Rogue Galaxy Abridged, Part III · 3:00pm Jun 19th, 2018
Act VI: Playing Too Rough In The Sandbox
-or-
Take Two Tablets And Kill Me In The Morning
The Dorgenark departs in pursuit of the Daytron transport, with Deego now a member of the crew. Dorgenhutt declares Jaster an official member of the Dorgengoa Pirates, and gives him a piece of cursed Aztec gold so he can be undead like the rest of...
Oh wait, wrong pirate story.
It turns out Daytron is taking the tablet to Rosa! Kisala suddenly has a mysterious fit of becoming transparent and glowy. Lilika is the only witness to this, and Kisala asks her to keep it a secret.
Cutaway to Zerard, where Valkog is finally officially introduced by his full name and title. He's making a grand public presentation of Daytron's newest and most advanced warship: the Emperor. Giant holographic dancing girls are involved. After the presentation, Valkog and Norma depart for Rosa.
The Dorgenark makes port at Jaster's old home town Salgin, where they plan to trek on foot through the dangerous Sylvazard Desert to reach the ancient ruins where Daytron has taken the tablet.
Before we disembark, though...
Mark sends his dad another friendship letter.
And...
We get a cutscene in which MIO delivers some data to Dr. Pocacchio. Her personality is COMPLETELY different from the MIO we know! We also find out that she's helping Pocacchio spy on Daytron!!
Spoiler alert: This is far from the last strange thing we'll learn about MIO.
Valkog and Norma beat the Dorgengang to the tablets, of course, but that's not important. What IS important is the person they meet up with on the site:
If you're not scared yet, just wait. You WILL be.
The party finally arrives at the tablet pit, where Valkog and Norma are joined by Professor Izel, the head of Daytron's clandestine research endeavors. When the tablet is lowered into a hole in the ground that fits it precisely, three golden altars emerge from its surface. Each projects a different hologram into the sky: scales, a crab, and a lion.
Libra, Cancer, Leo.
Now, hold up here.
If this story takes place in a distant galaxy, why is their ancient artefact of prophecy hinting at constellations from OUR galaxy?
Valkog deduces that these holograms must be hints as to the locations of three keys needed to unlock the gate to Eden. Our party overhears this, and tries to figure out what they could possibly mean.
While spying on the Daytron group, our party is discovered by the masked man, Seed. Thus ensues the first unwinnable boss battle in which even if you take virtually no damage (and you WILL take damage), Seed still wins. Desert Claw shows up to ninja everybody out of Seed's attack range.
Jaster reveals to Kisala that the man who saved them is the REAL Desert Claw. Then he asks Desert Claw if he gave Jaster his sword so that Dorgenhutt's crew would think he was Desert Claw. The enigmatic bounty hunter simply says that this wasn't the case and that the pirates drew their own conclusions, then he leaves before Jaster can say another word.
Back on the Dorgenark, it's Deego who figures out what the hints mean.
Long ago, each of the twelve planets in the Wilherser System (where the game is set) was ruled by a powerful king. On each planet, there are ancient ruins related to each king: the Leo King's ruins are on Juraika, the Cancer King's ruins are on Vedan, and the Libra King's ruins are on Zerard.
Isn't it nice we only have to raid THREE ancient ruins instead of all twelve?
Mark sends his dad another friendship letter, and then we're off!
ANALYSIS
Seed always freaks me out not because of how dangerous he is, but because his sword bears a striking resemblance to Dark Cloud. Not the sword from THIS game that's CALLED Dark Cloud, but the REAL Dark Cloud, from Level-5's previous games. The sword itself isn't actually important; it's just one of many powerful weapons available in either game. But its APPEARANCE is unforgettable, and Seed's sword looks way too much like the original Dark Cloud for my comfort.
ACT VII: Rubble in the Jungle
-or-
The Lion King Sleeps Tonight
We first travel to Juraika to search for the ruins of the Leo King. The Burkaqua are terrified of the Leo King's forest, and warn the pirate party that the Leo King's ruins are inhabited by a mad witch.
Well, of course. Ancient ruins are never just THERE, now are they?
