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theshim posted:There's also the question of where he got his initial prosthetic arms from - that kinda poo poo ain't cheap. Who or what was Sigma involved with in the past, that they had the resources to give him arms and send him to the moon and all that poo poo? Just what kind of power was Akane packing back in the day?
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Mar 5, 2018 06:54
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ZTD is currently 60% off on PSN if you have PS+. Sale ends on the 6th. I just bought it earlier today.
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Mar 5, 2018 07:05
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Nidoking posted:
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Mar 5, 2018 09:00
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flatluigi posted:ZTD is absolutely not perfect and there's definitely some bullshit but it's also got some great moments and fits well as the last game in the series, thankfully. Yeah, I think ZTD is the most divisive entry in the series but like, compared to how it seemed like things were going to be - that what we saw here was legitimately going to be it and there'd be no closure of any kind - the fact that it even came into existence is nothing short of a miracle. And it clearly wasn't a big deal for the fans alone. From Uchikoshi's twitter back when the game was near release: https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/710500906689626112 https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/710501027611414528 https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/710501156028452864 https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/710501321669943299 https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/710501451353591808 https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/710501673496477696 https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/710501834155134976 https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/710501996910874625 https://twitter.com/Uchikoshi_Eng/status/710502033934028800
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Mar 5, 2018 09:50
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I never did play VLR but I knew the general plot of it, and I read the 999 LP in the archive. I got ZTD, and holy crap, I do not envy the person who tried to LP it. My notes from that game made me look like I had a mental breakdown.
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Mar 5, 2018 10:45
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Congratulations on making it this far, Fedule! I always knew you'd see the whole thing through  Is there a big difference in how ZTD plays on each system? I've got a 3DS and a Steam account and dunno which one to get.
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Mar 5, 2018 11:34
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PMush Perfect posted:Waffleman_, get PMs so we can collaborate on the terrible, terrible idea that is a ZTD LP. Or give me your discord or something, IDK. I would also be willing to pitch in if needed. It might be a nightmare, but it's a nightmare SA deserves to see. Also count me in as someone who was introduced to this series first by Dragonatrix's 999 LP and then this one. Ended up buying VLR and ZTD as a result. ZTD was...sure an experience, but I'm glad it exists.
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Mar 5, 2018 12:34
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Just caught up on the last few updates and I'm loving the reactions.  I will echo that yeah, ZTD is very divisive, but I think it's worth playing. Maybe just go in with the context which Fedule kindly gave of a) When 999 was made, it was never intended to have any follow-ups, and b) For a long time, it looked like there would be no follow-up to VLR. Also, it continues the trend of having a gameplay feature which feeds into the story (999's dual screens and VLR's flowchart). Also, while it's not perfect, there are a couple of moments in it which I think should be experienced while playing it yourself, and not watching or reading a playthrough of it. I kind of think it would be fun to LP just because the nature of the game would lend itself to a lot of voting, and confusion for anyone following blind.  VibrantPareidolia posted:Is there a big difference in how ZTD plays on each system? I've got a 3DS and a Steam account and dunno which one to get.
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Mar 5, 2018 12:52
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asymmetrical posted:gently caress I don't remember posting that all. Or even the context I posted it in. I think you were probably referring to us, the interactive audience, not us, the player-character Sigma. But it was still noteworthy.
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Mar 5, 2018 13:18
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VibrantPareidolia posted:Congratulations on making it this far, Fedule! I always knew you'd see the whole thing through I would say don't get it on 3DS unless that's your best option. It doesn't run very well on there from what I've heard.
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Mar 5, 2018 13:24
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Regy Rusty posted:I would say don't get it on 3DS unless that's your best option. It doesn't run very well on there from what I've heard. I had so many random crashes to desktop on the PC version that I ended up finishing it on the 3DS, and it was fine. The graphics are not that great, but they also no great on the PC, so  . It might feel a little bit too tight if you don't have a 3DS XL, though.
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Mar 5, 2018 14:48
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Yeah I don't have any actual experience myself since I opted for the Vita version.
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Mar 5, 2018 14:58
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I played it on 3DS and it's fine, there are no issues with it.
