Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight (So many adorable death cries!)

[LaZodiac]

http://i.imgur.com/UzTiy84.jpg

It begins! Welcome to the new LP, in which we play Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight! This is the fourth game of the Momodora series, but it's also a full on prequel. The Momodora games are a series of four super cute action games, 2D and sprite based, with some exploration elements (though the levels are fairly liner). Each game has progressively gotten more and more indepeth (Momo1 is basically an arcade game, Momo3 is the first game rdein, the creator, felt was worth charging actual money for). Momo4, the game we'll be playing through, is basically the magnum opus of the series from what I've seen, and is very clearly inspired by Dark Souls and the Souls series (rdein has outright stated so I believe) while also being kinder (but not too kind. More on that later).

So lets establish some ground rules; I've played the games before this, but I'll be trying to keep information directly FROM them out of this thread, or at least in spoiler tags. This game series is very Dark Souls esque in how it delivers plot, gameplay, and exposition, so we'll be doing a lot of discussion here. Try to keep it to this game! Additional, the choice that won last poll was for a relatively short game, preferably blind. So this is a BLIND playthrough folks. Don't spoil the game for me! With that said, lets get moving!

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [1] Kaho (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NwW1aazdls)

Video Length: 15:11

Just a note before we begin: video's will be a little shorter than normal. Due to just how this game presents itself, it's length, and just a general pacing of placements with regard to save point bells, we'll be having shorter videos. Hope you don't mind. I'll be shooting for around 15 minutes.

(This write up involves some info we learn at the end of the video)

We open in The Sacred Ordalia Grove. A little bandaged up man and our protagonist, Kaho. She is an adorable little priestess of the west, and she's come to these lands for a singular purpose. She must beseech Her Majesty, the Queen of the city of Karst, for aid in putting a stop to a horrible curse. Outfitted with her priestess hood, a simple bow with blessed arrows (probably) and the commonplace weapon of those like her, a maple leaf, she heads forward, a heavy burden on her shoulders and hope in her heart.

Kaho controls VERY well. Movement is responsive and tight and just feels enjoyable. Her jumping is quick and you can modulate the height by holding the button. A wonderfully cute touch is that when you double jump, you get a little sparkle of leaves. It's adorable and great. Combat is simple, but in my opinion quite deep. You only have a three hit combo on the ground, which does small amounts of damage for the first two hits but a large SMASH on the third. Her mid air attack is a single strike that seems to be around the third hit of her combo's strength, maybe a little less. She's got a dodge roll that makes her practically invincible for the majority of the rolling, and she of course has her arrows, which can be charged up to two levels. If you hold the button just long enough to start the charging, you shoot a Charge Level 1 arrow, which does increased damage. Hold it a little longer and you'll hit Charge Level 2, which fires a spread shot of arrows slightly stronger than the Charge Level 1 arrow. It's spread means you can get some serious damage in!

Now, what enemies do we have to bare our arms at? First of all is the most basic of basic, cute little imp girls. They're green and come in a few flavors. Some bounce around, some hold up shields, both of these throw knives. They do quite a lot of damage for such basic enemies, and I want you all to keep that in mind. This game doesn't pull any punches. The third type of imp throws poison bombs made from seeds. I wonder where they get those...

The second enemies we'll have to fight in this forest are these little oni dudes who look like vegetables. They can run into you violently or try to bash you with their club. Hidden away in one corner of this area is a HUGE one that you do NOT want to mess with...which is why I mess with it. The reward is quite worth it though, and we'll be talking about those next.

We have more than just our leaf and bow to assist us. We have usable items and passive items. Usable items are, as the name implies, usable! You use them and get an effect. The only one we currently have is perhaps the most important; Bellflowers! Symbolic of the holy bells we pray to and ring to save our game, they heal us as we crunch them into our leg. We only have 3 for now, but they get refilled at each bell (as does all usable items). Passive items are ones that just give an effect for being equipped. Our first is the Astral Charm, which radically increases the amount of munny stars that drop. Yay for munny!

As we explore the forest, beating up jerks, avoiding hurting a poor innocent spider, and finding a collectable (Ivory Bugs yo!) we finally reach the bridge to Karst City's gate...and what we find there is quite intimidating. Edea, the Arthropod Demon! She's quite a fearsome boss, even for what amounts to a tutorial fight. She can claw at you, either in the air or on the ground. She can spew gouts of poison, as well as spew those poison seed bombs that the imps have been using. She can also perform a FEARSOME tail swipe. You can hit her tail or her head, and I'm pretty sure if you beat her through her tail you'll get a thing (it feels appropriate for this game to do) but I didn't get it. Consequences of this being a blind run! I'll try and show everything off in the future. Point is, we defeat Edea and progress onward.

A nice sickly, perhaps skeletonly, man greets us at the gates. He warns us that Karst is too cursed, and seems to be the center of it all. But then, this man seems quite strange. Askorn, an age old man who's searching for a loved one. I wonder what this could be...at any rate, he warns us of Karst City, and sends us on our way. We find a holy bell and a cute little girl next to it, but I'll talk more about those next time since this is getting fairly long. It's a shop I'll delve into it a little more later.

So yeah, that's the episode. I hope you all enjoyed, and follow along with this game. Help me discuss this game and what it all could mean. See you guys Monday!

------

Taking a bit below the main body of the post to talk about some game design stuff, as well as talk about some cute lore we've seen this video. Firstly, and I mention this in video but it's vital I bring it up in more detail here: there is a moment where we're faced with a large pit of spikes and a crystal orb at the end. Putting aside the fact that everything in our game playing knowledge says "hit it somehow", lets look at it as if we've never played a video game before. It's clear we have no way to jump across, and there are arrows notched into the ground near the crystal orb. This is one of the best implicit tutorials I've seen in a long time. If you've followed me through Skyward Sword you may know that...sometimes we have some poor tutorials to go through. This is what all tutorials should really strive for. I'm certain that if you brought someone with no real knowledge of games and how they work here and had them play the game enough to get familiar with what they can do, they'd figure this out immediately.

This game has other pretty good unwritten tutorials, like the small corridor you have to dodge roll past an imp in and small safe moments where you get to learn how passing through platforms work, how the pink bounce cubes work, and how each enemy type does it's thing. Then they throw them all together in a pretty nice challenge. I love it and it's great. They also show quite clearly that invisible walls exist by having an imp jump along into one, and it's nigh impossible to kill her before she reveals it to you. Stuff like this, plus the aesthetic of this game and how well it plays, it's just fantastic.

------

Now for some lore!

The three main things we have in this video is our Maple Leaf, the Bellflowers, and the Ivory Bugs. The Maple Leaf is a holy weapon blessed by the Matriarch, from the Lun Tree of our homeland of Lun. They're sharp in both edge and magic, able to purify demons. They're the signature weapon of Priestess's of the west, a noble weapon. I think this is adorable, and really fits the dark magical world this game takes place in. A lone girl with a maple leaf for defense, but it's bite is deadly to the monsters she faces.

Next is the Bellflowers. The game doesn't give us too much about them, but the implied stuff going on is quite clear. These flowers are sour, but by crunching them up and presumably eating them heals us. Named Bellflowers from their appearance and their role of healing, much like our holy bells. The animation is a little weird, smashing it into your leg and all, but I think it's fast and visceral and good for gameplay. She's busy fighting, she can't snack on the flower like it's a picnic! She's gotta smash it quick and then jam it into her facehole. I like it, because it really speaks to how Kaho sees what she's doing. A task she must do quickly, with intent.

Finally, the Ivory Bugs. These simple white bugs that are quite tricky to find. They're clearly important, shining like ivory and said to eat disease. The nature of Karst's Curse is unclear, but it's clearly some sort of sickness. Our bandaged up travel guide, the sickly looking skeleton people. Something is very clearly wrong, and perhaps these bugs will help us. I've no idea, but we'll find out.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

http://i.imgur.com/UzTiy84.jpg

It begins! Welcome to the new LP, in which we play Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight! This is the fourth game of the Momodora series, but it's also a full on prequel. The Momodora games are a series of four super cute action games, 2D and sprite based, with some exploration elements (though the levels are fairly liner). Each game has progressively gotten more and more indepeth (Momo1 is basically an arcade game, Momo3 is the first game rdein, the creator, felt was worth charging actual money for). Momo4, the game we'll be playing through, is basically the magnum opus of the series from what I've seen, and is very clearly inspired by Dark Souls and the Souls series (rdein has outright stated so I believe) while also being kinder (but not too kind. More on that later).

So lets establish some ground rules; I've played the games before this, but I'll be trying to keep information directly FROM them out of this thread, or at least in spoiler tags. This game series is very Dark Souls esque in how it delivers plot, gameplay, and exposition, so we'll be doing a lot of discussion here. Try to keep it to this game! Additional, the choice that won last poll was for a relatively short game, preferably blind. So this is a BLIND playthrough folks. Don't spoil the game for me! With that said, lets get moving!

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [1] Kaho (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NwW1aazdls)

Video Length: 15:11

Just a note before we begin: video's will be a little shorter than normal. Due to just how this game presents itself, it's length, and just a general pacing of placements with regard to save point bells, we'll be having shorter videos. Hope you don't mind. I'll be shooting for around 15 minutes.

(This write up involves some info we learn at the end of the video)

We open in The Sacred Ordalia Grove. A little bandaged up man and our protagonist, Kaho. She is an adorable little priestess of the west, and she's come to these lands for a singular purpose. She must beseech Her Majesty, the Queen of the city of Karst, for aid in putting a stop to a horrible curse. Outfitted with her priestess hood, a simple bow with blessed arrows (probably) and the commonplace weapon of those like her, a maple leaf, she heads forward, a heavy burden on her shoulders and hope in her heart.

Kaho controls VERY well. Movement is responsive and tight and just feels enjoyable. Her jumping is quick and you can modulate the height by holding the button. A wonderfully cute touch is that when you double jump, you get a little sparkle of leaves. It's adorable and great. Combat is simple, but in my opinion quite deep. You only have a three hit combo on the ground, which does small amounts of damage for the first two hits but a large SMASH on the third. Her mid air attack is a single strike that seems to be around the third hit of her combo's strength, maybe a little less. She's got a dodge roll that makes her practically invincible for the majority of the rolling, and she of course has her arrows, which can be charged up to two levels. If you hold the button just long enough to start the charging, you shoot a Charge Level 1 arrow, which does increased damage. Hold it a little longer and you'll hit Charge Level 2, which fires a spread shot of arrows slightly stronger than the Charge Level 1 arrow. It's spread means you can get some serious damage in!

Now, what enemies do we have to bare our arms at? First of all is the most basic of basic, cute little imp girls. They're green and come in a few flavors. Some bounce around, some hold up shields, both of these throw knives. They do quite a lot of damage for such basic enemies, and I want you all to keep that in mind. This game doesn't pull any punches. The third type of imp throws poison bombs made from seeds. I wonder where they get those...

The second enemies we'll have to fight in this forest are these little oni dudes who look like vegetables. They can run into you violently or try to bash you with their club. Hidden away in one corner of this area is a HUGE one that you do NOT want to mess with...which is why I mess with it. The reward is quite worth it though, and we'll be talking about those next.

We have more than just our leaf and bow to assist us. We have usable items and passive items. Usable items are, as the name implies, usable! You use them and get an effect. The only one we currently have is perhaps the most important; Bellflowers! Symbolic of the holy bells we pray to and ring to save our game, they heal us as we crunch them into our leg. We only have 3 for now, but they get refilled at each bell (as does all usable items). Passive items are ones that just give an effect for being equipped. Our first is the Astral Charm, which radically increases the amount of munny stars that drop. Yay for munny!

As we explore the forest, beating up jerks, avoiding hurting a poor innocent spider, and finding a collectable (Ivory Bugs yo!) we finally reach the bridge to Karst City's gate...and what we find there is quite intimidating. Edea, the Arthropod Demon! She's quite a fearsome boss, even for what amounts to a tutorial fight. She can claw at you, either in the air or on the ground. She can spew gouts of poison, as well as spew those poison seed bombs that the imps have been using. She can also perform a FEARSOME tail swipe. You can hit her tail or her head, and I'm pretty sure if you beat her through her tail you'll get a thing (it feels appropriate for this game to do) but I didn't get it. Consequences of this being a blind run! I'll try and show everything off in the future. Point is, we defeat Edea and progress onward.

A nice sickly, perhaps skeletonly, man greets us at the gates. He warns us that Karst is too cursed, and seems to be the center of it all. But then, this man seems quite strange. Askorn, an age old man who's searching for a loved one. I wonder what this could be...at any rate, he warns us of Karst City, and sends us on our way. We find a holy bell and a cute little girl next to it, but I'll talk more about those next time since this is getting fairly long. It's a shop I'll delve into it a little more later.

So yeah, that's the episode. I hope you all enjoyed, and follow along with this game. Help me discuss this game and what it all could mean. See you guys Monday!

------

Taking a bit below the main body of the post to talk about some game design stuff, as well as talk about some cute lore we've seen this video. Firstly, and I mention this in video but it's vital I bring it up in more detail here: there is a moment where we're faced with a large pit of spikes and a crystal orb at the end. Putting aside the fact that everything in our game playing knowledge says "hit it somehow", lets look at it as if we've never played a video game before. It's clear we have no way to jump across, and there are arrows notched into the ground near the crystal orb. This is one of the best implicit tutorials I've seen in a long time. If you've followed me through Skyward Sword you may know that...sometimes we have some poor tutorials to go through. This is what all tutorials should really strive for. I'm certain that if you brought someone with no real knowledge of games and how they work here and had them play the game enough to get familiar with what they can do, they'd figure this out immediately.

This game has other pretty good unwritten tutorials, like the small corridor you have to dodge roll past an imp in and small safe moments where you get to learn how passing through platforms work, how the pink bounce cubes work, and how each enemy type does it's thing. Then they throw them all together in a pretty nice challenge. I love it and it's great. They also show quite clearly that invisible walls exist by having an imp jump along into one, and it's nigh impossible to kill her before she reveals it to you. Stuff like this, plus the aesthetic of this game and how well it plays, it's just fantastic.

------

Now for some lore!

The three main things we have in this video is our Maple Leaf, the Bellflowers, and the Ivory Bugs. The Maple Leaf is a holy weapon blessed by the Matriarch, from the Lun Tree of our homeland of Lun. They're sharp in both edge and magic, able to purify demons. They're the signature weapon of Priestess's of the west, a noble weapon. I think this is adorable, and really fits the dark magical world this game takes place in. A lone girl with a maple leaf for defense, but it's bite is deadly to the monsters she faces.

Next is the Bellflowers. The game doesn't give us too much about them, but the implied stuff going on is quite clear. These flowers are sour, but by crunching them up and presumably eating them heals us. Named Bellflowers from their appearance and their role of healing, much like our holy bells. The animation is a little weird, smashing it into your leg and all, but I think it's fast and visceral and good for gameplay. She's busy fighting, she can't snack on the flower like it's a picnic! She's gotta smash it quick and then jam it into her facehole. I like it, because it really speaks to how Kaho sees what she's doing. A task she must do quickly, with intent.

Finally, the Ivory Bugs. These simple white bugs that are quite tricky to find. They're clearly important, shining like ivory and said to eat disease. The nature of Karst's Curse is unclear, but it's clearly some sort of sickness. Our bandaged up travel guide, the sickly looking skeleton people. Something is very clearly wrong, and perhaps these bugs will help us. I've no idea, but we'll find out.

The game...it looks beautiful. Reflections in the water, leaves and sprites floating around? Environment changes as you move through the area? All very nice. I like the throws you into the story without explanation aspect of this game. I've been playing some other games recently where you have to wait a while to start. Now waiting isn't always bad, but its refreshing to just...start. Not have to pick anything either. Just, here's your weapon, lets go. All the enemies are cute enough that at first I thought you were attacking kids, but then the started throwing sharp things or swinging clubs and I quickly realized that its the style. It reminds me of nymphs and fauns. All the imps/demons are female, all the oni's are male. That could just be all that we encountered so far...but so far that's what I'm getting. I like the obvious relations the big Oni has with the smaller ones, and the Imps with the Demon Arthropod.

The collector in me bounces with happiness at hidden ivory bugs, and items to equip. Looks like a good time. Exposition is given to us in a mysterious, informative way by environment, small exposition in the form of NPC's and enemies in sacred areas. Its as if Skyward Sword said, hey, Faron Woods is a sacred place people got to for prayer and meditation, and when you get there its chock full of enemies. That clearly tells you something is significantly wrong. Details like that are ways that make subtle games more enjoyable, because it feels like the game is trusting you to connect the dots, rather than holding your hand. That to me is what newer games sometimes lack: Either they're explicit at first so they can set up things later without tutorials, or they throw you in and make it VERY difficult. I feel this is the happy medium. I especially liked the arrow example. That was indeed nice.

I also like they give you a melee and ranged weapon to begin with, so you can vary your attacks based on the kind of enemy there is, and what attack they are using. I hope some enemies are less effected by one or the other, but I suppose we shall see. It'd be interesting if there were other leaves or bow upgrades as well. It is pretty hilarious that its a maple leaf, given where you live. I laughed.

I know nothing about this series, but I can say it looks right down my alley. I kinda was thrown off by the name for some reason. Just goes to show you can't judge a game by its title.

Also, death counter. :smallamused:

Deaths - 1

[Deme]

Actually taking the time to sit down and watch while it's still manageable! Hooray! Looking forward to it.

Anyway, this game looks really good; I've never so much as heard of the series before, but as you say, the aesthetic looks great.
Of particular note that you didn't point out that I really liked, in terms of animation and spritework, our buddy Askorn there has that hole in his head, but the artist clearly spent a while thinking about it 3-dimensionally, because you can see the perspective on it change a little when he moves his head. I'm not sure why I'm as impressed by this as I am -- maybe it's just living in an age where you see a lot of character art just get mirrored or the like -- but it goes a long way.

[Qwertystop]

Hmmm... I am reminded of Touhou.

Munny missed: 8

[Cuthalion]

Prettty sure I told you guys it looked nice. I love the design and backgrounds of everything I've seen.

[Seerow]

Yay new game! I'm all sorts of excited for this one, especially coming off Four Swords (which I'll be honest, I stopped watching after Vaati went down. I have fond memories of playing the game as a child, but it does not make for entertaining watching as a single player game. It worked as a tech demo and sometimes party game but... yeah). But multiple reasons to be excited for this one!

1) The relatively short blind run game was my kickstarter choice, so I'm very happy others agreed with that pick and voted it in.
2) I am completely unfamiliar with the game personally, having never heard of the series until Zodi said she picked it.
3) Zodi is good at picking games. The Dark Souls/Metroidvania style of play makes for fun watching, and the art/aesthetics of the game are beautiful, legitimately prettier and better polished than many large studio games I could name.

Now I'm not someone who's generally a big fan of the "piece the story together for yourself from a ton of different disparate sources", I tend to prefer my narrative be of the narrative style. I'm a novel reader for a reason! But I can get behind it in this case primarily because this thread exists. Already there's discussion here about what's being revealed in the game, and I'm sure as we delve deeper that will only get better. So I'll just treat this thread as my story/lore reference point and enjoy the videos for the gameplay. Win-Win!

[DataNinja]

Well, this was a nice thing to be able to watch after exams! :smallbiggrin:

Looks interesting. Haven't ever heard of this series before, so can't wait to see what comes up...

[Lord Raziere]

ah good, this finally gets going. I just lost interest after the first four-swords video. just wasn't all that good compared to Minish Cap.

let see what happens here, this seems interesting.

and yeah, this seems really atmospheric. I think I can tell what happening without any exposition: something is definitely going wrong with the spirits in this kingdom and its up to a priestess to do something about it, you don't send a priestess to fix this unless something is seriously wrong in some spiritual way.

[Coidzor]

And now we know why Zodi's avatar has the top part of a white mage's outfit being worn as a hood and shawl.

