Make sure you don't hurt nobody. Let's Play Barkley: Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden!

This is a very stupid nitpick - but Dick Vitale does only color and would not have been doing color commentary for that particular game, because he does college basketball, not the NBA. Yes, I realize among all the many "wrong, but secretly right" things with this game that's the mother of all minor nitpicks. I will now sit down and be quiet again. Ignore me!

That said, I'm okay with this if Vitale officially died due to the Chaos Dunk. Because "Dukey V" is very much considered an acceptable loss for society.

Great continued work on the LP! I admit some of these segments have bummed me out into not playing this game for myself, because the "adventure game" portion would have drove me bonkers, not to mention that awful-looking sugar cave sequence. Is it easy to die in the sugar cave or did you purposely die just to show the cutscene?

You're in for a treat later on!

It's pretty easy to tell where you will and won't get killed. I messed up, but only due to misgauging the strength of that particular sugar pile. I didn't die a single time afterwards, and on my first playthrough, I got through unscathed. I have seen people mess up repeatedly on that part though, so your results may vary.

Hey boss, I dropped your insulin!

I only died twice during my playthrough, and that was one (the other was the first QTE, didn't see that one coming)

Great job as usual Kalir!

That's have to be one hell of a pipe.

Or one hell of a light rock.

When we last left our heroes, they were preparing to enter the tomb of Cuchulainn.



When we ask this guy where it is, he confirms that it's just north of us.



Also we buy some stuff. Hoopz hasn't re-equipped his stuff from before yet, although he has magically summoned another ZX Zaubertech1 gun from the aether.



In other news, this guy has a bestiary! That's kind of useful. Maybe it will tell us more about the bainshees of Cuchulainn's tomb?



Oh. Okay, instead it has stuff on monsters we will almost certainly never have to deal with ever.



I'll show off all of these because I feel like it, but you can probably guess how this is going to go, and what exactly it is making fun of. Incidentally, sludge elves are from the roguelike Crawl and its derivatives, near as I can recall, and this is mostly accurate to how they're portrayed in-game.



The fun part is that apparently a handful of people like playing as characters like these. Me, though, I can't help but feel a tad uncomfortable about all this discussion of subhumans and transhumans.



It helps that it's almost impossible to take seriously, though.



Oh man, gotta love those glittering goblets!



Haha what. Vampires, doppelgangers, and oni, related? That is some mythological clusterfuck right there.



I don't even know how people can consider this effective setting design. "Here is a race of people that use water magic, prefer halberds, and hate halflings. BE IMPRESSED BY THEIR CULTURE!"



That's not how saving throws work, man.



I mean, how would you even document that sort of trait? "Okay, we've used up all the exotic weapons and evocations from levels 1-3 on THIS species."



Meanwhile, we are playing a different (although equally crazy) game.



Let's go do a sidequest, guys!



Here are the Chup Mines, proof that I am a terrible liar.

For you see, this mine is populated with Duergars, being forced to mine chups (which cure glaucoma) under their genie overlords, who are in turn ruled over by Square Enix Goya



Naturally, Barkley is going to be roped into doing this sidequest for the benefit of the viewer.



So, the trick here is to explore the mines, talking to genie and duergar alike to learn of the duergar's needs and rights.

As you can see, there's rewards involved no matter which side you choose to aid. It doesn't affect your alignment at all since one side is a bunch of racist tyrants and the other is a pack of bloodthirsty pillagers, so the only real factor is the reward in question and how much you like Shantae.



The genie we spoke to earlier gives the Johdpurs of the Falcon, but this fellow offers a Mysterious Potion. There's no way to tell beforehand what these do.



I'm not gonna talk to everyone, but I will read this note.



Here, Bloodguzzle attempts to negotiate with the Chief of all Genies Combined.



I think you forgot a question mark, bro.





If you don't agree to help, nothing will be resolved and they'll keep arguing. Meaning, this is totally optional and you can come back at any time.



So let's get this underway.



This is another poke at alignment systems, but unlike the actual one, the issues presented here are fantastical in nature and you can basically answer however the hell you want.



In each instance, the top answer is pro-duergar, the bottom one is pro-genie, and the middle two are neutral.



And this wouldn't be Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden if they didn't have some completely ridiculous element, even by the presented standards.



