 |
| EarthBound owned by Nintendo. Images used for educational purposes only. |
- Warp back to Fourside after visiting the Museum and obtaining information about faraway Scaraba. Follow the info to Fourside’s Museum.
- Speak to the curator, who’s standing on the far left side of the Museum. He’ll offer to show you something ‘extraordinary’ - but he wants the autograph of the singer, Venus, who plays at the Topolla Theatre. You can get into her dressing room after her show. She’ll give you a Signed Banana. Give it to the curator and he’ll let you through the Museum’s back door.
- You’ll emerge underground in a sewer. There are some new beasties down here, all of them fairly nasty:
- Deadly Mice are similar to their early-game counterparts, though now their bites can poison your characters. Beware.
- Stinky Ghosts have very high defences, and can only be killed with relative ease if you use PSI Fire. Avoid garbage cans if Paula has been knocked out.
- Filthy Attack Roaches hit hard, but are quite vulnerable to any PSI attacks. Physical attacks tend not to land.
- Take a right to start. In the room nearby is a Broken Iron. Then head back into the main tunnel and walk all the way left. There’s a Croissant at the end of the tunnel.
- Return to the entry ladder and climb down into the water. Follow it east until you find a ladder. Climb up and veer back west to find a door. Inside is a Broken Spray Can.
- Go east one screen and hop back into the water. Follow it east until you can climb out again. If you follow the walkway back west you’ll find a room that contains Magic Butterflies, and further west is a Rust Promoter DX.
- One final screen. Out of the water on the left you’ll find a room containing a Broken Bazooka, a handy fixable weapon for Jeff. In the middle here, after one last trip in the water, is the inevitable shining boss battle.
Plague Rat of Doom
The Plague Rat of Doom is pretty damned straightforward as bosses go, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy. It generally just bites at your team, occasionally inflicting poison. This is bad enough on its own, but the Rat also, like its lesser kin, lands SMASHING hits much more often than the average enemy. Unload your strongest PSI attacks on the thing early, using Paula and Poo to bring it down with PSI Freeze. Ness can add offensive support and heal anyone who’s injured or poisoned, and Jeff does well with Bottle Rockets and Big Bottle Rockets.
- Once the Plague Rat of Doom is dead you can climb up to Magnet Hill and heal your injures, claiming your fifth melody in the process. Up here you’ll also find the Carrot Key, an oddity that you’ll use once you leave the sewers. (You’ll also get your picture taken when you leave the Museum. Yay!)
Pink Cloud
- Use Teleportation to zip to Dalaam. Check out those rabbit statues you saw in Poo’s short scenario and, using the Carrot Key, make them disappear. Voila! A new dungeon stands before you. (Check out the palace for two photography moments, as well.)
- Pink Cloud’s dungeon, predictably, has some new enemies - and most of them are practitioners of thunder attacks. Make sure someone’s holding the Franklin Badge when you enter. The enemies are of variable HP, but all are pretty similar to one another and are best handled with either Fire or Freeze PSI attacks. The only exception is the Tangoo, which will try to put your party to sleep; if it’s on its own you can handle it with physical attacks.
- Head straight west upon entering and through to a second chamber. Go down the loooooong rope and follow the lower path to hit a dead end. Here you’ll find the Bracer of Kings, one of Poo’s few pieces of equipment.
- Return to the entrance and climb the nearest rope. Keep climbing until you’re forced west, then drop down a nearby hole. The next room has three more holes, as well as a Sudden Guts Pill. Drop down the left-most hole to find a Rock Candy and one last hole.
- This final descent - ignore the next hole you see! - will take you to Pink Cloud’s boss. Heal up and take it on.
Thunder and Storm
More powerful reflections of the rest of the enemies in this small cave, Thunder and Storm specialize in thunder-based attacks similar to PSI Thunder. If they hit, they hit hard. The Franklin Badge can help in this regard, and is best held by Paula. Despite their power, Thunder and Storm are very easy if you have Paula and Poo use PSI Freeze every turn. One or the other will likely solidify Thunder and Storm and make the fiends waste their turn while doing a ton of damage. It won’t take long to kill Thunder and Storm this way, and it’s not uncommon to go the entire battle without losing even a sliver of health. If your PP runs out you’ll have to chew through their HP with physical attacks, in which case Jeff’s Bottle Rockets are a good choice.
- Pink Cloud awaits. Heal up your party, collect your melody, and head back through the cave. You’re off to Summers to continue the journey.