Fresh. Let's Play Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass!

I feel really bad for Mr. Marvelous right now. Not as badly as I do for Timothy after his reunion with his asshole dad, but still, Shinryu arc's been taking one dump after another on the poor frog after his falling out with Mr. Grouse (another asshole) back in number land.

Granted, the guy was pretty full of himself and putting statues of himself in strangers' houses that he claimed were his own, but it's still sad to see the guy fall this hard.

Music: Osaka Konnichiwa

Screenshot unrelated, but today's going to be the day where I have to give a content warning for implied sexual assault.



Right now, though, we're just gonna take it easy at the Shinryu Arcade. I gave myself a nice reasonable budget of 6000 dollars to use here, which is important because I want to point out exactly how expensive this place is. There's four possible arcade games here, this one being Whack-a-Ms.-Mole.



You get 30 seconds to whack as many Ms. Moles as you can. There's two other people that can pop up: hitting Happy Smile Lady as seen here awards no points and kicks you out if you do it twice.



Hitting Information Guy, on the other hand, awards 5 points.



At the end of the game, you score tickets equal to points. Sounds simple enough, yeah?



But there's a catch. The Game Master here will award you a huge ticket payout if you successfully beat his high score. But beating his high score in these games requires more than a little luck. In the case of Ms. Mole: the weight of any given boppable coming up is skewed heavily towards Ms. Mole, then slightly toward Happy Smile Lady, then toward Information Guy. You always get the exact same number of appearances in any game. Given all of that plus the fact that there's enough input clunkiness that buttons won't always register, a large number of games of Whack-a-Ms.-Mole simply are not mathematically viable to beat the Game Master's score.



Next up is Punch Tanaka's Ultimate Man Test.



This one's simple too. Time your button presses in alternation so that your indicator hits the highlighted area. The timing gets more and more strict as you go, but only up to a cap. That cap is still VERY unforgiving.



This is usually around where I end up, which gets us a payout of...



Weak. Whack-a-Ms.-Mole is one of the harder games to beat the Game Master's high score with, but it's also the most consistent, you can almost always guarantee around 30 tickets a play.



This game, though. Rock Paper Scissors: Championship Edition? This is, bar none, the worst game here.



You already mostly know how it works. You choose one of rock, paper, or scissors.



Then the CPU shows you its result, and if you win, you get 10 points. You can double-or-nothing every round up until a cap of 8, I think.



If you draw, you can bank a bonus point (up to a cap of 2), spend a banked point to turn it into a win, or flip a coin to determine if it becomes a win.



The problem here is that there is no good strategy to break more than 10 tickets here. If the AI had a strategy that you could play against, that would be something, but I'm fairly certain it's literally just "you have a 1/3 chance of losing every time". And if you lose here, you lose all the progress you had. I kinda like Rock Paper Scissors normally since you can do stupid fun mindgame stuff with it, but when it's just an RNG instead of a person? Very frustrating.



If you actually want your money's worth in ticket payouts, Super Score Skee Ball is the way to go.



You get five throws, and each round one of the 10 point pockets lights up all rainbow, doubling its point value. You have two timing meters for your accuracy. That's it. No RNG, no frame-perfect input chains, just a bowling sim.



It is not hard to get a consistently good score every time, with a better payout than every other game out there, unless your timing is Literally The Worst (in which case you can still play Whack-a-Ms.-Mole and come out okay).



And this is the easiest game to trounce the Game Master at. Just net four rainbow throws and you're golden.



Fortunately literally all of this is optional. If you don't want any of the stuff Prizebot can give you, you can ignore the arcade forever.



Anyway we're skeeball champs. I trained under the best master I know: my late grandma.



Every game you get the highest score on awards increasing major ticket payouts from The Game Master. With the games we've been playing, 250 tickets is a pretty big haul, but if we go over to Prizebot with everything we have now...



YEAH THAT SUCKS HUH.

You can buy tickets from the Game Master outright, at 100 dollars each. The only thing that counts as a deal for is your time: it is far easier to just go play even Punch Tanaka's Ultimate Man Test at a minimum and get better returns. (It's still better than Rock Paper Scissors: Championship Edition.) I really want that manual for Lars, but if I was to just pay upfront for it, that would be roughly Too Damn Much.



I like my odds on this game getting a high score next, so I give it a few passes, and eventually match up with Punch himself.



Super Score Skee Ball still pays better!

That's still exactly even with the Game Master. We have to go a level beyond.



I don't think there's an actual ceiling for how many points you can get in this game, so if you have some way to generate frame-perfect inputs you could probably get enough tickets to afford everything in there twice over.



