm going to start with door number 2. Door number 1 has monsters I can't really fight just yet. Not sure which of the movies it corresponds to. Door 2 is a more traditional adventure game haunted house experience, which corresponds to, what else, House of Horror.

Each studio has a set of cameras in front of it, then the disconnected area which represents what that section's supposed to be. It's obviously magical, and I suspect that anything inside cannot chase me outside. I imagine, at some point I'll have to test it, though running rarely worked in the last game. The direct inside of the place is a foyer with a staircase and two doors left and right of me. I pick the right. 

This leads to a dining room with no other entrance. If you open the serving platter, there's a severed head inside, and you faint and die. Now, at the risk of sounding like an internet tough guy, this is silly. Remember, a corpse just fell on me and I didn't have this reaction. And I'm also the same person who, in Elvira 1, beat up a horde of people, took maggots off a corpse, and did other disgusting things which escape my memory right now. By this point I should not be losing my stuff over a severed head. At this point I should be wondering what the police are going to do when I have to explain it to them and what's going to happen to my insurance premiums. It's so cliche that I knew it was coming. I'm not even sure I'd find it that shocking.

This time around I explore the place. There's not a lot to actually see, unfortunately, it all seems to be flavor, nothing that actually serves a purpose. Perhaps what there is is just well-hidden, but I can't spot it, what I do spot is a thing for a dumbwaiter. This is interesting, and when I click on it, I find another severed head and loss consciousness. When I return to consciousness, I'm in a larder full of corpses. Very effective, except the door out is locked and I'm trapped here. The only clue, short of unlocking the door from the other side, is that there's a temperature gauge attached to an alarm. I'm getting a bad feeling about this game.

Right, well, let's try something else. I note that this is a reasonable sign that the whole willpower aspect works, though I find it extremely annoying, bordering on obnoxious. One place is so far unusable thanks to monsters I can't fight, and this place is dead ends galore. I go back to check the alien set, and it turns out that so far I just suck at fighting. That's a great sign, I can't do anything simply because my stats suck.

There's another area I can't enter under the staircase, every time I try a corpse pops up. I'm already level 2 from simply walking around, and I'm not doing any better than I was. Left at the staircase is the living room. Oh, yeah, two suits of armor in front of a door with halberds. This is going to go well. There's seemingly nothing in here except a cabinet with more flavor items, and a door guarded by a ghost. The most likable character so far. He doesn't do anything to me, just guards the door. I'm going to be sad when I have to get rid of him.

Just before I enter the door, Elvira pops up to talk to me. She tells me the ghost is just a kid who wants something to play with. Gee...thanks. Honestly, first thing you've done that's useful. The door isn't trapped, but it leads to an office. Portrait of a Confederate officer on the wall. What's with '90s horror games set in haunted mansion having connections to the Confederacy? Can't this be in New England or something? On one side is a fish tank with a key in it. I've heard of this before, it's a piranha, I need to both feed it and open the fish tank. On the other is a desk. Inside the drawers are a prayer book and a padlock. Watch me forget that there's a padlock in there until I check a walkthrough and find out it's important, somehow.

Upstairs seems to have a whole set of doors, going all around the area, so I decide on clockwise. First, is a room that's on fire. I can't escape, and I die. That's the fourth option that automatically kills me, but this time there's actually a solution, a fire extinguisher. I hope. Oh, I'm sorry, I can't actually USE it. That's another death. Past then, then left leads to a hallway with more doors. Left there leads to a children's room with nothing but flavor, and right leads to a room where you get knocked asleep by a succubus and then killed. That's five.

Back in the central area, the next door leads to an empty bedroom. Nothing in there at all. Next room seems like it has nothing despite being bigger, until I spot a corpse on a bed. Now this is interesting. I remove the bedsheet, and he has the script on him. I try to take it...and his ghost attacks me. I try to fight, but between the combat being new, different and weird from the last game and likely him being a ghost, I die. That's sixth, but in this case I appreciate what it did.

Rounding out the rooms are a bathroom. It doesn't seem like there's anything in there, but the game draws attention to the stage blood in the sink and the various bath-related objects above the tub. Then it's down the right hallway, first to an unused room with some stuff. Checking objects is annoying, because you can't just click on them and then click look-in, you have to either pick them up and then look-in them, or switch to the room inventory on the upper right. There's a box of matches in one of the boxes though, and a stepladder I'll keep a note of.

