Bound to Earth: A CK2 Earthbound Quest in an 8-bit Dystopia

[x] A stone tablet depicting a snake-haired figure
[x] A Supportive PSI User (Learn Lifeup α. Locks C.D into mostly defensive, healing, and buffing PSI)

To put this into Earthbound terms, an Offensive PSI user is what Paula, and Kumatora's skillset is. Capable of flinging fire, ice, and lightning around as well as a handful of buffs and debuffs. Fun Fact, Paula is the only PSI user in the entire series to never learn Healing or Lifeup. Kumatora learns both, but Lucas is better at it. The reason I'm not voting for an offense is that Paula is one of our locked-in recruits
Defensive PSI is Ness, Ninten, and Lucas's skillset. The hero traditionally learns a bunch of buffs, debuffs, and shields, but his only source of offense is the expensive but powerful PSI Rocking (Love for Lucas). Sidenote, I think PSI Rockin was initially named PSI Kiai which means something along the lines of "Fighting Spirit" or refers to a yell in battle. Personally, I like to think Rockin is a psychic scream or burst of noise.
Balanced is what Pu and strangely enough Ana are all about. He learns almost every form of PSI but at a lower level than the specialized users, and sometimes misses out on certain versions of the attack. For example, Pu learns ice and lightning but not fire. He technically also has the powerful Starstorm attack, but he gains that through specialized training and does not possess it innately. Ana is weird because she's just kind of objectively a better psychic than Ninten. Both of them learn all the same levels of Healing but only Ana gains the highest level of Lifeup, on top of having all the elements covered and having PSI Beam.
 
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[X] A stone tablet depicting a snake-haired figure
[X] A Supportive PSI User (Learn Lifeup α. Locks C.D into mostly defensive, healing, and buffing PSI)

Kid Icarus would be neat to have a presence here.
 
[X] A stone tablet depicting a snake-haired figure
[X] A Supportive PSI User (Learn Lifeup α. Locks C.D into mostly defensive, healing, and buffing PSI)
 
[X] A stone tablet depicting a snake-haired figure
[X] A Supportive PSI User (Learn Lifeup α. Locks C.D into mostly defensive, healing, and buffing PSI)

Not sure if it's as good a fit for C.D. as say being an Offensive Psi-user, but having overpowered healing abilities is always awesome.
 
I find it interesting that Frankie worked for Wiley and he called him a plagiarist.
I wonder what happened between him and Wiley to make him call him that. Clearly Frankie has to be pretty smart to work at Wiley's Company.

It's possible he knows that Wily's 'Robot Masters' were originally designed by Doctor Light (Hence why canonically they have the desginations 'DLN' while 'DWN' only began to be applied in Mega Man 2 and its Robot Masters) and that Wily only changed their purpose.

Wait a minute...

...
Wario?! Is the WarioLand/WarioWare series here too?

WarioWare probably not, as that came after the cutoff limit.

Don't really see him owning a Zone, probably just a treasure hunter to goes splunking in the Pipeworks alot (and possibly gets lucky with contracts by having a simlar name to the red plumber and the resulting confusion).


Anyways, what a phenomonal turn to kick things off! Sure we may have yet another evil doing shenangians now but ultimately we succeeded explosively everywhere else! C.D. awakened her PSI, we got the deets on the local powers, and now we have some new conscripts for the war to come friends that we can convince to help us fight Gigyas! And for the vote:

[X] The remains of some dark place of worship
[X] A Specialized 'Kinetic' User (Learn a single random elemental PSI. You are barred from learning any PSI not related to that element, but are able to learn it at a tier beyond Ω)

The mystery options call for me more, and I envisoned C.D. being the tank and bruiser of the group and I am sticking to my guns on that and keep her purely offensive, after all...One should not fear the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

EDIT: Changed the PSI vote
 
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I'm curious about the malefic idol and the dark place of worship (was inclined to vote for the malefic idol though the worship place has more votes). I forget what the mani mani statue does. Aside from the medusa tablet being kid icarus related I have no idea what the other two items might relate to.

