VG Force NES

(Easy Soul, 4 Success) "Would you mind giving me your ex-wife's address and that of your business? And the crime scene's, as well?" you ask Mr Markson and Mr Wright. Mr Markson grabs a piece of paper and scribbles something down, then handing the paper to Mr Wright, who also writes something.

"Here you are, sir," Wright tells you.

"Thank you. Now, I know this might sound a bit bad, but... would you mind giving me some money to pay for transportation? I fear I have nothing to pay " you ask.

"Don't worry about that," Wright says. "I have a friend that owes me a favor, and he'll be willing to carry you around the city for a couple of days." He grabs something from his table and pushes on its surface for a few seconds. "He will be here in about five minutes, so you can begin investigating as soon as you want."

"I thank you, then. I shall not disturb you anymore for the day."

You go outside and wait for Mr Wright's friend, who appears soon, riding something that looks like a small carriage pulled by a person, but with the person sitting in the front on some small seat.

"You must be Phoenix's PI, right?" he asks you.

"Yes, sir," you reply.

"Good, then hop in! I'm your transport for the day, just tell me where to go and I'll carry you, free of charge!"

You give the man the address and as soon as you sit down he starts to move. It is strange, he just pushes down with his fit on some sort of small metallic platforms, and this makes one of the wheels move, impulsing the entire vehicle.

It takes a few minutes for us to reach the robbery victim's mansion, which is quite the magnificent building. You get down from the vehicle and start looking around the door, trying to find a way in, but you are unsuccessful. You wish you had a partner that had more knowledge of the way things work in such a modern place.

A woman passes running, dressed in very tight short breeches and short-sleeved shirt. Despite the audacity of the woman's dressing, you try to call out for her, but she pays you little attention, and before you can do anything, she turns the corner, disappearing from your view.

You sigh. This is not easy. You gaze through the gate, trying to check if there is something else you can do. (Easy Body, 1 Success) You see the garden at the other side. Even your old eyes can see a few things are broken, like something you don't know anything about, and a few plants.

Few things, though.

What you can do: find someone to ask things to. Investigate.

Since you know where to go now, you begin searching for potential places where vampires may hide.

(Easy Mind, 2 Success) You find a cave a couple of kilometers away from the town where you arrived. A vampire stands guard in front of it. (Medium Body, 5 Success) You sneak near it, grab a large rock and smash the vampire under it. You get into the cave easily, and find it is full of them, as they are apparently having a party. (Hard Body, 1 Success) You begin to fight the entire group, devastating the entire place and destroying the entire colony, but you also suffer damage. (-20 HP).

What you can do: make sure that this is not the only place where there are vampires.

President Haggar grabs the two men in black and begins moving for the door. You are right in front of him, making sure that anything that tries to attack you is clearly a hostile. (Medium Body, 3 Success) You manage to destroy quite a few robots that have invaded the hospital, although fortunately none of the patients are being attacked: looks like only the President is under attack. Haggar carefully leaves his two bodyguards on the first empty room he finds (on beds, of course) and gets the nurse he finds there to heal them. (Easy Body, 1 Success) You manage to escort the President down to the ground floor, where he starts to look around for the special exit. Though, wait, aren't you missing something?

Turns out you weren't using your brains, and when Megaman and the President left, you decided to chill out on the top of the hospital, just because (or maybe because you felt it was too hard to decide to follow the others). (Medium Body, 2 Success) More bombs fall on the roof, which you manage to avoid with minimum injuries (-5 HP) but then several winged robots land on the floor as well.

"WHERE. IS. THE. PRESIDENT?" they ask you.

What you can do now: You will be able to hightail it as soon as the President opens the way, so it is just about covering him. However, since you decided that it was funnier to do nothing after standing up post-explosion, you should make a fast choice, particularly after those winged robots appeared.

You gather all the things you have found and show them to the watchman. (Soul Medium, 0 Success) Unfortunately, you fail to make him understand why you are doing it. You guess that's the problem of having less charisma than an Orc mook and less ability to speak than a dog.

Meanwhile, you begin to look around the factory in search of a place where you can easily hide away without being seen. (Body Medium, 2 Success) You manage to find such a place, and move to talk with the watchman. (Soul Easy, 2 Success) "We are going to hide in here for the night, so that we can surprise whoever is stealing the 1-Ups. You don't mind, right?"

"Oh, no, no problem at all. Just so you know, if this doesn't work, it is on you!"

You nod, and direct your partner to hide as well.

Night falls, and you two are prepared to find out what's going on. You hear a noise, and you also begin to see several figures moving on within the factory.

What you can do: Don't have to tell you, right?

(Body Medium, 4 Success) You manage to shoot at everything that keeps coming at you and the President while he tries to open the gate out of the hospital, without getting hurt, and then, you prepare your

(Body Easy, 5 Success) You manage to reach the bottom floor, right where you are, after shooting at anything that stands in your way. You look at him and smile. (Body Easy, 3 Success) You, however, do not smile. Instead, you point your rifle at the others and pull the trigger.