The path that leads to the ruins of the Leo King's castle is long and fraught with deadly monsters, and there are ruins of what must have one been an enormous city all over the place, now rubble overgrown with jungle. Once our intrepid adventurers arrive at the castle, they find Burton there studying the murals...and are attacked by the ghost of the mad witch!
The witch sends several giant stone creatures after the party. After the battle, Burton chases off after the witch. Idiot.
Once the party arrives at the inner sanctum, they hear Seed's voice from within. Burton is crouched behind a pillar, watching. The party joins him, and witnesses a terrifying sight: the witch defeats Seed! This can't be good for our heroic rogues...
The witch, by the way, is truly insane. But not as insane as Burton, who even after witnessing that, charges headlong after the witch!
Deep in the heart of the Leo King's castle, which is infested with some of the most deadly beasts we've seen yet...the party runs into Miyoko and Chie. AGAIN. What the FUCK are they doing HERE?!
The party arrives at the Leo King's crypt, and discovers that Burton has been turned to stone. The witch appears, and seems desperate to drive the party off, whatever it takes. She attacks, and she is powerful, but easily defeated because by this point our pirates have taken a level in DBZ.
Once the witch is defeated, she crawls to the crypt, moaning about how she will not let anyone take her Leo King. As she approaches the crypt, she transforms from a mummified ghost witch into a beautiful Juraikan woman. And in a flashback, we learn her truth:
In the ancient times, at the fall of the Leo Kingdom, the Queen, having lost her husband, swore to do whatever was necessary to protect her child. She pledged her soul to an evil god, becoming a servant of darkness in exchange for eternal life for the infant Leo King.
Return to the present, and we discover the immortal infant stil sleeping in the crypt. As the ghost Queen looks down on him, she is stabbed by Seed, who is disgusted that this entire trip to the Leo King's ruins was a waste of time.
As Seed teleports away, Jaster and Kisala head over to the crypt to examine the sleeping infant. As they look down on him, he opens his eyes and reaches out to Jaster. Jaster touches his tiny hand...and the Keypiece appears! Success!
The party leaves the ruins of the Leo King's castle. Burton takes the infant Leo King to the Burkaqua Village, and the Dorgengoa Pirates set off...
But as they leave the castle ruins, unbeknownst to them, Desert Claw is watching from on high.
"A child of royal blood—
Jaster, soon, you'll know..."
ANALYSIS
This is one of the few parts of the game that actually has a unique and somewhat unexpected plot twist.
Incidentally, you can go after the Key Pieces in any order you like, but the preferred order is Leo, Cancer, Libra.
ACT VIII: Stupid Stuff Guys Do To Get Laid On The Beach
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Roly Poly Fish Head People
As the Dorgenark prepares to depart Juraika, Simon notices a message being broadcast by the Zerard Space Authority. The ocean resort planet Alistia is now open for tourists!
Guess what? It's beach episode time!
Alistia is inhabited by two "species": the Sleegs and the Mermels. The Mermels, who live in the ocean, are, well, mermaids. Faces and bodies of people, with fish tails and scales. The Sleegs are backwards merfolk, with humanoid torsos and heads that are various different types of fish (or aquatic mammals). The Sleegs live on the shore. They also hate tourists because tourists litter the beach and foul up the ocean, and also because Daytron has built a research lab on Alistia that's polluting the sea.
As our party arrives in the Sleeg village, a town meeting is underway. Fritz, a dolphin Sleeg, is pleading with the others to go to the aid of Nina, a Mermel who's being held captive at the Daytron lab. Problem is, the Sleegs and Mermels have been at war forever, and since Fritz is a Sleeg, he has the part that tends to think first whenever a girl is involved. The only one who's even in partial agreement with him is Jaus, a shark-man who's strongly reminiscent of Zegram, but who doesn't care a whit about saving Nina and just wants to fuck shit up at the lab.
Overhearing all this, Jaster and Kisala get fired up to help Fritz and Jaus fuck shit up at the lab, because fuck Daytron, so guess what? We're all gonna go fuck shit up at the lab.
