LP Beach

Moon Sammy washes, in the Sink.

Below the Sink, there is a Drain.

The Drain goes straight, into the Sea.

The Sink itself, is Porcelain.

The Game

Look Outside is (stop me if you heard this one before) an indie RPG Maker horror game, developed by FrankieSmileShow AKA Francis Coulombe and published by DevolverDigital, and released on March 21st of 2025 (super recent for when this thread is being written!). Like a lot of RPG Maker horror games that aren't straight up adventure games, it melds traditional RPG systems with a more survival horror-esque resource driven progression. The game is notable for its detailed and disturbing body horror artwork, in addition to the impressive number of variable and random events that can occur within the game. Doubly impressive since it was largely developed by a single person and began life as a throwaway Game Jam entry. And I'll be doing my best to show off as much of it for you, prospective viewer!

The Let's Play

This LP will be done on the game's Normal Difficulty, which is the at-present highest difficulty setting. I'll be doing my best to leave no stone unturned, completing all side quests, getting all endings, and showing off as many random events that can occur as I can. Thankfully, the game has also picked up a number of fans who've set about compiling some of the more niche or time consuming events to demonstrate, so I'll be sure to plug those for certain particularly involved events that are difficult to demo in an LP setting. One thing I must note that made me a little reluctant to start this LP is that the game is currently in a somewhat unfinished state, with several patches having been released since launch that have rebalanced certain things, added new content and have restored unimplemented content. Certain things I do or show off may be subject to change as the LP goes on, but I'll be sure to cover those things when/if a patch rolls out while I'm doing this LP. And naturally, even after a formal conclusion, I can always come back to do more videos in the event of any major updates! With all that said,

The Videos

Part 1, Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago
Part 2, Sugar Free Jazz
Part 3, Casiotone Nation - Live
Part 4, Blueeyed Devil
Part 5, Bus to Beelzebub
Part 6, True Dreams of Wichita
Part 7, Screenwriters Blues

Full LP Playlist

If you're a fan of RPG Maker horror with disturbing visuals, my LPs of Fear & Hunger and its sequel Termina will surely be right up your alley. If you're a die hard enjoyer of Apartment based horror, then you will of course be all about my LP of Silent Hill 4. And in the largely unrelated chance that you are interested in Persona 3, have I got an LP for you!

Part 1! We quickly find out that there is much more to do in this game than just Looking Outside, which is a twist I could have never predicted when first buying this game.

Extra Notes

-Our Neighbor, Sybil, is our primary means for saving our progress. On Easy mode, the game regularly auto-saves as you go from room to room in the Apartment building, but on Normal mode we can only save via Sybil. Sybil will save our progress whenever we either A.) Advance time by at least one hour while exploring or B.) go to bed to advance to the next day.

-Look Outside features a limited amount of time to complete the game in. Each new room we explore, fight we get into, and activity we engage in while at home advances the in-game clock. We have 15 days to complete the game and get an ending in, otherwise we get the standard ending for waiting out... whatever's happening outside.

-Among the activities available in Sam's apartment, we can play video games (he just like me fr fr), screw around on our computer, cook, brush our teeth and shower. We'll gain a handful of new activities as we progress in the game. Some of these activities have more practical applications such as healing ourselves or creating battle items to use, while others serve to balance out our hidden "Sanity" stats. Displayed nowhere in the games main menus are the stats Morale, Calm, Social, Hygiene, Energy and Hunger. Of these stats, Morale and Social don't seem to do anything. Calm determines if Sam is anxious or not. Should Sam become Anxious, he gets a penalty to all experience he earns. Most things you do in the apartment improve Calm, so you should rarely have to worry about this. Hygiene prevents Sam from becoming Stinky if its high. Being Stinky has some drawbacks, but I'll wait until I can demo it before going over them. Energy is the first of these that has no number. Should you neglect to sleep at day's end, Sam can become tired which will penalize all his core battle statistics. Energy can be restored simply by going to bed, though you are never forced to actually sleep in this game. Hunger also has no number representing it. Should you go one day without eating anything, Sam will become Hungry which will reduce his max HP. Should you go another day without eating, Sam will become Starving, reducing his HP further. Like Energy, you're never forced to top this off but the penalties can be quite harsh. For the most part, playing the game normally will result in these stats never being a problem, and by Day 3 I never see Sam feeling anything other than Great.

-Bringing it back to point 2, entering areas previously unexplored causes time to advance on the clock. This means that early on time will be advancing quite rapidly, but we don't lose any time when backtracking through areas we've already been to. This includes areas that maybe we just walked into but immediately left. Another smaller thing that advances time is getting into fights. When engaging in combat with an enemy, time will advance on the clock. I'm not sure if this is a one time thing for if you get into an encounter but run away, or if the time advances only when you successfully kill an enemy, but it's a fairly minor usage of your limited time either way.

-We get our first weapon upon entering the opened apartment the blood trail leads to, a Baseball Bat! This is a Crush type weapon that affords us the skills Power Smash and Homerun. Every weapon in the game has a distinct damage type and offers us different skills to use (so not all Crush weapons have Homerun for instance, though the majority do have Power Smash). The main weapon damage types areSlash, Crush and Pierce, with guns having the Missile damage type. Every enemy has distinct resistances and weaknesses, with resistances greatly extending the length of battles, so it's good to have a variety of weapon types at your disposal. Pick up every weapon you come across!

-Other damage types include Fire, Cold, Acid, Explosive and Corruption. The first 4 are mostly found via single use combat items, while the last one is a special type exclusive to one weapon in the game.

-As far as your battle stats go, these are largely influenced by your equipment. Level ups do give incremental increases to your core stats, but only a point at most and sometimes nothing at all. Besides the standard HP and Stamina (which functions as MP in this game), you have Attack, Defense, Ballistics, Bullet Defense, Agility and Luck. Attack is the main statistic for Melee weapon and Ballistics is for Guns. Defense is the primary stat of your armors, while Bullet Defense is occasionally increased along side it. Not many things in the game use Gun based attacks, so Bullet Defense is a largely ignorable stat. Agility determines turn order, with higher Agility making it much more likely you'll go first, though there is some randomness to turn order in this game. Luck directly correlates to your crit rate, so at the game's offset you'll essentially never crit but it becomes a pretty regular thing by the late game. Critical hits deal 1.8X damage. It was originally 3X when the game first launched but that was way too powerful and it got nerfed within the game's first patch.

-Our first encounter is largely scripted and it's not worth using your skills on. Just swing away and the Wounded Neighbor is toast.

-Be sure to get that Knife, it's quite good for this stage of the game!

-Weapons can break, with each weapon having a percent chance to become Damaged when being used. Skills have a much higher chance of causing Weapon Damage. If a Weapon is Damaged twice, it breaks altogether and is gone permanently. Weapons breaking is rather annoyingly a strictly RNG based mechanic, though a recent patch has mitigated the effects of this system to make it less of a pain in the ass. Weapons that being used for the first time have a number of "Safe Hits" that divide the break chance by 10, with sufficiently low chances skipping the calculations for weapons breaking entirely. Unique weapons that we'll find later have a greater number of these "safe hits" to work with and should seldom break on use. Prior to the 1.03 update, it was not uncommon for people to have weapons start breaking on them right away, including rare and limited weapons that take quite a bit of effort to get!