Me, though, I'll take this.



A few more games of Whack-a-Ms.-Mole later, and we get...

Karma Release (100 MP) is Lars' biggest damage skill, and it packs a HELL of a kick. It also costs both a ton of MP and a bunch of time wasted at the arcade. Still, if you're in a prolonged boss fight and Lars doesn't need his MP for any other reason (which is pretty likely given the low expenditure of his usual skills) this is good fun for if you're fighting a boss that can go way hard in a later phase of the fight. For extra fun, time it with Andrew throwing Analysis on the same turn, since they tend to both be slow, but Andrew is slightly faster!



Music: Quest for the Journey

Right, time for another pass through Dark Dungeon. I'm gonna be pretty light on content for this update, so I may as well dive in here.



Music: Eye of Newt

Floor 1 and it springs this on me. And of course there's a toybox behind it.

This is slightly less nonsense than it looks, due to the fact that among the things Chuff sells, there's a bunch of items that let you start Dark Dungeon with extra bits. So if I had those, I could get the 1-5 toybox easy peasy, not that I particularly need it right now.



There's that. Goal for this run: try to make it to floor 20 for convenience's sake later.



I could've hopped to floor 10 immediately, but it's nice to have the item buffer to get those later toyboxes.



Landing on a Rubik space brings him up bearing a slight typo to offer one of his deals. Sometimes they're free, sometimes not, usually they're nice choices either way. Ordinarily I'd take the keys here, but that is a LOT of trap detectors that could make some puzzle layouts far more profitable, and we already have a key anyway, so!



Rubik spaces are always a bit of a gamble, but even if you don't know what you're getting out of them, it's worth it to check it out.



And then the game just offloads a ton of keys on that same floor just to prove I made the right choice!



LOOK AT HOW VINDICATED I AM RIGHT NOW



That's the good stuff. Dark Dungeon has within it a trinket and a weapon for every non-Jimmy party member, and these (as well as Chuff's shop with similar contents) let you seriously spice up how any given character handles. The Hyde Toxin (+50 ATK) is a super nice power boost for Buck, but it also jacks up Inner Rage into a serious contender for roughing up a boss. It's very possible to build Buck for raw balls-to-the-wall offense at the cost of bleeding his way to those punches. Only problem is... he's still a monster right now. Maybe after we go through Tetsuya Kawaii HQ.



Oh nice, we're hitting level 25 on our forms now. For Happy Little Sunflower, that unlocks Comforting Smile (and a good time for it too), but for other forms? Those are the statboosting passives. Hell yes give me those things.



Even if you've already gotten the rare prize for your floor range like we have, toyboxes can still contain jumbo-sized point payoffs. I still have a ton of trap detectors, let's do this.



But sometimes this happens instead.



You're allowed this option, which is nice, because the Mimics here scale with the floor and are just as mean as they were in the Halls of Greed.



Music: A Cocoon Throbbing in a Dead Man's Mouth

I take the gamble and it ends up going badly for me, bringing this run through Dark Dungeon to an early end. I still escape, but not with as much as I wanted.



Music: Quest for the Journey

Still don't have much in the way of points, the earnings scale up with each floor. But hey, this thing is nice. Nothing against Eye of Newt as a track, but you don't want to have to listen to only that for an entire Dark Dungeon run, TRUST ME.



Music: Let's Color Today

We've kept the good people of Smile waiting long enough. Let's track down Cordelia Mouse.



These were her last known whereabouts. The last two people to see her were Mr. Beaver, who is currently MIA, and Jimmy. However, there's a third potential witness in the area!



When we arrive at Mr. Cat's den, though, it's empty, and the closet in the back has opened.



Music: Watching an Empty Screen

Huh. Guess his home is more than just a cave with a bed like some Skyrim bandit.



The color quickly fades as we go through the hallway.



Interesting decor.

And even more interesting fight design. All the enemies are barely visible at first, just shadows on a shadowy background. But with closer examination...



We can make out a more detailed form. All of the enemies here have powerful moves they telegraph by watching you, and some, like Thurgood, only have that one move available. In their case, they can cause a tremor to hit the party for decent physical damage.



Some, like Greep, can do other attacks as well. Greep can either normal attack, or watch you to telegraph sleepy-time breath that hits the party.



This area isn't totally monochrome, but there's a real theme of leeching the color out of everything. Compare Jimmy's palette to the area. Even Ebeezil's palace had more color to it.



Outside the windows, shadowy beings walk around. Occasionally, one touches the windows audibly.



Between the scenery and the enemies, you're going to feel like you're being watched the whole time.



