I've Been Diddled Again! Let's Play Plok!

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As usual, my distress is impeccably modeled by the gyrations of Beat's colon.

Fun fact: I just got through midterms!

If all goes well, I'll have a new update this week.

If you love us, you'll update twice.

Let me be clear about one thing: I don't hate you guys*, I'm just extremely busy with my classes, which don't seem like they'll be letting up on the workload any time soon. I'll try to get an update in when I have the chance.

*Except for that one guy.

Man, that one guy sucks.

"Watch out, it's that one guy!"

W...what's that sound?! It's getting closer!

They thought they'd gotten rid of me for good, didn't they? It's as if they didn't know that it takes more than cement shoes to put me down!

Oh! Hello, everyone! It's been a looooooooooooooooooong while, but your favorite (???) host is back and ready to shove some cartoon goodness right up your nose-holes right here on, uhh... Tuesday... Morning... Wackyday? Eh, we'll figure out something clever later; it's time to get back to the action you've been waiting for!



Flea gunge, eh? Is that what that blackish-blue stuff covering Poly-esta is? Walking around that stuff sounds pretty unsanitary to me, even for our clay'd up hero. One of the first things Mr. Plok comes across in the lovely Venge Thicket is the end of level flag; how convenient! The only problem is that there's a stupid wall in the way, and in order to get to it, he'll have to traverse the entirety of the level. You didn't think this would be easy, did you?



This here's a fun little section of the level: in order to keep these pillars moving up and down for maximum jumping-onto efficiency, Plok'll have to hit the targets located near them. These targets aren't the one night stand type, though; he'll have to keep punching them repeatedly in order to jump onto a pillar and shoot the next target for the next pillar! That's right, chaining is the name of the game here, and it'll get really annoying pretty quickly!



Though it may be hard to believe, this level actually throws us a bone by concentrating bunches of fleas into small, EASILY CRUSHED groups. Fleas can try as they might to flee from their inevitable deaths, but Plok is a killer without remorse. He's the type who will come to your house and punch all the fleas off of your dog pro bono.



After enduring another grueling PILLAR GAUNTLET, our hero makes it to the tip-top of the stage and finds not one, but TWO different presents that just can't wait to be opened! Plok doesn't have enough pockets for two presents, though, so he'll have to leave one behind, never to be opened. But by opening the one on the left, he becomes...



The champ is back! It's Ploky Balb-

O-okay, nevermind. Well, uh, where was I? Oh, right! Cartoons! Here's a new platforming element we haven't seen before: Blockheads! Jumping on a blockhead results in it growing multiple conjoined copies of itself out of its side until the original being dies from exhaustion. It's pretty much impossible to make some of these jumps without getting hurt if Plok decides to spare the thing's life, but good thing for us that mean ol' Mr. Mustard is a pretty selfish a-hole!



Oh boy! Another BONUS PLOK! Well, it's almost worthy of an exclamation point; with this BONUS PLOK we discover that our noble adventurer can hold only nine extra mans at once. I have no idea why that counter couldn't have gone any higher than nine; just look at all that space that's there! Add more numbers. This odd limit leads me to believe that our hero may actually be a cat in disguise, though I'm only 97% sure that cats can detach their limbs and use them as boomerangs.



If only presents would last longer than they do! Oh well, Flea-genocide in this stage is nearing satisfactory levels, so losing the boxing gloves ain't such a big deal. Besides, why bother punching things when Plok can brutally murder some more blockheads with his horrid red feet? All these nutty things going on the level really surprised me when I was younger and making my way through the actual game for the first time and NOT losing all the PLOKONTINUES on those jerky Bobbins Bros. Hell, I used to think the Bobbins Bros. were the game's final showdown for quite some time!



The final flea has been exterminated! It is time for celebration! Instead of drinking and dancing like he should be doing, ol' feltface decides he'd rather ogle his flag for a while. I don't know what's up with him and his creepy flag affinity, but I sure hope nobody's drawn anything that takes it to the NEXT LEVEL.






