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The HAARP... And More Hey, remember what I sometimes say about videos? Yeah, that goes like quintuple for this one. Watch. It. That is an... interesting login ID. Umm... I don't think that's going to go well. Might make this a bit more difficult, even. Naturally, the inside of the HAARP is now completely ablaze as well. And then Sera and Serph die of smoke inhalation. The end! No moral. ....Oh, okay fine. They just become Force Ghosts instead. To The Sun Both Sera and Serph enter the same point at the same time, of course... But only one being emerges. At least at first... I can tell... We're not alone! You're all here with us! Seraph Welcome to the very blatantly final dungeon, and the only place we are stuck in forever. Which, uh, makes sense on account of the whole "being dead" thing. Doesn't quite look like I expected the Sun to look like, though. Seraph? But I'm -- Seraph... Take a look at your new self. Eventually, your minds will become one, just as your bodies have. Your journey is about to end. Also two antagonists and one guy we actively never met. Open your consciousness. No truth will be hidden from you. See ya around, Schroedinger. Let's go. Let's do dis. There's two ways for things to go from here. Because we jumped through a couple of hoops across both games... Heat... And with that, the Embryon are back together one last time. By default, we'd get Roland here instead of Heat. A bunch of choices across DDS1 and 2 can change this, though, and you need to get them all right. Whether you think it's worth it or not really boils down to which one you prefer, though. Anyway, time for our last little DDS1 important bonuses. Just having important data period will give us Lupa here; deciding to NOT betray the Maribel when Gale proposes his plan way, way back at the start of DDS1 also gives us Jinana. As you would probably expect at this point, Lupa's reward is the better of the two by a mile. Angel steps up here because we basically told Cuvier to piss off back at the Karma Tower. No import data required this time around. Angel... Now go... Sera, Serph. End Nirvana So, whew, that's a lot to take in at once, huh? Let's take this chance to talk to everyone in the area. Our party members (and also Roland, because he was a potential party member) have actual character models. Everyone else is just a blue flame. With their model super-transparent and hard to see inside it. Argilla... Did I make the right choice? Thank you for guiding Fred and Roland. I hope that my power will aid you now, in your time of great need. I gotta say, it's nice of David to just hand us the +4 Magic gem for nothing. Probably not something you'd expect to get here at least. I was able to comprehend metempsychosis once I felt David's consciousness within me. However, I never thought I would encounter you in such a form... The data of all things travels endlessly between here and earth, in a cycle of reincarnation. The fact that you two were able to become one seems to signify something outside of that cycle... Let us ascertain the meaning of this, Sera... Serph... Metempsychosis is some Greek philosophy thing, relating to reincarnation. I was so mistaken... Seraph, please calm God's anger and guide life along its new path. ...It's kind of embarrassing to see you guys so soon after, though. Oh well! It's still good to see everyone again, ja? Oh, Cielo... at least you're self-aware of how ultimately pointless your suicide run was. I know it was blatantly just to get him to die so he could be here, but it was still redundant. Could've killed him in the explosion at the HAARP or something. Would've made more sense too. ...Moving on. I never wanted you guys to get this close, though... At least you're kind of cute, I guess. Don't worry, Sera. I won't hurt you, anymore. The big sphere thing here is just our new Large Terminal for the final dungeon. Machinery wouldn't really work here. Wait, hang on. That guy in the background... Johnny... As nice as it is to have a shop here, I'm not sure if it really had to be like this. Also the Manjusaka sells for a decent amount, alright. It's one I would hold onto if I wasn't at top-rank already, but, well, that got done earlier than I expected. It's still not the best one either! In business and in life, real value is determined by a single word... I'm sure that they're proud of me. Yeah, sure. It was fun while it lasted, Roland... OH, RIGHT. Uh, we kinda don't have much of a used party right now. Running around with just Seraph isn't a great idea. Argilla might have the same skills as when she left, but at least her level's rocketed up to be equal with the others. Helps make her usable, though the skill deficiency is an