Finally, there's the attic. It has a coffin and a vampire pops out. This is done exactly the same as with Personal Nightmare two years ago company time and I forget when my time. Only there's no escape and there's no using a mirror to take him out. Surprised he isn't out at night rather than waiting for me. That's everything in the place for now, I just need to figure out what to do next.

Given that I have a children's room and a child ghost...allegedly, I can take stuff from that room and try to use it on the child. I haven't talked about the way you take/move/use objects, because if you remember the first game, this goes the same way. Click on something, hold it down, then move it when it turns to an open hand. You can do this when it's on-screen, in the room inventory (because not everything will show up) or in your own inventory. In the room inventory, you just move it slightly, otherwise you move it into your inventory or onto the screen. Because you don't actually use things, you just drop them and the magic happens. In the case of the ghost, the blocks from the children's room can be used, but the books, bear and even cradle do nothing. He still hangs out there, so I need more.

Eventually, I figure out that based on how he jumps in front of me when I use the blocks, if I use it one tile away, I can rush the door and enter the library. What's inside? Books which are flying around. The first time around, I only read one before Timmy kicks me out, but after a second try, I figure out that I must have accidentally gone out. It's not exactly a scavenger hunt, since each shelf seems to have its own book that you can read. If you can read it. The only thing I can find is a note for a very strong poison inside a handbook on poisons.

I should clarify what's going on in the other studios so far. The alien picture has three paths. There's an elevator with a locked door. I don't have the key, but I can call it down. Then there are two paths leading to giant worms with nasty teeth which kill me. I can try to fight back, but I'm not really doing anything to them.

Then there's the It Came From Beyond the Grave studio. There's a long path I have to run down in order to reach a chapel. I can't examine the path there, but I suspect there's nothing there anyway. Inside is church with a murdered priest and a door on one end and a pulpit on the other. There's a prayer book in the pulpit, but otherwise, this is just for experience gathering, because the door is locked. There's also a holy water basin I'll need a container for. I'm sure I can think of something I can do with it.

Time to try to get some holy water and throw it at the vampire. That's how things work, at least, that's how they should. Unfortunately, the pitcher I take from the mansion set proves to not be the item the game wants. Hey, maybe the prayer book or the golden cross I found on top of the altar can do something to the vampire? No, no, alas, but no. Presumably, there's some item to get the holy water and I just have to find it. I do try a random bowl I found in the bedroom with the corpse, but it too, doesn't work.

I screw around for a bit in vain around various areas, looking for something, anything I can do to get more progress. I head back to the lobby and screw around with the elevator I thought I needed a key to use. Since my keyset didn't work, I can't use it. Right? Right? No, it's always been unlocked, I just never figured that bit out. Since there isn't one of those firefighter settings on it, I just assumed. This is turning out to be a great session.

I go to the second floor first. There are seven doors here. First on the left is the cafeteria, there's a lot of stuff to click on, but not a lot I can use. The computer room on the right has even less to do. Second on the left is costumes. There's a witch in there who keeps casting a lightning spell. It's a fight, one I can flee from at any moment. Which at this point I pretty much have to do. I keep trying to attack her and I'm not even sure I'm hitting her. This knife I have is the worst thing I've used in a video game in recent memory.

Second on the right is the make-up room, in which there is a lot of stuff I can attach to my face for what I presume will be a good reason later. Right now, it's just a novelty room I've already lost interest in. Third on the left is director's room. My room? Doesn't matter, there's some booze I drink right away and nothing else. Third on the right is Elvira's room, in which I can find dozens of articles of Elvira's clothing, as well as some other stuff. None of which seems useful. At the end is the typist pool, another office, with nothing much of value in it.

In the basement, there's a guy sitting on the ground in the dark. I...can talk to him. There's an improvement this game didn't need, but whatever. He's the stereotypical magical Indian who we have for some reason employed as a janitor. He tells me that he warned us, that the studio was built on an ancient Indian burial ground. Either me and Elvira took all leave of our senses when we bought this place, or real estate prices in California was so bad that potentially dealing with this was worth the amount we saved by not building on uncursed ground. Anyway, he wants his magic spear, magic bag, and ancient tomahawk. I'm not sure if that's the bag behind him, it doesn't seem to be and he doesn't care if I take it. Behind him is a frozen boiler and to my left is a janitors closet.

