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Hmm, the mystery deepens. She can't sense Leif at all, even though he's standing right in front of her? And there's obviously something more going on with Kabbu, with Venus heavily hinting that he's carrying some kind of burden without telling his teammates. And I think she expected him to ask something of her, perhaps for a boon, or an answer to a question? Very curious. And I believe Leif is catching up to this as well, even if Vi remains as oblivious as always. Also, I loved how Venus put down Vi, and Vi reacted with a simple "rude", that's pretty funny.
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Apr 22, 2021 09:07
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Torrannor posted:Hmm, the mystery deepens. She can't sense Leif at all, even though he's standing right in front of her? And there's obviously something more going on with Kabbu, with Venus heavily hinting that he's carrying some kind of burden without telling his teammates. And I think she expected him to ask something of her, perhaps for a boon, or an answer to a question? Very curious. And I believe Leif is catching up to this as well, even if Vi remains as oblivious as always. These are good questions. I don't want to say any more, but you're thinking about the right things. (Also, yes, Vi's rebellious anti-authoritarianism is a lot of fun to put in the same room as Venus.) Quick update for everyone reading: the next update is probably going to be a bit delayed. I've had to do a bit of travelling to get my first COVID vaccine, so between the disruptions to my schedule and (for now) sore arm I'm not expecting to get any recording done for the next couple of days. On the other hand... look at this! Limited Run Games are now offering physical editions of Bug Fables for both Nintendo Switch and PS4, as well as a collector's edition with all sorts of goodies. Spy Cards! I wonder if it will include enough to play the game with. I wasn't even necessarily planning to play this on console and I'm not usually tempted by this sort of thing, but I'm almost certainly going to end up buying this.
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Apr 23, 2021 15:33
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17: More Meetings, More Missions (Part 1) Last time, we met a Goddess, passed her trial, and received a lot of cryptic answers along with the artifact we were after. We certainly have a lot to think about. But enough about that, let's get started.  First things first, on booting the game, the title screen has updated again! Aria's joined Team Snakemouth hanging out in the plaza.  28 - Harvest Festival We start off where we left things, at the summit. The music has changed, though: from now on, the Golden Festival theme plays here.  Hey, Leif? You're feeling okay? Did her words get to you? We're not angry at you or anything. Ugh. You're fine alright. The magic is still quite potent, but we can manage. Heheh. Let's not spend too long here, then, for Leif's sake.There's a new banter here now.  Venus also encourages us to come back. Goddess Venus is so nice for someone of her status! No kidding... Elizant II could learn a bit from her. Maybe we should bring the Queen to visit! That will probably be difficult, I imagine. And we're not willing to put in the extra effort to make it happen. Aww...And there's a new banter if we check near Venus. This is an interesting thought; I'm honestly not sure why Leif is so opposed to this. (Also, it's interesting that, despite acknowledging her as a goddess, Team Snakemouth seem to be putting her in the same category as queens.)  On the way out, we notice the save crystals have all turned blue. No more free healing for us around here! Leif, you don't feel weird anymore? It's only weird when we feel new magic. Then it just kinda goes away. Phew. It'd be bad if you couldn't be near the artifacts at all!I had been starting to wonder about this, so I'm glad they actually address it. It seems Leif acclimatises after the inital reaction to strong magic.  Also, before I forget, let's get Favorite One back on.  Time to head down, there's nothing else to see here for now. 26 - Golden Lands When we get back to the Settlement, someone hails Team Snakemouth from off-screen.  It's quickly revealed to be Levi and Celia.  We couldn't even watch the last ceremony... but we heard you made it into the hills! I assume you've found the artifact? That's right! I'm so jealous! That's two important artifacts you snagged from everyone else! Great job! We should head back to the Ant Kingdom at once! The Queen will be very pleased. Heheh! We're doing great! Come now, Vi, let's go to the Ant Kingdom. We will go on ahead to notify the Queen and prepare an audience. If you don't want to walk all the way back, you should go through the Ant Tunnels. There should be one just outside the settlement. Don't leave the Queen waiting!I suppose they want to make absolutely sure that you know about the tunnels. There's not a whole lot to see or do here now, we'll want to head that way shortly.   You must've done very well to receive her approval.Aria's still here and has new dialogue; I guess she has a direct line of communication with Venus. Good to know that any backtracking we might want to do won't be impeded by the festival being through.  Checking in with Samira, you can see the real reward for doing the Devourer early: "Reckless for Glory" appears as early as possible in the song order.   The inn is actually open for us to stay now, if we want to. May as well, I guess, since we're injured from the boss fight and the chapter end didn't heal us.  Great! That's 9 berries accounted for! I hope you have a good night! 20 - Night at the Inn  Did you sleep well? I hope you consider returning in the future!This inn's a bit of a rip-off compared to the one in the Ant Kingdom: we don't get any free breakfast here!  If we go down to the bar, we can meet someone new. This person wasn't here before.  I heard Mothiva was here... but it seems I missed her! I wonder where her next show will be.Somehow, I suspect he's better off not knowing. The banter is a bit more interesting: A stag beetle! How nostalgic... There aren't many of these in Bugaria. My homeland's bustling with them! And many other beetles. Like a Kabbu kingdom, huh.We don't know a whole lot about Kabbu's homeland, so it's nice to get the occasional hint.  On our way back to the mines, there's another new face. This... Numbnail cosplayer?... has set up shop where the caravan used to be. H-He's wearing Numbnails! Not doing himself any favors, if he wants to look approachable. L-Let's not be quick to judge! I'm sure he's an upstanding merchant!Let's see what he's about, I guess.   Kukuku... Try buying my Sleep Bomb! Press (A) near it! Kukuku... Just mixing a Spicy Bomb with a Numbnail Dart has such a great result!Okay then. Guess it's nice to have a hint about how to make that sort of thing, and mentioning the Spicy Bomb could be a hint to players who haven't discovered it yet that they might want to experiment more. This shop's inventory is different from what the caravan had to offer in this location. Let's check it out:  Numbnail Dart (8 berries) Sleep Bomb (30 berries) Drowsy Cake (10 berries)None of these are new, but it's convenient to have a source of Numbnail Darts if we need them for cooking, and it's good to know that the cheap Drowsy Cakes are still available if we want them. 30 berries for a Sleep Bomb is a lot, and it's more than it'd cost to make ourselves (23 berries for ingredients), but that's the price of convenience.  There's nothing else new to see, so let's get moving. I'm not sure if I've shown this animation before, so here it is. 18 - In the Court of the Ant Queen The mines are the same as the last time we saw them, no need to linger.  Looks like some people we know are hanging out in the palace lobby, though.  .png) Whatever it was, it wasn't me!Gen and Eri are over here.  And Kina's back here. If we check for a banter about either of them, all we get is this: We should head to the audience.All right then.   Don't leave her waiting if you know what's best for you.The guard at the door seems pretty impatient.  Ah, you're here. Come now, the Queen's waiting for us.Levi and Celia both join in the chorus. Were we the last ones to get here? If we check the banter for either of them, we get this: We should talk to the Queen.If it looks like a railroad, and it sounds like a railroad... hmm, that doesn't sound nearly as good as the duck version.  When we approach the throne, we can see Neolith is here, and he starts the discussion. Everyone else files in behind us. (It's really crowded... those questions will have to wait.) Yup! We're ready for that reward! Wonderful! This timing is simply impeccable. I must congratulate you, for bringing this artifact to my care. This must be a sign of even more good things to come. For the Ant Kingdom, and Bugaria. It was our honor, Your Highness! Zaryant, please collect the artifact and hand them their rewards. As you command, my Queen. Vi hands over the Ancient Tablet. You have earned this, Team Snakemouth.  We're still getting paid for the missions. Heheh. Thanks again! The Vi Bank keeps filling!  Oh! M-may I take a look, as we discussed? Yes. Make haste, Zaryant. Handle it with care, Professor. O-Of course!  This tablet must contain information on how to find the Everlasting Sapling!(Venus already told us that) What? But that's just a bunch of blue lines! Oho, Vi! That's where that mask you found in Snakemouth comes in!.png) I-It really was a mask!? I thought it was just a weird rock... Heheh, so I was right! Don't boast, Kabbu. (It's really hard to tell who's saying what in this scene, with how many characters are here. I think the left bubble is Kina's?)   Wonderful... Very, very wonderful...! We are making progress in finding the sapling. Finally. What do you need the Everlasting Sapling for? ...That is not for you to know. Tch... Just know that with it my mother's dream will come true at last. (Elizant's dream?)(Honestly, I'm making an educated guess that Leif is the one speaking the three lines here; the speech bubble comes from off-screen so it's hard to be sure.) Professor. How long will it take you to decipher this tablet? Oh, um... it will be some time. Even with the mask, the runes are still in Roach Script. S-Sorry. I see. Fret not, that leaves us with time to retrieve the other artifact. There's another one? Mhm. My research indicates there are three artifacts. With the missing key, we can "unlock" the Everlasting Sapling! Then... we're almost at the finish line! R-Really? Long ago, before knowing of its real nature, they used it when building the Honey Factory's Core. But I'm not sure if they will give it to us, because taking it out will shut down the whole thing... It'll shut down the factory? B-But... Do not worry, both of you. We have sent our envoys to the Bee Kingdom ever since you told us about the key. Finally, they have agreed to let us take it, in exchange for materials to build a replacement. That is wonderful! Oh, joy! Then it won't cause them any trouble! So the job's trading these materials for the artifact? Precisely. That is your next mission.  Geez. Team Snakemouth is on a roll, aren't they? It's all fair game, Celia. We have our own tasks to excel at. With that, you are all dismissed. Except Team Snakemouth and Team Celia. I wish to have a word with you.  The professor has mentioned you all helped him when he was attacked. For that, you have my gratitude. ... It was worrying, though. They seem to know about the artifacts somehow... Then it is as I feared. We are running out of time. You must all remain on guard, and avoid the northern border with the Wasp Kingdom at all costs. As you wish, Your Highness. To reach the Bee Kingdom, you must travel southeast from the Association, and take the first north exit. With my permission, explorers may now cross the passage to the Lost Sands. Be wary, however. The number of bandits in the Lost Sands has been increasing lately. Head straight to Defiant Root as soon as possible, to enter the Bee Hive. ... Dismissed! 33 - Chapter 3: Factory Inspection And now we get the official start of Chapter 3! This sounds like a straightforward diplomatic mission; I wonder how that will end up going wrong.  If you have time, perhaps you could check out the Quest Board in the Plaza...? Try not to clear the mission too quickly, so we may catch up! No promises.With that, Celia and Levi leave, and the cutscene finally ends. That was a lot of talking! (We're not done with talking yet, though.) We were certainly going to check out the quest board regardless, but this is hinting about a specific quest that will end up involving them too.  I hope it will be smooth sailing for you! Having Vi on your team must be a big help. Uh. Yeah. Definitely.Neolith is still here, and we can talk to him although that's all he has to say. There's also a banter: I'm so proud of Neo! The Queen's own trusted researcher! I'm still not convinced this is platonic. Neither Zaryant nor the Queen have new dialogue, but there's a new banter: ...Elizant II... You probably shouldn't keep staring. Leif, she may not be perfect, but she's trying. Our respect is something she must earn, as did the late Queen. Okay, okay. But stop staring, before they jail us! (It's that fear which separates them...)Leif's still a bit uneasy about the Queen.  Do it on the double. Don't keep Her Highness waiting.The door guard is still impatient. We're definitely going to disappoint her, I think.  When we leave the throne room, Team Snakemouth stop for a chat in the lobby again. This is getting to be a habit. Uh huh... Vi, are you okay? I know you're not on the best terms, but- Ah... Well, if you don't want to talk about it... There's something we want to discuss. What's up? Venus mentioned that our... our team got away from Snakemouth's depths. Maybe their children are around. Do you follow? Oh. Oh! That's right! Your team can be around in spirit! Leif, you'd like to go look for them? We're in the middle of a mission, so there's no rush. But if we ever find the time... No problem! We'll just find them as we go along! Indeed. We'll keep our eyes open. ...Thank you. That's all. Let's get on with the mission. Uh, right... Yeah. Let's go. Oh dear... What's this?   A new sidequest has automatically added itself to our quest log, with Leif as the quest giver. Trying to find the descendants of Leif's friends and family isn't just a flavour thing, it's an actual sidequest we can do. (Although, truthfully, it'll be a while before we can make much progress on this.) 17 - Ant Kingdom  Leaving the palace, Utter alerts us that the quest board has updated too.   There are two new quests available, and as Levi and Celia were hinting, they want to cooperate with us on one of them. We'll get to that soon enough.  The theatre's literally right here, so we may as well knock that one out now. 22 - Fine Arts Is that Chubee on the stage looking for us? Yes, yes it is. Woah, Chubee's an actress!? It seems she holds many talents, aside from eating! If she's as good at acting as she is at eating, this should be good.Let's talk to her and see what she needs from us.   Vi, you're going to participate? Miss Chubee, you're the actress mentioned in the post? A fierce eater, and also a talented performer... It's nothing! You'll all do great! We just have to rehearse! No audition? M.M.'s a bit desperate... We can start as soon as you are ready. Let's do it!   Oh dear.  People are coming in, I believe in you! Hopefully that won't be misplaced faith... Let us do our best. This play carries a lot of people's efforts! And we're actually getting paid. Let's do this!The game actually gives us a break here; we have to talk to Chubee again to actually start the show proper.  (No) Audience's getting impatient. Don't take too long!That's what she says if we refuse. Anyway, let's do this? 13 - It's Getting Scary!   Travelers from all over the world wished to visit for its clear water and its beautiful ruler. The princess would greet all who came with smiles and hospitality. It was so, how an evil prince fell in love... The curtains open on Chubee and a ladybug actor.   Oh, how I wished for thee to make this easy. You have left me no choice!     W-We will stop you! Minions! Get rid of these pests. We have places to be. H-Help me! Somebody save me! Exit stage left.  (Vi's making it all up as she goes along) You freakish beasts, you dare stand between us and the princess!? You chose poorly. Prepare yourself! 04 - FIGHT!  There's actual combat in this play! Although this first battle is pretty simple, and not really worth showing. The neat thing here is the audience are still visible in the foreground, and they'll move around a bit while the battle goes on; this is likely a reference to the audience mechanics in Paper Mario: TTYD, though it's only a cosmetic thing here.  