Mother 3 high playthrough part 2: Froggy Intelligence

The enemies in this forest seem harder than before.. now that Flint is on his own these snakes and mice make me constantly need to heal.
lol what's with this walking bush enemy... It follows you around but doesn't actually engage you unless you try and talk to it. then in battle it just uses Lifeup on Flint and does non-hostile things. weird...

Walking Bushie greeted everyone politely and left.

These boar enemies are kinda tough, but then I learned the rhythm to get combo hits on them...

Back to Alec's house

Alec says he knows where Clause went...

According to my froggy intelligence, he's at my friend's house.

My friend is able to talk with frogs, lizards, and what have you.

His friend is a Magypsie... The Magypsies have lived isolated from civilization for a long time...
In addition to the save frogs, there's also these weird red "arrow lizards" that point to the direction you need to go...

The magypsies are neither human nor beast, neither man nor woman.

Eventually these arrow lizards lead me to...

Wrong. I am the wrong frog.

Right. Right! Right!! Frog!! The right frog!!

Frog bridge... Across the river is the house of Alec's magypsie friends... This house looks very similar to the Magicant shells in the first game.
These magypsie people live way longer than humans, and didn't care about Clause going to risk his life to fight the Dragos and get revenge.

The cave behind their house is where Claus went...

It's dark in here, but never fear. I've been through here many a time. Just leave it to me. But more importantly, that super serious look on your face will only bring us trouble.

For some reason, Alec keeps telling Flint to relax as they go through this cave, and he's acting all weird and making jokes while giving him the directions to the Drago's home.

Some more pig soldiers were up here, and they ran away in their pig UFO just as they saw Flint...
The baby dragon was there, as well as Claus's shoes... and then, as I thought, one of the Dragos has been turned into an evil Mecha Drago...

Used the Drago fang on it.. and learned the timed hit rhythm but it was still kinda hard to pull off...
Alec stopped Flint from killing this Drago parent... Suddenly you see Clause passed out down beneath the cliff they are on. Flint and Alec don't see him though...

Chapter 1 ends with a little narrative text scroll. The people of Tazmily learned about sadness for the first time after this event.

- Chapter 2: Thief Adventure -

The plot takes a complete different turn all of a sudden...

One thing I'm noticing about this game in comparison to Earthbound, its cutscenes are a lot more lengthy and serious.. and a lot more animated too... There's a lot more to take in besides just text.

Wess:

Hidden inside the castle is a treasure with the power to change the fate of the world. Back when the king of Osohe still lived in the castle... I hid this treasure where no one would ever lay eyes on it.

So that's what we're doing now... Wess leaves Duster a bunch of enemy debuff tems he can pick up. I guess Duster is supposed to be this game's Jeff... Also you can examine the other stuff in their house, it says "It appears to be empty. Or at least that's what's written here, so it's probably best not to touch it."

The map doesn't tell you where to go until you talk to Mapson... Mapson is the "Hint guy" of this game.
Met a strange traveller and his monkey friend in Tazmily at night...
This fat kid Butch, from the pig farm was introduced to money by some guys in pig costumes. He traded his pigs for it. Then he goes and hides the money in the town well.

Osohe Castle is that place north of the cemetery. Something seems to be going on here... The cemetery now has zombies and stuff coming alive and attacking Duster... The animation on these zombies is really good.

- Osohe Castle -

The ants that keep arbitrarily stopping me... Now whenever I come across them, they start telling me about timed rhythm hits. These are like weird invisible NPCs that randomly interrupt you. This one ant after sneaking into the castle tells me about how putting an enemy to sleep lets me hear the rhythm better.

lmao, I ran into that heavy metal statue from the wrong side and died.

Wow, the enemies here are really hard. Duster doesn't have anything that attacks all enemies, so he easily gets overpowered by groups. there's also a bunch of different ways to go and no way of knowing which way is the right way... Yep this is a Mother game alright.

Here's a more modern feature that wasn't in the previous games... Found a book that gives you info on all the enemies you've fought so far. You can even re-fight all of them whenever you want and practice combo hits.

This one part of the castle is a dead end with some suspicious looking walls... can't seem to do anything there though.

