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Let's Play Brain Lord! box art.jpg) What is this game? Glad you asked! Brain Lord is an action RPG for the SNES with quite a few mechanics you may find familiar if you've played a Zelda game before. There's much more, however! There are stats! Fairies that are actually helpful! Interchangeable equipment! Jumping! Zelda games rarely have jumping, and when they do, you need an item to jump! What a load, right?! You said "Zelda-like" and now I'm interested. Great! That's not a question, though. How are you gonna handle this? I want this to be a nice, relaxing ride down memory lane for myself, but I would also like it to be a learning experience for my commentary buddy Casnorf. The first few videos will be spent explaining quite a bit of what's happening on screen, but as fewer and fewer mechanics need explaining, we can and will be goofing off. As you may have guessed, I played this game a whole bunch as a stupid young child, and Casnorf had never even heard of it until I started talking about doing an LP. Will there be room for guest commentators later? You betcha! I have a handful of fellow goons I plan on bringing in for extra commentary. There will be a bonus video or two where I spend some time doing a whole lot of nothing, and in these videos, guests will surely be invaluable. Hey, I saw some name-entry boxes. Can I help? Nope! Well, maybe. It turns out that you generally get two of each of the little guys you end up naming. I have plans for the first set, but you folks can come up with wacky names for the secondary ones. ---- Alright, alright, enough questions. It's go time! Forgive the sound issues in the first video, they're fixed from the second video onward. Videos Episode 1-1: Intro Episode 1-2: Other Games Chat Episode 1-3: Market Inflation (and post dungeon town exploration) Episode 1-Bonus: Smash & Grab Episode 2-1: Maybe it's Cyberpunk Episode 2-2: Nihilism Episode 2-3: Try Jumping Episode 3-1: Toronto! Episode 3-2: Skeleton Meat Episode 3-3: X Marks the Spot Episode 3-Bonus: Murder Episode 4-1: Thunder Episode 4-2: Don't Dong Shame Episode 5-1: Never Eat Soggy Waffles Episode 5-2: Scientific Magic Episode 5-3: And A Pretentious "Fin" Contest Stream Recording Fan Art! Gimbal lock posted:The anti racist monster spell rumrusher posted:liquidypoo fucked around with this message at 22:46 on May 4, 2015 |
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Mar 15, 2015 22:39
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I am new to this game and am interested to see where it leads. Is Toronto the Dark World? All joking aside, I think it'll be interesting to consider this game as a product of its time. Action-RPGs as a genre were still relatively new, and Brain Lord predates the seminal Diablo. There are some obvious A Link to the Past influences, and while we might joke about them live it might be worthwhile to consider how a game can hope to follow what is widely considered to be a masterpiece. What could a game outside an established franchise do to stand out in 1994?
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Mar 16, 2015 23:59
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I'm really looking forward to more episodes of this game! It sort of reminds me of Lagoon in a why but not with a lovely sword that doesn't go more than 2 inches in front of the character.
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Mar 19, 2015 17:06
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I usually just lurk around here, but I want to say that I love the chemistry you guys have while playing this somewhat cryptic, unique, and cheesy game. This game accidentally taking place in Canada is wonderful, but I have to wonder if the title of the game isn't a result of bad translation/localization somewhere along the line. Brain Lord? Seriously? That name would be kinda awesome for a title of a heavy metal album, but it doesn't really inspire my inner seven-year-old self to pick it up over other games with less goofy sounding titles. Maybe in Japanese, they meant brain more as "mind?" Mind Lord sounds better, but I don't know anything about this game, so who knows, maybe Brain Lord is a completely accurate name, and we'll fight Mother Brain at some point on Canadian Zebes. E: does this game have poutine?
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Mar 19, 2015 17:49
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I'm glad for this LP. I saw an old one but IIRC the guy ended up cheating to get to the final boss plus since it was around 2007 the video quality was terrible compared to now.
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Mar 19, 2015 18:05
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EagerSleeper posted:I usually just lurk around here, but I want to say that I love the chemistry you guys have while playing this somewhat cryptic, unique, and cheesy game. It's called Brain Lord because it is filled with puzzles. It is secretly a puzzle game.
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Mar 19, 2015 18:09
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I'm pretty sure the Brain Lord is those lightning guys later in the dungeon. Nothing liquidypoo tells me will convince me otherwise.