-Coins can be used at the vending machine, though this mechanic is very undercooked and not super helpful. I just did it for demonstrative purposes.

-Vincent's apartment has several important items, the most immediately critical one being the Crafting Kit. The Guinea Pig Cinnamon will also be very important, but it won't be until the end of the game that we know why!

-You don't have to kill Vincent right now, but the Polo Shirt and Chicken Sandwich he drops are quite helpful.

-When returning to the apartment, you will get EXP awarded based on how long you were out. The reward maxes out at 8 hours outside of the apartment, so it's a good idea to return whenever the danger track reaches its end. As mentioned previously, you need to have spent at least one hour outside your apartment to get a save opportunity from Sybil.

-There is a very finite amount of EXP in Look Outside, so you should take every little bit of it you can get! The highest level I've ever managed to reach is 18, and the final level up was obtained off the final boss of the game.

-With the Crafting Kit from Vincent, we can combine a variety of items together to make battle items. I use the cloths we picked up to make some Molotovs, which are very handy for the Grinning Beast fight. There are other important items to create, but we lack the materials for them currently. You can also make Healing items with the crafting kit.

-Certain food items we collect need to be prepared at home. Meals restore a decent amount of HP and STM, and restore our invisible hunger stat. Normally if Sam is solo or only has one roommate, you'll also get some Leftovers from your meals, which restore a small amount of HP and STM themselves when used from your items. The game was being a little buggy here and didn't produce them for me initially.

-When spending time at the apartment, you'll occasionally get knocks on your door. Answering the door can result in a variety of encounters, most positive but some are dangerous. In this instance, we got the injured man William, who will ask for a medical supply and give us rewards in turn if we can provide them. Look closely at him through the peephole whenever he shows up though...

-Door encounters seem to be seeded, although the exact way the game determines this I'm not sure. What I can tell for certain is that if you save your game, advance time until a door encounter happens and then reload your save after, you'll get the same door encounter every single time if you take the same actions.

-Floor 2 is the only accessible area to us once we unlock the stairwell. Take note of the Astronomer, he's very important for most of the game's endings. Killing him would lock you out of those, so uh don't do that.

-Most NPCs can be attacked, and largely you just do this if you want to be an asshole. There is one NPC who can be killed for a pragmatic reason, but the game unintentionally punishes it harshly due to a bug I'll go over later.

-You don't need to talk to Jeanne, but raiding her stuff is pretty helpful. Keep that request for her Laundry in mind though!

-You can run from the Grinning Beast, but you'll get a similar result to what happened when I went for the gun first. It's better to fight it out.

-The Grinning Beast is quite tough, but if you do it the way I did you'll win 100% of the time. Stun her on the first turn, and even if she recovers right away she does nothing on her second turn so that's no issue. After stunning her, throw both your Molotovs. If you're at full health, you'll survive her multi-bite attack. Toss a throwing knife after it, and you'll win.

-Leigh serves as our first trader of the game, and she can be a nice way to unload your junk and pick up some spare supplies. The pistol bullets in particular are quite nice. She never restocks though, so it's best to just get the useful stuff purchased, and then recruit her after! You'll never be able to trade with her again if you recruit her, but she's far more helpful as an ally.

-Leigh has slightly better stats across the board than Sam, especially in terms of HP. She also can transform back into the Grinning Beast when in battle. This will berserk her for one turn and make her attack her own team, but she'll be fully controllable after that berserk turn passes. The Grinning Beast has a power double attack as its standard attack strike and Leigh learns a variety of Skills she can only use in Grinning Beast mode as she levels. I'm not a huge fan of using the Grinning Beast, but it can be helpful for the handful of longer battles in the game. The Grinning Beast used to completely suck, as it set Leigh against you for an insane three turns. Most battles in Look Outside don't make it past the second turn, so using the Grinning Beast was often just actively handicapping yourself.

-We get our first Gun after the Grinning Beast event, whether we run or fight it out. Guns have fantastic base power, but your Ballistics stat basically never increases from Leveling so guns have very static power. They also require ammo to use, obviously, though the game is decently generous with bullets. This pistol has a multi-shot technique, firing 3 bullets for a measly 2 STM. It's far and away our best damage dealing option right now, but should be used with caution as any shots in excess of what it takes to kill an enemy are still consumed. Guns can be reloaded within battle or out of battle from the Skills menu. It took me until my third playthrough to realize the latter because I am a rube.

-You could go for an alternative trade with Lyle for the photo paper, but why deny him happiness?

-The Crosswords we get from Lyle are one of the premier ways of wasting the clock in the apartment. You can do one hour crossword sessions to try and fish for door encounters, though the book does eventually run out of puzzles to solve. Rather amusingly, crosswords seem to wildly accelerate the decay of your Hygiene stat.

-You can kill Lyle to access his Dark Room, though this is not at all necessary. Just be sure to keep that photo from developing...

-We can play video games at the apartment to gain EXP, restore Calm and potentially learn new skills! The party members we get throughout the game all have different video games they are interested in and can play along with Sam to also get EXP. Leigh likes Wizard's Hell so that's the one I went with for demonstrating the mechanic. Each play session takes some time on the clock, usually 2 hours. Every video game has a specific number of sessions needed to finish it for the skill.

-Besides Wizard's Hell that we got from Vincent, we start with Super Jumplad, Mad Wheels 97, Myrmidon and Screamatorium if we check the shelves off to the left 4 times in a row. Of the 20 games available to collect in Look Outside, Super Jumplad and Madwheels 97 teach the best skills by a mile, so you don't have to engage with this collection quest too much if you won't want to. If you're curious, Super Jumplad takes 2 sessions and 4 in-game hours to finish, while Madwheels takes 5 sessions and 10 in-game hours to finish.

Part 2 is out! As soon as midnight rolls around for the first day, Clint will burst down the door to his apartment allowing you to do the Baby Teeth sidequest. Even disregarding the ending where you just wait out 15 days, there's actually pretty short list of things you NEED to do in order to get an ending in Look Outside. The bulk of things we'll be doing throughout the game are purely optional, but it'd make a pretty boring LP if I just rushed to the end!

Extra Notes

-I have no idea what the Trade function with your allies in the apartment is supposed to do, but it is universally non-functional across everyone who joins you in as far as I can tell.

-Sadly, your team never gets any new dialogue over the course of the game in as far as directly talking to them goes. Thankfully, most of them have a pretty wide array of interactions with meals and video games.

-As mentioned previously, the specific trigger for Clint to bust down the door to apartment 34 is just for midnight to roll around. You don't have to sleep in order for this event to occur.

-If you don't pick up the Teddy Bear before talking to Joel, you can run from him to go grab it and then turn it over by engaging him in combat again. The only other way to get the door knob to Madison's room is to kill him (how could you?).

-It's possible to kill Madison before she fully reveals herself if you just unload the pistol into her, but that would be a way less interesting way to handle the fight.

-Baby Teeth is completely optional unless you want the achievement for beating her. The specific trigger to recruit Joel is killing Madison, so once that's done you can just run on through the room as Baby Teeth appears.

