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For all the talk of the translation, has anyone brought up that it was Jeremy Blaustein, the same guy that brilliantly localised Metal Gear Solid 1? (Before they took him off future MGS games in favour of a more literal and thus boring and confusing translation) Also Snatcher and the early Silent Hills. He's messy and imperfect, but drat if he's not good at stripping out the awkward pause anime bullshit and inserting some humour and history. EDIT: actually looking it up, I can't find a source on this! He's credited for the sequel, and I believe his sister voiced Margerete but the only localisation credit I can find for Shadow Hearts 1 is for "Wordbox, Inc."... VagueRant fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Aug 12, 2018 |
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Aug 12, 2018 18:50
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VagueRant posted:For all the talk of the translation, has anyone brought up that it was Jeremy Blaustein, the same guy that brilliantly localised Metal Gear Solid 1? (Before they took him off future MGS games in favour of a more literal and thus boring and confusing translation) Also Snatcher and the early Silent Hills. If you're talking about Maddie Blaustein, she actually voiced Li Zhuzhen, not Margarete.
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Aug 13, 2018 04:24
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She voiced Ben too.
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Episode XXVII: Hands On Trials Music: Death - Zombie Party .jpg) OK. Time for the first trial of Wuhan Temple, the Dan Tian Court. No items are allowed in combat and we have a party consisting only of Yuri and Zhuzhen. That's fine. If we run into trouble, Zhuzhen has a healing spell so no items and no Alice on healing isn't a deal breaker. Speaking of items, if we talk to Master Xiaofang again before we leave... .jpg)  I'll be watchin', meow! You can't use 'em, but I'll sell you some items. Meow, you want items? I want you to stop saying meow constantly. Meow, I used to be a cat! I gotta say meow. He used to be a cat, Yuri. It's fine. Cats say meow, sonny boy. This is dumb....jpg) Xiaofang is now running "Master Shoho's Allowance job." Not sure who Master Shoho is, but the point of the matter is Xiaofang is selling all the items that were available with Kato or in the Shanghai weapon's shop, in case we had forgotten anything. We're sorted out, but it's nice to know there is the option of stocking up. .jpg) Beyond that, Alice and Margarete only tell us good luck and a brief word of encouragement before we're sent on our way. Shadow Hearts hasn't had a real dungeon up until now, even though we're nearing ten hours into the game. I mean, maybe you could count Fengtian's Sewers but that was literally just a giant plus sign and lasted all of twelve minutes from start to mid-boss defeat. These Temple Ruins here is a dungeon rear end dungeon. .jpg) A gimmick one on top of that, with the sealed items in battle nonsense. And boy, is it one of the worst parts of the game! Mostly because it's just really long and really boring. Do you see this cavern template motif above? Great. That's the entire aesthetic you'll be looking at while playing for the next hour or so. .jpg) .jpg) Here's the main thing we're doing in this dungeon: trying to find these recolored save points which act as warp zones between the floors of the dungeon. .jpg) .jpg) Each trial has three floors (spoilers we're going to do this again with a team of just the girls.) There's a bunch of treasure scattered about the area along with a bunch of dead ends and looping paths. Naturally, there is no map in Shadow Hearts so it's pretty easy to get turned around. Especially when considering each trial just reuses and shuffles around like five pre-rendered maps that maybe have an extra exit in one direction or has been inverted in orientation or the like. .jpg) Among the scattered treasure chests are also a poo poo load of empty chests for no particular reason. There are about a dozen or more empty chests in all over the course of this dungeon. There's five in this trial alone. They're not a mimic or anything. No enemy springs forth from 'em. It's literally a chest you just open and get a message saying there's nothing in it. It's not tied to any special prize for opening them all. It's literally just a waste of time. So that's fun. .jpg) .jpg) Each floor after the first one, Xiaofang is hanging out near the teleporter and is once more offering his wares in case we really need some supplies. We'd supplies because it wouldn't be a big gimmick dungeon without a decent random encounter rate, now would it? .jpg) Music: Brain Hopper .jpg) Another reason this dungeon is really dull is each of the trials has an unusually limited pool of random battle opponents. See these two enemy types? That's it for the first trial. They'll come in this configuration or just that... whatever the hell that nightmare is in the middle alone. .jpg) These suspiciously familiar looking snake fellas are Pythons. They spam Fireball spells. That's all they do with their life. They took a community college course in pyromancy and called it a day. I dislike the fact they have a set of human teeth. The Japanese name for these critters is Uwabami, which is... just a giant serpent. Most Googling just comes up with the snake hair pro hero lady from My Hero Academia so yeah... I guess Python is a decent enough localization. It evokes a big rear end snake pretty well. .jpg) .jpg) The other enemy hanging out in the first trial is a Sea Gremlin. This one just spams Lightning spells constantly. Which is a bit more painful than Fireballs, as it turns out. I'd probably rather get struck by lightning than set on fire, personally. But I'm not a JRPG protagonist. And if I were I'd be the designated grizzled old man one who'd seen some poo poo. I mean I'm older than Auron at this point. It's hosed up. The Japanese title for this mass of tentacles with a teethed penis lugging a cancerous giant nut sack is Ayakashi, which is a collective term for a type of yokai that can be found above bodies of water. Wikipedia on Ayakashi posted:
Not quite seeing weird ghost lights and this weird rear end sea monster connection. But there you have it. .jpg) In any case, Yuri is quite beefy after has grind through the underground pit fighter circuit. As such, he can take out any of these enemies in a single combo. In fact, he can punch a Python the gently caress out in one hit. But Zhuzhen can also take out a Python in a single combo and Zhuzhen is barely stronger than Alice physically. Another thing that makes this dungeon really dull is that even without Yuri getting a couple extra levels before coming here, all the enemies are just... unusually weak. They are kind of overcompensating for the split party business way too hard so everyone here is kind of a cake walk. This dungeon is also technically the final (main plot) stop before we come to the equivalent of the end of Disc 1 as far as Shadow Hearts goes and enemies of every element are hanging out across the trials. It's the game's way of very strongly urging Yuri to get all of his Fusions unlocked by this point. But since we were responsible and did that earlier... eh... Kind of wasted effort. Music: Death - Zombie Party .jpg) In any case, I'll spare the tedium of wandering the same sets of brown corridors for the next fifteen minutes while fighting the same two enemies and skip ahead of the rest, other than mentioning a couple pieces of new loot we retrieved along the way. .jpg) I don't think bronze is supposed to be blue like that... .jpg) Say, Mrs. Johnson. I heard about what happened to your newborn. Tough break, that. Would it be cool if I put the bones from his ear into a bell? I've got this theory about how to cure a sore throat and I'd love to test it out. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Gaining that morbid Bell Bracelet is actually a bit of warning for something coming up shortly. We've ignored Xiaofang's shop up to this point, but we're gonna pick up a companion Bell Bracelet here and equip it on our current active duo. Do you think the baby ear bones are from separate dead kids or do you get two from one dead baby -- one produced from each ear? .jpg) .jpg) Dead babies aside, the third level of this trial leads us to an altar which Yuri can futz with to initiate the end of the trial and a boss fight. They're nice enough to put a save point just before we get into it. That's a trend that persists throughout this dungeon until the only real, challenging boss wherein there is like a fifteen-minute gap between the last save point and the boss. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. Let's see what the first guardian of the temple is in our trials... .jpg) Music: Brain Hopper .jpg) .jpg) Meet the boss of the Dan Tian Court trial -- this peculiar rear end spider with a hand for a head and a dapper ying-yang vest which seems to be going by the name Xieshi. This thing a Fire elemental and is packing a modest 530 HP which our odd couple here will have no trouble burning through, especially since we prepared for its only real hazard beforehand. Xieshi's original name was just Blood Corpse. I honestly have no idea what a Xieshi is supposed to be... The bosses of the Wuhan Temple trials are (very vaguely) derived from the Three Corpses/Worms belief of Taoism in which there is a trio of supernatural parasite demons that enter your body on birth and just chill out inside you your whole life just waiting to gently caress up your day. Usually punching them to death isn't an option... Wikipedia on Three Corpses posted:
.jpg) .jpg) It's real messed up to have some busta rear end narc ghosts living inside you ratting you out to the spirit cops. So, let's get to work kicking this one's rear end, eh? Yuri is best served here swapping into the Man Dragon Fusion and just spamming Flash Flood. This will do a massive 150-180 HP of damage to Xieshi and easily win us the fight in just a few rounds. Which is OK in my book, as Xieshi doesn't have much in the way of a move list. Especially, since Zhuzhen can't contribute too much offensively. The sage's physical attacks will barely crack 30 HP of damage output and since Xieshi is Fire elemental, the old standby of Ogre Flamedance is only pushing around 40+ HP of damage. So, it's up to Yuri to carry this fight. .jpg) In fact, it only has two moves. One is just simply gliding over to Zhuzhen or Yuri and smacking them with its head-hand. It does around 40 HP of damage, so par for the course for boss physical attacks. .jpg) .jpg) Its primary move, and the one it'll spam most turns is Flaming Arm of Death. We saw this technique earlier during Yuri's brawls in the pit fights. It's a fire elemental attack. Turns out it strikes the entire party when there's more than just the one character around. If you'll recall, this attack inflicts the Silence status effect and that won't do with our current game plan. But, since we took the precaution of equipping those bells filled with the ear bones (cartilage?) to ward off such threats, all it does is deal out some decent damage. .jpg) .jpg) Yuri will be taking way more damage than Zhuzhen while in his Man Dragon form. We've never had the need to use it until now, but Zhuzhen did acquire a healing spell in the form of Nourishing Potion he can use to top off Yuri's health. Nourishing Potion restores a hefty 160+ HP but it also comes with quite the price at 35 MP a pop. It'll work for now, but he definitely won't be replacing Alice as the designated healer of the party anytime soon. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) That's sort of it. Yuri tosses a bunch of water fireballs while Zhuzhen keeps him alive. It's only the first trial. I'm sure they'll get more complex tactically as we go along! No, actually this one required the most strategy by far. This dungeon and its bosses are not great. I dunno if that point has been brought up yet.  .jpg) For completing the Trial of Dan Tian Court, we receive a decent chunk of experience points and... nearly as much Cash as the entirety of that hour-long set of battles in Zhen's pit fight... Huh. I can't help but still feel mildly ripped off by that side quest reward for the amount effort asked to complete it... Music: Death - Zombie Party .jpg)  Whew! I’m glad that’s over. I guess it’s the ladies turn next. Eh? Did they have to wait for us the whole time? That seems really boring... Mhm. That's how it usually goes. Now I feel kinda bad poking down every tunnel looking for loot. I thought you would knock it off after the third empty chest in a row. Yeah but that fourth chest totally had some swag in it. It was a trinket we could have bought for pocket change at a market stall. Yeah but, fr—  Master Xiaofang comes in over the intercom or psychically contacts everyone. It's really unclear. Either way, his voice pops into the room for a debrief. .jpg) Then... Just wait right there, meow. The door to Ni Wan Palace won't open just yet, meow. Wait... are we gonna have to wait just as long for Alice and Margarete to do their spelunking? Mhm. Probably... Why, again, didn't both teams do their dumb trials at the same time? Tradition.  