What's your stance on the issue? I wanted to see heated flamewars here, people!



I don't think we can be impartial on this issue, since we have stuff like the zaubers and Mystic B-Balls.

I wonder what a patriotic quilt for a demonic blood god would look like.



I just... I don't even know.



I don't see what ratios have to do with it, honestly.



Caves are a limited resource and all but I do love me some Spelunky.



Hooray! An accord has been reached! Both sides can agree to these terms and neither side will feel cheated!



Of course, since we didn't explicitly favor either side, we don't get a reward. Nuts to that.



What happens if we favor the duergar like the game so desperately wants us to do?





Oh cool, just like in Dwarf Fortress!



wat



Words fail me. Anyway, let's go get ourselves a secondary reward.



+50 VP is pretty nice, especially for Balthios or Hoopz.



The Shrekmono is actually pretty good too, affording the highest Guard of all the Jersey-class armor.



But let's be honest here: we all know Shantae is awesome. I, for one, welcome our genie overlords.

Heck yeah, son!



I'll go play with the lamp in a second. First, though, our promised Johdpurs of the Falcon.



I still have no idea what a Johdpur even is, but it's Balthios' best armor, so that's something.



Anyway, let's go rub this... boom box?



Man if this lamp is cursed I am going to be pissed. Quick, drop it on an altar!



This outcome is a surprise to no one.



The three wishes you can choose from are all fairly valuable. Naturally, I'm going to cheat and see what Knowledge affords, then switch to Power. Wealth gives you a few thousand neo-shekels, which is good and all, but frankly I have plenty of neo-shekels.



SHOW ME TRUE WISDOM, O RAPPING ONE!

This, right here, is much more valuable than it immediately seems, as it's your only clue to the existence of the aforementioned alignment system, as well as the reward. In order to reach the Deathtemple, you need to choose the evil action in all the places I've outlined thus far, plus one last one. Once you do, actually getting there is a bit tricky, though.



In the meantime, Barkley is greedy.



Not too bad, sir!



And it comes with a full heal, too!



Anyway, there's... um. Something around here, but I kinda forgot where it was.



No, this isn't it. It is important, but it's not what I'm looking for.



I've heard stuff from Asema, since he's a huge Cuchulainn fan. Do tell!

That, uh... that doesn't seem quite right. Anyway, we'll handle that next update.



Where the hell is it?

Oh. You have to go as far south from the campsite as you can, and then go in the lower-right corner. How intuitive!



Kids, meet Ghastly Darklord, the optional boss of Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden! Convention dictates that you fight him after clearing Cuchulainn's Tomb, but I've lain waste to everything I've encountered so far, so maybe I'll spice things up and take him on early. I maybe should've tried this before using the lamp, but whatever.



Ghastly Darklord is pretty durable. Most of the TrickGun Assault shots only did 1 damage.



I missed it, but Ghastly Darklord opened up with Soul Consume, which did half of Cyberdwarf's health and healed him for the same amount of VP. If this was later in the fight, that would be pretty dangerous, but early on, it's not so bad.



Lowering Ghastly Darklord's stats is very important for this battle, since he has both durability and power on his side.



Once you get the starting buffs/debuffs laid out, open fire with Hoopz's skillz.



Tongue Lash, in addition to having a goofy-ass animation, inflicts about five or so status effects on whoever it hits.



This would be a problem if we didn't have items that cured all status effects.



Blackout, as you can see, instantly kills a random party member.



Really, as long as you just keep up the assault, this guy isn't so bad.



Barkley's BP is high enough that he can now use Showboat Jam repeatedly, which turns him into an engine of destruction.



Hoopz, meanwhile, can't hit worth a damn with Mega Shot. Eventually I wise up and switch to Accurate Shot, but Hoopz is really just dead weight in this battle.



Ghastly Darklord has other attacks, like Mystic Eye Beam of Doom (i.e. Refractor Beam on crack) and Head Bash, but he's not that difficult. Then again, this game isn't that difficult, so at least he's one of the toughest things in the game?



SUB-ZERO WINS! FATALITY.



Wanna see a video of this fight? Don't blame you. (warning: may spoil Barkley's ultimate weapon)

Yeah we did. We're pretty awesome.



Awesome. What does it do?



Um... okay?