-I execute the Baby Teeth fight pretty poorly but it's not too big a deal. I really wanted to show off Leigh's Grinning Beast form for this fight, which was a mistake since she defaults to Slash damage in that form which Baby Teeth resists. It'll be awhile before we get access to any interesting skills for the Grinning Beast as well. This fight is pretty easily won just by repeatedly multi-firing the pistol, as Baby Teeth often renders herself blind and not terribly threatening.

-The Jawbone Club was actually added in an update, 1.02 I believe. Originally Baby Teeth dropped nothing, meaning there was little reason to fight her on replay if you had already beaten her once for the achievement. It's a pretty solid weapon, though I wouldn't bank on that stun proccing.

-Joel can refuse to join you if you acted sufficiently uncaring in your initial conversation with him. In particular, he dislikes doctors so claiming to be one doesn't endear you to him all that much.

-Joel was a pretty solid party member in earlier patches, but he's really awesome now. All his moves have had their damage cranked up, and he had some new very useful skills added which I'll go over as we get them. Joel has pretty low HP, which can be especially problematic considering most of his skills use HP to cast instead of STM but his natural defense is quite high so he becomes remarkably sturdy with enough levels. The HP issue can also be corrected with numerous equipment pieces found throughout the game. Joel can never use any normal melee weapons, and there's only one ranged weapon type he can equip, but he doesn't really need those things.

-Joel also has a unique trait that isn't super helpful right now but is extremely good once he gets a certain skill later: Joel passively recovers STM as you walk around. To my knowledge, he's the only character that does this and it is super helpful for the one skill he learns that does use STM instead of HP. *EDIT* Sadly as of the current version of the game, Joel has lost this ability. My previous playthrough started on 1.02 and updated to 1.03 midway through, so some of Joel's abilities did not update properly. He also has a skills I didn't see since I had leveled past the point where he would learn them and his Skills now cost STM AND HP.
*DOUBLE EDIT* Joel got his recharging STM back upon learning his Roundsaw Jaw skill. This kid is throwing me for a loop!

-How much Benjamin gives you is dependent on how many correct choices you made in the play session. You must pick all the right options to get Kill To Shoot.

-Completing Super Jumplad netted us the Jump Attack skill, one of Sam's best gaming related skills. The power of this skill keys off both your weapon attack and your agility, allowing it to hit some pretty high numbers for a very paltry 2 STM per cast. It does have the drawback of spotty accuracy though, so be wary of that.

-As mentioned in the video, we can actually complete Rafta's request fairly quickly. I won't be finishing it until long after we are able to though, as it causes a really obnoxious bug to happen with a certain vendor in the game. Also the quest chain itself is just unfinished as of the current patch.

-The Rat King prowls the first floor, spawning in at a random section of it every time you enter the hallways. He's not the toughest boss in the game, but taking him on now is far too risky. Save him for when you have a full team and preferably multiple guns.

-There is an achievement for getting killed by the Giant Eyeball if you're so inclined. Definitely head into his room for the small key regardless.

-Eugene opens up his shop early on into Day 2, and will probably be your most frequently visited vendor throughout the game. He'll update his stock every day up to a point, but to get him to lay out everything he can sell you, you will need to regularly buy stuff from him. Try to spend about 100-200 dollars on him daily to get him to stock the video game he sells if you are trying to collect all of those. Note that we cannot sell anything to Eugene, and he never actually restocks any items: just lays out new ones. Those 24 pistol bullets are the ONLY pistol bullets he ever sells.

-You can haggle with Eugene to lower the price on an item, but you get a limited number of haggles per playthrough. Haggle enough, and Eugene refuses to do anymore price drops for you for the rest of the game. Save haggling for the really pricey stuff, as more expensive items get bigger discounts off a haggle.

-For another somewhat unfinished mechanic, exploring with a high danger value results in shadowy figures chasing after you... in very specific areas of the game. Once you get to the Ground Floor, this mechanic basically never comes up except when you're returning to the Third Floor hallway. Do be careful though, some pretty nasty figures can appear at a max danger value that are comparable to bosses.

-Sam will periodically reflect on things in the Shower such as games you haven't finished and quest events that have multiple resolutions. He can also have similar thought if he is having meals by himself. Very rarely when checking the mirror, he can ruminate on certain events, but the chances for this to happen are very low and I've only seen Sam reflect (no pun intended) on two specific things.

-The Astronomers give you pretty oblique hints on what they are looking for, and Sybil is able to parse them and give you a better idea on what you should looking for. Be sure to pay attention to what she says!

-Like Clint breaking down the door, the "invisible man" questline will become available once Midnight rolls around and brings you into Day 3. Unlike Joel's sidequest, this one needs to be taken care of in order to complete the game with the best ending. There's one more change to the Third Floor that will happen come Day 4, and then no more afterwards as of this current patch.

Part 3 is out! We follow up on a tip from Sybil and run into problems, as expected. Afterwards, we conduct a more thorough exploration of the first floor and familiarize ourselves with most (but not all) available locations. And then we commit an atrocity.

Extra Notes

-Acid Flasks are amazing, and you should always keep at least a couple on hand for any fights that are going sideways. Hurling them at dangerous foes is always a great way to expedite fights.

-Unlike Joel's apartment, you will need to enter Apartment 31 and at least secure the Negative Disc from it if you want the game's best ending. The Star Gazer can be avoided by simply juking around him when you switch the lights off, and you don't actually have to wait for him to mark the light switch in order to turn it off.

-Though Apartment 31 is unnecessary to explore if you're not going for the best ending, it's still worth ducking into for the items it holds since it only becomes dangerous when the lights are off, and the Gazer can't FORCE you to turn them off. The safe in the bedroom in particular has a pretty large cash payout within if you have a spare key for it.

-Take note of the numbers from the planet chart and what they correlate to, as it ties into the biggest game long puzzle.

-The enemies in the meat dimension are quite a bit above you in raw stats at this point. I fought most of them for glory, but trying to avoid them is the wise decision.

-There's an alternative way to get into Apartment 31, but it only matters if you're trying to clear the game as fast as possible. Amusingly you still get the alternate access method even if you've already cleared out the apartment, and most people are going to get this method on their first playthrough. I suspect in an earlier build that Apartment 31 opened up naturally on a much later date.

-Eugene's inventory expands dramatically Day 2, with him selling a lot of ammo in particular. I forget to re-iterate it in the video, but remember that Eugene doesn't restock any of his inventory! He just adds new things as you buy from him, so any ammo or supply purchases are a one time deal. Still, if we could get 6 Acid Flasks for about 200 bucks, that's a decent one time deal.

-The Rat Tail trader has some pretty good accessories, though most can be obtained from rat enemies found around Floor 1 if you're lucky (The Filth Ring is exclusive to him though). That said, I'd advise against killing most rats right now until you defeat a certain boss later, as to not deny yourself some rewards.

-You don't need to talk to the Astronomer on the First Floor, or any of them but Jasper really, but hey. Background fluff.

-The Overgrown Apartment has many good rewards within it, but most of the enemies inside are extremely dangerous. Definitely save it for when you have better armor and can foot the STM cost for Cleave in almost every encounter you get into.

-Frederic's quest is yet another one that is mandatory if you want to get the game's best ending, although only a portion of it is. Frederic will provide you with items as you subjugate his paintings, with a plot critical one being awards after you fell your third painting.

-You don't have to kill the rats in the Rat Baby's apartment, but there's not much value in sparing these particular rats.