[LaZodiac]

Also, death counter. :smallamused:

Deaths - 1

Devious! You beat poor Shneeky to the punch too!



Of particular note that you didn't point out that I really liked, in terms of animation and spritework, our buddy Askorn there has that hole in his head, but the artist clearly spent a while thinking about it 3-dimensionally, because you can see the perspective on it change a little when he moves his head. I'm not sure why I'm as impressed by this as I am -- maybe it's just living in an age where you see a lot of character art just get mirrored or the like -- but it goes a long way.

I was actually going to point out some of the animation and spritework stuff later but OH MY GOD you're right. That's...actually pretty amazing.


Hmmm... I am reminded of Touhou.

Munny missed: 8

Oh man, gonna have to deal with this now. My poor wallet shall be lacking in cash once more!



1) The relatively short blind run game was my kickstarter choice, so I'm very happy others agreed with that pick and voted it in.
2) I am completely unfamiliar with the game personally, having never heard of the series until Zodi said she picked it.
3) Zodi is good at picking games. The Dark Souls/Metroidvania style of play makes for fun watching, and the art/aesthetics of the game are beautiful, legitimately prettier and better polished than many large studio games I could name.

Now I'm not someone who's generally a big fan of the "piece the story together for yourself from a ton of different disparate sources", I tend to prefer my narrative be of the narrative style. I'm a novel reader for a reason! But I can get behind it in this case primarily because this thread exists. Already there's discussion here about what's being revealed in the game, and I'm sure as we delve deeper that will only get better. So I'll just treat this thread as my story/lore reference point and enjoy the videos for the gameplay. Win-Win!

PSst, it's Patreon not Kickstarter :smallamused:

Thanks! I like to think I can pick out games that look good.

Yeah, putting the plot together is half the fun. That being said this game is fairly simple in plot, it's more the background details that may need some delving into. Again, much like Dark Souls.


Well, this was a nice thing to be able to watch after exams! :smallbiggrin:

Looks interesting. Haven't ever heard of this series before, so can't wait to see what comes up...

Almost everyone has said "I've never seen this before and it is neat" in this thread and I love it. We're all blind here!


And now we know why Zodi's avatar has the top part of a white mage's outfit being worn as a hood and shawl.

Girl's gotta dress up man.

[Coidzor]

I'm inclined to agree with Askorn here, clearly some major Heresy was going on if we have Imp Girls bouncing aroud the place.

That just seems wrong on so many levels.

Veggiepygmy oni are totally cute, though. Except for the biggun. He's more derp.

I can't wait to see you figure out what's up with that spider and the rude but non-hostile Imp Girl.

Also what's going on with that Blood Red moon over the dark, haunted city of skeleton people.

(Part of me can't wait to see a fat skeleton man)

Anyone else notice that Kaho's skin took on a sickly green pallor as soon as she entered Karst's darkened streets?


Yay new game! I'm all sorts of excited for this one, especially coming off Four Swords (which I'll be honest, I stopped watching after Vaati went down. I have fond memories of playing the game as a child, but it does not make for entertaining watching as a single player game. It worked as a tech demo and sometimes party game but... yeah). But multiple reasons to be excited for this one!

1) The relatively short blind run game was my kickstarter choice, so I'm very happy others agreed with that pick and voted it in.
2) I am completely unfamiliar with the game personally, having never heard of the series until Zodi said she picked it.
3) Zodi is good at picking games. The Dark Souls/Metroidvania style of play makes for fun watching, and the art/aesthetics of the game are beautiful, legitimately prettier and better polished than many large studio games I could name.

Nail on the head, yeah.


Now I'm not someone who's generally a big fan of the "piece the story together for yourself from a ton of different disparate sources", I tend to prefer my narrative be of the narrative style. I'm a novel reader for a reason! But I can get behind it in this case primarily because this thread exists. Already there's discussion here about what's being revealed in the game, and I'm sure as we delve deeper that will only get better. So I'll just treat this thread as my story/lore reference point and enjoy the videos for the gameplay. Win-Win!

It's a lot more interesting with audience participation or seeing what someone has pieced together of it, yeah. Granted, I'm one of those people for whom research papers were just not at all a fun thing back in school days.


Actually taking the time to sit down and watch while it's still manageable! Hooray! Looking forward to it.

Anyway, this game looks really good; I've never so much as heard of the series before, but as you say, the aesthetic looks great.
Of particular note that you didn't point out that I really liked, in terms of animation and spritework, our buddy Askorn there has that hole in his head, but the artist clearly spent a while thinking about it 3-dimensionally, because you can see the perspective on it change a little when he moves his head. I'm not sure why I'm as impressed by this as I am -- maybe it's just living in an age where you see a lot of character art just get mirrored or the like -- but it goes a long way.

And here I thought that was just a tuft of hair and scalp still randomly on the Skele-man's skull from where his flesh hadn't completely rotted/sloughed off.

It's an amazingly beautiful game, though I suspect I missed whatever was supposed to be creepy instead of hauntingly beautiful in the background of the forest.

[huttj509]

well, this episode alone convinced me to pick up the game. So I can play along :-)

a) you're better at this game than I am...I think I died 5 times by the time I beat the 1st boss (most deaths not on boss...dang throwing knives).

b) Looked it up. It's not breaking the tail that drops an item, but beating the boss with no damage taken (including poison damage). I made the extra effort to beat the boss by hitting the tail and then went to check if it was actually a thing :-)

[LaZodiac]

It's an amazingly beautiful game, though I suspect I missed whatever was supposed to be creepy instead of hauntingly beautiful in the background of the forest.

Look again. You can see large centipedes in the underground segments of this area.


well, this episode alone convinced me to pick up the game. So I can play along :-)

b) Looked it up. It's not breaking the tail that drops an item, but beating the boss with no damage taken (including poison damage). I made the extra effort to beat the boss by hitting the tail and then went to check if it was actually a thing :-)

Nice! Very few things are as cool as knowing you inspired someone to buy a good game. Heck yeah!

Cool. I'll be sure to show it off at some point. Maybe once I beat the game, that sounds good right?

[Lethologica]

The dialogue sfx are kind of a drag. That's my only complaint about the otherwise lovely aesthetic.

I kinda want the heretic thing to be subverted. But there's surely plenty of good story either way. Speaking of which, I can't wait to meet the knight on the banner image. Now there's a story and a half. (Also, kitty. Kitty!)

Fumbling around with my rudimentary Japanese leads me to speculate that the title is a play on 'peach dragon' or 'peach gong'. Neither of those seem all that fitting, though, so I'm probably mistaken.

[LaZodiac]

The dialogue sfx are kind of a drag. That's my only complaint about the otherwise lovely aesthetic.

I kinda want the heretic thing to be subverted. But there's surely plenty of good story either way. Speaking of which, I can't wait to meet the knight on the banner image. Now there's a story and a half. (Also, kitty. Kitty!)

Fumbling around with my rudimentary Japanese leads me to speculate that the title is a play on 'peach dragon' or 'peach gong'. Neither of those seem all that fitting, though, so I'm probably mistaken.

Yeah, I wonder when we'll meet her...

Momodora as a series is called that because the main protagonists of the series are Isadora Doralina and Momo Reinart (if I recall. Always forget Momo's last name...).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Nuts, someone already started the death counter. Oh well, such is life with overtime.

At first, I was wondering what kind of game this would be like. I was pleasantly surprised once the game started. Definitely a metroidvania style game, which gives several implications about future mechanics.

If you want a game with an amazing tutorial level, look at MegaMan X. It never prompts you by saying a dang thing, you discover every single game mechanic yourself naturally. But yes, the arrows stuck in the wall under the shooty-orb this was an excellent hint without cramming it down your throat.

The first hit you take from the enemy tells us several things about this game. First off, that was quite a chunk of HP gone from one hit from the very first enemy in the game that you ever encounter. Which means combat will never truly be 'trivial'. Every time you encounter a scene, you will want to be on the lookout for environmental clues about how to take down the enemies, because smashing things with your face just isn't going to work. Even if you later pick up armor or some other means of damage mitigation, there is still never going to be a situation in which there is an 'acceptable' hit. Trading hits is going to get you killed. Therefore, focus on agility and not being hit in the first place. You aren't a tank. Which makes sense, considering the heroine of the story.

The obviously too small to get through passage at the elevator also hints at future skills learned in addition to equippable items. It also hints that we'll be revisiting this area again, or what would be the point of such a passage here? There was also a 'warp' option at the first bell, which looks very suspiciously like an ability to warp from bell to bell, giving you further ability to backtrack to areas already visited. Also very metroidvania-esque.

Those little things demonstrate another very important, if subtle, game mechanic. The same enemy has been shown wielding: daggers, poison-pot-things, and shields. Depending on what the unit is equipped with, it requires dramatically different fighting styles to counter. Therefore, we can reasonably anticipate to see the same basic enemy models, with newer and more dangerous toys to keep us on our toes, as we progress throughout the game. There will probably be new enemy models to encounter, but they don't have to make each unique mechanic to deal with a unique monster, it could be a previously encountered monster with a new equip. This is actually a really smart mechanic on the graphics designer's part, because you don't have to create nearly as many models as you otherwise would. Much like the classic color-shift-indicates-tougher models from the old NES days.

That big dude you encountered wasn't a boss, it was just a big dude. This carries several implications throughout the game. Also note he had good loots behind him. So, challenging 'miniboss' has treasure, but is also challenging. Good to know.

The cute spider and the one that told you that it had no business with you also are clear indicators that you'll be doing quite a bit of backtracking.

The imp that showed you the secret behind the wall was likely deliberately done. The way the level was designed, you had plenty of time before you could get there and the way the imps moved made it a virtual guarantee. Still... there is Wall Chicken. Good to know.

Boss fight is a well designed 'first boss' encounter. Boss has several types of attacks which, in and of themselves, are predictable, but not necessarily in a predetermined pattern. She also 'tells' her nastier attacks (gas bomb, gas breath, tail whip) clearly, but the smaller but still nasty attacks are faster and can only hit you if you are 'pushing' her, which makes for a very good balance of abilities to use against you. If you keep your distance, she'll use her powerful 'tell' attacks, up close if you start pushing her, she's got some faster moves to push you back off of her.

Oh, best off, the devs avoided the classic 'panty flash death-scene' trope. For which I am grateful.

I absolutely love the ambiance. It's a perfect strike between 'gloriously beautiful' and 'subtly creepy'. I don't think I've seen background done as well since Symphony of the Night.

In all, this looks like a very wonderful game, and I will enjoy watching you play it.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Nuts, someone already started the death counter. Oh well, such is life with overtime.

Shneekey! Go ahead and take it over. I just call dibs on deaths in the Zelda games. :smallwink:

[LaZodiac]

It's time to explore Karst City. Lets go!

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [2] Lubella (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb6rb_FUMhg)

Video Length: 17:37

So, like I said last time, lets talk a bit about the shop before going forward. The shop is a tiny, presumably skeleton girl, who sells us usable or passive items. Her wares change depending on where she is, and I'd highly recommend buying everything she has, even if it's situational. In this, our first shop, we have her selling a Faerie Tear, a Crystal Seed, and the Ring of Candor. I'll talk more about these below the main post, but the Faerie Tear is a passive item that just naturally increases your resistance to status effects, the Crystal Seed is a usable that gives you a nice solid boost to your attack strength, and the Ring of Candor is a passive item that makes a soft "ding" sound when you're in a room with a secret, usually in the form of a hidden path or a wall you have to hit to reveal something.

Karst City is, as you can tell, a snowy city with water ways like Venice. It gives it a really wonderful feel, especially given the fact that everything is broken down or in need of repair due to the curse. This includes the inhabitants, as our new enemies show. The first enemy we see is a Witch, dressed in fine cloths but clearly warped in some way, their face dark. They throw spells at you that you have to dodge, as well as laugh in quite a creepy manner. Other Witches eventually show up that have a different spell, one where they make a pillar of magic appear below you. The two in combination are quite dangerous, but for now they ease us into it. We also have Dogs, weird see through canine monsters who's bodies seem to be...not quite all there. They jump at you and are, as you'd expect, very powerful. Finally, or basic enemies at least, we have the poor dudes in green cloaks. They appear from the shadows trying to claw you with their twisted hands, and if that fails they'll throw orbs at you that explode! Over all, the enemies in this area are quite concerning, especially in large numbers. Between the high damage and the wicked laughter, it's a force to be reckoned with. The weird see through crows don't fill me with confidence either...

As we explore the city we come across a variety of barriers. First a mundane one, a simple locked door that is clearly a sign that we'll be opening short cuts. Second is a magical sort of barrier, which asks us to collect the Karst Crest to open it. This most likely leads to Castle Karst, so lets be sure to remember this place! The third barrier, which I didn't even notice, was a thin wall that gets destroyed later on. We also find some goodies though, a nice floating heart called a Vitality Fragment that increases our health by a small amount. It won't protect us that much, but every little bit counts. We also just straight up find more Bellflowers, two in fact. This increases the amount we have on hand right this second, as well as permanently increasing the max! This is far more useful then the extended life bar, in the grand scheme of things. Finally, in terms of collectables anyway this video, we find the Magnet Stone, a mysterious magnetic stone that'll make collecting Munny a lot easier. Unfortunately, while exploring the building that's in our way, we also find some...crazed people, seemingly maids of the house. My only hope is that we can stop this curse before they all become monsters.

Anyway, we must continue forward. Partway through the city we encounter a boss, and it's a dozy! Moka, a strange little creature with one giant eye that has horns. This guy is a Bakman, silly lesser demons that are kind of like the mettaur or goomba of the series. They're very iconic and cool, and fighting one here is quite interesting. He attacks by letting out a ring of shots that block arrows for awhile before exploding, and summons the strange thwomp like enemies that Bakman tend to throw in the other games, making an AOE like attack. That aside...he's not super dangerous, he's just got a lot of health. The reason for this of course being...he's not the true boss. The ground beneath us explodes and Moka falls into the drink, to reveal the true boss...Lubella, the Witch of Decay.

Lubella is...quite large, and quite powerful. Even with the upgraded health she can quite easily kill you in two hits, and it seems like even now she's holding back. She casts a series of four orbs that quickly smash into the ground and explode as her first attack, and it's a little trickier to dodge than you think. After that she flies away, and causes a stream of orbs to appear in the sky. Once enough show up they all fly at you at once, and you've gotta dodge out of the way! That's...really all she's got right now, but given her warped expression and the fact that she's taking my attacking of her quite well, I imagine she's just toying with us. This is definitely someone we'll have to watch out for in the future. Also as a side note: yes her design is kind of cheesecakey, but she's also capable of crushing you like an ant so I think it evens out.

After defeating Lubella, we find the lady from the opening banner that isn't us! Cath, Knightess of Karst! She isn't too confident in our magical leaf and tells us to get inside for safety. Judging from her huge shield on her back she's quite strong, and I hope we don't have to fight her. Kaho explains her goal to Cath, who simply laughs and says that the Queen likely doesn't care about the concerns of a tiny village...which I mean is fair given the curse stuff going on. Let alone the "rumored" corpse witch flying around causing chaos. Cath also mentions that people are dying in droves daily, the city slowly becoming one giant grave. All Cath has is memories of her sister, Cathryn. I hope she's okay...

After talking with Cath, we move ever onward. Her advice was appreciated but we must head forward. Well, eventually, we've got a split path here and I want to explore it all a little. Down leads us to a flooded out area that I'm going to avoid going to just yet because it seems a little "don't do this right now" just through the virtue that it's a water area. The second path leads to the Magnet Stone mentioned above. The third is progress, and leads us to fight with a heavily armored knight wielding a huge zweihander! Unfortunately my use of the Crystal Seed cuts him down fairly quickly, but you get to see all of his attacks. He swings his sword around, and causes magical swords to appear in the air to dive on you. Overall, a pretty neat miniboss.

More exploring happens, and we encounter a new NPC, a nice butler man who tells us to head further into the church safe zone to meet with his Master, a cat lady (as in a lady with lots of cats). Nice, I'll keep that in mind! I'm also going to take a brief moment to point out that, when Kaho talks to people she jumps back a distance...but it seems like she always jumps back the same amount and direction regardless of who you talk to and where. It's a little weird, I must say. But no matter, we enter the Forlorn Monastery of Saint Esselin, the next area we will be exploring! The nuns in the entrance weave a dark tail...it seems that Queen Karst caused the curse. I wonder if that's true...I'll see you guys next time.

------

Lets talk about the items we got today. First, the Crystal Seed. A mysterious crystal seed, which is quite rare due to the trees that it grows being finicky to actually raise. We consume it for a power boost, the power of crystals! Not much to say, but still quite nice.

The Faerie Tear is a little more interesting, being frozen condensed fey tears. That's pretty morbid! It increases our resistance to status effects while equipped. Not much to say about this one either, but I do think it's interesting to look at. The tears of fairies protect those from harm, how poignant.

Then we have the Magnet Stone, a strange magnetic stone from below ground. It's appearance matches a lot of the demonic ruin like environments of the older Momodora games, perhaps stones like this are what helped cause the curse. A stone of avarice, marble in appearance but stained red.

Finally, the Ring of Candor. A simple gold ring, if you don't now it's secret. I find it amusing that the secret finding ring is itself a secret that must be found, flavor wise. If you don't know it's the Ring of Candor you'll just be very confused about why it rings every time you get close to where you lost your car keys or something.

Oh wait addendum! Forgot to talk about the Astral Charm! It's some kind of lucky charm or talisman, the type you'd expect to see a shrine maiden use. It's old and worn, and gives more money when equipped. Clearly someone has had this for a long time, and it's luck ran out for them. Let's hope it doesn't run out for us.

[Qwertystop]

Munny missed:
24

Total munny missed:
32

Did Lubella really need that on-hit jiggle?
I am even more strongly reminded of Touhou with both parts of that boss fight.
Ooh, Metroid map!

[LaZodiac]

Munny missed:
24

Total munny missed:
32

Did Lubella really need that on-hit jiggle?
I am even more strongly reminded of Touhou with both parts of that boss fight.
Ooh, Metroid map!

I don't think it was really needed, no, but I still think it works. She's a MASSIVE thing, attacking her should have some sort of impact, even if it's a tiny little jiggle. It's super cheese-cakey though, yeah.

And yeah, we've got a Metroid style map in this game! It's nice.

[Lethologica]

Playing this game reminds me that I'm not good at games.

[DataNinja]

Shneekey! Go ahead and take it over. I just call dibs on deaths in the Zelda games. :smallwink:

Seems like Cath has already been keeping a death count, in-game. You should consult them. :smalltongue:

[huttj509]

Playing this game reminds me that I'm not good at games.

The room Zodi encountered with the 2 witches up above, and 2 dogs below with the pit caused me...issues...

Oh, Lubella has a 3rd attack she just decided to not do on camera. Similar to the Witches' second spell, magic smoke shows up beneath you, then 2 orbs fly upwards out of the ground.

I, um, had a few more tries than Zodi in which to see the moveset.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Yea, I was going to comment about what portion was the recipient of the majority of the attacks. Umm... let's just say... well, how about let's not.

At 8:17, did you just reflect a firebomb with your attack? You picked up the magnet stone, dude-man materialized behind you, chucked a firebomb, you attacked... I could swear it reflected back. If so, this makes this particular enemy much easier to deal with.

That magnet stone is going to REALLY cut down on your munny lost.

[LaZodiac]

Yea, I was going to comment about what portion was the recipient of the majority of the attacks. Umm... let's just say... well, how about let's not.

At 8:17, did you just reflect a firebomb with your attack? You picked up the magnet stone, dude-man materialized behind you, chucked a firebomb, you attacked... I could swear it reflected back. If so, this makes this particular enemy much easier to deal with.

That magnet stone is going to REALLY cut down on your munny lost.

