Relationships, pfpth! Who needs 'em? - Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak

Poor guy knows he's trapped... But at least he seems to like the attention.



Yep, we totally tricked that guy into letting the creeper cling to him. Well done, Squall and Rinoa.



Now that we're done grabbing those couple of Ham-Chats, let's continue with our exploration of Boo Manor. (Which jerk put the elevator button this high up?)



Squall and Rinoa emerge onto the second floor, and... Oh, it's these two.

This pair for bickering hamsters are Howdy and Dexter, good friends with leader-like personalities... Only problem is, this means they're often at each other's throats, especially since they share a love interest.



Whichever one we talk to says that they wanted to work together and win the spooktacular prize for Pashmina, but that the other stopped obeying orders. (Also, compare this screenshot to the last one for a second.)




We get a bit Blash-T to show our friends the error of their ways... But this turns Dexter and Howdy against us, putting them back in the race for that spooktacular prize.



We also get an extremely anime pose for our efforts... "This hand of mine is burning red", etc.



In beginning to explore this floor, the first room east of the elevator looks like this... Feels like it's missing something though.

Ah yes, a ghost-summoning fire powered by the flames of rivalry. That's it exactly! (Yes, Hamspar produces real flames.)



Speaking to either ghost makes them say that they hate couples and vanish back into the ether, though the one on the left is more sedate about it.



Heading east when we move back out into the hall brings us to this room, where a rather stately piano and fancy coffin dominate. A funeral parlour perhaps?



Having Rinoa take a spin on the piano seems to trigger something, but the coffin closes again when she stops playing. She also drops a little hint about wanting to learn how to play properly...



Moving to the west of the elevator this time, we pass a featureless wall on the way to some stairs, heading on up to the third floor.



First screen, we find a ghost guarding a door. He's not too terrifying, but Squall and Rinoa will probably have to get past him.



Ignoring that for now, another ghost drifts into the next door down the hall, which also gets passed by for the moment.



Third screen, this pair of idiots are trying to brute-force the door on another elevator, despite that keycard slot just above them.



The last part of the hall brings us to a sitting room with this enormous portrait, which also seems to be lacking something... Nothing to do here just yet, though.



...Except trip over bumps in the carpet.

Rinoa's dialogue here means that we can now Tuggie on the far end of the carpet, letting us collect the sunflower seeds that Squall tripped over.



In the interest of moving forwards, Squall and Rinoa move back to the start of the third floor and Tack-Q the wimpy ghost blocking the way, making him hulk out on us.



...Oh no, whatever shall we do?



BEGONE!



Inside the room, we find a perturbed-looking Dexter... Let's see what's going down.



...Oh.



I walked right into that one.......



...Thanks Dexter, you're a pal.

Now that we've lost Squall to a sneaky trap, Rinoa's all on her lonesome! Whatever shall we do?! Find out next time!

Bonus video: Miscellaneous collection.

I wasn't too sure about this game at first, but I've got to give some props to any game that has an adaptation of the Judgment of Solomon so faithful that the "protagonists" actually end up trying to pull a baby in half.

Mmm-hmm... To be fair, one of the participants was the villain in disguise, but it was a cool little moment. It may not be the most unexpected thing we come across, though...

-------



Welcome back, ham-ham fans! Time for another update, this time as a Rinoa-only run! Squall managed to plummet down that gaping hole just as we left off, so why don't we do something about that?

Let's start by seeing what Dexter has to say for himself...



No, those screenshots aren't backwards. Dexter just blurts this out, then leaves Rinoa all alone...



Just like that.



Also no, we can't make Rinoa jump down after Squall. What does this look like, Lufia 2?



Anyway, we have to figure where Dexter has gone on our own, eventually stumbling across him here at the east end of the second floor. Now hands up, who thinks this will end well?



Everyone with their hands up, you may want to do us all a favour, and skip on that whole 'having children' business.



We also can't save Dexter from the coffin right now, so let's go find out what we can do.