-Must we truly be the real monster?

Part 4 is out! Rest assured, Rat Baby fans in the audience, they are thoroughly unmunched in this video. We instead opt to deal with the Frederic situations while I try to come up with an alternative to the sadistic sacrificial situation. The going in Frederic's apartment is quite rough, but we manage to pull through with plenty of levels gained and some good equipment secured!

Extra Notes

-Crosswords are the premier time waster of the game if you want to fish for door events. You can play in increments of an hour, up to a maximum of 4, with any door knock opportunities interrupting ongoing sessions. There is actually a finite number of crossword puzzles to complete, and upon clearing them all you get a special code that is different every playthrough... and is currently useless because whatever it's supposed to go to hasn't been implemented. Regardless, there is an achievement for clearing all the crosswords if you're so inclined. It takes roughly 70 in game hours to clear every crossword puzzle, although it can take closer to 80 since the amount Sam finishes in an allotted time slot can vary. The party member Morton can aid in solving puzzles, cutting the required time to fully clear the book in half, though actually getting said party member is purely RNG.

-We pick up the second child character off of a random door event: Sophie! Sophie is actually a part of a door event quest regarding her mother Harriet, and either one of them can randomly show up in either order. You do not need to meet Harriet in order to meet Sophie, contrary to popular belief, and contrary to what I believed prior to starting this LP you do not need to advance the story a certain amount for Sophie to show up either. As for Sophie herself, she's a character I like in theory but she's pretty undertuned in the current build of the game. Sophie has a unique command in Hide! that dramatically increases her evasion when she uses it. Hide! also allows her to user her Trick skills, which are a variety of ailment inflicting skills, making Sophie one of the premier ailment inflicters in the game and one of the only ones that can inflict poison. As a drawback, using Tricks puts Sophie in the Exposed status, which removes the evasion buff but lets her continue to use Tricks. Sadly, she has absolutely terrible stats with gutter tier Attack, HP and STM. As a small girl, she also has a very limited equipment pool, although she was indirectly buffed in this regard as her slingshot used to be considered a two handed weapon which prevented her from using knives. The fact that she needs to set up Hide! every battle also hinders her a bit, as she takes a turn of set up before she can flex her gimmicks. In the off chance she does get hit, Hide! also has a random chance of dispelling upon damage. Fully completing her quest with her mother does permanently remove Sophie from your party, so it's likely she's a little bad on purpose to lessen the sting if you lose her, but it's a shame because she's just on the cusp of being really good.

-Pay attention when Harriet shows up. If there's anything odd about her and you fail to notice it, the consequences can be disastrous for poor Sophie. If you're curious, reuniting Sophie with her mother awards a bunch of healing items. You're also supposed to be able to visit Sophie and Harriet in their apartment, but this isn't implemented in the current patch.

-You're given the freedom to help out whichever Frederic you like for a variety of rewards.

Wiggly Fred: Nothing! Though he does make you the official owner of his fridge.
Bright Fred: His once per day heal is upgraded to over 100 HP to the entire party. He also gives you a Medic-in-a-jar, an item that can similarly give you a potent once-per-day heal.
Tumor Fred: Will award you a Tumor Lump, a throwable item in combat, provided you have none in your inventory. The Tumor Lump itself can split and duplicate in your inventory when a new day comes around.
Shadow Fred: Nothing! Is always hostile as well.
Fred Who Bites: Nothing! Though he does have an achievement tied to him.
Godlike Fred: Depends on if you get him to drop his ruse or not. If you don't, he awards you a Strange Feather which is a luck boosting accessory. If you do, he gives you 400 dollars instead.
Scared Fred: Nothing! Has a surprisingly involved quest to get him out of the cabinet.
Toxic Fred: Upgrades the cowboy hat if you were foolish enough to put it on, giving you immunity to poison. Not many things in the game can poison you, and the hat itself is pretty bad, so not a great reward.
-Face Taker: A lot of rewards actually, awarded at different kill thresholds. He gives you 4 Turpentines at 1 Fred Dead, a canvas bag to take the ethereal painting with at 3, 6 bandages, 2 tonics and a first aid kit at 6 Freds Dead, and finally the Painter's Palette if he's the last one standing. This is a unique sub weapon that goes into your Ranged slot. Though it can't be used to attack, it gives your melee attacks the ability to inflict random ailments. This can only be obtained if you help him out.
Real Frederic: Duplicates a piece armor for you once. Best saved for when you have something actually worth duping.

-There are a number of complexities to the Frederic quest that I didn't want to oversaturate the video with. We'll go over some of the more notable alternative things you can do in the next video.

-It's advisable to save the Frederic quest for later as the enemies are quite dangerous and we're light on healing items. No guts, no glory though!

-The Cleansing Swipe move on the Mop is designed for this area, heavily damaging or one shotting nearly everything within the apartment. Thankfully, the reworked durability system makes this much more reliable, Mops were incredibly prone to breaking within one or two swings prior to version 1.03.

-All of the Green blob monsters must be killed to fully subjugate Toxic Fred.

-We meet the Shadow! We're actually running into him relatively late, he can show up as soon as Day 2 begins in random rooms. There's a bit of a lengthy sidequest involving him, at least as far as in game time goes. To fully complete it and get all relevant achievements, you'll need to be kind to him and give him good items. That said, he can give you a more practical reward if you do things less than perfect. You can get 350 dollars from him later if you give him a Chocky Bar in the first encounter and then only do his dialogue choices in all succeeding encounters while not giving him anymore items. For the sake of demonstration though, we'll be completing his quest "properly".

-Frederic's apartment can be worth going into just for the vendor trash and Hunting Shotgun. It's a good source of money at this point, and the shotgun is a handy weapon to have.

-Shotguns are the only true AOE guns of the game. While their Wide Blasts are fairly weak in comparison to Point Blank Shots, it's still a decently helpful attribute in comparison to other guns that only have randomly distributed multi-hit skills as a means of AOE damage.

-If you want to get the best ending, you MUST collect the sky painting at some point. It's fairly easy to grab later if you're apprehensive about fighting through Frederic's apartment now.

-The quest reward for The Real Frederic used to have an obnoxious bug where if you talked to him before killing all other Freds, he'd never realize when you actually finished and thus would never give his reward. You'd need to talk to him last to get the option for his quest reward. Thankfully, the current patch has fixed this bug and that is no longer necessary.

-Apartment 30 opening is the last change that will happen to Floor 3 purely through advancing time. This apartment was made much more dangerous as of the current patch, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes for me as I had already passed it on my previous playthrough when the new update rolled out.

-With about 4 Acid Flasks and some guns, the Rat King can be defeated well before he becomes an issue. Should he get in Melee range, he will Mark a character and go all out on them. Luckily, we killed him before he could do much of anything and got the Rat Crown. This allows us to converse with rats, which will let us get some extra items and an achievement. In this video, we use it to bypass the Rat Freak fight while also getting a unique weapon from him in the process. We'll kill him later.

-The Odd Necklace is too risky to use, but it sells for a good bit of money so I'd recommend grabbing it anyway.

-By sacrificing an arm to the Wallmouth, we can save the Rat Baby! In all patches so far, this has been rather buggy and it's not impossible this penalty will break before the LP is over. I'll stick to the spirit of it though and live with the restrictions even if I hit a point where I don't have to.

