Casual Archipelago (Complete)

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

Well I just started and saw my Red Ring for Z1 get found instantly, followed by me starting ALttP and finding out that on of my spawns leads right to the exit of the Palace of Shadow, followed by dying and reloading to my other choice, wich led to Kak in the Light world (I default start in the Dark World due to a setting), which just so happens to have the Ganon hole in it LMAOOOO! XD What a hilarious start!

 

[Setsuna]

Also, @Setsuna: Could not add Outfit (Bel - Summer) to the starting inventory due to not being an item. Changed it to Winter. Looked for a Summer in the spoiler log and found none. Shrugs.

We just started and it's already so over.......

Okay for real though, I just wanted Summer Bel for cosmetics, though I'm confused why Winter could be added, I assumed they'd both be items, they're two costumes for the same character? That's kinda interesting.

I mentioned I was confused by the whole starting beam thing in Prime, I started Plasma Beam this time, so I guess I just weirdly unlucky the test servers?

Super eager to get started! Already got a few checks in SotN, doing Enemysanity is gonna be tons of fun.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Prologue: Darkest Before Dawn

(Note: Like last Archipelago, I'll be writing in-character excerpts from my games. Since this is an outright sequel to last Archipelago's fiction, this one will be even less canon-compliant than last Archipelago's. Many hero units are now canonically dead, and several planets, factions, and locations have either been destroyed or damaged beyond recognition. Therefore, I'll occasionally refer to an in-game unit, faction, or place as a different one, for example calling the Tychus Findlay hero unit a different name since Tychus is dead. Unless otherwise stated, all enemies in my games are minions of my previous Archipelago's faction, the Koprulu Federation. We will have more crossovers between game universes than simply sending items across games, I even plan to have several missions set in Hell and the Space Colony ARK from my own games, and possibly others as well.

If anyone would like their game to not be added to my overarching plot, let me know and I'll edit it out.)

It has been fifteen years since the Koprulu Federation, an oligarchial mafia state run by ex-space pirates under the command of the former Mar Sara Magistrate, won the Second Great War and unified the entire Koprulu Sector. Since then, they have expanded their reach even beyond the Koprulu Sector's borders. Using the technology gained from the now-destroyed Cybros, the Federation army created the planet-destroying Space Colony ARK, using it as a superweapon to conquer the United Earth Directorate, and parked it above Earth in case they had any funny ideas about "rebellion".

With the Void firmly under Federation control, they found within it a realm known to the Terrans as Hell, an afterlife where the evil dead were punished for their sins. They promptly sprung free all their dead space pirates and recruited the armies of Hell into their own, garrisoning most of them on Mars and its moons, with a few on particularly rebellious parts of Earth that were too small to destroy with the Eclipse Cannon. The new Demon King, known in life as Tychus Findlay, invaded the Forlorn Temple and undid all the work that the Ninja did in the previous Archipelago.

After its destruction by an army of Zerg during the Second Great War, the Federation rebuilt New Amsterdam and controlled its police force directly, now hostile to the Bomb Rush Crew for the actions they scapegoated them for in their space pirate days. The Federation also tried, and failed, to conquer Ivalice with an army of monsters, many of which controlled large swaths of the wilderness. It also claimed control of Tallon IV, but its Space Pirates had not fully colonized the planet due to its dangerous wildlife.

The Federation also maintained several vassal states, the most important being Ganon's government of much of the time-fractured Kingdom of Hyrule. Back in its space pirate days, they had actually opposed Ganon, but they changed their minds after their victory as they decided Ganon was more useful to them, and supplied him with more monsters to bring Hyrule under his control. Other vassals include Cackletta of the BeanBean Kingdom, Count Dracula of Transylvania, the Awakened One of the Spire, and the Hawk Peak Provincial Park, though this latter location had no actual military and was effectively a vassal state in name only.

Still, even at its height, there is great resistance to Federation rule. Our current rebel alliance is composed of a small band of heroes. Four variations of Link, split apart with the Four Sword and sent to different parts of Hyrule's history. The air pirates Vaan, Penelo, Balthier, Fran, Basch, and Ashe are working together to save Ivalice. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Rouge, and even their normal rival Dr. Eggman have joined forces to destroy the Eclipse Cannon and liberate Earth, while their classic counterparts seek to return home to their own time, to the Green Hill Zone of Sonic 1. Several rebel marines, under the "Doom Guys" 1st Space Marine Battalion, are bringing the fight to Hell itself.