This phone was ringing but there's nobody answering.



Lotta phones in this hallway.



Saturday is the fastest thing here, and can either normally attack, or watch you to telegraph a triple attack.



The phones are now ringing faster than we can answer them. Maybe we shouldn't.



Let's keep going. This is our best lead for finding Cordelia.



I don't think we've ever seen anyone go into a nightmare zone other than Jimmy, though.



None of these cell doors open for us.



Gallows watches you to telegraph biting down and spitting someone out, which is, as ever, an instakill.



Thirteen can attack with dark magic, seek out a Weakpoint on someone, or watch you to invoke partywide forces of darkness.



The bloody cell has someone, or something, banging on it from the other side.



Gotta take the long way to get there.



It opens as we approach, and we pick up the Rotting Jack O' Lantern's Brainiac passive at a very good time.



Now that we've got three passives, I'm probably going to bring up Jimmy form in combat a little more, especially if my team composition and/or the boss fight means that having a properly-tuned set of skills is better than switching forms. I eventually trade Brainiac and Early Riser's spots, but this is a good one for the fight at the end of this area.



No amount of skill tinkering is going to outweigh the dread here.



...Wait, what?



This is Smile, but something's amiss. Mr. Beaver and Ms. Mole's homes are boarded up, and I don't even want to think about that fountain's contents.



The bank and Mr. Marvelous' home are both open, though.



Or, well... this maybe used to be the bank.



Mr. Marvelous' home is similarly worrisome.

There they are! Stupid fence, we've got to go through the inn to get back there.



No sign of the rest of the mouse family, just these... beings.



With one exception, if we go up to Mrs. Mouse's room.



The inn doors close on us as we walk through. We're right there, though!



Or... not?



Those are Mr. Cat's clothes. I recognize that hoodie and scarf.



As we run down the hall, the lights go dim.



When they return, we're greeted with this.



We can't get discouraged. We're so close!



Music

But just like that, we're trapped. There's no door behind us to slam shut.



The window slides open, and darkness pours from it like ink.



I don't know who's watching us now, but I don't like it.



Music: Watching an Empty Screen

As quickly as they appeared, the darkness and the eyes are gone.



We've left the hallways and the shadow of Smile entirely. We're in the domain of... something.



This has got to be the home stretch. Right?



Just up here...



And through here, right?



Music

Just a phone in this room. It's ringing, of course.



We answer it, and as before, nobody's on the line.



Inky darkness surrounds us once more...



These eyes are different.



This is Mr. Cat's true form.



Music: A Cocoon Throbbing in a Dead Man's Mouth

Turns out that all this time, Mr. Cat was a seriously powerful monster. He's got a moveset composed of the same techniques the enemies in the dungeon telegraphed: tremor, dark magic, biting down and spitting out what's left, sleepy-time breath, and a triple attack, as well as scratching with diseased claws to damage the party and leave them Sick. Like the other inhabitants of this area, Mr. Cat will watch you every turn, which technically telegraphs one of the above moves. So you'll get two turns to his one... until you damage him enough that he yowls in pain, at which point he attacks almost every turn (with a newly added, but small, chance to yowl in pain again). And even though we were high-leveled enough to skip past the encounters here if we so chose, Mr. Cat's stats are high enough that he'll pack a kick basically no matter what he elects to do.

Of the tricks Mr. Cat can pull, the sleepy-time breath is the biggest danger, since it'll rob your party of a lot of opportunities to act. If Jimmy's at at least level 15 in Red-Billed Squawker, that's great, because you can pull Early Riser to give him immunity and throw the Caffeinated Inhaler on someone else (I chose Hitomi). Natural Alarm is a good way to undo the harm this can potentially do, so I've equipped that to his Jimmy form, which I make ample use of in this fight. Outside of that, Mr. Cat is another of those bosses where you need to go high-octane when you drop him below a certain HP threshold, which is exactly the kind of situation Karma Release shines in. I learned my lesson from the Principal Pulsating Mass fight, and was careful to pace out my moves for the earlier, easier phase so I could go nuts on the later one. And he's also wicked fast, so you should make lots of use of the Revolting Blob's Sticky Phlegm to ensure that everyone gets off the moves they need to.



He's dangerous, but we took him down!



Music: The Noble Sea

Hell yes loot time.



Slow Conversion is a time-delayed version of Matter Transfer. I find it works best on characters like Andrew or Hitomi, who are already super fragile and have large MP supplies to get the most out of this move. Just don't let this one get away from you, and it'll be a big help.

Still some more furniture.