-I was rushing a bit to wrap up the video, but Jeanne gets some new dialogue for a very brief period. To see it, you must talk to her after getting the Earth and Mars discs but BEFORE actually entering the Ground Floor. I will show it next time.

-There's a special thing that can happen if you make it to the Ground Floor with 1 or less people recruited. I'll show it in a future video.

Just counted up the Frederic's one by one and there are in fact ten of them.

That it is an impressive failure on my part, I even double checked them before finishing up my notes and somehow still came up with nine. Clearly I need to read my lists back more carefully.

Part 5 is out! We are just flush with things to do at this point, so I take the opportunity to clear up a bunch of loose ends before even more junk begins to pile up before returning the Ground Floor and avoiding our original road pizza fate. Reaching the Ground Floor is the first real step in gaining access to endings besides just letting time on the calendar run out, making it a pretty major milestone. Perhaps not coincidentally, we also start getting access to some very powerful items that make the going much smoother.

Extra Notes

-I check out some of the alternative Frederic fates. Dying in dialogue to Fred Who Bites and getting conscripted by Toxic Fred both provide achievements if you're looking to secure 100% completion. Thankfully in the latter's case, it's awarded as soon as you talk to him with the possessed hat on, meaning you can just reload afterwards since his reward for becoming the real Fred sucks ass.

-Despite the incredibly involved nature of getting him to come out of the cabinet without resorting to force, Scared Fred awards no special achievement for doing so nor does he even have a reward if he becomes the real Fred. Curious little diversion, I must say.

-I haven't tested this personally, but I've heard Toxic Fred can be very buggy if you choose to fight him after being duped into putting the hat on. Frequently, the fight script breaks and he ends up just being invincible. Not a situation you're super likely to find yourself in, but be wary.

-Returning to home, we grind out Madwheels 97. Nitro Boost is the other worthwhile gaming skill to pick up, being a cheap partywide buff that gives an appreciable boost to Agility and Evasion. It can go a long way in reducing damage to the party in boss fights, allowing us to slug the boss before they can act and occasionally nullifying any potential damage. The Nitro buff lasts 5 turns, which is more than enough for most any fight in the game since fights rarely last longer than that.

-We get our next door visitor party member, Dan! Dan's a really gimmicky character whose unique skills revolve around maintaining a live stream. In battle, Dan can use a Calm Intro or an Irate Intro to begin his stream, giving him support and offense skills respectively. Support skills by and large cost viewers to use, while offense skills can build up Dan's viewer count (though the strongest skills also cost viewers). In earlier patches, Dan's offensive skills focused on damage for less represent damage types such as Fire and Cold, but he's been retooled to have more ailment based attack skills instead, like Sophie. He also got a buff that causes his view count to stay consistent between battles, with him losing a viewer per in-game hour that passes without a fight. Originally his view count would plummet back to 0 as soon as fights ended, sometimes amusingly going into the negatives somehow. Despite all that, I consider Dan to be one of the worst party members in the game, alongside Sophie. For similar reasons to Sophie, his gimmick is just too convoluted and takes too long to get going. Dan has this worse than Sophie even, since Sophie just needs to use one command to fully access her skill list. Dan needs to use a command that costs STM to use his full skill list, and he has a secondary resource he must build up in order to use his best stuff. In the case of his Calm skill tree, he gets so few viewers from a Calm Intro that he'll quickly find himself unable to use any of his support skills at all. Battles just simply don't last long enough for Dan to really get going, resulting in most of his skill list being unused. While it's nice that he now retains viewership between battles, the places where this can be put to use usually have loads of weak enemies that die in a single turn if you go all out from the jump anyway. If Dan could be set to use a specific Intro as a battle opener before anyone gets a chance to act, his streamer skills would be a lot more usable. As it is, he just takes too much set up for not much payoff. On the brighter side of things, he has way better stats that Sophie and can use most every piece of equipment in the game like Leigh. I'll probably eventually just have him carry a rifle around to take Aimed Shots with unless someone more interesting than him happens to show up at the door later.
*EDIT*: Getting to play around with him now, Dan's stream intro DOES now carry over into successive fights along with his viewers, which goes a long way towards making his skills more usable. Sadly the skills themselves are of dubious use compared to weapon skills.

-Dan can potentially be hostile. If he's asking for food instead of friendship, steer clear of him.

-We're forming a pretty noticeable Roach colony in our home. This is for a sidequest with two possible resolutions. We'll be going for the positive resolution for this LP since it leads to an extra party member. To accomplish this, just leave out a cooked meal every night before going to sleep, and you'll continually get notes from the Roaches expressing their gratitude until an achievement pops. If you want the negative resolution for the achievement that brings, wait until you have a huge number of Roaches in your apartment and then start interacting with them and killing them. It'll take awhile, but eventually a more... abrasive note will be delivered to you signifying you are an enemy to Roaches.

-If you continue to leave your plant in the light, it will die. You must return it to the corner to continue the plant talk sidequest.

-We grab the Super Slingshot for Joel to use. This is a decent little bit of ranged damage for him if you'd rather not burn HP on Teeth Cannon, but unfortunately the only marbles in the game to my knowledge are the 32 Eugene sells and the 10 that Sophie comes with. After 42 uses, the thing is little more than a dead Ranged slot for Joel and Sophie. On the brighter side, the way the game keeps track of its ammo is rather buggy and a lot of times the Slingshot can be fired without a marble actually being consumed.

-The new dialogue with Jeanne can only be obtained after getting the Mars Disc but before entering the Ground Floor, so make sure to talk to her before opening up that area if you want to see it!

-You can choose to spare the rats and buy cheese from them once per day, though it would take several days to get the same amount of cheese from them as you get from just killing and robbing them. The fact they frequently drop Rat Tail Belts also makes it pretty desirable to just wipe them out.

-Joel has learned his Roundsaw Jaw move, a very potent STM consuming ability that hits for 4 instances of Slash damage. With Teething in effect, its damage is doubled! It's a bit pricey to use, but it gives Joel an excellent source of non-piercing damage to use. Sadly, we haven't quite yet encountered anything sturdy enough for it to be to put to good use against.

-Sometimes you can get some seriously good item drops! Killing the Rat Freak got us both a second set of Rat Claws and more importantly the Sewage Blade. This weapon essentially turns Sam's Jump Attack into a slightly weaker Acid Flask, which is extremely good. We'll likely make heavy use of this going forward.

-Funnily enough, you actually don't have to kill the Laundry Worm to advance Jeanne's sidequest. You don't have to enter the Laundry Room period in fact, her sidequest moves to its next phase as soon as you enter the Ground Floor.

-Nestor will be come important later, but for now he just spends the rest of the game staring into a urinal.

-The Bus Crash is a major sequence trigger for beginning a extended sequence for getting the basement key. We don't need to fight any of the bus passengers to proceed, but we do need to see the crash happen for the game to continue. Once it does happen, the game starts a timer counting down in-game hours, and after about 4.5 hours a new area will open to us.

-Crawling Hand can be ignored, but he's a good amount of EXP and relatively easy to kill so I figure why not? All of the Hand enemies are weak to slash attacks, so keep your cleavers and axes at the ready.

