The following is a great method on getting HUGE and quick amounts of
EXP. while in Dusty Dunes Desert. This was taken off of the EBFGP
Board by someone known as MagicCakeIsGood.
This is a great tip. It's very detailed, and it seems to work for
everyone that's tried it. For example, he was able to gain over 30
levels in about 3 hours! That's pretty impressive. It is kind of long
however, so you may want to print it out. So, if you want to try
something new in EarthBound, check this out!
Pictures have been generously provided by BC.
So, as someone had eluded to, I did search for and fight Criminal
Caterpillars for those three hours. Although I never even knew that
they existed until my sixth time through the game, I have now developed
a method for finding CC's with more ease than deciding what the name of
your dog will be. This information that I am releasing to you is
straight from me, tried and true tested, but I must tell you that the
fun from the game might be wasted since your levels for your characters
will be so outstandingly high after just two hours that no challenge
will be left in the game and not many forces will be able to overtake
you for many game playing hours to come. But... this is so frickin'
cool, you gotta try it at least once. Not only that, but this can give
your characters a little boost just before fighting the five hole mole
masters, making that particularly tough site a little easier.
Before I begin, I must tell you that I must describe the situation from
memory and tell you what to do without my game or a Player's Guide in
front of me, so things might be a little weirdly-described and maybe a
little off, but I know what I need to know... and so will you...
Okay, Dusty Dunes Desert, the home of the Criminal Caterpillar. From the Drugstore in DDD, go north past the store, the Mole Playing Rough, and take a right to the east after the rock wall that runs horizontally.
Follow this wall to the east past the hole to Tala Ramah and continue following the wall, past a couple of cacti, and stop when the horizontal rock wall takes a drastic northern turn.
Get to know this area, as it will be your ground for catching the elusive and rare Criminal Caterpillar. There are a couple of cacti near the turn, a couple of cacti to the north of you, which continue growing to the east, and the rock wall bends to the east, eventualy leading you to the mine and Gerardo and George Montague's shack. This area is home to many creatures along with the CC. Cute 'Lil UFOs, the Crested Booka, the Smilin' Sphere (avoid at all costs, please), Desert Wolves, some ox-like creature (which I never fought in the area, but to the east), and Skelpions are abound. All will try to attack you in any matter possible, and most will tap your PSI reserves to mend and defend yourselves. I find that the more enemies on-screen, the less of a chance that you find a CC in this area, but they can still be found quite easily with them on the corner of the field of vision. However, because these voracious enemies will be amassing in great numbers against you, scrolling them away is a very effective way to rid them from your sight. The experience points you chase away may be greatly missed, but the finding of just one CC will rid you of any bad feelings of losing a couple of Skelpions' worth of exp.
Okay, now the way to find these little buggers. Stand between the cacti closest to the rock wall before the large northerly rise of the rock wall. There should be two cacti arranged in front of you that you'll be passing between to the north. To the north of those (off-screen) are two more cacti, but not arranged to walk through. Don't ever walk up as far as the unarranged cacti; you won't need to unless you're chasing a CC.
The method I used for three hours was to start Ness walking from the two cacti set wide enough to walk through near the rock wall north to where he's standing between the other two cacti set wide enough to stand between just a mere couple of inces on your TV screen. That's all!
This method is repeated as many times as needed until a CC is spotted to your right just above the rock wall that has just begun to move to the east again after the northern turn. If you're semi-lucky, a green wiggly worm will be doing loops and may begin running from you. That is the nature of a criminal; run.
This enemy is very strong if you fight it face to face, but if you catch this enemy running away from you, you gain over 30,000 exp. in one simple green-swirly free battle (divided by how many characters you have alive at the time of battle)!
The trick is to make the CC run into some immovable object to force him to stop running away, halting him in his tracks, leaving his back exposed to you. Fighting him head-on will result in him casting Fire alpha on you non-stop every turn, and maybe (maybe!) only one character of yours can withstand two fire alphas without keeling over at level 30, so MAKE SURE you fight him with his back turned. This is very simple, though. When the CC begins to run away from you, you can move in one of two directions: north or south. North is much more recommended, and I'll tell you why. If you move to the north, the CC will try to get away from you by moving to the south. To your south is the endless rock wall, and the CC will be stopped from running from you, leaving his back open to you. From there, make sure that you just walk directly into his back and PSSHHWWAAHH!, you've got 10,000 exp for Ness, Paula, and Jeff. You can also move to the south to force him to move to the north, but that should ONLY be done to push a CC into a cactus that you know is there in front of him. Since there are very few cacti to the north directly in front of you, you might be following this CC until you hit the shore of the water a very long way away from where you first saw the CC, most likely resulting in twelve more battles than you had anticipated or needed. I say, move to the north to force him to the south.
Okay, no CC's showing? Walk away for a bit and try again. I know that there have been times where I felt like nothing was going to ever come again, like I had lost my touch and no more CC's were going to come out in that spot. I walked away, walked back after a short ten seconds, and the next time I tried I got three CC's in three attempts. Sometimes searching works, but sometimes I felt like I needed to just see a different place for a bit. Call Mom. See Dad. Rest in the Drugstore if you need PP (I always love it when the game says Jeff has no PP). Just don't ever give up looking for them. Two things about this. Number one, if you're looking for the highest amount of money you've ever seen, this won't be the way. I fought lots of CC's, but when I went in to talk to dad after three hours, I had built up maybe $8,000. I believe that was the money I had gained fighting the other desert creatures, and fighting CC's will give you virtually no money whatsoever. Second. I've never tried this on any other game than my own, so I don't know if this will work on your cart/R*M. I don't know if there are hot spots for enemies like in Parasite Eve, but I know this is my spot for finding CC's. Also, in my game, there's a place in the cave in Happy-Happy Village where the second "Your Sanctuary" is where a Magic Butterfly appears nearly every time I walk through there, but I don't know if that little butterfly and that hot spot is in EVERY GAME. I report what I see and do, not knowing what may or may not happen in anyone else's game. I apologize if this CC hot spot does not exist in your game and I have led you on, but I share with the world for all of mankind, not just you. Be happy for everyone else in the world who do have it.
