8 - Omelette du Fromage
(Originally posted April 12, 2024)
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Last time, we ate our way across Hong Kong's food scene. Our last stop is the Jade Garden.
This definitely won't be a problem when I have to load a save 75% into this update.
The cameos are coming hard and fast in the Jade Garden restaurant. The core cast of Part 5 is in the upper right corner, tricking its main character into drinking piss (I am 100% serious). Meanwhile, at the bottom right is young Joseph Joestar from the beginning of Part 2, when his grandmother tells him to beat up a racist at an Italian restaurant.
Part 5 also takes place in Italy, so I guess Jade Garden serves Chinese and Italian food?
There used to be a restaurant near me that supposedly sold "ravioli". It was actually a wonton soup restaurant that decided to make its sign via some kind of automated translation.
I was at a workshop once and the restaurant had an "Asian pork taco" on the appetizer menu. I live in the greater Los Angeles area, so fusion cuisine is nothing new to me. Kogi truck is a local institution.
When the food came out, it was a gua bao.
They also made a shitty movie with Jackie Chan in it.
I was taught to flip the lid upside down rather than just put it off-kilter.
You also do this when someone is pouring you tea. The youngest person at the table (so, in my family, me) has to pour tea for everyone else. The origin of this is allegedly that when the Emperor was travelling incognito to practice his tea pouring, his attendants would do this instead of bowing directly, which would give up his identity.
The man at the bar with a crazy haircut walks over to the table.
When I was a kid, getting a whole steamed fish was the family's go-to celebration / special occasion meal. Any leftovers went into my father's juk the next day.
I don't think about this often because it has always been a fact of life to me, but at sit-down Chinese restaurants you're generally ordering dishes to be shared among the whole table. There's usually a lazy susan in the center so you can rotate all the food and choose from what's available.
I went "hah!" out loud when this happened. The catchphrase pops up just rarely enough that I forget about it every time, plus it's just a silly catchphrase to say ruefully.
The music fades from the "wacky" theme into the "danger" theme as the text appears here. It's a nice touch.
The interrobangs in this game are all exclamation-question, but my natural inclination typing them is question-exclamation (it's interrobang, not banginterro!). Messing me up.
Imagine me, in real life, taking a deep, rueful sigh right now.
I feel like the three sculptures at the bottom (usually covered by the text box) have to be references of some kind, but I can't place them. Sound off in the comments.
Tiger Balm Garden was a real theme park full of garishly-colored statues and whatnot, but it was torn down and replaced with a housing development in 1998. I vaguely remembered going there despite this, but it turns out I was remembering its sister park in Singapore: Haw Par Villa.
You can in fact, just gang up on him and kick his ass, but your dishonorable actions lower everyone's FP. Letting Abdul handle it raises his FP (and it's how the fight went in the manga), so we'll do that for now.
Polnareff is a speedy guy, so Abdul starts the fight with the CantFind condition, just like when we were up against Tower of Gray. Remember, it means only all-target attacks can hit.
Any time he hits you, CantFind has a chance to wear off, but Polnareff can re-apply it at will. In fact, we want him to, because it means he isn't spending that turn killing us.
This doesn't seem like a lot of damage, but once Polnareff moves up to short range his basic attack hits twice, which means twice the chance of an unlucky crit. Our only recourse is to repeatedly spam Fire Wall and use potions as necessary. Remember, we haven't had a chance to grind up anyone other than Cascada.
To be clear, there is no consequence for losing this fight other than the EXP, but I have my pride. I load my save... three times.
Finally, Abdul gets it done.
Abdul is, of course, unharmed.
Abdul blasts him with another Crossfire Hurricane! Polnareff hits the ground!
If you have a Swarm-type Stand, you do get a bit here along the lines of, "uh hey what about me dude?"
We once again get a choice of letting Abdul handle it, ganging up on Polnareff, or fighting him solo, but this time it's different.
