17 - Take Me To The River
(Originally Posted June 28, 2024)
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Last time, Polnareff achieved revenge on his sister's killer at the cost of Abdul's life. How is he reacting to this tragic event?
And we're set loose upon another poor hub town. While you can trigger the next story segment by checking the back door like usual, there's also a hidden timer in Varanasi that'll start the event after you've entered and exited the hotel four times.
If we talk to the tutorial guy in the lobby...
Joseph's been out of the loop for a hot minute, Abdul is fucking dead, and you readers voted both Polnareff and Kakyoin off the island. Slim pickings for The Machine, but thankfully Varanasi is one of the less extensive hubs.
In fact, we couldn't hang with Polnareff today even if we wanted to.
I'm not even taking Kakyoin along for any specific events, this is just the usual grinding session.
The Element of Freedom combo platter is still floating around and still the best combo of "easy to kill" and "gives decent EXP".
And now we've got these guys, legally distinct from the Green Hornets. Without the color patch, their overworld sprite would be exactly the same.
They've got high speed and like to use this attack that does both solid damage and lights you on fire. Assholes.
A bunch of NPCs around here desperately want to tell you about the tar down this alleyway. You know, the tar? The tar we've been using in construction? It smells really bad over on the east side of town, because of all the tar. This only matters to us if we haven't been keeping Joseph's level up.
As Tutorial Man noted, we've got these little RC helicopters zooming around the map. They're super fast and fly in a totally random pattern, so I actually chased this one down for a good ten seconds or so.
fuck you game
Also, fuck these guys.
They're absurdly quick and love to use moves that make you lose a turn. The gun attacks are no slouch when it comes to damage, either.
Love using up a bunch of SP on a mob that'll just bail.
Varanasi is right on the Ganges and has a ton of ghats (steps that lead directly down into the river). Some are specifically shmashana ghats for cremating bodies and letting their ashes get swept into the river.
Varanasi is pretty empty compared to some of the other hubs. Not many wacky diversions.
A brand new Murderdolls encounter and it's the most annoying one yet. This charge attack pictured above hits the entire party and has a high chance of knocking you over, making you skip your turn.
The encounter with the Lv4 Murderdoll and one Assassin is also in Varanasi, so I guess this means Joey is back in town.
In addition to the helicopters we've also got mini tanks roving around. They're much slower, but they're tankier and hit harder.
A lot harder. On both party members, usually.
Fuck me I guess.
To add insult to injury, around here while screenshotting the footage is where I realized I'd accidentally moved the window too far to the right, cutting that sliver off the edge where the recording's stuck on an earlier frame. Did you notice?
I'm forced to load a save and grind Kakyoin back from 18 to 20. Picture me running in circles and hunting down Element of Freedom encounters because fuck those tanks.
And here is our final new encounter in Varanasi.
Our only recourse is to flee. I'm a bit conflicted because I find this a clever encounter, but I can't deny that it's tedious.
Quick stat check. We're about on pace, maybe a touch ahead.
Jotaro still isn't great at long range, but he's getting better.
Tell me more about this tar substance! I just need to know more!
The upper left corner of the map has this whole little forested area. Based on a cursory glance at a real map of Varanasi, I think this is meant to be Beniya Park. Don't quote me on that.
Off in this weird little corner is a guy poring over some documents and waiting for War Thunder to come out in 25 years.
We must protect the public. The cops sure aren't.
We probably could have just taught this guy about Stands. Oh well.
As is often the case with this game's mid-bosses, Henning himself isn't much of a theat. He'll try to inflict a lose-a-turn status occasionally or use a weak physical attack. But we've seen just how busted these tanks can be, and just a couple bad rolls can make this fight go south fast.
...all's well that ends well!
I pick up a few curatives at the 7-11 (there were no 7-11s in India until 2021) before we wrap things up around here by visiting Joseph.
Where have we heard that laugh before?
It's really convenient that Power Rangers hit it big westward. It means we can transfer over a bunch of Super Sentai jokes basically unchanged.
Losing control of Cascada's actions is actually a huge problem, because this boss will fuck you up. The gimmick here is that only one Joey is "real" and will end the battle when killed, but all of them have the same stats and annoying attacks. It's the same one every time (the fourth), but you don't really have any way of knowing that beforehand.
Bazookas do heavy damage, almost always inflict BlowBack status (making you lose a turn), and also light you on fire.
Jotaro got a neat new move during the offscreen grinding session, at least.
Sometimes all it takes is one lost turn, I swear to god.
We're dropped outside the "hospital" across the street from the inn, and that's a wrap for Varanasi.
Jotaro has pulled way ahead in the level and FP rankings, probably because he's been around for most of mid-bosses lately. We gotta get Joseph back in the game or he'll be left in the dust. Wouldn't be right!
We'll check back in with the old timer... next time. See you again!
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