Meanwhile... .jpg) <gains a power up aura> Your Special Skills have been sealed away by Master Xiaofang. .jpg) OK. So not having access to items wasn't that big a deal with Zhuzhen and Yuri because one of those characters is the most powerful character in the game and could probably solo this entire dungeon with their bare fists. The girls not having access to Special Attacks is slightly more problematic when Alice may as well not have physical attacks since on a good day she's barely breaking into double-digit damage against a random battle mob jobber. Meanwhile, Margarete is the second strongest person physical in the party but that's just because the scale is S Rank Yuri and D Rank Zhuzhen and Alice. Margarete is like a B Rank fighter. Like honestly more like B-/C+ if we're gonna be real. An entire section just having those two doing physical attacks is... less than optimal. .jpg) <shrugs and shakes head> That's just RUDE! Guns can hurt... whatever nasties are waiting in there, right? <tilts head> What's a gun, meow? I'll take that as a yes. Hey Alice... what do you even use outside of magic? I have this thick arcane tome. <squints> I... don't know if that'll cut it. So... I have an extra gun. Or three... Do you... like... want one to use? No, I'll be OK. This book is pretty heavy. ...If you say so. Okay, then!! Xiaofang opens the second door to the right. .jpg) The trials are ceremonies that test your spiritual powers! Very dangerous, very scary! Meow! But you know what? I'm no demon. I'm a cute little Buddha! Meow!!.jpg) As with the boys, we can stock up on inventory shopping with Xiaofang. But we're still good, I think. Onward to the Jiang Palace Trial! It's even less interesting than the first one. Though of note, we're now controlling Alice as our lead party member on the field. Boy, does Alice have quite the arms flailing unathletic girl run going on. .jpg) .jpg) Anyway, on to the trial! Guess what? It's the same exact looking area just with a completely different layout! We're still trying to find teleporters until we make it to a mid-boss at the end. The only difference between Alice and Margarete's trial and the past one is there is a different pool of enemies! .jpg) Music: Brain Hopper .jpg) All two of 'em, again. The third reskin of those ghost skulls, this time in a Light elemental flavor called Raging Spirits. They're accompanied by just straight up zombies called Puppet Guards. .jpg) Raging Spirits attack exclusively by either bonking into one of our two party members or casting Exorcism Arrow, the low-level general Light magic spell we've seen frequently. Either option does around 15ish HP of damage. In fact, all the enemies' attack here seems to do like 15-18 HP of damage, tops. At least they weren't huge jerks about having a party that can only heal with consumables.  The Japanese name for Raging Spirits is Ara-mitama which is err... just Violent Spirit. The only difference is Mitama denotes a Shinto belief that the soul is actually a cluster of several opposite but complementary aspects. Ara-mitama is the aggressive side of the soul and is complimented by the Nigi-mitama, the honorable side. Apparently, this whole thing is why when you collect souls in Japanese games, like Onimusha or Dark Souls, you often get a whole mess of soul bits out of a single person/creature instead of essentially a single ghost, like often seen in Western media. Huh... You learn something new every day. .jpg) If you were wondering about what happened to those two earlier teams of Japanese Army soldiers who were sent to investigate the ruins earlier, guess who we found! The Puppet Guards are the zombified remains of the soldiers Xiaofang or the monsters hanging out in these caverns ganked earlier. Now they just hang around vomiting Dark Messenger breath on those that passerby or try to bludgeon people with their rifles. The fine motor skills necessary for firing a gun while zombified only presents itself when zombie media takes the turn to actively bad. Again, both of these attacks suspiciously do less than 20 damage so as not to be too taxing on Alice or Margarete. And it might just be some weird confirmation bias, but the enemies in this trial seem to actively target Margarete most of the time. .jpg) That's a lot of talk in order to sum up how every random battle for the next fifteen minutes is just waiting for Margarete's turn as she fires her gun repeatedly into an enemy until they're dead. Marge can take out any one of these clowns in a single turn, but it's all on her doing the deed. Raging Spirit only has 38 HP while Puppet Guards have 45 HP. Just as a thought experiment I had Alice try to take on each by herself. She took 3 turns to kill a single Raging Spirit and four turns to kill one Puppet Guard. Alice, you've really got to hit the gym. That's just sad... Music: Death - Zombie Party .jpg) .jpg) Random battle aside, we're just going to skip the rest of that dungeon. There was no noteworthy loot that was anything we hadn't seen yet. .jpg) Before we proceed to the end of Jiang Palace and take out the boss inevitably hanging out there, we're going to do a short bit of prep work and re-equip those Rosewood Bracelets on the girls to prevent Paralysis. You know, just in case anyone wanted to prevent literally our only means of attacking or anything. That'd be quite rude. .jpg) .jpg) Once again, we're given the chance to save the game and maybe use a Tent if necessary. The trials had been throwing a free one our way at the beginning of each test so far. But, we're good. Let's get this over with! .jpg) Music: Brain Hopper .jpg) WELL THEN! So, if I'm seeing this correctly, that's an albino stingray with a hand for a head, covered in a bunch of eyes and sporting a prominent penis flopping at the bottom there... I mean, you could tell me it's a tail. But... .jpg) .jpg) ...I dunno man. That's pretty ding-dong looking to me. Not a fan of trotting this thing out while having a forced party of female characters. This special boy is named Baigu and it is a Light elemental with 380 HP it'd like Alice and Margarete to beat out of 'em. ...That came out wrong. If you're wondering, its original Japanese title was White Maiden, which... If you say so, game. Again, it's meant to be derived from one of the Taoist Three Corpses. Don't ask me what that has to do with any other part of its design. .jpg) I'd usually say something about the best course of action to quickly deal with a