The trip to Venus takes me past Mercury, because Venus is "right", Mercury "down" and Earth "lower right" in their orbits. It's a quiet trip, because the only pirates are near Earth for some reason. Guess that Brian is the last person to hear about the planned Hunter Guild. Venus itself looks much like a typical sci-fi planet. Guess some terraforming went on.
Once I touch down, there are a lot of space ships around and a guy blocking my path. He's not
Kuwabara from
Yu Yu Hakusho, but rather Masashi Clark, the head honcho of the new Hunter Guild. Brian apparently isn't that well known, because Clark only found out about him from Daniel. Clark is eager to have Brian help out, but Brian wants to know what it is he's supposed to do.
Before Clark can answer, VOID attacks...and then some overweight blond guy from the "Federal" agency arrests Clark for bombing the space port. Huh? After he drags him off, we get a Luke Skywalker-looking guy, who is called David Gede. David reacts with confusion at the whole mess, and Brian is the one who decides they need to do something to get Clark off the hook for a crime he didn't commit. Then David acts like he's in charge here. They split up, and I have to look for suspicious people.
I end up heading for the local bar first, called Blue Goddess. I'm not aware of any connection of Venus or Ishtar to the color blue, so this is exclusively just a reference to how this planet is now blue. Once the guy finishes introducing the bar, this guy chimes in. Boy oh boy, that is a fashion choice. Grill on head over a boxing helmet feels like something someone took from a joke game or some messed up horror movie. He asserts that Federal Patrol knows what's going on, they just needed a scapegoat because they were unwilling to do the real work. I wonder if they deal with alcohol and tobacco too? He claims that Solar Wind paid them off, and Brian says that VOID is powerful enough to do that. Really? The guys we stole a ship from consequence free? He finishes by telling me they have a base in the park with the fountain.
After taking an embarrassing amount of time, I find the fountain. Gee, I wonder who these guys are? This dungeon is the toughest one yet, because you're locked into it after a certain point and these are the fights where you have to constantly keep on the guys to hit them. There's also very little spare energy hanging around, and yeah, there are a ton of hidden passageways, some which are just there to throw you off.
At the end is the Solar Winds' leader, Leonov, who is quite the character. He's not especially tough for an enemy at this point, it's just that I barely had any energy by the time I reached him that it wasn't a guarantee that I'd be able to take him. What he's actually capable of is doing considerable damage to my shield, that I beat him on the first try was incredible. Afterwards, he begs for his life, and Brian makes sure to give it, since he needs him to free Clark.
After recharging my starship, I head to the Federal Patrol office. I was here before, but apparently the guy in charge doesn't consider Brian a trustworthy source. Brian is just...perfect as the obnoxious competent person while the patrol guy is incredibly sleezy even as he offers Brian a job. In fact, it's an actual job. Diana Gaddis, a Patrol officer, is MIA and they need her back. I actually remember her from the Genesis version, vaguely, since she was a main character. Guess we're getting on track for the plot. Now I just have to head to Earth where the Solar Wind base she tried to infiltrate was...only it's been two months and they've probably moved her. Brian even says she's probably dead. I see we're leaning heavily into the governmental incompetence theme...Still, we're getting 5k...which is...well, it's something. Before he goes, he mentions his name is Cherenkov, which I also remember from the Genesis version.
As I head to my [conveniently unbombed] Star Cruiser, Clark is waiting for me. He thanks me for getting him out of the Feds' custody and still plans on having a meeting for the Hunter's Guild. Brian says he'll attend one later, but he has an important task ahead of him, and the two leave in good company. I meanwhile, have to do a little grinding to get my cash back up and find out where I need to go. Starting with Earth seems as good as anywhere.
Something I've neglected to mention so far is that on Earth and on Venus, there were information cards that I couldn't read until I got an Analyzer I. Since until now there wasn't a need to check the cards, I do so to figure out if they tell me where Diana is. It doesn't say, but does mention that Solar Wind has another Star Cruiser called the Cutty Sark. (I get the reference, but every time I hear that name it's goofy)
The path back to Earth ends up taking me through a few fights, but for the most part, I'm making money on these. When I get near Earth, Daniel calls me up. Right in the middle of a fight, and I thought getting a call while driving was annoying. Casually, the two talk, with Brian asking where any Solar Wind bases are, and after being assured he'll get something in return, gives me the location of a guy called General Arsys. Clever.
This leads to a place out in the middle of nowhere. At first I get a message that there's a weak laser beam acting as a sensor, then several moments of nothing. It's only when waiting there for a moment do I get a call. General Arsys...is Lorne Green. Interesting choice. He knows who Brian is, but doesn't know he's looking for a Solar Wind base. He wants 2k for it. I'm then told that there are four bases in the Solar System, Jupiter, Mercury, Earth and Mars, the one I haven't already destroyed. Well, that solves that.