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Mar 5, 2018 15:09
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Well I guess the gates are open on ZTD now so I'll say it's definitely worth playing, but at the same time, VLR is the best of the trilogy. I can't really tell why VLR would have done so badly, but ZTD had a relatively small budget and it does show. The escape rooms in ZTD are more logical than VLR and flow better, but they are also easier. The plot is quite a bit shorter, and it does deal with a number of the things people are talking about here with VLR - including resolving at least one of the "stable time loop" complaints. But it has two big flaws (blanked out here for people who want to be completely blind): There's no single unifying game as a plot device, like the 9 game or the AB game - every escape has a different game; and it introduces a metric fuckton of stable time loops itself.
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Mar 5, 2018 16:01
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Let's not talk about ZTD spoilers in the VLR LP? Anyway, I'm not sure if there's any way I could help with a ZTD LP, but if there was, I'd certainly be eager.
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Mar 5, 2018 16:12
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I quite agree. The discussion so far is fine but let's not get any further into games other than VLR here.
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Mar 5, 2018 16:21
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I'll make a discord server or something when I get home, anyone who wants to help can gather there. (I'll have to replay the game again, it's been a couple months and I'm sure there's things I forgot.)
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Mar 5, 2018 16:55
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theshim posted:I'm still going to say that it's absolute bullshit that not only did Sigma never notice his cyber-eye, no one ever gave him poo poo about it Well, as far as Sigma noticing himself, that one's easy.. by that point he's a genius with computers and biology.. he could've easily coded up his arms so that they gave the feedback of a real eye whenever he thought he was itching his cyber one or something. Only ever so slightly on the unbelievable side of things that explanation But while some of them might not have wanted to make fun of an old man having lost an eye, yeah, you're kinda right that you'd have thought Alice or Dio would've thrown that in his face at some point or other
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Mar 5, 2018 19:12
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Fantastic to see this LP finally reaching the end. Been great to see everyone's reactions to everything over all this time, and sincere thanks to Fedule for the no-doubt gargantuan amount of effort you've put into this thing. Strange to think how long it's been, since I've been following this LP since the beginning. Since we've all been recently talking about fun bits of foreshadowing that had been missed, here's one that a friend pointed out to me after I'd finished the game back when it came out: Remember waaaaay back in the Director's Lounge, when you find that Tenmyouji has a picture of Akane? Here's some lines from that room's escape sequence. Fedule posted:
The original line in the Tenacious D song they're referencing is "That's telekinesis, Kyle". Fedule posted:
Intentional from the translation team, or a funny little coincidence? I
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Mar 5, 2018 21:50
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Fedule posted:frankly I've been looking forward to working on not-VLR for about four years. But... isn't that what you've been doing for the majority of the last four years though? I kid, I kid. Congrats on getting to the second to last update.
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Mar 5, 2018 21:56
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asymmetrical posted:gently caress I don't remember posting that all. Or even the context I posted it in. Maybe it was a future you that posted it. Argas fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Mar 5, 2018 |
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Mar 5, 2018 22:16
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PMush Perfect posted:I'll make a discord server or something when I get home, anyone who wants to help can gather there. (I'll have to replay the game again, it's been a couple months and I'm sure there's things I forgot.) I won't be able to join cause lol spoilers, but I am curious how a group-think screen-shot LP would work. Unless it's just a video LP in which case, lol
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Mar 5, 2018 22:20
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I can't believe we're actually here. This LP is making me feel old.
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Mar 5, 2018 22:30
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smenj posted:Fantastic to see this LP finally reaching the end. Been great to see everyone's reactions to everything over all this time, and sincere thanks to Fedule for the no-doubt gargantuan amount of effort you've put into this thing. Strange to think how long it's been, since I've been following this LP since the beginning. I'm sure it was brought up at the time since it's probably obvious but that little bit may also be a friendly jab towards Dangan Ronpa.
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Mar 5, 2018 22:31
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YoshiOfYellow posted:I'm sure it was brought up at the time since it's probably obvious but that little bit may also be a friendly jab towards Dangan Ronpa. I doubt that? Unless Sigma specifically used the term "kotodama" originally.
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Mar 5, 2018 22:41
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I'm probably stretching it to be fair, which is why I say "may be". I know when I was playing the game myself and saw mention of shooting things with mind bullets my brain went there. Probably a case of just having something on the brain rather than an intentional bit.
