Cutscene Arizona road: Ralph picks up Bailey #
GEAR 1
(We get a good view of one of the main roads in Arizona, showing its quiet, natural beauty until we can hear the sound of a muscle V8 at a distance; from then, a muscle car passes fast: it’s a car inspired by the Ford Mustang Boss 302 with a scoop on its hood and red and black painting. We get a few angles of the Mustang rolling through the road and we start hearing music in the background. Inside the car, the driver is seen singing classic Rock and drinking cola.
After this, we see a hippie girl walking near the road, we see the front part of her, but not her face; she stops walking when she hears the engine and turns around, which is when she lifts her thumb to hitch a hike. The Mustang slows down and lets her get in.
After the girl enters the car, we see the driver and the girl from the back seat as he drives away; after a couple of seconds, we finally see her face as she asks:
“Mind if I smoke?”
“Not at all” – The driver says, while handing her the car’s lighter.
The girl picks it up, lights up her cigarette and laughs off. “Boy that was a long walk, feels good to finally take a rest”
“How long have you been walking?”
“I dunno, a few hours maybe? I wasn’t counting”
“No one stopped to pick you up?”
“The only ones who stopped weren’t real… Can’t tell if the ones who drove away were real either”
The driver laughs. “You smoke while walking?”
“Nah, I take a break and sit down to smoke. Maybe I should stop smoking tho, the effects are already starting to kick in without me smoking, I saw a few alien machines on the way, they were pretty big”
“Uh huh. Sure”
“Hehe… Well at least I can finally relax and enjoy some music”
“Where are you going anyway?”
“Anywhere you wanna drop me, I don’t have no destination”
“Really? What if I’m going to the middle of nowhere? Or to a death cult? Or to a junkyard?”
“I’ll just find my way by then”
“Really? You just got into my car and you’re not afraid of what I could be hiding?”
“If I were afraid of anything, why would I be hitch hiking?”
“You’re lucky I ain’t some kidnapper. Except I’m actually going to the junkyard”
“Don’t mind if you do”
“Are you not far from home?”
“I don’t have a home; I just wander around”
“Girl, you’re really a lost cause, you know that?”
She laughs off “I know, man, I know…”
The driver looks at her and laughs together, they both do a high five. After a couple of seconds, he asks: “What’s your name anyway? You have a name, don’t you?”
“Course I have a name, I ain’t no animal… I’m Bailey”
“Ralph”
“Nice to meet ya Ralph”
Cutscene Charlie’s junkyard #
Ralph nods. After this, he keeps driving until they arrive in the junkyard, there, Ralph gets out of the car and talks to an old man sitting on a rocking chair and drinking beer.
“Yo Charlie, got what I asked?”
“Yeah, it’s all here” Charlie points at the parts he asked, which put a smile on Ralph’s face.
“Nice, time to give my baby an upgrade. How much do I owe you, Charlie?”
“That will be 800 dollars”
“Alright then” Ralph picks up money from his pocket and starts counting.
Cutscene The meteor hits the junkyard #
Meanwhile, something that looks like a meteor comes down from the sky and both of them look at it
“Is that what I think it is?” Ralph asks
“What the…”
The meteor hits the junkyard, but the explosion doesn’t hurt either of them. Charlie smiles and looks at Ralph
“Must be a satellite… I’m gonna get some fat dollars with it hehehe…”
They both walk towards the spot where the meteor crashed, but suddenly all the scrap starts moving towards the crater and get absorbed by the meteor, much to Ralph and Charlie’s shock.
“What the hell is this?!” Ralph asks
“Hey!!! My scrap!!”
Cutscene The scrap becomes a giant robot and absorbs the car #
All the scrap that was absorbed by the meteor start taking form until it looks like a gigantic humanoid figure. Ralph and Charlie are shocked to see the figure of a giant headless robot, which starts walking outside of the crater, towards Ralph’s car. Noticing it’s going for his car, Ralph runs after it.
“Hey! HEY! HEY! NO! LEAVE MY CAR ALONE!!!”
The giant walking robot ignores as it approaches the car. Ralph starts begging for it not to absorb his car, until he pulls out his gun, a colt M1911 and shoots it to no avail. Once he runs out of ammo, he throws the gun at the robot, which gets absorbed alongside his car. Ralph starts lamenting.