Yeah, you can reflect their bombs. It...does NOT hurt them, I'm pretty sure.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Yeah, you can reflect their bombs. It...does NOT hurt them, I'm pretty sure.

No, but it is a way to not be hit by them. Since those firebombs hurt badly, this is not a bad thing. Also, it satisfies your inner Jedi.

[Coidzor]

It's time to explore Karst City. Lets go!

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [2] Lubella (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb6rb_FUMhg)

Video Length: 17:37

Yep. Ghost hounds with droopy ectoplasmic drool and constantly shedding bits out of themselves into smoke and creepy lady ghost witchs with no heads, only glowing eyes underneath their hats.

Definitely some heresy going on up in here.

And Momo is still grey or green or green grey in the pallor cast by the blood moon and its little fragment or younger twin.

Seriously, I think there's a moon and then a mini-moon up above it and to the left...

Hmm. Ominous foreshadowing with the blood raven. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be a blood magpie and steal all your best loot and artifacts, later claiming them as ancestral relics of its own.

Oh dear, box dogs. Someone was stuffing dogs in boxes before making them into ghosts. Or something.

Ah, that revenge you went to take on the dog you clumsily jumped into rather than taking things methodically makes an important revelation. Witches can't see behind them. So they didn't notice you or react at all...

Same goes for the dogs too it seems.

Ghost dude ambushes you at a lonely candlelit dinner. Obviously he was stood up for dates a few too many times.

Hmm, a creepy figure huddled under a blanket begging for it to stop. Clearly some kind of ghost disease.

What a tough little but lame looking minion creature boss, and he confirms that apparently they're using bodies to make undead or something, not just turning living people into monsters with a shadow plague. Interesting. Or maybe they just want a priestess's body to corrupt to make into something special or be used as exotic spell components. *shrug*

Oh dear. A giant horny witch who you have to smack in the tits. Well, I suppose it was inevitable that I would live to see such a foe in a game eventually.

Arrow'D to the boobs, causing the giant witch to flee!

And now we meet Cath, a seemingly still human Knightess of this godforsaken realm.

XD She tells you about the undead witch after you've smacked her titties around.

Hmm. Cath and Cathryn. I'm guessing she's actually her sister and dead but doesn't know it because she hasn't rotten enough yet to no longer deny her death.

Huh, Kaho already doesn't breathe, eh? Interesting.

Huh, the Jack bomb dudes only appear if you pass them going in a certain direction. Neat that you can bounce their bombs back with your leaf the same way you can deflect some imp knights.

Ohoh! Now you've already got the munny farming equipment of more munny and attract dat munny. Nice!

Someone claiming to not be scared just... chilling out in the ghost haunted house. Well that's ominous.

Oh, hey, almost have made enough munny to have bought out the little skeleton girl's inventory. So that's good.

Too bad that step keeps janking out each time instead of staying activated. It's a nice effect, but going back and forth even a few times within several minutes of one another is lame.

"Don't go outside to stay safe." Clearly faulty information, what with the monsters inside other parts of that same... house/apartment complex/dormitory/thing.

Oh dear. Some kind of Cat Nun may guide you to the castle..

And the Queen apparently did something to encourage apostasy. Woo! That's extra heretical!

I don't see this bakman stained glass window, though... Just people in robes. Or did you mean one of the miters looked like an eye ball?

I'm surprised you don't just charge up your bow to shoot any of the monstahs in the back.

And now you has cleared out the shopkeep's inventory! WOO! Second video and already an inventory emptied.

And the backtracking for secrets item loadout has been acquired, or half of it at least. So that's good for backtrackery!


Unfortunately, while exploring the building that's in our way, we also find some...crazed people, seemingly maids of the house. My only hope is that we can stop this curse before they all become monsters.

I hadn't stopped to consider that various places where NPCs were found would become monster nests as you progressed in the game.

That would be in keeping with a dark soulsy metroidvania, though. Huh, you know, I forgot to double check if that figure hiding underneath the blanket was still there when you backtracked through that area...


Anyway, we must continue forward. Partway through the city we encounter a boss, and it's a dozy! Moka, a strange little creature with one giant eye that has horns. This guy is a Bakman, silly lesser demons that are kind of like the mettaur or goomba of the series. They're very iconic and cool, and fighting one here is quite interesting. He attacks by letting out a ring of shots that block arrows for awhile before exploding, and summons the strange thwomp like enemies that Bakman tend to throw in the other games, making an AOE like attack. That aside...he's not super dangerous, he's just got a lot of health. The reason for this of course being...he's not the true boss. The ground beneath us explodes and Moka falls into the drink, to reveal the true boss...Lubella, the Witch of Decay.

Ahh, in the chaos and the text, I couldn't quite figure out what had happened to that dude. He fell into that water over to the left of where you land, eh? I guess you're gonna have to go under da sea to kick his little one-eyed butt, eventually?


Also as a side note: yes her design is kind of cheesecakey, but she's also capable of crushing you like an ant so I think it evens out.

I'm not sure how that's either here or there.


After defeating Lubella, we find the lady from the opening banner that isn't us!

Judging from her huge shield on her back she's quite strong, and I hope we don't have to fight her.

...I have got to start paying more attention to things. Or adjust my screen angle or something.


More exploring happens, and we encounter a new NPC, a nice butler man who tells us to head further into the church safe zone to meet with his Master, a cat lady (as in a lady with lots of cats). Nice, I'll keep that in mind! I'm also going to take a brief moment to point out that, when Kaho talks to people she jumps back a distance...but it seems like she always jumps back the same amount and direction regardless of who you talk to and where. It's a little weird, I must say. But no matter, we enter the Forlorn Monastery of Saint Esselin, the next area we will be exploring! The nuns in the entrance weave a dark tail...it seems that Queen Karst caused the curse. I wonder if that's true...I'll see you guys next time.

Between that and taking damage just from touching certain things, I'm going to hazard a guess that Kaho don't like being touched much.

*tale. We haven't seen any cats yet, after all.


The Faerie Tear is a little more interesting, being frozen condensed fey tears. That's pretty morbid! It increases our resistance to status effects while equipped. Not much to say about this one either, but I do think it's interesting to look at. The tears of fairies protect those from harm, how poignant.

Well have you ever tried to make a fairy cry? That's some hard work even for a professional! :smallwink:


Then we have the Magnet Stone, a strange magnetic stone from below ground. It's appearance matches a lot of the demonic ruin like environments of the older Momodora games, perhaps stones like this are what helped cause the curse. A stone of avarice, marble in appearance but stained red.

Or it's just a lodestone. :smalltongue: Though why they'd be making their munny out of steel or iron, I don't know, this can't be anywhere near Krynn.


Oh wait addendum! Forgot to talk about the Astral Charm! It's some kind of lucky charm or talisman, the type you'd expect to see a shrine maiden use. It's old and worn, and gives more money when equipped. Clearly someone has had this for a long time, and it's luck ran out for them. Let's hope it doesn't run out for us.

Just make sure you don't have your money-harvesting loadout equipped when you need your fighting gear out! :smallwink:

[Lethologica]

I spent a lot more time dying to ordinary opponents than to Lubella, who I only died to the first time because I entered her room by accident on my way back to the save point.

Spoiler alert: this normal-to-boss death ratio did not last.

[LaZodiac]

Let's explore that monastery, shall we?

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [3] Cotillard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4rIuIxdCiU)

Video Length: 13:03

Hello and welcome back. As said, we're going to be exploring the Forlorn Monastery. A pretty cool looking area if I must say. Starting us off right away we encounter a new enemy, the ghost skull! It causes quite a bit of damage if it touches you, and if you don't die you may also get Cursed. Cursed is a status effect that, blessedly, only lasts awhile and just removes your ability to use items (both active AND passive). As such, not that big of a deal, but still significant in the right situations. When you kill it it explodes, causing damage and curse as well. So you've gotta be careful! Other than that the enemies are all stuff we've seen in Karst City, just put into different combinations. It's pretty nice honestly, the build up of enemies. There is one new enemy though, some sort of dark skeleton cleric that sends out a gout of flames that eventually falls back from the top of the screen and is quite hard to dodge. He appears to be a unique enemy, and killing him gets us the Tainted Missive, a very important item. It comes with two uses and takes off a quarter of your life to increase your damage briefly by 100%. We also encounter those cube enemies that Moka was throwing at us but they're one time thwomps and thus are more of an obstacle than an enemy, really.

Something I find fairly interesting is that...the game's actually quite open. It may seem like we have to go here, but we could easily return to where we met Cath and go down that water path. Additionally, just inside the Monastery, we have a looong ladder that leads us down to a new area called the Cinder Chambers. We'll be delving more into this laaater, because it looks a little too scary for my tastes. It's clearly got the aesthetic of the Monastery though, just...burnt and nasty. Oh dear.

So, the Forlorn Monastery is really divided into two floors, accessed by that elevator in the first real room of it. The top floor has more of the fine stainglass windows and stuff, while the bottom floor is clearly more of the "back room" stuff, it's basically a fancy religious office room. We do see some backroom stuff on the top floor though, like that big picture of...someone. A lady with black hair wearing priestly garb. We know it's not Saint Esselin since they said he's a dude, but that just makes me wonder who she could be. Maybe the Queen? Anyway, we also see that this game subscribes to at least one video game trope. Red explosive barrels! Though in this case the red is just a warning label, which is reasonable. I imagine, judging from the Cinder Chambers, that having these out willy nilly is not the standard. But the curse happened and I doubt anyone's all that concerned about regulations. Another thing is...there are spikes in some of these areas, and they're a LITTLE hard to see. Considering they're either one shot kill, or do tons of damage, that's a little poor design wise. Normally the spikes would be easy to see, but in a dark area like the Forlorn Monastery they become quite the devious, and annoying, trap.

The top floor's got a locked door, so that means we've gotta go to the bottom floor. This area is a lot more action-y, I think, compared to the top floor. Just feels that way. It's got a nice garden area infested with dogs, yet still looking quite beautiful. I'll be honest I just love every area in this game, the art design is so good. After a very silly "run Kaho run!" segment we also find the shopkeeper girl once more! This time she has only the Faerie Tear to sell us, and we've already bought it so...yeah. Still, I appreciate the attempt small skeleton child. More importantly however is we finally find the cat loving Master of that butler, Cotillard!

So, Cottilard. She tells us quite a lot. Both in actual dialogue, and in her actions and presentation. First she tells us that her butler's name is Paramol...and seems to laugh at that. She explains that yes, the Queen is responsible for it, for everything. She's become possessed by a malevolent greed. Cotillard then...closes and reopens her eyes, and they're glowing red with a black outline, like Lubella's, and like other monsters we've seen. This...actually quite frightens me as I DIDN'T NOTICE until I was EDITING. Judging from her desire to help us it's clear she's...if not on our side, at least willing to work with us. But I'm not sure I trust her, or her butler. What kind of "human" name is Paramol, anyway? We also learn it's been JUST A YEAR since all this started. Wow. I also have a theory of my own, regarding the "this place has been forbidden by the nobility". I think Cotillard means her "study", where she's been locked up by magic. But who knows, we'll have to wait and see. With the key she gave us, we can proceed on the top floor. First some more exploring though, where we find a...very confused door, a Vitality Fragment, and another stupid death.

Behind the locked door, we head further into the Convent of the Forlorn Monastery. We get another poor silly Kaho dead due to Zodi panicking a little, and quite a challenging moving spike area to get through. All in all this feels like the "final test" of the Forlorn Monastery. And what do we find at the end of our final test but a boss. We won't be covering this boss today because...I mean look at her she's intense. So yeah, that's our video for today. Hope you enjoyed, I'll see you guys next time for when we actually get up the courage to fight Pardoner Fennel.

------

It's time for some lore! Only two real discoveries today, but I think they're quite good.

The Tainted Missive, a letter between high ranking members of the clergy of Saint Esselin. Though they preach forgiveness, their innermost thoughts are dark and twisted. I doubt everyone is as nasty as this missive suggests, especially seeing as how we looted it from a deranged monster skeleton clergyman. Still, it's food for thought, how those in power slowly get corrupted by said power. A tainted missive that empowers but also weakens us. Fitting, no?

The second thing we found today is the Monastery Key. This one isn't majorly important, but it's got some good information. It mentions the Queen's dark sorcery, likely the cause of all this. Uncontrollable but caused. The Forlorn Monastery and it's convent are abandoned, only the very most front of it a safe haven for those that still live. A tragic life indeed.

[Qwertystop]

Munny missed:
4, plus an unknown quantity with the thwomp run - they fell off too quickly, and I don't know how many there were between the overlapping and the text. Sure, some of them got pulled by the magnet, but maybe not all - I can't tell. Same for the run back. If anyone else knows the number?


Total: 36+?(whatever was missed in two of the thwomp run)

[LaZodiac]

Munny missed:
4, plus an unknown quantity with the thwomp run - they fell off too quickly, and I don't know how many there were between the overlapping and the text. Sure, some of them got pulled by the magnet, but maybe not all - I can't tell. Same for the run back. If anyone else knows the number?


Total: 36+?(whatever was missed in two of the thwomp run)

Fairly sure the magnet collects ALL munny, so I missed none because of the thwomp run.

[Qwertystop]

Fairly sure the magnet collects ALL munny, so I missed none because of the thwomp run.

It collects, but not instantly, and it was all falling down a pit. Also, it's a long room - range might be limited to one screen plus a little.

[DataNinja]

One thing that you didn't mention, concerning the boss battle, was the music. It sounds almost...sad, yet still appropriate for a boss. In fact, I'm loving all the music in this game so far.

[LaZodiac]

One thing that you didn't mention, concerning the boss battle, was the music. It sounds almost...sad, yet still appropriate for a boss. In fact, I'm loving all the music in this game so far.

I'll definitely mention that Monday :smallamused:

[Lethologica]

Pardoner Fennel has a very 'nobly tragic' theme going. What's really tragic is how many tries it took for me to beat her, though.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

That is a really well designed boss.

I will be bringing out the table code at a later date, but for now...


The Death Toll:

Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3: 3
TOTAL: 4

[Coidzor]

Male clergymen in this sort of game? Yeah, definitely been some heresy going on.

Interesting, first boss that seems to (still) be a human. Look forward to the real showdown.

[Lethologica]

Have we talked about how some water is H2O and other water is apparently H2O2 because the punchline is it kills you? That's one aspect of the game's design that could stand to be reexamined, IMO.

[LaZodiac]

Have we talked about how some water is H2O and other water is apparently H2O2 because the punchline is it kills you? That's one aspect of the game's design that could stand to be reexamined, IMO.

You can tell if you look at the map but...yeah that's a little silly. Anyway, new episode!

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [4] Fennel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKnRe1cH4AY)

Video Length: 12:55

This episode's a little under what I'd consider acceptable, but given the boss fight I think that's okay. So, lets talk about Pardoner Fennel. Clearly deranged, either from the curse or just the stress of all the chaos that's going on, her musical theme has a lilting, somber feel to it. It's a very mournful song, befitting someone like Fennel. A Pardoner, someone who's job it likely was to forgive people, lashing out in madness at supposed evil. Thus begins out fight. Pardoner Fennel may not be the next boss you fight, but the way the game is sort of structured, the way it presents itself, I do think the game is leading you towards her first. In that sense, Fennel is the clearest, most concise wake-up call boss I've probably ever seen. Fennel will mess you up if you're not careful, and she'll mess you up even if you are.

So, lets talk about her mechanically. Her main attack is a simple two hit combo which has such force that it moves her forward with each strike. Roll through her, because contact damage hurts a ton and you can't really jump over her. You'll either land on her, or land on the backswing of her sword, or into her when she does her little dodge flip backwards. You CAN jump over her, it's just far too difficult. The second attack she really does is summon up bolts of lightning. As you'd expect they're quite fast, so dodge out of the way of them when you see the faint outline of one, which shows she's casting it. Her final attack in this phase is a big jump slash, which doesn't do all that much damage in comparison, but what it does do is leave an AOE of curse mist behind, and if you get cursed you can't use aaany of your items, as said before. Considering how much damage Fennel does, being locked out from healing is NOT a good thing. Finally in terms of moves she has a short range dash.

Then you get Fennel to half HP. This is when the fight gets even more intense, as she seems to enchant her sword with lightning magic. I'll note here, this fight feels a lot like a fight against an Invader in Dark Souls, and her seemingly applying a resin or enchantment to her sword only seals the deal. Anyway, in this phase of the fight everything she does is faster, does more damage, and generally just harder to deal with. She summons more lightning, the curse AOE is larger, and most importantly she adds a third, lunging attack to her combo. This lunging attack is crazy and will send her flying across the screen, and she can change directions when she does it so even being behind her won't help. All you can do is stay determined, because at this point it's basically just raw skill to beat her. You can do it though!

Finally, and tragically, we take her down. She poofs away, though I'll note that this is how player characters in previous Momo games died so...yeah, she's dead. Sorry, Pardoner Fennel. Behind her we find something mysterious...one fourth of the Crest of Karst. These'll be our, for lack of a better term, plot coupons for this games. We need the four pieces of this Crest to get into the supposed final area, and we've got one. Of course, they also provide us with a bonus, and this one is quite a good one. It gives us a third level of bow charge! The third level of charge takes quite awhile to fill up, but once we do we fire off a series of three arrows back to back that are quite a deal stronger than the spread shot, especially if all three hit. So yeah, that's pretty awesome. So...I guess it's time to explore the Cinder Chambers then.

The Cinder Chambers, a former housing area for incense and other tools of fire. Maybe it's just me, but it seems super intimidating in design. It looks like the Forlorn Monastery, but everything is clearly damaged and burnt, and over all it gives the feeling that something really bad happened here. There are the occasional switch to activate traps here and there, which feels like an addition people made after whatever problem happened here happened. That or the clergy are quite defensive of their incense. Anyway, enemies! This area has some pretty cool enemies, starting with the fire witches! They're ladies clad in black and orange gear, seemingly made of fire. They cast strange magics made from stars, and they've got quite a few patterns to go through. I don't think I've shown them all off, but the most dangerous is the directly aimed red star with orbiting white stars. Next, we find the ever present and adorable Bakmen! These demon guys are, as I said before with Moka, the goomba of this series. It's most iconic enemy. They typically throw the little thwomp guys, but these ones throw fire bombs! How rude. We can also find weaker Bakmen that are green and also throw bombs but I can't tell what the difference here is. There's also a Cannon Beetle looking enemy, which...I think it shoots a big damaging shot from it's face but it's slow so I haven't actually seen it do so. It's tanky though, so watch out! We also encounter an...interesting enemy. these statues that are alive, and will try to ram into you. But they're so slow that they end up just getting smashed or ignored. Oops! Finally, at least in this video, we have these shrine maiden looking ladies carrying large lanterns. They try to hit you with the lantern pole, and when you kill them it causes the lantern to drop and leaves a small damaging fire. It's simple, but a nice enemy design.

Speaking of nice enemy design ooops I stumbled into a new area. It's really only for a Vitality Chunk since you can't progress from this side, so I'll be leaving my full on discussion of the Whiteleaf Memorial Park for later, but I will at least note that this area looks amazing. A very somber park, lined with grave stones and lamp posts. Anyway, I'll at least talk about the enemies here. We've got weird flying cucumber bug things with their babies, and a big ole tomato dryad/alure-une thing! The plant bugs just fly at you, while the alure-une spews poison seeds everywhere...though they aren't that dangerous. They're mostly just cute, honestly! Anyway, we get that Vitality Chunk and move on.

The last thing I really need to talk about in this episode is, dun dun duuun! The spider is back! I think this might be the SAME Spider too, so it's a good thing we didn't kill it when it showed up! And he's selling us some neat stuff. He sells us the Ring of Candor if we don't have it by now, as well as Drilling Arrows and the Impurity Flask! The Drilling Arrows let your arrows pierce through enemies and other such hard obstacles (but not the ground itself) while the Impurity Flask makes it so that poison heals you! That's pretty useful, if completely situational. I buy both, and I'll leave the episode off there for the time being (after getting another Vitality Chunk and the Cinder Key). Hope you all enjoyed!