Don't have a strong preference as to what type of PSI user we should make CD.

[X] The remains of some dark place of worship
[X] A Supportive PSI User (Learn Lifeup α. Locks C.D into mostly defensive, healing, and buffing PSI)
 
I'm curious about the malefic idol and the dark place of worship (was inclined to vote for the malefic idol though the worship place has more votes). I forget what the mani mani statue does. Aside from the Medusa tablet being kid icarus related I have no idea what the other two items might relate to.

To my understanding, the Mani-Mani Statue is basically a psychic emitter for Giygas. Anyone who gets close to it/owns it basically has a direct line to Giygas, and therefore he uses it to mess with them. The "Mani" part of the name might come from the root word for "manipulate," sounds like the word "Money" relating to greed, and the original Japanese name comes from a word for being under the control of something.

I have no idea what the idol or dark place of worship could be. It could be like Dark Matter, an actual devil, Ganon... I don't know much about evil idols and places of worship in old games. But I'm sure there are plenty of them
 
Well, that provided us with dividends. I have a lot to say in terms of possibilities, and will most likely do a follow-up post later today. For now, I'd like to focus on what's most relevant - the statue, and our PSI/PK powers. Let's start with what's easier to decipher.

Our PSI specialty - we should hopefully be aiming to get Paula out of captivity and onto our team. Assuming we do so, she'll cover the offensive PSI options fairly well. Because of this, becoming an Offensive PSI User feels a bit redundant and becoming a Balanced PSI User feels like a relative trap option. From this, the two relative options we have are Specialized and Supportive. Let's run these down.

Supportive allows us to learn potent supportive PSI moves. Recover PSI - like Healing or Lifeup - that can heal sicknesses or wounds; Assist PSI - like Shield or the various status effect afflicting PSIs (Brainshock, Hypnosis, Paralysis). We most likely also have access to miscellaneous PSI, like Teleport - or, hopefully, (grabbing from Beginnings here) Telepathy - which will be extremely powerful ways to connect with the world around us.

Specialized, meanwhile, is an investment in a specific type of elemental PSI - and we'd only be able to learn PSIs relative to that initial PSI. The tradeoff is in potential - we'd be a battle powerhouse in most conditions once our full potential is met. Still, that's one big investment. Comparatively, not only is Supportive the safe option; it's the one that we know will synergize the most.

Now, let's get into our statue/idol. There are four possibilities for what this could be - and what no one has brought up yet is that this seems to link up relatively close to 8-Bit Dystopia Deluxe's Chaos Cults.

The golden statue is clearly the Mani-Mani statue. If we go down this route, we're most likely going to be dealing with Happy-Happyism in Twoson. Choosing this one will likely have far-reaching consequences, if it's anything like the game. This is the "vanilla" option.

As others have already mentioned, the stone statue is likely an idol to Medusa, from Kid Icarus. She's a goddess. Tackling Medusa would be risky; but if we go down this route - I could see us encountering and perhaps gaining help from Palutena (or Pallas Athena), and likely Pit, as well.

The small, but malefic looking idol probably belongs to the Ring of Gaea - which, as people have theorized, is related to the Megami Tensei series. This opens a wide possibility of powerful wild card options, but is also incredibly dangerous - because it's Megami Tensei, and we'd be dealing with gods and devils. On the bright side, though; we'd be able to possibly get Jack Frost on our team. That's always a good thing.

Finally, the remains of some dark place of worship - by definition - is likely a former worship place of the Black Moon Tribe; who are based on Ninja Gaiden. They're lead by a charismatic man named the Guardia de Mieux. Their endgame, from what I remember, is summoning a powerful demon to devastate the earth. They're also the easiest to deal with out of all four of these. Hypothetically - we might get help from Ryu Hayabusa, maybe even get ninja training?