Oh, and there's something called the Enigma Gem involved in all this.
As we approach the lab, we see a cutscene in which we learn that the Alistia lab is run by Golba, the younger brother of Daytron's head researcher, Izel. Golba is rather freakish—he's only a head and part of a torso wobbling around in a nest of connector cables inside a walker mech similar to Krang's original "body'. We also learn that Nina was a spy Golba planted in the Sleeg village, and that the Enigma Gem serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever except to give Golba a reason to feel useful to his brother.
When the raiding party reaches the lab, the two Sleegs are shocked to learn that Nina stole the Enigma Gem, and that it was the only thing she ever cared about. Golba then unleashes a giant enemy crab upon the party! Jaster hits its weak point for massive damage, but before the pirate party can finish it off, the whole Sleeg Nation shows up and goes 300 on its crusty ass. Nina is horrified as the Sleeg start getting thrown all over the place by the giant enemy crab, and rediscovers the true power of friendship. Using the Elements of Harmony Enigma Gem, she fries Golba, but this sends the giant enemy crab out of control and it tries to crush her. With all the Spartsleegs out of the way, Jaster and company can finally do what they do best, and the crab becomes dinner for a whole army in ten seconds flat. Nina goes back to the Sleeg village and is totally forgiven, everyone's happy, and what do our adventurers get out of all this?
Pirate clothes for Jaster.
ANALYSIS
...well...uh....
.......
....it's a short optional quest? And Alistia is a pretty planet, at least?
...yeah I got nothin'.
ACT IX: Something Stinks Under Myna
-or-
Playing In The Sewer Gives You Cancer
The Cancer King's ruins are in the sewers of Vedan. Which turn out to be populated by orphans. Because, you know, what's an elaborate system of spacious sewer tunnels without a secret lair of homeless orphans? Except in New York City, where it's just four turtles and a rat.
Of course, since Daytron wants that Key Piece, there are now Longardian stormtroopers ALL OVER Myna. I bet the Morarty gangsters just LOVE that. Heh.
Anyway, the Dorgengoa gang manage to piss off a stormtrooper patrol, and are forced to flee into the sewers. Which is good, because that's where we're headed anyway. An orphan named Harry asks the pirates to help their friend Borga, who is deep in the Cancer King's ruins and is trying to fend off a platoon of Daytron mining robots all alone.
In the second level of the underground waterway, we encounter a broad canal with a strong current. The party can't figure out how to get past this, so they call Harry for help.
Now, back up a bit here.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back before we got Lilika, didn't we get a freeze gun with enough power to freeze a waterfall? Which has a MUCH stronger current than a sewer? And WE STILL HAVE THAT FREEZE GUN. So why didn't Jaster just pull it out and freeze the canal?
But, whatever.
Turns out the only reason we can't use the freeze gun and solve the problem ourselves is because we have to watch a cutscene where Harry remembers that the rapids here are where he first met Borga. Okay, fine. Harry builds us a 2x4 technology bridge across the canal we could've just frozen with our high-tech freeze gun.
Two levels deeper, where the waterway is more obviously ancient ruins than old sewers, we run into Seed again. This time, while Jaster and Seed are clashing blades, Jaster manages to push Seed into a deep chasm. As the party leaves, however, we the player see Seed, completely unharmed, standing WAY ABOVE where he fell. Zegram notices this and smirks.
Yep, we're getting played big-time.
When the party finally reaches the Altar of the Cancer King, they find Borga engaged in a losing battle with several ED-209s. After the battle, the ghost of the Cancer King appears from the altar. We learn that Borga was the right-hand retainer of the Cancer King in ancient times, and he's been watching over the tomb for millenia. The Cancer King gives Jaster his Key Piece, then disappears into the afterlife with Borga.
As the party leaves, Desert Claw is once again watching from on high.
"One step closer to the legend..."
ANALYSIS
The scene of the orphan Harry leading the party down into the sewer hideout to escape the Longardians is almost EXACTLY the same as the scene, early in Dark Chronicle, where Donny leads Max into the sewers to escape Flotsam's hit clowns. The city music for Myna is even similar to the city music of Palm Brinks! Harry even runs a little shop, just like Donny!