Easy peasy.  Curses! That villain escaped with the princess. Whatever shall we do now? How will we face the people!? We will get her back! After them! 13 - It's Getting Scary! The journey was long, and the desert unforgiving... Water... Oh gods, guide us to water... Do not complain! Our suffering is slim, compared to what the princess faces. Oh, Vi.  Who are these guys?  Out of our way, scoundrels. We have no time for thee. Yeah! Or face my beemerang! I mean, blade!  Your greed knows no end... Prepare yourself! 04 - FIGHT!  These guys are new! They're not exclusive to this play, but it serves as a preview of some of the enemies we'll be facing later in this chapter, and we may as well take the opportunity to get spy data on them.  I'm gonna knock 'em out of the air and take everything he's stolen! Be ready, you rascal. My strength is far greater than you remember!You might already be able to see these are a bit of a step up from what we've faced so far. These are definitely Chapter 3 enemies.  Leif goes for Icefall in the hopes of freezing one or both, but it doesn't manage to get either. Still, it's decent enough damage. (You can feel free to spend TP freely in these battles, as Team Snakemouth get healed to full between scenes.)  The dragonfly thief uses a diving attack on Kabbu, but I manage to block it. The glint in his eye means he'll attempt to steal an item from us, but blocking prevents that from happening. (We'll surely see the effects of this properly later.)  And the cricket chucks a shuriken at Vi.  Here we are at the start of the next turn. (I will note, because I don't think we saw it happen before, that apparently Favorite One still triggers even on a 0 damage hit.)  Since he's now boosted, let's have Leif do another Icefall.   Which leaves the Thief low enough for Vi and Kabbu to finish off.  Leif blocks another shuriken.  And that's more or less it. We can finish the cricket off this turn, by rotating Kabbu in front and then having one of the others relay to him once.  These new enemies are worth a lot of EXP. Not bad!    The fleeing bandits leave a Honey Drop behind.  We are saved! Honey! It's our lucky day! Eat quickly, for there is no time to celebrate. We must reach our liege with haste! 13 - It's Getting Scary! And now, it was time to take back what they had lost... Even with all my riches, with the grandeur of my land... You would still reject me!? Hey! Give the princess back! You will pay for your crimes! My knights! You've come to my aid! Why... Why must fate work against me? 04 - FIGHT!  Were you expecting anything different? Let's see what we're dealing with.  We won't show mercy. We'll teach them a lesson they won't forget.It's a bit awkward that the regular spy text is used here, honestly. That said, the "prince" isn't quite a normal Burglar: he has twice the standard HP and can do some things the regular enemy can't, bringing this closer to the level of a miniboss. While I wouldn't say this is as tough a fight as, say, Zasp and Mothiva, it isn't a joke either.  Kabbu gets things started with a Heavy Strike.  Then Vi relays to him for another hit.  This is the special ability for this fight: he can blow a whistle and summon allies. This can be either a Thief or a Bandit, and both are annoying in their own way (we haven't seen everything either can do yet).  The Bandit immediately gets a turn after being summoned, and throws a shuriken at Leif.  The enemies have more total HP at the start of turn two than they did at the beginning of the fight. Lovely.  Kabbu attacks the Bandit.  Leif freezes the Burglar with Frigid Coffin.  And Kabbu attacks again after a relay.  More shuriken. At least this one hit Kabbu, so we'll get some charge-up boosts out of it.  Let's leave the frozen Burglar alone, and take down the Bandit. Kabbu and Leif attack normally, then Vi relays to Kabbu for the finishing blow to preserve her charge.   Seems like as good a time as any to move Vi in front and go for a Hurricane Toss. The others just attack for now.   This is not what I wanted to see. Looks like this fight's going to go on for a while yet.  We do get to see a new attack from the Bandit, though. Like the Thief, the glint in his eye indicates this attack can steal items from us (though, again, blocking prevents that).  Kabbu attacks the Bandit because he's forced to.   While I have Leif and Vi stay on the Burglar. Focusing on the adds seems fruitless here when he just keeps summoning more.   They both attack Kabbu this turn, and we see a new attack from the Burglar: he can throw rocks, looking similar to Kabbu's Pebble Toss though more damaging.  At least hitting Kabbu gave us boosts this turn. That means we'll be able to finish the Burglar off.  Leif switches into the front and attacks.  Then Vi gets a hit in.  And Kabbu relays to Leif for the final point of damage.   We still have to deal with the final Bandit, but that's easy enough.  Wow, look at that EXP haul! You can really rack up a lot of it in this fight if he keeps calling more help. (He does have one other attack we didn't get to see here. I'm not going out of my way to show it now, because we'll encounter ordinary Burglars later in the chapter and they can also do it.)   Yes, apparently you can level up while doing a stage play. I'm not going to complain. (No bonus this time, just whatever you choose.)  I will show you my true power! No... We are too drained from the fight! Is this the end for us...? Hey, I can still fight! 08 - Getting Stronger!(Yes, it uses the level-up music as a victory fanfare here)    In the name of my mother, the Queen... I grant you the highest honors. To stay by my side as my right-hand bugs, as we restore our kingdom. It was all for you, Princess. Chubee turns toward the audience and takes a bow as the curtains close. That's a wrap!  It went way better than great. I didn't really like my role, but I managed. It was super easy. Now for payment... It's a bit weird to be paying Team Snakemouth! Heheheh... Nyehehehe. Thanks, Chubee. Honestly, a lot of people are asking for an encore. Guess I'll stay 'til they're bored! And that's the quest completed. This one's pretty cute, I always enjoy doing it. (It amuses me that Kabbu complained about his role, when the knight Leif was playing would have been very well-suited to him. And of course Vi just improvised her way through the entire thing. The first time I did this I was halfway expecting we'd get to play the Bug Rangers; this is fun too, if not quite as exciting as that would have been.) A fun bit of trivia here: a version of this quest was in the demo, but instead of Chubee and the Burglar, the starring roles were played by Mothiva and Zasp, and you fought Zasp at the end. The surrounding dialogue is different accounting for their personalities; I might show it in a bonus update at some point.  Chubee wasn't kidding about encores: you can come back and talk to her whenever, and she'll offer to do the play again. She'll keep paying, too, so this might not be an awful way to grind berries if you need them. For now, though, we're done here. Unfortunately, due to the post limit, I need to split the update again. Now seems as good a time as any. Explopyro fucked around with this message at 09:24 on May 25, 2021 |
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Apr 30, 2021 08:14
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17: More Meetings, More Missions (Part 2) Let's go meet up with Levi and Celia now? 17 - Ant Kingdom As we're passing through the Residential District, we can notice this house's door is now open, and if we get too close a scene will start.  Tod's here.    Leif reacts pretty strongly to the sight of her.  Aww, Mom... Can't I play a bit longer? Sweetie, you need to eat! It'll give you all the power you need to play all day! I made you your favorite! A tasty Hearty Breakfast! Woah! Thanks, Mom! They go back into the house. Leif? Who is Muse?(We have heard this name before. Leif mentioned wishing she could be at the festival with him.)   I-Impossible. Then she's got to be your super mega granddaughter! That's right...! Isn't it great? You can meet up with your relatives! Lost to time, not even understanding ourselves... It can't be that bad... To them, we're just a stranger. If we're going to intrude on their life... We need to know the truth about what happened to us. We will help you, Leif. Every step of this journey. Uh, yeah! And when you're ready, we can come back and meet them! ...Thanks. Let's keep an eye out for clues. We can't ignore our mission, though. Let's keep going. (Even so... we're glad to see them safe and happy.)The plot thickens. This has to be really difficult for Leif to deal with. (Also, clearly he remembers more than he's been willing to talk about; this is the first he's mentioned having been married.)  Our quest log adds a new update after seeing this scene. The game is a bit ambiguous about how much time has passed and how many generations it's been since Leif fell into Snakemouth. Muze (the lady we just saw, not to be confused with Muse) is almost certainly his descendant, but it's unclear exactly how distant (the quest log text here seems to be implying she's his daughter, but most details elsewhere contradict that; I think the wording here is supposed to be speculative, but it doesn't quite come across correctly). If we try to walk too close to the entrance of the house, Leif will stop us in a short scene:  Very well. Let's come back once we learn what happened in Snakemouth Den.We'll need to learn more before he'll be willing to meet them. There's also a new banter for us to see at the bank:  Hmph. What if after we put in a huge deposit they just steal our money and run to a hot spring or something!? Come on... Have more faith in our land's bank system!What kind of bug would do a thing like that? I'm almost certain that exact thing has happened to some other bugs in some other world.  Entering the commercial district, we find Levi and Celia. I hope we haven't made Levi and Celia wait too much... Let's start this meeting, then.Let's talk to them.  Indeed, Levi. What seems to be troubling you? Err... Are you sure about this, Levi? This IS pretty dangerous... Celia, Kabbu and the others have found enough artifacts to prove their skill. Heheh. You tell her. What's the job? Pays well? Oh, it's worth the trouble. The situation is... we're after this criminal known as Monsieur Scarlet. Every now and then, he posts requests in the board asking for help. And then preys on the well-meaning explorers, draining their life force! Yikes. We expected a petty burglar, or something of that sort. Sadly not. He's even the reason why the old tunnel to the Golden Hills is abandoned! He's caused us a lot of trouble. We've gathered enough intel to confidently say his hideout is in that old tunnel. Really? How can someone hide in a straight hallway? If you offer us your help to catch him, it will become clear. ...Please. He is not someone we can apprehend alone. We'll do it. It sounds like being frozen over would do him some good. Leave it to us, comrades. Mhm! What a relief! You're truly a team one can rely on. Sheesh. At least wait until the mission's over to praise them! We'll be going to the tunnel now, okay? Meet us there, and we'll begin the operation! We'll see you there.They leave as soon as this conversation is through. Looks like we have some bounty hunting ahead of us! Let's take our time though, we have a bit more administrivia to take care of beforehand.  Such as this: it's a new chapter, which means Merab has gotten a new shipment in. Here's what he currently has on offer:  Numb Resistance (30 berries) Secure Pouch (30 berries) Poison Needles (65 berries)I have enough berries, so I'm just going to buy all three. Numb Resistance is just like Poison Resistance and Sleep Resistance, granting 50% resistance to the status. Seeing this here is a good hint that we'll be encountering enemies with Numb soon; it's probably worth picking this up, because Numb can be a debilitating status. Secure Pouch costs 1 MP and prevents enemies from stealing items; it also makes it so you don't lose any berries when running from battles. This is pretty convenient, if not necessarily worth 1 MP later in the game; seeing this here, especially after doing the play, should be a hint that item-stealing enemies will be prevalent soon. Poison Needles costs 3 MP and makes Vi's needle skills cause the poison status. What's that? Vi doesn't have any needle skills? Shhhh. (This medal does literally nothing for us right now, and it won't become useful until we gain some more ranks and Vi learns the relevant skills. But I have the berries to spare, and I'll want it eventually.) 06 - Outskirts The caravan are back in the outskirts, with their usual inventory.  The last thing I want to do for now is check in with Artis; he owes us a couple of medals. 03 - Where Adventurers Gather  Hmmm! Good job, folks! You defeated that hardened Venus' Guardian! Was it too challenging for ya? You deserve a reward. Here, take this! Oh ho! You've been on a roll! Beat Zasp too, eh? Here, take this as well! Come back later when you've bonked some extra hard heads with that Medal, will ya?As you can see, Artis can queue up multiple rewards just fine. There's no need to constantly come back mid-chapter if it would be inconvenient (though of course you can if you want the reward ASAP), he'll just store up everything until you come to claim it. This is a pretty nice haul, too: these are some fun ones.  Spiky Bod is one of my favourite medals to use. It costs 3 MP, and makes Kabbu deal counterattack damage when blocking (if the enemy's attacks make contact; it doesn't work on projectiles). It's 1 damage on a regular block, or 2 damage on a Super Block (which increases to 3 damage if he's wearing at least one Super Block+ medal, though multiple copies don't increase it further). Like poison, though, this damage can't kill enemies, and will leave them on 1 HP instead. If you set Kabbu up for tanking and plan to use Taunt frequently, you can get a fair bit of free damage out of this, especially if you're good at timing your blocks. It feels really satisfying to pull off. Break is another skill-granting medal, the first of many that give Leif access to status buffs and debuffs (finally, a spell for him that doesn't involve ice!). For 2 MP, this gives him the ability to cast Break, which for 2 TP applies a 2 turn Defence Down debuff to one enemy. This can definitely come in handy, though it's kind of situational since it doesn't do anything against enemies with base 0 defence.Both of these are a welcome addition to our capabilities, they're definitely going to see some use. This seems like a good place to wrap things up for today; next time, we take on the notorious Monsieur Scarlet. Explopyro fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Apr 30, 2021 |
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Apr 30, 2021 08:14
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Ah, break. The beginning of Leif's spell kit getting very, very good.
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Apr 30, 2021 13:14
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Explopyro posted:(finally, a spell for him that doesn't involve ice!). Ah, but it's a nice spell 
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Apr 30, 2021 16:57
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Especially on hard mode you're going to see more enemies with defense than enemies without. I played on Normal and I never took off break. (It also has fun applications with defense-ignoring attacks as I previously mentioned.) Also, one of the lines is messed up, a Tod line has a Muze portrait.
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Apr 30, 2021 17:50
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FoolyCharged posted:Ah, break. The beginning of Leif's spell kit getting very, very good. Oh yes. Quackles posted:Ah, but it's a nice spell  I'm not even mad, just jealous I didn't think of it first.Alxprit posted:Especially on hard mode you're going to see more enemies with defense than enemies without. I played on Normal and I never took off break. (It also has fun applications with defense-ignoring attacks as I previously mentioned.) Thanks for the catch! Fixed that (and a couple other minor things, sigh). That's what I get for writing these posts on too little sleep... On the defence issue, yes, it's quite prevalent and I'm by no means saying Break is bad. It's a great spell. (And don't even get me started on Hardest where there are literally no enemies with less than 1 defence. I keep being surprised running into things with 0 in this run.) Honestly, I probably use it less than I should. In prior playthroughs I wasn't quite up on how the glitch worked, so tended not to think about using it unless the enemy had more than 1 defence (because so many attacks have the "ignore 1 point" thing, I assumed it was redundant).
