Episode 9: Girl, I Like Your Face

At time of writing, this past week I applied for a job on a cruise ship. The title of the job is "Entertainment Operator" which basically I'd be in charge of running/setting up the A/V and Media Server stuff for a bunch of LED setups and live shows. While I likely wouldn't be on a ship all the time, I'd probably have at least some time on dry land working on setups and show control programming, but the reality is that I'd be spending a majority of my time working and living on cruise ships. While obviously sending in one job application is far from committing to anything, it has made me think a bit about how comfortable I'd be living on a boat. I'd have coworkers, obviously, but it would probably be a very isolating experience. And it's also got plenty of the other downsides of what is functionally touring. At this point in my career, I'm really looking to just grow my experience working with Disguise and all of this A/V hardware (if you don't know what any of this means don't worry about it) so I'll kind of take any job I can get, but the more I think about living on a cruise ship the further this opportunity drops down my list.

But enough about me. After a whole day of working my shitty retail job and then applying for ten more jobs I'll inevitably never hear back from, I need to come home and relax with some chill Star Beasts gaming. It's time to stop thinking about cruise ships and start thinking about the next major area of the game: A cruise ship.

What immediately struck me about the S.S. Anne in this game was the music. As soon as it started playing I knew I recognized it from somewhere, and it didn't take long before I was able to identify it with certainty: This is a chiptune arrangement of perennial member of the Wikpedia article "List of music considered the worst", Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da by The Beatles. I can say with confidence that this is never a decision I would've made, but that's what's so great about art: You get to experience the lives and influences of other people vicariously through the things they create. I have learned so much about Soul Valor through the experience of playing this game. And honestly? The more I listen to this version of the song, the more I like it: This song was kind of born to be played through a Game Boy. Good stuff.

The first new NPC I found on the ship was an old man who said in a very panicked tone he was being held hostage by the other person in his cabin. Alright, sure. He then challenged me to a battle, I guess to not arouse suspicion? His Star Beast of choice was this thing though, so I'm not sure how much to believe what he's telling me. It had a pretty stacked moveset including Hyper Voice and Rest, and it must've stopped being Rock after its evolution, since Water was not very effective.

His post-battle dialogue confirms that he's just off his rocker.

The other guy in the room, a kind of shrimpy looking guy with glasses who's a bit embarassed over his partner drinking so much, refers to the Gentleman as "detective". This combined with the "commies" joke makes me suspect this is a Disco Elysium joke, although I have no proof of this because I have not played that game even though I really really should.

In another room on this deck of the ship we get the TM for Body Slam, one of the best moves in the vanilla game. (Although the abundance of Steel types makes it lose a lot of its luster here). Everybody on the team can learn it right now, but I think I'll hold off for a bit until I feel like one of them really needs it to complete its move set, to avoid spending it on something I'll regret. Zorotl is the obvious pick, but he really does not need any help clicking good Normal moves at the moment. In other news, a man in the next cabin over from Harry and Kim says that he's "heard more coherent rants from my mother, and she's nintety!"

On the topic of relatively coherent speech, another boatgoer is happy to show off her Lunozen, who she says she taught Strength so it can move heavy boulders. That's all fine and good and I think this is a solid design for an evoution of Cromag. The troubling part is its dialogue when spoken to, which reads in plain English "Me lift heavy thing." I suppose Pokémon are pretty regularly depicted with human intelligence in other ways. And there's like, Team Rocket Meowth, and some legends in the TV show and movies. And also Lucario? So maybe this isn't actually weird. But I definitely found it a bit surprising in the moment.

Hey, remember that in-game trade for a Sillish back in the Pewter Museum? Here's what it looks like.

Hey, remember how Rowsdower hasn't evolved yet? Here's what its evolution looks like.

Okay that caption is a little bit of a lie, his tail is kind of like a yo-yo that's fun. Still Electric/Dark, but a great bump to his stats. At this point I'm also pretty sure I was wrong every time I called Zapodi a "dog" in the past, this game's got at least 3 dogs but I don't think the Zapodi line are any of them.

Most of the ship looks like it's about the same as the original game, but here's a room that's definitely new. Apparently the guy in this room is "really tough" and he's set up some sort of trap where he'll steal half of your money if you lose to him. Of course, I had to know what the deal was, so I dropped a save and headed into the room.

The man in the room, who's dressed as a Chef, actually doesn't immediately fight you the second you walk in. He's just standing guard over an item. I did want to fight him though, bracing for the worst. And I'm not gonna tell you it went great, but it wasn't a total trainwreck either.

Fitting his Chef disguise, here's the first Beast he sent out.

Quite a level difference here, it was pretty fast and had Scald to take down two of my team members in one shot each. But what we lack in numbers we make up for with cheese, so Mr. Bungle was able to outspeed it and get a Wrap chain going to take it down. Next up in line (he's got three Beasts) is what I assume is the evolution of Whirlie.

At this point, as best I can tell Whirlie's line is pure Steel. I don't know why that is, but that information is at least enough to form some plan to take this thing down. Unfortunately, I was not able to put that plan into practice here, and I got washed.

He does in fact steal half of your money when you lose to him. But I was determined to not be defeated, even if it meant arguably cheating. But I didn't even heal before fighting him the first time, so that one didn't count. Rematch, rematch!

This time, I'm going for Wrap strats against Cuppacaf out the gate. Those Scalds are brutal, but it took neutral damage from Wrap so I think we can take it down. I put The Peeker up first and go for a Thunder Wave... only to realize this thing is a Ground type. Fair play, I should've guessed that.

Reload the save again, this time Toby Kebel is my guy. Or maybe not, since he dies to a critical hit Water Gun.