“No… Why? WHY MY CAR?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO BUILD THAT CAR?! PIECE BY PIECE?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I WORKED FOR IT??!! Fuck… Bailey! What… WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!!”
Cutscene Planetary defense personnel identified: Ralph boards #
The giant robot turns to Ralph, now with a head and kneels, reaching out to him.
“Planetary defense personnel identified. Please, board this unit so your duties can be assisted” a female robotic voice says
“I’m not doing anything till you give my car back!”
The robot closes its hand and the voice says: “Understood”
The robot’s head starts morphing into what looks like his car. “Cockpit reconfigured. Please board this unit so your duties can be assisted”
Ralph is impressed. “Damn… Whatever just happened was pretty damn cool. Sure, now that my car is back, I’m good”
Ralph then stepped into the robot’s hand and entered the cockpit, which looks exactly like his car, but with a few extra controls and buttons on the dashboard. Ralph looks at Bailey
“You alright?”
Bailey scoffs a laugh. “No… I’m definitely not alright, I saw a giant robot come close to me and suddenly your car’s interior looked like some anime robot or whatever”
“Yeah, about that…”
“Alien threat detected, prepare to engage” the robotic voice says
“Now it’s talking like it’s some Knight Rider shit… Yeah I gotta stop using drugs” Bailey says
Ralph smiles “If that’s drugs, then let’s just enjoy the trip”
Cutscene Send me the bill, Charlie #
“HEY!!!” Ralph hears Charlie screaming, he then rolls down the window and looks back and down. “ARE YOU GONNA PAY ALL THAT SCRAP OR WHAT?!”
“Um… A meteor hit your junkyard; it was not my fault!”
“But you’re in control of it! You own it! Or are you just gonna drive off with it?!”
“Send me the bill, Charlie, I gotta go!” Ralph drops a paper note he quickly wrote and drives off with the giant robot. Charlie is furious and starts stomping the ground.
Tutorial Tutorial choice and the moves #
The robot is driving off just like Megaman using the jet skates from Megaman Legends, we get to see inside the car again. The robotic voice asks: “Pilot, would you like to receive instructions before engaging in combat?”
If the player chooses “yes”, the tutorial starts, where the robotic voice tells them about the robot’s moves and attacks, which includes dashing (the jet skates thing), attacking, ranged attacks, switching between fists and the big sword, blocking (force field/shield) and two ults. One of the attacks consists of holding down the attack button, which results in the robot performing a shoryuken, another move consists of holding down both melee attack and ranged attack buttons, resulting in the rocket punch. The sword is more basic, with its special move consisting of tapping dash and attack, which results in the stinger, classic move from every hack and slash game. Tapping the dash button results in a dodge.
By pressing “yes”, Ralph says “sure, let’s see what my baby can do now”
By pressing “no”, Ralph says “nah, let’s just test it in practice”
The ult can be switched by pressing R3 and only two ults can be used in a level, it depends on who is on the passenger seat, which in Bailey’s case, she offers ralph a joint, which slows down time. The default ult, which can still be used if Ralph doesn’t carry anyone with him, consists of the attack arm hitting the ground with full force, unleashing a shockwave around the robot.
Robot combat First fights in the open desert #
Tutorial or not, the player will start fighting aliens immediately, and the enemies seen are: the default giant spider alien robot that fires electric beams at you; drones, which are small, can’t be hit with melee attacks, need ranged attacks to be taken down and are pretty weak; alien tanks, which are more resistant than the normal spiders and are recommended to be destroyed with the sword… Those are the basic enemies, and a lot of them will come.
After the first area, Ralph will show clear excitement, laugh and scream “YEEHAW! I’m unstoppable!”
Open world Threat in the north: the cliff run #
“Alien threat detected up north, please head to the enemy’s location and engage” The robotic voice says
“No need to say it twice!” Ralph answers and dashes the robot towards where the GPS points him to.
While Ralph drives the robot fast towards the destination, he sees cliffs and starts jumping from them, from cliff to cliff thanks to the boost the jet skates give him, while screaming in excitement, which Bailey also laughs, saying “this shit is cool, almost feels real!”
“Right?” Ralph responds.
Cutscene The fall into the Grand Canyon #
After a few jumps, the robot will trip over a rock on one of the cliffs and fall on the crevices of the canyon, landing face first, which makes the interior pop up the airbags and put them back in place.