issue but we can deal with it. Mostly because that magic is loving bonkers, jesus. Heat just takes Roland's mantra grid from when he left. Their stats aren't really going to be that dissimilar either; Heat's even sort of learned from his mistake before and is willing to not let himself get destroyed by magic quite as badly now. Still probably going to either give him the SP Magic Ring or maybe the Hee-Ho Ring if it matters though. Seraph's a bit different. They just take every skill that both Sera and Serph had. Their stats are also just taken directly from the two as well, though it doesn't average them or anything. No, it takes the highest for each stat. Also apparently fusing two people with a Fire weakness creates one with no weaknesses. Seraph is OP, please nerf. For obvious reasons, Gale and Cielo are completely identical to when we last saw them all of ~10 minutes ago in-game time. I'm thinking this makes a good party for the first part of the Sun. Oh yeah, first part. The Sun is freaking gigantic. If you thought the Karma Tower was oddly long compared to every other dungeon before and since... It's about to get dethroned. And it won't even be a close competition. Also for this cutscene, Seraph has precognition beyond "hey there is a thing through this door." Granted in this case, it's just a Kingu but hey its the thought that counts. Because now Seraph gets to tune for the first time. And it's kind of a nice difference to before. Ardhanarishvara, generally just shortened to Ardha. The androgynous result of the combination of Shiva and Parvati. Half-man, half-woman, Ardha is the synthesis of all masculine and feminine energy in the universe. There's a little more to it than that, but for now let's just murderise this Kingu. Heroic Battle Nicest thing that can be said in Kingu's favour is he has no weaknesses and repels death. On the other hand, just about every spell he has is death elemental. He does not even remotely resist Expel, so let's just take this opportunity to try out Argilla's new toy. Seraph Lore is going to get a lot of use here. As you would expct for the move we got from Jinana that is explicitly her unique spell... It deals 80% of everything's remaining HP. It's pretty good, but kinda costly. Worth it though, especially when... you'll see. Nirvana That dealt with, we can take the elevator to and fro freely now. This area's where we can buy Impel Stones if we need any. That might be a good idea sometime down the line. There's also this guy. Remember he is here. For now, let's explore the... 2nd Layer of the Sun. Sure, why not. We'll go west further. Damage-floor dead ahead, so we'll take that turn I think. This lets us get some Quick Data from... a flower. Actual flowers are our new regular treasure chests. We cannot pick them after opening them to sell to Johnny, sadly. Following the path around that way leads to a dead-end, so we'll pop a Core Shield to continue onwards. That's a hole in the ceiling, so that makes me worried about invisible pitfalls on higher floors. There's a one-way door to the east of here which lets us skip back to the other side without dealing with the damagefloor. That's nice at least. These weird looking organic... things are effectively staircases. And there's lots of them too. Going up! Battle for Survival Lots of new enemies here, so we'll start with an old, familiar face. Still weak to instant death. We still have an Al Azif. Horus still drops Magic Data. Still comes alone too! Cu Chulainn is a bit nastier than he was before, but that comes with the territory of being upgraded for the final dungeon. Weakness to Nerve makes him easy to shut down at least. Resisting just about everything but Earth is a mite annoying but whatever. Skadi has the unfortunate pleasure of being the sole thing on this layer with a weakness to a normal element. As opposed to some ailments, expel or death, yes. Girimehkala is not too different to before, in terms of how we deal with him. His skills are a bit nastier, but nothing too major. For the time being, we just blast him with a Seraph Lore and kill him immediately afterwards. We'll be seeing these guys again later though... And lastly, for the entire layer, we have Athena. She's weak to Death and can't put up a barrier to that. She normally comes with a couple Cu Chulainns though, so we can't just throw the Necronomicon at her. Still not really much of a threat though. Oh right, Seraph doesn't use guns any more. Instead, opting to fire pure life force at things telepathically. It's kinda cool. To say these things are meant to be rare, they're actually really easy to get. Skadis even drop them! Nirvana So, second floor. We have a door straight ahead, and a damage floor path to the east. The damage