B.A.T. II - Won!

Written by Tornado

Hello, I’m Tornado, and I'm a relatively new reader of this wonderful blog. Through it, I've been able to relive games I played years ago and learn about those I missed. And so, I’m grateful for this opportunity to write this final post on B.A.T. II (aka, The Koshan Conspiracy).

At the outset of this guest post, let me express my deep thanks to Ilmari for pushing through 99.99% of the game. I played Koshan Conspiracy as a kid and never got very far. Over the years I’ve wondered what I’d missed, and so I’m grateful that he took over 33 hours of gameplay time to flesh it out here at The Adventure Gamer.

My main motive behind this post is to set the record straight regarding the game’s final puzzle, which Ilmari couldn’t quite solve.

This is where we left poor Ilmari.

B.A.T. II - Final Rating

By Ilmari

For game developer, a hybrid appears to a lucrative possibility. Why satisfy yourself with selling a game to adventure game fans, when CRPG fans might also be a potential target of marketing? Yet, making a hybrid is also a risky endeavour, since you might end up alienating both target groups. And indeed, the risk seems quite real, since for every Quest for Glory we have a game like B.A.T. and its successor.

If only I had been playing this game

B.A.T. II - Lost!

By Ilmari

Will they ever release me from this torment?

B.A.T. II - The Simulator Conspiracy

Written by Ilmari

Last time I had a problem how to continue, since I had no clue where to find any more deeds. Well, it turned out that the solution was to search through the belongings of everyone walking on the streets of Roma. They didn’t have any deeds with them, but one person did own something unique: a local newspaper.

I guess everyone else prefers the digital version

B.A.T.II - The Great Bank Robbery

By Ilmari

After fully exploring the city of Roma, I had found one quest - get the minority shareholders of echiatone mining in Bedhin 6 sell their deeds to you, so that you can kick the Koshan family out of the echiatone business. That quest failed, because the only person willing to sell his deeds, banker Julius Massiglia, asked an unreasonable price for them. My next quest then was to rob Massiglia bank, presumably to get enough money to pay for those deeds.

My contact, Sylvia Hadford, hadn’t really any plan how to rob the bank, so she just told me to ask people about the bank. That suggestion was plain nonsensical, since everyone I could ask about the bank would just repeat one of the stock phrases. Then I accidentally hit the solution while trying to pursue a completely different avenue of investigation. Remember those three shady persons in a backroom of a bar, selling something called memory tablet?

I am going to be broke after this

B.A.T. II - All Roads Lead to Roma

By Ilmari

Last time I had got the mission to check out the major deed holders of echiatone industry, but before that I wanted to take a tour of the town. I had just doubled my capital and I was convinced I had plenty to go with. I had 20 000 credits and one trip through the local “subway” would cost 300 credits - I could do plenty of journeys with my money.

Well, I boarded the express-via and it wasn’t really a subway.

I am flying through tunnels alone in this shuttle

After choosing my destination, I got to decide whether to use the express-via automatically or manually. Just for curiosity, I tried to do it manually. I did manage to get somewhere, but I had bumbed too many fellow drivers and had to pay extra 700 credits for it. I reloaded and did the same trip with autopilot. It turned out to mean automatic addition of 700 credits to the cost of one trip.

Isn’t this covered by insurance?

B.A.T. II - Fighting the Machine

By Ilmari

Last time I had just finished creating my B.A.T. agent, Andy Panthro, and released him in the planet called Shedishan, where Koshan trust was trying to get a monopoly for the production of echiatone, a valuable mineral. Based on intro, I had the idea that echiatone could be found only on Bedhin 6, a natural satellite of Shedishan, but I’ve since learned it can be found in small asteroids, created by a collision of Bedhin 6 with meteorites, and even on Shedishan itself, in craters created by former chunks of Bedhin 6.

The intro of the game had given me one simple task: find Sylvia Hadford, the other agent of B.A.T. This was pretty simple, since she was staying in a hotel nearby where I started.

What’s that thing hanging from your hair?

Sylvia gave me my next mission. I was to go to the Automatic Information Center in Minerva Tower and find out the most important deed holders for the echiatone industry of the planet.

And that was all the plot development you’ll get this time. Good night everyone!

But wait. How could I play the game for almost 20 hours and not get any further?

Game 96: B.A.T. II – The Koshan Conspiracy (1992)

By Ilmari

I am afraid I am in the difficult position of a vocabulary apprentice replacing two very able wordsmiths. Firstly, we usually let a single reviewer do one series so that through cumulative experience they will see whether a game has improved on its predecessors or not. Unfortunately, Aperama was so put off by what can only be described as the inherent Frenchiness of the first B.A.T., so we struck a deal that I would do the sequel, if he would do this nice fun game called Eternam… look how well that went. In any case, Aperama is spending some well-earned time off, so he isn’t even available for this game.

I guess this is far greater adventure than any Computer’s Dream could make up

My only hope was that Chester Bolingbroke, our much appraised colleague working under the alias CRPG Addict, would one day also review this game, like he did its predecessor, thus making up for my frailties. Then I happened to read Mr. Addict’s take on B.A.T. and to my great consternation I found out he wasn’t even considering doing Koshan Conspiracy, because it was categorised as an adventure/strategy -hybrid by Mobygames.

I am truly alone now