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Wow, I forgot how quickly this game raises the stakes and how high they go. Also I was way more crushed than I should have been when Fiora got taken out  Having never played FF7, this must have been what it felt like seeing Aeris get whacked for the first time.E: I think the combat sections during the attack on Colony 9 deserve to be in the game, because they drive home the points that A) Break-Topple-Daze are important, and B) the Homs are in big trouble without the Monado. C-Euro fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Aug 10, 2013 |
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Aug 9, 2013 05:33
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C-Euro posted:Wow, I forgot how quickly this game raises the stakes and how high they go. Yeah Here's what my thought process was during that cutscene the first time I played:"Oh man, she is so badass! This is so awesome, I love this girl... Oh. Well, crap.  "Also swimsuit armour is best armour, put that poo poo on everyone
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Aug 9, 2013 09:28
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So Fiora is really dead then. Wow. Was half expecting a cliffhanger where she survives, but only barely. Xenoblade doesn't pull any punches huh. Cool game so far.
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Aug 10, 2013 02:20
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I gotta thank Lethemonster for the previous LP, it was the reason I picked up the game and sunk 80 hours into it. Its definitely worth it, and one of my favourite JRPGs by a large margin. The best bit though for me was simply the combat, I haven't actually played a JRPG that I actually enjoyed fighting monsters over and over. Once you're in the groove its just great.
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Aug 10, 2013 04:41
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I ran around doing sidequests for hours using only Shulk and Fiora before meeting up with Reyn. They were a good team
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Aug 10, 2013 09:20
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vaguely posted:Yeah It bears mentioning that, with this whole development, Fiora was never presented as this fragile victim, to show up as the love interest and promptly get killed off to give our hero something to angst about, which is a scenario handled poorly in many pieces of fiction. She's clearly the peer of Shulk and Reyn, and either of them would be just as doomed in that situation -- but it's absolutely certain that had it been either, they'dve just as quickly made the choice she did, and gone charging headlong into certain death for the sake of protecting their friends. This is still the classic scenario, of course, with the loss of something precious spurring the protagonist to action, but it's equal parts the devastating tragedy and the realization both on Shulk's part and the player's part that no one is safe, not even these heroic leading characters, that lends weight to the quest that ensues. It's also a good presentation of Shulk himself. His response to that event was instant and visceral, and very well played on the part of his voice actor, but he's not about to spend this journey brooding and moping about how he couldn't save her. He never lets go of it, as well he shouldn't, but it doesn't dampen his outlook or his drive. Another nice thing: By now, game has already indicated that the friendship shared between the playable characters is a force unto itself. Just the banter you hear during and after battles is a constant and welcome presence, at that, and something sorely missed in other games like this. Mazed fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Aug 10, 2013 |
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Aug 10, 2013 12:45
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DOOP posted:So Fiora is really dead then. Wow. Was half expecting a cliffhanger where she survives, but only barely. Xenoblade doesn't pull any punches huh. Yeah they do a great job of keeping the player from seeing it coming since she's got a full skill tree of stuff you'll never get to, but nope. Just like that she's gone.
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Aug 10, 2013 13:10
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I may have been a bit cheeky and said the update before that once we had finished in the cylinder hangar I would show off Fiora's playstyle and so on too, to throw a few people off. I do really like Fiora's character, and I think it really shows the strength of the writing that even with such little time in the game she came across as so strong and capable, and more than 2-dimensional. I also like the fact that her death galvanizes more than just the 'love interest' to do something. All of her friends and brother are immediately ready to go and get revenge for her death. Another thing; Fiora is by far the greatest damage dealer when you start the game. In one of the videos you can see her doing about 3-4 times as much damage when she hits things as Shulk or Reyn. Reyn has his place as the tank and, building up rage and absorbing damage, and Shulk has a number of arts that inflict status affects. They both do a good amount of damage on top. Fiora's role, in contrast, is to just be a beast and out and out murder things. The characters remember her through the whole game - they never loose sight of why they are doing what they are doing. Even though she isn't there she gets more character development through the people who knew her and loved her. The best thing is - if Reyn had been killed you know 100% that Shulk and Fiora would be setting off instead. No questions asked. With the exception of some of the equipment having boob windows later on this game writes all the female characters very well and keeps them strong both in the narrative and in gameplay. What elevates this game even further is that the standard of writing applies to everyone. If you don't end up loving Shulk and Reyn by the end of the game then you are broken!
