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Originally recorded: April 1, 2021 (April Fools!)
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Well, it's finally time to start up Rue's scenario. Admittedly, I wasn't exactly looking forward to playing him, just given how boring he seemed to come across in Mint's story. But he does at least appear to have a little bit of deadpan snarkiness within his internal dialogue. At the very least, the story doesn't become any less wacky from his point of view... often to his own chagrin.

Gameplay-wise, he's a double-edged sword. The ability to transform into monsters seems to have been the developers' main focus when developing the game, as Rue can obtain Monster Coins that allow him to turn into the vast majority of enemies -- even some that don't really seem all that viable. These coins are gained by defeating the corresponding enemy, just so long as he doesn't currently have the coin at his disposal. However, as he can only hold four coins at a time, this puts a limitation on his arsenal at any given time... and considering the noticeable (albeit unintrusive) load time during transformations, that seems to have been a conscious decision to avoid a potential "Shang Tsung" situation. Having said that, the game uses an automatic "first in, last out" sorting method to determine which coins get replaced, so if you absolutely love on of your current transformations, you'd better avoid killing any new enemies up close at any cost.

Rue's melee combat also feels significantly stronger than Mint's... which makes a lot of sense. The fact that he gets two types of attacks in all of his forms is also a pretty neat touch, though he only utilizes MP while transformed into a monster. Likewise, a lot of the monster forms found early in the game feel significantly stronger than what Mint's magic was capable of at this point in her scenario. Unfortunately, Rue's lack of a dedicated projectile definitely also made certain parts of the game significantly harder -- Fancy Mel's section became an absolutely nightmare, as you'll see.

Also, you'll notice me cursing up a storm near the end of the stream and becoming more agitated than usual. That's because my internet connection dropped while I was stuck on the last Fancy Mel platforming segment... which was already ticking me off. Fortunately, the archive is fully intact -- which means you'll get to see some YouTube-exclusive footage -- but that also explains why I rushed to a save point as soon as I finished and just decided to call it a night. I didn't end up making it as far as I wanted to this time, but hopefully, I'll be able to make up the difference on Sunday.