30 - Walking the Dog
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Last time, Jotaro baseball pitched a dog at a blind man who nearly killed Abdul and Kakyoin. This time, we're off to a new hub area.
Good ol' hotel map. It's been so long.
As noted, we can't party up with Abdul nor Kakyoin here in Aswan. However, if you've got a Support-type Stand, you can heal up Abdul early and take him with you. This is the only way to get a particularly rare item, but we're not worrying about that right now. Possibly ever.
I've read that kushari / koshary is quite popular in Japan, to the point that some supermarket chains sell bento of it (though it's modified for the Japanese palate, natch).
As for pigeons/squab, they've been commonly eaten in Egypt for thousands of years. Ancient hieroglyphs and cuneiform tablets indicate they might be the earliest domesticated bird; geese are the other contender.
The extra hotel merchant sells the usual low level curatives, with the new addition of Coffee Gum (we'll get to that later). But, sometimes...
This'll be a hefty FP boost, which basically doesn't matter anymore as long as I keep Jotaro on top of the rankings like I promised all those months ago. We do still want to keep Polnareff down, though.
The regular hotel merchant sells fruit baskets, which you can give to either Kakyoin or Abdul (the game console is Kakyoin only). You can do this all you like to boost their FP up to 10.
Jotaro starts in your party by default in Aswan. The XP comparisons are still comically lopsided due to all that grinding.
Time to hit the town.
Aswan has been continuously inhabited for thousands of years, and contains a number of notable quarries that were used not only to build Cleopatra's Needle and the burial chamber in the Giza pyramid but also to film explosions for ancient Egyptian tokusatsu.
Iggy is officially part of the team now, so we've started meeting dogs that aren't doomed to be brutally murdered. As hinted here, he does in fact have his own FP count.
Let's no get ahead of ourselves. We're headed there another time.
I've fought so many of these guys that I'm fine never seeing one again for the rest of my life.
I wonder if there was a specific design ethos behind the hub maps. Hong Kong was quite densely packed, but a lot of the later towns are enormous and full of empty space. Did NendoTairiku try and match real maps?
I think anyone reading this update who regularly plays video games figured this out about ten screenshots ago.
Teen Shouky is a Gundam name.
This is also known as teen shawky or teen shooky, but in my neck of the woods this is more commonly referred to as "nopales". Or, if you're feeling white, "prickly pear cactus". It's one of those things good for a multitude of culinary uses depending on when it's harvested.
In the days before synthetic dyes (and nowadays when people are warier of synthetic dyes), the nopal was highly valued not for being good eatin' but because it is the favored host of the cochineal, a parasitic insect. The cochineal produces a specific acid in its body that can be made into a deep red dye called carmine. It was used locally in Middle America for thousands of years and was an extremely lucrative trade good for Spain during the Age of Sail, more valuable than even sugar.
I feel like I've already given the "NPC irony" shpiel before in this LP, so I'll spare you reading it again.
(Editor's Note: It was in Update 13).
I believe the sandbag also last showed up in Update 13. As far as I know, it works the same as back then.
Meanwhile, in another random building...
There is a lot to unpack here, more than even I'm willing to go on a full tangent on. To sum up, Egypt was primarily Christian around when it was a province of the Roman Empire; Alexandria was one of the Pentarchy (the five most important sees). Islam only became dominant religion in the time after the Arab conquest around 640 CE. Cut off from their main governing bodies, Coptic Christians have been a notable minority in the region ever since.
A few churches have shown up in hub towns, or at least I think I brought one up before; you can donate at them to reduce your bad karma score. Cascada may be an asshole sometimes, but she's not a fucking asshole. We're good on karma.
Nubians are an ethnic minority who primarily live in southern Egypt. Here's a Youtube video of a Nubian dance:
Been a while since we've gotten just a good ol' JoJo reference. This guy's a victim of the week from Part 4, possessed by a Stand that only activates if someone sees his back.