ACT X: Return of the Fellowship of the Libra King's Two Towers
-or-
I'm Gladius This Is The Last Key Piece
With two Key Pieces under our belt, it's time to head for Zerard and round up the last one.
Which, it turns out, is a BITCH to get hold of.
The first problem our intrepid pirates encounter is an electronic barrier barring entrance to the towers, erected by the Longardian troops. Steve attempts to hack the barrier unsuccessfully. After his first failed attempt, he decides to try again by overclocking his CPU. Unfortunately, it has to be done manually by Dr. Pocacchio...
Who is adamantly against it, because Steve is the physical shell keeping the soul of his dead son grounded in the living world. Dr. Pocacchio communicates directly with Mark, who pleads with his dad to let Steve overclock. Pocacchio finally relents, and we get on with our adventure. The overclocked Steve breaks through the barrier, and absolutely nothing bad happens to him or Mark...right?
Not five steps in, we learn that the Gladius Towers are MASSIVELY haunted, as dozens of ghosts swarm into the foyer. As the ghosts babble and whisper and are generally freaking out the party, a huge glowing sword appears out of the fountain in the center of the first floor. The sword proclaims itself to be the soul of the Libra King, and asks Jaster to quell the eternal feud between his idiot sons.
Pointless new sword YAY!
We the player also learn that Zegram is working for Daytron, but we knew that already because we're not idiots.
We also see another friendship letter scene, only this time Mark's soul is flickering alarmingly! Oh noes!
The towers are filled with the souls of those who died under the tyranny of the two feuding princes, whose souls continue to wage eternal war from their thrones high atop the two towers. It's up to Jaster and crew to "persuade" the princes to cut their bullshit and make nice.
By "persuade" I mean it's ghostbusting time.
While climbing the towers, we run into Seed. Again. He kicks our butts. Again. And Desert Claw shows up to save us from him. Again. Man, that's getting old.
A bit later on, we discover that Burton's luck finally ran out! Something killed him, and now he's a ghost! But he doesn't mind—in fact, he's actually HAPPY about it because now he's free to explore and learn everything he can with absolutely nothing standing in his way! What an oddball.
Each of the dead princes is haughty and suspicious, believing the words of the party to be lies spoken by the other brother. Once vanquished, however, they become contrite, and ask Jaster to pass on a message to their sibling that the other brother is the rightful heir. When both are vanquished, they finally wake up to the extent of their crimes against their father's people, and make peace. United, the brothers ask the souls of all their fallen subjects for forgiveness, and all the lost people of the ancient Kingdom of Zerard depart for the afterlife...after bestowing the third and final Key Piece upon Jaster, of course.
Oh, and one of the magic fountains downstairs spits Burton back out, alive and good as new. He hasn't learned his lesson, though. He'll be turning up in even worse places than this!
With all three Key Pieces secured, the Dorgenark returns to Rosa to unlock the mystery of the Great Tablet and the pathway to Eden. But first, Mark sends another friendship letter to his father. His soul seems to be fading away...
ANALYSIS
THIS DUNGEON IS MADDENING.
Now, the thing about the towers is, there's two of them, right? And a lot of bridges that connect the two. But each prince is at the top of a different tower, and there's no way to get to the top of both towers by going up the whole thing just once. Meaning...you have to go up this motherfucker TWICE, once from each entrance.
Giant holographic dancing girls should be used in more things in general.
So, this all takes place in one solar system... but they still fly through the occassional nebula. Where stars form.
I know, I know, sci-fi writers, no sense of scale. I just needed to say something.
Nothing like a side quest with only a purely cosmetic reward.
Sorry, I meant to say there should be nothing like a side quest with only a purely cosmetic reward.
To be fair, I'm pretty sure they're still orphans.
And now for the sudden but inevitable betrayal...
Ah yes, I remember Seed. Creepy bastard...
And I also remember that I managed to sequence break on the whole treasure hunt stuff on my first playthrough.