TAO: The Way

[ebe]

Hello everyone.

Today I'm going to introduce you to Tao: The Way. It's an NES game that came out about 1989 that has an interesting plot, mostly due to the agenda of the creators. I'm not going to go too far into that for now, but I will be explaining the various religious themes that get mentioned.

The game is best explained as a text adventure game with a very simple RPG mechanic thrown in. Sadly this turns the game into a grind fest towards the end, and the clues and dialogue were very...cryptically translated due to space constraints.

But that's why I'll be playing it and not you!!



Above is the basic interface. The Mouth and Eyeball are basically the talking commands, although the eyeball will also let you spot things (half the time it's just a way to get extra dialogue.)

The box gives you a selection of items to use, and the hand lets you take new items.

The sword gives you a list of weapons you can either equip or use, depending on their nature. The arrows let you exit to the world map if you're in a fight.

The feet let you run away from battles, while the swords clashing are used to fight things.

The circle gives you a rundown of your stats, and the doorway gives you a password.

I hope everyone will enjoy.

[ebe]

It begins.



"A seed of life in loves embrace. Set free a baby cries. Truth forgotten, a journey begins.





This is the year 1999, in the town of Angolmois. You may notice something about that date and those names, if you're a fan of Nostradamus:

“In the year 1999 and seven months, from the sky will come the great King of Terror. He will bring back to life the great King of Angolmois. Before and after Mars reigns supreme.”

There are a ton of alternate translations for this, and most of them try to change Angolmois into something else, like "The Mongols" or "Angola." The Nostradamus prophecies are certainly not an exact science. "Mars reigns supreme" is often translated as "War reigns supreme," as another example.

Let's go see our house!



"Mama is angry!"

Oh ma, always with the curlers, always with the ritually burning crosses into your palm.

Better explore the town!

There's a museum.



Oh hey a girl. Will you be showing me around ma'am?



AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Ah...ah...

The curator here shows us a sacred urn and a sacred vessel. One is a bronze container and the other a vase looking thing. Not too exciting yet.

We talk to some of the villagers and learn that a meteor recently struck. That probably explains the huge crater. Let's check it out!


"Right by our science laboratory! Hah! We're collecting meteor fragments for study. Oh?! New discovery!"




Assistant: "Yabahama, we should celebrate!"



Ok, so we've got mysterious pottery at the site of the asteroid crash, being studied by a professor Yabahama and his assistant. I'm sure this is just part of the world building and will never be important again.

Man this town kind of sucks, let's bounce.



Damn, guess we need to activate some flags! I wonder what's outside the town?



Here is the first overworld map. We learn from the people in the houses that storms are covering the Earth, and that the monks in our home town's temple believe in reincarnation. There's a field below the middle house called "Wild Beast Crossing," remember that for later. The very bottom house has a wise old man(tm).


"Understand and master time. Ancient one knows Satori."

Satori is the ability to see the world's true nature, the state of Buddhist enlightenment.

Well, everyone's talking about Buddha stuff so we might as well go to that shrine.



Oh no there's not going to be another curator is there?!



Oh thank God. Anyways the temple isn't that exciting. All the monks just talk about reincarnation and how "Mara" is really cool. If you're familiar with the Megaten games you know Mara as a giant penis of evil, but here it's just a different name for the historical Siddhartha Buddha. Potato, potahto.

In one of the Stupas (towers) a monk mentions that they have the Maha Mara Scroll, where Mara's teachings are written.




Become enlightened! Form of...FISH.

Let's check out the main shrine.


Gohonzon is a Japanese term for a Buddhist idol.


"He became a Buddha and his flesh...divine."

So they have a corpse in their temple. Still not nearly as bad as that curator.

It's also worth noting that that particular kind of corpse is a thing that certain Buddhists do. A monk will have himself buried alive, meditating the entire time, with a tube for breathing. Later the monks pour poison down the tube, which helps preserve the body. If the body doesn't rot, they are declared a Buddha and their corpse is kept as a Gohonzon.


Elsewhere in the temple we find a mysterious door.

"When it opens...a joyous day."

Probably nothing important.

After exploring the shrine, if we go back to the Wild Beast Crossing...


And carry this old woman back. She thanks us for helping her to the shrine, saying that old people can be ambushed...

THEN SHE TRANSFORMS INTO-


A not very threatening demon...seriously the curator was way worse than this guy. The Chinese character on his crotch flap is the word for "Power." It's a popular tattoo for people who can't read Chinese.