We've been heading northeast this whole time, and we finally hit the hospital where our friends are convalescing.
haha im sure this would never be the case in the 21st century right guys
By the proper series timeline (December 1988), this is a good few months before the Game Boy released in Japan on April 21, 1989. By 7SU's reckoning, this is summer vacation (presumably of 1989), so it could have been on the market a month or two. It's implausible but not impossible for someone in Aswan to have imported one.
Before you start angrily typing a comment about Tetris, Japan was the only region without a pack-in game for the Game Boy at launch; Nintendo of Japan hates pack-ins. Anyway, I'm amused by the creator of this game latching on to "loves video games" as a core character trait for Kakyoin when it comes up maybe one time in the original story.
With gifts distributed, let's do an FP check.
I know what I said earlier, but Kakyoin's getting a little too high. We still want Joseph in 2nd Place if possible. Eject!
Eagle eyed readers may have noticed that Iggy is also here, sleeping on the couch.
This is why the game plopped 20 of these in our inventory. Iggy refuses to join the active party unless you give him gum.
Guess who wasn't in the party when I did my insane grinding session? Iggy is a solid 14-15 levels behind everyone else at this point, making him appropriate for the intended level curve.
Iggy has a collection of multi-target Stand attacks that tend to inflict status effects and some single-target attacks that are just him biting a guy. Not terrible, though I wouldn't say he really fulfills a specific mechanical niche. We're still taking him along. Gotta show off everything!
It is the dominant religion in the area, but this of course refers to the Female Zombie encounter becoming more common.
The hospital is in the upper right corner of the map, and if we head all the way south to the lower right corner, we find this guy.
Egyptian cotton production exploded in the 1860s as a concentrated effort to capitalize on the market when the American Civil War started. Union trade blockade of Confederate states cut off the UK's cotton supply, and cotton from India was considered lower quality due to shorter fibers. A 1926 article claims that Egypt devoted almost all of its agriculture towards cotton by 1864.
Iggy has an empty clothing slot, so why not?
5 points of Durability and some FP ain't nothing.
One more wrinkle about putting the dog in your party: you cannot directly control him. Iggy chooses his own attacks like you're playing Persona 3 or some shit. I never really used him on previous playthroughs for that reason.
These goons are from Part 7, aka Steel Ball Run. Gyro is Italian, hence the song.
The obelisk is unfinished because it got a huge crack down the middle while they were carving it out of the bedrock and they called it a wash. It would have been the biggest one of them all, though.
We swap to Jotaro here to grab a couple unique events.
What's the old adage again? You have to repeat information three times before the player will actually notice?
We've got to be up to like six or seven by now. Regardless, we've got a few more bits and bobs around town before it's time to actually progress.
I suppose it would be rude to walk directly past Polnareff without speaking to him.
If you're really brushed up on Part 3, you'll know that after N'dour, the party was attacked by some other enemy Stand-users... who basically defeated themselves without anyone knowing about it. Alas, they don't really make an appearance in 7SU. I guess our rationale is that Cascada was at the hospital with Kakyoin and Abdul at the time?
Your occasional reminder that I am in fact being hounded by encounters the entire time while recording these updates.
I think "pyramid power" pseudoscience bullshit was pretty popular in Japan around then. Or at least I always think of Chouriki Sentai Ohranger (aka Power Rangers Zeo) and this one image of seminal mangaka Shotaro Ishinomori:
Meanwhile, right outside...
This event gives a +1 for Polnareff, but 2 FP is still solid wiggle room and sometimes I can't be assed to load a save.
"Omm Ali" means "mother of Ali", and with a name like that you just know there's multiple origin stories for this dessert. Most of them involve celebrating that someone just died.
This is just a good idea for everyone. For a peek behind the curtain, I'm writing this around when DST starts back up and I could really use a good night's sleep.
Ordinarily I'd wag my finger over such a comparison, but I can't exactly fault it this time. This translates as "bird's tongue soup", not because it actually uses tongue, but because of the shape of the orzo in it.
And, for once, Jotaro has a food thing! If you bring him to the Teen Shouky vendor...
Next time, we check out those damn ruins everyone wants to tell us about. See you again!
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