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Mar 19, 2015 18:26
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No, it's definitely puzzles. Though I will freely admit that the not-Metroids are actually kind of a recurring monster. As far as weapons go in this game, well, there's a reason I chose the blade master thread tag. You'll be pleasantly surprised once I get 1-3 uploaded, which might go up later tonight if everything goes according to plan. I don't recall any poutine, but as the thread title suggests, Toronto has a whole lot more going on than what you see on the surface. We'll get there soon enough, though! Once the Tower of Light is finished up, we have possibly the best dungeon in the game to waltz through, and then we finally get to go to Toronto. And that's all yer gettin' outta me! At least, in written form. I already have 2-1 recorded and I'm Super Excited™ to show it to Casnorf.
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Mar 19, 2015 19:18
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Did it just in time for me to go to bed! Update!Episode 1-3: Market Inflation (and post dungeon town exploration) Just a heads up: probably still processing! This episode marks the first bit of thread participation! You guys saw all the little jade fairy buddies Meister had available. Who should I buy and then use next? Our choices are Anger Jade, Water Jade, Lightning Jade, and Power Jade. I think I'll give this vote until the bonus video is posted, which I'm hoping to put up on Sunday. Oh, and one extra thing I want to discuss, since I blatantly ignored it during commentary. In the weapon shop, you saw that Trade option. I picked it, then backed out like some sorta chicken. When you buy a weapon, the merchant says "I'll equip you." which means exactly what you think it means. He just slaps the ax [sic] (or boomerang) in your hands and shoves your old weapon in your pockets. Now, if I had started by using the Trade option, I would have automatically sold him the iron sword in addition to having my new weapon shoved into my easily excitable hands. That's great for your first purchase option, but if you stay in the Trade menu after that it becomes a little troublesome, given the fact that you're going to just sell your newly purchased weapon if you wanted to pick up a second one. Basically, my method of dealing with shops is "don't think about it" and just use the regular buy and sell options. Probably takes me a little longer, but it's easier.
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Mar 20, 2015 02:54
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Lightning Jade just because lightning is the most metal thing ever.
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Mar 20, 2015 05:09
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I remember seeing really vague adds for this game in video game magazines and wondering what the hell it was. Thank you for solving a mystery from my youth. And uh anger jade.
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Mar 20, 2015 05:51
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Any chance the Anger Jade is one of those with 2 copies available in the game so we can name one?
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Mar 20, 2015 11:01
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Yes! Meister actually gets more stock once we reach Toronto, and if I'm remembering correctly, that's where all the repeats come from.
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Mar 20, 2015 12:09
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I like Kass's sprite. It's adorable. Did Golem actually do anything? I didn't notice. He never seemed to grab any experience gems. Maybe Ifrie's just greedy.
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Mar 21, 2015 18:51
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Lotish posted:I like Kass's sprite. It's adorable. I think Golem is a passive buff just existing?
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Mar 21, 2015 20:08
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Yeah, Golem gives you a defensive buff when it's active. Probably scales with its level. The way I thought it worked when I was a kid was that they'd take turns grabbing experience, but now that we're calling attention to it, it does seem like Ifrie was grabbing way more of them than Golem was. I'll keep an eye on it and see what's up.
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Mar 21, 2015 20:15
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 BRAIN LORD Another game that was spawned from Enix's 'hey guys American's would totally love really hard games' tiff with other companies in the US market. When Mystic Quest vs. 7th Saga ended up squarely in Mystic Quest's favor Enix turned their eyes to Nintendo and Zelda. Thus Brain Lord was born. The combat and platforming are fairly intuitive and fun but oh my goodness the puzzles  Fans of Alundra might see some similarities in terms of puzzles here but where Alundra relied a lot on timing puzzles Brain Lord treats timing as one aspect of them. The first dungeon's pretty fun and enjoyable with some brain-teasers and workouts in it but then the game takes off the kiddy gloves and starts tossing you off progressively steeper puzzle cliffs as the dungeons go on. Especially when it takes introductions and turns them into multi-room/floor affairs.  That said the music's pretty catchy and aside from the balls-hard puzzles and the NPC friend/companions are nicely handled.
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Mar 22, 2015 05:24
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Brainlord's a pretty cool game but drat those character sprites were goofy looking, even back then. The main character looks like a fat, nerdier version of the psychopath in No Country For Old Men.
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Mar 22, 2015 05:58
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EponymousMrYar posted:Another game that was spawned from Enix's 'hey guys American's would totally love really hard games' tiff with other companies in the US market. When Mystic Quest vs. 7th Saga ended up squarely in Mystic Quest's favor Enix turned their eyes to Nintendo and Zelda. For what it's worth, we've reached as far as we tested, and from here on out I'm going in totally blind. My impressions so far are of a reasonable, if nondescript, action RPG with some interesting mechanics and more ambition than talent. Though the as to the latter I'm more thinking of the art and animations. I might be being a bit unfair on that front, I recognize. My primary comparisons are the PC games I was playing back then (Lucasarts adventures) and what little I know of the Enix catalogue (Dragon Quest) and both are, let's say, superior examples of character design.