Well I only know one place where anything can be looted at the temple, so let's check the Stupa with the Maha Mara Scroll.




Well damn Buddha scrolls must be like steroids for demons. Hell's baseball league is always testing for Mantra chants.

Well...no one knows WE brought that thing here...let's just see how the head monk is handling all this.



"Tears fall from the skies...Our faith is in you brave initiate!"

Initiate? Wha? Hey dude, I just visited like, one time. I know I nodded when you talked and stuff but-



"8 elements compose the Trigram. You have 1 find 7 more. The five elements of the Trigram are Wood Fire Water Earth and Metal. Restore order to the Cosmos. Make the Trigram!"

Restore order to the cosmos? Hey man I live in a village and my mom screams at me while burning herself with cigarettes. I don't think I'm really qualified. I don't even have any cool stuff to help save the world.



TAAAAAAO!!!! :angry:

Well great, now we have a wooden box and we have to save the Cosmos. Too bad we have no idea where that demon went. If we visit the door again we see it's open, and the monk there tells us that the Earth used to be protected by Guardian Angels, and that Suzaku the bird is the guardian of the South, and he is enshrined in the temple.

I guess this "savior" business is as good an excuse as any to get on a train and out of this dump.



And thankfully the train is working now. It's too bad trains run on those tracks, or else the Earthquake wouldn't have affected us getting out of here while the getting was good eh? :lol:


















TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAO!!!! :angry:

[ebe]

And now it's time for...

"THE HELL IS THIS?!"

Episode 1: Trigrams.

You may have noticed that EIGHT elements make up a TRIgram. Well it's not as simple as that. A trigram is a set of three lines, these lines can be solid or with a dash in the middle, so for example-

___
_ _
___

That up there would be a solid line, a broken line and a solid line. Solid lines represent "Yang" while broken lines represent "Yin." Yang is considered male, positive, bright, hot and dry, while Yin is considered female, negative, dark, cold and wet.

How many combinations can you make out of three binary digits? 8! Each of these is assigned an element. So all Yang is Heaven, and all Yin is Earth, with other elements filling in the middle.

In fact, if you're a computer nerd you can set these all as binary digits, in which you'd end up with something like:

000 = Earth
001 = Thunder
010 = Water
100 = Mountain
011 = Lake
101 = Fire
110 = Wind
111 = Heaven

The easiest place to find trigrams nowadays is the I-Ching, which is a system of fortune telling by using multiple trigrams. They're also prominently displayed on the South Korean flag, flanking a Yin Yang no less.

In the game TAO you're never alerted to picking up Trigrams, so to be honest I'm not entirely sure how you get them, except for you WILL get them as you continue through the plot. Later on in the game some enemies will use Trigrams as a fairly weak attack. Since the game offers no animation it's never explained how you'd attack someone with one.

Keep on keeping on!

[ebe]

Here we are in Moskov, which is probably supposed to be Moscow. This is also our first clue as to where Angolmois is. Since it's accessible to Moscow by train/sauropod, Angolmois is probably in either India or China.

The people here are worried about animals disappearing. Well, that and door-to-door evangelists.



There is some talk of a Nun who is trying to renovate the church above. If we try to visit the church we find it locked, although we can hear voices inside.



This friendly looking fellow tells us to check out a mountain witch. Sounds like good video game advice!



This is the overworld of Moscov. To the left is the best building in the game.



This dude will totally heal you for 20 coins. It's not worth anything right now, but in the future this will be the *only* spot in the game where you can heal yourself. So you'll find yourself coming back to Moscov often.


"We must pacify his wrath."

Yugh. This village is mainly notable for having that creepy idol. The building at the very bottom is a prison for violent criminals, which at the moment doesn't interest us. The mountain however...



"The worlds fate is lonliness and suffering. Ah...You, born as heaven's messenger."

Mountain of fear? More like EMO mountain! B) Let's check it out.



BAM! BATTLE TIME!



This little guy is a "Crawler," and he's the weakest thing in the game. At this point the main character has 300 Skill and 300 Power (HP.) I'm not totally sure how stats work in this game but Crawler has 280 Power, 4 attack and 1 speed. That 4 attack does NOT mean he does 4 damage though, he takes a long time to kill you but it doesn't require 80 hits or anything. You fight by button mashing which improves your chance of hitting them and avoiding their attacks. Counter-intuitively your HP is the bar on the right and the enemies is on the left. The first time I played I had no idea what was happening, but assumed I was winning because the bar on the right kept slowly going down, and then I died. Crawler here can only use "Bump Rump" for his attack, and so if you happen to button mash at all you'll win.