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Apr 30, 2021 18:06
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Do we know what the Everlasting Sapling does? "Everlasting" sounds like infinity, does she plan to make herself immortal or something? She's still shady, and it would make sense that she wouldn't be the only on looking for the Sapling if it granted somebody eternal life, would explain the wasps being after it as well.
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Apr 30, 2021 21:16
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The theater is a decent place to level up and get berries at that point of the game. I remember grinding several levels in there. Though, it made Chapter 3 a breeze... whoops!
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May 1, 2021 02:17
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Torrannor posted:Do we know what the Everlasting Sapling does? "Everlasting" sounds like infinity, does she plan to make herself immortal or something? She's still shady, and it would make sense that she wouldn't be the only on looking for the Sapling if it granted somebody eternal life, would explain the wasps being after it as well. All we have to go on right now is this line from the opening crawl:  That said, strictly speaking we don't even know if the legend is true. Sketchie posted:The theater is a decent place to level up and get berries at that point of the game. I remember grinding several levels in there. That would certainly do it.
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May 1, 2021 16:16
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18: A Study in Scarlet Content warning: problematic LGBTQ character tropes (involving predatory gays and crossdressing). I've seen a lot worse, but it honestly isn't great. Today, we're helping Levi and Celia with their plan to take down the notorious Monsieur Scarlet. They're setting the bait, and we need to help them close the trap. While he's a distant second to the Devourer, Scarlet is a boss that can be quite challenging for the time you can first face him. I wouldn't hold it against any player who decided to leave him for later, when they're stronger. On the other hand, the rewards for beating him are excellent and open up a lot of content, so unlike the Devourer there are good reasons to do it ASAP. 25 - Caves They're waiting for us here, in the cave connecting Bugaria Outskirts and Golden Path, just like they said they would be. Before we talk to them, let's make sure we're prepared.   I've restocked on healing items, just going for a decent variety of HP and TP options. In addition, I killed some Underlings for Danger Spuds and made them into Burly Chips.  Also, Kabbu's added Spiky Bod to the combination of Poison Defender, Weak Stomach, and Favorite One he's been using recently. Let's see how that works out. Checking for a banter near Levi or Celia just has Kabbu encourage us to talk to them: We should talk to Levi and Celia once we are ready to fight Scarlet...So let's do that.  Yes, we're ready.  Uhh... All I see is a wall? Hmm. We can feel some faint magic, though. You see... this wall is but an illusion. Scarlet disguises the area up ahead from the common folk so he can hide there. Only his prey don't see it. He only attacks when the victim accepts his request... That's why I cannot see the wall. It's no wonder we couldn't find him, but when Levi picked up that suspicious quest... Well, the pieces came together. W-Wait, you mean Levi is Scarlet's target? That's crazy! Please, calm yourself. I understand the risks. But if we follow the plan, we can capture him. Levi will go ahead by himself, to drop Scarlet's guard. Then, we will jump him while he's distracted. A-Are you sure? He could really hurt you! You have my trust. We are five, and he is but one. ...Got it. Let's do it, then. Glad you understand. Let's begin the mission! Levi walks right through the wall. Scarlet seems pretty devious, and there's a lot that could go wrong with this plan, but we're already committed...  Shush! Don't screw this up! Yeah, Vi. Shhhhhh. Drop it, Leif. We cut to Levi inside the hideout area.    I've come to hear what troubles you. My, my! So direct and to the point... Just relax. That is how you can help me...- Just... relax...- Well, that's not the sort of attack I'd have expected him to make. He just effortlessly knocks Levi down with his umbrella, then whacks Celia too as she rushes in behind him.  Give up, Scarlet! You are cornered! Hmph. You have no idea what I've faced before. Come and try me. I'll suck your life energy to the husk...!That's not creepy at all. Well, here goes...  Click me for video! 29 - Team, This One's Stronger! (Miniboss)  Let's see what we're dealing with here.  And it heals him too! It's super annoying... We'll have to go all out!Vi has just revealed the main gimmick of this battle. Like his behaviour might have suggested, Scarlet here is something of a vampire. His 45 max HP can be deceptive, he can take a lot more punishment than that before going down.  Leif starts the attacking off.  And here we start implementing the plan. Kabbu taunts him from the rear.  Ouch! Scarlet's first move is to throw his umbrella at Kabbu, like a boomerang. This hits twice (base damage 4, then 3 on the second hit; Back Support and Favorite One are cancelling each other out, so that's what we see here). You can block on each hit, at least, but I completely botched it here and took full damage. Nasty. He also heals based on the damage done, undoing what little progress we've made! I'm not entirely sure how the calculation works: the wiki claims it's 75% of the damage dealt, but I'm not sure how you get 4 from these numbers if that's the case. I think it's doing 50% rounded up, but calculating the rounding separately on each hit.  Still, at least we get the Favorite One activation.  Leif attacks again.  Vi throws Kabbu some Burly Chips, implementing the next stage of the plan. This triggers Weak Stomach, giving him 3 turns of poison and activating Poison Defender. He's now at +2 defence.  And Kabbu taunts again.  Here's a new attack from Scarlet. This blown kiss has 4 base damage, and also applies 1 turn of Defence Down (so much for my plans!). At least I managed to block, so he didn't heal very much.  This is still looking pretty stalemated, isn't it.   At least we can do more damage this turn, thanks to the charge-ups. It feels a bit wasteful having Vi just attack directly here, rather than saving her boost for a multi-hit attack, but I was thinking about tempo a bit: spending them here lets her start saving up from 0 again, then unleash a big attack later when it'll be more impactful.  And Kabbu keeps on with the taunting.  Scarlet goes for yet another new move. This shockwave is one of the easier attacks to deal with: it's just damage, with no healing or debuff tacked on, and the block timing's pretty easy. This is the only attack he has that doesn't heal him.  Scarlet not healing for two turns let us make some progress, at least.  Leif attacks again.  Vi uses a Honeyed Leaf on Kabbu. His health was getting dangerously low, and Taunt's been draining our TP.  Kabbu keeps taunting.  Scarlet uses the shockwave again, and I manage to Super Block it.  We're slowly making progress.   Leif attacks, then attacks again after a relay from Vi (to preserve her charge).  Kabbu just keeps taunting.  At the beginning of his turn, Scarlet powers up his attack. This is on an HP trigger but I'm not sure of the exact value, it's something like 55-60% (we haven't quite gotten him under 50% yet).  Wow, the umbrella boomerang is a lot less scary with good timing (and defence buffs).  Proof of concept here, the attack boost Scarlet gave himself is permanent. That said... with a bit of luck, we can take him out this turn, so it's less scary than it could be.  Step one: get Vi in front, then have Leif go for the freeze with Frigid Coffin. Scarlet has 45% base freeze resistance, so the odds are pretty good (though I'd been deliberately avoiding freezing him on prior turns to keep my chances as high as possible).  Step two is, of course, Hurricane Toss. With maximum charge, in front, and getting the bonus for hitting a frozen enemy, Vi just did 18 damage.  Leaving Scarlet on 2 HP, where Kabbu can finish him off.    And done! That run went very cleanly, thanks in part to my getting pretty good RNG with his attacks; he has quite a few other things he can do, some of which are quite nasty:   Scarlet has two different melee strikes with the umbrella, neither of which we saw in that fight. Both of these heal him based on the damage, and the stronger version also applies Attack Down for one turn. (Ironically, you can see Spiky Bod kicking in here, when it never did in the actual fight I showed!)  There's a second HP threshold (I think around 33%, but again, I don't know the exact number), upon which Scarlet will give himself a permanent Defence Up also. If the same turn sees him fall below both thresholds, he'll just get both boosts at once, as you see above.  Here's his nastiest attack, an explosion which hits the entire party, and heals him massively. Again, this is based on the damage done, but I'm not sure how the rounding ends up yielding this number.  And, early in the battle, Scarlet can summon this flower bud to grant himself Attack Up for 2 turns. This doesn't stack with the permanent buff from the HP trigger, so he'll only do this when above the threshold. Monsieur Scarlet is a pretty interesting boss fight, and can definitely be a wake-up call for a lot of people on their first playthroughs. In particular, the healing factor means you need a certain capacity for burst damage to get past it, and if you aren't careful with your TP, you can end up stuck in a loop late in the fight where he keeps healing to stay just outside the damage you can do in a turn. If it gets to that point, you've almost certainly lost. My choice of the taunt strategy here was twofold: it makes Favorite One reliable as a source of burst damage, and Spiky Bod counter damage was supposed to offset the healing (though with the attacks I saw, it never happened). There are certainly other effective strategies (and with good resource management and cooperative RNG, you can get by just winging it), but I wanted to show something consistent for anyone who might be struggling. (Also, as I alluded to earlier with the content warning, Monsieur Scarlet plays into some unfortunate tropes, and it's probably worth discussing it briefly. He's the only male ant in the game, and according to the backer who designed him, has a husband. Bad enough that he's a predatory criminal, but when you combine that with his flirtatious/seductive mannerisms and the fact he wears feminine clothing, it gets uncomfortably close to validating harmful stereotypes about gay and trans people. I don't want to say no one should ever write a character like this, and frankly I've seen much worse, but I do think it's irresponsible to do so without also including LGBTQ characters who defy the myth.) Let's get back to the game.  ...I-It's over, Scarlet! You're coming with us...! Curses... I lost. And now I have to flee like a coward...!  We must go after him! Ngh... No, it's okay. We are all injured. Did quite the number on us... So he just leaves scot free!? Not... quite. We have seen his face and hideout, and lived to tell the tale. Before, we could only track his patterns from the missions he posted on the boards. But now that we know what he looks like, we can set up wanted posters. He will not operate freely. If he's smart. He'll probably leave Bugaria after this. We know it's a victory, but it's still a shame... Y-Yeah. Ow... We're going to need a good rest... Yeah... He didn't look strong at all, but I guess that's what makes him scariest... Nothing stops you, eh Vi? ...Could we discuss this a bit later? I want to get out of here. Vi, your team saved my life. You will be rewarded. But I agree with Celia, let us discuss payment back in town. Alright, alright. No rush~! I had berries in mind, but... I believe I have something better, Vi. Really!? The place? That shady place behind the shop? Why do YOU have access? Woah, really!? Who cares, Leif? This is awesome! I will go ahead and arrange for you to be able to get in. Meet us there when you can. We'll be behind the shop in the Ant City. See ya there! ...And thank you, Team Snakemouth. They leave.  Sigh... Vi... Couldn't you just help them for the sake of it? A job's a job! I'm not a charity. Besides, I can't wait to show you two that place! Let's hope it's not the last place we visit... If anything, I'm just glad Scarlet's been foiled... All's well that ends well. Let's go meet up at the plaza! We get credit for completing the quest at this point, though we shouldn't stop here, we need to follow up on the reward!  Also, before leaving Scarlet's little area, let's make note that there's one of those dirt mounds here. We'll have to remember to come back later once we know what to do with them. (The illusory wall remains passable, but it's easy to forget about it.)   On the way back, we can stop at the Association to get our reward from Artis.  Life Stealer is a pretty interesting medal. For 2 MP, it reduces the equipped bug's attack by 1, but causes their attacks to heal 50% of the damage dealt. The attack reduction means you have to be thoughtful with how you use this; you can't just slap it on willy-nilly and expect to be rewarded. If you set things up properly, though, you can do some pretty silly things with this.There isn't always a great connection between the boss and the Hard Mode reward medals, but it's nice when they do line up like this.  Let's check out the "shady place". We've earned it.  Levi and Celia are waiting back here for us.  They disappear after Levi says that, presumably to go inside. An entrance to a shady place. I am uneasy doing business there. Don't worry, you have me here, don't you?This banter jumps the gun a bit, doesn't it? How does Kabbu know you can do business inside? 34 - Dodgy Business Interacting with the lid drops us down here! There's a lot to see, but before that, we get a discovery automatically.    Let's have a look around. Before anything else, we can get a banter: Here it is! The secret place for those who live dangerously! ...And we're to believe you were a member of this club? It explains your combat abilities... Surprised, huh?Doesn't really tell us much. Maybe this beetle guarding the entrance can tell us something useful?  Yeah, Vi. You better behave. Shush. I'm not going to do anything. Worry not, bouncer. We will make sure to stay in your good graces.Presumably Reed is the person who yelled at Vi when she tried to get us in before. Ugh, can we not deal with Reed? I'm allergic to bouncers. We shudder just thinking what you did to get on his bad side... ...Indeed. Given the nature of this place, it's actually quite impressive that you had to be thrown out. I didn't do anything! I just forgot the code! Sure thing, Vi. Sure thing.We aren't ever going to find out what happened, are we.  We will resume our search for him... once we recover from our injuries.Levi and Celia are hanging out here near the entrance. We can also check for banters: So even Levi has his shady side too... You sound disappointed. While he may not be one of the top explorers, I still looked up to him... Come now, Kabbu. Everyone needs a bit of danger in their lives! Besides, you're here too now, so don't think you're always sparkly clean. ...You're right... *Sob*And Celia: I wonder how many Ants know of this place. Quite a lot. I've seen some come in now and then. No, what I mean is... the Anthill is just close by... How come the Ants didn't dig tunnels through here yet? That's classified information, Kabbu. You better drop it before they hear us. That only makes us want to know why more.We can also talk to her: Celia, may I ask you a question? What is it, Kabbu? Does the Queen know of this place? SHH! Don't mention her, you will get us kicked out! O-oh. Sorry. We assume this means "no".All very mysterious.  This person looks familiar! Didn't we see her playing cards at the Golden Festival? Let's check the banter first: Those things she's holding... They seem like cards. A game to pass the time? Didn't know you could play cards by yourself... Vi, have you never played Solitaire!? Nope. Neither have we. Ngh... We truly feel "solitaire" now...Okay, that was cute.  All right, fine. (We'll get to that soon enough; I want to explore the rest of this area first.)   There's a waitress wandering around who will sell us Berry Juice, though it's more expensive here than we've seen in other locations. It's the same item. The bar's pretty full... Bea must be working really hard today. Bea... is a Bee, right? She looks a bit strange. White bees... In the north, they tend to work outside of Hives. Uh huh. Dunno where she's from, though. A renegade Bee, doing whatever she wants. She's a bit like you, Vi. Heheheh. Sounds right to me!That's nice and all, but I still won't be buying from her.  There's another new person down here.  