boss. But... I mean... All we can do is just do physical attacks over and over. That's kind of it. So... Yeah. Alice bops it with her oversized hardback book a few times for next to no damage while Margarete does all the work dumping several magazines in it until it's dead. .jpg) Baigu can bop our party members (thankfully with just its head-hand) for a surprisingly large amount of damage, especially if it decides to hit multiple times. It can do upward of 35-50 damage a single turn. Since Alice may as well not even bother with physical attacks, she's on consumable distributing healing duty if she or Margarete get low on health. Or more pressingly, if Alice runs low on SP since it is going to take a number of turns for Margarete to plink away at the boss. .jpg) .jpg) Other than that, Baigu primarily attacks with Shining Arm of Death which, once again, does not cause the Death status. This one hits the entire party and would cause Paralysis if we weren't already prepared for that trickery. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Err... That's kind of it. Margarete shoots it a lot for about four minutes until it keels over dead. There's not a lot to say about a boss when you take away all the unique attributes of our party. It's still not the lamest boss of this dungeon. Music: Results .jpg) There's an equal amount of payout for defeating Baigu as the male team received. But additionally, we get one new accessory! .jpg) It's just a nice necklace that makes the Judgement Wheel spin somewhat slower. No baby bones necessary. Kind of pedestrian, really. Music: ENDS .jpg) That wasn’t so bad. I did break a sweat, though… You know... kind of doing all the work. I thought the book would work out better. You thought a book would be equal to a gun when fighting monsters? Heh... Well, the pen is mightier than the sword, after all. Yeah, but this is a GUN, kiddo! This has over six bullets. That's more than enough to kill anything that moves! It's just science! If we're in a situation like this again, I'm going to give you a piece and you're going to cap a fool. OK, missy?  S-sure thing... Xiaofang comes in over the Taoist mysticism intercom. Meow, impressive! You ladies are good! I can’t believe this is your first time. The door to Ni Wan Palace will now open, meow. <nods>Elsewhere, at that same time... .jpg) Don’t worry. That girl’s pretty steady on her feet, and she’s got Margarete with her, too. I doubt they’ll be long. That door’ll open soon and we’ll all be able to enter Ni Wan Palace.Music: Tanjou .jpg) …What? What kind of person was my dad? Tell me about him… even if it’s just a little. I only remember him working the farm, and the fox mask he bought me on the day of the festival… And that he only seemed to have this one coat he wore all the time. Like all the time... Even to bed. It was kinda weird... You're one to talk, kid... But, yeah... Now that you mention it, he did wear that coat constantly. Shanghai gets hot in the summer and he was bundled up like he was going for a mountain hike. Your dad, hmm... Heck, he was a real stand-up guy.Zhuzhen stands up and nods to himself. .jpg)  Something about a piggy-back ride...? ...After that. <snorts> When I first met him, he was a Japanese Army operative, you know. So, I didn’t trust him right off. Like with you, we got into fights now and then. But, he’d always laugh them off afterward. What I really liked about your old man, though, was, well… Like you, he would rally against any injustice, even if it meant opposing his own country. He didn’t just fight for his country, he fought for everyone who lived on this continent. He often wondered if there wasn’t some way he could build a truly good county with his own hands. Then decided "no, that's crazy supervillain talk" and would decide against it. Never trust anyone that starts muttering about reshaping anything with their own two hands, kid. Express train to crazy town. A certain sorcerer I know in the area started out that way. Real warning sign... So he was a good man? Absolutely. He was a true friend to me… a better friend than I deserved. <stands up> …I see. My dad must’ve felt the same way about you. Heh heh… It’s nice of you to say that, kid.Music: Death - Zombie Party .jpg) Hey! The door opened! All right! I knew the girls had it in ‘em! <phoning in> Let’s do it people! The last dungeon, Ni Wan Palace, is just ahead. Meow!! But before you step in, it’s time for yet another Trial! Meow!! Meow-meeeow! It just saying the word "meow" is driving me up the wall. Is THAT pipsqueak why you were carrying around some anti-cat powder in the first place...? ...Maybe....jpg) No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination. .jpg) <shakes head> Cripes, can’t the old goat cut us SOME slack…? I can still punch things and if I see that cat-boy, I'm gonna relieve him of one of his nine lives. You know what...? At this point... Go for it, kid..jpg) No, no more. I'm taking a break. Tune in next time for the last portion of this terrible, Xenogears caliber dungeon. I need a nap.    Video: Episode 27 Highlight Reel (You should watch this just to see gross hand monsters in motion.) The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 13, 2018 15:21
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This dungeon always bothered me for some reason, but I could never figure out why and thought maybe I was just having a bad day. Good to see someone else shares my disdain for it, guess it wasn't just me. I also think Master Shoho is the Japanese reading of the characters used in Xiaofang's name, instead of the Mandarin reading. Which is weird they'd slip up on this since, say what you will about the other goofs, the translators went out of their way to render Chinese words for accuracy and atmosphere from a Japanese script. The Dark Id posted:Time for the first trial of Wuhan Temple, the Dan Tien Court. 1. Tian. 2. I'm think this should be, "We need."
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Aug 13, 2018 16:08
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Who thought this would be fun?
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Aug 13, 2018 16:30
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Ratoslov posted:Who thought this would be fun? The same people who thought that Koudelka would be fun if you could miss a key item to winning the game, or got it as a random drop by a specific enemy literally outside the final boss room, without telling you that it is vital to actually progress. .jpg) Never noticed they seemed to have hosed up one of the lower eye textures, before.
