I head back to town and head for the Great Red Spot, to see what they have to say. Might as well, right? The bartender talks about Brian's new ship, which was made by the Solar Wind, which doesn't bode well. In case you weren't paying attention, this is not the big bad organization mentioned in the opening crawl, that's VOID. This is actually all I can do right now on Ganymede, because once again, the weapons guy says my ship needs to be remodeled before I can use the new weapon. Sigh...
Once again, I'm rushed as I leave the planet, so now's as good a time as any to talk about the space combat. As I said before, enemies try to orbit you while shooting slow moving projectiles that you can shoot down. If you're behind them, they won't get out of the way in a real hurry, but they're still shooting at you. The problem here is not taking them out, few take more than a few shots and they don't move too fast. It's just that finding them is a bit tricky. The game includes both a scanner and arrows on the HUD if you stop for a moment, but it's still a bit tricky turning around to aim at them.
My next destination is the colony in the asteroid belt, which I imagine was explicitly mentioned in the manual, but the only thing that seems appropriate is Colony-1 in the map screen. At first I prepare myself for a long journey south, but I find auto on the menu, and sensing that I have a chance at going where I want, use it. This is the only place so far that mentions the coordinates of places, which is kind of important in a space game. Note, this does not actually make things go faster, it just does the flight for you. Hope you enjoy waiting! And if you have to get out to attack someone, your speed automatically drops to zero.
After dodging a surprising number of pirates and asteroids, I make it to Colony-1, which has a unique-looking skybox. It's a nice place, and this time there are places that buy and sell things. I find a store that sells a booster. I have no idea what it actually does or if I'll need to press a button, but I have it now. I can also sell ores I find, among other things. The translation file mentions that selling the only gun you have crashes the game...which seems self-evidently bad, so I wasn't planning on it.
The local bar, Asteroid, is much like the last bar, except the guy doesn't know where the Meister is. That's okay, there's a mysterious hallway leading to arrows pointing in one direction. This is a dungeon, I guess. The arrows move you in one direction, you can kind of go against the grain, but you shouldn't do that too much, energy, after all. The inside is mostly straight-forward. More enemies, gates and levers. The game then decides to violate a prime rule of game design, by having you try to find a secret passage into an area with no designated path. As in, walking through walls. Yeah, this was the era of JRPGs occasionally requiring that and it was obvious, but I sense this is going to be a theme.
You need the switches outside pulled so you can pull the switch inside the secret area, otherwise you can only talk to the Meister's apprentice. Once you've done that, the Meister, Hidari assumes you're a villain with VOID and attacks you. He's the hardest foe yet, it takes more than a single salvo of blaster shots to take him out. Meister Hidari stops the fight, since he's figured out that we're not here to kill him, and our hero introduces himself, Brian Wright, hunter. Glad to hear we finally got his full name. Apparently the Star Cruisers were actually made by VOID. Interesting.
Hidari will fix up the ship, but first I need to head to Mercury to get the materials he needs. Side note, I still have 1.5k money over the cheat threshold, but obviously that could change at any moment. So as I head to Mercury, I make sure not to run away from anyone who comes after me. It's a handy little racket, and surprisingly rewarding. I'm sure if I have to chase after dozens of guys it will be, but for now taking out a bunch of guys at $150 a pop is a great deal.
Since it was on the way to Mercury, I decide to check out Earth. This was really just an excuse to recharge my ship, I didn't expect anything to happen, but as I enter, I get a call from Daniel Gibson, Brian's friend from the Solar Wind base. The last one, because he's been captured again. Huh, I thought this was going to be a minor detour, but it turns out I've found the plot. Well played, developers. After getting a recharge, I check out the town further, and it turns out that Solar Wind is just a group of VOID mercenaries. Glad we explained it on a random detour.
Also, Hidari's granddaughter is living in a random building on Earth, and Brian asks why she's living there with, "Why on Earth, of all the places". I don't care if that's something the translator added, that's a clever line. Apparently her parents were killed, and she too, wants Brian to take out VOID. Now I just need to find their base. It's tricky, since it's actually behind all the shops in such a way you can easily look, but once you get up close, it's obvious. Unfortunately, Brian thinks rushing in is foolish and he should get his ship upgraded first. You know...the ship he isn't taking inside a ground base. Well, Daniel can go get tortured for a few days while I get it upgraded.
