One Girl Army: Let's play FARIA, A WORLD OF MYSTERY AND DANGER!

Addendum, Game Arts has some other really good games I have fond memories of:

Thexder
Silpheed
Firehawk: Thexder 2

The only reason I know about these games? They were all published on PC by Sierra On-line. And you all know how I feel about those guys!

I dimly remember seeing this in Nintendo Pravda back in the day... what triggered my memory was seeing the "childhood picture of the princess," because as a wee UUDD I remembered seeing that shot in NP and going OH OH THEY'RE ALL BUGPEOPLE THAT'S NEAT.

but yes, I feel blessed to have an Octo LP back in my life, even if it isn't The Immortal.

I vaguely remember hearing about this game some years ago. It very much seems like an OctoPrime LP (tm) game, so I'm greatly looking forward to this.

Everyone's memories vague at best: More proof that the game hadn't existed before Octo found it?

I remember this game. It... gets kind of weird. Well, it starts kind of weird, but it gets even weirder.



I was thinking about making Brick play Zeliard, actually, but I'm like 90% sure he'd absolutely hate it.

Oh Zeliard, you were so clunky, but so musically amazing.

Zeliard's great, and I also thought about doing an LP of it, except I've never beaten it because some of those levels get crazy. It (and Sorcerian which Sierra also brought over) are like the two games I'd most love to see remade well.

Textbook example of mass hysteria.

Octina is going to marry a caterpillar. Every girl's dream come true, surely.

A prince and a monarch (butterfly) are pretty much the same thing, right?

That's DOCTOR Mrs. The Monarch to you pal.

Oh nice. Added to my list of eventual plays. Thanks Octo!

HI FOLKS, AGAIN! Last time, as you NO DOUBT REMEMBER, we met our Hero, OCTINA who woke up one morning and decided to save a princess, after meeting the King, she learned that the princess is a big ol' caterpillar, because the King is kind of a weirdo.



Just north of Ehdo is a check point and speaking to the King means that we have permission to cross to the northern half of the Faria continent. Thanks for the Go-Ahead, Soldier Number Four.



Northern Faria has the same monsters as Southern Faria, except that you fight WAY more per encounter. This is actually pretty handy since the more monsters you fight, the more experience (and sometimes gold, since thats a random drop) you gather. In no time at all, Octina can afford a Dirk; the next upgrade to her dinky knife!



There are SOME new monsters in North Faria, such as King Hiss who is the same as every other enemy, except with a different sprite. He's green and made out of snakes...



And the Gicrabtic, who walks in 90-degree angles and runs at you and has a curiously tiny hit box. Also, Oysters, who are total wimps and would be this games answer to Blue Slimes. or IMPs.



Just a short-distance north of the bridge is the next town, Somusa! The Township of Water!



See? GUARD NUMBER FOUR wouldn't lie!

Since this is a JRPG, we naturally start off by chatting up the townsfolk, see if they can't point us in the right direction to save us a grubby princess;



Okay, thats some nice, generic dialogue, There are Monsters; some are allergic to gold, some like some light reading, and some others like towers.

The monsters in the aforesaid tower of Gelve have some fine decorators and brag about it to passersby. Also, Strange Men are in the castle, because the Guards don't really do much besides stand in place and say "Go on in!"



Oh, that sounds relevant! And the forest is right outside town. This is going to be a short LP!



Most of the shops in Somusa offer the same goods as those in Ehdo, except that there's no Inn or magic shop, but there IS a Jewelery Store. Gems are vender trash that can only be sold back to a jeweler, which is good since while death costs you half the money in your pocket, it leaves your inventory untouched. The re-sale rate isn't THAT great though, since you can only return them for 90% of their sale price, but hey, better to take a ten-percent hit to the wallet then a fifty.

Okay, thats enough gadding about, time to head to the forest and grab that princess. Be back before lunch.



Yup, thats a caterpillar all right. Good job, OCTINA! You'll be married to that silkworm before you know it!



Oh. I guess not. No idea who that Mysterious Sky Voice is. I guess it's just another one of the mysteries in this World of Danger. I LOVE this weird, weird game!



Okay, no more leads to go on, I suppose, so we might as well check out that Tower of Gelve that everyone in town wouldn't shut up about; it's a short walk North from Somusa.



Not that you can get too far into the tower without first solving this INGENIUS Puzzle!



(The solution is to shove the statue)

Dungeons in Faria work pretty similar to those in Zelda; you explore the dungeon, solve puzzles and fight a BOATLOAD of monsters and sometimes find treasures. The key difference between those in Zelda and Faria is that Faria does NOT screw around with its dungeons. They are designed to BEAT YOU UNTIL YOU ARE A DIFFERENT SHAPE! LOOK AT THIS HOT NONSENSE! Gelve Tower is the first dungeon and it is larger and more complex the the final dungeons in Zelda.