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Aug 10, 2013 13:45
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Great LP so far. I've never really played any JRPGs so this is awesome for me!
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Aug 10, 2013 14:26
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So, a friend and I played all the way through this game together over a course of an entire year, and one question I was never able to get a decent answer for is... What the gently caress is up with Reyn's weapons? They're like... spring-loaded shield giant bottle opener club spear claw things that look like they weigh about 50 pounds. Also, one thing that Lethemonster didn't mention during her brief overview on Chain Attacks is the multiplier. Using arts of the same color consecutively will increase the amount of damage that later arts in the chain do - this is indicated by the Chain Multiplier on the right side of the screen. The second attack of the same color will do double damage, the third triple damage, the fourth quadruple, and the fifth "Max" damage - I'm not sure if the fifth is quintupled as seems logical for the progression, or if there's an extra bonus for getting to Max. I think the big damage hit that Letthemonster referenced may have been partially because of this (but only partially, because Fiora really does hit harder than Reyn or Shulk). This makes chain attacks really really good if you plan them right, especially because defeating an enemy using a chain attack refills a fair sized portion of the party gauge! Despite this, going for maximum damage isn't always the best idea - topples are ridiculously easy to set up with chain attacks (which helps a ton against Mechon and isn't too shabby against anything else either - a toppled enemy takes more damage and can't attack you), and especially in the late game there is sometimes a place for defensive chain attacks focused on healing and buffing the party as well. There's even an art or two in the game that refills part of the party guage - using these in chain attacks is as hilariously powerful as you can imagine.
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Aug 10, 2013 17:13
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Critic of the Dawn posted:So, a friend and I played all the way through this game together over a course of an entire year, and one question I was never able to get a decent answer for is... They're referred to as 'gunlances' in various materials; from what I can tell, the shield isn't actually a shield, but a cowling for a piston mechanism used to drive the blade or speartip forward. It's functionally a weaponized pile bunker/stake driver.
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Aug 10, 2013 17:38
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Agent Interrobang posted:They're referred to as 'gunlances' in various materials; from what I can tell, the shield isn't actually a shield, but a cowling for a piston mechanism used to drive the blade or speartip forward. It's functionally a weaponized pile bunker/stake driver. So, in other words, it is indeed intended to be a spring-loaded shield giant bottle opener club spear claw thing just like I assumed. Oh well. I suppose that's less stupid than the weaponized dolls, megaphones, paintbrushes, and other silly things you see in a lot of JRPGs, so I guess I can't grumble too much about it.
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Aug 10, 2013 17:52
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Critic of the Dawn posted:So, in other words, it is indeed intended to be a spring-loaded shield giant bottle opener club spear claw thing just like I assumed. My favorite detail is that Reyn barely even uses it for its actual function. He pretty much just clubs poo poo over the head with it, because REYN TIME, MOTHERFUCKERS.