“Damn… Now I feel like I should’ve installed airbags in my car before this… At least we were both wearing seatbelts, right?” Ralph says
“Yeah… I think I’m gonna wake up any minute”
The robot gets up, Ralph says “now to get out of the Grand Canyon… Just need to find a way”
“Careful, driver: there are alien threats nearby” The robotic voice says
“Heh, that sounds fun”
Linear level Canyon corridors with rivers and snakes #
The level continues, with rivers and thick walls making narrow corridors, and there will be several enemies, now including alien robotic snakes that come from the water, Ralph just needs to proceed until he finds a way back up.
Cutscene Does this robot have a name? Horse Power #
“Hey robot lady, does this robot have a name?” Ralph asks
“Yes, driver, this unit is named HP500GTFM, model 302”
“500 HP? That’s about how much HP my car has. Though I don’t really like that name, this ain’t no Audi, BMW or Mercedes, cars need to have actual names, not just numbers”
“I mean… I don’t know a whole lot about cars, but isn’t your car named Stallion or something like that? There’s even a horse logo on the grill” Bailey says
“Driver, would you like to rename this unit?”
Ralph smiles. “Absolutely… See, this is a custom model, but here’s the name I’m giving it… HORSE POWER!”
Bailey smiles and thumbs up. “That’s a cool name, I like it”
“Understood. Renaming unit HP500GTFM model 302 to Horse Power”
Ralph nods “Hell yeah!”
Ralph then continues to drive.
After reaching an access area that brings them back to ground level, Ralph is still amused and says “that was fun, wasn’t it?”
Bailey: “I hope I don’t forget this, it was very metal… Even if I’m not that metal myself”
“I know I won’t”
Cutscene The interface is renamed Stacy #
Hey, robotic voi… Um… Mind if I call you Stacy?”
“Understood. Horse Power interface renamed to Stacy”
“Alright Stacy, how’s the status? Any more aliens around?”
“Affirmative, however, some of the aliens seem to be vanishing for some reason. It’s possible that they are retreating, but their signals disappear. Suggested action: inspect the local of vanishing”
“Yeah, let’s not let them escape. Can’t just let those aliens cross our borders and get away with it”
Cutscene The open area and the Angel #
Ralph then drives to a big open area, where they see something unlike everything they’ve seen so far… Bailey loses the smile and says:
“Um… Ralph, I’m seeing something really weird now and… I don’t think the effect would get worse after two hours”
“Okay, how does it look like? Describe it”
“Alright, so… I see three big rings, the smaller ones inside the bigger ones, bird wings on the biggest one, an eye in the center, a millions eyes on each ring, a halo with weird shapes above it…”
“Yeah, I see that too. Perfectly matches your description”
“Oh… So just like that giant robot anime. Holy shit, what an acid trip, I’m inside an anime now. You think we need to head to the hospital for a toxic exam?”
“Hey, I’m already in debt with Charlie, don’t make me live the rest of my life in debt”
“Ah… Fair enough”
Suddenly, a colossal voice comes from the thing she described, a biblically accurate angel, that says: “BE NOT AFRAID, HUMANS! I AM HERE TO SAVE YOU!”
Ralph grabs the speaker and says: “What do you mean be not afraid? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You look TERRIFYING!”
“INVADER! YOUR EXISTENCE IS DANGEROUS; YOU NEED TO BE SLAIN. FOR THE BETTER OF THE WORLD!”
“Shit, suddenly a bad acid trip wants me dead… I ain’t gonna sit here and cry tho, not my style”
Boss BOSS: The Angel #
BOSS: THE ANGEL
This boss spends most of the time flying, so it’s essential to use the cannons, rocket punches and the shoryuken, but also dash when it fires a divine bomb, dodge or block when beams are fired and pay attention to when it starts swinging a gigantic sword and making it rain swords. The battle ends with a finishing animation where Ralph makes the Horse Power perform a shoryuken, which makes it hang high enough in the air to be right in front of the central eye, Ralph then laughs and says to himself “I always wanted to say this… EAGLE PUNCH!!!!” this makes the robot’s fist charge and punch the center of the eye, making the angel start shaking, the eye look everywhere in panic and scream, which slowly becomes more girly. The angel starts shattering and disappearing…
Cutscene The Angel was a teenage girl #
After this, the Horse Power lands on the ground with a superhero landing and Ralph sees a stricken teen girl in front of him.