Whoa! Dreamy Cove? We've got ourselves a one-way ticket into Hardsville now, Plok. This place is symmetrically laid out, but both left and right halves of the level have unique obstacles and baddies to conquer. The left half is full of those super-fast logs that, while big and heavy, are probably not wood. There are plenty of opportunities for Plok to drown his sorry self in the waters below, but the island platforms are close enough to the ground to make recovery both quick and easy! It does get annoying when fleas hop into the water and don't take any damage, though; the last time I checked, water and fleas don't mix very well.

Enticing though it may be, this fruit has no purpose at the moment. In case something terrible were to happen, it's probably best to just let the fruit be and continue the journey. On the other side of this inconveniently placed wall of spikes is Plok's prejudiced friend Orson. Riding Orson up to the higher levels of the cove requires the destruction of these balls of flea gunge; it gets a little tricky here, though, 'cause those little platforms our hero needs to stand on actually register as slopes! That's right, if he were to shoot all his limbs off, he'd slide right into that wall of spikes. It's evil of the most mustache-twirling variety!



Most of the fleas in Dreamy Cove are (thankfully) found up in the higher levels, away from all that nasty water. The one thing wrong with this is that sometimes the fleas can fall down to the lower levels through some thoughtfully-placed gaps, requiring Plok to venture back down for elimination purposes. There isn't any kind of despair that can't be alleviated with a present, though! I wonder what's inside?



Oh, it's Fireman Plok again. Eh, I guess I can't complain; he sure does get rid of fleas super-quickly in that fancy getup! After the short-lived bout of flea-extermination passes, our malleable hero makes his way to the other half of the cove, where he finds a bland new enemy fish: Hattersly! These fine fish folk with stylish eyebrows jump out of the water and hover in the air as they spew rocks from their pie-holes at poor ol' Plok. Punching them once sends 'em back into the water, but they never die. I'd say this proves my theory that large eyebrows play a large role in granting immortality.



The second half of the stage is also where we find long stretches of water that can't possibly be leapt over in a single bound. What can a claymated being such as Plok do in a situation like this? If you guessed “jump anyway,” you are 100% correct! These leaps of faith cause pillars to rise out of the water in an effort to catch our falling hero, saving him from a watery demise. Another Orson takes us back up to the top of the cove, where we find a thin yellow platform willing to take us for a wild ride! Plok'll have to crouch crouch and jump jump (but no slide slide) to avoid the free-floating spikes ready and willing to knock him off the platform and back do to the lower levels of the cove. We certainly don't want that now, do we?



One thing I probably should have mentioned is that Yellow Platform's Wild Ride consists of several different moving platforms that move at varying speeds; some go incredibly fast and others go slow as molasses. I assume this is to keep our hero on his toes and the player in a constant state of bewildered aggravation. The last couple of fleas are easy enough to nab; this one in particular can be punched right through the wall!

After one final platform ride, Plok arrives at his precious flag, proudly reciting his kingdom's xenophobic motto and ending our trek through the dreamiest of coves.

And with that, so ends your trek through this week's episode of animated antics! Be sure to tune in next week; who knows what sorts of wacky adventures await us?

'Til then, don't take any phones from strangers or answer the candy! BYE!

But I have such nice phones!

Comb Stranger danger!

Weasle has returned!

We truly live in a good world.

god DAMN I love Plok and being drunk only makes it better

Is this the best LP on Talking Time?

Yes

Oh, whaddya know? It's time for more of these Televised Cartoon Things! It's been tough keeping up with the programming schedule and outrunning all manner of law enforcement at the same time. A guy just can't catch a break these days!

Things are gonna get a little spooky this week as we follow Plok into Poly-esta's seediest corners. Shield your eyes if need be!



If you think it looks spooky on the outside, just wait until you see the inside! Creepy Forest is the first level we encounter in Plok that decides to tear the training wheels off of your bike, eat them, and then vomit them back in your face all while ordering you to clean up the mess. It's an incredibly huge, maze-like level full of tricky jumps and enemies all over the place. Also, it's got a lot of these spiky door things that are perpetually revolving. To get through these spots unscathed, our hero needs to wait for the door to slow its spinning a bit and then pass by when the danger-free side of the door is facing the screen. Believe me, the timing on this takes a little bit of getting used to.