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Aug 10, 2013 17:57
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Critic of the Dawn posted:Also, one thing that Lethemonster didn't mention during her brief overview on Chain Attacks is the multiplier. Using arts of the same color consecutively will increase the amount of damage that later arts in the chain do - this is indicated by the Chain Multiplier on the right side of the screen. The second attack of the same color will do double damage, the third triple damage, the fourth quadruple, and the fifth "Max" damage - I'm not sure if the fifth is quintupled as seems logical for the progression, or if there's an extra bonus for getting to Max. I think the big damage hit that Letthemonster referenced may have been partially because of this (but only partially, because Fiora really does hit harder than Reyn or Shulk).  For damage boosts, the math includes a multiplier (default to 1 in neutral situations) that various sources can add to. Chain attacks are one of those sources: chain 2 is +1 (= 2x damage if otherwise neutral), chain 3 is +3 (4x damage), chain 4 is +5 (6x damage), and chain max (5+) is +7 (8x damage). It's usually safe to think of it as 1x, 2x, 4x, 6x, 8x for chain 1 to 5 respectively, though if you're getting multiplier boosts from other sources then it's worth remembering that all the multipliers there get added together first, then applied as a group. Because of that, chains won't have quite the full 2x/4x/6x/8x (relative to the damage you do without the chain but still with your other multipliers) in those situations. For example, if you were getting a +0.5 from something else, then your chains would have net multipliers of 1.5, 2.5, 4.5, 6.5, and 8.5, and the latter four when compared to the first (baseline) one would be 1.66x/3x/4.33x/5.66x. This is really only an issue if you're gonna rules-lawyer about "but I thought I was going to get X times more damage, waaaah". It's always a good thing to get the multiplier as high as you can.
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Aug 10, 2013 18:56
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Lethemonster posted:
I thought it was super refreshing that they weren't off to topple a maniacal demon overlord or fulfill an age old prophecy. Straight up revenge? A simple motive, but one I could believe and get invested in. If they toppled a few demon overlords and fulfilled a few prophecies along the way, so be it.
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Aug 10, 2013 19:25
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I was sad at Fiora's death because she was actually super fun to play
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Aug 10, 2013 19:28
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Lethemonster posted:With the exception of some of the equipment having boob windows later on this game writes all the female characters very well and keeps them strong both in the narrative and in gameplay. What elevates this game even further is that the standard of writing applies to everyone. If you don't end up loving Shulk and Reyn by the end of the game then you are broken! I know right!? God drat this game has the best cast of playable characters of any RPG this generation (though NIER's isn't far behind). Though, it's advisable to those who haven't played not to go looking them up just yet, as it's incredibly easy to stumble into spoilers. We have not remotely seen the extent of stunning developments the story's got...though really, it's wonderful for it.  Blind Sally posted:I thought it was super refreshing that they weren't off to topple a maniacal demon overlord or fulfill an age old prophecy. Straight up revenge? A simple motive, but one I could believe and get invested in. If they toppled a few demon overlords and fulfilled a few prophecies along the way, so be it. Well, you do have the situation where beyond merely vengeance, Shulk is (as it goes) the only one who can save us, thanks to the fact that he's capable of using the only weapon consistently effective against Mechon. But, there's an element of enthusiasm that he gets from that. That and the strength of his bonds with his friends seems to be how he counteracts any depression that may set in due to his bereavement, in knowing he's capable of taking the fight to something that up to now they'd just barely been able to beat back, and getting a chance to make a difference for, as far as he knows, all of humanity.
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Aug 11, 2013 01:40
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It's also worth mentioning with Chain Attacks that if you end a fight during one, you get double EXP and AP. So, with certain characters who are really good at building the party meter, that's just another way to mitigate any sense of "grind" that is usually such a pain in JRPGs.
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Aug 11, 2013 03:01
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Hjalmar posted:It's also worth mentioning with Chain Attacks that if you end a fight during one, you get double EXP and AP. So, with certain characters who are really good at building the party meter, that's just another way to mitigate any sense of "grind" that is usually such a pain in JRPGs. Yeah, the game really does not require any sort of 'grinding' in the traditional sense. It's simply that the game is absurdly, brainmeltingly LONG. You're pretty much always decently equipped to handle anything that comes your way; actually BREAKING the game is more to do with skillful play and knowing how the various upgrade systems work.