The Bomb Rush Crew continues the fight as they always have, against the police force of New Amsterdam. The Messenger fights against the Demon King. Richter Belmont and Alucard have infiltrated Dracula's castle to bring his rule to an end. Samus is fighting the Space Pirates for Tallon IV's treasures. A brave Defect is ascending the Spire to slay the Awakened One and bring the Spire crashing down. Claire is exploring Hawk Peak Provincial Park to find any items left behind that might help the rebellion. Mario and Luigi are on a quest to rescue Princess Peach from Cackletta and save the BeanBean and Mushroom Kingdoms.

Raynor's Raiders command the Battlecruiser Hyperion, now with Protoss and Zerg reinforcements, have mustered an army that will one day be capable of taking on the Federation in a straight-up fight, although now all they have is some SCVs, Probes, and Drones for mining and a couple Terran mercenaries, plus whatever starting units they can get on missions.

And finally, what might be the most important of all, is Devalue's amusment park. This park might be the most important of all the rebel forces, for it has gone completely unnoticed by the Terran Federation and can fund everyone else's efforts to bring the Federation crashing down. Many Federation loyalists are even among the park's most loyal customers, unaware that their entertainment is the key source of funding for the movement to overthrow them all.

 

[Setsuna]

Okay for real though, I just wanted Summer Bel for cosmetics, though I'm confused why Winter could be added, I assumed they'd both be items, they're two costumes for the same character? That's kinda interesting.

Realized you just... start with Bel's Summer outfit. In fact I think you start with everybody's Spring and Summer outfits once you unlock them. It's been a while so I just entirely forgot...

Just in case it matters to say it, all of my games are working perfectly fine! Got unlucky with my starts in The Messenger and Prime, I'm assuming stuff like the Space Jump or the Rope Dart/Wingsuit will help with that. Though I appreciate being given the Thermal Visor so early, thank you! BRC starts from the very beginning of the story so I assume a lot of my progression especially early is gonna be gated off by having enough REP to access the next area of the game, though I assume it'll be popping up fairly often.
For now, it looks like it's just time to play a lot of SotN!

 

[Arcaneum]

Will try and post some form of progress this time, haha.

SA2B

So firstly, I have the following things contributing to checks:

1. Minimum D rank in every mission
2. All Upgrades
3. All Chao Keys (there are 3 in every level)
4. All Whistle locations (there are pipes and hidden locations on every level, where you can whistle and an animal for your Chao appears)
5. All Animal Parts (when you give said animal to a Chao, it gives them stats and transforms them into said animal a little)
6. Reaching randomised stat milestones on a Chao

And I've decided to try a new goal, which is to collect all 7 Chaos Emeralds (found within our checks) and beat Green Hill Zone, which unlocks once that happens.

First thing I did was go straight to the Chao Garden to hatch the eggs! In this mode, I got 2 eggs in the normal garden, 1 in the Hero garden and 1 in the Dark garden. They get named after other players, so our lucky 4 are...

Spoiler: Setsuna

Spoiler: Deva

Spoiler: Explorer of Time

Spoiler: Alex Among Foxes

Alex was the first Egg hatched, so he's the lucky Chao that will be getting all the animal parts/upgrades etc. Now it's time to move on to the actual game itself...

...and we had a rough start. The way my setup works is that I have a random selection of 8 scenarios from across the entire game, looking something like this:

Once you unlock X amount of Emblems, you then unlock a boss fight and unlock the next set of 8 missions, and so on. Unfortunately for me, I got the following:

• Pumpkin Hill (Knuckles)
• Meteor Herd (Knuckles)
• Egg Quarters (Rouge)
• Aquatic Mine (Knuckles)
• Crazy Gadget (Sonic)
• Cosmic Wall (Eggman)
• Eternal Engine (Tails)
• Final Rush (Sonic)

Pretty much all of these are either final/endgame levels, or require upgrades to be able to complete the first mission, so I had to make do with finding some of the other things for the time being! We've managed to find quite a few of them, including the annoying Air Necklace check in Aquatic Mine, and finally got the 7 Emblems needed to unlock our first Gate, so we DO have some levels available now, but we're going to stop there for the time being and set something else up!