Not content with making maneuvering through the stage a challenge, the game decides to flood the level with a bunch of those Budd a-holes we hate so much. Look at those stupid faces! At least they leave behind tasty yellow fruit upon exploding. Creepy Forest likes to tease with several goodies that are -just- out of reach. To get this stuff, out fabric-y friend would need to scale the forest's large... tree-things and drop down onto it. It's not worth the time and effort, so that present will remain forever unopened.



Fleas are still all over the place an need exterminatin'. One good thing about this level layout is that even if Plok is outnumbered by a murder of fleas, there is enough free space to carefully pick them off one by one while still maintaining a safe distance. The real enemy here is the forest itself, especially when taking the illegality of level checkpoints on Poly-esta into consideration. Though he may not have checkpoints to rely on, Plok can still count on mysterious floating lanterns to act as pathways to higher ground.



DOOR-PASSING ACTION! It's a good thing this door isn't one of the ones that spins in the direction opposite of where Plok's meant to go; those are a lot harder to time correctly. After falling down a very long shaft and hitting the ground without breaking every bone (?) in his body, our hero finds himself in the forest's rocky underbelly, where he finds a PLOKONTINUE token that he promptly misses on his way down.



Plok finds most of the forest's fleas down on the lowest level. Again, thanks to the relatively open spaces the forest is made up of, destroying them is a breeze. This forest stage in particular is structured so that Plok does a bit of platforming from tree-thing to tree-thing and then fights another Budd. Sometimes, Budds are placed in locations that make it impossible to collect the Defeat Fruit they leave behind. Thanks, game developers!

Sometimes the Budd Lites they spew out end up in the oddest spots. Trying to pass through a spiked door with a Budd Lite shooting at him is some kind of excrement that our hero is just far too old for. The path through the forest is a zig-zag leading up to the tip-top with occasional breaks in the pattern to accommodate the occasional shaft-plummet. I think it bears mentioning that, as far as I can remember, there are no bottomless pits of death to be found in Plok. There might be some toward the end game, but it's somethin' I won't be sure of 'til we actually get there.



After finding himself in the sights of another Budd, Plok decides he's had enough of being bullied around by sentient plants and begins to harness the power of the amulet he totally forgot he has. Get to it, Felt-man! Alternately press those shoulder buttons like you never have before!



“WAAAAAAAAGHHH! SHELLLLLLS!”



Behold, the magic of the Plok family amulet! For a nominal fee of ??? shells, you too can activate your AGNRY MOAD ARHGGHGHG and make your spinning jumps into deadly buzzsaws of destruction! That door ain't got any idea of what's coming.



YAAAAAAAHHHHH oh the level's over. Here's a fun fact for all you faithful viewers: collecting a flea flag brings Plok up to full-health! Our hero exterminates the final flea and shows his appreciation for some band nobody's ever heard of before continuing his quest for flag justice.






Listen, Plok, if you knew the spider guy was a ne'er-do-well, why did you ever let him take residence in your kingdom? You are an idiot and a terrible ruler; it's no wonder everyone else left you! This Womack guy isn't leaving town without a fight. Though he may appear to just dangle there from his web-chain, he is totally not averse to stooping down to Plok's level to show him how a real man-spider... thing brawls!

Mr. Womack's Sweep Attax� are easy enough to jump over, but this phase of the fight doesn't last long. After taking a few punches to the face, the hideously ugly spider begins to spin his Mode-7 rainbow web of lies. The web doesn't actually do anything; Spider-thing doesn't move around on it, nor does it hurt Plok in any way. It's just kind of there, doomed to an existence of eternal turning.



What the Womack Spider does do is keep himself out of Plok's attack range for a while, occasionally lowering himself to unleash a barrage of projectile seeds at him. Every time the spider takes a punch to the face, the number of projectiles it shoots is upped. These deadly seeds aren't shot out in any particular pattern for the most part, so some waves are easier to avoid than others.



