12 - Child's Play
Originally posted May 10, 2024
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Last time, Polnareff killed a member of a critically endangered species by running it through with a sword, thus setting us adrift once more upon the sea until a non-ghost ship picked us up and brought us to Singapore.
Since he's still at the bottom of the FP ranks (and because I know the plot), we're sticking with Polnareff for the second update in a row. He's not my favorite party member, but a Badge of Honor later (much later) is contingent on him winning an incredibly difficult solo fight, so I'm not complaining.
The "Runaway Girl" straight up didn't have a name until the 2014 anime... where it's never actually spoken, just written in production materials. She's "Merlai Anne", a riff on Singapore's mascot, the Merlion.
What an oddly specific tutorial message that I'm sure has no bearing on our current situation.
We go to drop off our luggage as our French pal suggested.
It's got a full kitchenette and everything. I think I can count the number of times I've actually used a hotel room's kitchenette on one hand, but I haven't traveled much in the past fifteen years.
Polnareff spots something just a bit off about the room.
A goth comes out of the refrigerator! As they oft do!
I don't think I've ever taken anything from a hotel room fridge. Presumably some poor employee has to take inventory of each one every day to see if some schmuck is okay paying $5 for a Snickers bar, which seems like it'd be a miserable job.
We get a few beeps and boops as Polnareff dials the rest of the squad.
I'm not sure why this line warrants his full portrait. I probably would have at least gone for the bed sheets or my shirt or something, but I'm also not a Stand user or French.
Uh oh! An innocent bystander!
Wellp.
I don't have too many snide comments to add here because sometimes (often) JoJo is insane enough as it is.
Polnareff is nominally in the battle here, but he takes several turns to free himself. Otherwise he's a warm body to take hits in Cascada's stead.
...Honestly, you can picture a lot of future fights going exactly like this.
This is a pretty hefty chunk of damage, and it's only his first turn. Around four of these would be enough to KO Cascada.
Ebony Devil's gimmick is that he's a multi-stage boss fight; his stats scale depending on how much damage you've done and he'll basically get a fresh health bar at certain intervals, which is why he doesn't restore any HP in the above gif.
lol, lmao
This move might actually fuck you up. It does about 35-40 damage to the whole party, which isn't too dire, but it can also paralyze. The game has zero qualms about stunlocking you to death if that's how the dice roll.
By this point, we're actually pretty low on HP and Polnareff has yet to free himself from the bondage-shampoo-bed trap (Devo would be great at Tecmo's Deception). But you know how The Machine rolls by now.
We take a bit of time to explore the hotel.
Singapore's barely one degree above the equator, so it's hot and humid there year-long. Every building has the air-con running at full blast so when you take one step outside your glasses instantly fog up.
Part 6 cameo spotted! Ask him the weather!
I think this is meant to also be a Part 6 cameo, but they're also the wrong color scheme for whom I think it's meant to be. Not sure.
One more floor to go.
shit shit shit SHIT
We've gone from floating Matryoshka dolls to high school girls to bunny girls. It seems the user of Murderdolls is a huge creep (who knew?).
At least our adventures with Polnareff on the ship have powered him up enough that he can finish after only a single round of thrusting. The horde of bunny girls is summarily dispatched and we approach the man sitting at the table.
Wonder Festival is a long-running event in Japan for showcasing garage kits and anime figures.
Both this dialogue and Ebony Devil's change depending on the order you fight them in. That said, fighting Joey here is totally optional; you don't have to go to the 12th floor at all.
All three Murderdolls get resummoned at the start of every round, and Joey spends his turns either buffing the girls or trying to inflict status effects on the party.
You know, if he gets turns.
And once Joey's below a certain HP threshold...
The fight's as good as done at this point. The Murderdolls all get inflicted with Confuse status on summon and start attacking each other.
But the asshole can still do this! If an enemy changes distance and goes completely offscreen, then too bad for you. Your only choice is to wait until they reappear. Cascada must cease her energy beams and switch to defense for a few turns.
On the bright side, we got a brand new attack!
Venom Cannon is expensive and only has a 75% hit rate, but it'll wreck pretty much any non-boss encounter for the rest of the game.
All the Player Stands are frontloaded as hell; I'm not just saying that because we're overleveled. Cascada'll only learn two new abilities after this: at level 30 and level 45.
And here are our current FP standings. Remember, vote in the Best Bud poll (when this goes up, you'll only have a day left)! See you next time for when we actually visit the new enormous hub map!
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