floor leads to a dead-end. There's nothing here but a waste of our time. The door is one-way only and leads to... another damage floor. I'm beginning to sense a theme here. Hm, what's that? Looks like a pillar of light at the end of this part of the path. That would be a hole that lets us jump down to the previous floor. It's also our only way out of this area. Before we actually do that, though, the other part of the path lets us pick up a free Soma. We might be able to sort of sometimes buy them, but free ones are always nice to have. Nothing else on the west-side, so we'll head back to the starting room and go to the east instead. This damage floor right here is completely pointless by the way. We can take it to get to this Purple Crystal... or we can just walk around it and get to this Purple Crystal. I know which one I prefer. There's obviously stairs also in that area directly ahead of the entrance, so we'll take them. Brings us to a crosswalk, and south lets us pick up some Ice Walls. ...There's also a door that leads to a hole. It's a one-way door. The hole drops us in front of the purple crystal. Battle with Rare Devil At this point, we run into Jack Frost for the last... two times. Surprisingly quickly for that matter. Kinda expected to need to spend some time getting this done. We'll cover the questions and rewards later, when they're actually relevant. ...Man, the game is just throwing rare poo poo at me now. What the hell? Hello, easiest $750,000 I ever made. Thanks to getting Zandyne on someone at last, we can finally get Esoteric 6. New Banquet is a Fatal hunt skill that only works at Minimum Solar Noise. It will never succeed at any other time, and it has a good chance of still not working against scared stuff at Minimum Solar Noise. Don't even bother. Leech is both HP and MP Thief rolled into one. Irritatingly, it is Mute elemental. So its completely worthless. But hey, we got money now. We can grab that ring from the Golden Box at last. The Variable Ring is... a gigantic piece of poo poo that you should never use. When it says "randomises" you might think that doesn't sound so bad. The hard coded max number of press turns is 8, discounting halves of course, so this thing plays right to your advantage right? Pfft, no. It randomises between 2 and 4 press turns. Every single round. Only reason to get it, is because we're going to need it later. I keep saying that because its true. Nirvana We'll go north from the crossroads on the second floor. Path upstairs to the west here, so I guess we'll cross the damage floor fi- okay this is just getting silly now So if you run into Jack Frost after finishing his quiz, he gives you free items. Medical Gear, Great Chakra, Soma etc. Pretty neat but I wouldn't count on it! Naturally then, he appeared twice to give me Medical Gears. Anyway, crossing that damage floor brings us to another path upwards. The damage floor to the south just leads back to the four-way intersection. Taking this path up, I guess. Two doors here, one to the south and one west. West sounds good. Another split in the path; north brings us to a way up to the fourth floor. South it is then. A giant damage floor here. We'll ignore the bit to the south right now, and go west instead. Entirely for the sake of grabbing this. Not sure it was worth it. At least from there, we can go around and get to the life terminal equivalent. Remember that door to the south in the first corridor here? Another one-way door that forces you into a hole down a floor. Which is fine, we want to be on the second floor now anyway. Gonna take that other way up to the third floor. The path west here leads to a dead-end, so we'll take this door. ...Ugh. What is even the point? So, fourth floor it is then. Damage floor south, so no thanks. On the way down here, there's a walled off intersection leading to another hole. Surprising hopefully no one, the red glowy thing was a small terminal. Another intersection; two holes and a door south. Hole to the north here drops us somewhere we've been before, but the map is mostly blank below the eastern one. And for good reason; it drops us at that semi-pointless part of the third floor, albit on the openable side of a one-way door. This entire area is here so we can get this one flower. It's nice money but kinda weird and pointless. Going back to the fourth floor again, we'll take the door south, end up on the fifth floor and that door looks pretty different. Epic Battle ~ Prelude Hey, that's a gold container in the backgro- oh right, focus. There's a guy right there. He looks... familiar. Oh, that's right. He was the first boss we ever fought. Good times. Let's be honest; once we got to the Sun and everyone else turned up, you saw a Megaman style series