Looking back at Uggy Barfoo (part 3 of many)

When we last left off, Enduo, Joguo, and Mejuai had just reached the city of Swont-Ghina...

It's funny because it's true.

...which has absolutely no plot relevance whatsoever (at least in the parts of the game that I got finished), so there's going to be a lot of NPC quote silliness for the first bit of this one. XD

This guy's textbox always cracks me up every time I play through this.

Yes, Bunprego's name is pronounced like Prego the pasta sauce.
How the heck else would it be pronounced?

 

Gangsters around here wear green... and also have Hobomon battles.

There's a regular weapon shop and an illegal weapon shop here.

After exploring Swont-Ghina a bit, it's time to finally head off to the next actually-important area, off to the west where there's snow all over.  Sometime around here I switched Joguo's class to Gunner since I was able to afford a handgun, though I'll be needing to build up some more money before he really becomes all that effective in fights (there's extra items you can buy that Gunners can use to learn various special attacks, but without them they just have a basic attack.)

 

 This snowy town is Rebumont.  And yeah, that kid is the same one the purple-haired-for-some-reason mom is talking about.

 Apparently this girl wants to snuggle the big humanoid wolf dudes. XD

 And speaking of the Jerrghu, north of town there's a cave where they live.  This is the next important place to go in the game (Rebumont was basically just there to have a pit stop along the way), and there's tons of random items lying around in here, including some new weapons and Pugger-Skin Shoes, which protect whoever equips them from terrain damage.

 The only random encounters in the first section of the cave are these guys, and they're pretty rarely seen.  Most of the Jerrghu don't attack random visitors, of course! XD

 The game makes it pretty obvious which way to go through this part, with everyone mentioning which way Jakarjo went when he came through.

 Block-pushing puzzle here.  I'm not sure why that chest is red, but it contains a key that you need to get further into this cave.

 You may remember how I mentioned in the last part that the Mt. Goribo caves have a section full of overpowered (for that point in the game) random encounters.  Well, in this cave they show up again, except now you're able to handle them a lot better than at that time.  Mr. Shicker here is one of them, and thanks to Mejuai being able to confuse enemies I barely took any damage from him at all.

(The Blablarghers -- not shown in any of these screenshots -- are much tougher to deal with, though.)

 And here's Jakarjo! Apparently he's been fighting Bunprego for a while and has beaten him twice by the time you walk into this room.

The game also plays Jakarjo's "solo" boss music at this point, which otherwise goes unused.  I forgot to mention this back at the beginning, but the battle music actually changed when Joguo joined -- there's a "standard" battle music for when you have multiple party members, and then each character has both battle and boss music that plays when they're fighting someone alone.  Enduo's "solo" battle music is used at the very beginning of the game, while everyone else's doesn't make an appearance until the second half when they get split up.

 And now Jakarjo has an orb.  Apparently he got this far without any special abilities or anything.

 Jakarjo seems surprised that Mejuai had an orb without having any sort of interaction with Bunprego, and this is her response.

Also, I'm not sure what that pit of swirly blue-purple stuff in this room is.  I don't think it's ever mentioned by anybody or explained in any way, it's just kinda... there.

 And yeesh, no wonder Jakarjo managed to get this far on his own -- he is insanely high leveled! Nobody else in the team is even close to level 20, I think the highest at this point was Mejuai at around 14 (though her lead on the others has shrank a bit, Enduo and Joguo are both in the 12-13 range now.)

Jakarjo is high enough leveled that he has the first of his "Super" moves -- this isn't a great screenshot for showing that off, but the attack is Roaster Blade, a double-chop attack that can only be used when he has an axe equipped (I swapped his Chain Whip out for a Tomahawk that I'd found in the caves beforehand.)  This did massive damage to the Zombo pictured, around 300 if I remember right.

But yeah, everyone in the game has at least one move like this, usually tied in to what weapon they have equipped (with most of the characters having three different ones -- Jakarjo himself has a whips-only move and a guns-only move, if I'm remembering right, while Joguo has one for guns, knives, and... I can't remember what his third was.  Enduo has one that's only if he has a staff equipped, one for swords, and one for knuckles.  Mejuai's are whips, boomerangs, and again I can't remember the third.  Robert, who hasn't appeared yet, is a little different if I'm remembering right -- he may have a super move he can use with any weapon -- though I know he does have one that's only for swords at least.)  They cost a percentage of your total MP rather than a set amount, so they're pretty cost-effective when you're set to a class with little or no MP but not so much if you're a wizard or something along those lines.