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Aug 13, 2018 16:43
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For reference sake, here's a map of the first two trials. Which might not seem all that bad laid out but keep in mind anything more than like two grid squares will almost certainly get interrupted with a 30-60 second random battle and the game doesn't bother to mention that the purple teleporters are just a waste of your time that send you to a different part of the map. I'd say there's some Koudelka peaking through with this crappy area, but at least Koudelka usually had the decency to make areas visually interesting and not just the same rock textures for an hour. 
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Aug 13, 2018 18:37
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i think the empty chests are because opened chests demonstrate that you have been in the room before, but they didn't want to give you too much stuff.
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Aug 13, 2018 18:46
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Pretty sure this is the point I would have slammed in the action replay or something. Kid me would not have had to patience for a dungeon like this, even if it wasn't overly difficult.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:45
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i think the empty chests are because opened chests demonstrate that you have been in the room before, but they didn't want to give you too much stuff. which is silly, they can just stuff them with Thera leaves or at least do some flavor text, but open tests are a good marker in warp mazes
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Aug 13, 2018 20:58
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I don't really remember this dungeon being that much of a pain to me. Though the dungeons in this game get much better from here.
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Aug 13, 2018 21:09
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The empty chest thing is probably what other people are saying, but part of me imagined they were the ones Zhuzhen opened on his first go through this and they just never got refilled.The Dark Id posted:You can't use 'em, but I'll see you some items. Second should be "wares", fourth should be "couple pieces"
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Aug 14, 2018 02:48
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These are definitely the bad idea dungeons. Restricting options is always a bad move because either it doesn't do anything or it's just way too wide of a sweeping net.
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Aug 14, 2018 08:34
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The Dark Id posted:It'd probably rather get struck by lightning than set on fire, personally.
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Aug 14, 2018 09:54
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I'm enjoying Zhuzhen's MAN drat DUDE! at his old master.
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Aug 15, 2018 07:50
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I can see they got a lot of mileage out of a small number of scene renders.
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Aug 15, 2018 18:30
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Either Baigu or the next boss was really difficult to me. Like roadblock hard. Mind you, this was back in the days where I was bad at JRPGs. B-Man is still very memorable to me so he probably gave me poo poo too.
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Aug 20, 2018 15:29
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Sorry for the delay in updates lately. My wife has been in the hospital with a medical emergency and that takes a LITTLE priority over an LP. Episode XXVIII: Xifa Music: Death - Zombie Party .jpg) One more of these lousy trials remain. This time literally all we're allowed to do in battles is have Yuri punch things. Zhuzhen is also present. .jpg) .jpg) If you think they mixed up the aesthetic of this third and final portion of the dungeon, you'd be dead wrong. If anything, they took all the flipped and edited versions of the same handful of maps from the two previous areas and smashed them all into this one trial. And of course, we're not exempt from... .jpg) Music: Brain Hopper .jpg) .jpg) Even the enemies in this part of the dungeon are a snooze. Since they kind of have to be since all we can do is hit them more than they can hit us. The first of two baddies present is the Brain Sucker. It does not attempt to suck any brains to my knowledge. Indeed, its Japanese name was just... Mysterious Frog. This frog is a fraud. All it does is toss rocks at people and if Yuri doesn't smash it first. .jpg) .jpg) The only other foe present in this portion of the dungeon is the Succubus Queen, which is... just a shrunken version of the transformed Li Li with some gaudy neon shaded texture edits. It lacks any of Li Li's more potent attacks, so it is only left with flailing its tentacles in our party's general direction. Sometimes it does this in a specific manner so as to potentially cause Confusion. It never once successfully landed a Confusion status ailment despite using it on our team at least a half dozen times through out the trial. Its Japanese name was just Yashahime, which is Half(-Demon) Princess. The only thing I could find with that name was some manga I never heard of whose wiki began with "the infamous gunslinger buxom witch who..." and I closed the article, deciding enough research had been committed to the topic. Moving on! Music: Death - Zombie Party .jpg) We'll be skipping the bulk of the remainder of this dungeon beyond the highlights. A couple of new items of interest were acquired along the way. Tossing this wood carving at someone will sort their poo poo out like nobody's business. .jpg) Where's the game with unique animations to show off how the hell you do properly use all these weird talismans and relics to cure ailments? This increases Intelligence. How the heck does that work? Do you rub it on your forehead? Do you slap it across their face? Is it pressed into their chest and absorbed? Do you eat it?! Inquiring minds want to know! .jpg) Unlike the previous two trials, where Xiaofang only showed up near teleporter nodes, we can actually find the brat hanging out down a dead-end path in the southern region of the third level of the Ni Wan Palace. It's really important we find him here. Since the only thing that would make this an even worse dungeon is if we broke a sidequest progression along the way... .jpg) Meowanna play the lottery? These aren't even puns. You're just adding meow to words now... Is that a yes or nmeow? Count me in..jpg) As it turns out, just this one specific time, down a deserted path that looks