"I must give you this."

Oh hey you must be the Mountain Witch. Listen if it's a wooden box we don't need it.


"Strike enemies vital points from the side!! The Ajna figure is so powerful!"

This is a pretty awesome little item early on. Now we have a new thing we can do on our menu, symbolized by a little statue. This and other chakra statues we find will be present. They all seem to do about the same thing though, which is hit enemies for more damage than most attacks would do. Ajna here uses the cryptic attack "Brow." Which may or may not be "Blow."


"Far away Khalibad."

Aw yeah she mentioned a new place. Whenever that happens you can be pretty sure there's a new place you can travel too. Sure enough when we go to the Moscov train station we get a choice between either Angolmois or Khalibad.

We ride!

[ebe]

Welcome to Khalibad. This should probably be "Khalilabad," which is the name of a handful of cities, most of which are in Iran. One of the gentlemen here tells us that we need to be careful and gives us...



A katana! :pop:

This is a pretty nice jump in damage from using our fists, not that it ever becomes clear since we only ever fought the crawler with our fists. Although now...



Random battles are a thing! The encounter rate is mercifully low, but you will end up bumping into enemies starting now. My first random encounter was when I walked into the big temple on the map, and I thought it was a scripted fight, but no.

This little guy is Magic Ghost. All he can do is use the Bump Rump attack or scream "Your momma!" at you (no really) so he's not something to be worried about.



This guy is "Puddin taine" which I'm pretty sure is a localization used by the translator. He's also potentially dangerous because of that "Pleasant Dream" attack which can inflict sleep. Thankfully his accuracy is as hideous as everything else around here so just mash A and you'll be fine.



Cocatrix here might be different than Magic Ghost, but I've always killed him before he did anything other than bump rump and insult our mother.



Paranoia doesn't waste any turns hurling insults at you, and instead uses the attack "Spikes!" over and over again. Still has terrible accuracy.



The buzz devil is the lowliest of a line of devils. At this point it's not noticeably different from anything else, but later models will be something to fear.

Ok, let's check out that temple!


"Mystery of the Cosmos. Universe cycles, stars die to be reborn. Man also shares this fate."

First Russia and now Iran preaching reincarnation at us? The people of TAO seem to have reincarnation as mostly a given. Let's see what else is going on around here.



Huh, ok. Aside from more people telling us about how reincarnation is a thing and we should be mindful of it, residents continue to tell us that animals have been going missing. Mysterious! Let's leave town via the southern exit and see what's going on!



At the very bottom is indeed a water treatment plant, but the guard just tells us we need a pass. The tower is "Ridley's Tower" and belongs to some billionaire. If we go there now however, there's just a monk who tells us the tower reaches to the heavens.



One of the two houses contains this lady, who FINALLY actually knows where these animals have been going. Apparently a tornado took them! But...if that's been happening all over the world, well, the weatherman has some explaining to do. :huh:



The other house is a massage school. For 40 coins we can learn the secrets of massage!



...yeah it's a timed minigame where you mash the A-Button. As if they realized all this button mashing was excessive, sometimes the teacher will yell out "A-Button Breaker!!" This minigame is incredibly hard to win legitimately, but if you have turbo buttons you can beat it with nearly 10 seconds left on the clock. The reward is your skill points going up by about 50 or so. Skill affects how good you are at not getting hit and how good you are at damaging things, so it's not bad to get a couple boosts here.

Anyways, let's go back to Khalibad but exit from the left! (this is like, the only town where the direction you exit from matters, by the way.) Doing so takes us to a large, mostly empty place with some palm trees and people.


"See turtle rock at safari end."

While most of the people complain about animals being gone or talk about souls and reincarnation (we get it!!) this guy tells us about Suzaku's counterpart, Genbu of the North, and says that we can find a turtle shaped rock nearby.



Hey I wonder what's up these trees...


"Lightning struck and the Earth trembled!"

Racism is in the trees! On a serious note though, the odd Chinaman is awesome, as you'll fully appreciate later, and he is reminding us of some info we got in Angolmois about storms covering the Earth lately.