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Mar 22, 2015 07:30
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Here's the bonus I promised for today:BONUS Episode 1-Bonus: Smash & Grab Today forums user Keyboard_Vomit joins us as I show off all the magic I bought at the end of 1-3, and then we go on a B&E spree! Since we talked over all of the magic, I may as well describe them here! Shield puts an orb in front of you that can damage enemies, and now that I think about it, might be able to block projectiles. It's something I honestly never tried out, and really should, considering there are enemies in the second dungeon that this may help with. Impulse sends a little shockwave out across the ground in a short range, and is pretty much indistinguishable from Magic Shot. Slow is actually the most interesting spell out of the bunch for now! You throw a weird green gel out that bounces around of its own accord, and when it hits an enemy, they just kinda get stuck in this green goo and slow down to about half their original speed. It even works on flying enemies, if my memory serves me well. It is totally not farts. One more thing I demo'd a bit, and didn't get a chance to point out: you cannot have more than one spell active at a time. After the second use of Slow, I tried to start charging Impulse again, and it didn't start up until that slowed enemy was back at regular speed. Edit - Totally remembered the vote, I swear! I will be buying the Anger jade, and he should appear in episode 2-2. liquidypoo fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Mar 22, 2015 |
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Mar 22, 2015 17:12
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Enix always made the better games over Squaresoft. 
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Mar 22, 2015 18:19
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Enix produced games with more original/neato ideas than Squaresoft aside from their Dragon Warrior titles. Quintet had most of the good stuff in the early days (Actraiser, Illusion of Gaia, Robotrek etc.) which led to Tri-Ace's stuff on the Playstation (Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean) along with Bust A Groove and then they did some Game Art's (Grandia Xtreme) ports on the Playstation 2. I'd say Square made the better games (since they produced most of their own stuff) but that's arguing semantics. Really both had their merits and problems, ups and downs. I know I was a Squaresoft kid back in the SNES era. Casnorf posted:For what it's worth, we've reached as far as we tested, and from here on out I'm going in totally blind. My impressions so far are of a reasonable, if nondescript, action RPG with some interesting mechanics and more ambition than talent. Though the as to the latter I'm more thinking of the art and animations. I might be being a bit unfair on that front, I recognize. My primary comparisons are the PC games I was playing back then (Lucasarts adventures) and what little I know of the Enix catalogue (Dragon Quest) and both are, let's say, superior examples of character design. I've gotten 2/3rds 3/4ths of the way through the game before giving up in the mountain and there's a lot of talent put into the puzzles of this game. Seriously the Tower of Light was nothing. EponymousMrYar fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Mar 22, 2015 |
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Mar 22, 2015 18:47
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EponymousMrYar posted:Enix produced games with more original/neato ideas than Squaresoft aside from their Dragon Warrior titles. Man the Blazer series was amazing! I feel like we can need a Quintet again though. SE has been doing decently enough with a few things but their RPGs have been really lacking outside of Bravely Default.
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Mar 22, 2015 19:37
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Huh, I always wondered what this game was. I was a Genesis kid, so I never really got to explore the SNES library the way I did with the NES one. I'll definitely be following this as I've been itching for a good zelda-like to watch on the forums. (Hell, sometimes I think we need an action RPG megathread) I love how the NPCs are all just absolute assholes to you and dick you over every chance you get. The fairies kinda remind me of the djinn in the Oasis/Thor games, or maybe your animal helpers in Crusaders of Centy. Can't wait to see the fabled hard puzzles to come!
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Mar 23, 2015 00:34
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Choco1980 posted:Crusaders of Centy This game really needs an LP. I loved it as a kid, and it had some really heavy moments for child me too. I wonder if they'd be as effective on LP goons.
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Mar 23, 2015 11:48
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You know how you think to yourself, "Self, I'm prepared for anything my good buddy Liquidypoo can throw at me."? Turns out I'm not. ...next time, on Brain Lord!
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Mar 24, 2015 00:48
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Casnorf posted:You know how you think to yourself, "Self, I'm prepared for anything my good buddy Liquidypoo can throw at me."? Was... Was it liquidy poo?
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Mar 24, 2015 02:25
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Zain posted:Was... Was it liquidy poo? No. I might be able to put this up as early as Wednesday, and, Bloodborne willing, we might land on a Sundays + Wednesdays update schedule. Still kinda up in the air on that decision. Either way, maybe Wednesday you'll see exactly what caught Casnorf off-guard. It's great.