like seven other identical deserted cavern passages, Xiaofang will reveal himself to be Lottery Member No. 11. Remember, we have to win at least one prize from every single member of the Lottery to fully complete this quest. Guess what point in the game this quest became a wash for me the first time I played through it? And... the second time too when I was replaying this during the Koudelka LP to see if I wanted to do this game afterward, for that matter... Whatever, we're not in that timeline. .jpg) Our prize today is the Flash Badge. It does pretty much what it says on the box. It adds a rather significant 25 points of Agility, but the wearer is essentially permanently inflicted with the double speed Judgment Ring anomaly. I really prefer my Judgment Ring to be consistent, so I'm not big on anything that rejiggers it from normal speed/size/etc. But that's just me. .jpg) Meowby you can try again? Meowck you, brat..jpg) There's one final wrinkle in this particular trial. You see this tunnel with a treasure chest? .jpg) OK. Good? Now you see this tunnel with a treasure chest? Despite what it might appear at a glance, these are not the same tunnel. Look, that chest is scooted down a couple feet. How could you make such a mistake?! Additionally, one of these chests contains the reward of gently caress all and the other has... .jpg) ...a mission-critical item! By the way, we needed this item to complete the Ni Wan Palace trial. How were we supposed to know that? .jpg) Well, if we'd made it to the end of the region, then we'd find Master Xiaofang as usual and he'd inform us that... .jpg) The guard's power source is in front of the altar. It's called the "Shrine of the Five Elements." When all five powers are gathered, the guard will fill with power. You just need the power of the Wood Token. If you insert it into the pentagram, the guard will appear. There you have it. The Wood Token is only back through the teleporter and essentially taking a giant upside-down U path to the next tunnel over. Except for the part where you'd have no idea that was a case while playing normally and not looking at a map or guide. But, I think I definitely know how this could have been worse. .jpg) We'll get to that in a minute. For now, we need to do a brief bit of boss preparation. Particularly, we're going to stick a Pocket Watch accessory on Yuri to prevent any fuckery with the Judgment Wheel since now more than ever, he's the one carrying this boss fight. Margarete wishes she had to carry Alice this hard... .jpg) .jpg) In any case, heading into the shrine we have our last chance to save and heal up. We definitely want to be at full health before starting the fight since again, no actions are allowed beyond physical strikes all day, every day. .jpg) So, remember how I mentioned getting this Wood Token wasn't too difficult. It was quite close by to the end of the dungeon. Well, they repeatedly mentioned there are five total slots but only the one Wood Token is needed to complete this ceremony and summon the boss. Guess how many empty chests were in the Ni Wan Palace trial? Four chests... Out of curiosity, I went and looked at a map of the Dan Tian and Jiang Palace trials. There's five empty chests in both of those... I will bet good goddamn money you originally had to get five Wood Tokens in each of these trials to fill in at the shrines and fight the bosses. Along the way, someone smacked the devs upside the head, told them this dungeon was already bad enough and to knock off with that Koudelka-esque Key Item collection fetish they had going, and it was stripped down to the (still bad but not THAT bad) final version we ended up with here. Visit the scenic Wuhan Temple Ruins with their trademark slogan – "Hey, it could have been worse!" .jpg) Music: Brain Hopper .jpg) .jpg) Having wings for an index and pinkie finger must be the most inconvenient thing on the planet. Meet Qinggu, the third and final handy boy of the Wuhan Temple Ruins trials. Back in his land of origin, Qinggu went by Ancient Blue. Not so sure about either of these names, honestly. .jpg) This scaly clown comes packing 600 HP of which Yuri will be punching away about a good 581 hit points of on a good day with Zhuzhen's sorry support. It's a Water elemental enemy, so you'd think the sage would be able to contribute a little more than normal. But alas, Qinggu has some other ideas on the matter. .jpg) .jpg) Large Whirlpool is one of Qinggu's primary attacks. It only does a moderate 20-25 HP of damage to Yuri and slightly more 30-35 for the Fire elemental Zhuzhen. But it has a much more insidious secondary function. .jpg) .jpg) A Judgment Ring anomaly that cuts the size of the hit area in half. Since Yuri has the Pocket Watch equipped, he won't suffer those effects. Zhuzhen's not so lucky in this matter. He'll just have to make do with likely missing half his attacks because that's a really tiny target to hit. Especially, with a tiny amount of input lag. Sorry, old man. You're about as useful as an rear end in a top hat on an elbow for this battle. .jpg) .jpg) Not that it is much of a battle to speak of really. Beyond the whirlpool full party Water element attack, Qinggu also has a single target Water spell that does roughly the same exact amount of damage to each of the boys. We just have to kind of take that since there's no healing or debuffing magic or... anything interesting going on with this fight. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) It's just sort of five minutes of Yuri doing the same attack animation again and again until it finally falls over dead. Thank goodness that's the end of this bullshit and the game never pulls any dungeon gimmicks more advanced than forcing a particular party configuration or docking a character for a while. .jpg) For our efforts, we receive... the same amount of EXP and Cash we did the previous times. Alongside a third Leonardo's Bear (there was a second one somewhere during this area, don't worry about the where and when.) .jpg) Good work… All right, then, Master Xiaofang! We’ve passed the Spiritual Trials! Show yourself! Yeah, c'mon out and give me my abilities back! I didn't think I'd ever get bored of punching things... This place has ruined PUNCHING for me. That's just sick and wrong...Master Xiaofang teleports into the chamber. .jpg) Meow, meow!!A door opens, allowing Alice and Margarete to enter the shrine chamber. Music: Asian Parfait .jpg) Zhuzhen excluded for meowvious reasons. Come on, you’ve got no grounds for denying us further. Take us to the old man, won’t you? <turns to the door> Of course, meow! I’ll open the door to Nirvana Palace. Hold on. Meeeow meow meow… Um… MEEEEOW!! He better not break into some sorta meowing jingle.  ...I really hope he breaks into some sort of meowing jingle.The room flashes with light and the door behind Master Xiaofang slides open. .jpg) Xiaofang steps aside and lets us into Xifa's chamber. Before we go, it might be a really good idea to save and maybe heal up Yuri and Zhuzhen. I mean, they wouldn't want to do that dull boss fight again, now would they? The party enters Nirvana Palace. Meanwhile, back outside... Music: Profile .jpg)  ... <paces around> Hey, Lt. Colonel Kawashima. Can I ask you a question? What is it, Kato? Lt. Colonel... do you think... I would... Well... Err... Yes? Spit it out, already. Do you think I'd look good in a cape? ...A cape? Yeah, I was thinking of changing my look. ...With a cape? Ergh... Well... Forget I said anything! Hahaha... ...Well, it might draw attention away from certain... prominent features you possess... Being a bit too nervous about things? Sure... That... We'll go with that... Sure, you'd look fine in a cape. But, I don't think that will go over well at your current rank... Yeah... I'd need to work on that... Heh... Umm... T-thanks for the input, ma'am. Uhh... Well... That boy and his followers are taking their time... Yes. Maybe Lieutenant Suketani was right about them. Maybe they’ve failed. That can’t be! I… I put my faith in them to the end! Heh. It’s ironic, isn’t it? I find myself rooting for the enemy. I wonder why? They’re so reckless… yet somehow, I envy them. .jpg) Kato notices someone approaching and quickly runs in front of Kawashima to protect her. It takes him a few moments to realize it's Suketani and to relax his stance. .jpg) That was fast, Lieutenant. What happened to the others? We have twenty men hidden nearby. If something happens, they’ll be ready. Lt. Colonel, how is the situation? Yes… there’ll be no movement for now. Please wait a little longer. <looks at watch> A very little... <salutes> Understood.Suketani marches up to Kato, startling him in the process. .jpg) Up to something?! I’m counting on you, Sergeant..jpg) With that, Suketani and his men depart. I'm sure this internal conflict within the Japanese army won't lead to much of any concern. At that same time, in Nirvana Palace... Music: Asian Parfait .jpg)  Welcome back, Zhuzhen. Nice to meet you, ladies, and Hyuga’s son.The party enters the room. .jpg) The very same. And you’re Yuri? Like father, like son, it seems. You both carry a heavy burden. At any rate, welcome. I’ve been so bored lately… Today’s Trials were quite a pleasant change. Question: Out of a scale of one to ten, how much did my dad get annoyed with all this trial crap? <shrugs> Maybe a 6.5 at most. I’ll give you back your power and items now. I’ve added something for finishing the Trials..jpg) .jpg) We don't get a chance to see what Xifa gifts us for long enough that it was two hours later in recording game footage and I went "oh crap yeah, this thing!" It's this game's equivalent of an Elixir. Now to never use it because YOU MIGHT NEED IT LATER up until the credits are already rolling and you've realized later has never come. .jpg) Heh. I don’t care how much strength Dehuai has… he can’t break through this seal so easily. Just as I cannot leave it, he cannot come in. <steps forward> It’s an honor to meet you, Master Xifa. I’m Alice. <walks up to Alice> Ah! So, you’re the blue-eyed prophet I’ve heard so much about My, you DO have incredible power… No wonder Dehuai is drooling over you… He probably would succeed in his Valorization if he had you in his possession. My father lost his life protecting me from a warlock with similar plans, in a country far away… You don't need to be vague for my sake. I'm aware of European countries. I'm a hermit, not a shut-in. Tell me… why do people like Dehuai attempt such awful things? He's a dick. That is... a touch blunter than I was expecting. Your presumptions of my demeanor in being a mystical Chinese oracle are... <sigh> Europeans... Fine, let me rephrase it..jpg) <begins pacing> They’re motivated by vengeful hearts… They sacrifice many victims to their idol of revenge. I’m sure Dehuai hasn’t fully considered how the Demon’s Gate Invocation might change the world. Of course, I don’t know what would happen, either… but it must be stopped. One does not generally want to invoke demons nor open a gate containing demons and have things remain intact. Both of those words being in a dark ceremony...? Not great... …Oh, I almost forgot. There was something I wanted to give you. Xiaofang! <runs up to Xifa> Yes, Meowster. There’s a Votive Picture tablet of the White Tiger on the back shelf. Please fetch it for me. Gotcha!Xiaofang runs up to a nearby shelf. Music: ENDS .jpg) Xiaofang grabs the portrait and starts running back to Xifa. Mid-stride a surge of energy blasts the cat boy. .jpg) .jpg) ...Is that good? Wh-what?! The barrier may have become slightly weakened by the Trials, but… this cannot be! D-Dehuai?! Did you let the dick sorcerer in here by yanking our chains with those stupid trials?! No… Even Dehuai isn’t this powerful… …!! <nods> I know who this is!The room flashes with light several times and Master Xiaofang rises to his feet. .jpg) Actually, the cursed Harmonixer's son had it right the first time. And I don't appreciate being called a dick!Music: Misfortune - Psycho Temple .jpg) That voice! Dehuai! <rubs neck> OK... Mistakes might have been made... Ya think?!.jpg) Bastard! What have you done with Xiaofang?! Too late! The Votive Picture of the White Tiger is mine! Zhuzhen! Give me a healing talisman! A broken seal can’t be repaired. We must seal the entire temple! Ha ha ha! I’ll bring this temple down around your heads before you can!!.jpg) Xiaofang-Dehuai casts a spell rumbling the entire temple and wrecking everyone in the room, including Xiaofang, in the process. .jpg) Dehuai teleports into the room. .jpg) Master Xifa, you thought I’d be as weak as I was fifteen years ago? You fool… <walks up to Alice and laughs> Ah, such beauty…! Giving a free show too. How considerate. If I’d only come earlier, this moment would not have been delayed so long….jpg) Dehuai warps out of the room along with Alice. Xifa manages to regain consciousness and return to his feet just as Dehuai escapes. Music: God Knows Bad News .jpg) <stomps foot> This is not how I pictured this day going... <walks up to Xiaofang and prays> Poor Xiaofang. Please, forgive me..jpg) Oh, Master Xiaofang apparently got telefragged by Dehuai and is dead by the way. His body fades away to indicate that yes, he's incredibly dead. RIP, meow puns child. .jpg) I'm over a hundred, about to be homeless and my cat is dead. Time to make an exit from the stage, I think....jpg) The party is revived by Xifa's healing spell. They groggily return to their feet. .jpg) It’s all right, Zhuzhen. My time has come and gone. The rest I leave to you.Master Xifa falls to his knees. .jpg) Young Hyuga… Do not fear the dark. If you accept it, it will protect you in return. Then, what frightens you… will also disappear… Flying in planes...? For real? Right now you're going to get on that again?! No... I meant... Dying here. Could you keep it serious? Shoot. Sorry! I mean... <clears throat> N-no, you old fool! We’re not gonna let you die here!! Heh heh. I’ll transport you to the Samsara Pavilion with the last of my strength. Good luck… Now, go! Go to Kuihai Tower and rescue the girl!!The room starts shaking violently. I-it's collapsing!.jpg) Master Xifa teleports everyone out of the room just as the ceiling starts giving in... .jpg) ...and keels over dead. Introduced the same update he died. That's a new record for named, character portrait possessing NPCs in Shadow Hearts. But don't worry, that record doesn't stand forever. Tune in next time as the gang runs into complications escaping Wuhan Ruins and maybe we kill off another reoccurring NPC in the process as Shadow Hearts continues!  Video: Episode 29 Highlight Reel The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Aug 21, 2018 |