The key difference being that there is no kind of in-game map in Faria, and no real indication of when you've solved a puzzle. This makes things... complicated. As noted in town, Gelve has several statues, and, as the first room shows, moving one statue causes a door to open, the ultimate goal to reach the dungeons boss is to move all four statues which opens all the doors in your way. If (well, WHEN) you die the statues positions all reset, so you have to do the whole dungeon in one shot.



Due to the... gigantic size and huge amount of enemies in the tower, death comes preeeeetty quickly, but here we have the situation where you are earning more money from killing monsters TRYING to advance through the dungeon then you lose by dying, and you also get to keep every single experience point to boot.



The practical upshot to all this is that all my failed attempts to get through Gelve Tower have given OCTINA enough experience points to go from Level 1 to Level 5 (bearing in mind that, at most, these enemies are all giving out one point each) and enough money to get a Wooden Bow and fifty arrows, as well as an Iron Sword (very slightly stronger then the Dirk, and the strongest weapon available this early in the game). By this point, OCTINA has adventured enough to be able to one-shot those unstoppably strong monsters from... earliar in this same update.



As noted, Gelve is a PRETTY DAMN TOUGH dungeon. Assuming you want to skip the treasures (mostly Pearls, which are worth a pretty penny, and Balms, which restore a sizable chunk of health) your goal is to first head to the lower right corner of the dungeon, which leads to a staircase leading to a statue which opens up the middle-section of the first floor.



Oh, there are also invisible doors that only appear when you're trying to walk through them. Just thought I should mention that. Luckily they mostly just lead to treasure.



The middle section of the first floor looks uninhabited, but ever few seconds a flame appears right the hell out of nowhere. You can't predict where they appear and they deal a HUGE amount of damage.

Most of my deaths from Gelve, in fact, came from accidentally wandering into the middle chambers and getting killed all to hell and back.



With the first statue pushed, and the middle section opened, the path opens to the upper right side of floor 2, which is a one-room affair leading straight to the second statue, which, in turn, opens up the doors to the THIRD statue in the Lower Left quadrant.



The final quadrant of the tower is a series of one-way doors full of monsters (and a hidden room containing a chest chock full of Pearls) ending with a fight against a BRAND NEW kind of enemy. Guess how these blue knights act!

...

If you guessed "They move around at random and sometimes lunge at you" then... partial credit. Sometimes they shoot arrows instead.



With the fourth and final statue moved the final gate lifts and Octina can waltz down a pathway submerged in utter darkness. How... PORTENTOUS!



Leading straight to a small, locked room. Well butts.



Oh, there we go. Boss monster.



The Crocodragon (Dragodile? Alligon? Dragogator? ...I like Dragogator. Let's use that) behaves very much like it's much, much smaller cousins that have been serving as cannon-fodder for a little while now; moves around at random, snapping his teeth with every frame of animation. They key difference between the two being that Dragogator is significantly stronger. Luckily, OCTINA had the WIT AND FORESIGHT (and overfilled wallet) to buy a Bow and some arrows back in town; and she spent little time standing back and shooting arrows into his stupid face until he exploded.



And Holy CRAP did he explode. Geez. Be sponging that guy off the walls for a week.



Out of the burst wreckage of the Dragogators digestive tract emerges a pretty fairy. How... nice.

What the crap, man! I was told that the Princess was a grub! Octina was all ready to get Caterpillar Smooches! The BEST KIND OF SMOOCHES!



And so, PRETTY FAIRY PRINCESS GRUBBERPILLAR in tow, Octina leaves the tower of Gelve, which promtly explodes because why not. So all thats left is to cart her off to the King and the consequent ADVENTURER HERO/Larvae wedding reception. Tune in next time for the last update, I guess?

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I remember renting this as a kid.

Unless... unless Octo changed my memories.

We're suggesting you didn't play this as a kid until about a week or so ago.

I think it's particularly noteworthy that a Dirk in this game apparently is longer than Octina is tall; versus the long swords in Lagoon which were about the size of a butter knife.

I'm going to have to go digging in my Nintendo Power collection to settle this, aren't I?

Brickroad is vulnerable to post-hypnotic suggestions, but mylar sheaths full of decades-old magazines never lie.

How about Dracogator?

(This sounds like we're trying to come up with the name for a Sci-Fi Channel movie.)

Given what I have seen so far, a Sharknado would not be entirely out of place.

Howdy gents and ma'ams! PREVIOUSLY, our hero, Everyones hero, OCTINA found a caterpillar who was not actually Princess Grubberpillar, and then went to a big tower and died countless times trying to save the REAL Princess Grubberpillar from the Possible Dragon or Perhaps Crocodile who had eaten her.



The trip through Gelve has given Octina a heavy enough wallet to afford CHAINA Armor, which now means that Octina is about as badass as she can be while on the Main Farian continent. NOT TOO SHABBY! Reverend Teletubby is vaguely surprised to see the Princess trailing around and covered in giblets.