In order of preference: Black Moon Tribe > Happy-Happyism > Medusans > Ring of Gaea

[X] The remains of some dark place of worship
[X] A Supportive PSI User (Learn Lifeup α. Locks C.D into mostly defensive, healing, and buffing PSI)
 
[X] The remains of some dark place of worship
[X] A Supportive PSI User (Learn Lifeup α. Locks C.D into mostly defensive, healing, and buffing PSI)

No strong opinions on the idol, but we should definitely get Support psi. The mayor is almost certainly hypnotized, and dehypnotizing him is gonna be important.
 
Okay so

I'd say of everything we got out this update (And it was a fair bit! Entry to the clubhouse advancing our faction goals, PSI growth shooting up and getting us stat growth and Powers, as well as what's likely our own variant on Rockin, Some pretty important details regarding Buzz Buzz), what I'd say was the most important is that Intrigue success:

First off - Yeah I'm going through Chuggas playthrough of Earthbound. I was wrong about the Shack, it IS closed in the original Earthbound... because Frank wrecked the place. Which doesn't seem to be the case here

More importantly, we've learned that the Imposing nature of the Police is actually a Decoy. The real issue here is Pirkle. In Earthbound, you have to beat frank to covince him to give you a key to the place (As long as he knows he wont' get in trouble if something bad happens to you), and him being more Proactive and the voice hints that unlike Strong and possibly Frank, he's not being manipulated via his insecurities.

Still, this hints to us about the importance of the Shack since we now know that him actually using his authority like this is suspicious. That plus us getting some effective 'level ups' early via the PSI gives us room to work with despite the setback with our Martial.
 
[X] The remains of some dark place of worship
[X] A Supportive PSI User (Learn Lifeup α. Locks C.D into mostly defensive, healing, and buffing PSI)
 
The mystery options call for me more, and I envisoned C.D. being the tank and bruiser of the group and I am sticking to my guns on that and keep her purely offensive, after all...One should not fear the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
'Scuze you, this is the single kick practiced 10,000 times.

[X] A Specialized 'Kinetic' User (Learn a single random elemental PSI. You are barred from learning any PSI not related to that element, but are able to learn it at a tier beyond Ω)

Such singular pure power might also give us a Power to truly hit the top tiers hard, who cares about lack of coverage moves when we can hit hard enough to make mountains flinch? Plus it might synergize with our UNRAVELING REALITY AT THE SEAMS WITH OUR PURE PSIONIC MIGHT ability.

Don't really have an opinion on the treasure.
 
And now, I can run through my thoughts for the latest update proper.

There's something major that I have on my mind that I'll be saving for the end of this post, but I'm excited.

Very surprised that we failed visiting the hill with our bonus - but given the roll, we would have lost any task we set our minds to. Given what we've gotten, the failure is a success in of itself - it's major information. So, I'm not disappointed.

Lier mentions another treasure hunter eats garlic and works out on the cold hard ground - as others have mentioned, this is Wario. While Brightflame's said that WarioWare, Inc. is past the Y2K/fifth gen cutoff date, I would like to chip in and say that this quest has already included elements from GBA games [notably, naming Pokey by his Mother 3 name of Porky]. As such, my assumption is that games from that era aren't verboten; but at the same time, are definitely not the focus. While it may not be the case outside this quest - within it; WarioWare, Inc. may exist, it might not. It's something we'll have to wait and see about.

...so, Buzz-Buzz is a former member of Giygas' forces? His talk has brought a couple of ideas to mind. The first invasion sounds like the events of Earthbound Beginnings, but it could also very well be part of the Invader Wars - with how it's set on Earth. The four humans being talked about are likely Ninten, Ana, Loid and Teddy - this is... strange, for one reason. Teddy was mid-recovery during the end of Earthbound Beginnings - so he wouldn't have been able to take part in the final conflict. Clearly, he managed to make enough of a recovery for the group to beat back Giygas.

