Yup, it's still Baroquen (part 5)
It's been a while since I've done one of these so I'm going to do a quick summery of what's happened. Really it's more for me than you because I certainly have no idea what's going on. Maybe if I write it all out SOMETHING will make sense.
This is our mute amnesiac of a main character who is named "Protagonist" in the same spirit of creativity as the rest of his characterization. At the start of the game he is allegedly full of crushing guilt but you have to take other characters for their word on this one. For the sake of him having SOME name I've shortened Protagonist to Tag.
Here's the leader of the local thinly veiled slam to Catholicism, the Archangel AKA Archie. Instead of being protected by God this group is in charge of protecting God. And they didn't do a very good job because something made the Absolute God crazy and now the world is all messed up. People cling to their delusions, or their baroques, and this twists their forms. The more involved they get the more they change. The people on the surface at least marginally resemble humans while the super-deluded have become the monsters infesting the tower.
Archie appears to Tag as an Angelic Rifle lobbing red hologram on the surface. Archie tells Tag that to heal his sin he must go to the bottom floor of the phallic Neuro Tower and 'purify' the Absolute God. 'Purify' means 'kill' and I'm really not sure why this is made out to be a skill only Tag has. All he does is hit things with swords.
Interesting note, when I typed in 'hologram' above I accidentally spelled it as 'homogram' at first. I think I need to stop reading so much yaoi.
And now the surface dwellers!
The Baroquemonger. Also known as Emo because he looks like he's straight out of Hot Topic. He's in charge of reading any baroques you find, and by 'read' I mean 'say random words which are tangentially related to nothing'. He's pretty much the least interesting character in the game, including Tag who has no personality at all.
The Collector, or BagBoy. If you toss items into the Consciousness Orbs in the dungeon then he will collect them and store them for you. He starts out with only 5 slots open, but after seeing X different kinds of items the bag gets bigger (as of right now I'm on 20 slots).
The Sentry Angel, who has no nickname. He guards the lab that Tag came out of in the first part of the game. He's generally a working guy doing his job, doesn't seem to have a problem with Tag but will rough him up if he tries to get in the door.
The Horned Girl, or Horny. She sits at her chair and apparently can only say the thoughts of those around her, and is thus the only window we have into what Tag is thinking. Even though she has less personality than Tag I still like her for some reason.
The Bagged One will tell you about items, say cryptic things about her absent father, and appears to quote local books for the most part. She just kind of chills in her suspended bag.
Coffin Man is my favorite. He uses the word 'goddamn' in every sentence and his goal is to make the best dungeon ever. He maintains that the world is not so bad, which is probably why he's the least distorted of the surface dwellers. He'll give you tips about dying less in the Tower even as he's disappointed at your lack of dying in his own dungeon.
And Longneck, who is technically the most plot relevant. He's also really whiny and responsible for the development of the Angelic Rifle which shoots bullets made of cherubs. I love how this game makes sense. Also he and Coffin Man hate each other.
Now the people who hang out in the Tower!
Alice is one of the three wandering maidens, according to the booklet that came with the game. She also appears to be Tag's angry ex-girlfriend who is still carrying a torch for him so she alternates yelling at him and gazing wistfully into his blank eyes.
Eliza aka Pink Ghost is another wandering maiden. I haven't found the third one yet. Anyway she likes hanging out behind fake walls and says she needs pure water to save her mother. More on this in a second.
The Boxbearer hangs out in his room and says that his daughter is in his box. He also seems to think that the psudo-Catholics found the power of resurrection, which he will use on his daughter.
Urmin and Thurmin will tell give you vague exposition and also tell you about items. Urmin is the guy, Thurmin is the woman's face on his shoulder who is currently blocked by Tag.
The Mind Reader tells Tag about the scar on his hip being from before the Blaze, or the Really Bad Thing That Destroyed The World. She generally acts like a tired old lady, though if you give her food she'll flip the hell out and evilly say 'take iiiiiiiiiiit' even though she then gives you really useful things. Coffin Man seems to think she's nice also.
This is the alleged ghost of Tag's older brother. The ghost talks about how Tag killed him in order to survive himself, and that's all we know of his side of the story. The way the game presents the scar on Tag's hip it would be assumed they were conjoined twins, but then the ghost talks about how only one could be awake at a time so that sounds more like multiple personalities. I have no idea.