of boss refights coming. Boss Redux ~ Asura Hayagriva Big Battle ~ Enemies Reborn integral just nebulously calls it big battle. the dds2 stand alone ost calls its enemies reborn. it's a cool remix of the dds1 boss theme. pro click would recommend. Unfortunately, this cool idea is ruined by Hayagriva being, well, Hayagriva. He's pretty much unchanged from before, save for having a lot more health now. According to the MegaTen wiki, it's about 3500 so sure we'll say that. You should not be surprised to discover that the dude who used nothing but Fire before still uses nothing but fire. His tiny plethora of a whole 3 moves is mostly unchanged too. Only difference is that instead of Void Ice he apparently has Drain Ice. I say "apparently" because he should never get a chance to use it. So, uh, yeah. Hayagriva's still a gigantic pushover. What a shocker. He even gives the same drop and everything. Doesn't even give enough AP for anyone to learn anything new. How disappointing. The gold container was yet another Manjusaka. Shame it's a bit of a trek back to Johnny at this point though. Oh well, we'll worry about that later. Next time, we'll deal with the third layer that comes second. Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Mar 17, 2015 |
# ? Mar 17, 2015 19:02 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 07:02 |
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This game continues to blow my mind.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 19:25 |
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Well, someone already called the ghosts joining the team, but Seraph was... something. Also something else, that cat seems important. I mean, it came from the Junkyard to Earth to the Sun and began talking...
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 19:36 |
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The crazy train just does not stop, huh? It goes all the way to the Sun! I mean, I guess having the right knowledge of Hindu mythology and realizing that Serph and Sera's names blatantly form Seraph would let you see this coming, but even there I'd say it's weird as hell. And everyone's ghosts are now part of the party! It means Gale and Cielo are okay though and I'm totally cool with that. And Heat is back! The gang's reunited! Ardha's animations are surprisingly calm. Very small movements, even for guard. Talking about that, could you show Prana Beam, Dragonatrix? I'm interested in how it looks in action.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 19:37 |
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Blaze Dragon posted:Talking about that, could you show Prana Beam, Dragonatrix? Sure thing; I'll edit it into the update proper as well.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 19:50 |
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I knew about the decisions to recruit Heat, but I never knew about the Lupa/Jinana rewards. Also, the blazing Black Sun dungeon gets creative points for looking like an underwater digital world as opposed to anything remotely resembling a "sun".
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 19:59 |
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So, Ardha is our very last Asura and hir Atma is the Clarion. It's a pair of bells with mouths on them. When you figure out why it's pretty great. And yes the way they do their stats is why you should always give Serph a more physical build in this game. It's also a good idea because physicals are pretty good in this and you've lost your physical character. And yes since it didn't really get mentioned in so many words the bonus skill we got from Angel was her ULTIMATE ATTACK from her second form in the first game. It's like Megidoloan on speed and coupled with a passive to restore your MP between battles makes every single trash fight in this place totally inconsequential, why would you ever care what these tools are weak to. Feinne fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Mar 17, 2015 |
# ? Mar 17, 2015 20:03 |
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Yyyup, it's the big twist! Feinne mentioned there was one last Atma but he never said it'd be on a new character. Well I guess it is a new character, sort of. See, DDS2 is super nice and basically hands you the single most overpowered SMT main character for free. And Ardha just seem to know they're overpowered, as mentioned with the super calm animations. Well Ok, I say that, but you could've been dumb and put a bunch of points into Serph's Magic. That would be silly though. It's not like anyone did that the first time since magic was so good in DDS1. Haha, nope, no one. And it wouldn't be an Atlus game without a giant final tower dungeon that lasts forever(yes the sun isn't a tower shut up). Lotsa bosses to chump! Speaking of which, Dragonatrix, can I ask you to maybe take it easy on the last few? Not stuff that's dumb like Hayagriva, but sometimes I feel a bit sad for the game's balance. quote:
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 20:04 |
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This dungeon right here sealed the deal for me: Johnny is the greatest shopkeeper ever. That's dedication right there.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 20:12 |
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Artelier posted:This dungeon right here sealed the deal for me: Johnny is the greatest shopkeeper ever. That's dedication right there. Yeah, I was guessing we were on the road for some reincarnation and stuff, though I didn't quite guess at Seraph's creation, but Johnny coming back as solar data to keep doing what he doin' means he's the best.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 20:23 |
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I don't think I went for Roland the two or so times I replayed the game. I always liked Heat having a post-humous shot at redemption after everything you learn about the original Serph. Plus there's the whole getting the gang back together thing too. Also this is a discussion from a while back, but in a round-about way the whole Seraph/Ardha deal always confirmed to me that Angel was properly both sexes, in a unifying two conflicting natures creates a single powerful/enlightened whole sorta way, and Angel was pretty much the biggest and baddest Tuner around. Plus Harihara was a combination of two deities, even if both are male ones. a cartoon duck fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Mar 17, 2015 |
# ? Mar 17, 2015 20:42 |
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Cielo, you lovable you, you. Seriously Cielo is the est character and he should totally have got his mouth laser as a special ability along with everyone else's bonus stuff. Feinne posted:And yes the way they do their stats is why you should always give Serph a more physical build in this game. It's also a good idea because physicals are pretty good in this and you've lost your physical character. Bollocks to that, max Serph's MAG before the switch and let Sera fill out the rest.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 21:16 |
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HGH posted:See, DDS2 is super nice and basically hands you the single most overpowered SMT main character for free. Seraph is overpowered, but not as overpowered as the P3MC. Especially in the original version. A 9999 damage attack combined with Victory Cry? Don't mind if I do!
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 21:43 |
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I like the little touch that they changed Heat's status portrait (Original Heat uses his DDS1 portrait but with brown hair). Also if anyone's wondering, a manjusaka is the Hindu term for "celestial flower", Buddhist for "connection between the land of the living and dead." ...It's a red spider lily.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 21:53 |
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Boooo, you chose Heat. I saw it coming, but it still sucks.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 22:07 |
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Montegoraon posted:Seraph is overpowered, but not as overpowered as the P3MC. Especially in the original version. A 9999 damage attack combined with Victory Cry? Don't mind if I do! The protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne becomes invulnerable to all attacks except Almighty ones and well, we already saw how over-powered he was in DDS1.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 22:15 |
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a cartoon duck posted:The protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne becomes invulnerable to all attacks except Almighty ones and well, we already saw how over-powered he was in DDS1. He is also vulnerable to earth and bullets. Come to think of it, in about any setting but SMT, becoming bulletproof would basically be priority one, probably followed by fire and rocks. Like, I figure getting burned or being in an earthquake is the sort of thing everyone has to pay attention to, but surely being stabbed with icicles is a much lower risk for most people. And nobody gets excited if you say you're immune to wind. Or is it force?
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 22:47 |
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YggiDee posted:And nobody gets excited if you say you're immune to wind. Or is it force?