 

[Explorer of Time]

Starcraft 2
Mission 1/83: For Aiur!

We begin our first strike to kick off our rebellion in earnest, with a Protoss raid over their occupied homeworld of Aiur. We had a large pre-existing Protoss army consisting mostly of Zealots, Immortals, and Dragoons, with a handful of Colossi and Stalkers as reinforcements. We had no base, but this was more than enough to easily crush all the Zerg hive clusters and Warp Conduits. We found three items of note, each from a Hive. I also got nine Kerrigan levels for finishing the map.

The East Hive had coordinates for the Doom 1 level Perfect Hatred, the Northeast Hive had an Energy Tank for Samus, and, most importantly, the Northwest Hive gave us our first trainable military unit, Protoss Wrathwalkers. Mario and Luigi also got us Terran Goliaths from the Hoohoo Village Bridge Room, which are my favorite Terran unit to use so I'm very glad to get them so early on. With these two, we can easily kick off our rebellion, and almost all Terran maps are now wide-open for us.

 

[Devalue]

Link to the Past (Part 1)

Randomized a decent number of things. Includes the sprite this time. Added a bunch of (mainly) Pokemon sprites with equal weighting. Got this:


First check of the multiworld: Ocarina of Time's Magic Meter. Solid.

Went on a small journey of discovery, regarding the settings. Did not get the 1 in 6 chance for Inverted, the 15% chance for a Triforce Hunt, or the 50/50 on glitched boots (all the speed, but none of the bonking power). Spotted some odd enemies, indicating the 75% enemizer chance.

Opened the Sanctuary chest for a Big Key to Ice Palace. Suspected local Big Keys, despite being a 5% chance for own dungeon and 10% chance for own dungeon. Nearly confirmed it later with a Big Key to Skull Woods in Blind's Hideout.

Hunted around for some bombs. Lucked into a fish being right in Kakariko. (Swears on that being nearby every seed.) Tossed it at the merchant for a general ammo refill, aaaaaand no bomb bag. Oh boy. Shuts out a lot of early checks. Could be the all-in-one bomb capacity (33%) or multiple small upgrades (67%).

Randomized the shop cost types. (Increases the value of capacity upgrades.) Cost only a little bit of magic in one shop (which was Setsuna's Money Wrench). Bought another item elsewhere for two hearts of damage. Not bad. Costs an exhorbitant 38 bombs for a red potion. Left the Witch's Hut alone, however. Still costs rupees there.

Stepped into Eastern Palace for the few things there. Found a hint for Bomb Capacity in Doom 1. Knew where some bombs where, at least. (Already got some bombs since then, so not a big deal anymore.) Tried to clear the dark room there. No dice. Lived for quite a long time, though. Could be viable.

Used the Fake Flipper glitch to grab a few items out of logic: some Shroom Pants and a Miniature Railway for Rollercoaster Tycoon. Not bad. Only knows how to pull off one or two glitches. Views this one as simple enough.

Exhausted all the practical checks, so on to the next game.

Open RCT2 (Part 1)

Chose easier settings on this game. Has not played this game (or the original) in years. Typically just fooled around, rather than play it seriously.

Started with...the Monorail. Pssssh. Stinks for money generation (probably?). Got a Swinging Ship and Miniature Railway (also not good), at least, but no actual roller coasters.

Earns checks in this game by paying for them. Costs $452 per check. Knows who it goes to, but no more than that. May also append ride requirements (like 3 Monorails) to money cost checks. Also earns some checks by sacrificing guests.

Loaded up the park with three of the swinging ships, as a low cost ride. Also got a Hat Shop and First Aid station (helpful near extreme rides, which is not this park yet). Gained money too slowly to be worthwhile, so on to the next game.



_________________

Slay the Spire (Part 1)

Favored easier settings on this one too. Plays on the same random seed every time. Could lead to a bad start that you cannot escape. Allows you to start at the beginning of your highest floor, on the plus side.