Psst. Huh? You're explorers, right? Well, yeah. You new here? You could say that... I've got a nice deal for you. Very nice. This seems incredibly shady, par for the course... Shady? Gosh, no. I'm an honest informant! I'm sure there's enemies you've forgotten to Spy... For a few berries, I'll give you information about one of them. Randomly. Randomly? How does that even work? Uh... sure. We'll check it out later or something. (Venus, I hope not.)This is Tatel. (Get it, like "tattle"?). If you forget to spy on anything, you can just come buy the bestiary entry from her. This is the game's way of making sure none of them are permanently missable. All she cares about is that we've seen the enemy and don't have the spy data (unlike Frankly's garbage can in TTYD, which would only get entries after they'd been permanently missed). This can be quite convenient, it's really nice that something like this is available. Hey there. Come for some spy data? ...Sorry, it doesn't seem like I have anything that might interest you right now.This is all the dialogue we're ever going to see from her, as long as we stay on top of things. We can also see a banter: ...? Okay, I need some help. I can't figure out what type of bug this lady is. Hmm... maybe she's a moth? No way. We could just ask her. N-No! It will make us seem so uncultured! I'd rather never know...I'm not sure either (and the wiki doesn't help), unless this dialogue is meant to be implying she's some kind of ladybug. I guess she could be.  It's probably not a surprise at this point to see Dan the Gourmet Beetle showing up at an eating establishment. This is all he has to say, though. (And apparently intoxication level isn't reflected in game mechanics, as far as we're concerned Berry Juice is Berry Juice.) Let's go to the bar.  Hi, Doppel.  Oh, Kabbu. So trusting. Or is he playing dumb? (Doppel has literally tied a fake horn to his head with wire.) ...Kabbu. What? ...Nothing. It's nothing. A-Ahahaha, anyways... Um, this is Doppel! He runs the bar. That I do. Give the folks a bit more space to be free. Rowdier. Err... What do you mean, Doppel? We handle jobs no one else can, pardner. Those too dangerous for the regular explorer. And in exchange, we get some nice favors with the Queen's folks... And a big bunch'a berries! Sounds interesting. What kind of jobs, then? Monsters. The type that wipe out squads by themselves. ... Scared? As if! If you want to know more, mates... check the board here. And come see me if you complete any of them. ...We will. Team, let's get rid of those pests. Someone's pumped... Agreed! Let's go get rich! Er... carefully!That certainly sounds intriguing.  There's a quest board here.      Unlike every other quest board in the game, this one has something different on it! Here's where we can find the bounty quests. Including one for the Devourer. (I tend to think this is probably the earliest they expected a player might try taking it on, though truthfully as far as capabilities go we haven't gained that much since beating it.) Despite some of these being in familiar areas, it'll be a while before we can try fighting the others. One interesting quirk is that you don't actually have to accept these quests; we can turn them in just fine without doing that. As such, I tend to leave them so they don't clutter up my quest log.   May I have that crystal it dropped? ... ... Yes, this is a genuine deal. Here is your reward.  Nice doing business with you. Please find the other bounties and your reward will be waiting. Receiving the reward from Doppel does, in fact, appropriately put the completed quest in our log even if we didn't accept it from the board first.  Last Attack is a great medal (as anyone who remembers Power Rush from Paper Mario could probably guess, though at least this is slightly less broken). It costs 4 MP, and gives +1 attack whenever the equipped bug has 4 or fewer HP remaining. Simple as that. This is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to boost a bug's attack, especially when combined with later medals that give you ways to manipulate your HP. You'd better believe we're going to be taking advantage of this (though maybe not for a while yet, it's kind of overkill right now).We can also check the banter about Doppel: Running a bar sounds super fun! You'd run just about any business that'd pay well, huh. Vi, I support you, but... conduct clean business!Heh. If we head to the far side of the room, there's one more person to meet.   Do you know how much trouble I almost got in!? Kehehehe. It's all part of doing business here. And before you ask, I never give out refunds! Kehehehehe! Grrr! Uh, is this your... friend, Vi? Not anymore. Ow, really? That hurts, you know? Shades... you sell Medals and trinkets, yes? Pretty rare ones, from the looks of it. Kehehe! Good eye, my cold friend! Welcome to Shades' rare Medal shop, where only the rarest of the rare Medals are for sale! These are likely stolen, but...! They seem like they'd cost so many berries! Berries? No, nono! No, my round friend. Normal berries are for chumps. Crystal berries are where it is at! We did find a few, but... Are we really going to buy from a thief? Kehehehe. If it makes you feel better, not ALL of them are stolen... ...It's for the mission, right? Sigh... Alright. For the mission. Just stand near what you want and press (A) to check it out! Kekekehehehe! I immediately regret this. For the mission, Kabbu. For the mission.Yeah. This is Shades, and he's our outlet for the Crystal Berries we've been finding (in addition to clearly having been where Vi got her Beemerang). He's certainly a character. (What kind of mosquito has both a proboscis and teeth?)  Kehehe! You can see all I'm offering right over there! Press (A) on whatever ya fancy! I have lots of Medals and I like to change my stock now and then, so keep coming! Keep coming! Maybe sometime there will be something you fancy? Kehehehehe! Oh, and I only accept Crystal Berries here! Don't give me those crummy common berries! Kehehehe!When he says he changes his stock now and then, what he means is he'll get new medals available at the start of each chapter, just like Merab does. There's also a banter: Shades' business is booming as always. You know, Vi... given the nature of this place, can we be sure he's acquired all this legally? Shh. Keep it up and they'll throw you out! That's useful to know... Some of the medals he has are new to us! Let's have a look at his full inventory. (Like Merab, we can talk to him and he'll shuffle what's currently on the shelf, so we don't need to buy the ones on display to get to the others.)  EXP Booster (2 Crystal Berries) Super Block+ (4 Crystal Berries) Poison Attacker (5 Crystal Berries) Poison Defender (4 Crystal Berries) Status Booster (3 Crystal Berries)We've seen Super Block+ and Poison Defender before, but we can get an additional copy of each here, and that's always useful. Poison Attacker is 3 MP and gives +1 attack while poisoned, as you might expect; this is, not to put too fine a point on it, really good. This is around the time you might start to think about stacking a bunch of poison-activated medals on the same bug: it's an obvious direction the game is pointing you, but it's definitely effective. EXP Booster is a weird one. It costs 1 MP and makes enemies give 50% more EXP, but also reduces every bug's attack by 1 to compensate. This is, for all intents and purposes, a challenge medal; the way EXP works in this game, the caps often mean you don't get the full bonus, and then new enemies tend to give loads of EXP already so it's never hard enough to level you actually want this (especially at the cost of 1 attack per bug). Status Booster is another odd medal. For 3 MP, this increases the likelihood attacks by the equipped bug that can inflict status effects will succeed (specifically, it subtracts 15% from enemy status resistance). It would seem natural to give this to Leif, but it doesn't stack with Frigid Coffin's -30% (and his buff/debuff skills like Break are guaranteed to succeed), so right now it would only help Icefall. Vi can make better use of this later with needle skills, but it'll be some time still before she learns those, and right now we only have the medal for poison. Still, this medal definitely has its points.We have 13 Crystal Berries right now. If we want to, we could save them and see what he gets in stock next chapter. On the other hand, the stuff he has now is quite good, and there are plenty of crystal berries left to find. We can't afford everything, but we could certainly get 3-4 medals (and no need to worry about permanently missing anything, there are exactly enough Crystal Berries in the game to buy out Shades' stock). What do you want me to buy right now? Thread, it's voting time: suggest me a shopping list. This seems like a good stopping point, especially as I'm approaching the post limit. There's still one loose end remaining in this place... next time, we'll talk to Carmina and learn about card games. Explopyro fucked around with this message at 09:20 on May 25, 2021 |
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May 5, 2021 08:04
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Go ahead and grab Poison Attacker and HP+. Those seem useful. Also, don't let these rogues corrupt you do easily Kabbu 
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May 5, 2021 12:44
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Hey Kabbu let's all get high and deny Christ
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May 5, 2021 12:53
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Explopyro posted:It would seem natural to give this to Leif, but it doesn't stack with Frigid Coffin's -30% (and his buff/debuff skills like Break are guaranteed to succeed). What. Natural 20 fucked around with this message at 17:54 on May 5, 2021 |
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May 5, 2021 14:29
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Yeah, Status Booster really pulls together the Needle Vi build. Anyways get Status Booster, Poison Attacker, and Super Block+.
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May 5, 2021 16:23
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I had no idea Status Booster didn't work on Frigid Coffin. I had it on Leif for the whole game thinking I was so clever!  I guess I did use Icefall a lot though. In almost every random battle I started with Icefall to crowd control whatever random enemies were there. So in that sense it wasn't entirely a waste. But still! Oh, and regarding Scarlet, I had no idea they could be construed as a harmful stereotype, but I suppose it helps that it was a backer-designed character and not entirely thought up by the team themselves. When you put it that way though it's certainly easy to see why it could be harmful. Better to keep a sharper eye out for that kind of stuff...
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May 5, 2021 16:45
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Yeah, Monsieur Scarlet didn't cross my radar at all. Probably helps that I didn't realize his clothing was explicitly feminine, I just thought he was posing as a nonthreatening fancy lad. At any rate, my vote's for Poison Attacker and Status Booster. I used the poison build for much of the game, and it's great fun. Honestly I'd also like to see the Needle skills get used, because I typically didn't find much of a use for them.
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May 5, 2021 17:45
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Before I get into replies, a quick question: did anyone notice something different about the animated GIFs in this last update, and if so, what do you think of the change? The software I've been using to make them updated with some new options, so I tried a different approach: it's easier to get them under the required file size (with fewer artifact/blurring issues) this way, but it causes discolouration in some of them. Better? Worse? (Also, there's still plenty of time to get votes in if you want to influence my medal purchases. Next update won't be affected so I don't have to push the button right away.) Slaan posted:Also, don't let these rogues corrupt you do easily Kabbu Hwurmp posted:Hey Kabbu let's all get high and deny Christ Haha. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised how easily he ends up going along in the end. Natural 20 posted:What. Alxprit posted:I had no idea Status Booster didn't work on Frigid Coffin. I had it on Leif for the whole game thinking I was so clever! In fairness to both of you, the game never explains this in any way; I only know from external sources. (I always think it's a bit of a mistake to have too many hidden values like this, but in fairness, I guess I don't know where they'd be able to display this interaction without drastically changing the UI somewhere?) At least Status Booster isn't completely useless on Leif, Icefall's still quite good and it works on the ice spells he'll learn later. (I tend to think it's not worth it, mostly because if I want freezing I go for Coffin, and I often don't want his other skills to freeze and give the enemy resistance I didn't plan for. Icefall with boosted freezing for random battles is a good counterargument, though.) I didn't explicitly mention it, but in case anyone was wondering, Status Booster also doesn't help items like darts or bombs, it only works on skills. As a side effect of this, equipping it to Kabbu would do precisely zilch. ChaosStar0 posted:Yeah, Status Booster really pulls together the Needle Vi build. Arzaac posted:I used the poison build for much of the game, and it's great fun. Honestly I'd also like to see the Needle skills get used, because I typically didn't find much of a use for them. Needles Vi is quite fun, I'm definitely going to show it off at some point. I don't have any concrete plans regarding specific fights, but I want to keep changing things up to show the variety of builds you can do. I don't think I used needles very much on my first Hard Mode playthrough, but I really fell in love with them on higher difficulties. Arzaac posted:Yeah, Monsieur Scarlet didn't cross my radar at all. Probably helps that I didn't realize his clothing was explicitly feminine, I just thought he was posing as a nonthreatening fancy lad. Alxprit posted:Oh, and regarding Scarlet, I had no idea they could be construed as a harmful stereotype, but I suppose it helps that it was a backer-designed character and not entirely thought up by the team themselves. When you put it that way though it's certainly easy to see why it could be harmful. Better to keep a sharper eye out for that kind of stuff... To be fair, it is entirely possible that I am overreacting a bit, or reading too much into it (and honestly, I'm almost certain the unfortunate implications are unintentional), but I preferred to err on the side of caution. Part of me likes the fact they put a character with this kind of style in the game without drawing too much attention to it, I like seeing more representation of gender-nonconformity! It's just the greater context that makes it awkward.
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May 6, 2021 13:36
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Argggh I've been away and I missed an entire update.Explopyro posted:Aria's still here and has new dialogue; I guess she has a direct line of communication with Venus. Explopyro posted:
Explopyro posted:Leif's still a bit uneasy about the Queen. Explopyro posted:It's a bit awkward that the regular spy text is used here, honestly. That said, the "prince" isn't quite a normal Burglar: he has twice the standard HP and can do some things the regular enemy can't, bringing this closer to the level of a miniboss. While I wouldn't say this is as tough a fight as, say, Zasp and Mothiva, it isn't a joke either. Explopyro posted:
...I'm turning into Vi, aren't I? Explopyro posted:As we're passing through the Residential District, we can notice this house's door is now open, and if we get too close a scene will start. Explopyro posted:The plot thickens. This has to be really difficult for Leif to deal with. (Also, clearly he remembers more than he's been willing to talk about; this is the first he's mentioned having been married.) Explopyro posted:What kind of bug would do a thing like that? I'm almost certain that exact thing has happened to some other bugs in some other world.  Explopyro posted:Vi has just revealed the main gimmick of this battle. Like his behaviour might have suggested, Scarlet here is something of a vampire. His 45 max HP can be deceptive, he can take a lot more punishment than that before going down. Explopyro posted:He also heals based on the damage done, undoing what little progress we've made! I'm not entirely sure how the calculation works: the wiki claims it's 75% of the damage dealt, but I'm not sure how you get 4 from these numbers if that's the case. I think it's doing 50% rounded up, but calculating the rounding separately on each hit. Explopyro posted:At the beginning of his turn, Scarlet powers up his attack. This is on an HP trigger but I'm not sure of the exact value, it's something like 55-60% (we haven't quite gotten him under 50% yet). On normal, the Attack Up comes at 50% and he doesn't get a defense boost at all. Explopyro posted:Here's his nastiest attack, an explosion which hits the entire party, and heals him massively. Again, this is based on the damage done, but I'm not sure how the rounding ends up yielding this number. Explopyro posted:(Also, as I alluded to earlier with the content warning, Monsieur Scarlet plays into some unfortunate tropes, and it's probably worth discussing it briefly. He's the only male ant in the game, and according to the backer who designed him, has a husband. Bad enough that he's a predatory criminal, but when you combine that with his flirtatious/seductive mannerisms and the fact he wears feminine clothing, it gets uncomfortably close to validating harmful stereotypes about gay and trans people. I don't want to say no one should ever write a character like this, and frankly I've seen much worse, but I do think it's irresponsible to do so without also including LGBTQ characters who defy the myth.) Explopyro posted:Oh, Kabbu. So trusting. Or is he playing dumb? (Doppel has literally tied a fake horn to his head with wire.)