To the south we find Turtle Rock, let's see if we can search around here!




Oh god no lion!

Actually he's not bad at all. The Three-Eyed Lion has 528 Power, 2 Attack and 2 Speed. He's twice as fast as most of the things we've been fighting and more likely to hit us, but he still hits like a wimp and his HP is nothing to speak of. He uses the "Grr! King of Lions!" attack.


"The 3 eyed lion was hunted by poachers."


Well, getting a flask is way better than you turning into a crotch demon. Plus nobody who looks like that curator has been around, maybe things are finally looking up for us...

More importantly this girl mentioned poachers, and that seems like a WAY more likely reason for disappearing animals than rogue tornadoes. Let's explore the area more closely.



Yeah this tent seems like a good place to look.




Holy shit you better believe I'm using the "take" command right now!



:wobbuffet: BATTLE TEIM :wobbuffet:

The other "boss" of this area, the Poacher has 528 power, 6 attack and 1 speed. He'll do pretty decent damage if he hits you, but otherwise he's not much to worry about. Sadly winning does not give us any of his cash beyond the typical 20 or so coins he drops.



What does this even mean? TAAAAAOOOOOO!!! :angry:

Since I've played through the game I'll explain. Professor Yabahama has been paying off this poacher. What for exactly? We'll want to check on the professor, but first let's check out our awesome new friend.


"That foolish hunter!"

Woah man, little quick to judge there aren't you? What if someone like, really needed that money? Massage classes won't pay for themselves you know? Hey, stop looking at me like that, s-stop...I, I just, FINE!



At least YOU understand me Dinosaur!

Back in Angolmois we check out the meteor crash site.



Did he say anything about starting an illegal poaching ring?


"I don't want it."
"Omega Candlestick!!"
"He began a new venture in Khalibad."

The "Omega" there is actually the Greek symbol. And yeah I guess the professor did mention that he was going to start poaching. Also dude, why did you give us a priceless artifact? You are the WORST archaeologist!

At this point it's really not clear what you have to do next. But you need to talk to the mountain witch again.



Somehow, for some reason, this unlocks the next train location.



TAAAAOOOOO!!!! :angry:

[ebe]

Welcome to Crosstown, let's figure out what's up with this place!




"So I moved to this church."

Yes, after three areas of telling us about reincarnation, we are now in Christianville. Lots of Buddhist monks still, but now they are apparently converts.



This is the Church, I also chose this screenshot specifically to point out something annoying about TAO. Sprites will get in your way. That guy is standing in front the cross, it's hard to get him to move away without being blocked by other guys who suddenly step in, it's very frustrating. Anyways let's talk to the congregation!




Hahaha what?



Hahaha omg.

These gems aside, most of the people here just talk about Church, heavenly trance, Jesus, etc.

Let's go talk to the Organist.



Oh hello there, do you happen to know a museum curator?





The glasses don't seem to do anything, but knowing this game if you don't have them you might not be able to proceed later. And anyways the Organist is a wonderfully odd person.


"Humans are born once."

This might seem like overkill to try and make the Church seem intolerant or whatever, but I suspect this was actually put in for the benefit of Japanese children playing the game, who might not understand Christian (modified European pagan) concepts of the afterlife.


"Forgive us our sins."
"Lord Christ crucified."

Well that about wraps up what we can do here, let's check out the overworld!



Yeah boring as ever.


"40 coins to train for psychic power!"

This guy is like the masseuse, except he boosts psychic power and the things he yells at you seem less ridiculous. This place is more useful because psychic power grows much slower than skill, and by the end of the game psychic attacks will murder you.


"The aura is scattered after battle. Energy loss causes illness."
"Druggist."



"Gaze at the Northern skies."

The constellation also showed up when the holy man of Khalibad was talking to us. The big dipper will continue to matter later on.

With that out of the way we go to the red house on the left.


"Nature has dealt harshly... lightning struck our precious home...this was entrusted to me..."
"An object"
"Go to the cathedral!!"


"Do you not believe me?"

Earlier in Moscov some of the ladies complaining about salesmen and religion mentioned that a nun already hit them up for money. We now have the key to that mysterious locked cathedral with the voices inside!



On the way back I fight another Paranoia and get a better shot of what it looks like.



Let's use the key on that Church and see what's inside!



A baby...? A baby that wet themselves?


"Our souls are trapped. Save us from the torments of Hell. Pity us."

Oh, OH. These are all ghosts.