What about the spells, you may ask? I have been neglecting these, but for the most part it seems like I need to exploit the way you get more XP for exploring tiles to use them. Resist Fire makes me immune to fire damage, but it requires me to be at level 5 and requires a fire extinguisher. I've gotten up to level 4 so far, so I can put the fire room as a future idea. The vampire can be dealt with via a combination of turn undead and unholy barrier. For the former, I need a brain, which my player character lacks. For the latter, just a prayer book. And if absolutely need be, the spell Holy Blast, which needs "two good religious items" and level 5. There's also a spell for courage, which may help the situations I keep finding myself in. It just needs alcohol. There's so much of it around.

I exploit the game's per tile XP mechanics to get as much as possible, then, after getting a bottle of wine from the dining room, make my spell of courage. There are a good three options I can use this on, but my first choice is the hallway with the ghoul in it. This works, but then the ghoul tears open my throat and I'm dead. No option to fight him, just getting killed. So I try the dining room. The severed head on the platter is still alive, but there's nothing I can actually do. The divider between the dining room and the kitchen still causes me to faint, so that's an automatic thing. What else can I do? There's gotta be something I can use the courage spell on.

It turns out, after sheer "try everything and hope something has changed", that the answer was to enter the succubus's room. Technically, she turned from a beautiful woman into some weird-looking monster before killing me, but I didn't think that was the part I had to worry about. I thought I needed something to resist her sleep spell. Guess not. Since I'm not afraid, she just leaves and I can search the room. There's a pillow, and under it, which you might not notice without clicking, is a tuning fork. The former I don't know yet what I'll need it for, but the latter is for a lightning bolt spell.

Time to try the vampire again, this time I cast Unholy Barrier to prevent him from biting my neck. Gee, that makes things annoying to look at, but as long as it works. It doesn't. It kills me again. I go back after reloading to check the room. I can't actually interact with anything. So...do I need a use of Holy Blast or do I need something else? Because I'm not sure I have two good religious items.

I break down and check a walkthrough. That tuning fork? It's the solution. Which I might have been able to figure out if I could have bothered to check if the use function shows up when I click on it. Since I didn't, I never would have figured that out. You know why? Because the game has been training me to not treat the examine function as something useful, because so far it hasn't. I'm not even sure I would have figured that out except via sheer randomness considering that it's an in-door film set, at night.

The tuning fork breaks open the skylight and in comes sunlight. So after I kill the vampire with sunlight, I then can't do anything in here. Figuring this is what the ladder is for, I take that then come back. Behold, the roof, and what I just had to look up a walkthrough for to find out. No, despite the spots which seem like they might have something, there's nothing there. There's nothing here. I have just done all this for nothing.

That's where I'll leave off this session. I'm getting the feeling this is going to be shorter and more frustrating than I expected it to be. Considering that I don't feel like I've actually done anything, yet I've gone through most of one studio, I'm not sure how long this one is going to be. It really depends on how much is going on in the rest of the game.

This Session: 1 hour 50 minutes

Star Cruiser (Sharp X68000) - Once More Around the Sun

Now that I've gotten the plot of this game done for a while, it's time to do what's the most enjoyable part of the game, combat. Or two of them, at the end of which is a guy who doesn't want to talk to me. Fair enough...but now the only paths forward are blocked by people and doors, and there are no more switches to pull. I can't leave either, so I must be missing something.

Eventually I end up back with Kirk, who suggests that Brian bribes the guard guarding the gate to Fowl. He spouts this line, making me realize that I may have been treating the protagonist differently to how he really is, and providing much needed plot advancement. I head over to the teleport, and nothing has changed in his dialog. Okay, maybe I misread the text and I was supposed to go back to the spaceport. Nope. Nothing has changed. Eventually, after resolving to try everything, I return to the guy who doesn't want to talk to me.

The random guy tells me that in order to get through, I can pay the "toll" to someone at the government office or directly to the officer. Uh-uh, sure. The guy at the office asks if I really thought it was that easy, but after some negotiation, tells me that he "lost" $1500. Sure, lost. I give the fine upstanding government official his dough, and he distracts the teleport guard for me.

On Fowl, there are two paths, each blocked by a guy. Much like the people on Egg, the guards on Fowl don't care about VOID, they just care about Egg. Brian asks his why they attacked Egg, at which point the Guard does the reverse of Egg's story. Egg attacked them, they valiantly fought them off, but Egg and a mysterious third force was helping them. They currently occupy the satellite in orbit between them. So, I'll have to figure out how to get there.