Chose the Defect at Ascension level 1 to 5 somewhere. Rolled a 4. Not too bad. (Plays 5-10 for Ironclad.) Spawns more elites, on top of making normal enemies, elites, and bosses harder.

Considers this game quite different from vanilla. Begins weak and ends strong in vanilla. Usually begins strong and ends weak in Archipelago. Receives card draws, rare card draws, relics, and boss relics as items at the start. Pays the price during the run, however. Counts every other card draw as a check. Essentially gains about half the cards you normally would during play. Replaces almost all of your relics with checks as well.

Began with absolutely nothing. Chose 3 random potions, which were okay. Was pleased to see Link Eevee to the Past's Flute early on. Helps a ton for movement.

Lucked out hard versus an elite boss. Faced the group of 3 enemies that fill your hand with bad cards. Drank a Colorless Potion for The Bomb card, which deals 40 damage to all enemies after 3 turns. Turned into a survival match. Managed easily. Stood no chance versus another elite that came to play, unfortunately

Restarted. Followed a path with no elites. (Gains fairly little from fighting them.) Reached Hexaghost, the first boss, with little more than a Go for the Eyes (3 damage + 1 weak if being attacked), Loop (trigger orb passive at start of turn), Chill (+1 Frost Orb per enemy), and some upgraded cards. Squeaked by with about 9 health remaining.

Already accomplished the main hope. Struggled through the second map. Somehow almost made it to the boss. Died on the fight before it. Still quite good. (Only went through 6 card draws, though, so a bit weak on that side.)

_________________

Eevee to the Past (again)

Got +5 bomb capacity and the Flute. Good enough. Put those to use immediately. Beat the mini Moldorm cave south of your house with only three bombs. Rescued the old man on the mountain in the dark with little resistance.

Received a Lamp from Setsuna while playing. Just rescued the old man. Opens up the Eastern Palace dark room and Hyrule Castle escape, though. Grabbed the Palace of Darkness Big Key where the Eastern Big Key usually is, funnily enough. Fared just fine in Hyrule Castle too, shockingly. Saw no rollers or anything. Mercifully stashed a small key in the Dark Cross chest and a key on a Hinox (who dies to a single bomb). Could not head to Zelda's cell, however, due to a Gibdo (the mummy) blocking the way there. Survives five bomb hits.

Was going to post everything above. Saw enough good stuff roll by to open up more stuff: a progressive glove, Hammer, and Moon Pearl. Definitely appreciates the hammer to actually kill stuff.

Headed to the pyramid for the goal: 6 crystals and beat Ganon's Tower. Reasonable.

...Hold on. Realized all of Skull Woods is in logic. Got the Fire Rod too. Ooooh boy. Only has 4 hearts.

Ran through Skull Woods. Hated the Pokey + Roller combo in the overworld along the way. Reached the curtain. Riiiiight. Needs a sword first. Whoops. Just as well, honestly.

For anyone curious about Eevee's dark world sprite: egg.


Smirks. 18 hearts for a red potion.

Before going into Palace of Darkness: Dear game. Please do not put one of those spike balls, bouncing spikes, rollers, chain chomps, and similar nonsense on the falling bridge. Please and thank you.

Answer: Anti-fairies on the bridge and several movement-sensitive spikes along the way. With four hearts. Sighs. Suspects a small pool of enemies for the bridge because of the size. May not be as random as you would like, possibly to prevent unwinnable situations. Noticed mini Moldorm cave only has, like, two different enemies it can be.

Completed a total of 97 checks in Eevee to the Past. Amassed quite a few big keys (Hyrule Castle, Palace of Darkness, Swamp, Skull, Ice, and Ganon's Tower). No dungeon clears yet, however.

Received plenty more stuff in Open RCT2 and Slay the Spire. Wraps up this post for now.