------

Let's talk about items! We found two quite useful ones, bought from that spider friend, as well as the first segment of the Karst Crest. We also got a new key, and keys tend to have great descriptions in games like this. The Crest itself doesn't have much writing on it, but it's clearly some sort of magical sign that the country used. It lets you get into the castle, for example. They also provide magical bonuses to Kaho, so that's cool.

The Drilling Arrows are a series of apparently magical arrows used by the Archery of Karst. I think that might be a minor translation foible, since I don't think "The Archery of X" is a term that works but...I don't know. Point is, it shows something cool. Before all this happened, Karst had a series of knights (we know this from Cath) and now we know they had a group of archers, who specialized in piercing shots. Nice!

Then we have the Impurity Flask. A disgusting concoction made by Toar, the Slumbering Doctor. It's apparently quite a charming aroma, even if it is quite deadly. I'm worried we'll be fighting Toar at some point and I'm guessing he'll have a lot of poison to throw at us...good thing we have his flask.

Finally, the Cinder Key. This little key reveals what I've been saying earlier in this update. This annex of the Forlorn Monastery used to hold their incense and censers, and something happened to set it ablaze. The door was locked to keep people from getting hurt, and that's why it is what it is today.

[Qwertystop]

Munny missed: 1
Total missed: 37
Typo: Said the shrine maiden lady smacks you with her "lanturn (http://static.zerochan.net/Lanturn.full.479926.jpg)".

I thank you for keeping the Magnet Stone.

[Lethologica]

Fun thought: Edea + Drilling Arrows. :smallamused:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The Death Toll
Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3:3
Episode 4:3
TOTAL: 7

Also, I love the design concepts behind this boss. She's the first real spike in difficulty, and passing her is absolutely going to hone your skills you will need later on. You can't just sit back and range or she will either charge or lightning you. You have to be careful about melee, because she will absolutely rip you a new one. You absolutely have to learn to love the dodge-roll, because most attacks can't be jumped over. In all, a very well executed boss fight that will be an indicator on if you need to hone your skills or if you are ready to continue on.

[Coidzor]

That's the standard death animation? Hmm. Before I knew that, I'd have said you exorcised her ghost with violence.


Fun thought: Edea + Drilling Arrows. :smallamused:

Multi-hit drill attacks on long enemies are quite fun, aye. :smallamused:

Somehow I doubt this series is that forgiving to let it get in multi-hits on the same enemy, but being able to hit, say, 3 enemies that were lined up with one charge shot would be nifty.

[LaZodiac]

The sweltering heat of the Cinder Chambers is ever present. Let us dive ever downward.

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [5] Cath (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFMNAkhp16E)

Video Length: 17:46

Starting us off we get to the one area of this place that has even the slightest bit of water, a shallow pool of it surrounding a black chest. Agitating the chest (or just waiting awhile) reveals a new enemy, the Mimic! The Mimic is entirely without threat if you know it exists, however, as it's only attack is just to release an aura of orbs, which are quite easy to dodge and do not actively dissuade you from attacking. Arrows in particular are quite effective. After the fight I put on the Drill Arrows, because I'm fairly sure it'll be needed here (it turns out it might nooot be? I don't really know/recall. Blind run things~).

We progress deeper in, and find a room full of explosives (as well as a connection to that large arrow trap room). Moving forward we discover...dun dun dun! A boss fight! And Cath is involved in it! Say hello to our next boss, the Heretical Arsonist. A former lady of faith who became perhaps a little too obsessed with the burning of incense. She's become a pyromancer, wrapped in bandages and armed to the teeth with fire magic. She's actually a fairly simple boss all told, her attacks are to release a bunch of purple orbs that fade out as they bounce along the ground, to release a series of red orbs that explode into fire pillars (with her teleporting into the last one) and to do a highly damaging whip attack with her bandages.

But you're not fighting her alone! Cath is here! Cath has a slash attack, a charge attack, and can shield attacks. I don't know if she can die here, but for the most part Cath can handle this boss fight on her own so I doubt she can. She doesn't do much damage though, so we've gotta help out. In this fight it's safer to stay at range and pelt her with arrows, but I occasionally dive in to get some Magical Leaf action on. I also thiiink her purple orbs can block arrows, but I had the Drill Arrows on so I don't know. I also and fairly sure if you leave explosive barrels around you can damage her with that as well. Anyway, this boss is cool. It's not the most complicated, and she's kind of tanky, but you're fighting her with an ally and that's super rad, and you can see see that around...maybe a quarter of the Arsonist's hp is already gone when you start the fight. It's really good game feel, a way to show that Cath has been fighting this Arsonist for awhile and you just kinda showed up to assist.

With one final blow the Arsonist explodes, and we can breath a sigh of relief from the heat. Then we get an interesting conversation with Cath, who comments on our Leaf but more importantly...seems to imply via her dialogue that this was intended to be the first place you go. Maybe I'm just reading too into things from a game design perspective, but her mentioning the crests here makes it feel like this is where you're expected to go first, which is just weird since that feels, to me, more like the underwater area or the part of the Monastery where you fight Fennel. Of course, it could just be a story thing. This is the only fight you can join Cath in, thus the only time she really has to mention this stuff. It's just silly a thought to me to imagine going to this place last. Anyway, she elaborates on her thinking with regards to the Queen. The curse cannot be stopped unless we kill her. We agree to help, because we must stop this curse, no matter the cost.

As reward for beating the Arsonist we obtain our next crest fragment, and this one lets us do an AIR DODGE! Heeeck yeah! We leave a little blue aura when we do it, it causes a white sound wave to appear and another one shows up when it's "recharged" since you can't do them consecutively like our ground dodge. But this move is so good. Movement in this game already feels wonderful, but this in particular changes this up quite a lot. It makes movement through the environment faster, and I imagine it'd change up the difficulty of some bosses by quite a lot. Fennel would be a lot easier if you could do just a quick dash through her stuff! So yeah, Air Dodge, pretty sweet. I then immediately show why overuse of this ability can lead to bad things! Yay spikes!

With that all said and done it's time to move on...but first lets explore the Cinder Chambers some more. I sort of bypassed a few areas when we arrived so lets get to exploring! Our first little side path involves crushing spike balls! These hurt a lot so lets not get hit by them. I also highly doubt you can dodge through them. We find a switch to turn them off though, as well as a vitality chunk and an ivory bug. A lot of the ivory bugs so far have been hidden in areas that seem potentially annoying to find, but something about them don't actually rub me the wrong way. The existence of the Ring of Candor certainly helps, but also this game seems fairly "small" and thus the task of "rub face and weapon on wall" isn't that big of a deal? I'm not sure.

As it turns out this is the area you're supposed to go to when leaving however, so it's time for another side path! This one is shorter, only leading to some Bakmen throwing bombs and another cute skeleton shopkeeper. She sells a slightly less (more? I don't remember...) expensive Ring of Candor, as well as The Red Ring! This makes it so that we heal a minimal amount of hp in exchange for no no Munny drops. It's fairly situational, because if you're able to grind for enemies effectively with this you're probably able to just make it to the next Bell Shrine without much problem, and you'd be better served getting Munny in the meanwhile. Anyway, lets be off, we have some underwater area to explore (after finding another ivory bug)!

After indulging my editing self, we head back to Karst City to make our way to that underwater area. Along the way I notice...the short cut with the broken door? It's next to a large blood stain...but the reason why I missed the door the first time was because there was an NPC here begging for it to stop. So...it seems that in a way it did stop. Tragic...anyway, we head to the underwater area. Not much editing here and for that I apologize, but between work and other stuff it's been kinda rough a time. Next episodes will be a little tighter in terms of editing, don't worry.

So, swimming. Movement under water is sluggish, but not to the degree where it'd be annoying. To "swim" you just have infinite jumps. Having the air dash makes movement a little easier since you can very quickly go forward. This area also has some darkness to it but I'll cover that more when we get to the next area proper, which has that as well. For now it's not that big of a deal. What I will talk about is that this area sort of sets you up for having...an interesting time with chests. First off, a treasure chest with only one single Munny in it. A great joke, all things considered.

We enter the next area...and encounter a person! If Kaho resembles Momo from the present day Momodora games, then this lovely lady (who neglects to tell us her name here >_<) resembles Dora. It's just a fun little thing I've noticed and isn't really a spoiler to mention, like other things I could say. We quite literally drop in on her escape, and she gives us the expected spiel of "yo be careful this place is rough and I think the Queen cursed everything". So it goes. She seems like a nice NPC, but not a real major one. I may be wrong, we'll see!

Anyway, this area is the Subterranean Graves! Deep beneath the grounds, partially flooded either through natural erosion or human error, the dead lay here forever more. There are so many skulls on the walls here, and it's quite creepy. I love this area, it's got such a weird and yet fitting colour scheme, the ambiance just feels all right. It also has a darkness gimmick...but for some reason this one feels GOOD, unlike other ones we may of encountered. See the thing is, the screen is not PITCH black, you can SEE stuff outside of your range of vision, it's just HARDER to see. So it's not that big of a deal, and they do a good job of making enemies that are easy to see in the darkness be the primary foes you fight here. If you're going to do a darkness area like this, this is the way you should do it.

Speaking of enemies, lets talk about them. For new foes, we have these spirit ghost bats with blue hair that look absolutely adorable despite being flying skull ghosts. Then we have...cat girl maids who may or may not be ghosts! They throw their staff around like a boomerang scythe, and while not the most swift of enemy, they can do a lot of damage if you neglect to take care of them.

We also find a shop quite early on here, but since I don't buy anything from it I won't talk much about it yet. Just remember this one has Clarity Shards and the Necklace of Sacrifice...one of these items are capable of breaking the game wide open if you're willing to invest in it. I'll leave it to you to guess which. We also encounter a bit of blind mode complications as Zodi fecklessly tries to find the secret in this room despite it obviously being the large block in the left side of the screen that's CLEARLY meant to be a short cut later on. Oops.

Moving on, we also find a secret that lets us unlock a jail cell. Inside said cell is our good buddy Askorn! I'm sure he'll appreciate being saved, despite our not talking to him before hand. There's also a fishman in jail here, we should do our best to find out how to save him too! Anyway, it seems that yes Askorn IS quite dead, as is his wife that he's looking for. I suppose this means the little shop girl is also dead given she's a skeleton as well. Tough break.

But yeah, that'll be our episode for today. We've entered the Subterranean Graves, freed Askorn, and all in all had a good time exploring the wet corpse hole. Monday, more of said wet corpse hole! I hope you all enjoyed, and see you then!

------

Not much to talk about item wise. The crests don't have unique descriptions (sadly) so lets talk about the Red Ring a bit. It's a ring literally made of blood, which I imagine would be quite tough to do. Due to being made of blood is absorbs the essence of the dying and gives it to the holder. A creepy effect, which just begs the question of what this is doing in a church. This combined with the Tainted Missives makes it clear that while the Esselin Church is good, aspects of it are tainted.

[Grytorm]

LaZodiac, I just thought of something. If the shops are based on areas shouldn't you go back and visit the adorable spider you saw near the beginning of the game given that you didn't talk to him? Or will you wait until you get some sort of slide move to go through that tunnel you said you would return to later?

[Qwertystop]

A nice touch, the blood spatter under the mashy spike balls.

No more munny missed, count remains at 37.

[LaZodiac]

LaZodiac, I just thought of something. If the shops are based on areas shouldn't you go back and visit the adorable spider you saw near the beginning of the game given that you didn't talk to him? Or will you wait until you get some sort of slide move to go through that tunnel you said you would return to later?

I'm fairly sure that the spider that appears there won't talk to you, and instead acts as an enemy. It's a reference to a situation in Momodora 3. That said, we cannot actually get TO that place right now, half of the opening area is cut off due to not being able to go back up the long fall we went through.

Rest assured I will check that out when we do get the slide or morph ball equivalent for this game. I'll also probably end up making an alternate file where I try interacting with the spider (assuming it's gone, which I imagine it might be if the spider shop is the same spider).

[Lethologica]

Necklace is the gamebreaking item, for sure. Starting boss fights at low health is a gamble, but after learning the attack patterns Necklace should make such encounters much shorter. I don't think it's the strongest item, or even the most overpowered item (strength compared to how early we can pick it up), though.

The Cinder Chamber fragment was the last one I got in my playthrough, so I am silly. But I already knew that. :smallbiggrin:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'm betting that necklace will unlock something akin to 'Crisis Mario' where you can deal stupid amounts of damage rapidly.


The Death Toll
Episode 5: 1
Total: 8

[Coidzor]

Not only is that woman an Arch-Heretic, she's also clearly Xenos-tainted, just look at those pointy ears that make a mockery of the human form.

Now, the question on my mind, is, is Cath being all fanciful in her language, or does she think that not only does she have to be killed, but she also needs to be beheaded so they can stuff onions or garlic or something down her esophagus?

And I wonder what sort of monsters the knights that haven't abandoned the queen have become. Y'all thinking undead, cursed into something inbetween undead and living, demon-twisted, demon-possessed, or just crazier than a squirrel farm?

I think those Lantern maidens are rubbing off on our mysterious, teleporting skeletal shopkeep, what with her deciding that conical hats are in vogue. (I get the strangest flashbacks to Undertale...) I hope that they aren't a further bad influence on her. I'd hate to find out that the more items you buy off of her, the more powerful of a boss she finally turns out to be.

Aww, Askorn's looking for "MAAAIIII WAAAAAAAAIIIIFF." Isn't that sweet? Who else thinks that his wife turns out to be freaking Lubella or another one of the bosses? :smallamused: Amazing how polite a longdead skeleton man who doesn't have time for idle chitchat can be.

Also: AHH, FREAKY FISH GUY! It's interesting, he comes from the west as well and is all "mah homeland," too. I wonder if Kaho will be letting him out, or if he's doomed to langour in that cell until he becomes a monstah. Err. More of a monstah.

Unless freaky fish guys are just an accepted part of the ecosystem along with bloodthirsty imp girls?

I wonder if we'll be seeing that unnamed thief girl again next time we go to the Forest?

[Reddish Mage]

If someone were to start Momodora at this point of the franchise, where would be the best starting point?

[LaZodiac]

If someone were to start Momodora at this point of the franchise, where would be the best starting point?

Momodora 2 probably. It's free, very simple and short but less simple than the first game. That being said, Momodora 3 is probably the ACTUALLY best place to start since it's the best game in the series...aside from Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight, of course, but I don't think you should start there purely because it'll make the older games signifigently less fun in comparision.

[LaZodiac]

From the depths I call!

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [6] Frida (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j81WSv-owXo)

Video Length: 12:25

A little short one today, due to Zodi being a silly boots in game and work being a thing. Sorry! Anyway, lets get on with it.

First though lets discuss the mechanical effects of those store items we didn't buy yet, because this feels as good place as any to do so. The Clarity Shard is a use item, sadly. It has one single use, and lights the entire area up! It also has a fairly short time limit. Over all I think this item is fairly pointless, but it'll help the people that need it so that's good. The other item here is the Necklace of Sacrifice, which gives you a 100% attack boost when you're at around 10% health. This item is absurd and is part of many a combo to bust this game open. Small spoilers for the future, I'll be showing all of the "no hit boss run" items in a different save file, and this little bad boy is quite the thing indeed.

Today we travel further into the Subterranean Graves! A thing I'd like to note here is, based purely on order of appearance, THIS place is the place you're most likely to do first. It's at that three way split to get the Magnet Stone, and the top path leads to a miniboss that might dissuade players from going that way. I just find it interesting that the game is sort of funneled that way, especially since, looking at the map and imagining how it connects and stuff, it's entirely possible to do the Forlorn Monastery last of all. It's part of why Metroidvania esque games like this are so good, the level of replayability as you take different paths is quite fun.

I bring this up because the Subterranean Graves has some pretty neat platforming challenges that someone who is new to the game might have difficult dealing with. Especially combined with the darkness, even factoring in that it's not total darkness. I guess that's why the Clarity Shard is so cheap, it's to provide that little bit of help. That said, I think much like Fennel herself this is a good way of showing the player that their skill at the game has to improve now, so it's actually pretty cool.

Another cool thing is in one of the rooms we discover a smashed Bell shrine. It's a small touch, but it's so creepy to see what is supposed to be a safe haven destroyed like that. Any magical protection it might of had...it didn't help here. This room also has us find a treasure chest that, while giving loads of money, also curses you! It's a trap! A cat maid gets summoned and bats start spawning as well, and it's almost impossible to get to the cat before she attacks too. It's a devious trap, to be sure. Another small touch I feel worth mentioning is that the reflections in the water look absolutely beautiful. They looked good when we first saw them in the exit of the Ordelia Grove, but for some reason they stand out so much more here. With all the spirits and darkness floating around, maybe it's a trick of the mind.

Exploring underwater some more, we discover spinning blades and a locked door. We also discover a path that I neglect to take because I'm a dumb and silly Zodi and it causes this video to be the length that it is. Good job me! We also find a Vitality Chunk along the path though, so that's good. Anyway, moving on we find a really interesting puzzle that I said I'd talk more about here so lets do that. We have an area we need to get to that is blocked by a gate. We have a switch that, obviously, moves the gate. But even while ducking we can't shoot the crystal through the window we've got. But there's a small little pocket of ground we can fall through to give us the lack of height we need to hit the crystal. It's a small simple puzzle but it feels just very Momodora-y, and very clever once you realize the solution.

Theeen the other unfortunate thing in this video happens. We get to the area just before the boss room and the Ring of Candor goes off. I, Zodi, being the silly boots that I am, did not realize it was pinging me towards the obviously blown up by a Bakman rock that blocks us from getting to the first Bell shrine. I then go into the boss fight without having saved since the middle of the level! Things go poorly due to me not knowing what the boss will do due to this being a blind run, and I need to speed up the getting back to fight the boss part. That being said, lets talk about said boss!

Derelict Frida! A big goopy bird lady wearing a cute vest, her body is see-through and weird like the animals and people of this cursed city. She lunges at us with pecks, shoots tiny lasers and larger lasers, and summons dogs to attack us. She also slowly moves forward, and can cause contact damage. I feel that from a pure mechanical design point this is the "worst" boss fight, but also keep in mind that this is all relative I actually like this boss a lot. Mechanically it's fun to fight, it's just not as interesting or high action paced as the others. Design wise Frida looks unsettling as hell, some kind of creepy mutated bird monster that has a weird sort of somber feel to it's design. A derelict, thrown away and cursed. We defeat her and she soundlessly cries into the night until she melts away. Behind her we find a bird cage, broken as if by some force, and a fragment of the Karst Crest. This one increases the charge speed on our arrows! It's...actually pretty absurd how fast they charge now.

And really that's it for the episode. Again, sorry about the shortish episode, Friday's is gonna be short too. But after that, unless next Monday's goes poorly as well, we'll be back to reasonable length episodes! See you guys there!

------

All we got item wise is the Clarity Shard, but at the very least they're interesting. Little glowing rocks that people put on gravestones to guide them to the afterlife and to ward off evil spirits. A shame we only have the one, but I imagine we'd rather keep the Shards for the graves then to take them for ourselves.

[DataNinja]

Huh. It's interesting to see that the flooded areas seem to be designed to be traversable when not flooded. I wonder if that's just a design choice, or if said levels will become dry at some point.

[Qwertystop]

Munny missed: 1
Total: 38.

[Coidzor]

About the whole breathing and underwater and the holding of breath thing... I mean, I suppose she is letting off little tiny air bubbles, but I'm still convinced that she's gotta be suffering from the Curse of the Undead or something here.

Maybe one of the first stages of it is that you need much, much less air to function, which is part of why it's just Kaho rather than a full mission of warrior-priestesses going to **** **** up in Karst for cursing the entire world. Kaho's the expendable one because she's already cursed.

