Looking back at Uggy Barfoo (part 4 of many)

Last time around, we made it to the entrance of the sunken city of Bubarubas, located off the southeastern coast of... whatever the United States equivalent in Uggy Barfoo is called.  I don't think anyone in the game ever actually says the name of the country, but all the town/state names are spoofed up in some way so I figure the country's name would be different too.

Anyway...

 ...I'm not sure exactly where to go down here, but this big spooky-looking building with all the skeletons hanging on the front of it would make sense.

 Inside, there's a "magic circle" type thing on the floor that when you stand on it, triggers this text box.  It also triggers your character immediately jumping backward down the stairs to get off of it. XD

And I didn't notice this on my first time through, but the stairs to go down to the next level (and thus get closer to where I'm headed) are right there in the upper-left of this room.  But thanks to the blue-screen and fog, I didn't see them.  D'oh.

 Here's what might be the first example of the Uggy Barfoo symbol hidden in random spots around the world.  See the pattern those patches of grass (or... seaweed, I guess, since this is underwater) are forming? The goofy face? Yep, that's it.

 On my second search through the whole city I finally found these stairs.  No screenshots of most of the "downstairs" sections after this part, though, since they're just kinda boring little maze-like hallway areas.

 Until you get to this room, anyway.  Swirly blue-purple stuff and a floaty ball of energy in the middle.  Wonder what that could be?

 Actually the floaty ball of energy was some energy that had escaped from the Orbs, and Bunprego shows up to help you infuse that energy back into them so you can use it.  This is the first time the orbs get powered up, and so I immediately switched Enduo and Mejuai to new classes (Karate Fighter for Enduo, Wizard for Mejuai.)

In the next room up, there's a huge pit in the floor, and when you get close to it creepy music starts and something can be heard climbing up from down below.

 "Something" being this Cthulhu-monster here, known as Tuham Yigro.  This is the first boss in the game that uses the "major boss" song rather than the less-serious regular boss song, and normally it would be a pretty tough one to beat.

However...

 ...Tuham Yigro is an aquatic enemy.

Which means it's vulnerable to the Karp summon.

Which means...

...I was able to win the fight in about two turns the moment I had Jakarjo stop using regular attacks or non-Karp summons and switched to just summoning a Karp every turn.  The first one actually did even more damage than the 510 shown here, something closer to the 1000 range.

The screen is set to become lighter and less-blue the more damage Tuham Yigro takes in this fight, and you can see the difference between the  three screenshots -- the really blue-green is how it starts out, the dark gray foggy thing is after it's taken a bit of damage, and the light, not-blue-at-all coloration in the last screenshot was after that first 1000-damage Karp hit.  I don't know if that was the lightest the screen gets in this fight or if I just skipped ahead by finishing the boss off so fast. XD

 Now that I've dealt with Tuham Yigro, it turns out that they finally cleared the rocks off of this bridge, so I can get to the islands that I spotted off the coast earlier in the game.  And apparently this pirate forgot that he never actually had a ship, and lets you have his sail barge thing for... some reason.

There it is, parked right where Cap'n Alzheimer's left it.

If you go to the far end of the islands you can see some of that
weird mist off the coast that people have been talking about.

 Not a whole lot of important stuff going on in this little touristy beach town, but there are a lot of goofy and weird NPC quotes.  This one's referencing the company that makes Radioactive Kitty Ears (which you can actually get as an equippable item in this game.)  The Kickme Fake Animal Parts Company has a recurring thing in a lot of my games and such, ever since 2002 or so anyway.

 And apparently the D&D equivalent of the Uggy Barfoo world is "Bathrooms and Buttweasels."  They seem to use six hundred sided dice, going by what some of the others around the table are saying.

 And then there's this girl who sits in the bar, staring at the fat French chef who informs you of what the legal drinking age is.

 Speaking of creepy girls staring at things, standing in front of the weapon shop on the north end of town is this one.  You'll be seeing her a lot more in the future.  Her name is Nancos, her backstory was never explained, and she's a recurring boss of this game...

 ...and she has her own Orb, the Black Orb, which is apparently the equivalent of four regular orbs combined in terms of power.

I somehow forgot to take a single screenshot of the battle with Nancos, unfortunately, so that's all the Nancos screenshots for now.  Whoops.  I'll try not to do that again the next time she appears.

 

 

 This was way back when Thunotsu's species hadn't really been established yet and he could transform into larger, differently-named forms by absorbing more electricity.  Jakarjo is high enough leveled that he can summon all three versions now, and here's the strongest one (which wipes out those crabs in one hit.)

 Also, here's another enemy that I actually drew.  I can't really remember what these looked like before I swapped out their original sprite for the hand-drawn (and scanned, and then colored on the computer) version.

 After sailing around the southern coast, I've made it to another little town, this one named Uen Sarleno.