 

[Setsuna]

Yeah, having some progress reports is probably a good thing! People can check multiworld trackers or whatever but... I really got inspired last Archipelago and I think this adds to the fun of it, I haven't done any real sort of creative/roleplay writing in who knows how long but I thought it'd be interesting to try at least? I thought I would pick up from after the previous Archipelago like Explorer of Time did but since I didn't write anything for that I'm sorta just leaning on whatever I can. The Messenger is a great game to just kinda be a catch-all though lol

---

Initial Checks: The Clock is (still) ticking

Messenger's Log: Tower of Time HQ, Outside the Timeline - The Messenger

One of the interesting things about being a Messenger is you lose track of time easily. Or rather, time doesn't really exist anymore. With the places you get sent and the things you learn along the way, getting used to existing outside of the timeline or crossing into several becomes the first learning curve of the job. So when I say I wasn't expecting to get called back to HQ so soon, I'm not sure how soon it really was.
Turns out lifting the curse in the previous timeline wasn't the end of our problems. Either that, or this curse spreads quicker than I expected. It wasn't just Messenger Island that was affected, or what I thought were the present and future, it turns out it was a lot more.
After stepping back into HQ, I got to see the full picture with my own eyes. The music box was locked, the keys once again cast off to who knows where, and the first of many anomalies was my missing gear and upgrades. It was like we quite literally got sent back in time. But I wouldn't be a good idol if I let something like this get me down. Stopping by the shop I managed to pick up a lamp for Devalue, the Bolero of Fire for Arcaneum, and so as the Prophet opened some time portals for me, told me he wanted a pizza, and sent me on my way, it was time to get to work.
I'm glad they all opened, but it didn't seem like anywhere on Messenger Island could help me out. With my wings clipped there wasn't much to see here, not without some sort of in. I decided to cut my losses early and head somewhere else. Next stop, Tallon IV.

Messenger's Log: Phendrana Drifts, Tallon IV, Roughly 2076 - Metroid Prime

It seems the curse spread further than Messenger Island indeed. An entire planet was destroyed by the curse, and I suppose it was up to me to sift through its remains for the source, and see if I could dig up anything useful. The Impact Crater is gonna take a lot of work to break into. Waking up in the cold shoreline of Phendrana Drifts, the warmth radiating from the Plasma Beam in my hand was a welcome addition. Having a scan visor really helps locate anything that could be useful. The Plasma Beam helped me melt some ice to get my Morph Ball, a hefty chunk of gil for Arcaneum, and a box of shotgun shells for Explorer of Time.

Messenger's Log: New Amsterdam, Earth, Likely 21st century - Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

On the contrary, waking up without a head wasn't anywhere nearly as pleasant. Something clearly went very wrong in this timeline, but thanks to some assistance from the Flesh Prince I was able to get a cybernetic head that'd at least help me see in New Amsterdam. After getting used to lacking a brain and getting my bearings, Tryce recommended we stop to get to know each other better, and we decided I'd get more practice in and wait until I had more REP to become a proper member of the Bomb Rush Crew. Two goals were on my mind: find out what happened to my head in this timeline, and follow the crew's goal to become All City in order to investigate the curse. At the very least, I learned the ropes from Bel and decorated the hideout in a little bit of graffiti. I got to pick up a few things while skating around, and obtaining an Icebrand and Dracula's Tunic told me exactly where I was heading next.

Messenger's Log: Transylvania, Earth, 1797 - Symphony of the Night
2/20 Bosses Defeated, 40/144 Enemysanity

An old foreboding castle, brought back after the sudden disappearance of a legendary vampire hunter... It seemed a little on the nose for a location plagued by the curse. But if I understood correctly, curses linked to Dracula's many resurrections were never a rare or surprising sight. I'm thankful the Artificer handed me a device he'd been testing to absorb the souls of any enemy I'd kill, hoping to unravel the curse. I made most of my progress here, emptying out most of the Alchemy Laboratory, killing Slogra and Gaibon, and passing through the Marble Gallery. I stopped by the Clock Room to investigate, fought my own Doppelganger, made my way up the tower and into the library, finishing up by taking the ferry through the Underground Caverns. I picked up a lot of things travelling through the castle, but the most surprising thing by far was coming across a gift of fruit salad by some friends.

After taking a break and filling my stomach, I think it's time to get back to work.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

I'm no way capable of doing all the fancy stuff for every update like everyone else here, but I can do general updates (especially because ALttP is as entrance rando'd as possible LOL) when there's good reason.