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Mar 24, 2015 02:31
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Update! Episode 2-1: Maybe it's Cyberpunk Somehow, I'd never noticed in my previous videos how sharp my S's sound, but I feel like they're worse than usual in this video. Headphone wearers beware. Aside from that, welcome to the dungeon that completely blindsided Casnorf! I'd been hyping this one up to him for a while, and it's great to finally see that the payoff is near speechlessness. Thankfully we were still able muster up some discussion, barring that one moment of bewildered laughter we have.
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Mar 25, 2015 18:27
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I love how you can pinpoint the exact moment Casnorf brain breaks in the video. Also, that lighting effect is really neat and seems way above what you'd normally see out of a snes game. Finally, a question, did the wolf archer on the platform back in the tower of light regenerate experience, cause it looked like he did. Regardless, I'd probably have to grind at the tower to be sure to afford all the gems in town, and then grind each of them to max on that drat drakee.
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Mar 26, 2015 00:47
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This game is definitely a product of its time, from aesthetics to Also, those boomerang-throwing wolf-men from Zelda 2 are called Goriya. You're welcome.
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Mar 26, 2015 01:02
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Choco1980 posted:Finally, a question, did the wolf archer on the platform back in the tower of light regenerate experience, cause it looked like he did. Regardless, I'd probably have to grind at the tower to be sure to afford all the gems in town, and then grind each of them to max on that drat drakee. That guy does look like he respawned his experience gem, but that's only because I screwed up the first time I killed him. See, I forgot that those things despawn the instant they leave the screen, so after the archer was dead, I just moved on to make progress and scrolled the gem off-screen before Ifrie could pick it up. Somehow, Produce thought far enough ahead to give players a sort of safety net in the sense that the gems will respawn if they're not collected. With, uh, the two (or possibly more) exceptions that I know of. We already know about the drakee, and the second one that I know about is a much worse enemy to grind. I mean, with the new weapon we picked up at the end of 2-1, I'm positive we can 1-shot drakees and just trivialize grinding. The second enemy takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 - 7 hits with that same weapon.
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Mar 26, 2015 01:47
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There's so much mind breaking in this video. Gotta love that reaction.
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Mar 26, 2015 04:35
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The upcoming video has real puzzles this time around, and I figure it'd be a good idea to post 'em a little early so you don't have to pause the video if you're interested in working out the solutions on your own. Of course, I say "real puzzles," so what I really mean is "kinda sorta really easy math puzzles." For example:Brain Lord posted:The puzzle has three numbers. Multiplied together they equal 30. Added together they equal 10. The first is a small number. The second is a large number. The third is the one left. Not really all that bad yet. This one's slightly trickier, but not by much. Brain Lord posted:12, 52, ? Yes, they did botch the "it's" in-game. You'll see it. These puzzles are pretty simple, to be honest, and they weren't even blocking off progression. They were just hiding secret goodies, and not much else. We're getting closer to the point where my memory fails me as far as future puzzles go, but I'm reasonably certain they get trickier later on. They also become less text based, and more practical, situational puzzles.
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Mar 29, 2015 01:05
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Mind Lord is still a cooler name.
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Mar 29, 2015 05:11
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I'm bad at the mind wizarding tricks so I can't help with these riddles.
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Mar 29, 2015 05:24
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The solution to the first puzzle is two, three, and five. 2 x 5 x 3 = 10 x 3 = 30, while 2 + 5 + 3 = 10. Meanwhile, I have no idea about the second one. Maybe a bigger brain lord can jump in?
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Mar 29, 2015 05:37
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EagerSleeper posted:The solution to the first puzzle is two, three, and five. 2 x 5 x 3 = 10 x 3 = 30, while 2 + 5 + 3 = 10. Actually, the first one is 253. The order is important, and it says the first number is the smallest and the second is the largest. The second one is 365 I'm guessing. 12 Months, 52 Weeks, 365 Days.
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Mar 29, 2015 05:58
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EagerSleeper posted:Meanwhile, I have no idea about the second one. Maybe a bigger brain lord can jump in?
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Mar 29, 2015 14:57
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Oh man it's this game! I remember breaking my head against it ages ago when I was a kid. Those damned puzzles! Although Toronto is actually where things start getting really tough. I think I got stuck in this second dungeon for ages. So many switches to press... on the plus side, the Morning Star is an amazingly fun weapon. Even though it's a flail. Lots of curve balls to come though. Looking forward to it!
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Mar 29, 2015 16:01
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