Let's Play Septerra Core: Part 8 - Connor The Horny Pirate
Last time, we were on the lens platform when it crashed. Don't worry, we are invincible.
: Where am I?
: Wake up, Maya. You have much to do...
: Mom?
Maya wakes up and recollects herself.
: It looks like a shard of the Core lens.
And we pick this up from the ground.
The moment we left the platform remains, Connor and his henchmen enter the area.
Don't know what they're up to, but I have a feeling we'll find out soon enough.
World map time.
We'll first head to Scumm Town to purchase some new equipment and pick up some important items, then we'll go through the mountain passage and visit Pranno.
The town is divided into two sections. The barter mall is where we go first. It really has nothing interesting in it, other than several shops.
CLICK!
New weapons for Maya and Araym.
Notice the enormous amount of gold that we have.
Weapon for Badu.
We're going to dump him soon.
Then we buy these items.
The "Blades" gives Araym a special attack in his first interval. 5 core energy for a stronger attack than regular weak attack. The meat is quest item that we'll use when we get to the swamp.
Next, we have to pick up another quest item from the shipping docks.
It is found on floor.
That's it for Scumm Town.
CLICK!
This is the fifth bird. Half of the game is completed.
Strategically placed bird seed made it seemed like the bird is actually eating it.
We enter the nearby tavern and find some familiar faces.
: We barely survived the crash of the Lens Platforms...
: I shouldn't have deserted you... I wanted to save Doskias because I believed he could change... Now I know that he can't be saved from himself. I'm sorry.
: She'll just do it again, Maya. She endangers the entire group!
: I saw that the lenses were going to crash here, but I-I couldn't reach you in time; I did convince the ship captain to bring us all here, to look for you.
: We have a ship?
: No, he refused to stay on Shell 6. He was afraid of the Pirates.
: How are we going to get off this stink-shell?
: I know a local pirate named Lobo... Fought with him in the war. He has a ship.
: Ya, but can we trust him?
: I don't trust any pirate!
: He's an honorable sort, I think he'll help us if I talk to him...
: It sounds like our best bet...
This is a good time to recruit Selina.
Good character combat wise. She has excellent core energy which means she'll be very strong in the late game. I'll never forgive her for making this game twice as long though. She's still a bitch.
Time for some marshland menace.
CLICK!
First we explore the East Marsh.
CLICK AGAIN!
What do we have here?
The sixth bird? We're getting closer and closer to the ultimate weapons and armors of the game.
Remember the meat we bought?
: Well, now I've got some leeches.
These are the enemies that you expect to face here in this swamp.
Araym uses the BladeSpin ability from the "Blades" upgrade we bought earlier. Now, even our weakest attacks can do massive damage on armored opponents like the crab. High level crabs don't gain much extra HP, so they become relatively easy to kill at this point.
The fire spiders can be a bit obnoxious.
57 damage, still too low to be threatening. A couple pieces of bread will fix things up.
After I explored the area like a true bro, we head to the West Swamp.
CLICKA!
These guys are the most annoying bastards in the entire game.They can cast Berserk on us. Sometimes when they're in a bad mood, they might spam that spell on all the character, which means we'll have to wait until the duration ends before we gain control back. They can easily Berserk lock us for all eternity.
So with that being said, the best strategy is RUN AWAY!
We find something near the bush.
A sleep plant you idiot! It says on the plant.
Back in the mountains.
We follow an ancient passage that leads us to...
Snowy mountains!
More recycled graphics.
We cautiously approach the giant bee, hoping to snatch one of her eggs without being noticed.
: Thank you for ruining our plan, genius.
And of course, we fail as always.
Another mini boss for us to slaughter.
The monster does more or less the same damage that the fire spiders do.
Very weak for a boss. It should be doing at least 100 if this fight were to be interesting.
ArmBlast from Araym connected.
Unnaturally high defense. With its fire based attacks, this could only mean one thing...
Water vulnerability?
Araym and Selina proceed to call forth the Queen of the Sea to attack this beast.
The Queen summons an even bigger beast to overwhelm this bug.
She's sitting on the whale if you look closely enough.