The Doctor's Bag is great for if you want Helga to run pure support. It's one of the only ways to magnify healing strength in the game, and the only one I can remember that doesn't depend on consumables for effectiveness. It's not my cup of tea, pure support never is, but it's very good.



Music

You might have noticed something in that last room: there wasn't a way to return to a safe space.



Because if there was, this tale would've had a very different ending.



Music: My Animal Friends

So.

In a lot of ways, I really like the dungeon we just did. It's got an extremely powerful theme throughout it, especially with the monsters in the fights barely being visible until highlighted, and the fear represented (kidnapping, of course) has a fittingly grim resolution. Jimmy got through it okay, but that's mostly because it didn't happen to him.



There's also a heavy feeling of guilt, of "maybe we could've saved her if we got there sooner" tempered by knowing that if we did go in as early as possible, the encounters would've kicked our asses. By the time we knew what was up and could do something about it, it was already too late.



And as people in the thread have noticed: there's been clues about Mr. Cat's true nature all throughout the game so far. Not just that he's dangerous, lots of characters in the game are dangerous, but that he's literally a monster. And that shadow Smile gives even more tidbits of lore to look over and go "ohhhh!" about.



With all that said: I really don't like how Cordelia Mouse's fate ended up being revealed. Yes, Mr. Cat is a murderer and a kidnapper and that's horrible, but did we really need the extra layer of implied sexual assault? Seeing the discarded clothes as we go through the hideout and the trail of blood from the bed to the closet... that was just plain uncalled for. If that scene above had just had the bloodsoaked closet without the bed, followed by the shot of the graves behind the inn, that would've had just as much weight. And don't forget, as far as Jimmy's concerned, "adult fun time" means hula hoops and dancing in your room. He shouldn't even have a frame of reference for this. It's a cheap and easy way to make Mr. Cat look more evil, which he really doesn't need the help for.



Also: like hell I'm going to let this update end on that dour of a note. Let's go help Mr. Marvelous out.



Music: Parabolic Smile

We got two bits of furniture from Mr. Cat's hideout. First up, Gallows' Uncomfortable Couch (+2 MDF, 1/5 of the Creepy Set).

And there's our Pet Turtle (+4 DEF).



Music: Osaka Konnichiwa

...Thanks, little buddy. Keep doing your best.



Right, you need to get back to your usual bombastic self.



Not sure I agree that life needs to be as dull as that, but this is good advice for where Mr. Marvelous is right now. You don't have to be the best, just yourself.



Well, that went about as expected.



And there he goes.



Good luck.

Next Time: I'll have you know that Tetsuya Kawaii is one of the longest-running shows in Japan. Although it has an aesthetic that appeals to children, the underlying themes can still be enjoyed by adults.

Gonna talk about this in the spoiler pop.



By the way, does Mr. Mouse have any sort of new reaction at all if you talk to him after this horrible tragedy?

Well, think of what the Mouse family represents; the neighbor family where Jimmy's friends with one/two of the younger kids his age. Having something like that happen to people you're close to would be horrifically traumatizing, and definitely build that kind of fear in a small child.

Any "called it!" reaction image that might go here is triumphant or smug and that is the opposite of how I feel about it.

Anyway.

There was Mr. Cat's shadow looming over a crib, a grave behind the Mouse family residence, and Mrs. Mouse says she's been through this before.

...yep.

Not to mention the stuff with Mr. Mouse. Distancing himself from his family and hometown in favor of living in paradise with a supermodel on the other side of the world is his (extremely selfish and cowardly) way of coping with the loss a child. From that and the Ashby's flashback where he broke down crying after being triggered by a toy doll, it's clear his child's death had a HUGE impact on him.

Even if you can tell Mr. Mouse that Cordelia is dead, I don't see him ever going back. He already ran away and cut his old family out of his life to dull the pain of having one child cruelly taken from him.

I'm way behind on this, but JESUS FUCK LARS.

I almost fell out of my chair at the "FEEL WHEN NO ASIAN GF" bit.

And now that I'm all caught up, JESUS FUCK.

Music: Let's Color Today

Okay, enough dallying. I don't have enough money for the Accelerated Dynamics luncheon, so let's get earning.



Music

Nobody home. Guess they've evacuated due to Buck.



Well... almost nobody.



Music: Knuckle Sandwich and Ladyfingers

Hey Johnny.



And DeeDee. Digging the new outfits.



Looking nice, Big Norman!



Look at these guys! They've really gone all-in on the self-improvement and it's warming my heart.



So... what do we do?



That sounds right.



Wow, DeeDee just walking away from a possible fight? She really has gotten better.