-Jasper is the acting leader of the Astronomers, though funnily enough he is not the last one we meet. Nor is he the founder for that matter. Jasper will accept offerings of depictions of the Entity that is causing the game's events (with one special exception of another he will take). To get the game's best ending, you must provide him 4 correct offerings... or you can give him a bunch of crap that you say is a correct offering for a variety of bad endings. Of our current inventory, the only valid item we have for him is Frederic's painting. As for items in total we can give him, we only have 3 things that are valid so we can't quite finish the game yet. It'll be a bit before we get a 4th acceptable item.

-With the Pen and Stationary, we can turn them over to Rafta to continue her quest. We want to hold off on this for awhile, as there's a rather annoying bug regarding the resolution of that quest that can prevent us from collecting all of the video games required for the achievement you get for obtaining them all.

-Mutt's Fish 'n Chips is an incredibly valuable vendor. By talking to Mutt directly, he serves as a consistent place to sell our vendor trash to. His main inventory never updates though, so anything bought from there is gone for good like Eugene's shop. The real draw of Mutt's store is his counter of Special Items. Every day, Mutt will place a new item on the counter drawn randomly from a set pool. For every single one of these items purchased, the next item will cost 25% more. Each item has a distinct base price, some much higher than the lockpicks that I purchased, so these items can become seriously pricey after you buy enough of them. Among the more notable things he can sell, there's a video game available to buy, a Coffee Machine that allows you to make 4 cups of coffee every morning (a very potent STM restoring item), he can sell a Crossbow that fires a variety of bolts that Mutt sells in his main inventory, as well as powerful weapons and armors. There's also a special item Mutt will put out on the last day of the game that unlocks an achievement. I got quite lucky this playthrough as Mutt had laid out the extremely valuable lockpicks. He won't always be selling these early on, but getting them now means we never have to worry about needing Simple Keys ever again.

-Ghislaine and Norm finally explain to you what ailments are in the game and what each one does. Not super helpful to me, but obviously handy to a new player who is confused what anything you're hit with even does.

-Emmanuel can be given Cassette Tapes obtained from slain bus passengers in trade for some unique pieces of equipment. Like the Rat Tail Vendor, you can also obtain these items if you have good luck on item drops from the bus passenger's. In fact, Emmanuel's entire stock can be obtained off of good luck, though I'm not holding my breath for that. Emmanuel's gear focuses on multi-hit strikes and things that give you a chance of acting twice. They have horrible stats though, so it's debatable how worthwhile they are.

-With Lockpicks in tow, I open up every Safe we've passed thus far, getting a cool amount of cash!

-I trade off the Rat Tails we got, though through good luck we had already gotten pieces of the best stuff the Rat Tail Vendor can provide us. The Filth Ring is an interesting accessory, but since it lowers all your stats if you're not inflicted with an ailment, I probably won't make much use of it.

-For one final note, I'm just going to list all the video game skills you can learn in the game here. Jump Attack and Nitro Boost are the only ones really worth the time to learn, most of the remaining ones are either too weak or too gimmicky to really do much for you so it's unlikely I'll bother with them. I won't go over where you can find these games at this point since most of them are found in future areas or off of events we haven't seen yet.

Wake The Blood Knight: Blood Madness. Costs 5 STM. Puts Sam in a berserk state that increases his damage and defense but prevents you from controlling him. Bad for obvious reasons.

Wizards Hell: Arcane Tears: Painful Stab. Costs 2 STM. Inflicts a DOT effect on the enemy that reduces their accuracy and hits them for 1/10th their HP in damage per turn. Not terrible, but most fights don't last long enough for this to make a meaningful difference. In a different game this would probably be broken as hell.

Super Jumplad: Jump Attack. Costs 2 STM. An attack that uses your Agility in addition to your Attack stat to determine damage. Flatly better than attacking normally, and since you start with this game and it takes 4 hours to beat, this one can be picked up very quickly. The only drawback is that it seems to have less than perfect accuracy, it misses frustratingly often.

Super Jumplad 3: Numbness. Costs 10% of your HP and 5 STM. Makes Sam immune to status ailments for 10 turns. It's a little too niche, though there are some annoying status effects in the game it could potentially be good for. Granted you can use it before the enemy gets to act, that is.

Catafalque: Risk Taker. Costs 4 STM. Increases Sam's attack power but also increases the damage he takes. Defense is pretty important in this game, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Honko's Grand Journey: Cash Sock. Costs 2 STM and 5% of your money. Deals damage based on how much money you have. Ewww, no. Money is much better used for its intended purpose, and there's a finite amount of it in the game.

Madwheels 97: Nitro Boost. Costs 3 STM. Gives your party the Nitro status, boosting accuracy and Evasion by 30% for 5 turns. Extremely good and from a game we start with. Always use this as Sam's opener in boss fights.

Wraithscourge: Dungeon Dance. Costs 2 STM. Counters received attacks for 4 turns. I'm not a big fan of counter based skills, and like so many other set up skills it falters due to battles being very short in Look Outside. It's entirely possible for it to do nothing in a fight if Sam isn't attacked.

Massacre Princess: Meteor Strike. Costs 999 STM. Very much a joke skill, you will never reach that much STM in normal play. If you hack the game to cap your STM, you'll find this skill just replicates a normal attack. Nice troll!

Kill to Shoot: Aim The Killshot. Costs 2 STM. Makes your next attack guaranteed to hit...? I actually have no idea what this does.

Myrmidon: Combat Medic. Costs 4 STM. Heals a target for 25% of their HP, with a 25% chance to also inflict bleed. Not terrible, I think that's a pretty worthwhile risk considering other HP restoratives in very finite supply. It takes 14 hours to learn this though, so you're practically sacrificing an entire in-game day to get it.

Myrmidon XII: Garrison. Costs 3 STM. Prevents you from evading, but increases Ballistics, Bullet Defense and gun crit rate for 6 turns. Actually a pretty solid buff, though obviously useless in this LP since Sam sacrificed his shooting arm. It's also learned super late, with the game being found in one of the last areas of the game, so it has very limited floor time once you do get it.

Screamatorium: Screamer. Costs 4 STM. Attempt to inflict Panic on all enemies. There are some enemies with nasty skills in this game, so this could potentially be useful depending on how reliable it is.

Frogit About It: Croak Orders. Costs 4 STM. Attempt to inflict Charm on an enemy, making them fight for you. Essentially functions as another means to Stun an enemy, so it's usefulness hinges on how reliable it is, like Screamer.

Blood Ghoul Orgy 3: Hurt Me Plenty. Costs 3 STM. Taunts enemies into attacking Sam, reducing incoming damage by 25% as well. Lasts 5 turns. If Sam is loaded up with good defensive gear and turtles up after using it, it can be a decent way to shut down single targeting enemies. I'm more of an aggressive player though, so I don't really care for this.

Octocook: Octostrike. Costs 8 STM. Launces 8 randomly targeted attacks. Expensive, but certainly powerful if you have a good weapon! Getting this game is dependent on RNG though, so it's not impossible to never have it come up as an option in your playthrough. Definitely pick it up if you do get it.

Reptile Football: Running Tackle. Costs 1 STM. Deals additional damage based on your Defense. Terrible. Unlike Jump Attack, this is purely influenced by one stat and that is Defense. It's quite weak, so I wouldn't recommend getting it.

