Do You Believe in True Love? Let's Play Thousand Arms!

Wyna's mom sacrificed herself to cast an immensely powerful spell on the game's final boss' brainwashed second-in-command after he was indirectly responsible for killing Wyna by ordering the bombing of the castle she was in at the time?

Yes. Pretty much exactly that. But with all the voice acting they crammed into the game, they had to cut some of the dialog and all we get to learn is this:

Not necessarily. Not if she trains with this guy. See 1:40 and 2:10.

Holy innuendo, Batman! Is the Double Entendre Special the cheapest thing on the menu at all Langoud eateries?

I'm going to bookmark this page and read this update in the heat of summer....because I'm masochistic.

Because you're so chivalrous and sagacious.

Last time on I DON'T LIKE BIG WORDS! Let's Play Thousand Arms: Bolt the barbarian, Wyna the pirate princess, and Smoochy the creepy old man "Love Master." Together, they fight crime.

Anyway, we were halfway through the Volcanic Cavern and all the way out of Master Points from forging. Let's waste some money before we head back out!


Print Club! Three hundred Gee Gee is not yet an insignificant amount. But surely the invisible hand of the free market means that we'll get our money's worth!


Using PRINT CLUB is pretty simple. First you PUSH X BUTTON. Then you choose from a selection of frames, some of which are location-specific.


After you select the frame, you select a girl. Her expression will change depending on her Mood; looks like 1/4 heart means "a bit unhappy but trying to hide it." Meis's expression cycles every couple seconds until you're done selecting options.


After you've used the Print Club machine at least once, of of the two "???" items on the main menu becomes "Print Club Note," allowing you to look through a tiny notebook of pictures. A tiny notebook full of pictures is exactly as useful as it sounds. Don't leave on a world-saving adventure without one!


♪♪ Battle 1 ♪♪
If anyone's curious, Wyna's taunt lowers the enemy's offense, while her cheer increases her ally's offense. Not too shabby.


Moving on to more plot-related matters, the second half of the volcanic cavern is a sort-of maze. Head left for...


Another free present! You can give it to a girl. It's got a Weapon Power of 10, can't be used with Two Sword or Two Hands, and has 0% W.Evade.

There's also a chest with a Hi-Potion in it. BORING!


It's worth noting that Bomb Ghosts have a pretty decent chance (15-20%?) of dropping Fire Bottles. By the time we're done in here I have 10 of the things. If you've forgotten why this is significant, it's because Bottles are the only way for the back line to deal direct damage*.

*Except against the undead.


Anyway, it's easy to reach the Sacred Altar if you just stick to the right wall. We worked up enough MP to finish forging everyone's weapons here, so yay for that!


♪♪ The Holy Flame ♪♪
With that out of the way, let's nab ourselves another Holy Flame and get a doubtlessly fire-affiliated Summon!


Or... get attacked by some purple ooze dripping from the ceiling?

Video: More like DORK Master lolololol

♪♪ Black Knight ♪♪
Oh, it's Schmidt and some woman who's going to make me question why I decided to LP this game again (in a later update!). As for "dripping ooze" as a method of transportation, I give it four stars.

Out of a hundred.

Dark Master: I was once known by that name. That name has no meaning for me... I am now the...


"I'm like Schmidt, only darker and master...ier..."


She's cool now, but just wait.

Dark Master: I have learned many secrets since our last meeting. See this? This is just one of them. Behold!


Hey! He's sucking up OUR Holy Flame! How are we supposed to get a new summon if you suck up the magic summon beast mojo?

Sodina: Schmidt, please return the Holy Flame! My brother told me of its power...
Dark Master: Sodina, I'm not the man you knew... My power has exceeded that of Jyabil.


Wyna has no prior knowledge of Schmidt, she just knows this arrogant chump showed up and stole our flame. So she runs right up to the brazier, jumps at least three times her body height, and gets unceremoniously knocked back to the ground by Dark Master.


Dark Master: Hahaha! Fools! Don't any of you understand your limitations?
Let's see what you can do, Meis.
Good idea! Let's see what Meis can do.


♪♪ Battle 2 ♪♪
So now we have face down Schmidt, backed up by Jeala. Unlike other battles, it ends when Dark Master is defeated, we don't have to beat Jeala. I'm not even sure she can be taken out; you'd have to use bottles and spells to hit her, and I'm sure Red gave her an enormous well of HP.
Arms Count: 48/1000
So... when do we get to forge flame-wreathed swords?


She spends her time tossing out debuffing spells, to lower your Offense and Defense.


She also totally steals our moves and can cheer Dark Master on, upping his critical rate.

He never makes any critical strikes in my battle with him.


I start off the battle by tossing out Meis's stock of Aquoons, but Dark Master is defending when both of them go off.