So yeah. If these were the old Petty Thugs, we'd have to fight them for sure, but now? Water under the bridge.



They simply walk out of our way and let us go on.



Sounds like fun.



Music

Even though you've never married, you're a dad now, Punch Tanaka.



Anyway let's go face Buck.



Music: Night Stroll

Or not? Well, no big deal, let's just get those last few floors climbed.



Five of 'em this time.



Nothing but restrooms to the right.



Music: Beat Squad

Robo-Chan is a cautionary tale of the perils of capitalism, and also an enemy that will build up courage for one turn, and then explode the next, spending every last bit of HP she has as direct damage to someone. This is a magical attack, so Lars and Hitomi can no-sell it together with Undulate + Protect and Lovely.

The Yesman has a unique property to him. Normally, he just attacks. However, after any other enemy successfully attacks your party, he'll agree with them to throw in a bonus attack. The agree doesn't hurt any more than his normal attacks, but he still hits hard enough that those extra hits add up.

There's only one other enemy, but I somehow never encountered it until after I cleared the area, finished playing for the day, and looked up the encounter list. Be patient.



Music: Night Stroll

Well, let's try this direction, then.



IM SORRY WHAT



Suddenly Tales.



Yeah, it's Buck. We know already, Hitomi. Pay attention.



A little further in, we find a break room.



Mine.

We can probably get the elevator to behave a little more with this.



There we go. Six entire floors available to us, counting our current floor of 86. We've already done everything we need to do here, though.



There's higher security on this floor, though. Our Level-1 Pass won't cut it.



Guess we've got a lot to do.



I'll just go check each floor in order.



Good gravy I can't wait to leave Megatropolis.



At least I get to shake any NPCs I don't like.



Anyway, keep going.



Truly riveting stuff here. I presume Diligent Yang is the dude we stole the Level-1 Pass from.



Floor 89 only has this exit.



This is marginally more interesting than the Yang siblings.



Probably wouldn't be my sort of thing, but hey, gotta pass the time somehow.



Honestly, this time around I'm on Lars' side. I'm awaiting Steven Universe Future, I'd kind of have to be.



We find ourselves a pass and a... thing in a vat. I'll disregard it for now, of course.



Floor 90.



But also there's stairs?



Another thing in a vat.



Hey, we can probably open th--



OH NO ITS TIME AGAIN



Can we do this dungeon again but with Helga and Andrew instead of Lars and Hitomi?



Inside the Level-2 door is an office and the guy whose face has been on busts throughout the building.



Huh, I guess you're just an artistic soul who made it big and doesn't know what to do with themselves now. Or that's what I would say but what the hell do you mean you tried using bio-labs to make mascots.



These passes just fall right into our laps, huh.



Why is this the dungeon where everyone talks about nothing all the time. Buck's probably going to punch through the ceiling to speed this up any second now.



Backing up to the locked doors on floor 87.

Since this is the level-2 security station, we can use Verbose Yang's code on it.



The Van de Graaff Generator is like the Power of Friendship, but single-target and also for a much larger amount. Like the Power of Friendship, it's a pretty nice option for sustainability if you don't want to just use consumables. But I am fine with consumables.



The level-3 security station SHOULD be overseen by Arrogant Yang, but he forgot the code like the idiot he is.



Important rule about security: there's always vulnerabilities, often without even needing to glance at a password.



Just gotta pay attention.



The Wave Cannon (+30 ATK, +15 MAT) is a neat upgrade to the Grapeshot Cannon. May as well.



Floor 91. The fountain's not working right now.



Oh what stupid garbage do you have for me now?



This is some extremely Tales writing right here.



Well, we keep moving.



And moving.



This machine is shaking and making a grinding noise. Jimmy doesn't have the slightest idea how to fix it, so he just does what Punch Tanaka would.



Hit it really hard and hope that fixes the problem.



It did!



This easy-to-miss bathroom has an easy-to-miss drain in it.



Man, can we spice this area's decor up? Maybe some real mutants, maybe a bloodstain, maybe some alien shape not identifiable by the sane? Anything?



These things barely count as bio-horrors! They're puny!



Don't know what that means, buddy!



There's a bathroom on each floor, but they don't necessarily link to the same area as the elevators. Gonna just cut out all the boring featureless hallways from here on.



Why are these the characters we're interacting with?



I'm stealing your music and there's nothing you can do about it.



One bathroom drain later: STRIPES!!!!!!!!



We enter in the Level-4 code, but it's no good. Maybe we should ask for a clarification.



That's what I thought. I had to go through all those bathroom drains again just to track you down.



Armed with Tricky Yang's actual security code, we can actually access...