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May 6, 2021 15:02
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Alien Arcana posted:
They're not building a replacement artifact, tho. They're building a replacement core. The artifact just happens to work really well as a core.
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May 6, 2021 15:24
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Poison Attacker and Status Booster look like the best ones here. Poor Leif, that must be pretty hard on him. I'm still not sure how he was conserved so perfectly without aging, wasn't he just encased in a spider's net?
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May 7, 2021 11:10
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Alien Arcana posted:This guy kicked my rear end the first time I did this quest. I didn't realize he could summon allies more than once, so I tried to leave him for last; by the time I realized my mistake I was too weak to finish the fight. (Didn't help that I hadn't restocked on items, because I didn't think frickin' theater work would involve serious combat.) Yeah, he can be a nasty surprise if you aren't expecting it, or don't figure it out quickly enough. (I remember being terrified of the normal enemy variant for a while, too, as a consequence.) Alien Arcana posted:It's a good thing this is a play because "your reward for saving me is to keep working for me" is a pretty crappy reward. Haha! I think this was supposed to be along the lines of "your reward is a knighthood" but they were already knights, so it doesn't quite work. (Then again, I think the whole play is supposed to come across as deliberately badly written or cheesy, it feels like they're going for something like Christmas panto.) Alien Arcana posted:It took me the longest time to find this scene because I never had any reason to walk past this house. I had no idea what I had to do to start Leif's Request. Hm, I can see this. I'm pretty sure I just stumbled across it on the way to the bank, but if you're always coming up from the other side, I guess you might not get close enough to see that the door's open? (That said, this is actually the farthest we can progress the quest for now, so missing it doesn't seem like a huge hindrance. Now I'm wondering if you get different dialogue if you complete the rest of the quest before seeing this scene...) Alien Arcana posted:Hoo boy. This battle. This is probably the first battle where I had to stop and plan my strategy in advance. Monsieur Scarlet will absolutely win any battle of attrition, so bursting him down is essential. Thanks for this! If the healing values shift, it's no wonder the numbers were confusing me. (Also, I'm amused how different the explosion attack is, when the example I showed actually does work if you assume 50%, rounding up, treating each hit independently.) This battle's really good at making you plan, I definitely think it has that going for it. I think if the Team Mothiva fight didn't do it, and the Devourer didn't do it (the reaction that gets is usually closer to "I don't have the tools for this, I'll come back much later"), Scarlet is going to be the point players realise this game expects actual strategy from you and you can't sleepwalk through it. The one thing I think can be a bit frustrating here is that, sometimes, you can end up in a state where the battle's certainly lost but it's going to take him a couple of turns yet to actually kill you. It's not the worst thing design-wise, but it can still be annoying. I suspect the big explosion attack is supposed to help mitigate this, but it's rare enough it doesn't always happen when it needs to. Alien Arcana posted:Yeah, Scarlet's a Kickstarter character who doesn't really fit into the game's universe very well. Honestly, the basic concept is kind of interesting. All ants are eusocial, so all male ants are drones. It makes sense, in a world where insects are sapient, that a gay drone would rebel against being part of a queen's harem, and end up an outlaw because ant society does not appear particularly accommodating of nonconformists. Even the feminine coding fits: he's adopted the fashions of the more independent female ants, and taken it to a bit of an extreme. The problem is that we don't actual explore these concepts at all in game, so Scarlet just comes across as a stereotype. And this is why I don't hate the character, despite everything I've said. I love this analysis. There are so many interesting potential implications to unpack here, both about the character and his relationship to the wider society; they had an opportunity to do something really fascinating with him, and the missed potential is a bit frustrating. (Though as he was a backer submission, I understand it not being a writing priority.) Alien Arcana posted:I think Kabbu's doing it on purpose. He's generally sensitive to other people's feelings. This is my preferred reading, but I'm not sure I can defend it when Leif and Vi both respond as if his confusion were genuine. Then again, they could just not have picked up on what he was doing. Alien Arcana posted:This is such a weird concept. If it's possible to build a replacement artifact... why not just build an artifact for ourselves, then? And if the argument is that the replacement won't have all the properties of the original, then how do we know it will work in the Core? What are these "materials" that the ants have access to and the bees don't? *rant* Yeah, I think it's a bit weird and contrived too. Handwave! That said, I think what they're going for is something like the artifact having had incidental properties that made it work as the factory's core, unconnected to its primary purpose. They know how to make something else to more specifically do that (though not to do everything the artifact does), they just never bothered because the artifact worked fine before. I think "materials" refers to Ancient Crystals, which we know there's a big supply of right below the Ant Palace (and Elizant's currently having it aggressively excavated to build tunnels). Marluxia posted:They're not building a replacement artifact, tho. They're building a replacement core. The artifact just happens to work really well as a core. Or, more succinctly, this. Torrannor posted:Poor Leif, that must be pretty hard on him. I'm still not sure how he was conserved so perfectly without aging, wasn't he just encased in a spider's net? I can't say anything except that all will eventually become clear.
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May 7, 2021 21:19
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19: Games Within Games Before we start, once again Alien Arcana has provided more insight into the boss scripting: Alien Arcana posted:Interestingly, it looks like the fraction [Monsieur Scarlet heals] is actually variable! He recovers 1/2 the damage he deals at first, but that increases to 2/3 once he's at half health. It's no wonder I didn't figure out how his healing worked. 34 - Dodgy Business When we left off last time, we hadn't yet talked to Carmina from this side of the table. Let's remedy that now.  Um, what? What's a deck? Tch. Have you come to waste my time, then? I live and die by the card. If you're not here to play, leave. Sounds interesting. Won't you tell us more? We may surprise you. You expect me to teach a newbie the ropes? ...Well, sure. It's been a slow day. The first thing you'll need is a proper deck of cards. We aren't gonna have to buy some, are we? Oh, yes! I do love spying! You'll need at least one Boss Card, two Miniboss Cards, and one Enemy Card. Come talk to me when you're ready. I long for battle.This sounds interesting! We've definitely got enough spy data for this, so let's talk to her again and see how it works. (If we didn't have enough cards somehow, Tatel's right behind us and would be happy to sell us the data.)  You'll battle us, then? Listen closely, rookie!Minigame time! 29 - Team, This One's Stronger! (Miniboss)      Numb: One of your opponent's Attacker cards is numbed. If X: If played alongside X card, gain an effect. If Atk (X): Gain an effect if your total ATK reaches X. Unity: Gains ATK for every member of its tribe. Like a swarm of Midges...Cards do what they say on them. The only real difference between "Attacker" and "Effect" cards is that only Attackers are vulnerable to Numb. Ironically, Midges don't use the Unity mechanic any more, they're just Attacker cards now. They did have Unity(1) on them back in v1.0.5, but for some reason they were changed. This isn't all the keywords either, but it gives a decent enough overview of how different types of card work. You can check many more effects in your Discoveries menu. You can include as many repeated copies of Attacker and Effect cards in your deck as you want.   At the end of each turn your TP is restored, so go wild with your plays.(What Carmina's neglected to say here is that your maximum TP also increases each turn, until reaching the cap of 10; it's pretty reminiscent of Hearthstone. It's intuitive enough once you see it in action.) To summarize, your deck must contain 15 cards: 1 Boss, 2 unique Mini-Bosses, and 12 Attacker or Effect cards which may be duplicates. Now, try building your deck. It just throws us right into deckbuilding! This is just for the tutorial, we'll get to build a new deck when it matters so the stakes are low here.    We can choose the card of any Boss we have the spy data for, which right now is these three. For the tutorial, I'm not going to pick things strategically, so let's use the Devourer because it's cool. I've certainly never used it in the Spy Cards tutorial before!  Now we need to choose two Minibosses.     Again, we have the choice of everything we've spied so far; this time, we need to pick two different ones. Mothiva and Zasp have abilities that work together, so let's try them.  And now we have to pick 12 more cards. Let's see what we've got:                 This is a much wider range of choices! We've encountered 16 different enemies so far, and we can include multiples.  For now, let's just go with a healthy variety of Attackers at different costs, and a couple Numbnails and Venus' Buds to round things out. We also get the option to save our deck, so we can skip this step next time we play this game. I won't be saving this one, I'll build a more synergistic one once we're out of the tutorial. You can't store multiple decks, any time you save a deck it'll overwrite your previous one. Let's do this.   (Did you think Carmina was done talking? Oh no. She's barely gotten started.) Mine are turned back, of course. But you can tell their type through their back. I'm holding a Mini-Boss and 2 Attacker or Effect cards. Attacker and Effect cards share the same back. Leaves you wondering, right? Use as many cards as your TP allows you to and try to win the round. This is a bit obvious, but reduce the opponent's HP to 0 and you'll win the match. What a mouthful... Let's start our duel. I'll be holding back during this practice match, okay? Pick your cards and give it your all! Okay, we're finally in the game. We can see our status in the top left, and our opponent's in the top right: each player starts with 5/5 HP (some cards heal, but you can't go over the maximum), and 2 TP on turn one. Our hand is in the bottom left. We have Thief, Numbnail, and Zasp.  Of the cards we can afford to play, let's pick the Thief, at least with that we'll have a chance to win the round. Once we've selected all the cards we want to play, we press (X) to submit.  Here's what happens after you submit. It reveals the cards the opponent played, then each side's effects get tallied up and compared. We tied at 2 Attack, so this round ends up being a push and neither player loses HP.  Now the next turn starts.  That should cover everything. Let's continue!Well, she didn't explain the card drawing rules, so I'll take care of that. Each turn, you draw two cards (up to a maximum hand size of 5), or three cards if you had an empty hand. So this turn, our hand contains four cards.   Let's just do this. (Notice we had 3 TP to spend this turn, each turn our TP goes up by 1 until it maxes out at 10. We gradually ramp up to more expensive cards.)  Yowch. There's Numb in action: it disables one Attacker card. Specifically, it hits the one in front (the first one you selected), so if you're playing multiple cards you can lead with the weakest to be slightly safer. We only had the one, so we lose to a puny Seedling, and lose 1 HP.    Let's try this?  So much for that. Her Numbnail cancelled out our attacker, and this round's another push. The Inichas didn't end up doing anything: its ability says Coin (1), which means it literally flips a coin and only gets the bonus on heads. She didn't get heads.    We have both Zasp and Mothiva, and exactly 5 TP lets us play them both. Each of them gets a bonus from the other so this is an easy choice.  Yeah, that was an easy win. Notably, because Mothiva and Zasp are both Mini-Bosses, Carmina's Numbnail doesn't do anything against us, it can only disable Attacker cards (the ones with green backgrounds). Also, you can see Mothiva's Heal ability triggering, which gives us back 1 HP. Heal is pretty good.    Keeping it simple. I think that's the way to go here.  Another loss.    Tough call here. Looking back at it, I'm not sure why I made this play: the second Venus' Bud is redundant (Lifesteal heals you if you win the round, but we're only down 1 HP so the second is pointless), and playing the extra doesn't get us extra card draw or anything. I should've played Mothiva instead.  See? Would've won if I played Mothiva, instead it's a push.   Ooh, Carmina has her Boss this turn.  Let's just go with straight power.  Let's unpack what happened here. The three cards she played were Spider, Zasp, Seedling. Spider goes first and its summons trigger, adding Inichas and Jellyshroom to her played cards. Then everything else gets totaled up. We actually lost this on a coin flip: if the Inichas had come up tails, she wouldn't have gotten that 2 defence, and then our 8 attack would win. But with the defence, 7 beats 6 and we lose.   Let's just play everything we drew, I guess.  We win. Not by much, though.   Again, just playing everything we drew. The late-game often ends up looking like that.  We lose again. This deck isn't impressing me.   Another turn where we just play everything we have.  This time, though, it works. We also get 1 HP back from Lifesteal.   Finally, the Devourer showed up! We may as well play everything.  Devourer's "Vs Bugs" kicks in (Zasp counts) and gives us an extra 3 Attack, which ends up winning us the round.   Another turn where we'll just play everything we drew. I'm not showing a lot of strategic play here, I promise it can be more interesting than this!  And we win this exchange, and with it, the match.   Seems you are ready for the real thing... 34 - Dodgy Business When we come out of the Spy Cards game, we briefly see Logbook Updated show up in the corner; we also get a Discovery for this, as Carmina alluded earlier.      The Discovery text goes into more of the various keywords we might find on cards. It's handy to have this here as a reference (though it's a bit awkward we can't check it in the middle of a game!). Let's talk to Carmina again.   If we decline: A shame you turned out so spineless...That said, let's go. Ready yourself. This will be a duel for the books! Click me for video! 29 - Team, This One's Stronger! (Miniboss)  Let's build a new deck.  