If you're ever having real trouble with a plot encounter in 7SU, following what happens in the manga is generally the path of least resistance. If we go with Abdul alone, he'll get a temporary skill called "Brainstorm", aka the "and the story happened like normal" command which usually wins you the battle for free, albeit with no EXP gain. It'd be pretty damn hard (if not outright impossible) for him to win the fight otherwise.
We won't lose FP if we choose to gang up on Polnareff this time, but that just isn't sporting. It's time for The Machine to get involved personally.
We go up against Polnareff and SEVEN (7) Silver Chariots. All of them are faster than you and all of them get their own action. Each Silver Chariot can do a basic attack, do an attack that may inflict Fear (lose a turn), do an attack that may inflict Bleeding (damage over time), or reapply CantFind.
Thankfully, we hit Lv10 last update. Cascada is MASTER OF THE ELEMENTS (by which I mean, we got a new all-target attack.)
We wipe out five Chariots in a single blow! Good, because we couldn't have endured a second turn of getting cut seven times in a row. This way, we can outpace the damage with curatives.
Just one problem: Polnareff also gets an action. He can reapply CantFind like before, hide and heal himself, or resummon every Silver Chariot. And he's the fastest one here; if he summons Chariot, it still gets to attack that turn.
Cascada has 115 HP right now. Chariot's basic attack does about 4, but its Fear or Bleed inflicting attacks do about 10-15, with the possibility of making us lose our turn or take a huge chunk of DOT... seven times before Cascada gets to act. And every time we lose, we have to redo that first fight with Abdul to get back to this point.
I tried this four times before I decided it was impossible... but if playing Dark Souls taught me anything, it's that I should fruitlessly bang my head against something for 6 hours until it dies rethink my approach if something isn't working out. Or, I mean, grind.
Hell, why not both?
I load a save before the entire sequence, put a podcast on, and grind Cascada up to Lv11; about 700 EXP worth when the encounters around HK give 30.
Still no dice; I'm about to truly give up and just show off the Brainstorm command. But then, as I'm doing final checks on another update, I see something I typed weeks ago.
Also notable is the Tactics menu, which is a sort of soft equip slot that lets us tweak our stats and status resistances a bit. There's Normal, which has no plus or minus, but we also have:
Initiative: Attack +5, Speed +5, Defense -10
Charge: Attack +10, Speed +10, Defense -20
Desperation: Attack +20, Defense -20
Keep Distant: Attack -10, Speed -5, Defense +5
Flee: Attack -10, Speed +10, Long-range Defense +10
Guard: Attack -10, Speed -10, Defense +20
I'd switched back from Normal to Flee somewhere around the Rainbow fight in Update 5, but +10 Speed won't matter against Polnareff's 190. I switch to Guard as a last ditch effort.
FUCK YES
Silver Chariot goes from dealing 4ish damage on a basic attack to doing zero, and 12ish on a status inducer to 6-7. It's still difficult, but it's within the realm of doable.
...one more time.
I go for a gamble on one of Cascada's other new skills. Just because of how often you're getting hit, CantFind usually wears off by the time Cascada's action rolls around. Topped off at full HP from a Medkit, I burn a turn taking the shot.
Blowback causes Polnareff to lose his next turn, but I still can't keep all the Chariots down due to losing my own turns from Fear and the sheer HP attrition. I'm on the ropes, when...
I'd been trying to sneak Heat Rays in because being on fire does 3%+1 HP damage per turn. Turns out Bleed does 20%+5 AND 10% SP damage per turn.
Was he? He hid behind his adds the whole fucking fight!
This line makes more sense in the original, where Abdul lights Polnareff on fire and leaves him a knife so he can die quickly rather than burn alive. Abandoning the opportunity to hurl it as a final cheap shot, Polnareff elects to honorably immolate.
pull it out extract it. [SCHLORP]
Long fucking day. Tune in next time for the squad's adventures at the Hong Kong Harbor!
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