 And in the inn, there's a priest commenting on the two "shluts" (for some odd reason the game consistently has everyone say "slut" as if they had a lisp) who recently moved in.  I think they were based on Paris Hilton and... the other one who was also on their reality-show thing at some point.  I can't even remember both of their names anymore.  Or the name of the show. XD

 

 Yeah, almost definitely based on those two.

 More importantly... here's Robert!  He's just kind of hanging out in the alley behind the bar when you first come across him.

After explaining his booger-fighting ways, he mentions that he's off to save a middle-of-nowhere town up north from a robot invasion and awkwardly hops off of the screen and disappears.  It should be obvious where you have to go next...

 ...the cave leading up to the giant penis statue in the mountains, of course!

Actually no, that's not even remotely relevant to the plot.

 It does randomly give your party a single experience point every time you check it out, though.  It's possible to level up this way if you're really bored and/or patient.

 But yeah... the actual next stop on the journey is this little town here, named Sannak, which is obviously Kansas rearranged.  Unlike Kansas, there are mountains nearby.

 Heck, the town's layout isn't even flat, there's a little hill right in the middle of it!  Oh, and robots.  LOTS of robots, roaming around town and sometimes blocking your way.

 While you fight your way through the lesser robots, Robert and their leader are locked in battle on top of the hill in the middle of town, constantly jumping back and forth and smacking each other.

 And it's impossible to get up there until you've gone through and cleared out all of the other robots.  I forgot to take any screenshots of those battles, but they all have weird names like "Yaagboh" and "Zubyik" and "Takkeo."  They're also very vulnerable to electricity-based attacks, so making Mejuai into a wizard after getting that orb upgrade turns out to have been a very good idea -- she can clear out a whole screen of robots with one attack now!

Well, depending on what type of robots, anyway; the Zubyiks and Yaagbohs take two hits, and the Xonus aren't actually weak to electricity (taking 20-30 damage rather than 70-90), but everything else dies in one Zzzter Spark spell.

 Finally, once the rest of the robots are gone, you can climb up the hill and confront their leader... who seems to have defeated Robert and now has him surrounded with a group of its minions.

 

 Yep, here's the boss robot -- Aaj-an-Xonu, basically an upgraded version of the standard Xonu that I've been fighting throughout the town.  Actually much more dangerous than the regular version, because...

 ...it can use a "Nerve Gas" attack which paralyzes multiple members of the team all at once, possibly making you lose the fight immediately if everyone is affected.  Luckily, it seems like it never actually hit more than two party members at a time.

 

 ...that Zzzter wasn't actually what finished the boss off, as you can tell from Mejuai not being conscious in the last screenshot. XD

 And now that the boss robot is dead, it yells out some randomness.  I think this may have been inspired by Sigma in one of the Megaman X games yelling "ZELLO!" rather than "ZERO!" thanks to bad translation and/or "Engrish," now that I think about it.

 

And Robert... does not join the party.  Heck, he doesn't even take the Purple Orb that was dropped after the fight with Aaj-an-Xonu; he says he'd rather rely on his own power for now.  Which is the power of boogers, of course.  Robert actually works pretty well without his orb, since his booger techniques are pretty powerful -- he's pretty much the only character in the game that you'd really want to keep in his "normal" form for very long.

But yeah... saying goodbye to Robert for now, as he wanders off into the north for more training.  Next stop...

 ...okay, actually before I go anywhere, here's a screenshot of an underage drunk.  A very underage drunk.

 Also, Joguo (who I have -- temporarily? -- switched to Swordmaster class) has a super attack he can use now.  Though I didn't get a good screenshot of it from this battle so the screenshot below has different enemies in it. XD

 Yep, this attack in Uggy Barfoo is actually the origin of the Goueng-Zu ninja clan's symbol, which has been associated with Joguo ever since.  At the time I made this game, though, it was just the three slashes of this special attack and had no other significance.

 Far off to the southwest, there's a desert (of course.)  And in this desert is a little town called Raizone... which is a distortion of the name Arizona.

It's also home to weird turbaned guy who pretends to be a sign welcoming people to the town.

 And the Hobo Code returns! Nothing important here like the oxygen masks from Alfrido, but still.

 No Hobomon battles going on over here, apparently.  And it seems like they catch hobos in "Hobo Boxes" rather than Poké Balls. XD

 And here's a turbaned guy who wants to get a job pretending to be a toilet.  Ewwwww...

 The next place to visit, of course, would be these enormous castle ruins in the desert to the southwest of Raizone.  Also visible: a tiny little temple up in the mountains.

And I'll end this section of the Uggy Barfoo playthrough with this view of the castle's entrance.  Lots of skeletons around here it seems.  What's inside? Uh... probably undead things, I would guess! But you'll get to find out the next time I post one of these.  Probably tomorrow. XD