Lunar Serene (60 MP) is Hitomi's signature attack, available in exclusive manual format. It's super expensive, but it's also the only move that cares about both ATK and MAT. Even if this wasn't only usable by Hitomi, I don't think you could make a case for anyone else wanting to use it (especially since she can reset the cooldown on it if she wants). It's very powerful, though: frankly overkill on regular encounters, and pretty solid on bosses too. Plus, it's got a pretty great animation to it.



Best of all: that means we're done with Tetsuya Kawaii for now, and the Yang siblings forever!



And soon we'll be done with this, too!



Hitomi's really gonna go hard at Buck, huh?



Music

Rooftop time.



Music: Skin Thieves

Buck flies in, flexing his arms as he flaps his wings.



I dunno that I'd agree with your assessment on the situation, but it feels like the Pulsating Mass doesn't have a total hold on Buck, at least.



But it's got enough of him that talking him down isn't an option.



Music: Gut Punch

Buck serves as the final boss of Megatropolis, and he comes packing a signature boss theme with a feel unlike all the others. He's got two phases. In the first, he handles more or less like he did as a party member, but with some new monstrous tricks. He can Bully, or screech to damage and Startle the party. He has two telegraphs with different properties. One has his skin writhe and pulse to telegraph a four-hit rampage. The other has him grit his teeth and shake in pain, which not only leaves Jimmy and Lars heartbroken for a turn but telegraphs a Magnificent Combo. At half health, he'll start Flying, switching his moveset up. He retains the screech but switches to dark magic to attack the party, including a stronger telegraphed magical attack if his skin writhes and pulses. After a few turns of this, he'll slam into the party, dealing significant damage, startling them, and landing again. He can also drop his guard at very low health (if not Flying) to start absorbing energy, becoming weak to physical moves but immune to magic. He'll absorb energy for at least one turn after that, but then eventually stop and unleash it, doing mondo huge damage to the party that scales up depending on how long he's charged.

Buck doesn't really have any serious tricks you haven't seen before. If he does go for the energy absorption (didn't happen for me this time), you need to drop everything you're doing and go pure punchham on him, but that shouldn't be an issue. When he's flying, Punch and to a lesser extent Lars lose a lot of utility, so I like to have Punch stick to support with healing items. Lars usually has a support move on him anyway, so that's easy enough to do. Not a lot to say here, really. This fight has rad music and some cool thematic stuff to it, but as an encounter it's not too dangerous.



Music: Skin Thieves

You talk a big game, Buck, but if this is all you can do I'm a little disappointed.



There it is again. I guess Buck and the Pulsating Mass are fighting for control of the same body.



Music

You say that like this is Jimmy's fault somehow! Possessed or not, you're being a real dick.



Well, we didn't really make any progress with Buck. We'll need to track him down and figure out some way to break him free from the Pulsating Mass.



At least we have some good news in that we're finally free of Jimmy trying to dream up a wife for Lars. Because really, that's what Hitomi is. She is very intentionally designed to be not a character, but someone Lars would consider his dream girl.



Hold that thought LARS WHERE DID YOU GET THAT MOON LADDER FROM



But yeah. Lars says he wants an Asian girlfriend, and Jimmy assumes he means a purple-haired senshi girl like in his video games. He likes ramen and anime and everything stereotypically Japanophilic, so she does too. There's no chemistry involved because Jimmy just doesn't know enough about relationships to invent one out of the blue. It's in an awkward spot where I assume this is all intentional that Hitomi has no real character to her, but that just begs the question of why the player should care about her. And she's a playable character! Even Jonathon Bear would be more interesting as a party member, and that's factoring in that he's a very bad bear!



In any event, Lars and Hitomi go up the moon ladder to get married, leaving Jimmy and Punch alone.



Again: so much of the Megatropolis arc is clearly Jimmy wanting to make a place Lars would like, because Lars is his friend and Jimmy doesn't like that Lars is sad all the time. And that's really sweet and sad! But then the events that happen to cheer Lars up... just, not a great situation.



The good news is that with that, we can put all of that behind us and move on to brighter pastures.



Music: An Open Window

GOOD LORD AM I HAPPY TO SEE YOU



Yeah sure whatever great, HELGA'S BACK



Music

Yeah that's fine. Helga's got new gear for the area too: she's found a second Kiondo and has a Souvenir T-Shirt.



Music: An Open Window

Guess wherever she goes, Helga's popular.



Music: Osaka Konnichiwa

Getting real close to that luncheon.



Music: An Open Window

Just going right for it I see.



Thanks for helping us talk to Buck, Andrew. Really came through for us.