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Mar 5, 2018 22:48
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SatansBestBuddy posted:I won't be able to join cause lol spoilers, but I am curious how a group-think screen-shot LP would work. I think ZTD might be one of the few games that could work with a group-think LP, really. I'll be down for helping out with that LP if we go down that route.
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Mar 5, 2018 23:06
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Ibblebibble posted:I think ZTD might be one of the few games that could work with a group-think LP, really. I'll be down for helping out with that LP if we go down that route. That would be interesting. And, from how I understand it was written, appropriate.
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Mar 5, 2018 23:31
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placid saviour posted:I can't believe we're actually here. This LP is making me feel old. I'm pretty sure my first post on SA was in this thread so yeah. 
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Mar 5, 2018 23:33
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Thanks for LPing this beast of a game.
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Mar 6, 2018 00:31
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Nidoking posted:Ah, it's been so, so long. Jesus christ, I was back in college when I wrote that post... and it's good to know now that I was 100% right.
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Mar 6, 2018 02:56
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it's impossible to tell the clever guesses from the coy pretenses at speculation from people who played the game. there's too much thread.
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Mar 6, 2018 03:45
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The scenes that we're about to see were added to the game very late in development - so late, in fact, that there was no time to record the Japanese VO. But it wasn't too late for Aksys! Accordingly, the voiceover links from here on out are in English only. Sorry, people who were listening in Japanese. You should probably listen to these. They've got Troy Baker in them. Listen in: [English] VLR OST: [Eeriness] I see you've finally woken up, Kyle. Kyle...? Ah, yes. Of course. You've only just woken up in this timeline. It's only natural for some of your memories to be missing. I lurched upright, jumped off the bed, and ran around to the other side of the partition. The mirror over the sink was covered with a film of dirt. There was no mistake. The reflection belonged to... So I'm Doctor Klim—Zero Sr.'s clone? Shouldn't you still be suffering from amnesia? He hadn't just worn the armor in that history, though... Apparently he'd worn it all his life. Kyle had been born and raised in this lunar installation, which seemed to be called "Rhizome 9." Rather late in his life Akane had appeared as a mother figure, and he had consequently grown very attached to her. I knew everything about him. But even though I knew it, I didn't feel it. Was I really Kyle Klim? Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw his face... The spitting image of Sigma Klim in his younger days. I looked down. I turned back around to Luna. Listen in: [English] January 27th, 2074. Then today is the last day of the AB Project. Then she drew a knife and attacked Phi. About five hours in real time. For them it would have seemed like a little more than two hours. So they still haven't been treated for their Radical-6? No, they've all been given the anti-viral. It just takes a while to have an effect... Ah, I see. It should have happened right after Akane attacked Phi, right? Yes. The doctor carried you back here. You were in the pod in the garden. So the person you call "the doctor" is Sigma Klim, as inhabited by his age-appropriate consciousness? Y-Yes, but... How do you know that? ... ... Yes. I've been administering Soporil whenever he...gets restless. [Music fades out] They've all gone off to different areas. Tenmyouji and Quark, for instance... Listen in: [English] Right! Mr. Klim! So the sleepyhead's finally up, huh? What are you two doing here? You don't know where we are? This is the upper floor of the pressure exchange chamber. The real one... Mm-hm. VLR OST: [Confession] You plan to return then? To Earth, I mean. Yeah. Sigma told us where we could find the shuttle that brought us here. Well, guess he's not really the Sigma I knew anymore. He's Doctor Klim now—or Zero Sr., depending on how you look at it. Why? What do you mean, "why"? Um, well... I'm just curious why you would choose to return to a devastated planet when you could stay here. You aren't gonna say something idiotic about how we should wait here until Sigma changes the past, are you? ... You can't "wait" for something that's already happened. Grammar doesn't work that way. Hell, nature doesn't work that way. You following me? We've already lived through history. Sigma failed to keep the virus from getting out. Whatever Sigma does in the past, history's not gonna change. In fact, it's because of what he did, or didn't do, in the past that we've got this past and present. Let me give you an example. Eventually they hit a junction. The road splits in two. One freeway continues off