Of course you won't have any more trouble from him, stupid; you just blew him up with your fists.

With the Womack Spider down, Plok ventures further south into Poly-esta's deadly and dank caverns. What sort of dangers will he find himself facing there? Who knows! We'll both find out some other time. These levels are only gonna get longer, after all.

So, uh, 'til next time, remember not to trust anybody with a badge! BYE!

I really like these stages, but man, spider bosses have never been good.

Never? Well... What about the one in Rygar?

I was gonna say.

Or the "Sorry... I'm Dead" spider from Monster Party?

...or was that supposed to be a dinosaur. I never really understood that design.

I'M NOT DEAD, FOLKS! Yes, despite what the news reports have been saying, I'm still alive and kicking, though I can only wonder how long it'll take those guys to figure out the truth for themselves. Eh! Who has time to worry about that when there's CARTOONSES to watch?! Not me, that's for sure!



Plok has such a one-track mind. It's always about vengeance with this guy; what about the other things in life that matter, like friends and apple pie? It takes more than having a murderous attitude toward deformed insects to be a functioning member of society, you know. I'll be the bigger man here and move away from this touchy subject by shifting our focus to the spooky innards of Creepy Crag! Please feel free to enjoy the tunes while our hero grabs hold of a few invincibility gems. I'm not exactly sure why the gems sometimes spawn in groups of three; as far as I know, the duration of the gem's effects isn't extended by picking up more of them. I guess empty space just has to be filled sometimes!



Now this is a brand-new obstacle if I've ever seen one! These Blast Targets are attached to bundles of TNT that, you guessed it, explode when punched/kicked. Rather than blasting Plok into little unidentifiable chunks of clay and felt, the explosion instead destroys an unsightly rock formation, effectively clearing the path for our still-in-one-piece hero. Rock formations are the least of Plok's problems here, though; Creepy Crag has plenty of large, circular platforms leading up to the top of the level that make for some tricky (and rather finicky) platforming.



Occasionally, Plok will come across blast targets that require being hit with a specific limb in order to activate. This can get a little annoying when you reach an impasse that can be cleared only by means of fist-punching, only to realize that all Plok has at the moment is his dumb feets. When this happens, backtracking to the nearest hanger becomes the name of the game. Since Creepy Crag is a vertically-oriented level, we can expect to see the King's good/bad friend/enemy Orson more than once as we make our way to the top. Thankfully, shell-based arrows are around to point us in the direction of Plok's next target of fleanocide.



OH GOD! HIS ARMS! THEY WEREN'T REAL! Doomed to live the life of an armless lump of clay, our brave hero must now kick his way through the ever-advancing forces of the Flea Army without ever stopping to shine his shoes. Meanwhile, a blast target explodes and makes a sound similar to that of a soda can being opened.



At least our hero remains optimistic about his tragic situation.

“I may not have my arms, but I've still got tons of moxie and an unwavering persistent attitude!”



“...God damn it.”



A mysterious series of events has led to Plok losing his right leg. What happens when all his limbs are gone? Well, he becomes completely defenseless and hard to control (well, the hard to control part happens any time he loses both legs, but that's beside the point). No-limbs Plok moves about by means of automatic hopping that can sometimes lead to unintended leaping into enemies/spikes/watery graves, so yeah, it's annoying.

SUDDENLY, LIMBS. I would like to know what's inside that present, though! Hurry up and open it before you lose your arms again!



Oh... oh boy. It's the worst costume in the game. Cowboy Plok has the ability to shoot a little “BANG!” flag from his six-shooter, an “attack” that does absolutely nothing and leaves him completely defenseless as a result. The cowboy costume lasts only for about 10 seconds, but I have to wonder why it was included in the game in the first place. If it was included as a joke, the developers should hurry up and return those Comedy Licenses to the FBC before they self-destruct.



With that unpleasant experience out of the way, Plok can now return to his usual routine of hopping and murder. One thing I discovered during this playthrough is that Plok can use his attack bees to flip Orson over. I'd never tried it before because I figured Orsons weren't really “enemies” in the sense that they don't take any visible damage, but hey, whatever works!