This is the Venus deck, my favourite deck for Spy Cards. I'll explain how it works in a moment; I'm not going to claim this is the best possible deck, but it's quite reliable, and it can be built entirely from enemies you're guaranteed to have met prior to this point. If you can't make out the cards, here's what the list is: Boss: Venus' Guardian Miniboss 1: Acolyte Aria Miniboss 2: Monsieur Scarlet Venus' Bud (x4) Thief (x2) Bandit (x3) Burglar (x3) The core idea here is that we're building around Venus' Guardian. It gets +3 Attack for each Venus' Bud played along with it, and they're cheap, so we'll play a bunch of them. They also have Lifesteal, so we can tack them onto other turns in the hope of getting more HP. Aria plays into this strategy too, she gets three coin-flip chances to summon a Venus' Bud. Monsieur Scarlet is more or less a default choice, since neither Zasp or Mothiva are much good if we're not playing the other, but he has a conditional heal so he plays into what we're doing anyway. Then we fill out the rest of the deck with Attacker cards at various costs. (I go with the bandits rather than, say, Seedlings, because there's a real risk of opponents playing Weevils.) It's not terribly sophisticated, really, but it gets the job done. We're not going to do better with our current card pool, though it's possible my ratios aren't completely optimal. Let's give it a go.   Well, this is a bit unfortunate, but not that surprising given we're only playing two copies of Thief. We don't have anything we can play. We can just press (X) without selecting any cards and pass our turn, though. This deck often forfeits the first turn, but it's fine.  As we expected, we lose. (As I mentioned before, Midges used to be classed as an Effect card and had Unity 1, but now they're just 1 Attack.)   We have a full hand this turn, but with 3 TP we can't play many of them. Bandit it is.  That's a push.   An actual decision! Burglar, or double Thief?  I'd rather do double Thief here, to draw more cards next turn (and be safer if she plays Numbnail).  It's a tie again.    This is the best play we can make this turn, I think. I want to cycle out the bud to draw more cards anyway.  Close one, but we still lose.    This was a bit of a misplay on my part, honestly. I should have played the second Bandit instead of Scarlet, they both give the same attack for the same cost and I could have held Scarlet for a later turn when I could have triggered the bonus.  We win the turn, at least.    If I'd played the Bandit instead of Scarlet, I could've triggered his heal this turn pairing him with the Burglar. Oh well.  We win the exchange, at least! (If you watch the video very closely, you might see something peculiar here - the Miniboss card Carmina plays shows a 4 TP cost initially, before turning into Acolyte Aria. She's actually playing her own card, which turns into a random other miniboss.)     Keeping it simple, let's just go for damage.  Overkill, but it got the job done.    I wasn't optimistic about winning this exchange; it seemed wasteful to spend too many cards on a losing turn, so I'm holding back.  What the hell, is Carmina cheating? That's two copies of Monsieur Scarlet! She shouldn't be able to do that. (It's her morphing card picking him. I think the game does cheat a bit here, and bias it toward cards we've already seen, the devs updated this minigame a couple of times trying to minimise how many future enemies it'd spoil.)    Making the best of what we drew.  We win the hand, and recover 1 HP from Lifesteal.    I wasn't sure whether I wanted to play Aria here or hold her in case we draw Venus' Guardian, but given Carmina has a Mini-Boss I thought it was better to go for it (especially since she's on 1 HP, so this is game point).  We heal 1 from Scarlet regardless of winning or losing the trick; on top of that, Aria won two coin flips, meaning winning here got us back to full. This deck is good at that (even if it's irrelevant right now, since the match is over).  34 - Dodgy Business So it seems. Good game. Ahahaha... Ahahahahahah! We get anything for winning? Don't bring your greed into our battleground, Vi. Mhm. This was nothing more than a duel to clash our wits. To think I'd be bested... But if you really want a prize, there's a big competition on Metal Island. Rich bugs board the boat on the pier there, and watch us play for sport. The entry is pricey, but nothing compared to the prize. Wait, you can make money playing card games? It sounds fun. Can we enter, then? Take this, Leif. 11 - Key Item! If you wish to enter... you'll need to fill up that Blank Card. Search for the four Card Masters across Bugaria. That's all I can say. Could we have a tip, at least? Bugaria is quite vast... ...Eh, sure. Why not. The first card master... is old. Good luck. With that, she leaves. Heheh. Let's go look for them! You've gotta win that prize! I love how baffled Vi initially is at the concept of playing cards for money; characters like her are usually into gambling. Also, Leif's competitive streak comes out again; was anyone expecting him to get hooked on card games?  If we check our quest log, we'll see a new sidequest has been automatically added.  That's all we know, for now. We have Carmina's hint that the first one is someone old (you can probably guess who this is), and we might have an idea who one of the others is (the person we saw her playing with at the Golden Festival). We don't have any clues for the other two. We'll have to follow up on those leads and see if we can't qualify for the tournament. This is one of the game's more involved sidequests, obviously. I love that they programmed in a complete TCG for this: it's not the most sophisticated game ever, obviously, but it's still fun and there's real gameplay here. With this, we've wrapped up what we can do in the Underground Tavern for now. Next time, we'll get back to the mission: I could follow up on the Card Masters, but I happen to know we can't actually finish the quest until Chapter 3 is completed, so I'd rather postpone them until we have some more cards available and can maybe mix up our deck a bit. If anyone still wants to vote on what medals to buy from Shades, feel free to do so. I'm seeing a solid consensus in favour of Poison Attacker and Status Booster, with HP Plus in a distant third; I'll grab all three of those unless more votes tip the scales.
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May 9, 2021 06:44
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I spent...a lot of time on Spy Cards. Not only is it a really fun minigame, it's also pretty rewarding if you do the full sidequest. Though I gotta say, I wasn't a super big fan of the Venus deck. mostly it just comes down to the fact that Venus Bud is a bit of a win more card; lifesteal is admittedly pretty powerful, but Venus Bud contributes absolutely nothing to winning a round and can clog up your hand. And besides, you don't need healing if you win every round. I won't deny it's pretty useful early on though. As you've shown, it's effectively the first archetype you get access to and probably outclasses just playing random cards at this point.
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May 9, 2021 07:10
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Arzaac posted:I spent...a lot of time on Spy Cards. Not only is it a really fun minigame, it's also pretty rewarding if you do the full sidequest. Actually, Venus Bud does contribute if you play Venus Guardian, since each Bud boosts Guardian's ATK. Then again, I play Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh! so I enjoy card games being a minigame in a video game. I liked Tetra Master in FFIX and Triple Triad in FFVIII.
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May 9, 2021 08:32
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Aw man, they put in a whole minigame? That is the BEST idea. I kinda wanna play Bug Fables some time.
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May 9, 2021 09:39
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Spy Cards is wonderful. Absolutely great. My preferred deck is almost nothing but attack cards. Basically an aggro strategy: max out my attack power each turn and try to win early. (I haven't managed a perfect 5-round win yet, but I've gotten close.)
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May 9, 2021 13:33
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I was afraid I wouldn't like Spy Cards when it was first introduced, as I'm very bad at deciding on strategies and synergies that work in deck builders overall, but it ended up being not so bad if I didn't rush to beat everyone ASAP. I think tying the game to Spy Data was a stroke of brilliance! That way you have multiple incentives to spying on enemies, and the minigame isn't this weird thing that's completely divorced from the rest of the game the way something like Tetra Master is. The more you play, the more you get rewarded. That's just how things oughta be. My final strategy involved a lot of enemies from a late game area. It's similar to the Venus one but much more offensively focused. I think I never lost a game once I started using that deck, but it was fairly late in the game before I could utilize it so I wasn't sure if I was just playing it too patiently or what. It's no big deal though, the true prize to playing Spy Cards isn't the money from the tournament, but the early access to Metal Island in general, which you don't have to be that good at the game to do.
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May 9, 2021 15:17
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ChaosStar0 posted:Actually, Venus Bud does contribute if you play Venus Guardian, since each Bud boosts Guardian's ATK. Then again, I play Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh! so I enjoy card games being a minigame in a video game. I liked Tetra Master in FFIX and Triple Triad in FFVIII. I mean, that's exactly my point. You're relying on one card in your 15 card deck.
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May 9, 2021 18:31
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Arzaac posted:I spent...a lot of time on Spy Cards. Not only is it a really fun minigame, it's also pretty rewarding if you do the full sidequest. Oh, yes, Spy Cards is a great minigame. I honestly haven't explored it as fully as I probably should have (or would have enjoyed doing), because I figured out the Venus deck fairly early on and then it worked well enough that I didn't feel the need to reconsider. I do enjoy it, but after finishing the sidequest I tend to feel like I've had enough and go back to progress. The Venus deck definitely has some weaknesses, it's far from perfect. What I like about it is that it's good enough to clear the sidequest ASAP, and it's often interesting to play turn to turn. (I actually think one of the keys to doing well with it is making sure to keep cycling out buds regularly, as you say it's actively bad if you get stuck with too many in your hand at once. The thing is, it's a deck that gives you a lot of leeway to have bad turns, or just sandbag a turn or two to set up for a really good one, because between Scarlet and the buds you get a lot of longevity.) ChaosStar0 posted:Actually, Venus Bud does contribute if you play Venus Guardian, since each Bud boosts Guardian's ATK. Then again, I play Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh! so I enjoy card games being a minigame in a video game. I liked Tetra Master in FFIX and Triple Triad in FFVIII. It's still something of an all-in strategy, though. The buds definitely can clog things up on turns when you don't have the Guardian, and you don't need that many of them to make it strong. I am also a Magic player, I keep thinking it's going to obviously come through but seemingly not, I guess  Arzaac posted:I mean, that's exactly my point. You're relying on one card in your 15 card deck. Every deck is going to have this problem to some degree, but I agree Venus' Guardian is one of the swingier ones. The deck doesn't rely completely on it, though, you can get pretty far with just Monsieur Scarlet and some decent Attacker cards (as we saw in my match with Carmina - I never drew the Boss!). Thinking about it, though, it's possible 4 copies of Venus' Bud is too many. The first time I tried it I ran 5 copies, and that was way too many. I've had pretty good success with 4 but I could definitely see 3 being better. Aria goes a long way toward making the Guardian work by herself, so it might make sense to cut a few copies. Then the deck could play more Attackers, or go into something like Numbnails for utility. Quackles posted:Aw man, they put in a whole minigame? That is the BEST idea. It's great, it's really a lot of fun. (Am I talking about Spy Cards or Bug Fables? Yes.) I can't tell you what to do and I have no idea how much free time you have, but I do think you'd enjoy it. (And I could see it being useful as a source of inspiration, too, though I think the approach to difficulty in Bug Fables, even on higher difficulties, doesn't quite translate to MQ either.) Alien Arcana posted:Spy Cards is wonderful. Absolutely great. You know, I don't think I ever tried this? I can definitely see it working though, as long as you get the curve right. (I tend to be a control player in Magic, that's probably biasing me.) Alxprit posted:I was afraid I wouldn't like Spy Cards when it was first introduced, as I'm very bad at deciding on strategies and synergies that work in deck builders overall, but it ended up being not so bad if I didn't rush to beat everyone ASAP. I think tying the game to Spy Data was a stroke of brilliance! That way you have multiple incentives to spying on enemies, and the minigame isn't this weird thing that's completely divorced from the rest of the game the way something like Tetra Master is. The more you play, the more you get rewarded. That's just how things oughta be. I think the Spy Cards game looks a lot more complicated up front than it actually is (though, in fairness, there's still depth there if you go looking for it), I can definitely see how it would be intimidating. (I was talking to someone offline about it recently and ended up describing it as "it's what you get if you cross 'War' with Hearthstone".) It really is a clever way to do things. It incentivises spying (although there were plenty of good reasons to be doing that anyway), and makes everything feel interconnected. It also helps keep the NPCs feeling relevant, you get to play against characters you've met in other contexts and that's always fun. Even though it's ultimately still a minigame, it doesn't feel out of place. Alxprit posted:My final strategy involved a lot of enemies from a late game area. It's similar to the Venus one but much more offensively focused. I think I never lost a game once I started using that deck, but it was fairly late in the game before I could utilize it so I wasn't sure if I was just playing it too patiently or what. It's no big deal though, the true prize to playing Spy Cards isn't the money from the tournament, but the early access to Metal Island in general, which you don't have to be that good at the game to do. I'm guessing you mean the Leafbug Tribe? I don't think I ever tried them, just because I always finished the sidequest before encountering them, but I'm sure they're effective.
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May 9, 2021 21:34
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Explopyro posted:I'm guessing you mean the Leafbug Tribe? I don't think I ever tried them, just because I always finished the sidequest before encountering them, but I'm sure they're effective. No, I actually used the False Monarch and the smaller flies that make him up en masse. Those enemies you mentioned probably made it into an earlier iteration though before I had gotten quite that far too.
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May 9, 2021 21:48
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Um. Well. I'd hoped to have an update done before now, but... to put it briefly, real life bullshit has interfered. Among other things, a work project I'd had on the back burner has suddenly become very urgent, so I'm going to have to focus on that for the next few days and that's going to delay the update even further. I apologise for the interruption in service, I hope it won't be too much longer. In the meantime, I've finally gotten to updating the character page, at least.