Wise old man(tm)!


"*Sahasra figure!"




Well that's depressing...poor ghost baby

Let's bring the figure back to that nun!


"Look!! The back!!"




Ganesh here is the first enemy that really poses any danger to you. It has 1520 power, but only 2 attack and 1 speed. The real danger is it has a decent technique. Sometimes it'll use "Blood! Spiritual Attack!" which is a weak move that is based on psychic power, making it more likely to hit you but still not a threat with it's 2 attack. Other times it will use "Finish it! Mmm fresh meat!!" This move will actually knock off 3 or so bars from your health at this point, so if you're weak coming into this fight it's potentially a close fight. Still easy though.


"News from Salem Church...Maha Mara Sutra Scroll stolen...says monk. The head monk is in shock. Everyone is trying in vain to cure him..."

Well the stolen scroll is hardly news for us, but the head monk needs help! Obviously our next order of business is to go to Angolmois. Finally a plot point that makes sense! Don't worry, that won't be common.

[ebe]

Beating Ganesh triggers new random encounters. All the old guys are still around, but now new guys can be found. Rock Head here is really fast and will usually sneak in a hit at some point, but he doesn't do any real damage (yeah I know, the giant rock head is a "fast but weak" type.)



Also if the enemy is weak enough, they will use "Forgive" and "Recess" meaning they run away from you.



Grapplers are the toughest thing we've encountered. They are stronger than Ganesh in every way, and have a hypnosis skill. They will usually take a few bars off from you.


"Druggist has potion."

Well, the first part of that we totally knew, but outside of Crosstown there's a druggist.


To Crosstown!


This little guy is Purusa. Unfortunately I didn't realize I capped the screenshot just as he was flashing from taking damage. He's a green, six armed little Asura that is adorable.


Yeah dude scrolls are gone and he's in bad shape.


"Buy herbal potion for 100 coins?
Sure!! <
Later."

Well, it looks like I'm getting ripped off for pine needles, but this is my only lead so...


"Good purchase
*Potion!!"

Welp time to go back.



On the way we run into Orbiter. He uses the pretty vicious "Finish it!" attack but his accuracy is so bad he's never actually hit me.


"Thanks Enter!"

Yeah we get in for free this time. B)


"So merciful.
*A merit!!
Mara Sutra...found?"


"Tears fall from the skies...when will Mara return?"

So the head monk is no longer dying but he's kind of depressed about the scroll being gone, he's also thinking about the second coming of Mara. Probably best for us to go now.


"Concentrate the heart on 1 point focus"

One of the monks how offers meditation. This boosts our stamina by 1 but it's not really worth our time because it makes us sit and wait while we "meditate" each time we do it. But this is a mention of "1 point" which will be important later.

AS USUAL, when we don't know what to do, we better talk to crazy mountain witch.
Time for her to say something like "I hear trains." and unlock a new place we can travel to.


"Mandarin Medallion revives Mara...Whirlwind witness taken. Red swastika spins."

Well that advice was...abnormally to the point.

Back in Khalibad someone was talking about tornadoes taking animals so let's find them again.


Murmur here has a ton of hit points and can probably knock a bar off of you, but his offense is nowhere near as impressive as his defense.


Gumballer uses fire magic, but he's so weak that it's hard to notice.


This thing is named Puffles. Yeah, Puffles. Puffles will KILL YOU DEAD by shooting out blasts of pure white light that take off 3-4 bars per hit. Do not fuck with Puffles.


Egghead here is pretty weak. He's one of a handful of monsters who get "evolved" forms later on though.


And hey it's Crab Cake! Nostalgia! Anyways this guy is stronger than the stuff we first encountered but he's so much weaker than Grappler, Murmur or Puffles that you won't care when you bump into him.


"A whirlwind swept the animals to Tokyo. A hidden god."
"Hidden god now revealed...Sacrifice rite on fear mountain."

You can't tell, but our witness gets abducted by a TORNADO at this point. Holy shit I did not sign up for sentient tornado battles. Look I almost got my ass kicked by PUFFLES.


"A swirling storm swallowing all...the mouth of Mochona devouring offerings!"

Oh great, the creepy village cult? Normally katanas are pretty badass and all but c'mon miss witch can I get some uzis or something?



...yes, yes that is exactly the same as a weapon that could actually do something. Fuck it whatever let's go.