Okay, Dusty Dunes Desert, the home of the Criminal Caterpillar. From the Drugstore in DDD, go north past the store, the Mole Playing Rough, and take a right to the east after the rock wall that runs horizontally.
Follow this wall to the east past the hole to Tala Ramah and continue following the wall, past a couple of cacti, and stop when the horizontal rock wall takes a drastic northern turn.
Get to know this area, as it will be your ground for catching the elusive and rare Criminal Caterpillar. There are a couple of cacti near the turn, a couple of cacti to the north of you, which continue growing to the east, and the rock wall bends to the east, eventualy leading you to the mine and Gerardo and George Montague's shack. This area is home to many creatures along with the CC. Cute 'Lil UFOs, the Crested Booka, the Smilin' Sphere (avoid at all costs, please), Desert Wolves, some ox-like creature (which I never fought in the area, but to the east), and Skelpions are abound. All will try to attack you in any matter possible, and most will tap your PSI reserves to mend and defend yourselves. I find that the more enemies on-screen, the less of a chance that you find a CC in this area, but they can still be found quite easily with them on the corner of the field of vision. However, because these voracious enemies will be amassing in great numbers against you, scrolling them away is a very effective way to rid them from your sight. The experience points you chase away may be greatly missed, but the finding of just one CC will rid you of any bad feelings of losing a couple of Skelpions' worth of exp.
Okay, now the way to find these little buggers. Stand between the cacti closest to the rock wall before the large northerly rise of the rock wall. There should be two cacti arranged in front of you that you'll be passing between to the north. To the north of those (off-screen) are two more cacti, but not arranged to walk through. Don't ever walk up as far as the unarranged cacti; you won't need to unless you're chasing a CC.
The method I used for three hours was to start Ness walking from the two cacti set wide enough to walk through near the rock wall north to where he's standing between the other two cacti set wide enough to stand between just a mere couple of inces on your TV screen. That's all!
This method is repeated as many times as needed until a CC is spotted to your right just above the rock wall that has just begun to move to the east again after the northern turn. If you're semi-lucky, a green wiggly worm will be doing loops and may begin running from you. That is the nature of a criminal; run.
This enemy is very strong if you fight it face to face, but if you catch this enemy running away from you, you gain over 30,000 exp. in one simple green-swirly free battle (divided by how many characters you have alive at the time of battle)!
The trick is to make the CC run into some immovable object to force him to stop running away, halting him in his tracks, leaving his back exposed to you. Fighting him head-on will result in him casting Fire alpha on you non-stop every turn, and maybe (maybe!) only one character of yours can withstand two fire alphas without keeling over at level 30, so MAKE SURE you fight him with his back turned. This is very simple, though. When the CC begins to run away from you, you can move in one of two directions: north or south. North is much more recommended, and I'll tell you why. If you move to the north, the CC will try to get away from you by moving to the south. To your south is the endless rock wall, and the CC will be stopped from running from you, leaving his back open to you. From there, make sure that you just walk directly into his back and PSSHHWWAAHH!, you've got 10,000 exp for Ness, Paula, and Jeff. You can also move to the south to force him to move to the north, but that should ONLY be done to push a CC into a cactus that you know is there in front of him. Since there are very few cacti to the north directly in front of you, you might be following this CC until you hit the shore of the water a very long way away from where you first saw the CC, most likely resulting in twelve more battles than you had anticipated or needed. I say, move to the north to force him to the south.
Okay, no CC's showing? Walk away for a bit and try again. I know that there have been times where I felt like nothing was going to ever come again, like I had lost my touch and no more CC's were going to come out in that spot. I walked away, walked back after a short ten seconds, and the next time I tried I got three CC's in three attempts. Sometimes searching works, but sometimes I felt like I needed to just see a different place for a bit. Call Mom. See Dad. Rest in the Drugstore if you need PP (I always love it when the game says Jeff has no PP). Just don't ever give up looking for them. Two things about this. Number one, if you're looking for the highest amount of money you've ever seen, this won't be the way. I fought lots of CC's, but when I went in to talk to dad after three hours, I had built up maybe $8,000. I believe that was the money I had gained fighting the other desert creatures, and fighting CC's will give you virtually no money whatsoever. Second. I've never tried this on any other game than my own, so I don't know if this will work on your cart/R*M. I don't know if there are hot spots for enemies like in Parasite Eve, but I know this is my spot for finding CC's. Also, in my game, there's a place in the cave in Happy-Happy Village where the second "Your Sanctuary" is where a Magic Butterfly appears nearly every time I walk through there, but I don't know if that little butterfly and that hot spot is in EVERY GAME. I report what I see and do, not knowing what may or may not happen in anyone else's game. I apologize if this CC hot spot does not exist in your game and I have led you on, but I share with the world for all of mankind, not just you. Be happy for everyone else in the world who do have it.