The Artsy Ghost spoke passionately about art! Duster had difficulty understanding.

Oh wow, this game also has dungeon maps. This is great. I thought this place was really getting way too confusing, it definitely needed a map.

This optional miniboss, Strawberry Slime... It's really hard. Most of the time my thief tools don't even work on it. Finally defeated it after using up a bomb and a jerky.

A ghost told me about this room that has an optional fight against a ghost knight, as well as a ghost sword and ghost shield.
All of these ghost enemies are quite tough with solo Duster, even when I can 16-combo them. I'm dying a lot here, but I can get back to where I was easily if I focus on avoiding battles.

Some red haired girl is in the upper floor of the castle before Duster.. Duster picks up a pendant that she dropped.

This ghost composer boss, Mr. Passion is really hard... beat it after like the 3rd try. His rhythm is easy to figure out.

Duster started this chapter at level 10, now he's at level 16.

Finally got the treasure Duster was sent here for... There's another one of those weird walls with the dance pictures and a face wall with the sound of wind beyond it...

Back in Tazmily, I could go straight back to Wess but I'll talk to everyone again first...

That traveller with the monkey from last night, he seems to be staying in the middle room in the inn, next to where Lighter/Fuel and the homeless people are staying... He's introducing more people to money...

The gossiper ladies are saying Flint has gone missing... Fuel says he hasn't seen Lucas come out of his house either... Duster saw Lucas outside his house last night, hanging out with Boney cuz he couldn't sleep... He's in his house now, wondering if he should've gone with Claus.

That old dying man in the west part of town, he senses something bad happening to the village... The farm where Butch lives still has its pigs and cows..

Brought the Noble Spitoon back to Wess... Nope, that was the wrong item, lol I wasn't expecting that.
! oh...
The pendant...
...That's not actually what Wess wanted either.. but he recognizes that pendant as belonging to the princess of Osohe Castle.
Wess joins Duster to go back to the castle.. you can talk to all the NPCs again and most of them have different dialog when Wess is with you. including this girl "Nana" who looks a lot like Paula.

Osohe Castle is now being raided and wrecked up by the pig invaders... All the ghosts are hiding in the kitchen and the unfriendly ghosts have all been killed.

The pigs try to stop Duster and Wess with this wimpy little golem miniboss. I used staples and figured out the combo timing and defeated it easily.

None of the pigs made it past that gap you need the rope snake to cross.. the unfriendly ghosts are still around to attack you past that point. With Wess helping in battle things are way easier...

Wess does an embarrassing dance to open that mysterious door.. he's disappointed at Duster for not being able to figure this out.

There's a strange Zelda-looking miniature courtyard thing here... That's still not the thing Wess is looking for.

Found Kumatora.. Wess already knows her, and she immediately insults Duster after he is introduced to her. even though she's only level 10, her PSI abilities are immediately very useful in battles.. Duster and Wess alone would have no chance against these fire spirit enemies.

Now we're in the top floors of the castle... This seems to be like the EarthBound "sanctuary path" sections... As in, the same sort of vibe of a strange cave that is isolated from the main villain's influence.

Finally got up to where the real treasure is... The hummingbird egg that supposedly contains all of the world's secrets... The pigmasks have managed to get here now too... Kumatora takes the egg before Wess can explain that he set up a trap. The 3 of them plus the egg fall into this pit of water and skulls, and get attacked by a snake monster.

After that, Wess and Kumatora got washed up on the shore back at Tazmily... Duster is somewhere else. By this point, Duster was at level 18 and Kumatora at level 14... oh and Kumatora got a fever and learned Thunder and Lifeup.

Wess and Kumatora go off to look for Duster... Kumatora got another fever.

When Kumatora goes to visit Scamp, that dying old man, he says that something that was going to happen to the village, that was Kumatora coming here. He says that something good will happen to the village now...

Everyone's in the middle of the village.. Butch is making a big fuss over his money having been stolen... He accuses the thief family. Chapter 2 ends on that note...

Duster is missing... Kumatora, Wess, and Flint wonder what's happening to this village... It all seems to be related to that traveling merchant with a monkey who appeared and started giving people money. Guess I'll stop here for now.