northwest, and the other stretches out to the northeast. So one guy, we'll call him S, pipes up. So they take the northwestern road, but about a mile past the intersection something horrible happens. A semi driving the other way veers into their lane, and plows through the bikers. They don't stop, though. They keep riding down that highway, and eventually they'd gone 10,000 miles. Then, suddenly, something happens that they couldn't have predicted. S, who had survived, suddenly has his consciousness thrown back in time. He ends up back in his own body, just before they reach the junction. He remembers everything. So what does S do? What anybody would do. "Let's got northeast!" That means all one hundred of the bikers survive to reach their destination happy and healthy. And they all live happily ever after. It's a great outcome for the hundred bikers that went northeast. But what about the ten that went northwest and survived the accident? Ah, right. Okay, nine people then. What happens to the reality they were living? Does it just disappear when S changes the past? It's not as if it was only bad things that happened during that 10,000 mile trip. Maybe one of them fell in love with a woman working at a gas station they stopped at, and had a child. Maybe one of them picked up a homeless kid, who joined them on their adventure. That 10,000 mile journey would be full of stories. Friendships, farewells, romances... The loss of those ninety lives is horrible and unfortunate... The nine who survived lived full lives. How can it be right to just erase all that? The survivors overcame their own misery and loss, and made the best they could of the hand they'd been dealt. Isn't that worth something? Isn't that the best thing that humans can aspire to? Is there really any point to a world were everything is happy? Are people who struggle for a better life just idiots? Being human is about fighting even when it seems hopeless, and finding happiness even in a world that hates it. Are you saying that's worthless? If you're saying re-writing the past will erase all these other timelines... Then whatever god wrote those rules can fu—... Look, I'm just not gonna accept that, all right? You get it? If Sigma changes the past... Then you and Quark will never meet. No. It's not gonna happen. We're here, right now. This is reality. Even if Sigma does change the past, we're not just gonna...disappear or something. Oh... Then that means we get to stay together? Thanks, kid... You have lives there, I imagine. There are likely people waiting for you. Right. Uh-huh. Phi, Luna, Alice, and Clover all saw us off. We told them we'd see them again someday, and then came here. They were the only people you want to say goodbye to? No point saying anything to Dio. Besides, he's asleep. You were asleep too... Sorry, but we didn't really know much about you. You have a point. Akane was in the armor in this timeline, after all... What about Sigma? Of course. He is Doctor Klim now that his consciousness has returned. Yeah, but more importantly he's the guy who brought us all here. Not a lot of warm feelings there, you know. And...Akane? ... ... She's just like him. Not the Akane I knew. She must have seen some pretty awful things over the years. Hell, she might not even be human anymore. [Music fades out] She's not anywhere... Listen in: [English] Pawns to be used and then gotten rid of. Still, it's not like we're completely resentful. We had to be here to help change the past. That part's easy to understand. But... It kinda sucks, though. 999 OST: [Imaginary] They get to go back to December 25th in 2028. They'll stop the Radical-6 and save the world, and then they'll have a nice, normal future to look forward to. In other words, they get to go back to point E and just enjoy history like it was supposed to happen. But we don't. We're stuck with point C as our starting point. It would be like if Alice and I were kidnapped right before the intersection. Then whoever grabbed us takes us to wherever the bikers are going, 10,000 miles to the northwest. Don't get us wrong: We know why we had to be here. Without us, S's consciousness wouldn't have been able to go back to right before the intersection... If that couldn't happen, then the fate of those ninety dead bikers would be sealed. But... We're stuck in the reality where the ninety bikers died. And what about our friends and families? We left a whole world behind forty-five years ago. Even if it is for the greater good... It just doesn't seem fair, does it? Yeah, it's a little bit much. She told us that there is one way... One way we could get back to the past... Let's say you do go back to the past... Wouldn't that cause your minds to get thrown back here? That seemed to be how Sigma and Phi's jumps worked, at least... Yes, you're right. But this is different. Different? How so? That's ridiculous! It would create a paradox! How could you have two Clovers and two Alices at the same time? But that wouldn't happen. Akane says there's a way around that. How on Earth does she plan to do that? [Music fades out] Listen in: [English] Where's Doctor Klim? Luna said you were with him... He said he was tired, so he's off resting right now. There's a bedroom at the end of the hallway. He's in there, if you're curious. ... Oh, right. He told me to turn on this hologram projector thing when