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 23:10 |
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These games use Zan, so force. And the Demi-Fiend's vulnerabilities were just a joke on the fact that Masakado made you immune to everything but almighty but not two attack elements that didn't exist in Nocturne.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 23:14 |
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Something about Seraph's new demon form just reminds Me about Melchizedek's design for some reason, I guess it's the weird wings.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 00:37 |
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The Atma mark is supposed to be ...bells? This loving game, man. The Sun is such a good final dungeon too. The BGM gets a bit tiresome but the overall look of it is so awesome.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 01:20 |
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Gamma Nerd posted:The Atma mark is supposed to be ...bells? What do you meOH MY GOD I loving love the concept of Seraph and Ardha. I would have preferred a design that wasn't "guy on left, girl on right" with regards to the hair, but given the mythology behind them it makes sense. Also odd how Seraph sounds exactly like Sera.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 03:02 |
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Pollyanna posted:What do you meOH MY GOD There is actually a reason Seraph sounds like Sera, you'll see.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 03:08 |
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Feinne posted:So, Ardha is our very last Asura and hir Atma is the Clarion. It's a pair of bells with mouths on them. When you figure out why it's pretty great. It looks remarkably like what the cat is wearing. Is this going to get weirder?
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 03:11 |
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This is the point when you realize that, no matter how weird the game might have been at one point, it can always get weirder. Also that DDS2 really, really likes very long end game dungeons.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 03:31 |
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I feel like this is as good a time as any to mention a really neat detail about this game that hasn't come up, probably because it's luck based. The messages you get when your party members talk to you on level up are different based on whoever is leading the party at the time. The best one is that Cielo isn't sure if he should call Seraph bro or not.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 04:21 |
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Pollyanna posted:What do you meOH MY GOD Your avatar is perfect for this. I never really looked back and realized exactly how weird this game's plot is, but this reaches Xeno- levels of bizarreness at least.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 04:23 |
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congratulations....we've finally been formally introduced to the main character of the two games. let your head wrap around that for a bit. Or don't, it'll probably lead to Also, I prefer Roland here. Heat had his chance and he blew it. And another thing, I've always hated the red tights. Just didn't gel with me. mauman fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Mar 18, 2015 |
# ? Mar 18, 2015 07:40 |
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Its all incredibly internally consistent though, which is the best part to me. Like, take this update for instance. This is the best reason for a "Bring the Band Back Together" moment because we didn't bring them all back to life or reveal they were only mostly dead. We just went ahead and went up were they went after they died. No matter how weird everything gets, its all internally consistent with the world that's been setup, the themes of reincarnation and Hindusim, and the plot threads left by the game. Even the seraph thing, bizarre as it is, sounds like it'll have a pretty good reason or implication eventually. loving hell, I love Atlus and I love the SMT series so much
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 08:06 |
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Man, that game knows how to surprise. I hope Schroedinger isn't some missing part of holy trinity, and we won't end with Cat hybrid hermaphrodite.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 10:09 |
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Actually one big downside of Heat, for whatever reason they didn't actually have his voice actor record new battle lines or use his ones from DDS1 so he's actually always got japanese in-battle vocals.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 20:36 |
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Seraph's avatar form always reminds me of a weird Ultraman. Must be the red and silver. people's reactions to the coming WTF things are going to be fun.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 21:26 |
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Okay, so, if for whatever reason Cielo didn't die before getting to the HAARP, would he have fused together with Sera and Serph as well creating some kind of weird loving rastafarian anime perfect being? Cieraph? Someone please draw that
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 23:02 |
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NaotoSaysNo posted:Okay, so, if for whatever reason Cielo didn't die before getting to the HAARP, would he have fused together with Sera and Serph as well creating some kind of weird loving rastafarian anime perfect being? Cieraph?
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 23:05 |
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Does Cielo possess the buddha-nature?
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 23:07 |
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Now you know why Serph had such a ridiculous name! It was so he and Sera could merge their names to make Seraph.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 23:39 |
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Cieraph. Two toned dreads and that trademark Cielo
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 23:58 |
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What if the whole party merged into one super OP character?
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# ? Mar 19, 2015 00:12 |
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Gamma Nerd posted:Does Cielo possess the buddha-nature? No, he possesses the bruddah-nature.
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# ? Mar 19, 2015 00:17 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 07:02 |
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Mraagvpeine posted:What if the whole party merged into one super OP character? Seraph-Gale-a-Argillastic-Heat-Cielo-docious.
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# ? Mar 19, 2015 00:22 |