(Body Medium, 2 Success) You manage to jump on the President, pushing him out of the way of the bullets, while shooting at your now former partner. (Body Hard, 1 Success) You get hit by the laser, but fortunately the bulletproof vest dissipates some of the energy. It still hurts like a b*tch, though. (-5 HP)

Just in time, a click is heard. "The way is open!" the President says.
What you can do: Hmmm... well, Megaman can get the President out, and Claude can kiss his ass goodbye, because, whatever he does, he's about to become #1 on the To Beat The Crap Out Of list by the Video Game Land gov't.

(Body Medium, 1 Success) You look around the place you are trying to enter. It seems that nothing, no tree nor the steel tall fences, have been touched in any way, which points out towards, possibly, someone that has been able to jump over the fence or got through the door without opposition.

(Soul Easy, 5 Success) "Would you kindly show me how to come inside? I am afraid I am not familiar with how this works," you ask the man the brought you here.

"Sure. See that button there? It's a doorbell. Just press it and you'll be asked who you are."

Strange, a bell that can be activated with just pressing a little button. You do what you are suggested, and a small bee-like buzz sounds.

"Who is it?" someone - a man, apparently - says through a black contraption next to the button. You assume it must be some sort of long-distance communication system, like the one Mr Wright used before.

"My name is Komlin, sir. I am here trying to find out what exactly happened the other day, when the robbery took place."

Another buzz sounds, this time near the door. You push, and you are surprised to see it is open. It must be an important person, to have a door that opens from afar...

What you can do: Investigate!

You grab everything you can find that may be valuable in the cave and decide to leave. (+20 GP, +1 Potion)

Your next step is to continue looking around the town, to continue destroying the vampire coves in there, so you look. (Body Medium, 4 Success) Your robotic eyes manage to detect some movement nearby, and you ready yourself for battle, and right on time, as two vampires rush at you. They are too slow, though, and you manage to avoid them and make them crash against each other. (Body Medium, 3 Success) The next few minutes are full of confusing moments as many vampires continue trying to kill you, but your robotic body allows you to be much faster than them. They are quite weak, you find out, but, well, that only makes things easier for you, so you do not complain.

The last vampire standing looks a bit younger than the others. He must have been turned just a few weeks ago. You grab him and decide this is a good moment to find out where the other vampire coves are. (Mind Medium, 2 Success)

"You can tell me where your friends are and leave this place alive, or you can do the same as them," you tell him sweetly, which, fortunately, is more than enough to scare him. The fact that you spoke like that probably helped there.

He starts to rattle on about the outskirts, about the vampires that live there, or rather lived, because he thinks most of them were here, but maybe a few of them did not come, because they might have thought about staying where they live to protect their treasures, or something like that.

You don't get to hear more from him, because the sun comes up right then, and all the vampires turn to dust.

What you can do now: either make sure that you have finished or return to the town.

You stay there, not moving, barely breathing, still looking at the Archivist... (Body Hard, 1 Success) until he throws a sock at you. It smacks you surprisingly hard on the face, although you manage to avoid getting hurt by moving with the sock. However, you cannot avoid puking on the floor when the stench attacks your nose.

"Damn, lass," the Archivist says. "I'll make sure to discount you for the cleaning from your winnings. Now, move!"

What you should be doing: Move, work, etcetera, etcetera.

"Do you know who the man that lives in here is?"

"Well, I know that the owner is Mrs Urkian. If you spoke with a man, it must have been her butler. As far as I know, Mrs Urkian is a widow."

You wonder what kind of world this is, that a widow commands such respect. That means that many of your theories have been rendered impossible. But you cannot let that stand in the way of doing your job, so you push the door and walk through.

(Body Medium, 1 Success) You catch that there are several footprints on the wall, right below a window. That is probably the way the robber entered the house to take the jewels.

You knock on the door, and it opens, revealing a man elegantly dressed in a dark suit and white shirt.

"You must be Mr Komlin, right?"

You nod. The man - the butler? - steps to a side.

"Please, come in. Mrs Urkian is waiting for you."

You step in, and follow the butler to a side room where a relatively young woman - (Body Easy, 1 Success) you calculate she must be in her late twenties - sits, holding something that emits smoke between her fingers.

"Mr Komlin?"

"That is I, Ma'am," you reply, trying not to say anything that might anger the woman.

"Who has sent you here? I doubt it was my lawyer, so I guess it must have been Markson. Am I right?"

You had intended to keep that from her, but you guess that there is no reason to hide it. "Indeed, Ma'am. His lawyer believes that he may have been framed, and I am here to ascertain whether that is true."

"Oh. Well, then, I am sure you must have many questions to ask. So, you can begin."

(Soul Easy, 5 Success) Through several questions, you manage to ascertain that a diamond collar worth many million GPs, several boxes with earrings, two gold bracelets and other assorted jewelry were the stolen items, that the crime took place at approximately 2 AM of several days before today, and that she was sleeping in her bed just on the room next to that where the robbery took place.

"What is your relation to Mr Markson, Ma'am?" you ask.

"He is my first husband," she replies.