The Tower is also where Archie is physically, stuck on a Consciousness Orb via a spike through his back.
And finally we have the Absolute God who is now named Abby. She is apparently crazy and she acts it all right. In the last installment Tag 'fused' with her, whatever the hell that means, and we got a cutscene of coma inducing levels of WHAT THE HELL and it generally made no sense.
Also in the last installment Longneck buried himself, because apparently while he wasn't fit to live ON the earth he could live IN the earth. Tag kicked him to death and showed his baroque around, which caused Horny, Bagged One, and Sentry to bury themselves. While the girls are kind of chilling Sentry buried himself in rock and is in less than good shape. This also leaves the door to the lab open so lets go shall we?
Just to save time imagine me going O_o after every image, okay?
Yeah, that's right, the reason why Tag can die in the Tower as much as he wants is because there's a million clones of him who are apparently decanted when the last one dies and the memories are sent to the new one through the Consciousness Orbs.
So the people running it freak out because the clones are not supposed to know about this nonsense so they shut down the lab.
And then Tag's clones start talking to him. Or the most recent clone. I have no idea. Anyway they want to help him help Eliza with her pure water issue.
BTW Idea Sephirah = Baroque.
Purify = kill. Why would that even do anything? Tag!clones dies ALL THE TIME in the Tower. Why is this what it takes to get the damn baroque?
Well at least Tag seems to know what's going on.
AND apparently all Tag had to do was stick out his hand and all the tube!Tags disappeared into light and formed their/his crystal.
Do dee do, taking a stroll, cannibalizing my clones somehow, do dee do...
And then he gets teleported inside the Consciousness Orb.
Tag: I.... I entered a Consciousness Orb?
Lab Techs: H-He disappeared?
And now I'm back at THIS familiar sight except now I have the 'Your' Baroque which is helpful somehow. From now on whenever I need it I just have to go back into the lab and get a new one. The same goes for Longneck and everyone else who dies; the crystals regenerate. I'd love to know how a piece of a person's soul will just hang around and reappear.
For the sake of organization I'm going to start the next part in a new post. Enjoy your crazy.
This is our mute amnesiac of a main character who is named "Protagonist" in the same spirit of creativity as the rest of his characterization. At the start of the game he is allegedly full of crushing guilt but you have to take other characters for their word on this one. For the sake of him having SOME name I've shortened Protagonist to Tag.
Here's the leader of the local thinly veiled slam to Catholicism, the Archangel AKA Archie. Instead of being protected by God this group is in charge of protecting God. And they didn't do a very good job because something made the Absolute God crazy and now the world is all messed up. People cling to their delusions, or their baroques, and this twists their forms. The more involved they get the more they change. The people on the surface at least marginally resemble humans while the super-deluded have become the monsters infesting the tower.
Archie appears to Tag as an Angelic Rifle lobbing red hologram on the surface. Archie tells Tag that to heal his sin he must go to the bottom floor of the phallic Neuro Tower and 'purify' the Absolute God. 'Purify' means 'kill' and I'm really not sure why this is made out to be a skill only Tag has. All he does is hit things with swords.
Interesting note, when I typed in 'hologram' above I accidentally spelled it as 'homogram' at first. I think I need to stop reading so much yaoi.
And now the surface dwellers!
The Baroquemonger. Also known as Emo because he looks like he's straight out of Hot Topic. He's in charge of reading any baroques you find, and by 'read' I mean 'say random words which are tangentially related to nothing'. He's pretty much the least interesting character in the game, including Tag who has no personality at all.
The Collector, or BagBoy. If you toss items into the Consciousness Orbs in the dungeon then he will collect them and store them for you. He starts out with only 5 slots open, but after seeing X different kinds of items the bag gets bigger (as of right now I'm on 20 slots).
The Sentry Angel, who has no nickname. He guards the lab that Tag came out of in the first part of the game. He's generally a working guy doing his job, doesn't seem to have a problem with Tag but will rough him up if he tries to get in the door.
The Horned Girl, or Horny. She sits at her chair and apparently can only say the thoughts of those around her, and is thus the only window we have into what Tag is thinking. Even though she has less personality than Tag I still like her for some reason.