Buzz-Buzz likely piloted a Lil' Saucer, described as being as "Only as big as a dinner plate". Descendants of these vehicles are around today - the Li'l UFOs, likely automated. If Buzz-Buzz lives all the way to Twoson, and we can get someone to refit a Li'l UFO; then we might have a way to assure Buzz-Buzz's protection further.

PSI being gathered from the Dreamlands can only make me think there's a possibility of us heading there late-game.

I have thoughts about each of the three groups we've gathered information about.

On Franky and the Sharks... while most of what's said here lines up with what I remember from the game, there's a couple standout notes. Franky is an ex-Wilycorp employee. This information is useful - he holds a grudge against the doctor, and if this grudge is used right; we might be able to lead him to a defeat. Additionally, Franky would likely be a good unit to cover up our holes in Learning, at least for now. Another hypothetical - considering the Onett Arcade is the Sharks' base of power; could he be using it as a workshop to build, power up, and fix Frankystein? It would likely have the gear to.

On Captain Strong and the Onett Police Force... ranged combat is not their strong suit - but at the same time, I have a feeling that using psychic powers will lead them to perceive us as mutants, and use guns - lethal force. It's nice to know the true origins of Strong's style - I wonder if we could get him to teach it to us, if we beat him? Or, failing that, at least find the dojo he learned from?

In order to get to Pirkle, we're going to need to get through both Franky and Strong. In order to get out of the town, we need to take on Pirkle - and that's going to be a big event in of itself, I feel.

Now, for the final piece of information - what I've been so excited about. The Hangout Spot. So, there's a bit of a trick being played here. Mr. Baseball Cap brought us in. There are 3 other kids in the treehouse. Mr. Baseball Cap, the Fedora-wearing kid, and two others. One is most likely the third of the trio that usually hangs out in the Treehouse in Earthbound - the one who wears the bowler hat, or pork pie hat.

But there's still a fourth. And I think I know who that fourth is, considering he's (apparently) good friends with these three.


Let's hope we can recruit him to our side as soon as possible - Ness would be a powerful Hero unit.
 
It's nice to know the true origins of Strong's style - I wonder if we could get him to teach it to us, if we beat him? Or, failing that, at least find the dojo he learned from?
Assuming we're correct and this is the Saikyo Style from Street Fighter, AKA "The Strongest Style" as used by Dan Hibiki, this martial arts form is the bastard child of Dan's Father's style, incomplete training under Ryu's master Gouken, and Muay Thai (which is considered one of the greatest "normal" martial arts in the Street Fighter universe) The only real user of the style we see, Dan Hibiki, is capable of performing similar techniques to Ryu and Ken, but with altered properties. For example, he can use an attack resembling the legendary Hadouken, but his version has a severely limited range. He can perform a similar rising uppercut to the Shoryuken, but his has absolutely terrible horizontal reach and instead is a potent anti-air option. It also includes a lot of colorful taunts including the "Legendary Taunt" which is one of Dan's super moves.

Now it's worth mentioning that Dan Hibiki is a joke, he's one of the weakest fighters in Street Fighter. But he is also a cut above random thugs and gang members. Being weak compared to Ryu, Ken, Akuma, and Sagat is like being weak when compared to a champion MMA fighter. He can still wipe the floor with normal people. It's hard to say how much Strong picked up from him, but if Strong starts busting out Gadoukens and shit we should be worried
 
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Sagat is like being weak when compared to a champion Boxing fighter.
Speaking of "Champion", fo we have the Punch Out people? Are they in the City, or is it possible that a couple of them moved to other Zones?

Cause, It would be fun if we gound/hired one of the boxers as an "enforcer", or as a bodyguard.
 
There's 4 kids in the hideout in Earthbound proper.

The three hat kids, and the one kid outside on Lookout Duty.