The boss is a sad-Penguin-headed hobo monster woman with a bunch of spectral eggs all around her feets. Interesting. So far we've had what might have just been an honest to goodness demon, a demonic familiar and its undead titty-monster witch mistress, a woman who apparently was just crazy, some kind of warped and twisted knife-ears, and now one of these semi-living, semi-undead spectre thingers.

I wonder what other monster types are left for us to face as bosses.

Hmm, Enemies might not respect the boss door, but it does seem like that their attacks certainly respect the boss entrance cutscene. So there's that at least.

You say creepy, I say doing her best impression of Kermit the Frog doing his flailing thang. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_w4oSCJIQk) :smallamused:

So she wasn't just a hobo woman, she was a hobo woman who was fused with her birbs by dark forces into a tortuous existence between life and death in order to act as a mook spawning factory. How very Darkspawn of the baddies. I guess getting murdered and then having cat ears pasted onto your head is downright merciful in comparison, when you think about it.

Well, what do you know, an item that increases bow charging speed. :smallamused:

[Lethologica]

It might be boring/degenerate gameplay, but crouching and filling Frida with arrows is so much easier than leafing her to death.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The Death Toll
Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3: 3
Episode 4: 3
Episode 5: 1
Episode 6: 2
TOTAL: 10

[LaZodiac]

Maybe one of the first stages of it is that you need much, much less air to function, which is part of why it's just Kaho rather than a full mission of warrior-priestesses going to **** **** up in Karst for cursing the entire world. Kaho's the expendable one because she's already cursed.

So she wasn't just a hobo woman, she was a hobo woman who was fused with her birbs by dark forces into a tortuous existence between life and death in order to act as a mook spawning factory. How very Darkspawn of the baddies. I guess getting murdered and then having cat ears pasted onto your head is downright merciful in comparison, when you think about it.

Well, what do you know, an item that increases bow charging speed. :smallamused:

That is a VERY interesting theory, actually. It'd explain her desire to do it all quickly too, which a lot of her animations seem to imply is the case. She herself could be cursed and slowly dying.

I think Frida may of just been a bird that turned monsterous honestly, but that's another good theory.

Yup! I may be playing this blind, but I think it was pretty obvious we'd be getting one.


It might be boring/degenerate gameplay, but crouching and filling Frida with arrows is so much easier than leafing her to death.

This is completely true. I'm going to stick to charging head long in since it fits better with my playstyle I feel, and makes for a more interesting video.

[Amidus Drexel]

This is completely true. I'm going to stick to charging head long in since it fits better with my playstyle I feel, and makes for a more interesting video death counter.

Indeed it does. :smallamused:

[LaZodiac]

And we're back with more Momodora

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [7] Eri (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0-QavEo4ww)

Video Length: 11:44

So, this episode is pretty short and I apologize! It's because, again, I had some job issues and stuff and thus could not record to the best of my ability. Blind run problems blah blah blah you know the drill. Next video'll be good though. Anyway, stuff! We return to the entrance of Karst City and see our good friend...half naked thief girl. Turns out her name is Eri, and she's consumed with guilt and sadness over the apparent abandonment of the city by their God. We assure her that things will be okay, and she heads off to the forest to relax. She's kinda dressed like the Imp's so I think she'll fit in. She says "our people" and "our curse" however, unlike everyone else who is like "the people" and "the curse". Interesting... We also find an Ivory Bug we missed last time! Silly me.

That's gonna be a trend for this episode. We're still kind of...exploring what to actually DO, because I'm a big butt and didn't find the way to go, so we're gonna be exploring around finding bugs and stuff. There's one in the Sacred Grove that I'm just baffled at how I missed since it's riiiight there. I guess the poison scared me off. Anyway, after some edited out exploring of the entiiiire world, we make our way back to the Subterranean Graves, where we finally explore that path I missed which literally has all the answers on how to progress in it. A faded moss covered garden key! This'll ead to the Whiteleaf Memorial Park proper. Before going to the Park proper however, lets take a stop at our fish friend to see how he's doi-..........welp. I don't think it's possible to save our fish friend, sadly. Poor guy... Also poor was my inability to notice that the Ring of Candor DID ring, and this will cause me much frustration waaay later on, trust me.

So, now that we're introduced to Whiteleaf Memorial Park properly, lets talk about it shall we? This place is...just gorgeous. It may be the most beautifully somber area of the game. It's music is sad and lilting and it fits the mood so well. There are signs of this park being a hanging gardens of sort, plants floating on lamp posts and vines getting everywhere, but it's also clearly started to become overrun. The bunny gardener we meet early on explains that the curse has turned her vegetables rotten and monsterous, explaining the rutabaga fly things and the raddish oni. She also mentions that the Park has been...displaced, which basically means that the park is not where it's supposed to be. To quote Dark Souls, time and space are convoluted here. Anyway she mentions she'll give us rewards for getting Ivory Bugs so lets get em all at some point.

As you'd expect, this area's got the flying rutabaga enemies and the radish oni, and some Bakmen here and there, plus the statues. There actually aren't any new enemies here, which is a little strange, but then also keep in mind that that's just how open games like this go. It does present us with some interesting combat encounters though, having to deal with some breakable platforms when dealing with a statue for instance. Also I should actually talk about the rutabaga enemies since they're technically new. They fly around and have babies that attack you. They're not all that threatening and in fact quite good for grinding if you need to do that. As for items in this area, we find some more Bellflowers and can (but can't right now) purchase a Dull Pearl that adds poison to our arrows. Huh. I'll have to pick this up later.

We also finally see that Askorn has found his wife. Cecilia. And yet, it's a tragedy still. Cursed to unlife by the Queen's dark magic, he came here to find his love brought back the same way. But she remains dead. Poor Askorn.

Anyway, closing out this episode is...a boss fight! We tangle with our old foe, Lubella! She's back again, this time showing off her move where she throws orbs into the air from the ground which she didn't show off last time. She fights exactly the same as last time except she's already in her faster, more aggressive state, and gets even more aggressive at half health. Additionally the platform you're fighting on is constantly breaking, making it harder and harder to dodge. With one final strike we take her down, though given her power I doubt she's gone for good. With one final curse as she explodes, we are knocked out...

...and then Kaho was a kitten. See you guys next time for more of this.

[Lethologica]

Being a cat is my favorite thing about this game.

[DataNinja]

You don't need to apologize for every video, Zodi! Oh, wait, you're Canadian, too. Carry on... :smallbiggrin:

Huh. A cat, you say? Methinks those convenient small openings are going to come in handy.

As a side note, I noticed you've only explored ~60% of the map?!? Wow.

[LaZodiac]

You don't need to apologize for every video, Zodi! Oh, wait, you're Canadian, too. Carry on... :smallbiggrin:

Huh. A cat, you say? Methinks those convenient small openings are going to come in handy.

As a side note, I noticed you've only explored ~60% of the map?!? Wow.

That last 40 percent is the final area/areas beyond the fog wall we need the Karst Crest for. I imagine it'll be quite large :smalltongue:

[Amidus Drexel]

...and then Kaho was a kitten.

Aaaaand I have a new favorite idle animation (though crouching is even better). :smallcool:

[Qwertystop]

No munny missed.

Kitty!

[Grytorm]

I knew the kitty form was coming because I looked this up online. But I love that she still fights with the leaf.

Also I wish that they had changes Lubella's outfit. Mostly because when you first fought her I imagined her having just gotten up still in a nightgown. Cheerful good mood, and her servant even brought her one of those adorably crunchy human things for breakfast!

[LaZodiac]

I knew the kitty form was coming because I looked this up online. But I love that she still fights with the leaf.

Also I wish that they had changes Lubella's outfit. Mostly because when you first fought her I imagined her having just gotten up still in a nightgown. Cheerful good mood, and her servant even brought her one of those adorably crunchy human things for breakfast!

Look when you're a gigantic undead corpse witch it's hard to find cloths that actually fit. Trust me on this.

That being said I'd love it if she was in some sort of cute sundress with a hat and we interrupted her picnic in her garden.

[Coidzor]

Look when you're a gigantic undead corpse witch it's hard to find cloths that actually fit. Trust me on this.

That being said I'd love it if she was in some sort of cute sundress with a hat and we interrupted her picnic in her garden.

That would have been rather hilarious, yes, but perhaps a bit too comedic for this game universe.

I do have to wonder why there aren't more, like, properly undead, undead that serve as foes in this. Most of the undead proper that we've seen have been, well, Askorn and Party Hat Sans-Girl.


That is a VERY interesting theory, actually. It'd explain her desire to do it all quickly too, which a lot of her animations seem to imply is the case. She herself could be cursed and slowly dying.

I think Frida may of just been a bird that turned monsterous honestly, but that's another good theory.

Yup! I may be playing this blind, but I think it was pretty obvious we'd be getting one.

This is completely true. I'm going to stick to charging head long in since it fits better with my playstyle I feel, and makes for a more interesting video.

:smallbiggrin: Well, you know, sometimes I has the thoughts and the thinkings.

Hmm, I still think there was some kind of malign intelligence making it into a monster factory, though. I have to wonder who would have kept a birdcage in that place, though.

Thankfully, because it was just painful waiting for the charge before this.

Well, you know, Skulls for the Skull Throne, and all that jazz. :smalltongue:


And we're back with more Momodora

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [7] Eri (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0-QavEo4ww)

Video Length: 11:44

I guess I see what she means about them getting all shapeless, a little bit, anyway. The witches and jackolantern dudes, anyway. I suppose if you took away their clothes they'd probably be like orbs or amorphous or something.

Huh, over 50% of the map explored already.

Come to think of it, I wonder why Edea leaves a corpse statue. I wonder if she was originally some kind of grotesque statue made for the pleasure of the queen's madness or if it's an effect of the sacred grove.

Kaho swimming is kinda surreal.

I wonder what killed Fish guy. Askorn is supsiciously silent on the subject.

Maybe he wasn't even alive in the first place from Askorn's perspective though. Due to wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. That or Askorn ate his lifeforce deviously.

Ivory bugs, eh? To fix the jacked up agriculture of the city. Interesting.

Plant onis are actually just plants. whoda thunk it?

And party hat Sans girl has the ability to poison enemies with our arrows.

Nice of the game to let you know that you're about to trigger a boss battle before you trigger it, though.

Ooo, nice Bakman bomb counter with the leaf, there.

And now, what will Askorn do upon seeing his dead wife is still just dead dead, instead of undead dead.

Kinda sad you didn't grab the shiny thing before fighting the horny titty monster witch, though.

Seriously though. Why the antlers? XD

Definitely need to smart fighter, not hard fighter with this one it seems, yeah.

Nice first rush on the last run through.

And Kaho has the same death screech when she's just knocked out by an exploding witch as when she dies.

Angry, feisty kitty leaf attack! :smallbiggrin:


So, this episode is pretty short and I apologize! It's because, again, I had some job issues and stuff and thus could not record to the best of my ability. Blind run problems blah blah blah you know the drill. Next video'll be good though. Anyway, stuff! We return to the entrance of Karst City and see our good friend...half naked thief girl. Turns out her name is Eri, and she's consumed with guilt and sadness over the apparent abandonment of the city by their God. We assure her that things will be okay, and she heads off to the forest to relax. She's kinda dressed like the Imp's so I think she'll fit in. She says "our people" and "our curse" however, unlike everyone else who is like "the people" and "the curse". Interesting... We also find an Ivory Bug we missed last time! Silly me.

Hmm. Maybe she's actually an imp girl who got cursed with Bigness? Hm hm. Or the Imp girls were Amazonian thiefy women what got cursed with smallness.


We also finally see that Askorn has found his wife. Cecilia. And yet, it's a tragedy still. Cursed to unlife by the Queen's dark magic, he came here to find his love brought back the same way. But she remains dead. Poor Askorn.

Well, better than it being Titty Monster Witch Lubella, I guess. Sad Skelebro.


...and then Kaho was a kitten. See you guys next time for more of this.

A cat is fine too. :smallamused:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You missed a sparkly shiny... thingie. At 4:50. And you never actually DO get it. You pass it. Twice.

Also, the flying rutabaga monsters and associated minions seem to be a very good way of grinding muny. If you're wanting that poison pearl thing, might be a relatively quick place to do so.

I'm counting the one after you kill the overly endowed entity as a death because you get a death scene and cute scream.


The Death Toll
Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3: 3
Episode 4: 3
Episode 5: 1
Episode 6: 2
Episode 7: 4
TOTAL: 14

And yes, kitties are cute and adorable and suddenly we now know how you are going to navigate those smaller passages. Maybe there'll be a... umm, actually, that's still Futurepast knowledge. Umm... let's see. You know, that one Link where you have to deal with a rather obnoxious sprite? No, not THAT one, the other one, that turns into a shadow. Yea, that one. Wondering if this will be like that one where you do the thing, then undo the thing, then learn how to do and undo the thing at will. Yea, like that.

Also resisting the urge to make an even older reference... it is, after all, an awful night to have a curse...

[Lethologica]

You missed a sparkly shiny... thingie. At 4:50. And you never actually DO get it. You pass it. Twice.
Don't worry, there's a good reason for that.

[Lord Raziere]

catching up, because Dark Souls lore-esque games aren't all that interesting to me...mostly because if your given so little information straight, I don't know whats going on, and have to try to piece it together myself

hm, so clearly this some all-pervasive super-curse is ravaging the entire world. its effects though, seem to be many and varied: did Fennel simply go insane from the survival horror scenario she is in, or did the curse twist her mind?

in some other ways, the curse raises the dead from the grave, but doesn't make them weaponry for evil conquest, so why even do it? is it just a side-effect? or does it vary on some factor? and why did the man get brought back but not his wife? did he possess or lack some trait that allowed him to be affected but not her?

was the destroying of that Bell a moment of enemy smartness/genre saviness, or just bad fortune?

ok, so Frida clearly proves that the curse is twisting living animals into warped monsters that can make more of themselves, so corruption and raising the dead. possibly just demons, monsters whole cloth. and the park says plants are twisted.....so why isn't Kaho being corrupted, despite being SURROUNDED by all this? Holiness? probably. because the curse just seems to corrupt everything, perhaps the undeath is just a subset of corruption in this case...

Lubella is an anomaly. she is a giant, and possesses her own magic, and I'm not sure if she is connected to all this curse stuff, or just some giant witch thats taking advantage of the chaos for some reason for her own agenda. doesn't really matter anymore, she is dead and Kaho is a cat. I think we found our morph ball mechanic. Guess Lubella's magic runs on Dresden Files rules: kill her and she can sling one final big curse at you that completely destroys ya. Good thing she spent it on a transformation.

clearly the Queen is behind this as people keep saying, but why? why unleash an all-corrupting curse capable of spreading like a plague through everything across the entire world? why unleash this? hm.

[Domochevsky]

Hm, one item of note: The subtitles are going by a bit too fast, especially during boss battles. I barely have time to read even the first 5 words before the next subtitle replaces it already. :smallsigh:

That said, the game does seem quite fascinating. And cute. Curious combination.

[LaZodiac]

Hm, one item of note: The subtitles are going by a bit too fast, especially during boss battles. I barely have time to read even the first 5 words before the next subtitle replaces it already. :smallsigh:

That said, the game does seem quite fascinating. And cute. Curious combination.

Damn, I thought I had got it good, everyone was satisfied with the length up till now and it was all standardized and everything. I'll try extending the length though...in an episode or two I tend to make multiple episodes at a time.

I'm glad you like it though!

[LaZodiac]

Late post because I was worked to the booone yesterday.

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [8] Paramol (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgdJghXF7qs)

Video Length: 13:52

Welcome back to Momodora! In this episode we start to explore the world using the powers of a cat. The area we're in that makes us test the cat's powers isn't that complicated, but it's quite good at showing us all the cat form is really capable of. I have some trouble finding a secret or two of course, but overall it's good. That being said...I'll repeat it here. Does anyone have any idea what that weird horned person talking about cakes is? IT feels like a Homestuck reference but I privately asked my friend who knows a lot of Homestuck stuff and he's got no idea. So...viewers, do you have any idea what this is?

Anyway, leaving the cat dungeon we obtain that sparkly Shneekey talked about me missing despite it clearly being behind a cat sized hole. The item in question is the CAT SPHERE, a magical crystal orb that lets us change form between cat and Kaho. With this in tow we officially have our Morph Ball for real, so lets go exploring! First off I go back to where we fought Lubella to see if there was anything we missed due to Lubella attacking us. All I find is a death! Hooray! After that we show more of our Ivory Bugs to the bunny lady who proceeds to give us more healing, which is actually pretty great.

Back in Karst City we speak to our good butler friend Paramol again. He's actually got something new to say, too! It appears that Pardoner Fennel's sister has appeared...we should probably pay her a visit. Pay our respects as well, if we can. She's at the entrance bell of the Monastery and focused on her prayers for the dead, and for those wasted by the darkness. We can hear her mumble about her poor sister...well I feel sad now. Moving on I go to see if Cotillard has anything new to say, or if her cats will speak to us, but alas they're not in a talkative mood and Cotillard doesn't have new dialogue yet. Ah well.

Exploring the Forlorn Monastery we come across that one cat path near the Fennel fight. Inside it we discover a Soft Tissue. A simple white tissue with blue lace, we can use it to create an aura of healing on the ground. But looking at it...this obviously belonged to Fennel. We should return it. Her sister (she hasn't told us her name but it's Choir) thanks us, and leaves. I feel a little better now.

Heading back to the Sacred Ordelia Grove, it's time to take that cat path near Eri! This is actually our next destination, and it's quite interesting. It leads us to a strange magical barrier, and passing it brings us to the Frore Ciele. Now, I did a lot of looking up what these words mean, and the best I can find is Frozen Sky, or Frozen Cold. Whatever the case, this strange blue area, where Kaho seems to be faded compared to the rest of the world, is quite fascinating. It's got a new enemy, this flying plant that spews out seeds, but other than that it's just combat against old foes in new and exciting ways. I like it, though. Cutting our way through it we find the last Karst Crest Fragment, and with it the ability to warp between Bells! This'll make the actual exploration part of exploring with our cat form much easier.

OF course than I die like an idiot. I'll resume post crest grabbing next time guys, hope you enjoyed!

------

Let's look at some of our items. We got the Cat Sphere and the Soft Tissue today, so lets go at it!

The Cat Sphere is seemingly just some random orb with magic powers. It's strange, but I imagine the truth of the matter is that it's a sphere that just traps and reverses the power of curses and that's why it lets us change to and from at form. I imagine Lubella made it since it's never a good idea to make uncurable curses, but it could just be a magical artifact that's not without precedence.

The Soft Tissue is clearly Fennel's, mostly because she's really the only Esselin Nun who would have reason to hide away her prayer gear. I'm not really sure how this would be used though. I looked up Liturgy and it's a "customary public worship performed by a specific religious group, according to its particular beliefs, customs and traditions." so...I imagine she uses it to wash her face and hands and that's something the Esselin faith does? Or something? Either way it's a neat item with a lot of sadness attached, so I'm glad we could give her sister some closure. And yet...well, we'll see.

[Qwertystop]

In the room where you couldn't find a secret, you didn't hit the wall just past the crumbling blocks (bottom step). Also didn't try hitting/dropping through the ramp? There's room for three or four distinct spaces large enough to walk through as not-a-cat there.

Maybe if you talk to the cake-guy as not-a-cat?

No new munny missed.

[huttj509]

Secret: Below the ramp in the lower right was a bug. I barely spotted it during your search. Not obvious.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

And now we have morph cat ball.


The Death Toll
Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3: 3
Episode 4: 3
Episode 5: 1
Episode 6: 2
Episode 7: 4
Episode 8: 2
TOTAL: 16

[LaZodiac]

In the room where you couldn't find a secret, you didn't hit the wall just past the crumbling blocks (bottom step). Also didn't try hitting/dropping through the ramp? There's room for three or four distinct spaces large enough to walk through as not-a-cat there.