Dinosaur? Hey yeah...listen, if I don't come back, shhh shhh, I know you want me to come back, and I'm going to try, but IF I don't come back. Back in Angol Mois I've got a helicopter ticket in my room. Just take it, take it and leave, and never look back.






Battle time. "Natives" is a nice step up from Ganesh. 1786 Power, 3 Attack and 2 Speed. Most notably they can use "God Magic" which is a bullshit attack that hits you 2-3 times in rapid succession. After a short tussle, they fall...but it turns out that that idol wasn't the thing they worshipped...



Cosmic god Mochona is likely to be the first thing you die against. With 1088 Power, 2 Attack and 1 Speed he SEEMS weaker than the Natives. But he has three big things going for him. First, you're already weakened from the Natives battle. Second, he can do this:

While cursed, you cannot do anything, and he will just spew ectoplasm and force brain damaging visions of paradise upon you with impunity. If you've done a little grinding, it's still likely you'll just barely beat him with your life in tact...

Oh right, third thing:


He revives himself and you need to kill him all over again.



Even if you DO get this death screen, TAO gives you "Life Points." that revive you the same way Mochona just revived. Also Mochona is programmed to only use his weakest physical attack if you don't have any Life Points left, so you'd have to try to get game over against him. Still, I wanted to show you guys what game over is like...



"Your mission was to save Earth. Rescue the world from annihilation. Ascend from Hell's depths, all creatures are reborn. Mankind destruction approaches, return to life!"






BAM. This is seriously one of the more screwed up aspects of the game (but not the most, as you will later learn.) The protagonist gets reborn if he dies. Same mom, but she doesn't acknowledge that you're a different child. In fact, no one does. And nothing at all seems to have happened in the 15-18 years you've been gone. Seriously.

Anyways I totally grinded to get shots of some of those enemies so I kicked Mochona's ass without dying.



Hey! Where is Mochona and why are you here? Also why are you paying poachers to kill lions?? Fess up old man, I'm not in the mood.


"I climbed a building to Heaven. There a God entered my body."

A building climbing to Heaven? You must have gone to that rich guy's tower in Khallibad huh? Um...I think you may have been molested.



Aaaaah he's a space alien again! ...oh good, he left.


"*Vishuda"


"I'm fine."

Well, I...I actually beat a village cult and their crazy space god. I am totally telling Dinosaur about this!!

[xolta]

Yes it lives again.

[wortcov]

wow, this was much weirder then I remember. looking forward to more.

[ebe]

Alright so let's talk with the Witch about how we just defeated an alien space god!


"Mandarin Medallion revives Mara...Whirlwind Witness taken, Red Swastika spins."

Well that sounds exciting, can we really revive a living Buddha? None of the places we've been so far have a Red Swastika, so let's go to Crosstown and see if anything new is at the train station.


...and then he was like BLEAH VENGEANCE and I was like K-ZAP! and it was so cool Dinosaur I wish you were there!



On the way we are attacked by Dogu Mask here. He's basically a Grappler with less attacks, his Hypnotic Eye Gauge is very accurate but weak, and his other attacks are what we've seen a million times before.

In Crosstown there's no new train stops...but the Helipad can now be used! It will take us to Kanbal, which seems to be a place in Laos. Ready to get in a Helicopter?!



Of course not! This is TAO! Dinosaurs are the only transportation! ...man 1999 was way more metal in Asia and Europe than in the States.



Here is Kanbal, this place has some important items but once we get them we won't need to return much.



We encounter this demon almost immediately. He has the fairly accurate "M-meat" physical attack and can also try and blast us with a whirlwind, but I've grinded enough he's no big deal.



Hopper here is a weaker enemy I failed to get a screenshot of before. He's pretty boss looking though.

There are two doctors walking around, one tells me that Loans are hell and the other says "Find a Red Swastika." Seems like we're in the right place! There's also a little girl running around here.




This Bottle can be used to "Spray Flames" and deal damage to enemies. Currently it's a bit better than using a Buddha statue but as our Psychic Power increases it will quickly become useless.



Uh, yeah ok!

One of the huts has a Monk that talks about how the Ancient One watches them every day, there's a police station with a grumpy cop that just wants to know what you want, there's a loan place...



You can get pretty ridiculous amounts of money from here. I'm not sure what happens for not paying it back quickly, but my guess is that Criminal type enemies start to attack you. There's one more place to check out in this town...