It turns out that the old hamster ghosts are much more friendly when Rinoa's alone, even if greenie's still a bit crotchety.


my shoulders?

Oddly enough, they also like it when Rinoa tries to Tack-Q into them...



Whatever fills the dictionary, I guess.

Actually fulfilling the old ham-ham's request lets him pass on into the afterlife, or at least that's how it appears to me. Kinda nice, really.


on my back?



Second verse, same as the first.



Now that she's armed with two new Ham-Chats, Rinoa sets her sights on the only featureless stretch of hallway she's seen in this whole mansion...



Hmmm...



Ah-hah!



It's an old mansion in a videogame, of course there's going to be hidden rooms.



That featureless wall is also right below the room with the trapdoor, so naturally this is where we find Squall and Howdy.



...So happy to see you too, Howdy.



Squall's kinda dazed from the fall, so Rinoa has to Heyhoo to get our southern friend to go wake him up. At least we know he had a softer landing...

Wow, I've never seen Squall look that serious.



...Okay, once.

Anyway, we need to find a way to get Squall out of that cage. The bars are made of steel, though... How can we possibly get him out?



Tradition says to ask the nearest circus strongman to bend the bars, but these two will have to suffice.

I'd like to note that during this conversation, these two are never told where the cage is... Yet they find it just fine by the time Rinoa walks downstairs again. I suspect auto-mapping shenanigans.



The guy has a brief struggle with self-doubt, so his girlfriend has a go... They can't even make it budge, though.



Inspired by her determination, he manages to do the job in seconds. Good thing he's on our side...



Pretty much just what I was gonna say.



Howdy toddles off again to go find his friend (who's still trapped in that coffin), and our heroes get to do their little routine from Sunny Peak again. It's a nice moment. ♥



Aww...

Hehe... Sometimes this game just makes you feel good, ya know?



Also, hamsters are apparently ninjas or something. i don't even know



Those two are going to go back to brute-forcing that second elevator door now, so we can get on with solving a puzzle or two now that Squall and Rinoa are together again.



A rope in the corner lets us uncover another of those weird mirrors, so we head on through to...



...Oh, hell. I haven't studied! Where's my textbook?



Luckily, it's not that type of pop quiz, and there's even a prize on offer.



Not to mention we get a good few seconds to see what's inside each dresser, which makes this really easy.



If you still manage to screw this up somehow, Squall and Rinoa get kicked out of that locked door back on the first floor, and have to make their way back up to the mirror again.



Pick right, and... Ugh, can we choose again? I'll just take the sunflower seeds, you don't even have to give me the rock.

Kicked out of the door with our 'fantastic' prize, the blue hamster rushes over to make sure his girlfriend's alright.



The fact that he's finally paying attention to her makes the pale ham-ham nice and cheery, and we get another touching moment for the album.



...Yeah, they kinda do. And now we never have to interact with them ever again.



With one last Ham-Chat for the update, it seems we've gone past the three-quarter mark! There's still plenty of game left though, so don't fret... Next time, we finish exploring the third floor, and then keep moving on up!

Bonus video: 62, 62... Nope, I got nothing.

*cough*
Of course not. If so, HamDekar would just get trapped in the cage with own stupidity, they'd learn that Digdig is blocked here, and break out with his amazingly-strong Tack-Q.

I plead the derp.

Heheh... Good point. X3 I should really finish that game sometime, if I ever bother stopping with the Ancient Cave runs.

Greetings, one and all... Now that Squall and Rinoa are back together again, let's get moving up onto the fourth floor. First of all, we're here at the second room on the third floor...



There's another minigame here for us to Tack-Q, so we can earn the keycard for the elevator.



A trio of ghosts spawn in up top, slowly advancing toward the edge of the red zone. Squall can Pushie the boxes back in order to force them back to the far end. In between all this, he and Rinoa have to Scrub-E the four panels in their zone.



You can probably only clean one tile before having to push all the ghosts back, but it's a fairly lenient minigame. Anyone playing along shouldn't have too much trouble. (Is there anybody doing that?)