Maybe if you talk to the cake-guy as not-a-cat?

No new munny missed.

I'll try that out, the talking to him as not a cat, but I'm thinking it won't do anything.


Secret: Below the ramp in the lower right was a bug. I barely spotted it during your search. Not obvious.

Thanks to you (and Qwerty above) I've got it. It'll just...take awhile to show up in video >_>


And now we have morph cat ball.


The Death Toll
Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3: 3
Episode 4: 3
Episode 5: 1
Episode 6: 2
Episode 7: 4
Episode 8: 2
TOTAL: 16

Cat ball is always our friend, regardless of what La-Mulana tries to teach us.

[Lethologica]

There's also the secret in the room transitioning between the forest and Frore Ciele.

I like your teasing in the write-up. :smallamused:

[Lord Raziere]

......

No, I don't recall anything Homestuck related to the cake guy.....he doesn't look like any character from there in particular.....

the other thing I can think of it being is some weird Portal reference? but that can't be right, because there is nothing about it being a lie.

.......I'm stumped, LET US CONSULT, THE WEB:

*MAGICAL DIVINATORY NOISES*

.............I SAD TO ANNOUNCE, THAT THE GOOGLENETS HAVE FAILED ME.

there are no wikis for it, and while there are apparently guides for the game, they don't tell me anything useful about the cake guy

I'm sorry, but this game is too Indie for anything useful to be gleaned. If its referencing something, its so obscure that no one will ever get it. Either that, or its just some random thing they put in to either screw with our heads or just some random baker who got corrupted, because there is no cake items on the guides so its not a quest....

....yeah given that the nets have turned up absolutely NOTHING about this, I'd say to not worry about it, cake guy doesn't seem important. you could try talking to him as not-cat, but even if the dialogue is different, I doubt it'll change much.

[Lethologica]

Steam Community threads say cake-girl doesn't do anything. She's a nod to one of the designers? I don't remember precisely.

[Coidzor]

Damn, I thought I had got it good, everyone was satisfied with the length up till now and it was all standardized and everything. I'll try extending the length though...in an episode or two I tend to make multiple episodes at a time.

I'm glad you like it though!

Maybe some length of time per line. Maybe just... longer for boss fights. Not sure, but I agree that during the last two boss fights, the subtitles did seem to go by a little fast, though I imagine it's more because of the frenetic action and divided attention thing. Tricky stuff, though. :/


hm, so clearly this some all-pervasive super-curse is ravaging the entire world. its effects though, seem to be many and varied: did Fennel simply go insane from the survival horror scenario she is in, or did the curse twist her mind?

Nah, it's not all-pervasive, it's still spreading. So more like an ever-growing cloud expanding outward than an omnipresent evil.


in some other ways, the curse raises the dead from the grave, but doesn't make them weaponry for evil conquest, so why even do it? is it just a side-effect? or does it vary on some factor? and why did the man get brought back but not his wife? did he possess or lack some trait that allowed him to be affected but not her?

Well, he was apparently revived in or near a sacred grove, so that might have something to do with it. Or his body was never properly seen to, but was long dead, rather than corrupted into an undeath-like state from being fully alive or infused with the curse as a recently deceased corpse.

Or the curse is higgedly-piggedly.


was the destroying of that Bell a moment of enemy smartness/genre saviness, or just bad fortune?

I'd say enemy action unrelated to any awareness of some crazy priestess pulling a Kaho. But we'll see if the enemy shows evidence of more organization/direction/will than just wanting to encroach on everything.


ok, so Frida clearly proves that the curse is twisting living animals into warped monsters that can make more of themselves, so corruption and raising the dead. possibly just demons, monsters whole cloth. and the park says plants are twisted.....so why isn't Kaho being corrupted, despite being SURROUNDED by all this? Holiness? probably. because the curse just seems to corrupt everything, perhaps the undeath is just a subset of corruption in this case...

I'd argue that timescale is more relevant. It clearly doesn't work super fast, given that there are survivors in the city for her to meet that aren't just like Askorn and Femme-Child-Sans. Sansa, if you will.


clearly the Queen is behind this as people keep saying, but why? why unleash an all-corrupting curse capable of spreading like a plague through everything across the entire world? why unleash this? hm.

She made a deal with Slaanesh for eternal youth and beauty and hedonism, but it was really Tzeentch pretending to be Horned Rat and so everything went just as planned and got twisted and fouled up and also there's a curse plague for the lulls. Naturally Nurgle started butting his fat butt into things and Khorne got involved as soon as the fur started flying. Because Khorne.

Or something.


Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [8] Paramol (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgdJghXF7qs)

Video Length: 13:52

ZA CATHOLE! And appropriately enough, the first enemy is a nekomaidmi.

Holy crap. I think that's the first time I've seen one of those statues move.

And a cake creature that's attackable. And has to be attacked in order to get it to speak. How kooky.

The most adorable hurt kitty noise.

Za Gato Sphereudo.

Nothing to see here, just an ununused boss arena far below where you ended up after you passed out. XD

Alas, 'tis a dead-end not even a kaholico cat can solve.

Bellflowers actually make a lot of sense as a reward from a gardener lady.

Oh mai, the Pardoner's Older Sister. The sister of the one we murdered the hell out of before she could murder the hell out of us...

And she hardly seems axe-crazy at all.

So you're saying... she's a Kaho-eyed Cat, eh?

Healing zone, eh? Interesting. Wonder how on earth such a room got there, though.

Good guy Kaho gives up item without even really getting to use it.

Aaaaand she's gone. XD

And now we're going through some kind of fog-door/hell-gate lovechild thing into a spoopy spirit world forest.

Neat. Really makes me think of Guacamelee now.

And Kaho is all translucent at times, like she's a Spiritual Realm Link or something.

Hmm, that poison seed dropper's stuff looks a bit like icicle bombs

And final crest get. Noooow to figure out how to get back with it out of the frozen layer of folded abyssal time stuff.


The Cat Sphere is seemingly just some random orb with magic powers. It's strange, but I imagine the truth of the matter is that it's a sphere that just traps and reverses the power of curses and that's why it lets us change to and from at form. I imagine Lubella made it since it's never a good idea to make uncurable curses, but it could just be a magical artifact that's not without precedence.

In my mind, it's actually just a crystallized ball of yarn that lets you store and retrieve cattishness. :smallamused:


The Soft Tissue is clearly Fennel's, mostly because she's really the only Esselin Nun who would have reason to hide away her prayer gear. I'm not really sure how this would be used though. I looked up Liturgy and it's a "customary public worship performed by a specific religious group, according to its particular beliefs, customs and traditions." so...I imagine she uses it to wash her face and hands and that's something the Esselin faith does? Or something? Either way it's a neat item with a lot of sadness attached, so I'm glad we could give her sister some closure. And yet...well, we'll see.

Possibly some kind of mis-translation of veil. Possibly part of ritual purification and cleaning, yeah.

[LaZodiac]

It's time for Moremodora!

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [9] Liz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R2V8O1pD1M)

Video Length: 13:07

Picking up where we left off last time, we get the Vitality fragment WITHOUT exploding our face on spikes. Hooray! It's actually a pretty tricky area, especially considering the visual distortion on everything. But we get the fragment without much trouble. Returning back to the Grove, we double back to the area we couldn't get to due to the barrier to pick up another Ivory Bug. Now it's time to explore some more, because the Sacred Grove actually has a fair share of stuff we missed on our first pass through! Including a single little map square that shows off the boat we apparently used to get here. Cool! For the most part it's just Vitality fragments though. We also go meet that rude Imp again, but she's still rude. However...in the Subterranean Graves in a cat only path, we can find a dirty mushroom. Giving it to the Imp makes her our friend, and in return we get a Rotten Bellflower. Using it poisons you, so...arguably useless even with the Vile of Impurity, but still kind of nice to have as desperation healing. However! It does come with something else: an achievement! This is one of the things you have to do to unlock one of the secret achievements of the game. Sadly, due to a weird glitch with the game, since I had steam overlay turned off I legit just didn't get it. Oops! Guess I'll have to play the game again oh no I'm so sad.

We also buy the Necklace of Sacrifice. I you're at around 10% health left, it'll boost your attack by 100%! This is quite powerful and it stacks with other things so uh...I'll be showing it off later. I think it's just a tad too powerful for regular play, at least for the purposes of my LP thing. I will be showing off how it works in the eventual bonus video I do to show off items I missed and other things. So keep your eyes open for that! But that all aside, lets head off to our next area. We have all the Crest fragments, so it's time...to enter Karst Castle!

Except not really. We've still got a ways to go. Between us and the castle is the Royal Pinachotheca, a former art gallery turned spawning ground for Frida's children, her eggs scattered about and clinging to things. And right at the entrance is another cat girl, like that person talking about cakes! This one is a bit more coherent, if exceptionally rude. Saying we're going to die, that we're doomed, and that her name is Nutmeg Liz. You're the one giving me creeps, lady! Ah well, we must move ever forward. Immediately we're faced with a new enemy that will be plaguing us for quite awhile, the Skeleton Soldier! These former knights of Karst wield massive clubs that do INTENSE damage and knock back. Do NOT get hit by them, at any cost. There are also weaker Skeleton Archers, who instead of using Archery instead spit balls of magic. I guess they could be wizards, but I mean they still look like the soldiers and it WAS mentioned that Karst has a bunch of archers to supplement it's knights, so maybe this is jut what archery is like for the undead. We also find some of Frida's Children, creepy bird babies that make noises and jump at you to attack. They're a little finicky to deal with, but they're also fairly weak so it's okay.

Moving on a bit, and I'd just like to say the Royal Art Gallery is super fantastic looking. It's wallpaper is chintzy but fits, there are paintings everywhere, and it just looks great. I kind of want to visit this place, once all the evil curses and stuff are gone. We eventually find a rusted old door, but the power of being a cat lets us sneak through an underground passage to meet two survivors! A dude and a lady, discussing the past, present, and future. We interrupt, but they're glad to see other people are alive. They talk about how this once beautiful art gallery is corrupted, and about how death could come at any moment. So we have to make life count.

In a hidden room next to the survivors, we find a bunch of open treasure chests and a torn painting, presumably of the Queen, I think. We also find a music box, and for the life of me I cannot recall what this song is from. I know I know it, I just don't know where. We listen to the tune, a little sad in it's tone, and with that I'll leave you for today. Next time, we explore this doomed building further.

------

Items! Lets talk about them!

The Necklace of Sacrifice fascinates me. It's a little charm, basically, worn around the neck. It's "of Sacrifice" but the description says it's strange blessing helps with the recovering of what was lost. I kind of like the symbolism here, an item that encourages you to sacrifice parts of yourself to regain what is truly important.

The Dirty Shroom...lets not talk about it. I'm almost 100% sure anything I have to say on this is just me reading WAY too much into an innocent little trading item. I'm the worst.

While the Rotten Bellflower is not inherently interesting on it's own, it's description is worth a look at. The King of Karst loved these flowers, with the implication being the rotten ones specifically. I suppose that in part explains why the Queen has done what she did, hubby's kind of a dummy. I do also find it neat that apparently his true, baptismal name is kept hidden as if it's some kind of good luck charm. It helps develop the Esselin religion some more, the idea that perhaps telling people your true name causes misfortune.

[Lethologica]

Gotta revisit the looooooooong ladder at some point.

[Coidzor]

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [9] Liz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R2V8O1pD1M)

Video Length: 13:07


hmm. I just realized. There's a bunch of crude stone statues, somewhat similar to those statue enemies from elsewhere, in the background at the start of this area.

Symbolic Significance? Or possibly just calcified souls of people? Hm hmm...

They do look an awfully lot like crowds or groups of people.

Oh, hey, you can go back through that thing instead of it being a one way thing.

Oh, hey, a warp. Neat!

CAT VS RADISHONI.

huh, tutorial messages are just part of the map. Interesting.

Also, I wonder why dude didn't take his canoe and go. Ominousness!

Screw bridges, air dash over gaps, woo!

Heh, ghost Kaho does a little dance over Kaholico cat to signify vitality get. Interesting visual effect, that.

Aww, not going to see how good your upgrades are against the giant radish oni? :smalltongue:

Imp girl knows that Kaho is not actually a cat. Mysteriousness~

And poison healing is slow. Go figure.

Oh mai, a necklace of hoping to retrieve what was lost.

Yep, that's certainly a dirty shroom, alright.

Well, there aren't any imp boys bouncing around, so, yeah...

SEAL BROKEN. just a little bit of seal

Oh dear, a catgirl at a desk while there's horrible monster eggs on the floors and ceilings.

And she's obiously gungho about the destruction of humanity.

Well, it was only a matter of time before the evil Askorns started coming out of the woodwork, I guess.

Seems a bit strange to only see Frida's horrifying monster children *after* killing her, and not at all beforehand or during that boss battle.

Huh, two people locked and having tea in a corner. And they've been stuck in there for months.

What a strange music box room. I wonder if the hidden passage to the room was always like that or if it's part of that whole corruption deal?

Hmm, I can't tell, are those plumes on their heads or weird ghostly flames hovering there for the skele-soldiers?


The Necklace of Sacrifice fascinates me. It's a little charm, basically, worn around the neck. It's "of Sacrifice" but the description says it's strange blessing helps with the recovering of what was lost. I kind of like the symbolism here, an item that encourages you to sacrifice parts of yourself to regain what is truly important.

Getting your murder on is what's most important in these sorts of games, aye. :smallamused:


The Dirty Shroom...lets not talk about it. I'm almost 100% sure anything I have to say on this is just me reading WAY too much into an innocent little trading item. I'm the worst.

You mean the devs are. :smalltongue:


While the Rotten Bellflower is not inherently interesting on it's own, it's description is worth a look at. The King of Karst loved these flowers, with the implication being the rotten ones specifically. I suppose that in part explains why the Queen has done what she did, hubby's kind of a dummy. I do also find it neat that apparently his true, baptismal name is kept hidden as if it's some kind of good luck charm. It helps develop the Esselin religion some more, the idea that perhaps telling people your true name causes misfortune.

I think it's more the Queen's dead dad and less the Queen's husband.

[Qwertystop]

No munny missed, count remains at 38.

Let's have a vote:
A: Zodi is reading too much into the shroom
B: It is definitely intentional
(I vote the latter)

[DataNinja]

Let's have a vote: Is Zodi reading too much into the shroom, or is it definitely intentional?
I vote yes.
Never let a programmer who's feeling contrary around an 'or' statement. :P

[Amidus Drexel]

Never let a programmer who's feeling contrary around an ambiguous 'or' statement. :P

There's no need to be redundant, but we can be more precise. :smalltongue: :smallamused:

[Qwertystop]

There's no need to be redundant, but we can be more precise. :smalltongue: :smallamused:

It was phrased as a vote, in a conversational context. It was not ambiguous taking that into account.

But, for the sake of getting you two to shush, I'm editing.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

And still ended up with one death, so Episode 2 remains the only episode without death.


The Death Toll
Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3: 3
Episode 4: 3
Episode 5: 1
Episode 6: 2
Episode 7: 4
Episode 8: 2
Episode 9: 1
TOTAL: 17

[LaZodiac]

It's time for some more Momodora again! Oh man!

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [10] Lupiar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA35c2U8VAA)

Video Length: 14:13

Starting off today, we explore more of the royal art gallery. This time we see the last three new enemies this area's got to offer, and really the last unique enemies in the game. From this point forward all enemy encounters are gonna be more of a unique mixture of old friends. But yes, the new enemies! The living paintings aren't THAT big of a deal, but they're here and they're quite rude, slowing trying to run into you. They're not that dangerous and actually fairly easy to tell if they're alive before they move (some even are paintings of Kaho) but they can still be tricky if other enemies are around. We also have the Trapdoor Bakman! They spring out of the ceiling and walls, throwing little orb blasts. They're basically just obstacles you can destroy, and they don't even give munny! Finally we've got the Big Bakblock. These are basically just regular Bakblocks only gigantic, in every way. Even from full health, with as much health as we DO have, they can almost one shot us. A well timed dodge and they won't even see you, though.

As we explore the area we find a Mimic, and he thinks he's so smart hiding with chests that when busted open spew out lots of munny. Good thing we have our Magnet Stone on, otherwise we may of lost a LOT of delicious sparkly currency. The Mimic has a bad day instead of us. We also see in another room...Yung Venus from Nuclear Throne. What are you doing here? I guess rdein isn't ashamed of putting in a reference here or there. Truth be told this is fine, and I like the picture. It just feels weird to have this be front and center like this, instead of like...in a hidden area. Speaking of hidden things, we also find a red skull. It's a rudeboy that laughs at us and I don't know what it does. Does anyone know what it does, if anything?

This area's also got a new shop, so lets see what the little skeleton girl has to sell us today. We've got the Violet Sprite, which lets us cast a magic spell that puts dark magic orbs around us as a sort of protective offensive shield. We've got Quick Arrows, that basically turn our bow into a Hitscan weapon, no travel distance required. Finally, we have probably the most important item here, the Pocket Incensory. Now, minor spoilers, but this is actually a perfect clear item for the Heretical Arsonist. However it's also buyable here for 2000 munny. I don't buy it here, so I'll be talking about what it does later. It's QUITE good though. Later on we also find the Black Sachet, another piece of the danger mode combo. What this item does is boost our attack power by I believe 100%, but makes it so that every so often, our attack will drain life from us regardless of hitting or not. VERY dangerous. But also potentially very powerful. I'll be showing it off later. I do find it interesting that this is the only item that doesn't give you hard numbers...perhaps the danger involved with it is part of the reason why?

This area's got a weird sort of loop de loop feel to it. The shortcuts all lead to the same hallway that goes to the save point, with the way you GET to those shortcut entrances being a fairly roundabout path. It's weird, but also sort of fits. This IS an art gallery after all, you can either walk straight to the exit if you'd like, or you can meander about and look at all the pretty pictures. It's for the best since it allows us to build up our munny, as well as find more ivory bugs. They're quite well hidden! Eventually however, our time here ends (for the most part I'm still missing a thing that I'll show off next time) and we reach the exit...and at the exit, a boss!

Or rather, two bosses! In Dark Souls, there is a boss fight where you fight two royal knights, Ornstein and Smough. Say hello to the adorable anime girl version of that! Duchess Lupiar and Royal Huntress Magnolia. These two faithful knights of the Queen are here to stop us, no matter the cost. Lupiar is the mighty warrior in iron, and damn if she isn't durable. She takes quite a lot of damage to take down, dishes out a huge amount of damage with her uppercuts and forward punches (her hands becoming almost demonic in doing them) and her ground pound attack will almost one shot us, with the orbs it flings up being quite powerful as well. Even her dodging into us hurts! We're at a disadvantage here, our arrows bounce off no matter what! We're also at a disadvantage because Magnolia is supporting Lupiar from the rafters, alternating shooting an explosive arrow, and shooting rapid fire arrows. This is a really tough fight!

After Lupiar is down, the Huntress jumps down to fight us. She's not using her bow, probably because we'd just leave or tear her to pieces if she tried to use her bow in melee combat. Magnolia is probably as fragile as Lupiar is tanky, and it shows. Her only real attacks are stabbing with a poison dagger and doing an explosive ninja vanish. These two attacks HURT, mind you, but for the most part they're easy to avoid. For the most part.

So yeah, I got bested by Magnolia. Next time however...next time, we'll take em out! Hope to see you guys then.

------

Let's talk about items. We got quite a few, actually.

The Violet Sprite, while not suuuper useful mechanically, seems quite neat. It's some kind of weird curse material that lets us invoke magic that feels like the same magic the Witches use. Given what the item description says, that's not a surprise. Cursed between life and unlife, horrifying shades cursed by the power of a void unimaginable.

Much like the Drill Arrows, the Quick Arrows are just a fighting style/equipment of the Karst Archery. These ones must of been pretty accurate, designed for sniping, whereas the Drill ones were probably for ground infantry fighting armored foes.