Dark Master's normal attacks don't hurt too bad, and he can't hit the back line at all. It's easy enough to keep your health up.


Dark Master: Blade of Darkness, crush the soul!
His special attack is a little meaner. It drains half your frontliner's EP in addition to dealing a little more damage than a regular attack. It actually looks pretty cool, to boot.


But his worst attack isn't even an attack at all. When he starts changing up a spell, it's time to panic. He only knows one spell: a sleep spell that targets the whole party!


Did I mention that getting hit does not wake characters from sleep? Because getting hit does not wake you from sleep.

Also, if a character preparing an action on the back line is put to sleep, but the other one isn't? Yeah, the entire back line is shut down until he/she wakes up. You can't even cancel the command.

But when Meis finally wakes up, it just takes a single hit more to bring down Ol' Dark Mastard. Good thing, too, because I was getting sick of fighting him.


But like in any good video game, beating the heavily-abstracted crap out of a dude for six minutes leaves him completely unharmed.

Dark Master: I must deliver the Holy Flame... to him...
And so he does. His exit is slightly less gooey than his entrance was.


Because he was standing on a thing twenty feet above your head and teleported away so it was physically impossible for you to stop him?


Off-center Wyna is a pro at giving encouragement.

Meis:
>A. Yeah! That's right!
_B. I don't know. He seems too strong.
Wyna: That's the spirit, Meis! We'll kick his butt next time!
Meis: Yeah! It would be great if you could join us. What do you say?
Wyna: Sure! It's fun hanging out with you!

That's our Muza! (laugh track)
But wow does he look like a creepy zombie there.

And then we go back to the Langoud! *BAMF*

Yeah, but one of the older kids beat us up and stole our lunch money so we couldn't afford a Holy Flame.

AND THEN SUDDENLY

♪♪ Gearman's Attack ♪♪
Well, if it's anything like Fort Teve, they'll just drop a bunch of gearmen in the water and follow them up with bombs. Also in the water.


Guess not. Apparently they levelled up their robot-dropping skills.


♪♪ Battle 1 ♪♪
Robot Samurai are like regular samurai, except they follow the laws of robotics instead of the code of Bushido. Too bad for us that the laws in question aren't the ones Asimov wrote.
Arms Count: 49/1000
That Emperor should really invest in chainsaw sword technology for his dudes.


And after you kill those guys, you gotta fight some more. They don't hit very hard, unless they critical (but they have a pretty good Critical Rate). They go down in the standard two hits, but they too can drop Fire Bottles. It can't be safe lugging around a bag full of exploding glassware...


After beating a fourth Shutzvaltz Leader, the scenario finally continues.

Grapple: Arrr! Let's give it to em!


It's a cannon that shoots elementals! But which kind of elementals? Final Fantasy XII's? Chocobo's Dungeon's? Or maybe...
?

But that aside...
Wyna: Are we going to fire the Elemental Cannon? This is getting really serious! We have to protect the Reactor Room!

Good idea, Wyna! But right now, we can actually go anywhere we want, even back into the Volcano if you want! No hurry, or anything. But since Meis and co. are Serious Adventurers, we'll be progressing the plot.


Oh, so it fires Dragon Elementals. That's like, way better than the water elementals I was expecting.

Wyna: While the Spirits are being summoned, we have to defend the ship from the enemy.

Video: Getting down to the nuts and Bolts of the matter.

Surprise! As soon as we arrive, the enemy is right on our heels.

Huh. Do we need to start a Doors Thrown Off Their Hinges: count?


Odds of Bolt going berserk and destroying something: 99.34%


(Our actual chance of winning: 99.34%)


♪♪ Battle 2 ♪♪
So, you know all those other bosses up until now? Yeah, they were just warm-ups. This is where shit gets real.
Arms Count: 51/1000
I dunno what that big yellow ball is, but he can launch it at us, and it explodes, so it's a weapon.


So what I goofed up during the Schmidt fight was wasting my Aquoons against him while he was defending. What you should do instead is your choice of two things: Either cancel your Special and attack, or sit and wait until he stops defending.


So anyway, let's talk more strategy. Bolt is our first truly dangerous fight, largely because he has access to several highly-damaging party-wide attacks.


In this case, having three characters makes things harder. We'd have to try to keep three characters alive while only two can act at a time.


So a powerful tactic is to consider the first character disposable. Burn through their strongest attacks as quickly as you can. The backliners should prioritize keeping themselves healed, but if they have time, keep your decoy on his feet until he's spent. Toss Bottles if they've got free time.


Once the frontliner's all tapped out, either attack until they get killed, or use the NEXT CHAR command to pass the baton to character #2. Usually Meis. Any HP your first character is missing when they tag out is that much less you have to heal.