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Aug 11, 2013 03:09
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Agent Interrobang posted:Yeah, the game really does not require any sort of 'grinding' in the traditional sense. It's simply that the game is absurdly, brainmeltingly LONG. You're pretty much always decently equipped to handle anything that comes your way; actually BREAKING the game is more to do with skillful play and knowing how the various upgrade systems work. That's one of the crazier things about the game, too. It's pretty long, yeah, but it has so much DEPTH, especially when it comes to those various upgrade systems. Between gem crafting, skill links, affinity etc etc etc there are almost too many ways to improve your combat abilities without even thinking of grinding. And that's all without getting in to optional quests.
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Aug 11, 2013 03:29
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Vil posted:Chain attacks are even better than you said! That may very well be the case. The game doesn't go out of its way to explain all of its mechanics to the player, so when we noticed damage increasing when the multiplier went up, the assumption was that the increase was related to the numbers shown - we never actually got out a calculator to confirm it, though. Agent Interrobang posted:My favorite detail is that Reyn barely even uses it for its actual function. He pretty much just clubs poo poo over the head with it, because REYN TIME, MOTHERFUCKERS. I noticed that as well - I'm not sure if the animations work like that to draw attention to the fact that Reyn is both very strong and a little dense, or if it's just the typical "video game animators have no idea how the weapons they are tasked to animate actually work, so everything just gets swung around like a sword or a club" thing. Lethemonster posted:With the exception of some of the equipment having boob windows later on this game writes all the female characters very well and keeps them strong both in the narrative and in gameplay. The friend that I played through Xenoblade Chronicles with is currently in Grad school, and one of the things he's been really fascinated by lately is the depiction of women in media viewed through a feminist lens. Consequently, we had several lengthy friendly debates on the subject when we weren't too busy making jokes about Reyn being a dummy. He would typically take the devil's advocate position that the female characters in the game were being objectified or denied agency, while I would take the counter position that (boob plate armor aside), the female characters of the game were at least as strong and active as the male characters. I understand that he took that position more to provoke interesting discussions than because he really thought the game was over the top offensive. Fiora's death was really the first time the subject came up. In the case of Fiora, she quite literally saves the entire party's lives here, then gets a chest full of steel from Metal Face for her trouble. From where I sat, her death had nothing to do with her being victimized or singled out because she was a woman, and frankly Reyn or Dunban could have ended up eating Metal Face's finger sandwich instead and served the same story purpose just as well. My friend took the position that the only female character was chosen specifically for this unexpected tragedy because it would provide more motivation for both the protagonist and for male players. There's a few other times the subject came up, but getting into that would be venturing waaaay into spoiler territory, so I'll refrain for now.
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Aug 11, 2013 03:46
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Lethemonster posted:The characters remember her through the whole game - they never loose sight of why they are doing what they are doing. The characters and dialogue make sure you never forget Fiora during cutscenes but I absolutely loved the way the Mechonis is always visible. It's a constant reminder of the main quest no matter how long you get bogged down in sidequests.
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Aug 11, 2013 16:06
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Critic of the Dawn posted:I noticed that as well - I'm not sure if the animations work like that to draw attention to the fact that Reyn is both very strong and a little dense, or if it's just the typical "video game animators have no idea how the weapons they are tasked to animate actually work, so everything just gets swung around like a sword or a club" thing. He gets SOME of the moves right(interestingly, a lot of his later arts involve properly utilizing his weapon, giving some nice mechanical integration of his character development), and we see a number of soldiers in the prologue and throughout the game using it properly, so I think it actually was intentional. When it comes to stuff like 'man, did they do that on PURPOSE, or was that a mistake,' you can generally bank on Xenoblade doing it for a good reason. Later stuff REALLY drives that point home; arguably the biggest strength of the game is the sheer economy of storytelling. If it seems meaningful, it probably is, there's very few pointless details.