And as expected.
The bee takes heavy damage from the spell.
We spam several more water spells on this mutant. And it's gone.
Good reward for a mini boss.
Now that its nest is unprotected, we can take some of the eggs.
: Of course it is! What, you thought it's an Easter egg?
Now we have all the required ingredients to make the ultimate quest item.
Use the drill on the egg.
After that, we put the sleep plant into the hole.
This is what we end up with.
We head back into the swamp and use the modified egg here.
Luring the water helgak to the surface.
It eats the egg along with the embedded sleep plant.
Indeed.
Then we use the leeches on the sleeping helgak.
The helgak blood we collected is going to be very useful, you'll see.
Let's go to the final area of the swamp.
CLICK!
As we enter the landing bay...
A ship lands and out comes a robot.
He approaches us peacefully.
: One and the same, tin boy.
: Never thought I'd see a friendly face on this shell again.
: This is your friend? Isn't he a Jinam Combat Cyborg.
: Used to be, when we fought in the war. But Lobo's ship crashed and he was salvaged by a mechanic here on Shell 6. Fixed his brain so he had free thought.
: I ended up being a Pirate, like my new father, but eventually he died.
: Aye, Connor drove the old man to death with his gangs.
: Yeah, well that bastard Connor is still gunnin' for ME.
: What did you do this time?
: Refused to pay him tribute. So he took my crew captive.
: We need help getting off shell, it's urgent.
: Well, I ain't goin' nowhere without my crew.
: Where are they held?
: In Connor's base. He's the biggest pirate leader, yeah, has a whole island for a fortress. Only way in is through a docking bay under water.
: You don't pay tribute to Connor?
: Never. Every petty gang on the shell pays him, but not me. I'd rather stand up and fight than give him what isn't his. He takes most tribute in the form of slave girls. And I don't deal in slavery.
: Connor accepts tattooed slave girls for tribute?
: Yeah, he's obsessed with Kyra and her tattoos.
: I'll bet I could pass for a slave girl. It could get me into his base to rescue your crew.
: If you can find a disguise, come back here and I'll help you get into a ship headed for Connor's Island base.
Now we go back to the Tattoo Shop in Scumm Town.
: What kind of place is this?
: Tattoo parlor, want one?
: I heard about slave girls with full body tattoos used as tribute to the pirates.
: Connor's obsessed with Kyra, wants all of his girls to be made up like her. I just did one of them yesterday, she couldn't stand the pain.
: It's that bad?
: Yeah. But I can do painless temporary ones if I have the right ink. I make it from the blood of swamp Helgak. Usually get the blood out with leeches after putting the Helgak to sleep.
We already did all that. Let's hand the helgak blood to the tattoo artist.
: Wow, Leeches with swamp Helgak blood. I could use this to make some great temporary tattoos.
: You can have the blood, if you use some of it to give me a full body tattoo, like the slave girls have...
: Doing some night work?
: You bet.
: Mind your own business.
: Well, just come on back, and we'll be done in no time.
: That wasn't so bad.
: The tattoos will go away in a few weeks.
Let's report our success to Lobo.
: You gonna use them to get inside Connor's base?
: I'll get your crew back, and then we can get off this shell. Deal?
: Hot damn.
: Okay, here's a key to the ship port in Scumm town. It'll get you onto the right ship. Take this flare gun. When you get inside the base find a back door for us to get in, fire it into the air, and I'll fly to you. Got it?
: We'll stash your weapons and equipment in some shipping crates, so make sure you find them as soon as you get inside. Now, choose who else, besides me, that you want to bring along...
Lobo hands us these trinkets.
We'll take Araym along.
For now.
Run all the way back to the shipping docks in Scumm town.
: Hey! Official business only. Someone would have to steal this right out from under my eyes... so don't even think about it.
Araym should be able to steal it.
CLICK.
: What's that?
: This? It's a shipping Manifest. Papers that you need to get into the Docks.
: Hey, what was that?
: What...
: I dunno, must have been the wind...
Done and done.
Everything is according to plan.
Araym is awesome.
Maya then strips down to her bikinis.