Damn, I always forget that kid - but then, I have to wonder where Ness is? This was my first and best guess as to where he might be, though I should have known it wouldn't have been this easy. Maybe the kids know where he's gone - again, they've known him for a good while; so if he even exists here, they'd probably know his whereabouts. We've taken the spot of his house in-game... could he be elsewhere in Onett? Could even be in the City for all we know.

Spe

Speaking of "Champion", fo we have the Punch Out people? Are they in the City, or is it possible that a couple of them moved to other Zones?

Cause, It would be fun if we gound/hired one of the boxers as an "enforcer", or as a bodyguard.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were competing in Fourside or Summers.
 
Damn, I always forget that kid - but then, I have to wonder where Ness is? This was my first and best guess as to where he might be, though I should have known it wouldn't have been this easy. Maybe the kids know where he's gone - again, they've known him for a good while; so if he even exists here, they'd probably know his whereabouts. We've taken the spot of his house in-game... could he be elsewhere in Onett? Could even be in the City for all we know.
Honestly, I think Ness is a case of 'Presumed Non-Existent until proven extant'.
 
Honestly, I think Ness is a case of 'Presumed Non-Existent until proven extant'.

Yeah, at this point; it definitely feels like it.

Assuming we're correct and this is the Saikyo Style from Street Fighter, AKA "The Strongest Style" as used by Dan Hibiki, this martial arts form is the bastard child of Dan's Father's style, incomplete training under Ryu's master Gouken, and Muay Thai (which is considered one of the greatest "normal" martial arts in the Street Fighter universe) The only real user of the style we see, Dan Hibiki, is capable of performing similar techniques to Ryu and Ken, but with altered properties. For example, he can use an attack resembling the legendary Hadouken, but his version has a severely limited range. He can perform a similar rising uppercut to the Shoryuken, but his has absolutely terrible horizontal reach and instead is a potent anti-air option. It also includes a lot of colorful taunts including the "Legendary Taunt" which is one of Dan's super moves.

Now it's worth mentioning that Dan Hibiki is a joke, he's one of the weakest fighters in Street Fighter. But he is also a cut above random thugs and gang members. Being weak compared to Ryu, Ken, Akuma, and Sagat is like being weak when compared to a champion MMA fighter. He can still wipe the floor with normal people. It's hard to say how much Strong picked up from him, but if Strong starts busting out Gadoukens and shit we should be worried

Forgot to reply to this. If Strong busts out Gadoukens, we can probably make it out fine with use of PSI. If he busts out an Otoko Michi, however... whole different story.
 
Now it's worth mentioning that Dan Hibiki is a joke, he's one of the weakest fighters in Street Fighter. But he is also a cut above random thugs and gang members. Being weak compared to Ryu, Ken, Akuma, and Sagat is like being weak when compared to a champion MMA fighter. He can still wipe the floor with normal people. It's hard to say how much Strong picked up from him, but if Strong starts busting out Gadoukens and shit we should be worried
He also used the Raging Demon once in the comics, but was prevented from landing it by a schoolgirls backpack. This is one of the few things I know about Street Fighter.
 
I have an idea in the future and if the opportunity ever arises I just want to say it.
I think we should kidnap a robot master and try to remove Wiley's Loyalty programs to free them from him.
because essentially they're only loyal because of Wiley reprogramming them and if we find a hero who is good at programming we might be able to do it thoughts.
 
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I have an idea in the future and if the opportunity ever arises I just want to say it.
I think we should kidnap a robot master and try to remove Wiley's Loyalty programs to free them from him.
because essentially they're only loyal because of Wiley reprogramming them and if we find a hero who is good at programming we might be able to do it thoughts.
Jeff would do it, you know he would. But Jeff sadly isn't locked in as one of our potential recruits anymore. Maybe we'll get lucky though and pick up a hacker/mechanic type somewhere.

Hell, Frank might be able to take a swing at it, though I sincerely doubt he is capable of such a thing right now.
 
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