Music

Huh. Don't suppose the water damage will be a factor there?



Music: Skin Thieves

So it's a race, then.



It's a race, and our opponent might already be waiting at the finish line.



Music

That's the spirit. Even if there's no chance of success, swing like there is, because maybe there is a chance.



Music: Carton of Smokes, Half-Smoked

So we're now working with a Punch/Helga/Andrew party. Andrew rejoins equipped with a Travel Guide, and I quickly set things up so that Helga gets raw physical offense and Punch gets more utility. None of that matters for this little bit, because it's time for a little secret bonus thing!



Music

Helga's talked up that she used to be in a band before, so let's see how she is on stage.



Let's just sit back and enjoy.



Music: Open Your Eyes

This doesn't give us a reward and is not required for completion. But it's nice.



Music: Beat Squad

Backing up for a bit. The encounter we'd missed at Tetsuya Kawaii is the Number One Mascot. He'll either attack or hug you, same as Hug Monkey (least evil mode). But if we steal that costume...



The Number One Mascot didn't come out quite like Mr. Makura's childhood drawings at first, I guess. Without the costume, its DEF and MDF are significantly lower, and it drops the hug move in favor of hocking up something gross to inflict Sick.



Music: Let's Color Today

Super tempted to include the Subway in today's update, but I should really pace things out a bit, and this update already took lots of time.

Next Time: I wouldn't expect you to understand. You're just a child, after all.

I'm as glad Lars is gone as anybody, but I wonder what that means next time Helga is feeling gloomy.

Game plot theory: Okay, this is definitely the story of a young child struggling to cope with the cancer that's metastized into his nervous system and killing him. That... that's great. Awesome. Very cool.

We already know that Helga's bipolar, guessing best-mom-ever Helga is merely the form of Helga that Jimmy wants to remember/dream about.

Thank goodness that Lars is gone. I get that Jimmy just wants his loser uncle to be happy, but that whole "Lars gets an anime waifu" arc was creepier than the shadow monster cat brutally murdering the adorable cartoon mouse girl in his personal *REDACTED* dungeon.

There's more than a slight whiff of misogyny in Lars' whole deal, and it's uncomfortable to sit through, but I don't think this statement is actually true.

You're right, that was a terrible tragedy. I apologize.

Still glad we won't have to see Lars again for who knows how long, though.

Remember that Jimmy's just a kid who hasn't even started puberty yet and has no real idea of what romance is supposed to be outside of whatever his experiences have been to date; which appears to be a giant pile of anime and...his parents' marriage.

That suggests a few things, because the sparseness and rote stereo-typicality of both Lars' romance and Andrew/Helga's marriage suggest a few things in contrast to how in depth pretty much anything else is in the dreamworld so far. Gonna go out on a limb and guess that neither Helga or Andrew are very attentive parents to Jimmy in particular, and that Lars spent a lot of time minding him for them.

E: I think a lot of the city chapter is meant to bring home how oddly fake the parents are in comparison to Lars, who feels much more like a real person (even if Jimmy gives him his bad romance).

Yeah, I don't expect a preteen child to have a concept of what constitutes true love.

Of course, an 8 year-old boy also shouldn't be able to imagine up gruesome monstrosities and brutal deaths, but it wouldn't surprise me if he had watched a horror movie marathon with Buck or found some of Lars's 18+ OVAs or something.

EDIT: And yeah, as creepy as the Lars thing is, he definitely feels like a much more developed character than either of the parents.

That *narrows eyes* post I did after the Andrew memory dungeon? Pretty sure that was IRL Andrew suggesting to Helga they have another kid to replace Jimmy, after Jimmy dies of Pulsating Mass.

And Jimmy has a memory of it. He said that in Jimmy's presence.

Lars is a creep but after that I have no sympathy whatsoever for Andrew either. Completely reprehensible.

I can't hate Lars. I and too many people in my real life social circle have been some level of Lars: demotivated, dysfunctional sacks who struggle to do the most basic parts of participating in life on their own. Some of us have gotten better, some of us turned into MMO poopsockers, some of us are still stuck in the middle. I can't help but find this end to Lars' story more tragic than anything. He wouldn't be the first acquaintance I've lost when they developed a hentai addiction.

Finding the Wave Cannon in this update got Wave Motion Gun by Marcy Playground stuck in my head and it doesn't feel totally inappropriate here; the theme of watching anime and wanting the stuff from that anime to replace your crap life certainly seems accurate enough to Lars.

Edit: just to be clear, I'm not trying to excuse any of the creepier things about Lars. Just saying that I'm way too familiar with, well, him and the life I imagine he has outside of Jimmy's imagination to hate on him.

