TAO, A Let's Play

The road in crosstwon looks llike a cross. Is that skirt psychic trainer is wearing?

I'm pretty sure he's a hermit wearing a robe, hence the psychic powers.

If he put on pants he'd immediately lose his powers.

This game is utterly amazing. I'm tempted to look it up to see where it is going, but I'll leave it a mystery for now so I can follow along.

I love your commentary too.

Hey guys sorry I've been busy. That's not going to change either and I fully expect to become one of those "On sometimes" members like Scutigera in the near future. Nothing bad, in fact it's the opposite of bad, I'm slowly becoming what I've always wanted.

That said I'm posting the next chapter tonight, and will continue as long as interest remains.

Thats understandable , take your time with this and i wish you the best of luck in all your endvoers in life.

...Ouch man. There is nothing more rude than the truth.

Anyway, I do look forward to finding out what happens next in this bizarre romp.

Beating Ganesh triggers new random encounters. All the old guys are still around, but now new guys can be found. Rock Head here is really fast and will usually sneak in a hit at some point, but he doesn't do any real damage (yeah I know, the giant rock head is a "fast but weak" type.)



Also if the enemy is weak enough, they will use "Forgive" and "Recess" meaning they run away from you.



Grapplers are the toughest thing we've encountered. They are stronger than Ganesh in every way, and have a hypnosis skill. They will usually take a few bars off from you.


"Druggist has potion."

Well, the first part of that we totally knew, but outside of Crosstown there's a druggist.


To Crosstown!


This little guy is Purusa. Unfortunately I didn't realize I capped the screenshot just as he was flashing from taking damage. He's a green, six armed little Asura that is adorable.


Yeah dude scrolls are gone and he's in bad shape.


"Buy herbal potion for 100 coins?
Sure!! <
Later."

Well, it looks like I'm getting ripped off for pine needles, but this is my only lead so...


"Good purchase
*Potion!!"

Welp time to go back.



On the way we run into Orbiter. He uses the pretty vicious "Finish it!" attack but his accuracy is so bad he's never actually hit me.


"Thanks Enter!"

Yeah we get in for free this time.


"So merciful.
*A merit!!
Mara Sutra...found?"


"Tears fall from the skies...when will Mara return?"

So the head monk is no longer dying but he's kind of depressed about the scroll being gone, he's also thinking about the second coming of Mara. Probably best for us to go now.


"Concentrate the heart on 1 point focus"

One of the monks how offers meditation. This boosts our stamina by 1 but it's not really worth our time because it makes us sit and wait while we "meditate" each time we do it. But this is a mention of "1 point" which will be important later.

AS USUAL, when we don't know what to do, we better talk to crazy mountain witch.
Time for her to say something like "I hear trains." and unlock a new place we can travel to.


"Mandarin Medallion revives Mara...Whirlwind witness taken. Red swastika spins."

Well that advice was...abnormally to the point.

Back in Khalibad someone was talking about tornadoes taking animals so let's find them again.


Murmur here has a ton of hit points and can probably knock a bar off of you, but his offense is nowhere near as impressive as his defense.


Gumballer uses fire magic, but he's so weak that it's hard to notice.


This thing is named Puffles. Yeah, Puffles. Puffles will KILL YOU DEAD by shooting out blasts of pure white light that take off 3-4 bars per hit. Do not fuck with Puffles.


Egghead here is pretty weak. He's one of a handful of monsters who get "evolved" forms later on though.


And hey it's Crab Cake! Nostalgia! Anyways this guy is stronger than the stuff we first encountered but he's so much weaker than Grappler, Murmur or Puffles that you won't care when you bump into him.


"A whirlwind swept the animals to Tokyo. A hidden god."
"Hidden god now revealed...Sacrifice rite on fear mountain."

You can't tell, but our witness gets abducted by a TORNADO at this point. Holy shit I did not sign up for sentient tornado battles. Look I almost got my ass kicked by PUFFLES.


"A swirling storm swallowing all...the mouth of Mochona devouring offerings!"

Oh great, the creepy village cult? Normally katanas are pretty badass and all but c'mon miss witch can I get some uzis or something?



...yes, yes that is exactly the same as a weapon that could actually do something. Fuck it whatever let's go.




Dinosaur? Hey yeah...listen, if I don't come back, shhh shhh, I know you want me to come back, and I'm going to try, but IF I don't come back. Back in Angol Mois I've got a helicopter ticket in my room. Just take it, take it and leave, and never look back.






Battle time. "Natives" is a nice step up from Ganesh. 1786 Power, 3 Attack and 2 Speed. Most notably they can use "God Magic" which is a bullshit attack that hits you 2-3 times in rapid succession. After a short tussle, they fall...but it turns out that that idol wasn't the thing they worshipped...



Cosmic god Mochona is likely to be the first thing you die against. With 1088 Power, 2 Attack and 1 Speed he SEEMS weaker than the Natives. But he has three big things going for him. First, you're already weakened from the Natives battle. Second, he can do this:

While cursed, you cannot do anything, and he will just spew ectoplasm and force brain damaging visions of paradise upon you with impunity. If you've done a little grinding, it's still likely you'll just barely beat him with your life in tact...

Oh right, third thing:


He revives himself and you need to kill him all over again.



Even if you DO get this death screen, TAO gives you "Life Points." that revive you the same way Mochona just revived. Also Mochona is programmed to only use his weakest physical attack if you don't have any Life Points left, so you'd have to try to get game over against him. Still, I wanted to show you guys what game over is like...



"Your mission was to save Earth. Rescue the world from annihilation. Ascend from Hell's depths, all creatures are reborn. Mankind destruction approaches, return to life!"






BAM. This is seriously one of the more screwed up aspects of the game (but not the most, as you will later learn.) The protagonist gets reborn if he dies. Same mom, but she doesn't acknowledge that you're a different child. In fact, no one does. And nothing at all seems to have happened in the 15-18 years you've been gone. Seriously.

Anyways I totally grinded to get shots of some of those enemies so I kicked Mochona's ass without dying.



Hey! Where is Mochona and why are you here? Also why are you paying poachers to kill lions?? Fess up old man, I'm not in the mood.


"I climbed a building to Heaven. There a God entered my body."

A building climbing to Heaven? You must have gone to that rich guy's tower in Khallibad huh? Um...I think you may have been molested.



Aaaaah he's a space alien again! ...oh good, he left.


"*Vishuda"


"I'm fine."

Well, I...I actually beat a village cult and their crazy space god. I am totally telling Dinosaur about this!!

Dose yama (yema) show up every time you die in game or only once?

He's the standard, unskippable death sequence.

Puffles is pretty boss.

Sig-quoted.

Still a pretty solid LP so far (and your relationship with Dinosaur Train is still deeply touching.)

Keep at it.

Curiouser and curiouser...

This game is like an odd cross between Earthbound and Cosmology of Kyoto.