:
: Hey, let's go.
:
: ...
Let's help other slave girls escape.
:
: I'm Maya, I'm here to save you.
: I'll signal you when I've found a way in.
: I wonder how long this is going to take?
: It better takes as long as possible!
: ...
: All hands prepare for docking...
With the Kyra disguise, Maya successfully bypasses the pirate security system.
There she goes into the base.
Where she is taken to Connor.
: Prepare her? How? Stir fry? Anyway...
Conveniently, Connor sent Maya to the room where all her equipment is stored.
:
Back to a tomboy!
:
...
With only one character.
Excellent. One enemy at a time. This is going to be fun.
We need to find a place to signal Lobo.
Follow this path.
Then we hit the switch.
Along the way we kill some pirates.
And out we go.
Oh yeah.
This is Lobo.
Brilliant combat specialist. Extremely high armor, which compensates for the healing penalty as a robot. High damage and speed. He lacks quite a bit of core to be a major late game player, but who I am kidding, one can beat the game with any combination of characters. Low core simply means we won't be able to dispatch filler enemies as quick.
Now back to the cave.
Get the blue key.
Use the key here.
Opens the blue door.
Get the red key from the room.
Then we go to...
The red door.
Open sesame.
Finally, we confront Connor in his throne room, who is fapping to pictures of Kyra.
: I see you brought some friends to replace your father. Aren't you one of my slaves?
: *wink*
: I'll never forgive you for the death of my father!
: No, Lobo. I am your father.
: NO! That's not true! That's impossible!
:
: Just kidding. That's not going to work. Time to die, bitch.
:
: Lobo, Lobo, a robot has no family...
: I did.
: Not anymore...
A super boss fight!
We have to attack the turrets next to Connor.
After around 3, 4 hits, the turret spins.
And aims at Connor.
Apparently the targeting system of the turrets is extremely primitive, as it is only able to shoot straight forward.
Connor happens to be in the top turret's line of fire and takes 53 damage.
After several rounds of smashing those turrets repeatedly, they both are aimed at Connor's direction.
He then unleashes hell on...
Lobo is the unlucky victim.
85 damage is a lot. However, after facing the mining helgak and its 60 damage to all attack, this is nothing.
We continue to keep the turrets pointing at Connor at all times.
He is taking a lot of damage because of this.
But the turrets can be unpredictable at times.
Beam attack does a total of 78 damage.
When the situation goes out of hand, we can always use the good old OP item.
Potion! 200 HP to all! Note that it only heals 130 on Lobo. Robots have their share of disadvantages.
The turret at the top blasts Connor into skyrim.
Unfortunately, he is more resourceful than we have thought.
He runs faster than those Kenyans.
: Just let him go, we still have to save your crew...
: It's a ring of keys.
Let's free Lobo's crew.
: Let's get out of here.
And GTFO.
: Welcome back crew. Now get us outta here!
Inside Lobo's ship, we contemplate our next plan.
: I'm looking at the Jinam Restraining Chips in here. You never figured out how to get rid of 'em, huh?
: My father destroyed mine, but never showed me how...
: No problem, here we go...
: Lobo? I'm free!
: Amazing!
: Your ship is amazing... We could certainly use someone like you.
: My ship and I are both at your disposal...
: See, I told you he was an honorable sort.
: Wait a minute, these things killed my people, they're monsters!
: They aren't anymore Led, they're free now...
: I won't work with it. And don't come crying to me when it goes berserk and kills us all...
: Maya, we must go to the upper layer and seek out Gunnar and the Emperor.
: You believe Gunnar escaped the Battle of the Lenses?
: She's just interested in finding her beloved Doskias!
: The Emperor is the only one who can help us...
: Wind City needs our help. We should go to Shell 3 and help free my people.
: Right, um-hmmm, you just want to return to your sweet Layla...
: *ANGRY STARE*
: You two should get a room.
: Please, quiet! Without the Chosen to stand against Doskias, we'll never liberate Wind City...
: We will follow where you lead, Maya.
So here it is, free travel.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Next Time: We head to Shell 1 and speak with the Emperor. As always, expect a twist.