Now you've got two people keeping two people alive, which means you have less healing to worry about than having two people keeping three alive. If you haven't already, make sure to Might Guts your new frontliner.


Did I mention Bolt has several strong attacks that hit the whole party? Because he likes to start spamming them back to back!


Anyway, now that your second character's at bat, naturally you want to start blowing his strongest attacks too. Your third character (which will be Sodina 99.34% of the time) should focus on healing. At this point a Heal+ from Sodina restores anyone to full HP. Regular old Heal restores about 80-90.


You'll want to use the defend-cancel trick in this fight, because Bolt hits hard. If you have to toss out too many Heal+s, you might run out of EP.


When he's below about 25% health, Bolt has trouble standing. But it's no time to get careless, even 25% of his health is a lot to burn through!

But just keep up the fight and he'll go down sooner or later.


Our reward is a bunch of Exp, GG and MP, and a Pearl Necklace, which you can give to a girl and STAY F*#%ING CLASSY, RED.


Oh, hey, we bought enough time for the priestesses to finish their summoning!


Huh, that's funny... that looks exactly like Aquoon.


Maybe-Aquoon flies turns into a ball of water and flies into the reactor, and it's FMV time!


The entire top half of the Langoud lifts up...


The front end splits in half...


And an enormous barrel lifts out and takes aim. Seriously, where were they hiding that? It's like half the size of the Langoud!


Grapple: Elemental Cannon, FIRE!


Whoa, giant dragon head laser!


Giant Dragon Laser: 1
Enemy Airship Fleet: 0


Crisis averted! Let's go home. Err... to the next Sacred Altar! This'll be easy, we have our very own floating fortress city to take us whereever we want to go!


Oh wait, he's still around? But what the hell is he talking about? He's not sounding like himself.

Seems like we blew a fuse in his head somewhere, and all sorts of status messages and random large words are being sent to his speakers.

Bolt: Is it... me? I'm using these difficult words?
Bolt: S... s... stop! Mmmmm... I c, c, can't breathe.


Oh that's just great. We were using that, you know! Some people just have no respect for other peoples' things.

Well, at least the priestesses suddenly stopped existing so they didn't get caught in the blast. What a relief!


So when you say "lose control," you mean...


SUPER HYDRO-DRIFTING!


CRUNCH.


This calls for some duct tape!

Grapple: There's got to be someone who can fix the Langoud somewhere on the mainland. Can you go find someone?
Sure, how hard can it be to find someone who knows how to fix highly advanced magitech engines in a world where most people barely have electricity? (Seriously this setting is all over the place)


Next time on Pirate Girls Gone Wild: Let's Play Thousand Arms--
Oh wait, we're not done yet.

Wyna: If it's OK with my old man...
Grapple: Aye... Sure, if that's what you want. I hope you find a good man on your journey.
Oh not this again.


Grapple: Arrr! Spit it out, boy! What are ya tryin' to say?


Oh, that Muza! Will he ever find the courage to make his feelings clear?

Probably not.

NEXT TIME on Chivalry and Sagacity: Let's Play Thousand Arms:
A giant wagon train!


No, literally, a giant train shaped like an old covered wagon.

Also: How many times a day do you bathe? I hope it's at least three!

All this, and more! In Episode 7: The deserted plains and the weird gadget master. (Part 1)

Pretty kickass boss music, there.

Last time on What a Meis! Let's Play Thousand Arms:
DRAGON
CANNON.

So, the Langoud has crashed into some unknown continent and Meis et. al. have been tasked with finding a Gadget Master who knows enough about magical high-tech sea fortresses and their inner workings to be able to fix the Langoud. What's that you say? We've never heard of Gadget Masters before? So what, the game doesn't care! It'll just start throwing terms around like you know what they are, it just doesn't care.

But before that, we need to meet someone very important. To the reactor room! Again!


Poor Priestess 2 has to sit in a smoking crater. But nobody cares about her.


You see, Priestess 5 has gained that which all generic NPCs aspire to: she has earned... A NAME!

Video: Tellin' it like it is.

♪♪ Exciting Date ♪♪
Two of them, even! Plus a high-resolution portrait! She's hit the jackpot!

Palma: Why are you fighting the Dark Acolytes?
Meis:
_A. To return peace to this world.
>B. It's a cool way to meet girls.


Have I mentioned that if you "fail" this conversation, you get to try as many times as you like?

Meis:
_A. Not at all. You yourself fight as a crew member of the Langoud.
>B. I'll do anything for a girl.


Well, duh. You can answer "Not really...", but if you pick that, Meis actually jumps out of the television and punches you in the face.

Palma: Meis, do you like bathing?
Meis:
_A. Yes, absolutely!
>B. Nah, it's too bothersome.
Meis is a dirty, dirty boy.