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May 19, 2021 00:38
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20: Sandbox Gameplay (Part 1) I'm sorry about the delay between updates; for better or worse, I've had a lot to deal with offline recently. I can't guarantee a return to the prior pace for the foreseeable future either, unfortunately, so thanks for bearing with me in the interim. 34 - Dodgy BusinessWe left off last time having explored the Underground Tavern, and been introduced to Spy Cards. Let's pick up there. Here's a bit of alternate dialogue I forgot to show:   (Incidentally, this is a complete lie, there's no way Leif could actually have read up on the rules! The Discovery Log entry doesn't get added until after Carmina's tutorial. That said, even if it doesn't make perfect sense, I appreciate having the option to skip the tutorial.) You're a cheeky one, aren't you? I hope your "studying" proves enough. When you're ready, let us battle!From there it goes right into the deckbuilding screen. This completely skips the tutorial round in addition to all of the related dialogue, so it can save a lot of time on repeat playthroughs. Now, before we leave, we have some business with Shades. The thread overwhelmingly voted for me to get Poison Attacker and Status Booster, so let's do that.  Kehehe! Here you go, my lovelies... Come back if you still have any berries left to spend! Kehehe!  These will definitely both come in handy. Also, I made a mistake last time: I was going to buy HP Plus also, as that got a handful of votes, but as it turns out that one doesn't get added to his stock until next chapter, I'd had it wrong in my notes.  Despite everything I said earlier, I'm going to have Leif equip Status Booster. It may not work on Frigid Coffin, but it'll boost Icefall for crowd control purposes and I may as well get some utility out of it. Let's be on our way. 06 - Outskirts We need to pass through the Outskirts on our way to the Lost Sands. And would you look at that, it's Delilah and Stratos! They certainly weren't here before. Let's check the banter first. It's Team "Not Slacker". Indeed. They must be thoroughly scouting this area! Heheh. Let's get a lead on some exciting stuff!Let's see what they have to say.   Ah! Team Snakemouth! We're doing fine. We were investigating the outskirts for secrets! It seems there is a place Seedlings like to gather up ahead. But you need to cross the river to reach it. Indeed. But we don't have time to try to cross it! More mysteries await to be unveiled! So you will just leave that area unchecked? Think of it more as an opportunity for you to find out more about it! By the way, I have heard that the "Seedling Haven" is a great spot to find Golden Seedlings. Be careful, though. Golden Seedlings are really strong and you shouldn't underestimate them.(You don't have to rub it in, Stratos.) But they are known for carrying rare berries, so it is up to you to fight them or not. Well, I can't say no to treasure! Thanks for the tip! No problem! Stay safe!This is a pretty big hint. Specifically, you may remember that one of the Bounties we learned about from Doppel was for something called the Seedling King; maybe this is related to that? Now that we've met Doppel, Stratos and Delilah will start popping up in various places to give us hints about where to find the Bounties. Seeing them is a pretty good sign that one of them is in a nearby area; once we beat the Bounty, they'll leave. We can also talk to them again to get a truncated version of the hints:  Don't know why, though, but it seems it is easier to find Golden Seedlings there!This is absolutely true; I'll cover it in more detail once we can actually go there. I sensed a strong presence beyond the river. Be careful when going there.And Stratos heavily implies there's a boss. The banter stays the same. In fact, that banter in particular is shared among all of their bounty hint locations.  It's hard to see from this distance, but there's a path to the north behind the weeds on the other side of the river. That's the area Team Slacker were talking about, and where the Seedling King can be found. Unfortunately, we can't get across the water with our current abilities, so this is going to have to wait.  We actually need to be going east.  Specifically, this is where progress is. The Lost Sands are to the north, and we can use the crank to lower this bridge now. Also, why are Gen and Eri here? It's Gen and Eri! They seem stuck. Let us find a way for all of us to cross!If we talk to them: Ah, geez! How does this bridge work? Where's the worker? I hope we cross soon. These Underlings don't play nice at all! Also, the sign. Let's lower the bridge. It's a simple matter of using Beemerang Halt on the crank.  Is that one of Venus' buds on the far side?  Mhm. We were stuck here for a while. It wasn't much! We'll get going now. See you in Defiant Root! Be careful, now!After this, they leave. Let's get going.   Looks like it wants to tell us something...Let's talk to the bud.  Venus?! Hee hee... Yes, that's me! I decided to help you in your quest. Really!? You're gonna beat up stuff with us!? ...I'm not a combat Goddess! But I CAN heal you up in no time! ...Y'know, for a small offering of 8 berries. What?! Why would a Goddess need money? Listen, Aria and my followers want to thrive in life too, and they are way too dedicated to me to get other jobs. So it's the least I can do for them! Besides, 8 berries is nothing for adventurers like you! Sounds like a fair deal, team. It helps us, AND Venus' followers! Mhm! Just shove the berries in this bud's mouth when you want some healing, alright?This is interesting. I'm not entirely sure how the mechanics of this work (how does feeding the flower berries get them to her followers, anyway?), but I'm not going to complain. Yellow save crystals are going to become rarer from here on out, but Venus' buds often show up in their stead, and 8 berries isn't particularly exorbitant. May as well: Hey guys! Venus here. We're actually still injured from the fight against Monsieur Scarlet, I hadn't stopped at an inn or anything yet, so we may as well take advantage of this. Here you go, some Venus special healing! Venus' healing breath fully restores our HP and TP. Please come by again, I'm always up for a chat.Let's see what else she has to say while we're at it.  Ahead are the Lost Sands. There's monsters and bandits everywhere, and the sand makes everything way too hot! I'll try to support you as much as I can, but be careful, as not even my roots can reach all of the desert.She'll generally give vague hints and/or flavour text. There's also a new banter now that we've spoken to the bud: So Venus really is all across Bugaria... Well, she's like a super Goddess, right? Indeed. That she would bless us with her healing... I'm beyond grateful! Easy there.This seems to be a universal banter for any bud we find.  Let's move on.  This is the entrance to the Lost Sands. As soon as we start walking in, our team decide to have a conversation:  They're way too huge. It's gonna take ages! It'd be nice if we could move just a bit faster... ...Well, why not just run? If we tap (B) twice with me at the front... Bleh... Whatever gets us outta there faster. We'll try to keep up, Kabbu.  This conversation unlocks a new field ability for Kabbu, and with it a new battle skill. If this conversation and placement seems a little awkward... well, honestly, it is. This was actually added in v1.1, as a quality-of-life feature; the running ability didn't exist in earlier versions, and Dash Through unlocked later in the game.  Here's a demonstration of Kabbu's new ability. Double-tapping B will start him running, and then he'll keep going until you either press B again or collide with an obstacle. This is definitely much faster than we could go before (though honestly at times it can be a bit hard to see where you're going). Also, Kabbu runs horn-first, so this can help first-strike enemies, or just avoid battles by knocking them aside.  Dash Through is expensive, but we finally have another move that hits multiple enemies! This does (Kabbu's attack +1) base damage, ignores 1 point of defence, and can flip enemies. Not bad. There's also a banter here: It feels like just yesterday, when we crossed this gate. With the current Wasp situation, it's become quite fortified. Uh huh. It's a really big wall, too. ...Imagine if all the sand poured out into the Ant Kingdom! Let's not, Kabbu.It's not completely clear to me what prior crossing he's referring to (if he's talking about his backstory, I got the impression he'd have been alone, so I'm not sure why he says 'we').   Please do be careful, the number of bandits roaming the sands has been increasing lately. To reach Defiant Root, keep going northwest to the base of the Big Tree. Do NOT approach the Wasp Kingdom border to the northeast! Stay clear from it!The gate guard gives us directions, and also a warning. This Ant guards the Lost Sands gate. What, that's it? I... I don't know what else to say. Stop wasting time! Get a move on!This got a laugh out of me, I'll admit. There's one other person to talk to, to the right of the gate.   But I can't go to the desert yet, I am still preparing for my journey. If you plan on crossing the desert, keep in mind it is much bigger than it seems. Everywhere you look, there is sand. Keep a mental map when you plan on crossing!This is good advice. That hat... would it not worsen the heat? Apparently, it keeps you quite cool. Seriously? I don't think I'd look good with one, though...And this is cute. Before we set off into the desert, let's take a quick peek at an alternate timeline. With all this talk of how the gate is now open, would it have been closed if we'd come here earlier?  Yes. If you come here before getting the mission from the Queen, the gate is shut. Halt. The passage to the Lost Sands is closed for the time being. We are investigating a series of cases under the Queen's orders. We'll open up when we're done.The turbanned bug also has different dialogue: Hey hey. If you want to cross the desert, tough luck. Right now, no one can pass from this side. If you want to cross, you'll have to convince the Ant Queen to give you permission. HAH! Good luck with that!Enlightening. Anyway, it's clear you can't sequence break and go to the Lost Sands before fighting Venus' Guardian or anything, even though you just need the Beemerang upgrade to lower the bridge.  Enough ado, let's head in. 36 - Lost Sands The giant tools lying around definitely help confirm that this desert is actually a literal sandbox. Also, let's see what this new discovery is about.    And, of course, the area banter: The Lost Sands... we've come back at last. The heat never gets any less awful... You traveled all through this to get to the Ant Kingdom? Separately? It would've been way easier with Vi around, though! Heheh. Same to you. Well, it's nice to have a guide... Lead the way, you two.Aw, they're bonding.  We can get an idea of what a maze this place is going to be already, this screen has three visible exits. Before that, though, there's a new enemy here.  There's also a new transition animation!  Let's find out what these are.  It is otherwise unimpressive. Not even digging will spare it from our magic. Let's decimate it.Um, Leif, it doesn't even have 10 HP. How do you propose to do that? Psicorps aren't all that intimidating, but they're not trivial to deal with. (These are actually based on pseudoscorpions.) We'll just do some attacks this turn; a lot of the enemies in this area have defence, so relaying to Kabbu continues to be a good idea.  This attack will cause 2 turns of poison if not blocked.  They can also choose not to attack, and just burrow underground.  Still, this isn't too scary. Kabbu can finish off the first one easily.  Underground enemies, of course, can be forced to surface with Leif's ice attacks. (Though it's worth noting, he does need to deal nonzero damage or they'll stay underground.)  Easy enough to clean up from there. Notably, we're a bit overlevelled, to the point we're just getting pity EXP from these.  Let's go west first.   The banter for this screen is short and sweet.  We can't cross the big gap full of cacti right now, though there's definitely something on the other side.  Let's just head north?  When we get close to it, the small cactus gets up and reveals itself to be an enemy.  It has an Underling with it, but let's find out what the new thing is before anything else.  It's a bit too tough for the Beemerang... Better let Kabbu handle it!These Cactilings are the new Seedling variant for the area. We'll see what they're about soon enough; for now, though, let's just get some damage in on the Underling.  On its turn, the Cactiling uses this spinning attack. This looks a bit scarier than it actually is because Kabbu has Favorite One on (it's base 2 damage), but it's tricky to block and hits twice.  Leif finishes off the Underling.   Cactilings have a hefty 2 defence, but they can be flipped, so they're not quite as durable as they look.  With decent block timing, their attack looks a lot less terrifying.  Anyway, it's easy enough to clean up after that. These are still worth EXP, at least.  Let's actually go north now.  These poor cacti! It must be so difficult being bunched up together. Heh.  This isn't a particularly difficult group.   With all the Underlings around, it's not uncommon to find Danger Spuds after battles in here.  This screen has two more exits that we can reach.  The southeast exit takes us back to the first screen.  There's an exit we can't reach behind the rubble; we'll need some later abilities to get past this log.  Let's see what's this way.  Uh, any idea what that is? No clue... It's got some scribbles, though. The ancient language... I'm sure Neo would love to check this out later!It's not easy to see from this angle, but the awning-looking thing over that big rock appears to be a book. That's probably the writing they're talking about here, which does raise some interesting questions...   This burrowing enemy seems to be something new! With good timing, Kabbu can smack it right as it emerges.  Whatever it is, it starts the battle underground.  Its teeth are so sharp that they can bite through stone! Leif, we will need your assistance! As usual, Leif's attacks can force these to surface. Then the others can attack it.  Arrow Worms only have one attack: they burrow underground if they weren't already, then pop out and lunge. This has a base damage of 4, which can really hurt if you're not expecting it. The predictability makes them a lot less scary than they could be, though.  Later in the fight, the Cactiling shows off their other attack, launching spikes at range. This only does one hit, so it's less painful than the spin, but it comes out fast.  Arrow Worms are giving 4 EXP at our current level; they're one of the higher yield enemies here.  The sand pit and boulder are blocking the way north, so this south exit is the only way we can go from here.  Which brings us back to where we started. We just went in a loop.  Considering I've taken some damage in these fights, I figured I may as well backtrack to Venus and heal before proceeding. This is far enough that it will cause the enemies we killed to respawn, but we'll be taking a different path this time so that's not a big deal.  Let's head east from the start this time.  What could be locked behind the door here? Pretty suspicious... We could ask when we get to town.We'll see what door they're referring to soon enough.  Ooh, that's an HP Plus up there. We definitely want that if we can find a way up. First things first, though, let's deal with this Cactiling.  It has a Psicorp with it. These fights are still honestly not interesting enough to show in full, but we do get to see the Psicorp's other attack this time:  The bouncing before attacking is the clue that this version is coming; this one has a fakeout before the actual hit, and causes 2 turns of sleep if not blocked. Sneaky.  That said, it doesn't stop us winning the battle.   There's some kind of fortress here with a locked gate, but we don't have the key. This definitely looks like something that will turn out to be important later.   Jumping onto these rocks from the ledge is the key to getting the HP Plus medal. This is trickier than it looks, the rocks are kind of tiny and it's easy to fall off.   Vi's Beemerang can grab it from there. This is our fourth copy!   For now, Kabbu can take off the poison medals in exchange for this. We haven't seen the last of the poison strategies by any means, but I don't feel the need for them right now.  A Cactiling waits for us by the north exit.  Another straightforward battle.  This one drops a new item for us, though! Cactilings have a decent chance of leaving behind Succulent Berries. These give us the option of more gradual healing, which could come in handy in long fights; also, if used outside battle, it restores 6 HP immediately. This also opens up some new recipes, though I'll wait to cover that until we get to town. Let's go north.  This area looks different! That rock formation is impressive. It almost looks bug made. Was it always here? Did ya get to see it way back? Err... no. This is our first time here, really. That's a shame. I'm sure many researchers would love a glimpse of the past! As long as it's not from us...Speaking of researchers, it looks like Hawk is here. Let's see what he's up to.   Could there be a path I haven't noticed yet?There's also a banter about him: Hawk seems, uh... stumped. Understandably. There really seems no way to climb up. Hmm. If we get creative, there's gotta be a way...This screen has a puzzle we can solve.    If we head over to the left side of the arch, there's a Cactiling we can freeze to make a big block. (If we fought it, we'd find it was a battle with a single Cactiling and nothing else, and it respawns immediately upon being defeated. It's here to be used for the puzzle.)  With careful use of the slopes, we can jump onto the block.  