Fowl itself is the mirror image of Egg. Which I suspect is a subtle political statement. The buildings are the same and they do the same things. There are people wandering around in the rubble of the city, at which point I find another Lorne Green, who tells me that someone kidnapped a Meister and some scientists. Anyway, that's enough story, time to kill some more dudes who spin around in a small arena like they've just had a sugar rush. And by that, I mean one encounter after another.

After about four encounters and eight tiles, I meet a guy who absolutely does not work for VOID, who is a member of the Egg Elite Army. Remember kids, when you give your planet a funny name, at some point, someone's going to introduce themselves as the military from that planet. The fun never ends! He exposes himself as a VOID agent, and then I have to fight four guys at once. It's worse than you think, their shots do some decent damage.

That's just how you do things. If there's a little human, you have to interact with him, because it could be someone important. Then again, this game has me tricked into thinking that an enemy against a wall on the map is a sign that there's a secret there. It isn't, it's behind where the little guy was, which is also the path forward to VOID's secret moon base. Where I find myself doing more of the same fights I've tired of two entries ago.

Behind a gate switch, I find the kidnapped Meister. They were forcing him to improve their ships, so now he's real eager to work on Brian's. I just have to go back to his factory on Fowl. Sure, okay, I'll stop in the middle of freeing two planets from a deadly war to get my ship improved. Considering this game, it may even be wise. Only, when I get to his factory, he tells me he needs stuff from Egg. Do this, no, don't do this, do that.

It turns out I cleared out the moon base and I guess...I should find something to advance the plot? I can repeat the process that got me to Fowl by bringing the government official. For $2000 this time. Really hope you came prepared for this section, because there's been no leaving this place since I got here. Back on Egg, more wandering until I find a switch which has popped up out of nowhere and leads to more enemies I can deal with.

At the end of this series of enemies, I find a building containing the President of Egg. I repeat, I have fought my way to the President of Egg, all the while getting bounty money from his guards. That says something about the state of galactic politics, but what, I don't know. For reaching this lofty height, Brian asks him for permission to go to Fowl freely. He refuses to give it to me, because it's beneath him. Okay...what about the parts then? In a random secret wall? Okay.

The Meister, who thankfully does the work for free, then upgrades my ship. Now I can use Gravity Wave Gun 2, H-Shot 2, Radar 3, and Analyzer 3. I'll be sure to look for those when I head for the final star. I'll probably need them...well, who knows with the radar. He then tells me to find the path to the satellite from Egg. Apparently I wasn't at it? It's behind a door next to the teleport to Fowl, which can now be opened by a switch which has mysteriously appeared.

They have some sort of Tie Fighter now. You know how it goes by now. There's another mandatory secret passage, but at least there's some random sacks of cash lying around. I clear out the first floor, go back, and then head to recharge, then return to go up...only the place I thought lead to another floor just teleports me back to the entrance...because there's another secret path you have to hunt for. This leads to the boss.

After killing him, I get this, which is a bit creepy out of nowhere. He's the Crimson Scorpion and he brings Brian's attention to the VOID commander he just took out. It was a robot. Were they all robots? This one is a distraction so that VOID can complete their next project, which the guy says Brian will be able to find out on Hurricane. With this, the war is over, and I can leave the planet. Also, I'm pretty sure that's Daniel Gibson's portrait, just blacked out.

Hurricane is the first planet from the first sun, and a direct shot from Fowl/Egg. The soundtrack sounds like it's from a Sonic game, and the second I walk a tile, Crimson Scorpion talks to me again, telling me that I need to kill his former partners before going to Slender. Then I'm teleported in front of some weird alien monsters. This game has gotten a bit creepy, but the gameplay is still the same.

Oh, no, sorry, they're not dashing around like kids on a sugar rush, they're...normal? I never thought the game would get easier, but I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Sure, there are dozens of respawn points, but at the same time, every fight is not some mad dash to hit a target that won't stay still. It's actually fun again. Though this does have the rather annoying thought that there's a secret passage I need to find somewhere. To the point that I'm actually taking out enemies at the end of dead ends in case that's what's happening.

Eventually, I find a path leading back to my ship. Well, that was a nice, pleasant little diversion. I'm sure next dungeon won't be as easy. Whoops, that's not true, because Crimson Scorpion calls me up and tells me I need to kill all the monsters before I can leave. That might be possible...if they didn't respawn. I was looking for secret passages, but I guess I didn't look hard enough.