I managed to fully clear Level 2 with nothing but bombs, a Magic Wand (which I was REALLY hoping I'd get arly because it's so useless when you get it in the vanilla game <3), and the Red Mail (Red Ring technically). I've takn to calling that character 'The Red Magician' cause of the wand lol, which I also learned is capable of killing those red guards in Level 3 as long as you hit them in the back with the end of it directly, which is a really neat thing to know! And I'm now currently gated in that game due to a lack of keys, and I'm going to try to avoid buying any like I did last time. Kinda defeats the purpose of the multiworld thing for me if I just buy my way to victory without waiting for everyone else.

As for ALttP...

It's certainly going! :p

 

[Explorer of Time]

Sonic Adventure 2: Update 1

Starting up the game, we already have two of the seven Chaos Emeralds in our possession, and we will need all seven to destroy the Eclipse Cannon and allow Earth to overthrow the Federation occupation. The Purple Chaos Emerald was sent to us by Mario and Luigi, who found it below the summit of Hoohoo Mountain, in an item block. The Red Chaos Emerald was in Spectacle Rock Cave, found by the Link from Alex Fox's LttP. We also have levels available for all of our characters except for Tails, who I'm headcanoning as not having gotten the Tornado yet. Nobody has any upgrades right now.

Our first mission was a quick trip to Death Chamber so Knuckles can pick up a Red Goblet for Mario and Luigi, but we can't progress further here until we have the Hammer Gloves since everything else is walled off by metal crates. Rouge also took a quick visit to Security Hall, a Federation high-security vault we don't have the upgrades to actually beat, got us two Chao Boxes containing a Boss Heart Container and Arrow Upgrade for Devalue's Eevee, who apparently took over adventuring duties from the fourth Link. With sprite randomization, I wonder if he'll be anywhere in that world.

Rouge also took a quick trip to Mad Space, where she found Tryce, the leader of the Bomb Rush Crew, imprisoned in the central platform, and freed him.

Now, for the first two levels we can actually complete: Radical Highway and Iron Gate's first stages. I did Radical Highway first, where Shadow the Hedgehog ran through a Federation highway construction site, destroyed several Federation GUN mechs in his path, and found a valuable Hive Mind Emulator. This is a structure our Terran army in the Koprulu Sector can build to mind-control enemy Zerg, but, more importantly, constructing enough of them far from the front lines allows us to field multiple Zerg armies of our own without Stukov personally overseeing them, and providing us with insurance should he perish unexpectedly in the battle.

Next up, Iron Gate. Eggman may have lost control of virtually all his mechs to Federation hackers, but he still retains his Eggmobile, which we've upgraded with smuggled parts of a Terran Goliath, most importantly weaponry and legs for movement. It can even jump, but not very high. Eggman took it to the first level of Iron Gate, one of the most secure Federation military bases on Earth, and blasted through the whole base. None of the boxes in this level had anything useful, but Eggman found, in the core of the base, the Federation's fleet of Protoss Mirages. Needless to say, we quickly undid the hacking the Federation did to these Purifier Protoss, so we now have a fleet of Protoss starfighters under our control for when we return to SC2.

Shadow and Eggman did both fall off ledges in the pursuit of these items, but thankfully, we managed to smuggle a Protoss Warp Gate onto Earth, which we can use to warp our heroes out of danger before they take a lethal fall. They can even be warped back in at captured Star Posts, a variant type of Pylon the Federation has constructed all across the Earth and the Space Colony ARK.

Finally, it's time for our first boss, which we're fighting as Sonic. This was an F-6t Big Foot vehicle, a variant of the Terran Viking that can switch between a ground and air form. It was no match for Sonic, and destroying it unlocked our next set of five levels.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Sonic Adventure 2: Update 2

With our next five levels unlocked, I first took Rouge to get a couple items from Egg Quarters, though she can't complete the stage. The only one of note was a Chakram for the Castlevania duo. Similarly, Sonic went to Pyramid Cave for a pair of checks, finding Chainguns for our brave Marines in Doom 1, giving us a chance to actually beat some demons in a straight up fight.

I can't do anything in Hidden Base yet, so I played through Green Forest as Sonic, and beat the level with all unlocks. This forest, lightly-patrolled by Federation GUN mechs, had an Armored Suit Module for Nova and a Heart Vessel for Castlevania, and we graffitied the Goal Ring for the Bomb Rush Crew to get them 16 points of REP.

