October 4, 2009
Too Late IoTM Review: Eyeballs.
So I’ve actually been playing Kingdom of Loathing again, although in Hardcore Oxy, so I only play like once a week or so. Still, that’s been working out well enough. And, of course, since I’m ascending again, I’ve been doing 100% familiar runs. And since the most recent Mr. Familiar I’ve gotten was the He-Boulder, I’ve been using that.
I like it pretty well.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it’s a part Ghuol Whelp. It’s always nice to have that extra healing after most combats. I heart those kinds of familiars. (Seriously, if only the Cotton Candy Carnie had flavor that I liked better. Then I’d use it all the time.) It’s also nice, I suppose, to have a Mr. Store Leprechaun that I would actually want to use for the Nuns or whatever. I’ll probably never actually use him for that effect, though.
So, besides the nice heals, the He-Boulder has one other thing going for it, and that’s it’s various eye beams. Once a combat, you can use the free skill “Point at your Opponent” to have it fire off a beam. Most of the time, this just throws out a little damage. (Well, it’s a ton of damage early in the game, but it quickly becomes more trivial.) However, one in every 150 turns, it fires a “Major Ray” which does TONS of damage with the red ray, defeats an enemy outright with the Yellow Ray, or essentially uses Entangling Noodles on the enemy with the Blue Ray, which is pretty cool.
So basically, you have a Ghuol Whelp who gives you some extra Meat drops and works like a sometimes effective combat familiar. It’s a pretty well-rounded combination, and it’s pretty fun to use. The familiar equipment (which I annoyingly didn’t get, but got a lead necklace instead, grrr) helps the Major Rays recharge faster, which is a decent enough incentive to go to the Cake-shaped Arena in more casual runs, too.
Still, the fact remains that this review is late. You’d have to buy this familiar from the mall. I don’t know if it’s gone up in price, but if it has, over just the cost of a Mr. A? I can’t really recommend it. It’s neat enough, and I’m happy with my purchase, but it just doesn’t seem powerful enough to invest in, and certainly not enough to pay a premium for when you can get so many other neat things. I’ll keep having fun with it, though, at least until this run is over.