Crossword Challenge: Confusing Word. Costs 5 STM. Attempts to inflict Confuse on all enemies. Essentially a juiced up version of Screamer, since Confused enemies cannot use skills in addition to randomly targeting between friend and foe.

Part 6 is out! Once the bus crash happens, a timer begins that will cause the Ground Floor to change and allow you to continue the game. It takes about 4.5 hours for the next story event to happen, which gives us a good window of time to burn for that newly opened apartment on Floor 3! Once that's done, we pay a visit to our slumlandlord.

Extra Notes

-If you make it to the Ground Floor with one or NO people recruited (and that's recruited, not just in your active party), the building's lead custodian Papineau will be available to recruit in the men's room! Papineau is pretty awesome if you get him right now. Like Leigh, his core stats and especially his HP and STM are quite a bit better than Sam's. Unlike Leigh, he has some skills that don't required Berserking him for a turn to use. His Bear Hug skill is a non-weapon based Crush skill that scales with how much HP he currently has. Stacking him with HP boosting equipment and keeping him healthy makes it quite impressive in the field of pain! Papineau also prepares a lunch every day. Initially, he can only do a Lunch Break with it in battle, which fully heals him but causes him to become inactive for several turns. The more interesting thing he can do with it later is Share his lunch, which heals the entire party for 30% HP and STM. This can only be done in battle, and only once per day, but it's a nice little bit of extra healing in a game with limited supplies! Papineau also comes with a unique weapon in Joyeuse, a fairly powerful mop that actually can be put to good use since it doesn't break in 5 seconds anymore.

-If you don't recruit Papineau in the bathroom, he moves to a much later room in the game, but unfortunately at the same level he joins when you could first encounter him (Level 4, though I don't know currently if the new patch has changed this). It's not really worth subbing him in at that stage of the game since you'll likely have a team of people triple his level at that point. Also if you fail to recruit him when he's in the bathroom, he'll be killed by bus passengers when Mr. Henderson's room finally opens.

-The Taxidermy dungeon used to be much easier, with very weak enemies and powerful armor to grab to make the going forward much smoother. All of the enemies within it have had their HP roughly doubled and they now hit like runaway freight trains, especially if you have weak armor and are low leveled. I definitely made the right choice to hold off on this place until I was well equipped with slash weapons and had Dan around to help.

-Joel seems to have gained his STM regen effect upon learning Roundsaw Jaw. I certainly won't complain, that goes a long way to aiding Joel in his continuous evolution into a murder machine!

-Originally the Taxidermy monster fight didn't properly transition into the Suture Wire phase, he would just die. Now that he does become Suture Wire like intended, yeesh that is some serious damage! I definitely could have stood to craft more Acid Flasks before heading in here.

-The locked door originally didn't open properly in the real apartment when you unlocked it in the leather zone, but now it does! In addition to more taxidermized baubles to sell, you get the unique Suture Kit healing item. It heals 20% hp like a bandage, but it can also revive people! It has 8 uses, so use them wisely!

-Once the requisite time has passed, bus passengers will funnel out into the rest of the apartment, sometimes even appearing in the stairwell and on the various other floors. This is the trigger for Mr. Henderson's apartment finally opening up, which by extension allows us to continue the game.

-The Landlord dungeon is probably the least liked portion of the game by most who have played it. It's an overlong area packed to the gills with incredibly wimpy enemies who do little damage and die in 1-2 hits. It's also one of the most blatantly unfinished portions of the game, as several of the sidequests within it seem to have large chunks of content missing from them.

-You'll need to pay Mr. Henderson quite a bit to fully unlock the Landlord Dungeon, but thankfully most of the money for it is obtained within the dungeon itself. I think it's about 1,400 dollars altogether you need to pay him.

-The Supply Cache sidequest is our first instance of a barely implemented quest for this dungeon. There are a couple cracks in the wall/floor you can check for money items. And I mean couple very literally, there are exactly two. I've never had to actually use the radio.

-The exterior battlefield is massive and with low visibility, so it is very easy to get lost in it, as I did in the video!

-It is worth your time to kill most of the enemies in the dungeon, tedious as it is. They are very generous with the cash, and occasionally drop Grenades and Ammo Crates. The latter can push your ammo reserves well beyond what you'll normally have if you're lucky!

-The Explosives sidequest is also unfinished. There is exactly one thing to detonate with a sapper charge, and the guy doesn't actually pay you for it when you do it. That said, it is well worth taking the sapper since the wall you blow leads to one of the best weapons in the game and enough ammo to last it for the remainder of it.

-The minesweeping sidequest is probably the most finished quest within the dungeon, but it's pretty scuffed. If you have someone equip the Mine Detector, it'll occasionally ping where a mine is hidden and make it slightly easier to ready yourself to pluck them. Not worth it in my opinion, the Detector is a completely useless two handed weapon, and there are some narrow hallways later with mines that we can inch through in order to finish the quest easily. The practice field flat out doesn't work, and there isn't actually any buried treasure to find. I've also heard the Mine Officer doesn't actually sell you a new detector if you happen to break yours, but I haven't tested that personally.

-Plucking mines is relatively easy, just walk up to them and mash the interact key. If they pop up out of the ground before you get in close, you can run away and they'll rebury themselves.

-We get another new party member! Hellen is pretty unique and pretty awesome. She has among the best HP and STM in the game with a high Attack stat, though low Agility and an inability to use guns. She's able to inflict the unique Stalk status, which improves her damage and crit rate against stalked targets. She has a number of unique skills performable with Slashing or Piercing weapons, though her best one has recently been nerfed. She's probably one of the best party members in the game, and I'll do my best to show her off next time around.

A new patch has dropped today! This one hasn't really changed much to the game in as far as I can tell, but it does have some very amusing coincidental balance changes. Namely, Joel has had Teeth Cannon and Roundsaw Jaw slightly nerfed, Dan has had his offensive skills buffed, and Hellen has had some of her more extreme nerfs walked back. The last video could not have ended in a more perfect combination of characters, I have to say. Otherwise it was mostly bug fixes with the exception of a boss I was planning to fight in the next video having his most dangerous aspect nerfed, which is honestly kind of disappointing from a demonstration perspective. It's a good change otherwise because that boss has been a serious pain in the ass for the wrong reasons up to this point.

Part 7 is out! This outing is mix of addressing loose ends and finally completing the Landlord dungeon before we move onto the basement. The Basement is absolutely massive and has several major areas unto itself, so it's a good idea to clear out some of the miscellaneous areas I've passed up before they get lost in the lurch. We also finally secure some genuinely fantastic equipment, which goes a long way in making enemies we fight going forward much less of a danger.