Actually, believe it or not, this item can be used to instantly kill any foe in the game, up to and including the final boss himself. Which is nice that they don't make you go through a hellish area that's several times harder than said boss to get it, honestly. Not that hunting over multiple uniform and bland screens for a specific out-of-the-way tile is any better, mind you.

Next Time: Will slam for gold

jodhpurs are tight fitting riding pants that the british raj imported from india.

I... I love you for doing this LP. /nohomo

One of the most brilliant LPs i've read in a long time. Thank you, William.

Here we are: the tomb of the dread Cuchulainn, Celtic space warlord! The name of the game for this area is puzzle rooms, but it starts off simply enough.



Do these enemies seem sort of underwhelming for this point in the game? Well, that's because they are. I dunno if the developers got lazy or wanted to make a point about mundane endgame encounters, but for whatever reason, we can plow through everything in this area.



There is one new enemy in the form of the Bainshee, but they're just as flimsy as anything else you'll find here.



In other news, conventional treasure chests! These ones just contain curative items, nothing too major.



It's a thing!

Yeah, especially since we've already fought Bainshees... hang on, this seems familiar somehow.



Well, now we have a billion full heal revival items. Actually, you can use these on a character even if they aren't dead, which is pretty useful in a pinch.



You guys ready for mazes? This area is all about mazes, and baby, they're all about it.



Those four tiles on the floor are important to the maze in question, but I'll get to that after we check out this statue.



Doink!

This area is not so difficult that you really need a healing point, but hey.



Well, now we're set for healing for the whole game. Thanks, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden!



You don't say? Well then, let's do it!



The crystal glows red when pressed, and a click is heard far off.



As you can see, pressing in the red crystal lit up the red tile. Naturally, we have to find the other three crystals and repeat the process.



Here's the only move I managed to see a bainshee perform. It, uh... it's kinda good?



If you've gotten sick of using the Snail Zauber by this point, here's a viable replacement.

I prefer the Snail Zauber anyway because I don't like having to worry about my defense, but as you can see, by this point in the game, all of your stats are strong enough.



Here's the lower right crystal, a magenta one.



But when we get back to the middle, the red tile isn't lit up! What gives?



As you can see once we hit the teal crystal, the crystals take varying amounts of time to deactivate. We can reach this one without the magenta tile shutting off.



Once we get back, though, the magenta tile goes out.



Would you like to give a nickname to 1000 Neo-Shekels?



Apparently, the green crystal lasts longer than the magenta one, so the order becomes clear.



Go for teal, then green, then magenta, and when you finish with the red crystal...



Bingo. The only way to determine the times of the crystals is through trial and error, although it wouldn't surprise me if there was supposed to be half-assed Aristotelian logic behind it.



Forward, like the true heroes we are!



Damn you, Cuchulainn. Your trickery knows no bounds!



Yes, the language and reactions are incongruous. Incongruous is a fun word.



Now for the meat of Cuchulainn's tomb: the solo dungeons! We start off our jaunt as Balthios.



Balthios has the most straightforward area: a simple string of battles.



The first is against this Android Officer who may or may not be familiar to some of you.

He's sort of dangerous, but you can lead each of these fights off with Muscle Zauber and have BP to spare, even without using a recovery item.



Here's the damage Balthios does with a Stab Dash, perfectly done, as opposed to a Zauber Slash. It should be obvious why I don't do these anymore.



Here's this guy, rambling about who knows what.



The Adept Soldier is a bit tougher than the Android Officer, but not by much.



Normally in RPGs, the trouble from solo dungeons comes from the fact that most enemies are balanced for fighting a team of players all at once, as opposed to a single character who may or may not be specialized for fighting. If this were a tougher game, Balthios, as our offensive caster, would have his ass handed to him in these matches.



I do have to heal up, granted, but I have a few turns of safety in between heals. The Adept Soldier eventually goes down.



And then we get this guy.



The Greek Warrior is actually probably the easiest of the lot. Consider that like half of my Muscle Zauber debuffs had no effect.



Rebel Yell, in addition to sounding absolutely goofy, lowers Balthios' Guard.



Shoulder Butt, meanwhile, does two meager hits. That health difference for the Greek Warrior here is because I used a single Ice Zauber on him.



Yeah this is not a tough series of fights.