After a few tries, I start to wonder if there really is a secret path somewhere. He did say I needed to kill all monsters, perhaps I just need to kill all of them in a certain section? That was they won't respawn? Or...are the tiles placed in such a way that there's a path forward without landing on a respawn tile and kill all the enemies. I put that theory to the test. It seems like the path forward...until I find the generator creating the monsters past a card telling me about it. Whoops.

Slender is the one planet outside the strange shield guarding the second star here. Which means another long trip around the system. The nearest safe planet is Axis 3, which was that weird dungeon/town combination where you have to enter the dungeon to get out, meaning the slightly further away Cherry Shuffle is the better option. And it doesn't matter because it's a town planet. There's even a bar.

There's a secret passage leading to a door with the switch in front of it. Since I've been here before, I suspect that just appeared. At the end is a figure that looks like a C64 imitation of Darth Vader. It's Crimson Scorpion, whom Brian immediately recognizes as Daniel Gibson. What's his motivation? Money, apparently they make faster money. He's a pretty decent boss, doesn't move around to an unreasonable degree and his damaging shots take two of mine to take out.

Once I've killed him and Brian makes a speech mourning the man Daniel used to be, I spot a figure behind me. It's the not-Luke Skywalker guy...David Gede? He has a rather la-de-da way of saying Gibson was an agent of VOID. He tries to reassure Brian that Daniel didn't go completely evil and didn't mean to betray him. Then he says they should to where he lived and search his house, on station Cherry Shuffle. Another trip around the star.

Daniel's house is obvious, but once inside the text goes slowly and there's moody music. Well, the game might be messing up the mood a lot of the time, but when it wants to, it nails it. There's a message on his answering machine from the guy who was standing around on Egg. Uh-oh. Then some woman he went on a date with and then a message for Brian. Daniel tells Brian to take a card, then warns him that there's something about Joshua. Exact quote, it cuts off after that.

There are actually two cards. Daniel, it seems, was working inside to sabotage VOID. Firstly, he messed with their weapons data, they won't be able to use the new stuff for a while. The remaining weapons development division is in the Barnard star system. They're called the Amazons of Twilight, and to find them I need to find a Mr. Sudo. Star Trek or Linux reference? You decide. The Amazons are very powerful, and if I attack them directly, I'll lose. I don't understand why he went to all this trouble when he could have just...not attacked me on Slender.

Given the way the game works, that I haven't had permission to go there seems like no trouble. Now that it's important, someone will pop up. Like Diana before I leave Cherry Shuffle. She has info on the factory where the Star Cruiser was produced. Brian, apparently, doesn't want to hear it. He's genuinely upset that he had to kill Daniel. Diana reminds him that VOID corrupted him. After she's done giving him a pep talk, she tells him that the factory is on Pluto 2 in Barnard, then asks if he has a pass. When he says no, she gives him hers. She warns him that the system is swarming with dangerous enemies.

The Gravity Catapult sends me to a floating space station called D2D. There's only one new piece of fancy equipment, an Ore Converter 3, which costs $35000, which actually brings me just under the 200k I cheated for at the start. The bartender tells me that he doesn't know a Mr. Sudo, but then mysteriously transforms into a new portrait and when pressed, says there's no information market there.

Random encounters here are somehow less tedious than the worst ones in Sirius yet offer more money. They look like X-wings and just sort of circle me. Not really a problem. Then the second group is an absolute pain to keep track of. Still, I'm up above the cheat line again. I stop off at Gargantua, a town planet on the way to Pluto 2. The shop only sells ammo, but there's signs of ruins further in. Just blocked by someone telling me that it's too dangerous.

Pluto 2 is not very new, but it has new enemies. I've figured out that you can scan enemies and get their stats plus name. So these fly things are called Katerinas. My gun is too underpowered for these guys, because after five of them total, I'm nearly down an energy tank. I decide it's best to just explore the rest of the system for the next gun instead of trying this out first.

I take the planets on the left side, which don't have anything I can do right now, but one did have an Analyzer 3. Which I'm sure I'll need eventually. Then I head for the center of the system and all hell breaks loose. Heading for the first planet from the sun, Dry Rock, I end up fighting some dude that Brian is really angry at. Then it's a boss battle against another Star Cruiser. It's as hard as I was warned, but less because the enemy ship is tough, and more because the guy has like five guys with him. After killing him, Mr. Sudo calls me and acts as if I know who he is. I actually reload because I think I did something in the wrong order. Which means no Analyzer 3 for the moment.