The Bagged One will tell you about items, say cryptic things about her absent father, and appears to quote local books for the most part. She just kind of chills in her suspended bag.
Coffin Man is my favorite. He uses the word 'goddamn' in every sentence and his goal is to make the best dungeon ever. He maintains that the world is not so bad, which is probably why he's the least distorted of the surface dwellers. He'll give you tips about dying less in the Tower even as he's disappointed at your lack of dying in his own dungeon.
And Longneck, who is technically the most plot relevant. He's also really whiny and responsible for the development of the Angelic Rifle which shoots bullets made of cherubs. I love how this game makes sense. Also he and Coffin Man hate each other.
Now the people who hang out in the Tower!
Alice is one of the three wandering maidens, according to the booklet that came with the game. She also appears to be Tag's angry ex-girlfriend who is still carrying a torch for him so she alternates yelling at him and gazing wistfully into his blank eyes.
Eliza aka Pink Ghost is another wandering maiden. I haven't found the third one yet. Anyway she likes hanging out behind fake walls and says she needs pure water to save her mother. More on this in a second.
The Boxbearer hangs out in his room and says that his daughter is in his box. He also seems to think that the psudo-Catholics found the power of resurrection, which he will use on his daughter.
Urmin and Thurmin will tell give you vague exposition and also tell you about items. Urmin is the guy, Thurmin is the woman's face on his shoulder who is currently blocked by Tag.
The Mind Reader tells Tag about the scar on his hip being from before the Blaze, or the Really Bad Thing That Destroyed The World. She generally acts like a tired old lady, though if you give her food she'll flip the hell out and evilly say 'take iiiiiiiiiiit' even though she then gives you really useful things. Coffin Man seems to think she's nice also.
This is the alleged ghost of Tag's older brother. The ghost talks about how Tag killed him in order to survive himself, and that's all we know of his side of the story. The way the game presents the scar on Tag's hip it would be assumed they were conjoined twins, but then the ghost talks about how only one could be awake at a time so that sounds more like multiple personalities. I have no idea.
The Tower is also where Archie is physically, stuck on a Consciousness Orb via a spike through his back.
And finally we have the Absolute God who is now named Abby. She is apparently crazy and she acts it all right. In the last installment Tag 'fused' with her, whatever the hell that means, and we got a cutscene of coma inducing levels of WHAT THE HELL and it generally made no sense.
Also in the last installment Longneck buried himself, because apparently while he wasn't fit to live ON the earth he could live IN the earth. Tag kicked him to death and showed his baroque around, which caused Horny, Bagged One, and Sentry to bury themselves. While the girls are kind of chilling Sentry buried himself in rock and is in less than good shape. This also leaves the door to the lab open so lets go shall we?
Just to save time imagine me going O_o after every image, okay?
Yeah, that's right, the reason why Tag can die in the Tower as much as he wants is because there's a million clones of him who are apparently decanted when the last one dies and the memories are sent to the new one through the Consciousness Orbs.
So the people running it freak out because the clones are not supposed to know about this nonsense so they shut down the lab.
And then Tag's clones start talking to him. Or the most recent clone. I have no idea. Anyway they want to help him help Eliza with her pure water issue.
BTW Idea Sephirah = Baroque.
Purify = kill. Why would that even do anything? Tag!clones dies ALL THE TIME in the Tower. Why is this what it takes to get the damn baroque?
Well at least Tag seems to know what's going on.
AND apparently all Tag had to do was stick out his hand and all the tube!Tags disappeared into light and formed their/his crystal.
Do dee do, taking a stroll, cannibalizing my clones somehow, do dee do...
And then he gets teleported inside the Consciousness Orb.
Tag: I.... I entered a Consciousness Orb?
Lab Techs: H-He disappeared?
And now I'm back at THIS familiar sight except now I have the 'Your' Baroque which is helpful somehow. From now on whenever I need it I just have to go back into the lab and get a new one. The same goes for Longneck and everyone else who dies; the crystals regenerate. I'd love to know how a piece of a person's soul will just hang around and reappear.
For the sake of organization I'm going to start the next part in a new post. Enjoy your crazy.