 Oh, and at some point I realized the reason why the title screen wasn't showing up was that RPG Maker 2003 defaults to not showing it in "test play" mode.  Not sure why.  Anyway, here's the title screen, which I would've shown waaaay back at the start if not for that. XD

 Brief return visit to Yoa before moving on.  The random priest guy actually gives you a hint as to where you need to go next, and...

 ...most of the other NPCs now react to Jakarjo being home again.  Including his parents.

 Who are apparently a bit freaked out by the fact that their son is now decked out in weapons and armor, but otherwise are doing okay.

 Also grabbed a couple of the Gunner items mentioned above while passing through Swont-Ghina again.  It turns out that they are not the "use to learn a new attack" items I thought they were, but rather items usable in battle.  They're probably single-use, too, which sucks considering how absurdly expensive they are at this point in the game.

Here's a little island chain off to the side, but...

...you can't cross the bridge because a ton of random rocks fell on it, or something like that.  This pirate certainly seems annoyed by this fact.

Fortunately that number is one, because a tri-nosed hobo would be really weird-looking.

 Heading further south, you'll reach the part of the map where there's swamps... randomly purple, toxic swamps.  Of course.  There's also a tropical-ish town down there.

 Complete with loads of palm trees.

 And shops selling (probably not) authentic Hudawuda tribal gear.  I did buy a couple of wooden shields from this shop since a couple of my characters didn't have a shield at this point.

 And yes, there's a golf course here, randomly.  Apparently the only one within 2000 miles.  Golf must not be a very popular sport in the world of Uggy Barfoo... either that or it's only played by absurdly rich people who don't mind having to take a plane to get to the nearest golf course.

 Also there's creepy flashers who try to give people heart attacks creeping around the course, apparently.

 And flowers that smell like poo.

 And there actually is a flag and a golf ball and an old dude playing golf, surprisingly.  I'm not sure why this tileset had a golf ball and a flag in it, but I definitely used them!

 Off to the east, there's a beach with a bunch of treasure chests on it.  This not-so-useful item (just a stat-booster) is only one of the three; there's also two very useful pieces of equipment, a Speed Bagel (which doubles your speed when equipped) and a Rapid-Fire Gun (which is like Joguo's current handgun but shoots three times for every attack.)

 A lot of NPCs in this game reference a "low-food diet," for some odd reason.  I think this was my spoof of the whole "low carb" fad diet thing that was going around back when I made this.

And yet your face graphic is actually not bald.  Whoops.

 I'm not really sure what I thought was so funky-looking about the face graphic of this particular NPC, but apparently I did.

 Also, here's somebody speaking in question-mark language.  She has the same sprite as Kat Yuzan (aka the Third Question Mark) did in her first appearance, of course.

 It smells and probably has a possum feeding Pringles to her babies inside, and you don't want to startle them by suddenly barging in.

 And finally, the Hobo Code actually becomes relevant! I think there's been enough hints at this point in the game that it might be possible to figure out what the code is, but I can't remember for sure if every single number in the code had a hint for it.  I think the second and third just have to be guessed, maybe?

 

 But yeah, the Hobo Code is... boobies in l33t.  And apparently "all hobos love boobies," which is a statement that I suspect isn't quite accurate. XD

 But anyway, your reward for figuring out the Hobo Code is this... a set of oxygen masks for going underwater.  Which of course means that the sunken city mentioned here and there up to this point is coming up very soon.

 But first, let's stop by Taco Hell for a bite to eat.  Note that the demons wandering around are just guys in mascot suits, as opposed to the real demons of most fast food places. XD

 It's also incredibly useless, as it always misses and I believe afflicts you with some sort of nasty status effect, too.  But yeah, it costs 10,000 konju so nobody's actually buying it at this point in the game anyway. XD

 Heading south out of town, the road breaks up into trees and grass, and there's water all over the place.  Actual swamp here, not purple toxic swamp.

 And the secret agents (who previously would be blocking your way) now let you pass, since you have equipment for breathing underwater now thanks to that hobo.

And... here's the underwater city, Bubarubas, which as you can see is most definitely nothing but ruins at this point.  That's where I'll cut off this post; next time, exploring Bubarubas, with some difficulty due to the blue-screen and fog effect that makes it really hard to tell where stairs are.