My last save was on Gargantua, and as I head for the second planet from the sun, Adam 3 I get a random message. Apparently a space caravan is selling goods in the middle of the map? The only new thing they're selling is a Wall Sensor. Which I buy, seems like it might be important in the adventure game sense. Adam 3 itself is quite an impressive place for 1987. It actually feels like a real space town as opposed to the local shops. There's a shop here which sells the Gravity Gun 2, Gravity Shield, which I can't use yet, and Radar 3. Some guy wants a Beam Booster 2 in exchange for information, which is a terrible deal in my book.

My next stop is Old New York. Actually, looking at my map screen, I finally spot what the Radar upgrades are doing, increasing the size of my map screen. This means I can see this entire star system and likely most of the others. Which means I don't really need to check the map much anymore. The new weapon does what you expect, more damage.

Old New York is a strange town, full of one way conveyors. This means you have to move carefully to find the building you want. By chance, I find the Meister, who upgrades my ship for a cool $8000. Now I can use the Gravity Shield, along with a Gravity Gun 3 and a Beam Booster 3. Which will be useful when I can find those things. The shield, meanwhile, seems to double my current defense power. This whole thing actually sets me back about 40k beyond the cheat threshold. At which point I have to say, I understand, that's about twenty fliers, but compared to a lot of games, that's not bad.

However, the guy I was supposed to meet? Nowhere, and strangely enough, there's a repair shop but no fuel depot. Even considering the layout of the place, I did check everywhere. So I head back to Gargantua to refuel and plan my second attempt on Pluto II, the next time I play this. However, first, we'll see, Elvira II - The Jaws of Cerberus, because what I need after a long, difficult game is another long, difficult game.

This Session: 4 hours 10 minutes

Total Time: 21 hours 50 minutes

Star Cruiser (Sharp X68000) - The Better Part of Valor

I've checked that I can go to Gothic, and discovering that it's just a dungeon, have decided not to give Gaby Todd $3000 for information. If she wants to lock her business behind an insurmountable barrier, she can suffer the consequences. Meanwhile, I plan on finding where an ore processing unit is. Which means doing something I done since I left Sol. Explore the planetary bodies. First, I head for Ghost.

Ghost is a strange shell of a planet. There's someone blocking my path at the entrance. Or rather, it's a heavy ore I can pick up. it's another dungeon. Figuring that I should come back to this, I leave and head for the next planet, Salamander. If memory serves, this is important to the plot at some point. It's another dungeon. Is this entire system just a dungeon?

Continuing through to the next reachable planet, I head to Colony 3. Which just has recharge stations and a bar. Oh, and a building where Brian asks if they know about any black markets, because word on the street is that there's one here. The guy knows nothing about it. Oh, well. That's everything around the one star, and it's a long way to the other one. But this does give me a chance to find out something I haven't gotten about space combat.

Up until this point, I've been assuming when I point at the guys on the radar, I'm facing that guy and the issue is I'm not up or down enough for it. Not so. I don't know how well it'll come off in the screenshots I have, but you can see that the direction I'm pointing and where the enemy is in relation to me are not as well coordinated as they should be. Hence my trouble finding enemies lately.

The first planet around the second star is Atlantis. Glad we found it, I wonder how Shepard is doing. Jokes aside, there is a store that sells actual equipment, but it just sells analyzers, both ones I already have. There's an ammo shop and the usual buildings, but nothing that helps me. Interestingly, there's another location nearby labeled ????, which I don't need a hint to figure out is a dungeon. This leaves Riechen (Probably spelled wrong) a dungeon-looking planet and the Bermuda.

Bermuda is a prison planet, and contacting the control tower causes the guy there to say I likely don't want to be here, but if I want to land they could always use more laborers. And that's this system. I could go to Rigel Kent, but I'm going to hold off on that until I have reason to go back. For now, it's time to clear out Gothic.

Gothic is what looks to be another dungeon full of dozens of encounters with groups of three enemies who bounce around like they're on a sugar rush, but at least dead is dead. I'm not dealing with it all very efficiently, but the space ships surrounding the planet are over a grand a pop, for less effort than the ones I was previously dealing with. Things could be a lot worse.

Like manna from heaven, I find another energy tank. It's at this point that it occurs to me that I've been treating this game wrong. I've been treating it like I would a standard JRPG. Follow the signposting, do what the game asks, when this is actually more of a western-style experience and I've just been too stupid to realize it. Chalk up another one to Morpheus believing the old adage about Japanese players preferring linear experiences.