you showed up. Want me to start it? S-Sure... 999 OST: [Eternitybox] However, I imagine there are a great number of things weighing on your mind. I'd love to answer all your questions, but unfortunately my circumstances make that an impossibility. I hope you can forgive me. Everything I know, Phi should also know. I have instructed her to answer any questions anyone might have. Anyone other than Kyle, that is. [Music fades out] Who knows. Is there anything you want to ask? R-Right... Well... I guess I may as well cut to the chase. I'm not Superman, that's for sure. And I'm not Batman, or Spiderman, or Aquaman, or a merman, or a wolfman. I'm not a brahman, or common, or ramen. I'm not a caiman either, so you don't really need to worry about anything. Please don't dodge the question. ... VLR OST: [Clarification] About five hours ago, Akane attacked you with a knife. That triggered something, which sent your mind back to the past, correct? On that date, your body was already in Akane's custody. You wouldn't have regained consciousness, but your mind was now inhabiting that body. That pod was your home for forty-five years. You slept there, frozen, until the time was right. Then, on January 25th, 2074, you were finally thawed out. Even though you didn't wake up. Still unconscious, you were carried to the AB Room. That was when your consciousness changed bodies again. A version of you from December 25th, 2028 arrived, pushing you out... And sending you back to December 25th, 2028. This is when you finally woke up. In 2028, you found and joined forces with Sigma, whose older mind was inhabiting his younger body. Together, you attempted to infiltrate the Mars mission test facility. The Radical-6 did escape on New Year's Eve. That failure determined the path you followed. Point D being April 13th of the following year. That was the day that you made your way to Akane's hideout and asked to be put into one of the treatment pods. Another consciousness enters your body around that time, from the future. It is, of course, the version of you that left your body when Akane attacked you in the garden. This caused the two versions of you to swap places... And you moved forty-five years into the future, where you woke up on the garden floor. So if we discount the time you spent in cold sleep... For you, only three and a half months have passed since that happened. "That" being when you were sent back into the past from the garden. Have I missed anything? What do you mean by that? It's taken me the last three and a half months to understand it. And I haven't understood anything in the last three and a half seconds. Could you please explain? Strictly speaking, you can't combine velocities with (v1 + v2). (v1 + v2) / (1 + (v1 x v2) / c^2) is the actual equation. Of course, the sort of velocities we encounter in day-to-day life don't come close to being c^2, which is the speed of light squared. That means that (1 + (v1 x v2) / c^2) is usually going to evaluate to something pretty close to 1. Since that would mean dividing by 1, it's usually okay to just skip that step and use (v1 + v2). [Music fades out] In most situations it works, even if it isn't technically correct. So you knew enough to get the stuff you were talking about right. As long as you stick to that, you won't run into any problems. I don't quite understand... In fact, I feel like you're dodging my questions. So was that what you wanted to ask about? No. You and Sigma infiltrated the Mars mission test site, didn't you? Yes. What happened there? How did Sigma lose his eye and both his arms? And why was Radical-6 in there in the first place? What could a deadly virus have to do with a simulated mission to space? Why? Because... It would change history. VLR OST: [Demise] That's the line that goes to the right of point E. In that timeline, humanity isn't heading for annihilation, and Earth isn't red. The future is much brighter. You understand? I don't. Why would all of that disappear if you told me what I want to know? The past? Don't be silly. I can't do that... Then where the hell did you learn all this stuff!? I just listened to you tell me a bunch of things you shouldn't have known about! You were sleeping in the pod in the garden. You just woke up! So how can you know all this? You know my past! Sigma's past! I-I... Listen in: [English] You are not Kyle Klim. Your body is Kyle's, but your consciousness is not. Think about it. Do you really believe you are Kyle? Or could you be someone else entirely? Then...where is the real Kyle's consciousness? He was thrown out when you entered. Right now—in a manner of speaking—he has arrived at December 25th, 2028. His consciousness has gone into a body from that time. ... He raised him on his own. Kyle is irreplaceable. Do you really think he would go back to the past and leave Kyle behind here? But that was not his only purpose. Kyle's consciousness is integral to what we are trying to accomplish. This new mission begins on Christmas, and ends on New Year's Eve, 2028. For this to happen, Kyle is absolutely necessary. Yes. So now that my consciousness has entered his body, the doctor has achieved his objective... Kyle has gone back to 2028, to participate in his mission. Correct. Kyle was created before reaching point B from point D. That means his body did not exist on Christmas in 2028. Have we