These two are still here, trying to force the door open...



They finally give up after we talk to them this time, letting us reach the keycard reader when they move out of the way.



Ding! New level!



In a small act of mercy, Boo Manor lets us leave without going through the other three floors if we so choose... They even had the foresight to not just use one of the usual tunnels.



This screen... There's something kind of odd here, as demonstrated in this video.



After adding to our dictionary, this hamster reveals their ghostly nature and fades into the ether. Now, where could that door be...?

Herp-a-derp.



This hidden room seems quite fancy, even compared to the rest of Boo Manor. There's even this bust of a famous composer in hamster form, which sadly hints at what's about to happen.



If we Jamout on the piano here, Rinoa muses about getting lessons again... and gets an answer this time!



...Squall and Rinoa have encountered a whole bunch of ghosts here, so why does she act so shocked?



She manages to recover in record time, though.

What's the catch, you ask? Well, the catch is that it's Quiz time! The questions mainly revolve around the musical piece this guy performs before starting, so you get a video for this.

Enjoy!



There's four questions that this musician can ask, though he only ever asks three each playthrough. This is one of the two easy ones...



If you happened to Lookie at the bust, you may be able to get this one.



This one, though... I had absolutely no idea how people were expected to get this if they didn't recognise the music, beyond the stained glass window being a hint.

But while I was checking for entertaining little asides to screenshot, I found that you can Tuggie open the cabinet, then Lookie at the musical scores inside.



For those of you who are curious, the question I wasn't asked amounts to "Including this one, how many questions have I asked you?"



Since it's Bijou who's learning the tune, she gets to hold up the Ham-Jam this time. (See the bonus video section for the stage performance.)



Now we can head back to the other piano room, where Dexter seems to be losing it.



At least his pal actually managed to find the casket and offer reassurance, or he'd probably be freaking out a lot worse.



As you can probably guess, playing Moonlight is the key to opening the casket here. Good thing we had someone to teach us, or Dexter probably would have been doomed.



It's good to see that he's no worse for wear, though.



Heheh... You two are both hopeless.



At least they're still friends through all the bickering and jobs at one another. Dexter and Howdy must have a really strong Hambond.

And getting stronger! Hmm... Speaking of ships... No, nevermind.



Thanks for writing my lines for me, snarky text.



The ham-ham's powers of disguise allow them to imitate the Tanooki suit's ability, I guess.



Sure it is...



Pair of clowns. Loveable clowns, but clowns none the less. :3



Anyway, I believe there's other things for us to attend to...



If we head back to the east end of the third floor, Squall and Rinoa can Perksie to catch someone sniffling.



...Seriously, why does she react this way? There's a minimum of three ghosts we had to deal with to get here: the jerk with the silver card, the gold card game operator and the green ham-ham we learnt Perksie from.



Quick question, is he a ghost too? If so, was this before or after he died? I ask only to find out how difficult it's going to be to find him.



Hint, hint.

Putting that on the back-burner for a moment, Squall and Rinoa head back up to the fourth floor, finding two sections of hallway like this...



...and then this ghost, who phases through the wall there.



If the ghost went that way, I'd say that the odds are pretty good.



Since there's no cracks there to begin with, this wall manages to survive the first Tack-Q, only to be completely demolished by the second. Just don't make 'em like they used to.



...ooooookay... This looks like a good spot to finish things up for today. Next time, we find out just what's going on here.

Bonus videos:

Two words, and dancing by moonlight.

It actually looks more like she just hif-hifed something bad. Perhaps ghosts don't bathe themselves?

I certainly was at the start. And I got so far ahead of you I won, then started Rainbow Rescue too and watched about half the TV series. You've gotten me into Hamtaro; I hope you're proud of yourself. :P

EDIT: Concerning Rainbow Rescue, I accidentally took this last night:



It's definitely a very different game from this one. I keep expecting the context menu to pop up, and instead I keep playing very easy mini-games.