The way this level works is that there are a lot of locked doors and one lever, that's behind a hidden passageway. Unfortunately, once you get that open you need to find the elevator up, every other door has 1000 energy fuel tank or a repair unit. I've never used a repair unit yet and I doubt I will. The second is that once you reach it, a trap activates. A new group of enemies spawns all over the entire level. It's just the once, not a repeatable one, so small mercies.

Unfortunately, once you get off the first floor it's more or less a straight shot through corridors with only small items in sidepaths and enough encounters to make you question what's going on. It's more tedium at a stage where this game is really feeling it's length. Fortunately, what we then get is a boss fight against the guy who ran away before. His shots take two blasts to take, which is annoying, but not more than the usual enemies.
 

This leads to a scientist and a door switch. He's a hostage, judging by how he cowered before I entered. He's Kenny Jones, space archaeologist. They were having him analyze a stone slab taken from the ruins on Unicorn, in Rigel Kent. There's nothing special about it, save that it's from an ancient alien civilization. Which I presume means a powerful one, rather than finding something from Ancient Egypt. The door back opens the path back, which is the only one back. This respawns all enemies again, great...

I end up using missiles in one encounter, and you know something? Outside of not costing energy, they suck. They ignore enemy shots, and you can't swap to a regular weapon. You need to activate the menu, switch weapons and while it pauses, you still need to be fast on the draw. Still, it helps me get out of this mess intact, so there's that.

Back on Hollywood...nothing has changed. Well...you know what? I'm still not paying. Off to Rigel Kent. Maybe I can find an ore processor there. So I head there and there's a guy at the gate. He tells me I can't use the Gravity Catapult because there are too many people in my starship. I...wasn't aware that was a concern...but wait, I have two, max. Oh, you're going to make me pay, you jerks.

Going back and paying Gaby her blood money, I notice something this time around that I didn't before. She tells me about the black market on Colony 3. Afterwards, Gaby and Kenneth are introduced, with Kenneth being able to stay here for a moment before going back to his house in Old New York in the Barnard system. Brian asks them if they know about any VOID presence in alien ruins, and Gabby says that her brother was headed to Kai in Rigel Kent. Two locations I should examine there.

The method to enter the black market is annoying. First, go to the bar, where Gaby's contact is. He'll then allow you to enter the actual building, where you can buy incredible items. Oh, I'm sorry, did I say that? I meant it's another dungeon, because screw you. More trash cans, signifying thematically the level of quality this part of the game has sunk to. And this is not just some small group of enemies, there are individual paths each leading to a shop.

But you know what? It's actually worth it. I don't mean that metaphorically, it really is. Because I find an ore converter. It converts ores into energy, fuel. This is something of a game changer, because there are a lot of asteroid fields around, and each asteroid gives you an ore. In theory, this means you can handle more than you normally could...but it also means more grinding for asteroids. 

Now that I've done that, it's time to head to Rigel Kent, first off, after recharging, Kai. Don't be fooled by the enemies there, they're about 23 down from the planet. I'll just go there and...there's an invisible barrier. Hmm...would have been nice of the game to warn me, but I did remember that bit. Since one planet at the edge of that star is outside this seeming barrier, maybe I can go there? I can, but outside of a secret passage leading to a locked door, there's nothing I can do here. Better go off to Unicorn...but I'll take the long way around, since I should see what's going on with the rest of this area.

There's nothing else I can reach around the second star, so I go up around it. Cherry Shuffle's off in the upper right corner of the map, but it's nothing special. There's a locked building which may become useful later...but that's later. There are a few $1000 ships wandering around, which is nice for my wallet, but at the same time, I'm not in danger of running out of money I've earned legitimately, let alone via the translation's cheat option. Foul/Egg is engulfed in a civil war, which means I'm not there anytime soon. It's also two planets locked together, which is weird.

After that, I check my map to find out where Unicorn is...it isn't there. If it isn't around Sirius, which I know it isn't, and it isn't around Rigel Kent...where the hell is it? Oh, it's some settlement I have to find, which means checking every single planet again. After I travel to Hurricane, and realizing it's a dungeon I already cleared out, then head to Colony 2, I find the bar there and discover the game knew I was going to be stupid.