Oh man, it's a place!



How convenient, that could seriously improve your skills!



The tomes here are all fully packed with zauber lore and are of near legendary status.



Yeah, man, we have plenty of time to backtrack here later.

Oh come on, it's not like they teach you about zaubers using unclad vixens or anything.



A mysterious voice urges Balthios on, but...



As soon as Balthios suspects something is up, he gets to work and doesn't bat an eye.



And with that, we're moving on to Cyberdwarf's section.



While Balthios' area was a trial of battle, Cyberdwarf's is a trial of perception.



"Aquire" away, my good man!



You can throw out some sand with a press of the Action button.



If you fall off of the path, you go back to the start of the area. Use the sand to tell where it's safe to walk.



Maybe we go up here?



Nope, dead end.



Ah, here we go.



Yeah, the fast path is to travel left primarily and upwards secondarily.



Looks like Cuchulainn's already figured out Cyberdwarf's desire.



Cyberdwarf moves around the other dwarf, examining him.



Naturally, while Balthios desired knowledge, Cyberdwarf wants nothing more than to have his old skin back.

And the voice from the ether chimes in again, offering Cyberdwarf this path.



And that's two of four.



Next up is Hoopz's section.



The trick is that the area will repeat forever unless you follow the correct sequence of paths. In these screenshots, Hoopz is looking the proper way to go.



Each time you choose the right path, an eyeball on the dragon statues lights up.



Should you mess up, the eyeballs will go dim and you'll have to restart the area.



As the screenshots show, just go left, straight twice, and then right, to reach the end.



Hoopz, being young and pure of heart, is not tempted by his heart's desires, and so Cuchulainn cannot be freed by him.



Easy. Now for Barkley's area.



As you can see, there's a jersey on display, as well as some crystals and a number display.



You need to get the display to read 34, Barkley's number.



Each of the crystals adds a certain value to the display.



These are the ones you need lit up to progress.



At first shakes, this room seems to be empty.



What will Cuchulainn conjure up? A revival of b-ball? Maureen, back from the dead? A safe and prosperous future for Hoopz?

Hahaha. You thought you'd get something that made sense.



Yes, it appears that Barkley's one true desire is nothing more than Incan gold.



Barkley falls for the trap and touches the Incan gold, and with a tremendous cackle, Cuchulainn is freed!



Ever seen your (presumably self-extension) protagonist do something so irredeemably stupid in a cutscene that you wanted to reach through the screen and smack them upside the head? This is what happens when that's taken to an extreme.



Good one, wise guy.



Fortunately, Cuchulainn doesn't actually care about our quest in the least, so he will never bother us again for the rest of the game. Hooray!





I'm cool, guys. We're all cool.



Hooray, we are the success!



Barkley places the jamicite into the Hell B-Ball...



Success.





The power of the Hell B-Ball has caused Barkley to experience all the b-ball the world has ever known at once, bringing about b-ball enlightenment.



And in doing so, he learns of a hidden prize, sealed away from all who would wish to claim it.



And to top off this update, I give you: the best/most horrifying truck pump rant. Enjoy.

Next Time: Space Jam

Dear God. Incan gold...

Paging Dr. Eirikr, Dr. Eirikr to the thread....

Ah yes, the most primal of emotions ... "okay." Love, hate, sadness, fear and ... okay.

Wow. This game...just...wow.

Incan Gold. Gatdam I should have finished this game when I played it. This is too hilarious.

Oh man, are you excited for legendary b-ball times? Because I am excited for legendary b-ball times.



And here it is, the hidden b-ball.



Well, worse names have been given to mythical made-up weaponry, I guess...



As is only fitting for an area with pushover encounters, the boss is, as well, a pushover, even for a solo Barkley. Note that he's wielding the Hell B-Ball, which has the highest attack power in the game of the b-ball weapons.



Yeah... yeah.



But we've already learned all the skillz in the game, what else is there?



Now that DEFINITELY isn't regulation. Even so, with this, we have Barkley's strongest weapon, the H/S B-Ball. It's got lower attack power than the Hell B-Ball, but more than makes up for it by most of Barkley's attacks hitting twice. This makes Doubleteam a super-deadly attack that'll tear the next boss apart effortlessly.