Extra Notes

-Before getting into the nitty gritty, we did have a patch between the last video and this one. There were no major content overhauls, though there can be some sneaky changes that FrankieSmileShow omits from/forgets to include in the patch notes. In a moment of serendipity though, all the major changes of the new patch happen to be relevant to our current situation! Namely there have been some balance changes to characters we are using plus a change to a boss we fight within the video that I'll go over later. For the party members,
Joel: Roundsaw Jaw and Teeth Cannon have been made more expensive to use, and both have been hit with damage nerfs. Roundsaw's isn't too noticeable, but Teeth Cannon had its damage roughly halved from the previous patch. Probably a good idea considering how much that was slamming the enemies for in the prior videos, but sad to see it go!
Dan: His Scan ability has been improved which is of little importance to me since I know what most enemies do anyway. His Irate skills have gotten damage buffs, although they're still not on par with Joel's abilities. I have managed to figure out some uses for Dan over the course of this video though, so he's steadily improving in my eyes!
Hellen: Some of her most overt nerfs got walked back or toned down before I even got a chance to demonstrate them! Her Massacre skill now costs 15 STM instead of 8, and the Fallow Will status it induces has been heavily toned down. Originally this status lowered Hellen's Crit Rate, Attack Power, AND prevented you from healing her, though she gained a defense buff in compensation. The skill to purge it flatly reduced Hellen to 10% of her HP. Now it only reduces attack power and crit rate, and the skill that purges it costs 50% of Hellen's HP. One change mentioned in the 1.03 notes that doesn't seem to be true is that Hellen's base level when joining was raised: I distinctly recall her joining at level 4 even prior to version 1.03.

-Speaking of Hellen! She's a fairly sturdy and powerful melee attacker, though she has a couple distinct drawbacks. Hellen cannot use firearms, and her Head slot is locked into the Hockey Mask, a decently strong helmet that unfortunately also reduces accuracy. Past that, Hellen revolves around a unique status called Stalk, that she can inflict on the enemy either one at a time with the Stalk skill or an entire enemy party by removing her mask, at the cost of confusing everyone including your own party. A stalked target takes more damage from Hellen, and they become more susceptible to being critted by her. Hellen also picks up several unique attack skills that can be used with slashing or piercing weapons (previously only one handed varieties, corrected in 1.03 to be all Slash and Pierce weapons) that gain even more damage and crit rate from the Stalk status. Chief among them is Massacre, a 4-hit randomly targeted attack. This ability used to be broken as it was an 8 STM move that could be spammed relentlessly due to Hellen's high STM and did great damage even without Stalk. It has since been nerfed to induce the Fallow Will status, which prevents Hellen from using the skill repeatedly as mentioned previously. Fallow Will has its own selection of skills that can be used when its in effect, even past Salt The Earth, but I haven't had a chance to play around with it personally.

-We tackle the Overgrown Apartment, which is always a weird place to work into a playthrough. It is far too dangerous to enter this place when you first reach the First Floor, but is very easy once you have a full team with Cleavers and Axes. We do definitely want to clear the place out before entering the basement though, as the car key we get from it can be used in the parking garage that the basement connects to. Most of the enemies in this place are quite durable, and the mini-bosses located in the bathroom and bedroom can be extremely hazardous to face, so don't rest on your laurels at any moment when exploring it!

-Once you've reached the Ground Floor, Jeanne's mutation will have triggered. Her laundry is actually a complete red herring, you don't need to get it from the Laundry Worm for this event to happen and she actually never does make good on that 50 dollar promise. Regardless, it is well worth your effort to kill the Hydra buds to save her. Completing this sidequest nets us the extremely powerful Studded Jacket armor, which gives a huge boost to Defense and a generous boost to several other stats. We also get the Motorcycle Helmet, which gives similar boosts to the Jacket as well as Stun immunity, but also incurs a nasty accuracy penalty that makes you miss constantly. You can combine it with the Eyeglasses to eliminate that drawback, but I kind of prefer having flexibility with my accessory slot. It's still not a bad option in lieu of other gear choices though.

-I decide to have Frederic dupe the Studded Jacket for me. There are defensively stronger pieces of armor in the game, but the Studded Jacket gives probably the best overall boosts of any armor in the game. It's definitely worth it to have two of them! Frederic takes until the next day rolls over to finish making his dupe, which can happen pretty quickly depending on when you hand the armor off to him.

-There are many doors we can open with Herbicide, but the Frozen Apartment is definitely the largest and most involved area we can get into with it. There's not enough Salt within the apartment itself to fully explore it, but thankfully there is enough in the game to melt every single ice block that will ever potentially bar your path. I opt to take the route that gets me the most monetary rewards on top of also allowing me to face the boss within the apartment. Unlike the Overgrown Apartment, nothing besides the boss is too threatening here.

-Joel has picked up what is by far his best move, Teethstorm! This was sneakily slid into his skill list last patch and it is a phenomenal payoff for building up Joel. Its base damage is half his current HP, before the amount of HP it costs to use it is considered, and it also seems to do additional damage based on Joel's attack stat. It hits all enemies in a battle, and it seems like it never misses. Once Joel has this ability, he becomes amazing at clearing out trash mobs. It takes awhile for him to get here, but it was well worth the time!

-Since Dan's Status carries between battles now and he can amass viewers quickly in Irate mode, he's now picked up a decent niche as a pocket healer. His healing is weak, but he can do a lot of it once he hits 20 viewers. Have him keep Joel topped off for Teethstorm spam, and you got a nice little dynamic duo here!

-I can probably get more mileage out of Dan's Irate skills if I give him accessories that make him immune to the ailments they inflict. Something to keep in mind next time we see the curio trader!

-Pompom used to be the most annoying boss in the game. Nearly every single turn, he would use Cold Wave, a skill that hit the entire party for about 30 damage and had an extremely high chance to Freeze whoever it hit. Freeze is an alternative stun ailment that prevents you from acting when inflicted, but unlike the actual Stun status ailment, characters/enemies don't build up cumulative resistance to it for remaining battle when its inflicted. It was entirely possible for Pompom to freeze your entire team turn after turn and not let you do anything, especially because he used to be lightning fast. His speed has been nerfed and he can no longer use Cold Wave multiple turns in a row, bringing from an obnoxious luck based battle to about as vanilla as everything else in the apartment. Kind of a shame actually. Random related trivia, there are accessories that give you resistance to Cold damage, but nothing that gives you immunity to Freeze. It was frustrating when I invested in a Ring to protect against the Cold specifically for this guy and then I found that out.

-We reach the one place we can actually use a sapper charge, and the reward is well worth grabbing those charges for! The War Rifle is one of the strongest guns in the game, and we get enough rifle ammo alongside it to basically last us for the remainder of the game. Whoever has this rifle should just be making Aimed Shots constantly. Get to it, Dan!

-The Dog Tag Trader is probably the single most unfinished sidequest in this game, unless it's some kind of elaborate prank on the player. There's only one set of Dog Tags to give him the one you find in Mr. Henderson's room. Presumably every enemy in the dungeon is supposed to have a chance to drop Dog Tags, but as of the most current patch this still hasn't become a factor.

-You can use the Tame Landmine in battle, but why would you kill Betty like that!?!

-The Trench Digger is extremely dangerous if you let him live to his second turn. He'll fire off an explosive round that deals huge damage to everyone. I'm shocked I was able to smash him down before that happened!

-The Jupiter disc is used for only one lock, but it leads to a very good weapon.

-I get a harsh reminder of the Danger mechanic on my way back to Frederic. I kind of wish the Shades were a threat past the First Floor, I often forget they're even in the game!

-The Rat Baby is now big enough to join us on adventures! He's pretty much a joke character with stats as bad as Sophie and the ability to bite enemies to inflict Disease. He can use better weapons than Sophie can though, including one handed Firearms! We'll have our little hellspawn blast on some fools in the next video, don't you worry.