just...switched places? I...suppose you could put it that way, yes. That's ridiculous! Wh-What's going to happen to me?! Are you telling me I have to spend the rest of my life here in this box, living in a borrowed body?! No, not at all. You are an...uncontrolled variable that entered our closed system. As such, the rules of this world do not apply to you. I-I have no idea what you— Please don't try to play dumb. I know what you are. Surely you must know by now too. ... Phi and Sigma, even with all of his future knowledge, will need your help. ... Only you can right the horrible wrongs of our past. Only you can save the world. Th-There's no way I— Yes there is! You have to! Don't you want to know what happened in-between Christmas and New Year's Eve in 2028?! Well, yes, I do, but... Then you must believe. Reality is shaped by what we believe reality should be. If observation can change the motion of a particle... Then how is it odd to think that human thought can shape reality? Your will can change history! The world will be reshaped into the one you imagine! [Music fades out] You guys, it really loving sucked to finish this game in 2013. I don't know why the final ending card reads "END or BEGINNING" again and not "Another Time END". I have one, last, secret file to share; The Mystery of Phi: It really, incredibly, unbelievably sucked. ...but god drat, it was a ride though. If you have a passing familiarity with some of Uchikoshi's other works, in particular Ever17, you may have had an eyebrow raised for the last ten or so minutes of the game's final ending. This is largely believed to be a deliberately sought reaction. Besides all the other stated goals of Sigma and Akane's AB project, it does seem like they deliberately manipulated events to create a certain resonance of perspectives, and that they expected to ultimately involve our mystery guest in the proceedings. When asked directly, Uchikoshi was of course evasive, but remarked; "In 999, young Akane and 21 year old Junpei communicated. The developed version is to be able to move yourself[sic] entirely, so if your frequency matches, then it is even possible to jump into another person’s body." This is as close as we'll ever get to an official confirmation that the viewpoint character of Another Time is who some people who have played Ever17 think it is. An alternate reading exists; the viewpoint character is Us, the Player. This is a tad trite, but fits neatly, and hey it sure does seem like the IRL human at the controls is being addressed by Akane at the end there, doesn't it? It's sometimes said, perhaps not unreasonably, that ultimately VLR is a retread of Uchikoshi's past work. He is, after all, now known by more than like four people to be That Guy Who Writes VNs With Perspective Twists. Suprise timeskips and player character identity fakeouts are kinda par for the course with him at this point, and time travel seems kinda pedestrian as a bold new direction for him. But I don't really agree with this line of thought, for one reason; in the context of its original development, VLR fits perfectly into a pattern of Uchikoshi experimenting with emerging trends in the visual novel genre. With Infinity, it was the genre itself, which was new at the time; could you leverage the very idea of the visual novel format on any kind of ludic level beyond just filling it with the text of a story? With 999, it was the notion that you could play one of these weird games on a console that could fit in your hands - and had two screens. And with VLR, the flavour of the year was the flowchart, rapidly becoming a standard feature in a new age of Vita and Steam-driven visual novel resurgance and mostly intended solely as a modern quality of life feature - but what if, what if... Ultimately, I think the real unique achivement of VLR is the various revelations that play out in an indeterminate order for each player. There are all sorts of big and little reveals throughout the branches, each one potentially colouring more and more interactions, providing more context, changing how you look at certain parts of the plot. Alice getting sick (or murdered) starts as a tragic development, and gradually turns into a farce; Again?! Maybe you start out thinking Dio might actually be alright. Maybe you start out suspecting quantum morphogenetic fuckery from the get-go. Like good little plot-twists, each of these little nuggets of knowledge and meta-knowledge shapes and refines the lens through which you view the next, and while the ultimate result may be the same, the journey is very different. In 2016, a puzzle game called The Witness launched to almost universal praise. In The Witness, you explore an island and solve a lot of nifty puzzles, which rely on an assortment of gimmicks you have to learn and possibly can encounter out of order. You'd poke around, find a puzzle you couldn't solve, poke around more, eventually learn the trick involved, come back and finally solve it. The Witness quickly began to be described, mostly ironically (but at least 20% seriously) as "the Dark Souls of puzzle games". The joke wore off pretty fast though, and eventually some people settled on a somewhat more fascinating notion; The Witness was a Metroidvania of knowledge, where instead of gradually accumulating double jumps and grappling hooks you learned how to read the