“What’s that? When was she…” He then grabs the speaker. “Hey, are you okay? Who are you? What are you doing here?”
(the girl whimpers in pain) “No… Of course I’m not okay! My only job was to protect the Earth from you evil aliens!”
“Aliens? No, I’m 100% American!”
(the girl gets confused) “Wait, you’re not an alien?”
“Born and raised in America, so no”
“Wait, that’s…”
“Wait a minute, you’re that weird thing I was fighting just now? I thought you were with the aliens”
“Hey! Don’t call me weird! That was my full power! I was fighting those aliens!”
“Oh… Hey, I was fighting them too! We’re on the same side!”
“Hm! If you wanna apologize, then explain why you’re controlling this giant alien machine!”
“How about I take you out of here first? You’re clearly hurt”
“Um… Ok”
Companion unlocked: magical girl
Cutscene After the mission: the clinic and a home for Dani and Bailey #
Post-mission scene: we see Ralph and the girl leaving a clinic and getting into the car, with Bailey in the backseat. Ralph asks: “you feeling better?”
The girl looks away, still shy, but answers: “Yes… It’s not like I haven’t fought worse things than this before, this is nothing…”
“So you’ve lost fights even in that form before?”
She slightly panics and responds: “No! Of course I didn’t, I never lost! Well… Until now at least”
Ralph scratches his chin and says: “Hmm… Still crazy to hear everything you told me tho, like… You’re a magical girl? Holy shit…” He looks at Bailey and asks her: “You heard that, Bailey?”
Bailey looks at the girl and answers: “Yeah… I remember watching Ghost Hunter Luna when I was a kid, good old days. I used to pretend I was Marcia; she was the best girl of the five, she was literally me. You look just as cute as Luna, not gonna lie”
The girl pouts. “Come on, you guys think I’m just playing pretend? Even after seeing everything?”
Ralph responds: “Ah, don’t worry, she… Um… (shit, how do I tell a teenager someone uses drugs?)”
The girl crosses her arms and pouts again. “Hm! Clearly neither of you are taking me seriously…”
Ralph says: “Heh… Sorry. Anyway, where do you live? I can take you back home”
She is surprised for a moment, then looks down, sad. She then answers: “I… Don’t have a home”
“Wait, what?” Ralph and Bailey say simultaneously
“Yeah, I…”
“Where are your parents?”
She looks even sadder and is about to cry. “My parents, the aliens… They…”
Ralph and Bailey feel bad for her. Bailey says “poor little thing…”
Ralph thinks for a moment and asks: “Where do you stay at night?”
“I do some odd jobs so I can get money for a hotel… Sometimes it’s housework, so the owners let me sleep over”
“Okay, how about this… And that goes for you too, Bailey… I have a house, not a very big one, but it has two bedrooms, and I live by myself, so how about you two stay for now?”
The magical girl is shocked and asks: “Wait, no! I can’t do this; you just met me! I’m just a stranger!”
“Didn’t you just say you sleep at your employer’s houses for a living?”
“Yes, but… It’s only for one night!”
“Nah, I can’t just let a little girl like you go around doing odd jobs for everyone… You’re lucky nothing bad happened to you yet. And besides, what if you don’t have money and got no jobs for a day?”
“I… Can handle myse-”
“How old are you, 14?”
She pouts again. “Fifteen!”
“Yeah, I doubt you can handle yourself like you say. Stay at my place, I won’t charge you for it”
While initially reluctant, she accepts Ralph’s proposal. “Okay… Thanks”
Bailey then asks Ralph: “I can understand her, but why would you wanna keep a junkie like me in your place? I don’t work, I don’t have anything to add, are you sure you want me to live with you?”
“Yeah. Let’s not pretend you’re in a less dangerous situation than she is. You too are coming with me”
Bailey feels a little embarrassed, but smiles. “Thanks Ralph”
“Uh huh”. Ralph looks at the girl and asks: “What’s your name anyway? All this time and you didn’t tell me”
“It’s Danielle”
“Can I call you Dani?”
She pouts. “You can’t be so lazy to the point of making my already short name shorter, Ralph”
He laughs off. “Okay Dani, let’s go home”