The other level I can fully complete is Sky Rail, a lightly guarded aerial rail network. Shadow was able to complete this level without any upgrades, and found a Bomb Upgrade and Cane of Byrna for Eevee, and an Ice Rod for Alex's LttP Link.

EDIT: I got two upgrades and some emblems while writing this, so I got two more checks from Death Chamber as Knuckles. Neither of them had anything useful, though.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Sonic Adventure 2: Update 3

I started off this update by fighting the boss Hot Shot, which is a mech that's basically the same as Big Foot, only fought by Shadow instead. Since I'm already making Starcraft 2 the core of this narrative, I'm just going to say that it's a literal Viking mech from that game, and the same will go for a couple of other bosses. Hot Shot got us a Card Draw for the Defect's journey through the Spire, and I got access to five more stages. Sadly, one of them was Route 280, my first of two kart stages, which only had a single check that just had a few bombs for Alex Fox's LttP.

I got a couple checks from White Jungle as Shadow and Aquatic Mine as Knuckles. White Jungle just an Emblem and a junk item, but Aquatic Mine had a Small Key for Ganon's Tower in Alex Fox's LttP, and a copy of Ashe's default weapon, the Stoneblade, for FF12. I then did another quick pair of checks in Sonic's Final Rush, but they both held junk.

But I had one more level, one I can actually complete! This level is Final Chase, which Shadow can actually 100% the first mission of without any upgrades, and it's our first level on the Space Colony ARK itself, albeit its exterior. Shadow scouted the space station and probed its defenses for a future assault, destroying a bunch of mechs in the process. Final Chase had two Emblems, one for me and one for Arcaneum, some Protoss Supplicants to help our rebellion, and finally, the Master Sword for Alex Fox's LttP.

This is the last of the items I can get in SA2 for now. I picked three missions per level, the normal, Lost Chao, and Hard Mode missions, since I didn't feel 100% confident in my ability to get 100 Rings on some levels or Time Trials on others. I also did nothing with the Chao Garden and only chose the bare minimum in the two Kart race levels, so nothing there either. It's time to move on to other games. It's time... to rip and tear.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 1
Mission 1/36: E1M1 At Doom's Gate

Our first Doom Marine, armed with a chaingun, blasted his way through the Phobos Hangar and slew dozens of demons. With the Hangar secure, we can land more Doom Marines on Phobos should the first Doom Marine perish in battle. Not much treasure here, a keycard for the Phobos Lab and some money, but I did find a Nalbina Aeropass for Arcaneum's FF12.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 1
Mission 2/36: E3M1 Hell Keep

Our second Doom Marine has landed on Hell Keep, and chaingunned demons until he ran out of ammo, then punched his way through to the end! Only two items here, a Bomb Upgrade for Alex's LttP, and Food Stall blueprints for Devalue's amusement parks. We have a second beachhead now, this one in Hell itself!

(Note: Because Archipelago handles Berserk Packs as items rather than weapons, which makes them nigh-unobtainable unless you're lucky enough to get one right before a level, I'm going to give myself one via the idbeholds cheat code at the beginning of every Doom level. I did receive at least one Berserk Pack in both games prior to doing so.)

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 2: Hell on Earth
Mission 1/32: MAP01 Entryway

Our third Doom Marine has secured a beachhead on the demon-occupied parts of Earth itself! He found some Scenery designs for Devalue, and 25,000 Gil for Arcaneum, which should be enough to buy lots of equipment. Not much else here, though, since it's our starting level.