In the Castle, the Guards are similarly pleasedto see that someone else has done the job they were so bad at doing themselves.

Now, saddle-up kids, things are about to get stupid



The King confirms "Yep, thats a Princess all right! And it looks like mine!"



The King abruptly blurts out that the Kingdoms Holy Scrolls are totally safe somewhere he knows about and the Princess, with all the subtlety of a cobalt bomb, demands to know where.



Guard Number 4 takes this moment to interrupt the Sudden Questioning by raising his own TERRIBLY PRESSING concerns re: Princess Marriage. I choose to interpret his concerns as being less of "But... Ladies can't marry ladies!" and more the fact that he realizes that a princess marrying the first shmoe to kill a dragon is kind of a lousy way of determining legal unions. The King, naturally, has a sensible solution to this problem!

SOUNDS GOOD!



Man! OCTINA was THIS close to being an ADVENTURER QUEEN! Thanks for NOTHING, Grubberpillar.



Okay, wait, OCTINA saves the day, rescues the Princess from being digested by a dragon and she gets NO reward, and everyone ELSE gets a fancy dinner?

This quest SUCKS!



Not only that but everyone else gets food poisoning from the meal because The King bought the cavier from a mysterious masked guy and didn't bother to refridgerate it. That is the actual plot because The King of Faria is so, SO bad at everything.

Presumably OCTINA is okay because she noticed that smelly fish bits bought from a Mysterious Masked Stranger would not be the wisest culinary decision she could have made.



Okay, so, NEW QUEST! "Go Save Everyone from Their Tummyaches!"



Back in Ehdo, the towns streets are much less densely packed, since the entire population is in the bathroom horkin'.



The shops are still open, despite the fact that the Shopkeepers all have the dry heaves.



Since she's Sensible, the first place OCTINA looks for some pepto bismol and Canada Dry is the Hospital. The Nurse reminds us that everyone in the whole damn country got food poisoning due to the King being a gigantic idiot and mentions that a town across the sea is best known for its medicine. I neglected to take a picture of that, but trust me, it REALLY HAPPENED!

Conveniently, the Rough Seas have calmed down, and the Ferry Service to the Western Continent is open, an for a mere Twenty Bucks, OCTINA is on the move to a new continent and new... ADVENTURE!



And new Monsters! Like Red Spaghetti Monsters!



And Perpetual Jelly! Like damn near everything else, Jellies move randomly and then lunge at you, but UNLIKE everything else, they sometimes split into two monsters, indicated by them kind of shuddering a bit after you hit them. Then, the next time you hit them, one piece recoils from the hit, as per usual, and one does not.



I... have no idea whatsoever what these things are.



And here is... Grim Reapersaurus?

This game is THE BEST, you guys!



After a bit of a hike to the West, OCTINA stumbles upon Karuza, the Town of Tourism. What makes it the Town of Tourism, you ask? Why the fact that it has four buildings, three of which are Inns.



And all of them are the Best Inns in Town. The townsfolk are unenthused. Now, speaking of Townsfolk!




The townsfolk are CURIOUSLY on topic; there's a Medicine Town across the bridge, a Seed can repair a broken bridge (ooooookay?) and there's a cave full of G-G-G-GOLD nearby! GOLD I SAY! GOOOOOOLD!

Screw the sick people! GOLD!

The Gold Mine is a short walk north from Karuza. From her initial walk from the port OCTINA was rich enough to afford a flashlight and some batteries, meaning that she can now see inside the cave. As you can see, with the Flashlight, you can see a veeeeeery small cone in front of you. It is also full of monsters because because you might be able to get your bearings when exploring otherwise. Mustn't have that.



The Gold Mine is a small dungeon, but due to how many twists and turns it has it's INCREDIBLY hard to navigate without a map, which Gamefaqs graciously provided me with. At the end is an Old Man.



The Old Man gives a slightly backhanded compliment (HEY! Pretty good, for a girl!) and then forks over a chunk of gold.



He also gives a weird portent of things to come.



Northwest of the Gold Mine is Highria, the PAPER TOWN! As in they produce and sell paper, the town itself is not made of paper. Presumably. It's hard to tell with this game.

The people in Highria are all wussies.



Yes, I do know the man who will kill all the monsters. Her name is OCTINA and she is standing right in front of you.



The Weaponshop offers lots of NEW AND EXCITING tools with which to kill the crap out of all the monsters terrifying the people of Highria. Not that any of them are affordable right now. The shopkeeper also mentions that Broww Tower is going to be FAR less annoying then Gelve. Can't wait!

But you can! Because thats the next update! BYE I'LL MISS YOU!

This is my very favorite thing.

I think those pink things are mammoths or something.

...I just realized that the gold thing behind the King is his throne. I had thought it was part of his crown.