Before venturing into the ruins, I walked down to that campsite and met a man named Rod, and his dog, Johnny Wolf. He’s a blacksmith and asks us to test out his newest weapon, Silver Breeze. He does this in a...unique way. Firstly, we have to pay him. It’s only 100 gold and we 1000 when we win, so it’s no big deal. Secondly, he tests them out, personally, on us. Round one is easy, and I gain a cool 1000g, but we’ll see how round two goes as we continue the story. He also has a red boat in a nearby cave, so I wonder if he’s the guy who nearly capsized us during the prologue?
Out of places to go, I walk to the ruins. Mint catches up with me and suggests we team-up. Because she’s sketchy, I say no, and we then pretty much race to find the treasure. The Underground Ruins gives off that endless/lost forest vibe but only as a cave. Many of the rooms are identical, with no clear path forward. This isn’t the case, but it took my brain a moment to figure out the second part, and I still don’t fully get it. The first part has you, simply, going north for a while. There are fire breathing beavers and tanky spiders in your path, but you can kill/run past them with ease. Eventually, you begin to hear water somewhere. I got lost for a moment, randomly running around, but I, eventually, found a path behind a waterfall. Not the common waterfall guarded by a tadpole. A totally different one. That path leads to a hole.
This third section has you finding several medallion things which are easy to find, as they’re behind the immortal-esq spiders. I find all eight and return to the start of the section. It's here I start to see that the platforming sucks. Rue doesn’t have a shadow, and the camera doesn’t help you find your exact location over things. There’s nothing to properly judge your location, so you end up falling a lot. Like, a frustratingly high amount. The first part is manageable since there are no great leaps, but the second part over water is awful. Especially if you go for the treasure and need to reset the order. Yeah, you need to land on each platform in the correct order. They blink, indicating the one to aim for, so that’s not the problem.
Back to the story, Mint and Rue have caught up before the second jump puzzle just in time for an Indiana Jones rock scene. Mint gets eaten by the rock while we bumble our way through the falling ceiling AND avoid the boulder. This was my first death, and it wasn't even by a boss. If you get ht by the falling ceiling, you're stunned. Get hit twice, and you're crushed and have to start the room over. The falling seems kinda random, so good luck. When you've succeeded and go to check on Mint, she sleep-yells at someone named Myra. There’s a clue to her story. Anyway, while Rue is overlooking the second jump puzzle, Mint wakes up and sneaks up to try to kick the lad into the pool of water. Just as she does, Rue goes to tie his shoes, and she jumps over him, ending up all wet herself. So far, this game portrays women as bumbling idiots. We finish the puzzle and go down to the bottom of the dungeon.
There we find what might be called a house. It is filled with nothing but a Tiara and a Cube. As we leave, we see another set of mid-bosses, Duke and Belle. Duke pretends to be a ninja but is quickly dispatched, however, he distracts Rue long enough for Belle to sneak up and steal the tiara. They get away as we’re beset by an immortal beast that chases us through a stairway. If you turn in to the wolf, this portion is a breeze.
The party then goes back to Carona, where they talk about the Cube. Eventually, Klaus says there’s a magician nearby who may be able to figure everything out, so that’s where we head.
This “dungeon” is awful. There are no enemies en route, but the colors, man. They’re so bright, and everything has a Lucky Charm marshmallow texture to it. And the music doesn’t help. It’s some monotonous, repetitive kid’s music. It gave me a headache before I even got the gimmick. In order to advance the story, we have to play with the homeowner’s servant things that look like a two-foot-high version of Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog. There are three of them, and what they call play, I call a terrible platforming section. The controls start to fail me here until I stopped caring and speed ran it. Turning your brain off is a strange way to do things, but maybe I’ll try it IRL. Might help me with anxiety, ya know?
We play with mini-Knuckles and the master, Fancy Mel, shows up. I don’t know if she’s fancy, but she sure is bright. I suddenly hate orange. She then tries to talk us out of searching for the [relic]. What we seek belonged to Valens, the strongest Aeon who had the power to move the stars themselves and finding it may destroy the world. Rue remains determined, and she relents. Rue is either very charismatic or Mel is slightly chaotic. Before she provides aid, she tells us to go look for her fourth mini-Knuckles. We find him in the forest, exactly where we first met Elena, and in exactly the same situation as Elena. Smokey and Blood are trying to mug him, so we beat them up. They seemed harder, but it might have just been the headache. The creature returns home, and, as it’s late, we go back to town and into bed.
But first, I have a chat with Rod. He tells us he’s the son of the greatest swordsman in the world. He’s spent his whole life training to surpass him, but he died before Rod was able to. Never being able to achieve his goal, he decided to become the greatest blacksmith in the world. Afterwards, Rue hits the hey. There, Rue has a nightmare about seeing Clare, and he tries to run toward her. Sadly, he makes no ground, and the image of Giant Hand Fella appears, and he relives her death once more. In the morning, Rue returns to Mel. She’s figured out the Cube and gives us the information. Sensing that Rue isn’t human, she also asks for Rue’s backstory. Rue takes his hat off, revealing a large, purple diamond on his forehead. Five years ago, Rue woke up in an abandoned ruin all alone. He wandered aimlessly, with only his axe, until he stumbled on Clare. There he lived until Mr. Handy showed up. After Handy killed Clare, he left, and Rue ran over to Clare in a vain attempt to save her. Then, Clare's spirit turns into a diamond and is absorbed into Rue's forehead gem. I noticed Handy has a similar purple gem on his head. Hmm...
With the Cube in hand, Rue leaves. He sees Mint and Elena enter Mel’s house. Mint wants the information Mel has, but Rue doesn’t give it because Mint is too minty. She decides to ask Mel herself, while Rue escorts Elena back home. On the way there, Rue tries to tell Elena that he's not a tadpole, which seems to work this time. We then run into Duke again. This time he’s pretending to be a shooting star in a terrible outfit. Maybe everyone in this game is a bumbling idiot.
So this battle sucked, but I’m gonna keep blaming the headache. I got that boss death I complained about earlier but won in attempt two.
The party once again connects back up in the KME family basement, where they plan their next move. They open up the Cube, where it’s revealed that it houses a sentient doll. It has no energy right now and cannot move, but the stuff which will allow motion is found throughout the land. Mint and Rue finally join forces and split up to get the parts. Mint goes with Rod to the Gamul Forest, while Rue goes to the Haunted Manor.
Before leaving, the camera is taken to another location where we meet, what appears to be, the Big Bad Guy, Puppet Master. His minions, Something Something Master, mentions Rue. He also discusses Myra, the same person Mint yelled at. It seems the two main characters are interlinked in more ways than one.
But we’ll find out just how tomorrow...
We’re so close to Halloween so going to the haunted house is yet another...thread of fate!
So, today kinda made the game look bad. Maybe it's my fault because I shouldn’t expect good platforming from a late 90’s game from a company not known for its platformers. I’ll try to go easy as long as I don’t have to go back to the Lucky Charm house and hear that music. The tunes, elsewhere, have been pretty good. The first one during the prologue was a top tier theme that I may need to see if I can find a Spotify version of for my giant playlist. The other songs, like the town theme, have been chill in their own right. I don’t know who Junya Nakano is, but I’m hoping to get to know him better
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