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Aug 11, 2013 16:50
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Agent Interrobang posted:He gets SOME of the moves right(interestingly, a lot of his later arts involve properly utilizing his weapon, giving some nice mechanical integration of his character development), and we see a number of soldiers in the prologue and throughout the game using it properly, so I think it actually was intentional. When it comes to stuff like 'man, did they do that on PURPOSE, or was that a mistake,' you can generally bank on Xenoblade doing it for a good reason. I just like the implication that Reyn is such an incredibly strong lunkhead he can effortlessly use this enormous weapon (that all soldiers use as a stabbing implement) to club everything really hard. EDIT: And even then he's not a lunkhead, he's just young and eager and with an incredible thirst for vengeance. Calaveron fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Aug 11, 2013 |
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Aug 11, 2013 16:54
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Yeah. Reyn's not a DUMBASS, he just runs his mouth when he shouldn't and doesn't think things through. He only really looks stupid next to Shulk, who is an actual genius; when your best buddy is frigging Einstein, it's hard not to seem like Joe Blow from Kokomo in comparison.
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Aug 11, 2013 17:01
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I've just done a string of late night shifts which has delayed recording the commentary by a few days. I do spend my workshifts making the videos though so I have about 8 of them lined up ready to be yapped over.
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Aug 11, 2013 17:35
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This game looks drat fun. Typical that it's also a system exclusive, since I have way too much on my backlog for me to buy a new console just to play two or three games.
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Aug 11, 2013 17:36
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Sylphosaurus posted:This game looks drat fun. Typical that it's also a system exclusive, since I have way too much on my backlog for me to buy a new console just to play two or three games. I work a full time job, got way too many games I want to play, waited to buy a Wii until Xenoblade came to the US. It was an excellent decision. 
Mazed fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Aug 12, 2013 |
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Aug 12, 2013 03:43
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    There's minimal commentary in this one because it's relatively cut scene dense, but also quite short.
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Aug 12, 2013 14:48
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I have to admit that at this point in the game I started to get slightly infuriated by Shulk's sudden and severe case of the stupids. "Gee, I just had a vision where Reyn was fighting a bunch of spiders, then a giant spider killed him. This feels just like the vision I had about Fiora right before she died. Hey, Reyn is fighting a bunch of spiders! Should I tell him to watch out for a giant spider? Nah, probably won't come up!"
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Aug 13, 2013 15:50
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It isn't his finest moment, no, especially hard on the heels of "Hmm, this group of armed guards was horribly slaughtered by unknown creatures that are presumably still around. Oh well we'd better TAKE A NAP RIGHT WHERE THEY DIED." It's not the worst case of sudden onset dementia in an RPG protagonist, but he's certainly being aggressively dumb.
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Aug 13, 2013 16:41
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Hey, Lethemonster, I was pondering doing some party member writeups as they become part of the main group, detailing what they're good at and how to use them. Obviously I'd start with Shulk and Reyn; would it be cool if I went ahead with that?
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Aug 13, 2013 17:10
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Agent Interrobang posted:Hey, Lethemonster, I was pondering doing some party member writeups as they become part of the main group, detailing what they're good at and how to use them. Obviously I'd start with Shulk and Reyn; would it be cool if I went ahead with that? Hold onto that thought, I've got videos coming up going over mechanics and characters. I will give you a heads up when I'm making them and we can post together. I'm just waiting for a few things before I put up anything like that. I actually mention in the next update (currently upload at the speed of of a walrus) that I'm waiting for some breathing space in the plot before I dump loads of gameplay and playstyle information on everyone.
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Aug 13, 2013 18:15
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Ah, cool beans then! I'll hold off until you do.
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Aug 13, 2013 19:31
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    Should be public now! Lethemonster fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 20:23
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"The video is private :/", and I can't watch it EDIT: It's not private anymore 
Szurumbur fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 20:28
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RIP snail hat, the most noble of hats.
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Aug 13, 2013 21:14
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Turtle neck + down vest and hair bonnet is the best armour.
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Aug 13, 2013 23:45
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The game remembers what you were wearing at any given time if you run into a flashback cutscene. This can be tragic or hilarious, depending.
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Aug 14, 2013 02:55
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    Oh hey look an update.
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Aug 14, 2013 19:02
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