The trip to Mercury goes without any trouble. Unfortunately, Mercury seems to be a dungeon. This normally wouldn't be a problem, except that this means I have to travel back to Earth or somewhere if I need to get more energy. The level, as per usual, has various scattered energy cans, along with repair modules, but apparently my style of combat is slightly hard on my energy banks. Hey, I appreciate a "natural" opportunity to get more money off spaceships rather than just wandering around.
That said, this level goes all in on secret walls. In order to head through anything, you need to go through two hidden passageways, and there's some more stuff hidden in the walls. Not the big stuff, like the crate you need or more importantly, an energy tank. Which doubles my current energy to 20k at maximum and has 10k of that when I pick it up. Meaning I can clear out the rest of the dungeon right off. With that, it's a short couple of jumps back to Colony-1.
Hidari expects something from Brian before he upgrades the ship, he wants me to talk to his granddaughter on Earth. No, it doesn't count that I already talked to her, I need to go again. Glad we're doing this while Daniel gets whatever kooky torture VOID has cooked up, I'm sure he'll appreciate it when we find his smoking body barely clinging to life. Well, at least I can take out some pirates while I'm at it.
Once I'm there, the two exchange pleasantries almost as much as if Hidari was there himself. Like someone isn't in captivity right now. That said, this trip isn't entirely useless, because Yuko has a container I need to bring to Hidari. I find it amusing that once I get back Hidari complains about her being a pain, as if he wasn't just one. But the container is very useful, because it's a quantum engine. I need to go off somewhere for a moment while he fixes it. Actually going off somewhere.
Going through town, nothing has changed except that there's another hunter's spaceship blocking the way out. I suppose that's one way to stop me from going off. After finding that there's a teleport back to the Meister's house, I realize that I haven't tried his apprentice again. Apparently, Hidari likes Brian so much that he's doing the work himself. This is enough to get the work done, so I head back and Hidari tells me that I can equip a quantum laser, engine, along with nuclear shield and a beam booster #2. It's also for free, since Hidari hates the guts of the Solar Wind group since they killed his son and daughter in-law.
Finally, I can save Daniel from whatever horrible tortures have been going on there. I note that I have not yet upgrade my gun, because I couldn't find it on Colony-1 and Earth doesn't have it. My objectives say that I should rescue Gibson before continuing with my objective, which is either further upgrading the Star Cruiser or actually going after VOID. Either way, for such a high end cruiser, I sure do have to spend a lot of time and effort getting it up to snuff.
Getting this done before getting a new gun turns out to be a mistake. See, I'm not having any trouble dealing with the guys in this new dungeon, but they are splitting up and trying to flank me, and they are taking more shots. One energy tank seems to effectively deal with four groups. So once again, I leave Daniel to get tortured and head back to Ganymede. The new engine, incidentally? Seems to be doing nothing in terms of speed or turning ability, it's just there.
The quantum beam makes a world of difference, even against random fliers. I'm gunning them down in one or two shots. By the time I go back to Earth I'm practically back to what I was before buying it. Unfortunately, this isn't translating into ground combat. They're still taking a ton of shots and running around too fast to make hitting them difficult. I'm not sure that the $90 an encounter is really matching what I'm paying, but the five grand lying around helps bridge that gap.
The level itself is a series of small mazes with teleporters leading between them. Go through a teleporter, and you end up in a new mini-maze where you need to fight to get to the teleport back. Rinse and repeat until you reach a switch which opens up a door near the start. Where Daniel is. Once I'm there, Daniel thanks me for showing up in what could be construed as either sarcasm or genuine thanks, but is the latter. Because he then offers me info on the Solar Wind.
I'll leave it here for now. Next time, we'll see Venus, or possibly get a minor detour to some other game. I have been neglecting 1984 for a bit now.
This Session: 2 hours 50 minutes
Total Time: 4 hours
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