The Black Sachet, filled with maddening perfume. It makes us stronger, but it'll slowly kill us if we're not careful. A dangerous item to be sure, and finding it here is quite interesting. With the Violet Sprite in this area, it seems the closer we get to the source of the curse the more darkness we find.

[DataNinja]

I'm just wanting to say, I'm really enjoying the boss themes in this game. They all seem distinct, and tell you something about the boss you're facing.

[randman22222]

Those little burgundy guys, I'll call then Noot Sprites, look annoying. Also there were several skeletons that had their back turned, and with their somber expressions, I can't help but feel you're being cruel to them. :P

[Lethologica]

(some even are paintings of Kaho)
*shivers*


Later on we also find the Black Sachet, another piece of the danger mode combo. What this item does is boost our attack power by I believe 100%, but makes it so that every so often, our attack will drain life from us regardless of hitting or not. VERY dangerous. But also potentially very powerful. I'll be showing it off later. I do find it interesting that this is the only item that doesn't give you hard numbers...perhaps the danger involved with it is part of the reason why?
This item annoyed me so much. It locks you out of boss items while also making it so you basically have to perfect-clear the boss anyway. (Also, I like my bow, and I suspect a rapid attack that does less damage is probably not the ideal companion for this item.)

[ShneekeyTheLost]

*sighs and shakes his head slowly* Zodi... yer killin' me here. Or rather killin' yerself.


The Death Toll
Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3: 3
Episode 4: 3
Episode 5: 1
Episode 6: 2
Episode 7: 4
Episode 8: 2
Episode 9: 1
Episode 10: 1
TOTAL: 18

[LaZodiac]

*sighs and shakes his head slowly* Zodi... yer killin' me here. Or rather killin' yerself.

Oh this quote is going to come back to bite me in the future. I can just taste it.

[LaZodiac]

Onward, to Momodora!

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [11] Magnolia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxnRJDDTYrY)

Video Length: 19:16

Starting off this episode, we take a brief detour from the boss to check out the upper area that we missed last time! It's actually quite important that we do this, too. For exploring this area we get a familiar looking green block, the Sealed Wind! Offensively this isn't the best, creating a small vortex of wind and leaves that does minor damage occasionally to enemies that walk into it. But the offensive strength of the Sealed Wind isn't the important part. Bringing this aaaall the way back to Karst City, to that windmill, lets us open up a special area. Inside is a nice, steamy water that the game calls Hibisco Tea. Presumably based on Hibiscus tea, dipping our maple leaf into it gives us the Fresh Springleaf! Our leaf is now much stronger, with a sharper edge and cool green colour. I'll miss the red look of it, but this is still quite fancy. It even changes our "now saving" icon!

Returning to Lupiar and Magnolia, we easily take them down with our upgraded weapon. Magnolia leaves us with chilling words, that she believes we've gone mad, and that the Queen would never hurt them. They both die, and we move on, our heart heavy. We know what we must do. We go past her, and enter Castle Karst for real. The road leading up to it is covered with beautiful white flowers, curse energy flying up into the sky like pollen as we go through it. It's very beautiful. The drawbridge is up so we've gotta sneak in through the sewer. The area is occasionally dark and damp, and it's throwing any enemy the game chooses at us. We've even got a lot of traps to deal with. We're in the final stretch.

Fighting our way through the sewer, we finally get to the entrance proper and drop the drawbridge. We also find a rather rude person cursed to look like a cat. Talking with her reveals...Kaho was sent here as sacrifice, in an attempt to stop the curse from spreading. Our black dress is a symbol of this, showing that Lun has a...lets say habit of sacrificing maidens. Those who've played the other games might find this funny. The cat simply laughs at us, for making it so far just to fated to die, on something that might not even work. Rude cat aside, we push onward!

Karst Castle has, unsurprisingly, a very imposing castle feel to it. It's huge and blocky and imposing, just as a final area should be. Full of enemies in unique combinations, traps and platforming challenges to make it more exciting. This place is fantastic. Sometimes the game tricks you with a chest that has nothing, sometimes it rewards you with a chest that has a huge amount of munny. There are ivory bugs hidden in some pretty devious places, and over all this area has a feeling of...lets say finality.

Around...lets say half the castle, we come across a sight. Cath, heavily wounded, her sword jammed in the ground. She asks us to end her suffering and...it's a tough choice, but I can't say no to this request. We pray that she pass on, and hoping we did well here. In "reward" for seeing our friend die, we get the Passiflora. It heals us for full health if used. So yeah, this scene is...hard to talk about. I really like how it's done. We know enough about Cath, we fought beside her, to feel that this is a clear loss. Her asking to be killed is sad, especially given we know what could happen to her if we don't due to the curse. Overall this is actually a really good moment, and one I won't forget.

We cut our way through the rest of the castle, heart heavy. We encounter a demon miniboss, a cute demon girl who fights by shooting orbs and creating clones. The one that lets out a red pulse when she attacks is the real one. You can also tell from her always flying slightly off sync with the others, and by the fact that the orb she fires flashes blue while the clones are pure white. If you hit a clone a swarm of birds flies at you, which is actually kind of funny. The demon is slain, and we push onward until we finally find that we're at the bell before the Queen.

Next time, after some clean up of the game to get 100%, we'll be finishing this. The Queen of Karst must be defeated. See you guys then.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

That's an interesting secret upgrade to your melee weapon that isn't really hinted at anywhere. So far, this has been a really decent metroidvania-esque game with creepy undertones.


The Death Toll
Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3: 3
Episode 4: 3
Episode 5: 1
Episode 6: 2
Episode 7: 4
Episode 8: 2
Episode 9: 1
Episode 10: 1
Episode 11: 2
TOTAL: 20

[DataNinja]

I find the music - or lack thereof - in Karst Castle an interesting choice. There's only the hint of atmospheric undertones, and I think it works here. In the heart of the curse, there is only the noise you bring yourself.

[Qwertystop]

Hang on, that's a new enemy, isn't it? In the sewers.

I wonder what the cat would have said if you were a cat the first time you talked to him?

Neat how those orange blocks at 15:10 keep being a hazard after they die. I mean, I know they all do - but these ones landed somewhere that it actually matters if you're not careful.

No new munny missed, count remains at 38.

[LaZodiac]

Hang on, that's a new enemy, isn't it? In the sewers.

I wonder what the cat would have said if you were a cat the first time you talked to him?

Neat how those orange blocks at 15:10 keep being a hazard after they die. I mean, I know they all do - but these ones landed somewhere that it actually matters if you're not careful.

No new munny missed, count remains at 38.

I don't believe so no, we've seen those cannon beetles before.

The dialogue doesn't change, sadly.

[Lethologica]

I didn't have the patience to figure out the pattern with the demon girl. I just jumped at a random one like a hyperactive rodent (or, well, feline, since I stayed in cat form a lot) and then waited for the next set of doubles. I also had to take the mage elevator three times because I accidentally stepped on the pad again after reaching the top. So, y'know, A+ gaming technique. :smallbiggrin:

[LaZodiac]

It's time my friends. We must embrace our fate.

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [12] Queen Karst (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4tPxa8OzO0)

Video Length: 16:39

Starting off today, we collect the final vitality fragment. Like all other hidden paths this is actually visible on the map which is how I found it, but damn if it's not tricky to find! This is another achievement, but since I've got the Steam Overlay off it doesn't activate, again. However, this achievement will "auto trigger" if you have max health, if you turn Steam Overlay back on. The map completion achievement does the same. They're the only achievements that do that, sadly. If you miss the triggers for the others, you've gotta play the game again. I know right, such a sad fate. I bemoan it so.

Anyway, as I said in video, this recording session was quite a thing! I actually cobbled this video together from the final extra footage I had from video 11 and all of what I intended for 12...and then had to record some more anyway. I had around an hour or so of footage and by the time I finished cutting it down I had 7 minutes of footage! So yeah, that's another problem with blind recording a Metvania style game. You're going to Get Lost and have basically no footage if you do things wrong. But I got it, don't worry.

So, after getting that final vitality fragment, it's time to explore. We have two Ivory Bugs left to collect and this'll take me over an hour to find! Thankfully, I very quickly find something for more interesting. That door in the large ladder room is open...and inside we find Archpriestess Choir, Fennel's sister. We had given her the little tissue Fennel used, and now she's here in prayer. We arrive...and it seems she too has started to go mad. And thus, we have to fight. She is the bonus/optional boss fight of this game, and it SHOWS. She is quite fierce and does not let up for a second, with multiple attacks. She can fire out four orbs that burst out, and then home in on you briefly. She does this the most often. She can also create a shield of bubbles around her, that she can detonate as explosives or consume to let out a torrent of orbs.

At half health she floats to the middle of the room and starts praying. She keeps her four homing orbs, but they're a little faster and more dangerous. She can also summon four smaller orbs that home in on you slightly. She releases a wave of bubble magic seemingly at random that you need to dodge roll through while avoiding her other attacks, and she can make magical blasts rain from the ceiling. It's quite hectic, but she's stationary and not shielding herself anymore. Once she gets closer to death her attacks all increase in speed, and also become a bit wobbly or wild. This is best shown by her bubble wave, which no longer is a perfect circle but instead heavily concentrated in one direction, typically yours. Still gotta dodge through it, though sometimes no bubbles will go your way. During this phase she starts praying to Saint Esselin, asking for the power to get through this. Unfortunately for her...it doesn't help. Choir has a fit so hard she explodes into bubbles as she slowly dies, and we must simply move on.

It's...quite sad that this is Choir's fate. We could leave her alive, but it doesn't really change anything. We do get an achievement for this, and if we perfect fight her we would of gotten the tissue back...but changed by it being bloodstained. I'll be talking about that later though. Instead, we've gotta get those last Ivory Bugs! The two places I'm missing Ivory Bugs are very silly (I'm not counting the one in the cat zone). The first one is a room with like THREEEEE secrets in it so I can't blame me. The second one explicitly had the ring of candor ring when I went in it the half dozen times I went here and I neeever noticed. So that's all on me. Our reward for all of these is a useless trinket called the Hazel Badge, and some more Passeflora's. Definitely worth it, I think. We trigger the achievement for every bug collected after getting the Passeflora, by the way. While we're in the Park we also check up on Askorn and uh...seem's he's removed his cloak and put it on his wife's grave, along with some flowers. A sad end for a poor skeleton man.

Now...I said the Hazel Badge was useless. Not quite. You see, if we bring it to Eri, she gives us a thing. The thing she gives us is the Blessing Charm, which is quite a useful item. It lets out a stronger, holier version of the Violet Sprite magic, with more orbs surrounding you then with the Violet Sprite. However...what really hits me is the flavor. This is a sacred crest given to the royals of Karst. That means that uh...Eri is a princess. This is quite fascinating, and the one time I'll really dive indeptly into the lore of other games. In Momo2 and 3 it's talked about how it's a tradition for Karstian princesses to run away to Lum. Here we see the origin of this tradition; made from the desperate runaway Princess Eri, trying to escape her mad Queen mother and the destruction of their city. That a silly little tradition could be born from such a sad moment is a nice touch that I like. I won't talk about it but Edea's kind of responsible for something like this as well, her statue like corpse looking quit somber, sad, perhaps even nurturing to those who don't know what she really is.

We then cut back to Karst Castle, just outside the final boss. First I want to show off the last two items we can buy in this game, the Dull Pearl and the Pocket Incensory. The Dull Pearl is a weaker version of an item we can get from perfect killing Edea, and we can just GET the Pocket Incensory from perfecting the Arsonist fight. The Dull Pearl makes our arrows spew out a little bit of poison, and the Pocket Incensory makes all of our attacks slightly stronger, and feature more knock back and higher stagger rate. It's INCREDIBLY useful in that sense, and I'll be using it against the Queen here. So...after showing it off, lets do it. All hail the Queen.

The Accursed Queen of Karst, the final boss. We are here at least. Her crown is topped with a corrupted looking version of the Blessing Charm, as is all of her magic. It's a small touch that I absolutely love. In combat she fires a blast of magic out, aimed at where you are. It then explodes in a series of triangles. After that she'll zoom off screen, and you've got to be ducking to make sure you avoid this, because something this boss is fully capable of doing is cheap shooting you with her speedy warps away. She's physically moving, and it DOES cause contact damage. So ducking is important...or being a cat, which lets you hit her as well as avoid her dash. Nice! She can also turn into triangles and cover all but one corner of the arena with attacks. You can dodge through it or wait in the corner, but be warned that she always follows this up by zooming into the floor, so be careful getting out of the corner. Her final attack in this phase is to go to the upper center of the room and sent out three triangles that just kinda serve as distractions. All in all, an easy first phase.

Once you've cut her down, she'll get quite angry and start covering herself in triangles. She has the same basic strategy here, but she adds in some new attacks as well as new additions to her attacks. Whenever she dashes into the ground it causes some orbs to explode up from the ground, which can make dodging this move even trickier. Her triangles explode a little better too. Her two new attacks is getting in the upper middle of the room again, and letting out a heavy stream of triangles that swirl around, the only safe spot being directly below her. With the Blessing Charm we can still keep up some damage though. Her second attack is to create a giant explosion around her, that also shields her from all harm for it's duration. This is definitely the hardest part of the fight, but we can do it.

One more life bar down, and it's time for the third form. The Queen has taken a far more demonic form! She has four attacks in this phase, and they always go the same order. First she fires too triangles to the side that cause a massive explosion. Stick to the center and hit her. Her second attack is to shoot a very fast aimed explosive shot at you, which causes orbs to explode up from the ground if it hits the ground. Sadly, this move is just actually tricky to dodge, and it stopped my perfect run on her. Womp womp. Her third move is to blast some orbs out from the ground beneath her, which is quite tricky to time if you're mid combo on her. Finally, she fires off a rapid fire attack that is aimed at you, but easier to dodge than the other aimed attack. And that's all she has. She's pretty easy, but it's also hectic a fight and she does quite a lot of damage. Finally, however, we take her down!

Because we have the Fresh Spring Leaf, we get the good ending. The Queen's broken body lays on the floor, and Kaho performs the rites. She prayers, and takes the source of the curse inside of her. Kaho dies, fading away, and taking the curse with her. The Queen is alive, and Karst will continue to thrive...and the land of Lum will name the expanse between them Kaho. Her spirit lives on.

And that was Momodora, Reverie Under the Moonlight. This has been a fantastic game, and as far as blind runs go I'd say this was an unmitigated success. You guys loved it, and I loved it. The gameplay was solid as hell, the bosses and enemies were all great, the art direction in game was stunning. The writing was even quite good, if simple. At the end of the day, as dark and forboding as the atmosphere of this game is...it was all good.

That being said, this is not the end for you, viewer. New time, we'll be showing off the items I missed, showing off the power of Danger Mode, and showing off the two last secrets this game has. I'll see you guys there.
------

Let's look at those items, shall we?

Aah the Hazel Badge. Worthless except for trading to Eri, but then sentimental value is far more relevant, I suppose. Believe it or not this item shows up in other Momo games. That'll be all I say on that matter though, and I said enough about Eri above.

The Blessing Charm is quite a fascinating weapon. IT does what the Violet Sprite does but better, and clearly more holy in aspect due to it's being gold and white vs the purple and red of the curse. It sort of hints at how the Queen likely tapped into this darker power that started the curse, and it's quite nice. And, of course, it reveals that Eri is the Princess of Karst. What a thing!

The Dull Pearl isn't that interesting, if only because it's literally a fake pearl made by someone trying to emulate Edea's pearl. I do find it interesting that they (almost) succeeded in creating it though! Good for you garden wizard.

The Pocket Incensory isn't all thaaat fancy. It's just a portable censer used by the Church. Of course the Arsonist and the fire witches probably used this stuff to start burning everything, and that's why they were exiled to the burnt up Cinder Chambers. Kaho, being a western shrine maiden, has no idea what this thing is and uses it to hit fire at people. Kinda like it.

[Qwertystop]

Choir reminds me even more of Touhou.

Munny missed: 1
Total munny missed: 39.
Much better than any of the Zelda games, there.

You'd best add both of these to the death toll, Shneekey!

[Lethologica]

I wonder what the implications of letting Choir live are for both good and bad endings. If you have the good ending, maybe she's cleansed too--or maybe the cleansed Queen (or Eri) has to deal with this misguided and twisted fanatic herself? If you have the bad ending, maybe Choir takes over where the queen left off? Not that the ending crawl would mention those things, of course.

Eri as princess adds a new level of felt guilt/responsibility to her shame-faced apology in the grove. It strikes me that we've flipped the usual directions--the eastern-themed Lun is in the west and the western-themed Karst in the east. Of course, this makes sense for a 2d scroller, since they're usually left-to-right.

The significance of the Hazel Badge to Eri remains unclear. Maybe the gardener bunny was a close friend before the curse took hold.

Would you say that the Dull Pearl is a dull item? *ducks*

Interesting that the good ending doesn't mention Kaho is the high priestess of Lun.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Choir reminds me even more of Touhou.

Munny missed: 1
Total munny missed: 39.
Much better than any of the Zelda games, there.

You'd best add both of these to the death toll, Shneekey!

Add both of what?

Speaking of which:


The Death Toll
Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3: 3
Episode 4: 3
Episode 5: 1
Episode 6: 2
Episode 7: 4
Episode 8: 2
Episode 9: 1
Episode 10: 1
Episode 11: 2
Episode 12: 2
TOTAL: 22

[Reddish Mage]

Such a sad ending. I want to see the bad ending now!

I kept reading "Hazel Bagel." Now I'm hungry.

EDIT: I peeked at the bad ending. Its really nothing...still hungry.

[Coidzor]

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [11] Magnolia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxnRJDDTYrY)

Starting off this episode, we take a brief detour from the boss to check out the upper area that we missed last time! It's actually quite important that we do this, too. For exploring this area we get a familiar looking green block, the Sealed Wind! Offensively this isn't the best, creating a small vortex of wind and leaves that does minor damage occasionally to enemies that walk into it. But the offensive strength of the Sealed Wind isn't the important part. Bringing this aaaall the way back to Karst City, to that windmill, lets us open up a special area. Inside is a nice, steamy water that the game calls Hibisco Tea. Presumably based on Hibiscus tea, dipping our maple leaf into it gives us the Fresh Springleaf! Our leaf is now much stronger, with a sharper edge and cool green colour. I'll miss the red look of it, but this is still quite fancy. It even changes our "now saving" icon!

All I can say about this episode is that you cannot convince me that a box of sealed wind isn't something vulgar. :smalltongue:

And that I'm almost sad that the orange bakablocks *don't* reverse direction or continue chasing kaho if she gets in their line of sight.

And that Magnolia's hunched look of desperation at having to rely on a knife in a leaf and arrow fight is top-notch.


Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [12] Queen Karst (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4tPxa8OzO0)

Anyway, as I said in video, this recording session was quite a thing! I actually cobbled this video together from the final extra footage I had from video 11 and all of what I intended for 12...and then had to record some more anyway. I had around an hour or so of footage and by the time I finished cutting it down I had 7 minutes of footage! So yeah, that's another problem with blind recording a Metvania style game. You're going to Get Lost and have basically no footage if you do things wrong. But I got it, don't worry.

We're all glad you persevered. :smallsmile:


So, after getting that final vitality fragment, it's time to explore. We have two Ivory Bugs left to collect and this'll take me over an hour to find! Thankfully, I very quickly find something for more interesting. That door in the large ladder room is open...and inside we find Archpriestess Choir, Fennel's sister. We had given her the little tissue Fennel used, and now she's here in prayer. We arrive...and it seems she too has started to go mad. And thus, we have to fight. She is the bonus/optional boss fight of this game, and it SHOWS. She is quite fierce and does not let up for a second, with multiple attacks. She can fire out four orbs that burst out, and then home in on you briefly. She does this the most often. She can also create a shield of bubbles around her, that she can detonate as explosives or consume to let out a torrent of orbs.