Defying the heaven's will is pretty much what JRPG protagonists are best at!

Palma: How many times do you bathe in a day, Meis?
Meis:
>A. Once a day.
_B. Probably 3 times a day.


But... the only bathing facilities in the world are the showers on the Langoud!

Meis:
>A. Why? Isn't that normal?
_B. What? Once isn't enough?
Palma: I'm sorry, that was unnecessary. Meis, what does love mean to you?
Meis:
_A. To apprieciate all living things.
>B. To appreciate all the girls in the world.
Who cares about squirrels and shit when there's girls to appreciate?


Can I just say I love how the "wrong" answers absolutely break the normal flow of this conversation?

Naturally, Meis's dream is to have fun with girls. This prompts an unexpected response.
Palma: I'll fight with you.

Woo! New party member!

Meis:
_A. I can't take you, you're a girl.
>B. It would be my pleasure, Palma.

Except then she pulls a total 180.
Palma: I'm sorry, Meis.

Well fine then, be that way. We'll just go get killed on our quest and the world will be destroyed and you'll be all sorry that you were much of a dirtophobe to make a difference! SO THERE!

And then we turn around and talk to her again, and she's completely forgetten everything that just happened. After giving her the "right" answers (i.e. lying through our teeth on every question):

Video: Ok, fine, we'll do this YOUR way.

Palma has a pretty loose definition of "fight alongside," because she sits here in the Langoud the rest of the game.


And dating and forging are really not even close to fighting. Palma is the first of several "town girls" that can only be dated/forged with while you're in a specific town.


Palma can change a weapon's Attribute to Water, and that's all she can do at Intimacy level 1. No spell, no specials, just makes your sword wet. HEY-OO!


Befitting her obsession with cleanliness, Palma's MINI GAME, Sweeper Blues, tasks you with mopping floors. Keep on!

The minigame requires you to clean the floors of five 5x5 warehouses with increasing numbers of obstacles, under a time limit. You have to cover every open space once without sullying your already-cleaned spaces with your filthy shoes.


A feat which I just barely managed to accomplish. My excuse is that I haven't done any puzzles like that in a long time.

And we still need to up her Intimacy, so naturally it's Talking Time!
Video: Cleanliness is next to Godliness (and also like super close to a Priestess).

Palma's a pretty easy date, as long as you don't forget about her overwhelming obsession with cleanliness and purity. Treat her like Sodina, except crazier.


Or you can say whatever the hell you want, because she's just a video game character. Her feelings aren't real. Then you can go pull the wings off of flies, you monster.


Smooch! Count: 5
I seem to be on a roll with these things! Even if you know a girl's quirks, there are enough questions with non-obvious or counter-intuitive answers that getting a kiss is not a certainty.


At Intimacy 2, Palma still can't add anything to weapons.

Oh, wait.

Rain. Sure, whatever. It's another weakweakweak single-target spell.


Onward to level 3! Here's one of the dating system's recurring questions; girls will accuse you of liking <girl with highest intimacy level> more than her. In true harem anime style, the optimal answer is to deny it, and string everyone along.


Yes, yes, of course he will. Angels: Coming to rapture up your priestesses in MayOctober, 2011!
Ok, maybe that's too dated a reference for the internet's short attention span


Smooch! Count: 6
And Intimacy 3! Let's see what she can do!


Awwww yeah! That's the good stuff. Can't complain about more Specials. But this is where we gotta stop for now, because we don't have enough MP for any more forging!


♪♪ The New Continent ♪♪
So this is the "new continent" (actually, if we could cross mountains we could walk back to Hatoba and Tradguld) where the Langoud crash-landed. There's a big railroad track and some sort of building with a tower on it. Shall we investigate?


But as soon as you move a few steps (in any direction!), Scooby and the gang come upon this mysterious giant concrete wall. Jinkies!

Muza: The Gadget Master that we're looking for is here? In the middle of nowhere?
Wyna: My old man said the self-restoration systems of the Langoud aren't enough to repair the damage.
Whoa hold on, it's got self-repair systems? Is this a high-fantasy world, a magitech world, or a sci-fi one?


Wyna: It's more like, what's this thing doing here?

It's standing! Quite solidly. What else do you expect a giant congrete block to do, the Charleston?


Well, also it stretches off for miles in each direction. That's something else it does. Conveniently enough, something appears over the horizon as the gang is looking that way.


It's... well, it's big, that's for damn sure.

It's a colossal train. Shaped to resemble a covered wagon.

I don't think there's anything this setting could throw at us that would suprise me anymore. I'm sure the next vehicle we see will be the hollowed-out inside of an immortal space dragon or something.