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Aug 20, 2018 18:32
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Sorry to hear about your wife, hope she has a speedy and safe recovery. Being stuck in the hospital sucks.
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Aug 20, 2018 19:00
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The Dark Id posted:This scaly clown comes packing 600 HP of which Yuri will be punching away 581 hit points of on a good day. quote:
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Aug 20, 2018 22:05
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Xander77 posted:Probably 6000? 600 is probably right. The Shadow Hearts series has never had the sort of HP inflation that was plaguing Final Fantasy games at the time.
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Aug 20, 2018 22:28
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ultrafilter posted:600 is probably right. The Shadow Hearts series has never had the sort of HP inflation that was plaguing Final Fantasy games at the time.
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Aug 20, 2018 22:53
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Xander77 posted:It wouldn't take 5 minutes to defeat with Yuri doing 580 HP per attack if it had 600 HP. I don't think it ever said he was doing 580 per attack (and, in fact, one of the screen shots has him doing 79 damage as part of a three hit combo)?
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Aug 20, 2018 22:54
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The message is ambiguous. Id most likely meant that Yuri would be doing 581 of the total damage, but it can be read as him doing it in one combo.
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Aug 20, 2018 22:59
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Well, that was predictable. All of this could've been avoided if you'd just given us the drat votive at the start.
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Aug 20, 2018 23:10
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Farewell, cat-kid. You were only slightly less annoying than the cat kids that were actively trying to kill us.
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Aug 20, 2018 23:22
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The Dark Id posted:Enquiring minds want to know! Should be inquiring (unless you're british).
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Aug 20, 2018 23:41
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The Dark Id posted:
Looks like a temporary tattoo. Stamp that tat right on your forehead to make you look and feel smarter.
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Aug 21, 2018 03:08
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The Japanese name for the Succubus Queen might be a reference to Lady Takiyasha. 夜叉姫 = Yasha hime 滝夜叉姫 Takiyasha hime Also, hope Mrs Dark Id is alright.
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Aug 21, 2018 04:24
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Not gonna lie, when those two were offed, I more or less felt nothing. Still don't. Maybe if I had seen more of their personalities and lives, I would actually care; alas, I find myself lacking in fucks to give. Your wife however? poo poo son, don't worry about updating, your wife and life take priority.
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Aug 21, 2018 06:15
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I half expected Alice's knocked out pose to be that same butt-in-the-air sleeping pose she's had, and maybe it is, but at least they turned her on her side.The Dark Id posted:Xiaofang grabs the portrait and starts running back to Xifa. Mid-stride a surge of energy blasted the cat boy. Should probably be "blasts" to keep the present tense.
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Aug 21, 2018 07:19
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Hope everything turns out alright. It does say something about your normal update pace that you'd apologize for having all of a single week between updates, and even that only due to highly extraordinary circumstances. Making the rest of us look like complete slackers as usual.
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Aug 21, 2018 10:13
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Hope everything is OK with your wife. Kind of wish Dehuai did a Mortal Kombat fatality telefrag on the annoying cat boy to kill him.
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Aug 21, 2018 18:44
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It's great to see an LP of this, the first two Shadow Hearts games are fantastic.
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Aug 21, 2018 23:20
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Let's get to a new page so we can finish off this crappy filler arc chapter.
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Aug 22, 2018 16:29
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this game really shadows my hearts really kouds my delka
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Aug 22, 2018 16:37
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Given your aversion to judgement ring modifiers so far, I'm looking forward to (Gameplay)your reaction to the best accessory in the game (provided you can do Yuri's basic attack with your eyes closed (which by the time you get it you should))
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Aug 22, 2018 16:40
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The Dark Id posted:Let's get to a new page so we can finish off this crappy filler arc chapter. On it boss!
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Aug 22, 2018 16:42
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Well that was a complete waste of time.
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Aug 22, 2018 16:43
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