Dashbored Playthrough So Far!

Lengthy post below, be warned for quite a lot of ramblings and pics 

Dashbored is a videogame developed by Fading Club for PC on Steam and itch.io, first released in June of 2016. It has since received various improvements via updates throughout all these years. It's a RPG with Yume Nikki aspects but primarily an RPG Maker-like game. I bought it for 4 euros via the Fading Club game pack (with Dreamwild, Nashbored --part of Dashbored's universe-- and Psychopomp Gold.) 

I might make an archival blog entry for both Dreamwild and Psychopomp since I already finished them but besides it being way too much to talk about, I've already finished both of them! Where's the fun in updating people about stuff I've already finished.

Nevertheless, let's get into it.

You wake up as our protagonist, Nicolas Kawamura who is your typical local loser nerd who somehow has the capacity to be badass (think of Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes, another game that reminds me a lot of Dashbored with its fun absurdity in a way). You get greeted by a random house in the middle of nowhere, left to inspect it. Fun. Perfect formula for a RPG and whatnot.

^ spam of some of his sprites which I feel is important. Obligatorily, he is my son now.

Anyways we're met by this weird-ass garden thing cult? Something something guiding you to the Garden. Or whatever the strange NPCs said... and we also have our first fights, with rats! I can't believe it. We're killing the rats tomorrow #scheduled.

Alas we continue further and further. We're greeted by a woman with a TV head.

Heartwarming, she gives us a welcome by making us fight three enemy NPCs. Beautiful. Inspiring. Clearly this girl is very nice and kind. #mybeloved. Anyways for some reason I had to redo this fight not one but FOUR FUCKING TIMES, but admittedly that is just me having a mayor capital S, capital I, Skill Issue. 

Nevertheless, it was a good challenge. And I liked this extremely kind girl! Who would not. If you don't, you'll get killed. By my sword.

We once again go through some fever dream esque shenanigans, and some kind of.... entity? Thing? Called Vurrus just welcomes us into their garden. Seems like that's what the whole thing was about. 

Nevertheless, we wake up again, this time in a far better looking bed. This time they're more hospitable, nice. So, like any other conscious person who doesn't know where they are, we immediately stand up and explore the area. I didn't see anything too important in this house, so I just left for the outside.

Exploring a bit more and going to the west, I entered a pawnshop (?) or something of the kind. M&J's. Here, we meet finally two new characters that seem friendly.

This is Midori, and she quickly became one of my favorites. She saves the game for you, so you better give her a big thank you. Saving files is a hard job! Notably, we also have the J of M&J's;

This guy's also helpful. He sells you highly addictive substances and dangerous weapons. Jack's really the jack of all trades.

Also gives us this line when you inspect the shiv he sells.

Nevertheless... These two clearly are important. Midori takes us to the basement of their shop, where she explains that basically they're trying to look for an exit, and that the exit from the Garden can only be unlocked via memories that you can collect.

So we now have a goal.

(Also you can explore both Jack and Midori's rooms. Midori has a computer you can investigate and...

Well, anyways. You can also touch Jack's what-seems-to-be-his guitar, and in reply he immediately slaps you and tells you not to touch his stuff (and you get an achievement), so, like, very neat.)

So we embark on a journey to collect these things. We also get a car! 

(deeply enamoured by this car. This car has me infatuated. Big shoutout.)

As we get out, we get... Jumped. 

This Milly girl, as far as I know, definitely doesn't have any good business with us. I like her design, so she gets a pass.

Anyways, with the car, you can now explore the World Map. Our first plan is to head to Ovok, the first location. We head north and inspect a gate that clearly needs a key. It's a gate to some orphanage, and I don't trust orphanages much... but oh well.

 kitty

We head east, talk to this sleeping pumpkin and we get a key. I thankfully saved, because the house right next to the pumpkins is... well. 

Basically, you have to head into the house to get a doll, once you retrieve it a spider looking white creature attempts to jump you in the first floor and chases you down FAST. Also, if you enter a fight with it, you're doomed to die most likely. Best thing is to avoid it by aiming straight for the door. Anyways, I lost my life 5 times to this thing, please save the file before even entering this stupid house by talking to our beloved Midori.

  And also. :(

So now we go to Coton!

^ how'd he do that? Anyways...

So many good one-liners in this game.

We talk to the mayor, who expresses he wants a fish. And that he'll give us the orphanage keys in exchange of us giving him the fish. So now we enter a mission to get the fish.

Also what the fuck was this.

PART 2; ACQUIRING THE FISH!!!!!!!

Well, see, I got a bit stuck in here. Mostly because I died and had to re-do a lot of things, which left me confused here and there. But of course, I was Amazing, Brave, Kind, Strong and Resilient! We exit Coton, and go to Roke. In Roke, we have to talk to the mayor personally where he gives us keys to the sewer. These will be important.

We follow our path and there's this big pool. 

^  of course, i had to take my son for a bath. he needs it. stinky.
We inspect a tree nearby this pool, and there is a sparkle that gives you Shadow Keys when interacting with it. This sparkle only appears if you talk to a creature right next to M and J's, who asks you this....

^ What happened to 'hi', 'hello', 'how are you'????

Well, whatever, we're ignoring that. We head back, and go down the sewers. 

The sewers have a pretty hard boss, so I'd recommend buying Lil Kisser from Jack's merchant shop if you can. Avoid any meaningless confrontations and blah, blah, blah.

There's a small hidden door in the sewers you can open with the Shadow Key... entering, and making a sacrifice gives you this achievement.

Well. Nevertheless, we continue. Midori advises us to save the game which OF COURSE, we yes WE all will do. I did. I don't know about you. But I'd always listen to Midori.

And here is the boss of the sewers. Well, he wasn't THAT hard. But RIP. Poor guy. 

We get a new party member too! His name's Isaac Acerby, and he's got a TV head.

^ Nic makes a stupid joke and...

confirms he's unemployed. All that for mystery.

We return to Coton again. We get a boss fight right as we enter, but Isaac makes it way easier now. 

I bought Blast Cannon for Isaac too during this. 

We talk to the mayor and get the gate key and we also say goodbye to the fish.

He was a great one while he was there. Be happy it happened, don't cry cause it's over or whatever the thing said. 

We go to the TV Land right next to M and Js, where we go through some kind of pop quiz thingy. It was easy, was nice. I don't have any pics of it, but I'll just say that getting answers wrong doesn't matter unless you want quick cash.

Ask 'Where's the exit' to the robot at the end of the area, and retrieve the memory it gives you.

We go back to M and J's, head all way to the east. 

We find a bar, and we have to save before this. Jack'll ask you this.

You say no, and then you go inside from the back door. 

I had to interact with the guy in red to participate in the fighting context, to which Midori encouraged us.

What a nice fellow. I had enough money to gear up at this point, so I did that just exactly.

We go back to Ovok and unlock the gates, entering the orphanage. We talk to the Madam who... certainly looks interesting.

To trust or not to trust is the question. We delve into the orphanage further, finding a pumpkin locket and finally kitchen keys. Heading east to where the Madam is, we unlock the kitchen. We traverse through the area.

Where we find out children are being used for... ? For feeding the Garden, it seems.

We get banished to the shadow dimension, then.

I left it at this because I was getting tired and quite honestly, it was longer than I thought it would be. And we still have a long way to go, too! Nevertheless, I loved it so far and enjoyed the game greatly. 

Very nostalgic. I felt like being a kid and playing RPG Maker games on my sister's computer again. And it was interesting... I'm probably gonna game a bit more later, so I'll update this when the time comes! 

Thank you for reading! ^^