Meanwhile, the giant covered wagon grafted to a locomotive leaves us behind and continues on to its destination, where-ever that is. We get spat back out to the world map.


♪♪ Battle 1 ♪♪
This part of the continent has all sorts of new foes Or rather, a bunch of new foes and then three pallette swaps of one more.
Nomadic Meisters carry a hammer and have a special that deals no damage but inflicts Silence. Which is pretty much the most useless attack in the game, because there's no reason to have your front line casting magic.
Arms Count: 52/1000
Unlike other Masters/Meisters/Spirit Blacksmiths, this guy actually fights with his hammer, which he keeps mostly hidden under his cloak until he attacks.


Here's Storm Binder that I never showed off before. In a wildly bizarre twist of fate, it actually managed to put the guy to sleep, which the actual Sleep spell hasn't managed to do yet this playthough.

Unfortunately, damage-wise, Storm Binder is just a single-target TWISTER BLADE. Or a bit worse, even.


Aura Sword, on the other hand, is the strongest attack we have. It dealt 150 damage to this guy. The only time anyone else has broken 100 damage is one Meis got off a 5x multi-attack. So, yeah, that's something.


There's three kinds of Genies you can fight out here, one of which is so rare that I wasn't able to get a picture. The genie line don't ever seem to do anything but cast spells that target the entire party. Genies and Nomadic Genies cast a tornado spell, while Genies of the Oasis actually heal your entire party. Guess which one is the stupid rare encounter!
Arms Count: 55/1000
Why do they carry the scimitars if they never use them?


Blood Kiwis are the fastest enemy we've met, usually getting three or more attacks to every one of ours. Fortunately, they hit like a mosquito. Literally, of course; their special attack, which is even faster than their normal attack, involves sucking blood through that needle-like beak of theirs. They also like to run away.
Arms Count: 56/1000
This is totally unsanitary. Those needles aren't sterilized, and they keep re-using them! I'm never coming back to this hospital!

Finally, some Dark Lancers ride about the region on their horses. Until they fall below half life, at which point they ride about on pogo sticks with a horse's head.
Arms Count: 58/1000
They have two lances, until they have to drop one to hold on to the pogohorse.


Amidst all this fighting, Meis hits level 20 and gains his 5th Charisma point! He should have been a Paladin, just think of the bonuses he'd get to Smite Evil! We don't have a lot of MP, so we still can't fully upgrade everyone's weapons, but we've got enough for one thing of interest.


First, we need to raise Wyna's Intimacy. Sweatbands are one of Wyna's favorite gifts, so I start off by buying one for her. When you give a girl one of her favorites, you get a kiss! Hooray!
Smooch! Count: 7
With this, the Smooch Count has finally exceeded the Slap Count!


That's not enough to raise her to 5, so Meis takes her on another date to her favorite spot.

Meis: What was your childhood like?
Wyna: Well, I was told I should become a priestess. That was bad. Training to become a priestess is so boring. You just sit quietly and that's it. It was hell. Because of that, I had no opportunity for romance. Don't you think romance is for wimps? You're different though. Cuz you defeated me in battle.
Well, that was all over the place. Could you imagine Wyna as a priestess? The mind boggles.


With visions of Wyna in one of those strapless priestess dresses dancing through his head, Meis heads over to the Smithy to help Wyna learn her first Special, Rock Geyser. And blowing all his Master Points on that leaves him spent.


Rock Geyser resembles that attack that Bolt used where he smashed his hammer into the ground and caused the floor to explode underneath our heroes.

Except single-target. Oh, and the game's terminology just falls apart in its presence. The description says it "Creates explosion; Fumble effect" except making the enemy drop a football is both useless and not a feature present it the game. In battle, it claims it reduces the enemy's Agility. Except... Agility isn't actually a stat. Using the process of elimination, I think Agility is supposed to be Evade Rate.


In the "miscellaneous" category, we have Muza's taunt (reduces Defense) and cheer (increases Defense), for the first time. Since I haven't been using Muza much, he's 3 levels behind everyone; characters who sit out a fight get roughly 80% of the XP that the combatants do.

No, I don't know where he keeps the extras arms. I wonder if he's got a thousand, or just the five.


Continuing the miscellany, while I was trying to find another Genie of the Oasis for a picture, a Damashi actually landed its sleep attack. And I found out that Cure doesn't recover Sleep, only Poison. It's only Antidotes that do both. You can't see me, but I'm rolling my eyes and shrugging so hard.


♪♪ The Station ♪♪
That's enough mucking around, let's get on with this! That structure with the tower that I've been pointedly avoiding all update is Weino Point, and is really just a pit stop. There's an inn off to the left if you somehow got critically injured in the ten seconds it takes to walk here from the Langoud.