puzzles. I liked this idea. It stuck with me. It didn't exactly turn the world of game crit on its head, but in this new era of very slightly increased self-awareness you could build a lot of "really makes u think" takes off of the idea of reconsidering how many ways there are to power up and explore a space. So, in that vein, my thesis; VLR is a Metroidvania of plot. Sometimes, this metaphor works on an almost literal level; VLR happily throws up barriers it calls locks, and requires plot information it calls keys to pass them. But even beyond that, it sets the player exploring this weird little possiblity space of a branching plotline about some people playing the Prisoner's Dilemma, and then gradually starts expanding your capabilities - not of platforming, but of, like, knowing what the gently caress is going on. Look, I know it's easy for analysis to disappear thoroughly up its own rear end if left unchecked, but I honestly think that most people who play VLR appreciate this idea on some level. I doubt anyone learned about the neostigmine injection gun and thought "wow this is exactly like getting the Wave Beam!" but for all the pretenses of VLR's introduction and the potential twists of the first route taken, the real lasting appeal develops at roughly the point where the player realizes that they're not so much playing a branching visual novel as exploring the flowchart, and that appeal is cemented as it starts becoming apparent that Sigma is experiencing much the same sensation. So much the better if you take the Cyan door first. I also happen to think VLR is in some ways lacking compared to 999. I think it is absent a certain emotional core that held 999 together. The progression of 999 as a videogame was clunky at times, but it very definitely built to an emotional climax - a terrified little girl screaming across time - and proceeded to absolutely stick the landing on that, in addition and yet also seemingly completely independently of the combination of various other twists and reveals working together to make that sequence as fondly remembered as it was. VLR, in comparison, seems... kinda dull, when you think about it on that level. The stakes have gone from intensely, intimately personal straight to literally apocalyptic; mankind is great and all, but also kinda boring, really. Some characters are or become emotionally involved - Clover with Alice, Tenmyouji with Quark, Luna with Sigma - but frequently we no sooner experience these sometimes fine moments than immediately unhappen them. The reveals are fascinating, the experience is intriguing, and they sure did foreshadow Sigma being old a lot, didn't they? - but from this one perspective, it's also empty. And then we go out on that sequel hook. I wonder if the sense of dissociation one can get from all these timelines is part of the reason we got the Another Time sequence, and in particular why Tenmyouji spent so long lecturing us about how all of that stuff still happened, and all of it is real, and somewhere, somewhen, somehow, for example, Sigma and Phi are still stuck in the facility with the bodies of everyone who died over Dio's bullshit, trying to figure out what the gently caress is going on. In conclusion... in conclusion... In conclusion, I am in awe of Kotaru Uchikoshi's ability to invent a nine-player number-based death game with branching paths, then imagine a single moment from the end, and work backwards to figure out every possible move of every player, how they're all justified in context, what dice-rolls need to be contrived for the right people to get teamed up, and figuratively and literally make all of these numbers add up. God drat. If you still have any questions about the plot, there's a good chance they're one of the 93 that were posed to Uchikoshi (and Ben Bateman, the localisation editor) in an interactive Q&A session following the game's English release. There's a lot of great, interesting and funny stuff in there, and some of it may have even not been completely forgotten about in the years it took them to make the sequel happen. Thank you all for reading.
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Mar 6, 2018 04:54
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogaV_9cUbQo
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Mar 6, 2018 05:04
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Slow clap.
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Mar 6, 2018 05:07
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Oh my god. It's over. What the gently caress.
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Mar 6, 2018 05:08
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This LP going to the archive will truly be the last reward.
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Mar 6, 2018 05:13
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Hell of a ride, folks. 
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Mar 6, 2018 05:14
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really great let's play I am going to purchase ZTD... after I now reread 999 and then this game's LP again.
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Mar 6, 2018 05:18
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NuFVQk_CCs
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Mar 6, 2018 05:21
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