Creepy Crag is basically a long climb to the top that occasionally calls for Plok to take a detour for a round of flea-killing. All of the flea-areas are pretty similar in that Plok must first shoot up a blast target to get close enough to murder the hopping jerks. Some of the areas have other obstacles that must be passed in order to get to the fleas, but they aren't difficult to overcome at all.



The most cowardly flea waits for Plok at the very top of the level. For a man...thing with a torso made entirely out of yellow clay, Plok sure hates yellow-bellies. Delivering the final blow to the cowardflea causes that ever-elusive end-of-level flag to appear. I've always found it a little lame that the last flea Plok kills is always the one with the flag; I think it might have been a little more interesting to randomize which flea had it, but what do I know? I don't design games, I only eat them!



You sure did, pal.

Wh- huh? Whatever, man.



Hey, it's Gohome Cavern! It's a super-tough level that gets unfair and annoying in a bunch of parts, but it has some of my favorite musics in the game so I'm willing to forgive it. To progress in certain parts of the level, Plok has to kill a Shield Shprout to nab an invincibility gem that makes those spiked platforms safe to use. You can technically progress without bothering with the gems, but the spikes take away so much health! Why would you do that?



Yes, folks, this is where any sympathy the game might have had for your valiant efforts is subject to defenestration. For a good chunk of the level, Plok will have to go without his trusty legs, and that means lots of unintended jumps and sliding down slopes. This handicap makes Gohome Cavern one of the more unique levels in the game, but god damn is it hard.



These sloped spike tunnels show up a few times in the level; the only way Plok can get past them without getting hurt is by doing absolutely nothing. Moving with the d-pad just causes Plok to bounce all over the damn place, but leaving the controls alone during slope-times ensures a quick, painless ride. After his wild ride ends, our hero finds a small nest of flea eggs resting above a conspicuous target. Maybe that target activates a fist-based neurotoxin that, once inhaled, punches the fleas in the lungs with millions of tiny fists!



OH NOOOOO! First Plok loses his legs, and now we have a severe lack of tiny fists! This truly is the worst day. To survive this ordeal, Plok has no choice but to hop over to a safe spot where he can pick off approaching fleas one-by-one until they're all dead and gone. Yes, this happens twice throughout the level.

Things aren't looking so great for our hero right about now. Fighting Shield Shprouts with with only one arm is super-difficult! In order to get this special type of Shprout to reveal his skeletal innards, Plok has to punch over his silly-looking foe's head and hope that his arm collides with the shprout's vulnerable back as it returns to him. Oh, and then he has to punch it again to kill it for good. Shield Shprouts are dumb and stupid.



It's as if the madness never ends! Here, Plok comes to an area filled with deadly water and those rock-spewing Hatterslies. To make matters even worse, all of the platforms here are sloped at the sides, so if Plok doesn't hop with the d-pad at the right moment, he'll go barreling straight into the water. When Plok doesn't have his legs, the two jump buttons don't do anything, so the d-pad's the only way to make him hop! Do you feel the intense hatred coming from the game's innards yet? At least Plok gets limbs and fruit at the end of this gauntlet. He's gonna need both of those things because...



SURPRISE! Plok now has to backtrack all the back to the beginning of the stage, where he'll find a platform that was previously unreachable in his legless state. Since our hero already has the maximum number of PLOKS, he can freely utilize the power of the shells to saw those lousy Shield Shprouts in half.



The rest of the level consists of more Shield Shprouts and spiked platforms. The Shprouts get incredibly annoying here because those cannons there have a nasty habit of shooting out more Shprouts to attack Plok as he tries to finish off the shielded one.



After another bout with some fleas and the Shprout forces, Plok finally recovers his stolen flag. Now he can leave this godforsaken place and never have to go near it again.

Here's some bad news for you, though: that's the end of today's episode! Try to hold back those tears while you wait for the next screening; I'm sure it'll be worth the wait! TOODLES!