The ground floor of the tower is reminiscent of a bus station. Hmmm. There's a shopping kiosk there that sells a subset of the items we could get on the Langoud.

A few seconds after you climb the stairs to Departure, the man standing there makes an announcement. So, Mounthand is coming, but the sign reads Welcome! To Mountain hand. Which is it, huh?


And if it wasn't obvious yet, Mounthand/Mountain hand is that giant locomotive we saw before. Let's see what the big deal is!


The good news is that we missed rush hour, so there's no line to wait in. The entrance has three gates, one for Freight, on for Alone, and one for Party. If you try to walk through the wrong one, Mounthand EXPLODES.

Or maybe not.


♪♪ The Railroad Song ♪♪
It turns out they built a whole town in here! And it looks like they imported a whole lot of dirt to make the floors. Meanwhile, a Boy joins me in my puzzlement regarding the name of the vehicle we are currently travelling inside.


Since Mounthand is an actual town, there's new Elemental Spirits to be found all over the place! Hooray, because we needed more MP!


So what are the odds that the Langoud would crash within visual range of the place packed to the gills with the only people able to fix it?


The item shop is home to a couple new items: Revives (gee, I wonder what they do) and Teleporta (return you to a previously-visited town). I buy a few of the latter for booty call purposes.


Some townspeople talk about places that were only put into the game for flavor purposes, not because they'll become plot-relevant after we finish our current scenario, no sir!


I don't know who a Marion is, but I but the graffiti says her name in some crazy moon language.


The gift shop has Dumbbells for Wyna and Soap for Palma and Ribbons for Sodina.


This guy? This guys gets it. As we shall see later...


TAKE THAT, FOURTH WALL! Your reign of terror ends here!


Up at the top of Mounthand are the Gadget Masters' garages.


And also the coolest NPC ever! Mecha-dog-whale, transform and roll run swim do whatever the hell a mecha-dog-whale does out!

Unfortunately, most of the Gadget Masters are only able to fix household appliances, not super-advanced setting-inappropriate magic dragon-summoning reactor-powered mobile sea fortresses. Geez, how much harder than a blender can it be to fix? I guess we'll have to keep looking. Next time, anyway. This update is late enough as it is.

Next time on The only question that truly matters: Let's Play Thousand Arms:

Join us as we explore the very worst this game has to offer, and the best(best-worst?) as well, in Episode 8: Fruit Loops and Cocoa Puffs! The dungeon of four-letter words.

And now your moment of zen.

Man, I totally forgot that this thread's title was Bandiger's catchphrase.

Effing Bandiger!

Yes.

Yes.

=?

I wondered if any of my readers would get a kick out of that.

I'm not familiar with that fellow, so... maybe?


Anyway, no update this week because this god-forsaken dungeon is much less fun than new Final Fantasy games.

From the nightmare segment in Robot Carnival.
The design just always similar to me, but I don't think there's any more to it than that.

Last time on Tengen Toppa Whalen Dogann: Let's Play Thousand Arms: obsessed priestesses, special attacks, giant train cities, and multiple flavors of genie (none of them sexy).


So we were having trouble finding a skilled Gadget Master; all the ones we could find were barely worth calling Gadget Novices. They couldn't fix a magitech reactor if you rebalanced the flux capacitors and aligned the thaumatic antennae for them!


There's just one more garage to check, and it's... uh, colorful. But as we approach, this strange, strange man comes barreling into us and knocks Meis to the ground. What a jerk!

Video: The Bandigest (I suggest you watch this, because the screenshots alone don't even come close to providing the full Bandiger experience.)

♪♪ Love Mania ♪♪
Ok, you know what? I take back everything I ever said about Sodina's outfit. This guy is wearing chaps and is therefore much, much worse.


So, meet Bandiger. What can I say about Bandiger? What can anyone say about Bandiger?
That'll do.

Also, he's well-animated. No, really, he's had more frames in two text boxes than some of our party members have had in total (poor Muza).


Bandiger is either the best or the worst character in the game, and I've never been able to figure out which. He's the sort you love to hate, and game certainly makes it easy for you.


So, yeah, that's where the title quote came from. I mentioned before how memorable this game was for me, and Bandiger sticks out even among the distinctive cast. Partly because he always shows up at the least opportune time and does the most irritating thing possible when he does.


Bandiger makes his exit, stage right, leaving us free to check out that gara...

Hey! Who wants ice cream? I think we passed a parlor downstairs. We can go stay there for... forever.

Alright, fine, we'll go inside. But you can't make me like it!


♪♪ The Gadget Mix ♪♪
It's like a rainbow drank a paint store and then exploded in here.

Video: You'll probably regret hearing this. (Seriously, her voice is pretty painful)

That's nice, shrill voiced lady. Maybe you can fix the Langoud? Preferably without making any more of those atrocious squawking sounds with your mouth?