I don't really hate him either. I do find aspects of him creepy (mainly the waifu thing, which is why I'm glad we're taking a break from him), but I've also been some level of Lars as you've described it. In some ways I find him all too relatable.

Music: Let's Color Today

Again, super wanted to include the Subway in the previous update, but for pacing's sake, it's happening now instead. I remembered to equip Helga with the Coinpurse, so if we're really lucky we'll get to explore Accelerated Dynamics, too.



Music: Slurry of Malformed Words

Huh, is that a Low-Level Goon in there?



Guess not.



Sounds like a plan, Punch.



And no plan survives contact with a Mutant Goon.



Music: Beat Squad

The Mutant Goon can attack, hock up something gross to inflict Sick, spread an Immunodeficiency disease, or twitch, which telegraphs splitting into two Mutant Goons at its current health value. Mutant Goons produced this way can't split further.



Music: Slurry of Malformed Words

So that was weird and surprising but not actually very threatening.



Yep, that's the encounter table for this area.



This area is another fairly straightforward one though. A bit on the long side, but not unbearably so.



There's a nice convenient directory at every stop.



Music: Beat Squad

Here's our two friends for today. DeeDee DeeDee always acts twice a turn, and can either normally attack, do a Startling leg sweep, or twitch. Those last two moves both telegraph either a flurry of kicks that Startle the party, or a palm strike that always hits first. The palm strike chains into another high-speed attack afterward.

Johnny Tentacles either attacks the appropriate number of times, or strikes one person with all his legs at once for a single powerful attack. In the event that you steal all of his tentacles without defeating him, he becomes Johnny No-Tentacles and will do nothing but mutter to himself.



Music: Slurry of Malformed Words

Anyway, none of the subway trains are running, so we'll alternate between stations like this and climbing down onto the tracks.



There's a fair few toyboxes hidden out of the way, sometimes in traincars, sometimes in stations.



Music: Beat Squad

Big Enormous Slug can attack, slime up the party to inflict Sticky, or twitch to telegraph sleepy-time breath that hits the party.



Music: Slurry of Malformed Words

The Vampire Fangs (+20 ATK, +40 MAT) are kinda nice as gear, but that halved damage drain effect on normal attacks is... ehh, not my style. Helga could make decent use of this I suppose, but she already has a Coinpurse.



The lights don't reach very far into the subway tunnels.



Pretty cool stuff sometimes.



It's always worth checking out each stop.



Yeah this'll be easy to follow.



All the other stops are closed down, though.



Music: Beat Squad

Grunge Tanaka isn't quite the go-getter that our boy Punch is, and just isn't feeling like attacking us right now. If someone goes to the trouble of stealing his Malaise, they become Unmotivated, but Grunge Tanaka will resolve to make something of himself and will attack the other enemies for us!



Music: Slurry of Malformed Words

Bend!



Oooh, what's over here?



Nice! Had about 80k in the bank, so we can probably get into that luncheon soon!



Collapsed in here, but we should be able to squeeze through.

Easy enough.



More stuff?



Oh hell yes we're going to a luncheon after this.



This is where the directory map sort of diverged, so I guess we have to go this way?



Oh, maybe not! And we learn a secret this way.



Ah, but this part actually is a dead end. Off the beaten track we go!



This passage has lots of little fleshy tendrils retreating as we approach.



Service tunnel. Let's be cautious, though.



Reminded of the doghouse from way back at Home.



Music

I can hear a heartbeat sound. Hope we're not about to get into an encounter.



Oh, we might be.



...Are you serious?



This entire thing, which spans so far under the subway we can't even SEE all of it... this is just a limb.



How can Jimmy fight against something that massive? How can anyone?



Music: Slurry of Malformed Words

Can't think about it like that, not if we want to stand a chance. We're nearly there.



Back up this ladder to the subway proper.



And we're there.



Nice. Probably not gonna use this passive as much as the status immunities, but it's nice to have.



Music

Outside, there's no noise but the waves. This must be Central Hub.



All we've got to do is get in here and use the Secret Knowledge... somehow.



Music: Let's Color Today

Central Hub is the final island in Jimmy's journey. There's still a lot more of the game we can explore, but most of what we've yet to explore is postgame.



Music

This little spot doesn't really have much of anything right now. All the robots are extremely perfunctory.



I'll tackle all of this next update, it's kind of a lot.



For today, we're just gonna backtrack through the Subway and go check out that luncheon.



Music: Slurry of Malformed Words

This is right around where X marked the spot.