Reload the save again, this time we're going with Rowsdower, since I haven't actually seen a Ground move from this thing yet and Super Fang has some real use here. He lives a Water Gun, and it wouldn't be a 2-hit KO either so he's probably safe to stay in for another turn. He does half with Super Fang, which means technically that we've done more damage on turn 1 than our opponent has. And bear in mind, even if it takes two of our Beasts to KO one each of our opponent's, we have the numbers advantage.

Rowsdower's Bite isn't able to make much happen and he falls to a Scald. Mr. Bungle is able to clean up with Wrap though, although I noticed when I used a Water Gun to finish the job that it actually was super effective: I guess Cuppacaf is just Ground then? Or maybe something weird like Ground/Ice if it's supposed to be iced coffee? Maybe we'll learn that eventually.

Warnado is in next, which is going to be much more of a challenge. Mr. Bungle is able to get quite a few Wraps off, but each one deals barely any damage, and two misses is enough to send him to an early grave. The Peeker was really my only other option, since I have very little to deal decent damage to Steel types. (I realized after typing this out that I probably could've taught that Dig TM to something... too late now.)

In case you've forgotten though, Wrap plus paralysis is really damn good, and we get bailed out of one of our two remaining Wrap misses by a full para. Not the cleanest way to deal with it, but it works. Let's see if we can keep these cheese strats up against the last Beast.

Remember when I mentioned earlier that I was glad that this game wasn't showing me any Ghosts before Lavender Town because that makes for an exciting reveal? Guess what type this thing is, lol. I don't actually care all that much in this case, since it's a weird optional superboss fight, but it does throw a wrench into my Wrap strategy. Worse still, Slasher has Double Team, and it really loves using it. So we might be on this fight for longer than I thought. The Peeker was able to land a Shadow Claw on his way out of the battle though, which was in fact Super Effective. Combined with intuiting from the sprite and Flash Cannon from Rocky Dan being not very effective, this gives me the new information that this game is using the Gen 6+ matchups for Dark and Ghost against Steel. So we might not be quite as low on options for beating this fight as I initially thought.

Still, we lose here, and I need to rethink my strategy here a bit. Tragically, despite Rocky Dan having an incredible move and Attack stat, all three Beasts on the Chef's team resist Steel. Zorotl isn't going to be able to accomplish much either, unless it's my first Beast out. I think I'm going to have to save Rowsdower in the back to deal with Slasher, so that leaves Toby Kebel and Mr Bungle, and I think I'm going to lead with Toby here to start just because if I get a free turn against Warnado it lets me set up a Glare to either start Wrapping right then or set up for my next Beast.

Alright, one more time. Toby Kebel versus Cuppacaf. Cuppacaf uses Scald and one shots Toby. FUCK.

One last try, okay. I get one more before I try something else. Toby Kebel versus Cuppacaff. Cuppacaff uses Water Gun, it doesn't crit, and Toby lives. Toby gets off a Glare, Wraps it to half health and the misses one, but we get a full para and knock out Cuppacaff with some more Wraps. Beautiful. Warnado outspeeds and kills with a Gust, that's fine. The Peeker's in, TWaves the Warnado and starts Wrapping. It misses two Wraps and dies, but in the process does about 70% to it. Rocky Dan comes in and I click Selfdestruct just to ensure I get the KO here. I bring in Rowsdower against Slasher, I outspeed and land a Bite, it's Super Effective and does over half. It uses Double Team. I go for Bite again, it lands... and we're done!

Our reward is a TM for Rest. Not a bad prize I guess, but probably not worth the effort. Still, it was a fun fight and a good test of how our team performs against strong Starbies that match up better into Wrap than what we've faced so far. Apparently this guy used to be a chef on the ship, but it didn't pay very well and there were a bunch of stupid rich people so he started doing this on the side. Honestly, you have to respect the hustle.

Alright, last couple loose ends on the S.S. Anne before we fight Varik and grab the Cut HM. First, there was a random trainer with a Joltybara that TWave'd me and then tried to flinch me with Stomp. That was just funny, cheese solidarity. I also got some more leads on what types Robby from way back around Mt. Moon could be, based on resisting both Dark and Electric I think it might be Electric/Fighting? That's kind of interesting. The real thing I want to talk about though is this truly baffling piece of added dialogue: Someone on the ship's deck says he's here to "investigate reports of human trafficking."

I'm trying to think of any good reason to add this line. This was a purposeful decision, there has to be a reason behind why this was put here. Is there some kind of horribly tonally dissonant human trafficking subplot later in the game? Did the hack creator just watch like a 60 Minutes special on human trafficking and was like "damn I should make more people aware of this problem via my Pokémon ROM hack". I've got nothing. I even had to check the original script just to double check this wasn't some bizarre line from the original game I'd forgotten about: Nope, this is a Star Beasts original. I'm reading Pokémon dialogue about human trafficking while listening to Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da I feel like I'm dissociating from reality.

Well in any case, we can look at this thing, who takes the place of Snorlax as the thing you get shown that just eats and sleeps all day.

Alright, let's get this over with. It won't be a Raticate this time, but I'm hoping to send at least one of Varik's Starbies to hell in this fight.

This fight was a pushover, honestly. All 6 of my Starbies were in the level 22-23 range, and Varik's highest level was 20 with most of them just in the high teens. I don't think I'm overleveled or anything either, there's a lot of normal trainers on the ship with levels roughly equal to mine. Pretty disappointing dude, pick up the pace. On the bright side, we do get to see the metamorph of Quincy, and it's a name we've heard before.

Varik goes down without much of a fight, we give the captain a back rub and get the Cut HM. Zorotl has lots of space on his moveset that he's probably not going to use in the short-term, so he can be our Cut user for now.

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