"Moonlight" makes me want to see a hamdance to the opening of Sailor Moon.

Do ghosts need to bathe...? I suppose if these ones are corporal enough to play the piano and hold keycards, they would get dirty.

Oh, immensely. Just so long as it doesn't interfere with FFV updates... I'm really enjoying the thread, by the way.

Huh... Yeah, I've heard that the Japanese Hamtaro games have a habit of changing genres wildly between each title.

If someone had the animation skills, I'd be sorta interested in that myself.

I don't have any programs for it installed right now but I might be able to pull it off eventually.

Glad to hear it. And nothing gets between me and my LPs.

Oddly enough, Rainbow Rescue did get an English release... but only in Europe. It's pretty cool, actually. They even stuck the English-language opening theme in the intro (in MIDI, of course; and no vocals, though I found myself singing them anyway).

Welcome to the spooktacular conclusion of Boo Manor, everybody! No signs of Lady Bow here, but there sure are a lot of creepy dolls.

Most of today's update can also be enjoyed in video format, provided here: Enjoy!



Standing on those two panels in the middle of the room summons another ghost, here to challenge us for that wonderful, spooktacular prize.



Wouldn't be standing here if we didn't, chief.



For those of you with short memories, a flipflop is that amazing ninja-like transformation skill hamsters apparently have. Being a ghost, this guy can even change into things that don't fit his general body shape.



As shown here. Also, the fact that all questions are a) simple, and b) require only yes or no answers makes this quiz pretty easy.



Good thing too, because failing means getting dumped all the way down in the 1F lobby.



Three very easy questions later...



Success! Also, I'm glad that we're also the first couple to even reach the final test, or that remark would make me fear for the ham-ham's general level of intelligence.



You don't say...? Well, aside from the need to run across the second and third floors between elevators, I'd say that you organised a pretty good event.

Heheh... Didn't think we were going to leave without running into our old friend again, did you tyrants?



Also, hands up if you didn't spot him hiding there.



Taking insults and name-calling as compliments, yet another reason why I like Spat as a villain.



Squall and Rinoa were totally unaware... We didn't even get little glimpses of him, like some dungeons in FFVI could boast.



See what I mean about Spat getting all the best lines? Even if his logic's a little wonky...



Determined little devil, though.



Of course, given the type of game we're playing, the reward actually came from teamwork~. Big shocker, I know.



Spat is not amused by this. Especially since he put in all that effort to sneak about...

Ghosts are evidently also corporeal enough to be threatened with pointy things, if they're too stupid to just disappear.



Best. lines.



The ghostly guy up there said that flipflop is his speciality, and since our heroes can't reach, we try to make him play to his strengths.



However, Spat is less than impressed. But if he isn't afraid of ghosts, what is he scared of...?



Squall and Rinoa seem to have an idea, and the ghost is somehow on the same wavelength.



Yep, it's a cat! Fans of the show may remember something about watching out for cats from the English theme song...



Spat flies out here at much greater speeds than back in Sunny Peak...



...Meanwhile, Squall and Rinoa are cowering amongst the dolls. Real heroic, you two.



With the Ghost Night host safe and sound, we get some more congratulations on a job well done... Would be nice if we got a reward once in a while, though.

Speak of the devil... The nice thing about these rocks is that the gems inside are guaranteed to always be the same, though we can't completely rubrub them yet.

This concludes our current business in Boo Manor, so it's time to head to the Clubhouse.



As usual, Harmony shows up to tell us about Spat's new location. The Wildwoods are... Well, you'll see.



For now though, I have a whole lot of rocks to work with.





That took forever, but Squall and Rinoa now have lots and lots of new shinies.



For some reason, the RNG saw fit to give me a lot of pearls. *shrug*

Next time, we're going to finish up a few things in Fun Land before heading off to the new area. Until then, there's just one thing to say...



Tran-Q, everybody!

Bonus video: One is the loneliest number~

:?

I, too, am kind of confused.

Okay, not-so-obvious joke then. Let's just say it's crude, and leave it at that.