Meanwhile, everyone else who isn't an avatar of b-ball destiny is stuck outside wondering what's going on.



Here he is, ladies and gentlemen.



Hohohoh, how easy you forget. Barkley can feel every b-ball in existence, up to and including the Ultimate B-Ball.



Here's the stats for the H/S B-ball as compared to the Mystic B-Ball we'd been using up until now. Double that number for the real value, though, since we hit twice for every hit we would normally have gotten.



Anyway, let's go find Cyberdwarf's ship.



But first, one last silly game mechanic for the road.



Let's do this like Brutus!



Yep! After so long in the game, we finally have access to the world map!

Not that it actually matters, since we can only go to the outskirts or to Cyberdwarf's ship. There's no random encounters either, which is all right by me!



Just head to the wreckage in the lower left of the world map to proceed.



You'll be prompted, but when has that ever stopped anyone?



Y'know how games always like to beat you over the head with "YOU CANNOT GO BACK TO THE SIDEQUESTS YOU PUT OFF AFTER THIS POINT"? This is where that happens here. If you've solved the Chup Mines dilemma and beaten Ghastly Darklord (or don't care), then answer yes both times.



I am, shut up.



No seriously, shut up. Also, here is Cyberdwarf's ship.



Well, it's more the opinion of the public than the power of a few individuals... </tor>



I'll hazard a guess that we'll have a ridiculously long final dungeon followed by a final boss with several forms and maybe a sidequest for an EVEN STRONGER B-BALL.



Barkley calls Cyberdwarf aside for a moment...



So he can give him instructions for when the unthinkable happens.



Check your G-Diffuser system!



Here we are, kids. The final area.



The first obstacle we encounter on the dead ship...



Is Vinceborg, waiting to kill us once and for all.



Barkley desperately pleads with Vince, calling forth memories of their first meeting.

Uh-oh. Is he still going to fight?



Whoa, that ain't normal.



Vinceborg, unwilling to follow the orders of his Master and yet unable to not carry them out, has only one option left.



Yeah, I mean, there were doctors able to heal Cyberdwarf with b-ball skin, a murderous cyborg half shouldn't be too much trouble.



But Vince will have none of that. He's made his decision...



And with a great flash of light, he completely incinerates himself.



Rest in peace, Vince.





All the stuff you saw in the cutscene is basically stuff to stock up before the final showdown.




Except for this, which is to jog your memory about the locked door back in Cesspool X. I searched up and down in Cuchulainn's Tomb and found no such key, so this is just the game throwing out another red herring.



Maybe this pigheaded contraption will have a reasonable reward for getting this far?



Hope you've been paying attention to his rants, because if not you're gonna be left in the dust.



Hoopz might prefer sports vidcons, but he's played a JRPG or two in his time, so he can keep up with the truck pump's skewed questions.



The truck pump tells him not to get too comfortable and lobs another question our way.



Hoopz gets it right again, but can't help but let his actual preferences slip through for a moment, which the truck pump uses as another excuse to deride him.

The real answer is a glass of tea, but good luck getting anyone involved to believe that.



The truck pump passes on the insult for this one, moving on to a more difficult question.



Now, most of these terms are almost certainly absolute garbage cooked up by people too pretentious to assign a single genre to a piece of music, but whatever. The answer the truck pump provides is celto-tropic.



I get the feeling that Hoopz honestly does not care for the real answer and is just going with whichever one sounds least stupid.



And here's the clincher...



Hang on a minute, none of those is spelled the way I wrote it down in an earlier update. Damn it... which one is it?



Well, it's not the fourth one, so it has to be the first one (or a loaded question) but that's not going to stop the truck pump from yelling his head off at how utterly Western we are.



While we do get to save after finishing the quiz, we don't get a chance to retry. This would be an especially mean dick move in an actual RPG that took itself seriously.



Even so, I'm still goint to reload my save to give it another go, this time choosing the first answer, the one with two k's.



Well, Hoopz gave a specific reply, so I can only assume I got it right.



Yes! Victory and rewards and accolades and-



...library cards? What the hell do you mean, I didn't get all the library cards?



Yeah. The entire quiz is a dead end, unless you've obtained all the library cards (which, naturally, do not exist).



Moving on, we find a curious sight: an intact, although completely vacant, b-ball court.



Suspicious!