Wednesday, March 7, 2012

CHAPTER 5: ENTROPY PART 1

CHAPTER 5 PART 1

In the original game, the 6th world was Pluto. Ironically, despite being the smallest planet, Pluto was the largest and most diverse world in the game.
Entropy had a different layout, but was similarly huge and diverse.



The board music was played by a violin instrument, a melody that started out sounding mournful and then it gets rather....I guess I would call it "distorted"? It made me feel depressed and unnerved. Not something I would want to hear while trying to sleep.

Strangely, none of the levels from the previous worlds were present here, instead there were 8 brand new icons. The bosses this time were Megalon, Battra, and Mechagodzilla.



As usual, the first thing I did was go to the Quiz Level for another interrogation from Face. But I when I got there, I noticed something different; instead of the usual goofy GH1D0RA music, it was the Password theme.

The music change seemed to be intentional, because after the first 2 questions at the start, the quiz started to take on a darker tone;





Quiz 3

1. Do you like Ice Cream?

Answer: Yes, Reaction: Weird Face #1

2. Do you like clowns?

Answer: Yes, Reaction: Weird Face #10

3. Is time slipping through your fingers?

Answer: Yes, Reaction: Weird Face #2

4. Do you have any regrets?

Answer: Yes, Reaction: Hurt

5. Do some people deserve to die?

Answer: No, Reaction: Weird Face #3

6. Is it safe to go out at night?

Answer: Yes, Reaction: Weird Face #5

7. Do you find it hard to sleep at night?

Answer: Yes , Reaction: Weird Face #9

8. Have you ever killed anyone?

Answer: No, Reaction: Weird Face #7

9. Do you want to kill anyone?

Answer: No, Reaction: Angry

10. Are you actually accomplishing anything?

Answer: No, Reaction: Weird Face #4

11. Does life have any real meaning?

Answer: No, Reaction: Love

12. Do you like Mothra?

Answer: No, Reaction: Maniacal




I knew that last one was gonna be a gameplay related question, but I had no idea what the result would be. I answered honestly, because as I said before I never liked Mothra.

Nobody liked playing as Mothra in this game. And there was a good reason for that, every other time Mothra gets hit she gets slammed back to the left corner of the screen, and she sucks at fighting because her attacks are so weak. The only benefit Mothra had was being able to fly over obstacles in some levels.

So I answered No, and Face actually replied back to me, not only with the maniacal expression, but with text;

"TOO BAD!"



I was taken back to the map screen, and I was shocked to see that Godzilla and Anguirus has disappeared from the board, leaving only Mothra.
Face had just fucked me over. Needless to say, I was pissed. But there wasn't anything I could do, and I'm willing to bet even if I had said "Yes", I would have been stuck with Mothra anyway. Face giveth, and Face taketh away.



I took a deep breath, and got ready to explore. There were two paths I could take through the board, I decided to take the lower one. This turned out to be a good choice for reasons I'll get to momentarily.

The first world ahead me of was a forest, so I started there. Almost immediately, I got an eerie feeling. There was something about this level that just seemed "off" to me, even more than the previous ones.

Perhaps it was the pitch black background. I've always been afraid of being in a forest at night. Something about all those trees, makes me feel surrounded and vulnerable.



And the fact that I was stuck as Mothra didn't help. Playing the game's previous worlds as Godzilla gave me a feeling of bravery, being in control of the King of The Monsters, I'd be able to handle just about anything in my way.

But it's not like that with Mothra. No feeling of strength, or security. Now I'm just a weak, easily overwhelmed bug, traversing into the unknown.

Back to the level. The music had new instruments, sounding like woodwinds, followed by slow, rhythmic drums and chiming bells. Gave me this feeling that I was intruding into some dangerous place I really should not be.

After a while, I encountered the first enemies of the stage. Or at least I assumed they were enemies. They were strange, long legged deer like creatures. Instead of attacking, they were just idly walking around. I went to approach them, and they ran away.



I thought about shooting one with an eye beam to see what would happen, but it seemed wrong. These creatures were harmless. So I passed over them and continued through the level.

About halfway through, I encountered groups of the deer-like animals, and also 2 new creatures: A sloth like creature with a beak climbing on a tree, and hairy raptor-esque beasts that were preying on the deer.

It was very surreal watching these creatures interact. I didn't feel like I was playing a video game, but rather that I was traveling through a forest in some other dimension.

The creatures ignored me for the most part, although the raptors did attack me when I got too close, or if I attacked them first. I know I shot one of them to help one of the deer creatures escape. I got clawed at, but confrontation was easily avoided by flying up to the top of the screen.



After that, I had to choose whether I wanted to play the levels with the hourglass, or the tv screen. I picked the latter. What I got was not at all what I expected.



When I pressed the button to start a level on the Tv Screen like I normally would, this screen with an animation popped up. There was also music in the background, which was the goofy Gh1d0ra music that used to be playing in the Quiz levels.

I was somewhat unsettled by this because it was just so strange. I also found it a bit spooky because I had a shirt that looked just like that when as a kid. After starting the animation, you could go back to the board by pressing any button.

After that, I had no what to expect of the rest of these icons. I went to try an hourglass icon next. I was somewhat relieved when an actual level came up.



It was certainly an unorthodox looking level. All brown, with time measuring instruments floating in the air and gigantic grandfather clocks in the background. The music was the same as the board screen.

And very early in the level I encountered something else I didn't expect to see: Original enemies from the game!



And not just that, it seemed to be a whole fleet of them. And the yellow tanks, which were normally immobile, could now move. I took some damage, but it was nothing I couldn't handle. But the most interesting thing about this level was the colored hourglass items.



There were 3 of these:
1. A blue hourglass, that made time slow down and filled the level with enemies from the past.

2. A red hourglass, that made time speed up and filled the level with enemies from the future.

3. A green hourglass, that set time to the normal speed, and filled the level with the original game enemies.







I encountered the blue hourglass first. As stated, the game started to slow down, and I saw the "enemies from the past", which were 5 different types of prehistoric animals. I don't know much about prehistory, but I believe all of these enemies represent real animals.

The level went into another segment, and I encountered the green hourglass, and then I fought the original enemies again. It was the same 5 types so I didn't take any screenshots. But in the last segment, I encountered the red hourglass, and the enemies that must have been from the future.

Now, whether or not the game was showing me 8 bit renditions of creatures that will actually exist thousands of years into Earth's future, I have no idea. But with that thought in mind, I found this particular segment to be very eerie, and it was made more tense because everything moved faster.



One of the future enemies bore a striking resemblance to something I saw in a book once, called "Troodon Man". Another looked like some kind of organic spaceship.



There was only one of the 5th type of Future creature, and when it appeared, all the others ran for their lives, leaving me alone to battle it.
It could fly but it's sprite didn't actually move, and it's single attack was firing a lightning bolt from it's "face". Even so, it was surprisingly powerful, and I suppose it could be considered a mini-boss.



After defeating it, it left a health power-up that restored the health and energy I had lost fighting it. Which was convenient! It seemed I would need all the help I could get to beat this world with Mothra alone.

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