Mars is further up on the other side of the star, past Venus and a place called Station-2. Since I'm already heading that way, why not? It's another town, complete with a bar, wherein I hear a rumor that there's something interesting in the orbit of Saturn. There's a 50% chance "interesting" is something that's going to kill me, but I figure since Diana's been in custody for a few months, another day isn't going to kill her.
Saturn is farther out than any other location so far, since it's nearly as far away from Jupiter as most are from the Sun. The trip takes a lot out of my energy, but thankfully ships, while slightly tougher out here, give 400 a pop, which makes up for my loss. This leads to some trouble. How am I supposed to deal with this? Go to Saturn? This leads me to Titan station, where Federal Patrol HQ is, and I just realized I could have done this after freeing Diana, because the guy has orders from Cherenkov. It gets worse, because I realize that orbit could mean the red line around the planet indicating...the orbit. Well, hey, at least I know where I'm headed after I get Diana.
Mars is a pretty decent place, seems somewhat tropical in design. Or it would if the walls weren't all untextured polygon blocks with the occasion cherry blossom which just looks like a vague tree. The local bar is Red Sand. In which I find out that this is actually a pretty terrible place rife with theft and crime. So, Space Los Angeles, minus the film industry. A random guy tells me that a thief is hiding in one of the trees near the gate to the old mine.
I look through all the trees and find nothing. Well, maybe I'm missing something here? There's a use function on my menu, but that needs an actual item, along with a move function. So I try that on the trees, and eventually find a path, leading to a secret wall, leading to the switch which opens the gate. At which point, I get captured by a guy like the one I captured back on Venus.
My stint in jail is quite short, because someone blows up the door, and now I have no shield. A short walk later and I meet my savior...Diana Gaddis, who I remember being blonde in the Genesis version. EGA purple is certainly a different hair color. Brian informs her of his mission to rescue her, but she refuses because she's still on-duty. Apparently she freed a random Hunter for...no reason other than the plot requiring it. Hey, at least I have a card to give them. (It tells me that in order to take out the Cutty Sark, I need to use flares, which can be found on Io among other places)
The dungeon is more complex than past ones. Entirely non-linear design just full of enemies. It doesn't take that much energy to restore my shields, and there are fuel tanks around, but I'm still on a limited amount of fuel until I get out. There's a new enemy type, which doesn't seem harder than past variations, they're not shooting as much, but sometimes there are three of them. So, I'm still getting hit. Curiously, the groups of two give more money than the groups of three.
I get out, and decide to leave the base alone for now, despite how pointless this seems. Sure, I COULD take out the last major group of Solar Wind...or I could let Diana do her job. I recharge, and then head off to Station 3, a space station located in Jupiter's orbit. I'm doing this, not just to get a little more cash, but to see where the "interesting" thing in its orbit is. Station 3 isn't too interesting, the bar there tells me things I already knew, VOID is behind Solar Wind, Solar Wind has a fancy new ship they're using against Hunters. And as I'm almost at Jupiter, I realize that it was supposed to be Saturn, not Jupiter. Sigh...
Between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn is Station 1, which really just serves as a small stopping point. Odd, since it isn't that far off from Jupiter and there aren't that many guys around. There's only repair shops and a bar there, which just tells me more stuff I already knew, Solar Wind is gearing up for war, and someone stole one of their new Star Cruisers. After that, the orbit of Saturn is mostly just empty space for a while. I set my ship on autopilot and mostly sit back as it goes along. Not like someone's going to shoot at me, but I am worried that I'll miss whatever's important here. Going around at full speed is quite fast, but it's the easiest way.
On the opposite end of Saturn's orbit, but not actually in it, is Station 4. Nothing in here but a bar, trees and a fuel station. Oddly, the random enemies outside of here are considerably tougher than the others. At least, they were taking out a good chunk of my shields and I wasn't doing much to hurt them. That's pretty much all I find out in the orbit of Saturn. Hopefully I just need to trip an event flag later and I didn't actually miss something.
When I finally make it back to Cherenkov, he's subdued at first. Then we go over information from the card. Since Brian needs permission to go to Io, he'll get it for him. Apparently there's no money to be had in dealing with Solar Wind and VOID just yet, so Cherenkov tells us to head to the Rigel system and escort an alien ambassador. He tells me to kill all the terrorists trying to assassinate him. Well, that shouldn't be too hard.
I'll leave it here. We've got a nice, new objective and I've seen most of what the Solar System has to offer. Next time, we'll find out how the Rigel system looks, or possibly see a game from 1984. I threatened that last time, but honestly, I'm still debating whether or not to keep or toss one of the last four games.
This Session: 2 hours 40 minutes
Total Time: 6 hours 40 minutes