Shits Given: 0

Meis:
_A. A-Trap Generator? What's that?
>B. Are you Marion?
This would be a considerably stupider question to ask if someone were literate in a language in which those symbols drawn in sidewalk chalk outside her garage read "Marion."


Nice to meet you, Ms. Radar. Actually, I take that back, because this is the least pleasant encounter I've ever had.

Meis: Hey! You asked me a question, why aren't you listening to me?

Of course, she ignores Meis once again, instead heading to HER�LAB in the back of the garage. Where she has a superfuturistic monitor sporty an incredible 6x4 pixel resolution. And just displays random colors. Apparently 24 pixels convey sufficient information for Marion to know that the whatchamathingy is in the locomotive.

And for some reason they decided to censor the naughty word here.


So then she runs out to find it, completely ignoring Meis. Again. So now we have to chase after her, because she's still our only lead on fixing the Langoud.

So I'm just going to say this about Marion: FUCK MARION. Bandiger is a pain in the ass, but at least he's entertaining. Marion is just annoying without any redeeming value.


Separating the town from the locomotive is this pre-rendered backdrop.


And who should find on the other side of the pre-rendered backdrop? Tweedledum and Tweedleshithead.

Video: A Pair of Dunces

Remember what I said about Bandiger? Because he's about to do the most irritating thing he can. Which is push the button.


Which causes an A-Trap to be generated. Or something? Anyway, now there's a wall in our way and Bandiger walked away.


Oh for @#%$'s sake. I take back anything I said about other people's clothes. Someone call the fashion police before her outfit hurts somebody!


Can I say, though, that I love Meis in this scene? He's standing there gawking; it's like he's wondering "what's with these clowns?" I know I am!

At least she finally deigned to notice Meis. Now that she wants something.

Meis:
_A. Let's talk over a cup of coffee.
>B. Calm down!
Meis is probably the only man in the world with low enough standards to sit down for coffee with her, but we've got more important things to worry about.


If her frog hat and rainbow-vomit top and suspenders weren't bad enough, her frayed, bright orange and yellow shorts and socks don't match in either color or length would never hold up in fashion court. And if that jetpack is just decorative, she could be looking at twenty years in fashion jail.


Marion: It's powered by the mysterious Star Energy. It's still being studied, and we don't know what it can do. I made this because there are a bunch of weirdos wandering around Mounthand lately.
I don't think she has any right to call anyone else wierdos.


AND THEN SUDDENLY WYNA!
"Star Energy?" Like, the energy from a star? The Langoud is powered by a nuclear fusion reactor?? And it summons dragons? And is operated by a bunch of magical women? I don't even know what the hell anymore.


Geez, she's not that close. And not even remotely making any intimate overtures.

Wyna: What? I'm a woman, in case you didn't notice.


She's so surprised that the eyes on her frog hat have separated from the rest of it.

Smooth, Muza. Real smooth.


Meis: Oh, and do you know about the Langoud?
Anyway, let's get her back to the plot. If she can work with Star Energy, we can take her back to the Langoud, and when she's done fixing it, we can throw her in the ocean or something! Everyone wins!


Marion: Oh, I know about the Langoud. It's a gigantic ship island powered by some funky engine, right?

I'm sure you can figure out the quest we're going to have to complete in exchange for her help.


Yeah, we get to chase Bandiger down and avoid all the A-Traps he's generating, so we can get the generator back for Marion so she'll fix the Langoud. And then (yo ho ho) it's a pirate's life for us!

Sodina: OK Meis, let's catch him and get the device back.
Marion: Really? You're going to catch him? Thank you! You guys are swell!

You say that now, but just wait until you finish fixing the Langoud... arrr! We'll make ye walk the plank!

But first we have to get through this dungeon! And to finish the trifecta, it's at least as annoying as Marion and Bandiger!


Why is this dungeon so irritating? Well, Bandiger's been running around pushing the button on that thing, so pretty much the entire place is out to get you! Take, for example, this switch. It controls a crane.


This crane, to be exact. If you don't switch it on, you can ride this conveyer belt all the way up to the top.


Except when you get there, this huge Minecraft piston activates and launches you back down to the bottom.


The thing you're supposed to do is activate the left crane, so when you step on the conveyer it puts you over here so you can deactivate the second crane, and then you can ride the second conveyer up to the top and avoid the piston.

"Well, that really doesn't sound so bad," a hypothetical you might say. Well, hypothetical you,


All of the traps' sound effects are actually Marion's voice actress saying onomatopoeias. Like "sproing!" and "weee-urrrr" and so on.


♪♪ The Fun Battle ♪♪
Also there's only one enemy type that likes to appear in groups and are fast little buggers.