 

[PoryKid575]

Superstar Saga Pt. 1:

Right off the bat, Superstar Saga has been a far better game for Archipelago compared to SDV so far, being much shorter and simpler. On this first day I quickly went through Stardust Fields, plundering the landscape for any conveniently placed question blocks as possible and found myself in HooHoo Mountain within 30 minutes. Having the story stuff cut out as well as the sequences for learning bros techniques makes it much more obvious just how small a lot of these areas are, Stardust Fields is basically just a handful of rooms stringed together; and HooHoo Mountain isn't very large either. The rock Fafawful would normally place was gone, and the mountain itself luckily didn't require any hammer usage (which was good considering I don't have any hammers) and I was able to climb to the top and rescue Prince Peasley with ease. I haven't gotten the Mush Badge yet, which will utterly trivialize the game, but I still got a pair of later-game pants partway up for Mario; boosting his defense to ~50 and preventing enemies from doing more then 1 damage, I got another later-game pair that could be put on either, so I gave it to Luigi, also boosting his defense into the 50s. I'm currently stuck at the base of HooHoo Mountain, unable to proceed down to continue the game due to my lack of a hammer. I can't afford any hints nor do I have any pipe locations unlocked except for Stardust Fields. So I'm currently waiting for any of my hammers to be found to be able to continue.

Side note: Was able to hook up a PS3 controller after getting back to HooHoo village, likely still isn't as intuitive as a proper GBA, but it's miles better then the keyboard controls I was using before.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Starcraft 2
Welcome to the Jungle, Failed Attempt #1

Still on Aiur, we built up a force of Terran Goliaths to try and take down the largest loyalist Khalai Protoss base on the planet. Unfortunately... we failed. We built a force of Goliaths, backed up by a few Hellions (with blueprints from the Sid Beach Chest at Hawk Peak), destroyed their southern Nexus, containing an Opal for Castlevania, and graffitied the place for the Bomb Rush Crew to get them 16 REP. However, with only two bases, one late in the mission, we couldn't scale Goliath production fast enough to overcome our opponent's economy and they were all destroyed. As our defenses fell, we sent every single one of our SCVs to rush the two remaining relics, but all they held was a pan for one of Arcaneum's chao to wear. I don't think I can clear this mission immediately, but I will return later.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Starcraft 2
Domination, Failed Attempt #1

This mission, with no expectation of success, we sent our Zerg to Char, to raid the Federation's Zerg and their Baneling Nests, and collect some items. We barely beat Zagara's initial assault, then fortified our base with Spine Crawlers and sent suicidal waves of Drones to hit the six Baneling Nests for their items, and any eggs along the way. Surprisingly, we actually came close to victory here, with 90 eggs of the 100 we needed, but came up short as we had no way to stop Zagara from collecting the last eggs behind heavy Zerg defenses.

We graffitied not only a Baneling Nest, but Zagara herself, and got 24 REP for the Bomb Rush Crew. We also found a keycard to the Containment Area for Doomguy and a Small Key to Turtle Rock for Alex Fox's LttP. Finally, we got a... Progressive Speed for Devalue's RCT game, and a Thief's Cap for FF12.

One thing I should note is that I'm temporarily disabling Kerrigan until I can find the Primal Form item, for story reasons. I'd rather have her as an item directly but that isn't an option yet.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 1
E2M1 Deimos Anomaly Pt. 1

We sent a Doom Marine to the Deimos Anomaly, who chaingunned and punched his way through the Deimos Base's main teleportation entrance... up until he completely ran out of ammo and was eaten by a Cacodemon. Not to be deterred, we sent in a second Doom Marine who cleared out most of the base, but was blocked off by a pair of doors that require keycards. Still, we secured the teleporter link to the Phobos Anomaly, got some Graffiti designs for the Bomb Rush Crew, and found some Iron Boots which we sent to Rouge the Bat... wait, not our Rouge?

Oh, right, Arcaneum has a SA2 game going as well. The Sonic games have had an instance where there were two different Sonics, Tails's, Knuckles's, and Eggmans, so I suppose why not Rouge and Shadow too? Which I suppose would make this Rouge Classic Rouge, since Arcaneum's party is heading to the Green Hill Zone, perhaps to try and get back to their original time period?

In any case, we're moving on to other levels.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 1
E4M1 Hell Beneath Pt. 1

We sent some Doom Marines to the demonic fortress of Hell Beneath, on Mars. Unfortunately, while so far we've only had a single casualty on Deimos Anomaly, seven Doom Marines died on Hell Beneath, and we still don't even have the full base because of a pair of locked doors. We did secure a small key to Misery Mire for Alex's LttP, as well as two upgrades to the carapace of our Zerg Overlords, plus other Zerg flyers when we get the ability to train them.