Brian somehow knows that someone came back from Kai here, and the bartender knows who it is. There's a drunk who apparently went there. He talks about barbarians and Praid. I'm out 3k for this information, because that was his bar tab. Fine, at least this isn't the mess that was the Hollywood death march. Barbarian is a clue, because that's one of the planets around here. Then Praid must be another planet. Pride. Is it between the two? Well, let's check Pride first.

Exploring around, one of the stores sells an ore processor 2, meaning my earlier trip to that black market would have been completely pointless if I actually explored this system. That alone made this trip worth it, but there's a research institute here, hidden behind some moveable trees, where the guy tells me that the Feds are doing some sort of experiment and they've moved the device to Barbarian.

The area between Pride and Barbarian is pretty dense with enemies, but since they're all below $1000 bounty, this is just busywork. There's a guy at the entrance, and it's Joshua. Who is chasing a suspicious person and asks me if I've seen one. Brian says he isn't, but I am reminded of that little traitor suggestion. Barbarian itself is not a town or a dungeon, it's a puzzle planet. Where you really just wander around moving rocks and trees until you find a strange device and move that. Now you've changed locations.

For some reason, Daniel is now blocking my way out. That's funny, I seem to remember thinking that if Diana isn't the traitor, he's the best possibility...and now he shows up here. He asks Brian why he's here, which is to find Max. Daniel tells us that he's in the planet with the old ruins, but I shouldn't go there since VOID is also there.

Once I'm out into space again, I see that I've been warped to the second star. I should point out that while the impression is that Barbarian teleported to the second star, in actuality, it's another planet called Transporter. Kai is, as you've probably guessed, a dungeon. No respawning tiles at the entrance, no special enemies and freedom to go to and from. Just a lot of fighting guys I tired of fighting last entry and a long trip back. I'm not sure being non-linear is doing it any favors. 

Eventually, I find Max, and he's not doing well. VOID apparently has spies everywhere and they found out that he and Gaby have something important. He says something about a Gibb, obviously Gibson. Which means the game is leaning us towards Gibson being the spy, because he is or is being implied to be the one. He tells me something is in a place called Kirk on planet Egg. The question is, do I go there first or do I see if Gaby needs help? Yeah, her business sense is terrible, but that doesn't mean she deserves to get murdered. Fortunately, that's what making a save is for. Save at Pride, then make the five minute (real-time) trip to Hollywood. When her home is empty, reload.

Planet Egg and Planet Fowl are two neighboring planets which are currently at war. The guy at the gate tells Brian that there's no VOID here, just a civil war. When Brian asks what caused the hostilities, he mentions a surprise attack from Planet Fowl, and how a mysterious third force is helping them occupy a satellite between the two planets. I think I know who that is. Egg is mostly a mundane town, no bar and some guy just hanging around, but it has all top of the line equipment at this point, and H-Shot 2s. Which I'm sure will completely change the way I fight if I ever buy them.

On the south end of the town is a governmental building I can't enter, a locked door, and a teleport with a guy who's blocking my path. There's no hidden path, so I keep checking around. The guy just hanging around asks for money the second time, so I give it to him. Nothing seems to happen, so I talk to him again, nothing. It turns out that mysteriously, the switch to the gate has appeared.

Inside is quite the scene. Destroyed buildings and some black dude got really hurt...and then it turns out that Brian has been staring at the guy for a while and he's not actually dying. He's actually drunk and trying to push a building. A subtle hint that these things can be pushed. Okay. This is actually a strange area in how you explore it, it's like Barbarian, except more exploration than just wandering around.

There's a building in the middle of the place, containing Lean Kirk and a mystical new music track. He has the Lorne Green portrait like a lot of guys seem to have. Brian asks him why Max Todd was here. Kirk tells me that he comes by sometimes, and asks if I'm an unsatisfied customer. I laughed. After Brian tells him that Max is dead, he reveals that Max was his best friend, and he's horrified by the news. Whoever killed him is now after him too.

Brian asks what he was last doing. Max's last task was exploring some ruins related to VOID. "Related"? As in, connected to or they're hiding in? A hunter was spotted, which causes Kirk to freak out. After Brian calms him down, Kirk talks about how Max had some files, which he was going to give to someone. There's a person in his schedule he mentions, only known by his initials, D.G., Daniel Gibson. I believe we have our traitor.

And we'll find out if I'm right next time, in what I sincerely hope is the final conclusion to the game, because otherwise I'm going to put it on hold until after the Halloween season.

This Session: 3 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 17 hours 40 minutes