And they have a stupid high stun rate.


And have all the first-tier magic spells as special attacks, doing more damage with them than you can.
Arms Count: 60/1000
These guys are only slightly less infuriating than their inventor. Oh, right, weapons. Uh, they got punchy hands. Or hand-balls or something.


So anyway, you cut and/or smash your way through hordes of them until you reach a dead end, and have to go find a lever. But on your back from the lever, the game springs The Worst Thing Ever upon you:


SUPER ROCK PAPER SCISSORS!
Or as I like to call it, "Fuck this shit."

Now, I'm sure you're wondering what could be so bad about it. It's only Rock, Paper, Scissors, right?


WRONG.

See, after a throw of normal old RPS, unless there was a tie, the game moves onto round two! In round two, you have to guess a direction, and if both players choose the same direction, whoever won the throw gets a point. First to three points wins.


Have you figured out the problem with this game? If you said "it takes roughly two centuries for someone to win," congratulations! You understand why I loathe this minigame with every fiber of my being!


So not only is there a 1/3 chance of getting a tie on the throw, but there's then a 3/4 chance of throwing out the result. Only one throw in six results in a point. And given the glacial pace of the animations, you're looking at more than 10 seconds per throw. So this is a best-of-five RPS game that can easily take more than five minutes to finish!


Also the computer cheats.


The fact that you're allowed to continue the game even if you lose is almost enough to make me a religious man.

But then I remember that a merciful god wouldn't have allowed Super Rock Paper Scissors to exist in the first place.


By the end of this dungeon, you will be swimming in Hi Potions. Not only are they found in chests, but the Marion Robots drop them too. And you fight nothing else.


Gee, three levers, three binary digits. This is hard.


Actually, this is where the walk button comes in really handy, because it's really hard to get into position to hit the switch you want when they're this close together.


Oh, and just because, a big washbasin falls on Meis' head and bounces offscreen. Complete with Marion's voice saying "DOING"

Video: More Bandiger. You know, Bandigerer.

♪♪ Love Mania ♪♪
In the next room, we finally corner Bandiger. Time to end this! (Please let this be the end!)

Bandiger: This is so humiliating... I am not a mere bandit! Don't underestimate me, big fella!


He talks a good game, but we've yet to see him actually help anyone or punish any wrongdoing. Spoiler: And we never will!


Great. How about we take that thing away from him? Quickly?


Wait, I take that back. Let him summon more giant hammers to flatten himself against walls.

Except since he's a cartoon, after he's flattened he gets to float away on the breeze.
Bandiger: Ciao!
Get back here, I need to hurt you!


It may be hard to tell in screenshot LP form, but with all the backtracking to hit switches, we've been in the dungeon a pretty long time. I head back to town to rest up and restart the emulator, blowing through EP and Specials to speed things up. The robots don't have all that much HP, Wyna can kill them in one hit about a third of the time, or use Flame to kill a whole group at once.


Not to mention, we've been in enough fights for everyone to gain three levels. It's time to do some forging!

But we don't have any new spells or Specials to add right now, so first let's get our date on!


Oh no you don't! Take that off, it looks stupid.
(Also, no she did not. Her sprite is the same as always.)


What the heck kind of question is that?


Smooch! Count: 8
And her Intimacy Level goes up to 5!


Which allows her to teach Barrier+, which reduces physical damage more than Barrier. It can only be cast by the front line, and only for the absolutely insane price of 38 EP. That's almost four Heal+s!


Upgrading everyone's weapons wipes out our MP again, but here's where everyone stands afterwards.
Arms Count: 62/1000
Muza's Claymore has only changed color, but the M. Sword got a whole new design! Check out its complete lack of resemblance to the original shape!

I guess I'll end the update here, in the interests of timeliness. Luckily, the most painful update is over. The rest of the dungeon isn't nearly as bad, and we get to watch Bandiger suffer some more! It's win-win!
All this, and more! Next time on You spin me round and round, baby: Let's Play Thousand Arms: Episode 9:
+=?

I think a round of Super Rock Paper Scissors should result in a point 1/3 of the time. 2/3 of the time you move on to Look The Other Way, and 1/2 of the time that upholds the point.

It still sounds excruciating.

Oh, I didn't specify it, but there's 4 directions to choose from, so only 1 in 4 points actually get awarded.

I'm with Meis on this one, which means it must be pretty bad.

It looks like the frog spontaneously combusted all over her, and she decided that the detritus made an awesome fashion statement.

Marion is my favorite character in the game. I love her design, her voice acting, her elemental Wackiness, and her twenty-five-second loop of a theme song. I'm pretty sure I dated her even more than would ever actually benefit me in gameplay terms. If this love is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Ratchet is a close second.