Oh no thanks, I don't even have an apartment! I don't need any televi-



FUCK.YES.



TAKE THIS MONEY TAKE IT.



Hahaha...haha...HAHAHAHAHA.

If we talk to this guy again he gives us a cryptic warning that "Priests sell Heaven." If we go to the west of Kanbal we find a path...



Leading us to a Red Temple that has a Swastika!


"Buy the 3 treasures."

Pht, I don't need to buy heaven, with this new gun I am invincible! I think I'll go take a look around Laos now!



...yeah. Well, I guess we better take two steps forward!



Wise old man(tm)!
"Find 3 treasures! But...the jewels are formless, beware imitations."

Looks like Wise old man(tm) is telling us the Red Swastika Temple isn't legit. Good to know!

Well we have a gun, time to travel the world and...GRIIIIINNNND!

The gun attacks extremely rapidly, although psychic attacks are somehow more likely to hit you than when you use the sword. Sometimes the gun will make an enemy "comatose," causing them to lose turns while you blow them away.


Crab Claw is the evolved form of Crab Cake. He has a ton of stamina but relies on fairly weak attacks like "Deeds Mirror" and Trigram.


Weird Streaker here is sadly totally uninteresting aside from his sprite. I feel like his design is stolen from a company logo but I can't place it.


Bizarro here is an evolved version of Paranoid. Just like his lesser form he does nothing but attempt to hit you with spikes.

Exploring the world doesn't come up with much until we happen to visit Ridley's Tower in Khalibad again...


"Meet billionaire Ridley building owner."


"Money can buy my one desire...I must have 3 priceless treasures! Find and buy the 3 treasures for me.

This is a "But thou must!" choice. If you say no you get attacked by the guy with the gun (2240 Power, 8 Attack and 255 speed.) Since you also have ridiculous speed thanks to the automatic weapon you can probably win, but you just need to go back and accept the money anyways.


"Go to Kanbal from Crosston."

Got it, let's go back and get that treasure from the Red Swastika temple!


So...did you know I defeated a space god? Yeah I'm a pretty big deal...haha no I don't say this to all the dinosaurs!

[xolta]

Wise old man(tm) is one of my favorite jokes of this lp. Also the pink pterosaur looks like a thin neck derpy version of rodan.

[ebe]

We return to the Red Swastika temple to see if we can buy any of those treasures for Ridley!



"This treasure is worth much."

We buy the stole for 2000...so we just spent all the money Ridley gave us on ONE treasure. The priest tells us to put the stole on the altar, but we can't do that at this temple. There was another altar in the hut where the monk talked about the ancient one here in Kanbal however.


"You have trained well...Form the Trigram."

"Take this 1 Trigram part, Kadalkajmas 5 gates now open."

Back at Kadalkajma Temple there was a hut dedicated to Suzaku where they talked about there being 5 gates. Let's check it out!




"Why does Suzaku face the North? Mountain Witch might know..."

Alright...so Suzaku of the South is facing North for some reason...at least they outright told us where to go this time!


Hmm? Why are you sniffing me? No, nothing's up. You're just worrying for no reason!


Once again we get refreshingly straight-forward advice, let's check out our favorite Qing Dynasty reference!


No I HAVEN'T been hanging out with other Mesozoic creatures, why are you being so clingy?

We go to the Odd Chinaman's tree house but...


"Smugglers crossed through here. Buried in sand-"

"Figure has a note."

"You have these figures? Addressed to you?!"

This is the Heart Chakra, and related to Spinal Health, and of course can be used to blast enemies for psychic damage.

Meanwhile, if we go check out Genbu rock...


Hmmm, South is facing North and North is South.

Placing the stole on the Altar seems to have triggered something big, and in addition to Earth's poles going haywire there are some new bad dudes to go up against.


Seraphis here is absolutely brutal. In addition to using the powerful "Your life!" physical he will sometimes use Corrosion, a nasty psychic attack. Everything he does takes off 3-4 bars and he's quite fast. The first time I played the game I didn't grind at all and this guy was basically a gameover screen.


Mitey is a big bug that uses decent physicals and has plenty of stamina, but he's very susceptible to "Comatose" status and so the gun will take him out easily.


Mighty Mite, despite having a different sprite/name, is the exact same enemy as Mitey. I do not understand why this was done.


Blue Beetles are basically better versions of the Mites that don't get stunned. To give you an idea of where things have gotten, Blue Beetle has 5880 Power, 9 Attack and 13 Speed.