So I guess you shouldn't have given her that tissue, then, if it just means she goes crazy and needs to be put down. Ah well, like sister, like sister.

Though, it is interesting that unlike her sister, her loyalty is to the Queen rather than her faith.

But, given that she's an archpriestess and all, she's probably involved in all that tainted missive and church corruption and the queen corrupting the church leadership and turning it into something that didn't do its job anymore would be a great way to do the heresy and such game to lay the groundwork for the curse having even worse effect.


Choir has a fit so hard she explodes into bubbles as she slowly dies, and we must simply move on.

So what kind of death does that mean in-universe?


Now...I said the Hazel Badge was useless. Not quite. You see, if we bring it to Eri, she gives us a thing. The thing she gives us is the Blessing Charm, which is quite a useful item. It lets out a stronger, holier version of the Violet Sprite magic, with more orbs surrounding you then with the Violet Sprite. However...what really hits me is the flavor. This is a sacred crest given to the royals of Karst. That means that uh...Eri is a princess. This is quite fascinating, and the one time I'll really dive indeptly into the lore of other games. In Momo2 and 3 it's talked about how it's a tradition for Karstian princesses to run away to Lum. Here we see the origin of this tradition; made from the desperate runaway Princess Eri, trying to escape her mad Queen mother and the destruction of their city. That a silly little tradition could be born from such a sad moment is a nice touch that I like. I won't talk about it but Edea's kind of responsible for something like this as well, her statue like corpse looking quit somber, sad, perhaps even nurturing to those who don't know what she really is.

I suppose it was too good for it to be true for her to be an overgrown Imp Girl.


We then cut back to Karst Castle, just outside the final boss. First I want to show off the last two items we can buy in this game, the Dull Pearl and the Pocket Incensory. The Dull Pearl is a weaker version of an item we can get from perfect killing Edea, and we can just GET the Pocket Incensory from perfecting the Arsonist fight. The Dull Pearl makes our arrows spew out a little bit of poison, and the Pocket Incensory makes all of our attacks slightly stronger, and feature more knock back and higher stagger rate. It's INCREDIBLY useful in that sense, and I'll be using it against the Queen here. So...after showing it off, lets do it. All hail the Queen.

Surprisingly little fanfare for being the final boss. And I'm still confused how you set a leaf weapon on fire with burning charcoal and incense and then hit people with it without consuming the leaf.


One more life bar down, and it's time for the third form. The Queen has taken a far more demonic form! She has four attacks in this phase, and they always go the same order. First she fires too triangles to the side that cause a massive explosion. Stick to the center and hit her. Her second attack is to shoot a very fast aimed explosive shot at you, which causes orbs to explode up from the ground if it hits the ground. Sadly, this move is just actually tricky to dodge, and it stopped my perfect run on her. Womp womp. Her third move is to blast some orbs out from the ground beneath her, which is quite tricky to time if you're mid combo on her. Finally, she fires off a rapid fire attack that is aimed at you, but easier to dodge than the other aimed attack. And that's all she has. She's pretty easy, but it's also hectic a fight and she does quite a lot of damage. Finally, however, we take her down!

Interesting how the queen's last form is a combination birdcage and royal robe/cloak. I wonder if it symbolizes that despite her immense power and starting all this crap, she was still cooped up in this tower instead of getting to actually enjoy whatever power comes from slowly damning your country and the world itself.


Because we have the Fresh Spring Leaf, we get the good ending. The Queen's broken body lays on the floor, and Kaho performs the rites. She prayers, and takes the source of the curse inside of her. Kaho dies, fading away, and taking the curse with her. The Queen is alive, and Karst will continue to thrive...and the land of Lum will name the expanse between them Kaho. Her spirit lives on.

Well, that's silly, letting the queen live like that. Though I suppose it is better to absorb the curse instead of letting it continue to spread and kill the world.

I'd have thought the queen's body was just twitching as she died properly in her own proper body instead of that magiced up vessel she'd been joyriding in.

[Qwertystop]

Add both of what?

Speaking of which:


The Death Toll
Episode 1: 1
Episode 2: 0
Episode 3: 3
Episode 4: 3
Episode 5: 1
Episode 6: 2
Episode 7: 4
Episode 8: 2
Episode 9: 1
Episode 10: 1
Episode 11: 2
Episode 12: 1
TOTAL: 21
There were two deaths. One against Choir, one at the end.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There were two deaths. One against Choir, one at the end.

Corrected. Thanks.

[LaZodiac]

So what kind of death does that mean in-universe?

Interesting how the queen's last form is a combination birdcage and royal robe/cloak. I wonder if it symbolizes that despite her immense power and starting all this crap, she was still cooped up in this tower instead of getting to actually enjoy whatever power comes from slowly damning your country and the world itself.

Well, that's silly, letting the queen live like that. Though I suppose it is better to absorb the curse instead of letting it continue to spread and kill the world.

It means she was full of bubbles.

Yeah. If you look at her human form after we're done the fight that bird cage motif is actually made from like, the wire of her big fancy dress that doesn't exist because it must of been torn off when she got cursed.

I think it's okay to let her live. Minor spoilers for the item you get for beating the final boss perfectly, but she was trying to do right by the world. She just...kinda cursed the entire world my mistake. Oops!


There were two deaths. One against Choir, one at the end.

I appreciate this attempt to add the one canon death to my death counter :smallwink:

[Lethologica]

Well, gosh, are we gonna count dying and being reborn as a cat as an extra death, then? :smallwink:

[LaZodiac]

Well, gosh, are we gonna count dying and being reborn as a cat as an extra death, then? :Smallwink:

That wasn't really a death, just us being knocked out. Pretty sure anyway.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, gosh, are we gonna count dying and being reborn as a cat as an extra death, then? :smallwink:

I already did :smallbiggrin:

[LaZodiac]

This is it my friends. The final Momodora.

Zodi Plays: Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight [13] [FINALE] rdein (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f-Lx1QGRA0)

Video Length: 7:02

In this episode we show off all the items I didn't get, due to either starting on Normal instead of Easy, due to not beating bosses without getting hit, and due to New Game Plus giving you one/two new items depending on if you perfect cleared the Queen of Karst. Before we take a look at them, let me go over some of my tips and strategies for getting perfect clears!

First of all, trust in your bow. It's much stronger to use your leaf, but it's also far more risky. Arrows are your friends. Do embrace Danger Mode, but doooon't go too hard on it. The weird programming thing about getting perfect clears is that your HP cannot change from what it was when the boss started. So use your tainted missive before activating the boss, don't risk the Black Sachet, and of ALL THINGS don't heal! Because healing changes your HP and thus invalidates you for the reward. That's a little silly. For ordering reasons I'd suggest taking on the Arsonist first. Her Crest Fragment gives you the air dash, which is invaluable. Then do Frida, as the quick charge for your bow will be quite useful. They're also two very easy bosses to defeat swiftly. Additionally, the Pocket Incensory you get from the Arsonist will make getting through the game and beating the bosses far far easier. Also, use Edea's Pearl but be aware of the risk of poisoning yourself.

With that said, lets detail the items we get from perfecting these bosses, shall we?

From Edea we get Edea's Pearl. Much like the Dull Pearl it grants poison ability to our arrows. However it's a much more effective poison, gushing out quite a lot of it whenever it hits. It's also far more compelling lore wise, talking about how Edea was exiled from her village. Also about how she was killed for good measure. But something in the forest changed her, and she became the demon we see today.

From our first encounter with Lubella and her little demon servant Moka, we get the Bakman Patch! It's...unclear what this actually is. My instinct is to say it's a selfie Moka took of himself but I'm really not sure. Whatever it is, it's apparently quite disgusting. By using it we channel magic for a bit before dropping Bakblocks down on the screen. Not SUPER strong, and it causes massive screen shake, but it can be useful.

From Fennel we get...two more Tainted Missives. Not the best reward given it is fairly hard to beat her perfectly, but it makes sense in universe. Especially since the thing you likely WOULD get from her is a hidden item that you need to give to Choir. Speaking of, from Choir we get that item back...but ruined. It becomes the Bloodstained Tissue, and it's tainted with Choir's blood. The lore says she was afraid of the Queen's power...like, the regal authority she had, not any actual POWER power, and thus worshipped Queen Karst like a goddess. Funny how that works. The Bloodstained Tissue is actually really good and summons a bunch of soapy orbs that radiate out to deal damage. Useful against the final boss!

From the Arsonist we get the Pocket Incensory, and though I've already basically talked about this before it's worth documenting here as well. It's a portable censory used by the Church, and misused by the Arsonist. I kind of wish the Arsonist had her own unique version like Edea does to the Dull Pearl. I feel like she might be Cath's sister, thus why she specifically seeks her out.

Poor Frida gives us the Sparse Thread, the last remnant of her ragged coat. By using it we make a short range explosion around us. It does quite a lot of damage and thus is worth the risk. The lore elaborates a bit more on what Frida actually is...and it turns out it's not quite clear. She was tossed away for being worthless and became corrupted by the curse. If I'm being honest I think this is a lady who was mushed together with her pet bird by the curse. It's pretty tragic.

Lubella's second shot at us is her last, and from it we get the Torn Branch. We smashed off one of her horns, and with it we've gained a way to heal via kills without losing out on cash. Not the best item for me at least since I'm either all dead instantly or able to make it to a save point before the healing would matter, but hey it's still nice. This also explains a bit more about what Lubella's deal is. She's literally a witch from the depths of Hell, who's infested the Park, making it her personal garden. It also notes that the Whiteleaf Park is "displaced" by the Queen's curse, so it's probably not meant to be where it is right now, or at the very least not meant to be connected to the areas it is. I think that's kind of funny, personally.

From Lupiar and Magnolia we get the Heavy Arrows, the final Archery of Karst. This one make our arrows quite large and makes them deal more damage. This is actually quite useful, making your arrows do around Maple Leaf level damage. Add that to other damage boosting items and you've got some good death range attacks. Lore wise it's not super compelling. Sadly Lupiar and Magnolia are the least touched upon characters in this game, and I wish we could learn more about them. I feel like the fight against them should count both halves of the fight as perfect clearable, have Lupiar give you a passive that lets your dodge rolls deal damage or something.

For starting a New Game Plus we get the Small Coin. A trophy to commemorate your beating of the game, which doesn't actually do anything. That being said, I feel there can be some importance given to it. Some cultures would give coins to the dead so they could pay the ferryman to take them to the afterlife. Kaho dies at the end of the game, sacrificing herself to seal away the curse. So now she has a coin. It's strangely fitting, I feel. But as the coin says it's a subjective thing.

Finally we have the Birthstone, which we get from perfect clearing the Queen of Karst. It's nothing special, just a trophy really, but it's still interesting. The lore description mentions that...the Queen did it all because she was trying to fix "both the living and unliving world" and that's quite an interesting thing. I suppose she got cursed by some sort of nasty dark thing from Hell, and that's why she is what she is. I'm glad we could save her, and I hope one day we can go to Hell and beat up whoever broke it.

And that's every item we get for perfect clearing the bosses. Quite nice. But we also get two items for starting a game on Easy mode!

The Adorned Ring, a special ring that increases invuln frames and just straight boosts defense! Nice! It's made from stone from the Green River, which I believe shows up in Momodora 3. I do not recall, but it's apparently quite a place if a little ring like this can be made from it and be this strong.

The Medal of Equivalence just straight up restores health over time. The effect is small, but quite good. It uh...invalidates perfect clearing boss fights due to how that works programming wise mind you. Lore wise it's held by messengers of Crominia, which is another place I feel I should recognize from the other Momo games but I don't. Either way, it's cool! An enchanted medal for long travels.

So, I mentioned Danger Mode. Let's talk about it, shall we? Danger Mode is made up of a few certain items. First, the Tainted Missive to boost your power by 100% straight out the gate. If you use three Tainted Missives in a row, while it doesn't stack, it does put you perfectly in range for the Necklace of Sacrifice to activate, boosting you by another 100%. With the Black Sachet on, you're also getting I believe a 200% increase in damage output, in exchange for potentially killing yourself. The Necklace is on when you see that Kaho gets a glowing red aura, and you know the Sachet is equipped from the curse magic that drips off your feet. Once you see all those effects mixed together, you're now in Danger Mode. You'll likely die in one hit. You'll likely kill yourself. But...well, look at the video. I show off the regular fight with Edea, using basically no damage boosts except for the Incensory. I also fight Edea in Danger Mode. You can tell the difference yourself.

Another secret to show off is the Blue Fairy Spell. We received a hint for this in the Royal Art Gallery, and I actually tried to do it then! I just did it a little too quickly for the game's purposes. But inputting up up down down left right, you summon a cute little blue fairy that summons holy pillars to crack the sky and deal damage to enemies. You can only do this once per save point refresh, and it's not SUPER good, but it's still useful! It's also a cute sort of reference. because (without spoiling it) the other Momodora games have little joke references to other video game codes like this in em, and it's always cute.

Finally, with that all said and done, there's one thing left to do. If you nudge yourself juuust enough, you can get the map square where you fight the Queen of Karst without ACTUALLY fighting her. Once you've got 100% map clear you can go back to that mysterious door and it'll open now! And inside we find...the developer room! It has cute little comments from rdein and his team, and it's adorable. Which really, is a fitting way to end Momdora.

So, my FINAL final thoughts on the game. Buy the hell out of it. Play it. Enjoy it. Get smushed by it's difficulty and then feel super cool because you managed to pull through and beat it. It's one of the best games I've ever played and I highly encourage you all to play it for yourselves!

Now then, plans for the future time. I'll be taking a weeeek off after this. Gotta sort some stuff. But I'll be coming back June 6th with the new series. As I typically go in my flow of things, we're going back to the Legend of Zelda series. So next time we see each other...it'll be "time" for Ocarina of Time. Hope you guys enjoyed this, and I'll see you there.

[Lethologica]

Bosses for which Drilling Arrows are useful:
Edea (hit the tail)
Frida (kill wolves)
Choir (hit her through the shield)
Queen form 2 (hit her through the explosion)

Haha, I forgot to use Tainted Missive for Danger Mode. I just went and bounced myself off of normal enemies to get low health. Silly me.

[DataNinja]

Well, that was a fun watch, thanks, Zodi! Especially since I'd have never heard of this game otherwise. :smallsmile:

[LaZodiac]

Bosses for which Drilling Arrows are useful:
Edea (hit the tail)
Frida (kill wolves)
Choir (hit her through the shield)
Queen form 2 (hit her through the explosion)

Haha, I forgot to use Tainted Missive for Danger Mode. I just went and bounced myself off of normal enemies to get low health. Silly me.

Not good against Lupiar though! As I've shown, they just...kinda pass through her. She cares not for arrows.


Well, that was a fun watch, thanks, Zodi! Especially since I'd have never heard of this game otherwise. :smallsmile:

Glad you enjoyed! Hope to see you around for the next game :smalltongue:

[Seerow]

What a beautiful little game.

Appreciated every minute of it. I'll probably never play it myself, but I never would have heard of it if not for this thread, so that's fair. Especially liked seeing the glimpse of danger mode, I feel like it might have been interesting seeing you perfect the bosses, but with your recording set up that may have been a lot of extra work on your part for relatively little gain.


And soon we dig into OoT, aka the childhood for everyone watching the Zelda plays who didn't instead get hooked by LttP.

[Lethologica]

It strikes me that in a different sort of game, Cath, Eri, Askorn, and possibly even Fennel or the witch's servant would become members of your Adventuring Party. There would be Romance Options. And Incidental Dialogue. Part of me wants these things. Part of me knows it's bloat, and also the gameplay would suck.


And soon we dig into OoT, aka the childhood for everyone watching the Zelda plays who didn't instead get hooked by LttP.
I'll be honest, that part of my childhood lasted about 15 minutes before I swapped in the Super Smash Bros disc instead. Still not sure why I haven't gone back to play OoT/MM, since I still have everything I need to play them.

[LaZodiac]

What a beautiful little game.

Appreciated every minute of it. I'll probably never play it myself, but I never would have heard of it if not for this thread, so that's fair. Especially liked seeing the glimpse of danger mode, I feel like it might have been interesting seeing you perfect the bosses, but with your recording set up that may have been a lot of extra work on your part for relatively little gain.


And soon we dig into OoT, aka the childhood for everyone watching the Zelda plays who didn't instead get hooked by LttP.

I can record a perfect fight against each boss and put it into a bonus video if you guys want, just realize it'll take a bit since I'd need to replay the game again (oh no so sad for me) and juggle work, recording the next LP, editing the next LP, and other stuff.


It strikes me that in a different sort of game, Cath, Eri, Askorn, and possibly even Fennel or the witch's servant would become members of your Adventuring Party. There would be Romance Options. And Incidental Dialogue. Part of me wants these things. Part of me knows it's bloat, and also the gameplay would suck.

I'll be honest, that part of my childhood lasted about 15 minutes before I swapped in the Super Smash Bros disc instead. Still not sure why I haven't gone back to play OoT/MM, since I still have everything I need to play them.

Yeah. Imagining how this game would be done if it was just...done differently, would be cool. I feel that it's like Dark Souls in that the lore is good while the narrative isn't suuuper good, but in this game's case it's got a better/clearer narrative in exchange for slightly less good overall lore/understanding of the world. But maybe that's just me.

I hope you like it. Ocarina of Time is pretty great, so it'll be fun to go through it again.

[Qwertystop]

Munny Missed in Final Episode:
1

Real Total Munny Missed:
40!
Nice and even. I wonder what the munny-rupee conversion rate is. Are we tracking non-Zelda games over the whole time as well as Zelda games?

[LaZodiac]

Munny Missed in Final Episode:
1

Real Total Munny Missed:
40!
Nice and even. I wonder what the munny-rupee conversion rate is. Are we tracking non-Zelda games over the whole time as well as Zelda games?

I mean if you want to sure :smallwink:

(for Mario games just count the amount of coins total collected, don't count missed because the answer would be "too many")

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Honestly? OoT was not among my favorite of zelda games. In fact, it's pretty far down the list. And I really, most especially, do not like the BS with the split timestreams that evolved from it. The way they handle time paradox is... silly. So I reject cannon and substitute my own.

This game, when it came out, was a paradigm change in Zelda... and not one for the better, in my opinion. It was better for the series, so it wasn't a bad decision on the dev's part, but one that I have never truly reconciled myself with.

[Grytorm]

Zodi, I think I would prefer for you to avoid Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, mostly because I have those and want to finish them someday on my own :P. I don't know what to recommend though. You suggested Pikman 2 with the poll which would be fun. Although I think you should go with Pikman 1 mostly for the possibility horrible failure.

[LaZodiac]

Zodi, I think I would prefer for you to avoid Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, mostly because I have those and want to finish them someday on my own :P. I don't know what to recommend though. You suggested Pikman 2 with the poll which would be fun. Although I think you should go with Pikman 1 mostly for the possibility horrible failure.

I don't have Pikmin 1 so that's out. Pikmin 2 should still be on the vote for when I finish Ocarina, so feel free to throw me into ultimate death hell if you want it that much :smallwink:

That being said...it depends on how much free time I have, but I MAAAAY have a secondary project working alongside Ocarina of Time. We'll see. Anyway, with regards to my avoiding those games...sorry man, but this is my schedule. You'll have to grin and bear it. I'll miss you if you don't watch, just be sure to come by for the thread after Ocarina :smallamused:

[TheWombatOfDoom]

I absolutely cannot wait for Ocarina of Time! Monday can't come soon enough! Or is it Friday? Either way, I'm ready to get counting, and I may even have temple reviews again. I still owe a few from Skyward Sword as well, if I recall.

[LaZodiac]

It begins! Ocarina of Time is now! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?490416-Zodi-Plays-The-Legend-of-Zelda-Ocarina-of-Time-%28Adventures-in-early-3D-video-games%29&p=20860599#post20860599)