Shufflers are fairly weak since they rely on Leg Shakes and Trigrams for damage.


Egghead is the evolved form of Eggeyes from above. He has better stats but seems to have the same move selection.


Toxic Man is another "Good Stamina, sucky moves" monster, using Wind Storm and Leftie.


Horn Devil is the 3rd form of Buzz Devil (we haven't seen Wing Devil yet.) It's basically tied with Seraphis for "Fuck this shit" difficulty. It likes to use the Light Beam that Puffles was fond of, except Horn Devil is easily twice as powerful as Puffles could have ever dreamed of being. Sadly this isn't even the final form of the Devils.

Now we don't have a lot of info on where to go next. However the Chinaman's note told us about a star falling in Atma forest, so let's check out the Meteor crash site again.


"Make money he said."

Ok, so Professor Yabahama (who is sometimes Cosmic God Mochona) is obsessed with making money AND paying off poachers who seem to have scared off the Odd Chinaman. Still not sure how Ridley factors into this, or perhaps Yabahama was on a different tower when the god entered is body?

Near the crash site we also find this fellow:

Ugh, I have to go back into that museum? Well...I guess...let's go pay the girl and sneak past that creepy curator to see what's available.


"Mandarin Medallion."

Hey, didn't we hear that a Mandarin Medallion revives Mara? Let's grab it!


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAA-aaah...aaah...oh my god, what have I done?



"Blood stains royal crest."
"You got *Medallion"

Oh, so he was possessed by an evil spirit from the medallion. Well I guess what I did was ok the-


Crap!



Battle time! The police are very powerful for this point in the game, with 6912 Power, 24 Attack and 34 Speed. I would go as far as to say they are a Seraphis with no psychic attacks. If you beat one another pops up and you get no experience, so eventually they WILL take you down. Each time you lose a life point you get this:

Because I'm pretty darn powerful for this part of the game I took down 9 of them before I finally lost.


"The fox is caught..."

"Theft of Medallion! Criminal! Guilty as charged."



"I am First Born. You got Ridleys money, Ridley needs a favor, the 3 treasures. He longs to be king of the world. Histar, Lord of Demons tempted Ridley. Quick! Sneak out through this hole!"



This cop attacks us, he has 4704 Power, 16 Attack and 16 Speed. Hilariously we still have all our weapons and items, including the medallion. Freedom means we end up outside the prison on the Moscov world map!

Coming up next time: Medallion power, summoning evil spirits and...the key to reviving a living Buddha?

[xolta]

So i didnt see the hero ending up in jail also there a lot of cool monsters this time around.

[Thrinaxodevil]

Cheating on your dinosaur train is uncool bro!

[ebe]

Thank goodness you're still backing me up man!

Anyways, at this point it's time to go back to the town of Angolmois, avoid that museum, and use this "Mara Medallion" on Mara!


Ah, back home, we haven't seen mom in a while, I wonder how she's doing?


...

Well anyways, we go back to the shrine to see the Mummified Mara!





"500 years ago I found Satori by Fear Mountain Forest
I climbed to Heaven and taught my disciples..."

"I ate a meal of poison."

"Mara Sutra Scroll"





"Alas! I have no voice!"

"1 treasure remains."

"Find Mirokuji Temple."

Whew! So let's summarize here: Mara found out the true path of Heaven, but his followers didn't like what he was saying and poisoned him, mummified him and declared him a deity. The sacred scroll that is this shrine's treasure (and whose theft started our adventure) is a fake rewritten by these followers to say what they wanted. We must now figure out what Mara's true teachings are...despite the fact he's right here now. The head monk breaks down in tears after realizing his life's work was a lie, and although it's not obvious, when he said "1 treasure remains" he meant we should go back down to the Suzaku hut, where we pick up an incense box.


Off to Tokyo! Ha ha!


Well here's Tokyo. It's a pretty big map considering with lots of people to talk to and lots of hidden building spots that look like everything else...game design!

Anyways, the next update is necessarily pretty large, so I'll leave off here, along with two of the new enemies running about!

Aqua Eye can use Light Beam, but ALWAYS opens with Hellish Curse, an incredibly accurate and deadly move. Ugh.


Peckly here is the lowest level of a family of Tengu-type monsters that we'll see later on. Thankfully he's pretty weak compared to Seraphis, Aqua Eye and Horn Devil.