And from there up to the ledge. There's a bit of time pressure here, because the enemy will thaw if we take too long.  The whole point of getting up here was so Kabbu could kick this tyre down. It rolls into place to make a staircase up the right side.    I simply must see what's at the top. I'll see you there!Hawk has new dialogue after doing that. Alright! Let us climb to the top!And the banter updates to this.  It can be a bit tricky jumping onto the tyre because of the way the ground slopes. You want to jump diagonally rather than from directly to the left of it, because the ditch it rolled through is a bit lower down.   What's this up here?  A new medal, for one thing! More on that in a moment. As soon as we pick it up, Hawk comes to meet us.  Not that I've ever seen one... Weird place to put a statue, right? Maybe this place looked much different, and only the relic withstood the test of time... Hey! At least we found something we can use here! A Medal, huh? So this was a Medal covered in dust... Fascinating. I'll have to write up a hefty report. Mmmmm. Would you mind testing its properties on the field? I don't really mind if you keep it. I've got the data I wanted already. Cool. Thanks, Hawk. Once I am done with my research in the desert, I shall head back to the Hive. May we meet again. With that, Hawk leaves, and we get another discovery entry.   That's all very mysterious, isn't it? (I do like the use of tardigrades as a mysterious ancient artifact, considering they're known for their durability and resilience.) Let's check out this new medal.    Tardigrade Shield is something new: this is a skill-granting medal that any of our bugs can equip. It's also only 1 MP, so the opportunity cost for equipping it is minimal. The skill it grants is called "Sturdy", and it's... interesting. It's basically a defencive stance: for 3 TP, the user will get +3 defence and status immunity for the turn. 3 defence is, frankly, huge. It negates any extra turns, though, so if you want the user to take other actions (like, say, using Kabbu's Taunt), you need to do that first. We'll have to test out the "converting extra turns into HP" feature, too.This skill was quite severely buffed in v1.1; in previous versions, it only gave +1 defence, and therefore wasn't particularly worth using. At +3 defence, though, this skill is great (even if, at 3 TP per use, you can't afford to spam it).  Let's keep exploring.  Looks like the western exit from that room takes us back here, but on the other side of the sand pit!  Which means we can go north.  Well, this is certainly a room. Woah! That's one BIG quicksand pit! Doesn't seem like we can just walk through, either. These twigs look quite flimsy... I should be able to open a path for us. Good old reliable Kabbu! Hehehehe...This room is a sort of central hub for the Lost Sands. It connects to many other areas, though we can't reach everything yet.   This is the central gimmick: Kabbu can cut down these sticks with his horn, and they'll fall to make bridges. As we explore the area, we'll gradually knock down more and more of them to open new paths.  For now, there's only one way to go.  There's a Cactiling on this platform.  There are some enemies here, but these battles still aren't particularly interesting.  Nothing that happened was interesting enough to show, frankly.  We can knock down another stick to head west.  But that's a dead end for now.   Let's try going this way.  Hmm. Shall we test out Tardigrade Shield?  Let's get Kabbu in back and have him taunt first, to be sure something will hit him.  Then I had Vi relay to him, so we can test the conversion of extra turns into HP. I don't think I've ever used that feature before. (Also, I don't think I've shown it before, but in this screenshot you can see the status icon for taunted enemies. I often use Taunt as the last action in the turn, in which case you don't see this before the enemies start attacking.)   This is the animation. It looks like each extra turn is converted to 1 HP; it's nice not to completely lose the value if you accidentally do this before using the turns, I guess, but this doesn't seem like a very efficient way to heal. I certainly wouldn't advise having other characters relay just to get the healing.  And here, you can see Kabbu's in a defencive pose.   That damage certainly isn't getting through. This is very much overkill against these enemies, but it's proof of concept at least.  After that little demonstration, the rest of the fight is just cleanup.  We knock down more bridges.   And more bridges, though this one's another dead end for now.   Let's see what's over this way. Oh, that artifact over there looks like Kut's tools! It seems the ancients also sliced things. Ya reckon they had Beemerangs too? Eh, maybe? Or something cooler. There's no cooler weapon!It honestly took me a bit to notice the knife they're talking about; it's stuck into one of the rocks.  There's really nothing to see here, aside from the save crystal. Let's see what's to the north.  How did Stratos and Delilah beat us here? This takes the prize for most boring place we've gone to. The most innocent places can hide dark secrets. I wonder what's in here...There's another banter if we get close to them:  Though it's not particularly enlightening. Let's see what they're up to. It's Team... not Slacker! You really did come all the way out here. Do you remember our talk? We think this here's the fabled Sand Castle! What, this brick? Well, yes. This tablet's just waiting for its secret to be unearthed. You think it's just gonna come out of the sand? Maybe! No clue what's inside - but what good castle has no treasure? So how does it come out? Sorry, we don't know yet. And when we do, we've got to tell the Queen. Aww... It's still good to see a familiar face in the desert. I get the impression we were supposed to see this conversation before the one in the Outskirts. Oh well.  We don't have whatever goes here, but we can certainly try this?   Kabbu is not amused. (Leif's reasoning here is quite funny though.) We can try talking to Team Slacker again, but it just repeats their last line of dialogue. There is a new banter now, though: How can they just stay here all day? For a team of "slackers", they can do the tedious work. I shouldn't have misjudged them...That's all we can do here for now, though. Let's leave them to try to figure it out.  Let's head south from here, I guess.  So we've reached another limit of the desert... It'd be kind of fun to draw a map of the whole area. On your own time. There's stuff to do!A map of this area would definitely be helpful. (I'll show one once we're finished exploring.)  The battle here is a pair of Cactilings. Still straightforward.   More Succulent Berries! I won't complain about this.  Going south from here would just take us to the big arch where we found the Tardigrade Shield.    And the west exit takes us back to the sand pit. We can complete the bridge on this side, I guess, though once again we've gone in a big (largely unproductive) loop.  This path is the last one we haven't tried.   Let's get this enemy group out of the way first.  Knock down another bridge...  At least we're getting a bit more enemy variety; here's a Thief. If we hadn't done the theatre sidequest, this would be our first time seeing one. As it stands, though, this is still pretty simple.   Let's press on. Explopyro fucked around with this message at 21:31 on May 25, 2021 |
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May 25, 2021 09:12
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20: Sandbox Gameplay (Part 2) 36 - Lost Sands Seeing a Venus' Bud next to a save crystal is at least vaguely alarming.  This is the banter for the area; Kabbu seems to have better vision than me (and the game camera), I certainly don't see them!  If we chat with Venus, this is all she has to say. The game is certainly telegraphing something is about to happen...  So let's buy healing.  When we get closer, we can finally see Gen and Eri, and start a cutscene.  Hiya! Hey, Team Snakemouth. How's it going? Well, it's a bit hot... You're traveling to Defiant Root as well? Yup. We're on a mission to protect these merchants! Specifically, our dear Snail. We could fight or run, but this one's pretty wimpy. It's been a super good day, though. Easiest mission we've ever had! Of course. She just had to say it.    Dangit, Eri! Bandits! You've got some NERVE trying to mug us! D-Dear, it's okay. We can make the money back. Don't get hurt fo- As if! I'd rather go down fighting than yield to these scoundrels! You speak brave words, for a powerless merchant. This is your last chance to surrender to the Wasp Kingdom! L-Like we'd let you take anything! Yeah, it's time to s-show what we can do! Hmm? Those three! They're the ones from the report! That'll pay a pretty penny! Let's capture 'em! You will keep your vile limbs away from my friends! Let's kick their butt! L-let's go! 24 - Oh No! WASPS!  Well, that escalated quickly! This is going to be a real fight. This is our first time seeing a Burglar outside the play, and we also have a completely new enemy in the Wasp Scout. Let's check her out first.  Even if you call for reinforcements, we won't falter!Yes, there's an added complication of potential reinforcements here. Wasp Scouts can call other Wasp Scouts.  I'd put Leif in front thinking I might use Icefall here, then decided not to in the interest of letting the enemies show what they can do.   So instead I just ended up having Vi attack the Thief, and Kabbu taunt them all.   We've seen this attack before, at least.  The Thief used this wind attack, which we haven't seen yet. Like other mash-type action commands we've seen, you can Super Block this after successfully mashing, but the timing is tight and I didn't manage it here.  Wasp Scouts have a few attacks, including this diving kick for 4 base damage.  Now that he has a charge-up, I decided I might as well have Leif go for Icefall. (You can see the Status Booster icon shows up on Leif's skills menu. I like how they put indicators in the menus to show what your medals are affecting, even if in this case it might have been better to put it on individual skills instead of the entire menu...)  Status Booster seems to be doing good work here. Let's give it the credit, at any rate.   Vi finishes off the Thief.  I'll be less flashy for now, just rotating Kabbu in front and having everyone attack the Burglar.  On his turn, he chooses to use the last attack of his we haven't seen yet. Burglars have this charge attack which hits the entire party. The base damage is 3, this is a Super Block.  And here's another attack from the Wasp Scout, a needle throw which does two hits. Each hit of this can poison if you don't block it.  We should be able to clean up pretty easily from here.  Kabbu finishes off the Burglar.  Vi knocks down the Scout.  And Leif goes for the freeze with Frigid Coffin, to try to prevent reinforcements.  Now we can just finish her off.  And that's that. These enemies are worth decent EXP, too. 36 - Lost Sands  Shut it! Let's go! You... We won't forget this! They flee.  Yeah. Thanks, Team Snakemouth! Hmph. We were going to be fine. They were weaklings. You're welcome. ...Those wasps are showing up more, huh? It's worrying indeed. We should report this as soon as we're able. We're just humble merchants. We can't help too much... But we are so very grateful for your help. This isn't much, but take it. Yet another free crystal berry for progressing the plot. We've gotten a fair number this way by now.  Of course. You won't find merchants in debt. With this, we're even. We can keep the merchants safe from here. We're almost at the town! Yeah. Don't let us slow you down! You would never! But thank you. We'll keep going now. Safe travels!Everyone leaves after that. Whew.  Before we leave this area, there's a new banter: Smart of the bandits to hide behind that rock... I wouldn't be surprised if this was a routine ambush spot. Why are there no guards around? Two guards ain't gonna do anything against a bunch of 'em! In any case, it's not our problem to solve. Let's keep going. Before that, though, let's go back to Venus and get healed again. Can't be too cautious.  Also, it's worth making note of this sand pit for later. We can't cross it now, but it definitely looks like there could be something on the other side.  Let's keep going.  Quite the cliff, isn't it? And a lot of cacti, too. So thirsty... I wanna drink the cactus water... I'm gonna jump in! This does make me wonder what sorts of cacti grow on this scale. There are definitely some tiny species of cactus, but I'm not convinced they look like the ones here.  There's a Succulent Berry in this weed hiding behind the cactus.  Also, is that a medal on top of the cliff? We can't get up there from this side, though, so it's moot for now.   There's an enemy by the exit.  Easy enough. Let's keep going north.  Looks like we might finally be getting close; we've reached the far wall, at least. Defiant Root's just ahead! A welcome sight after so much walking... And a break from the harsh sun. We should drop by the Inn and sleep in a nice bed!  That's clear enough.  Wait, where am I going...  We have to check this out first, of course. Standard video game procedure: if you're told to go somewhere, go everywhere else first. What a big gate. This is the border with the Wasp Kingdom. So the area is heavily secured. I only see one guard, though. A new development. She, uh, wasn't here before...Speaking of the guard, we can talk to her.  W-we're just passing by... Passing by?! This is the border with the Far Grasslands, Wasp Territory! Unless you want to start a war, you'd better get out of here! No one crosses the border on my watch! Eep! L-let's go, Kabbu!Maybe this wasn't a good idea. We can also, of course, talk about her: The border guard's MASSIVE. Perfect for the job. We'd better leave before she gets upset. There's also this person in the corner.   *Sigh* ...I just wanna see the Wasp Kingdom!Okay then. Who'd even wanna visit the Wasp Kingdom? She may be... seeking the thrill of an unknown culture? Right, let's go with that...Uuuuuhhhh, let's not speculate any further. I'm just going to get out of here.   Another easy battle.  We're getting close to the next rank, though.  This barely counts as a puzzle, really. We just need to turn a crank to rotate the bridge, like we've been doing for a while now.    We can't do anything about these rock piles still.  Another simple battle with some Seedling variants.   And finally, we've reached our destination. 37 - Defiant Root Welcome to Defiant Root. Ah, it's good to be back. Oh yeah. You mentioned staying here back with Neo. That means we've been neighbors all along! Life truly is full of small surprises like that. Uh, cute. Anyways... how do we get to the Hive? We just keep going straight. There's a huge elevator there! I-Is it safe? No one's fallen off yet, so it's probably safe! Let's go get this overwith already! Venus... watch over me...This conversation happens as soon as we arrive. Also, we got a disovery.    We'll explore the town next time; this place is pretty big and there's a lot to see. Here's a map of what we've managed to explore so far of the Lost Sands. (I didn't make this map, it's one of a few that are on the wiki, I've just redacted it so it only shows the areas we've visited so far.) 
Explopyro fucked around with this message at 17:19 on May 28, 2021 |
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May 25, 2021 09:13
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Explopyro posted:
I can't decide if this is more or less random than your mother handing you special shoes that give you the ability to run which you somehow can't do normally...
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May 25, 2021 17:43
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There's a couple of times where you say like, cluse instead of clues, is that intentional? Also if it helps, we probably wouldn't mind a split-up update where they're not posted consecutively, if it makes your schedule feel more appropriately timed out or whatever. Not much to say about this part other than I didn't know how to get that HP Plus for the longest time. Thought I needed some weird ice block stuff. Of course the solution is simpler than it seems. Also the buff to the Tardigrade medal seems awesome, something I probably would have used a lot more were it that way when I played it. Ah well!
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May 25, 2021 18:28
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Black Robe posted:I can't decide if this is more or less random than your mother handing you special shoes that give you the ability to run which you somehow can't do normally... I'm pretty ok with quality of life updates even if they don't 100% make sense.
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May 25, 2021 18:48
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FYI, I had forgotten to update the Chapter 3 bestiary with the new enemies when I posted the update, but that's done now.Black Robe posted:I can't decide if this is more or less random than your mother handing you special shoes that give you the ability to run which you somehow can't do normally... Okay, this comparison made me laugh. It really is pretty random, and it doesn't exactly help that Leif and Vi can keep up just fine, but can't run when they're in front. Still, I'm not going to complain about it, it's a nice feature to have (although, honestly, I never really felt the lack of it either, these areas aren't that big and the regular movement felt fine to me). Qrr posted:I'm pretty ok with quality of life updates even if they don't 100% make sense. Yeah, pretty much. That said, I do think it feels a bit awkward already having this capability later in the game (at the point where Dash Through would originally have been unlocked), and it's honestly one of the reasons I was considering LPing the prior version instead, but I'm probably in the minority on that. Alxprit posted:There's a couple of times where you say like, cluse instead of clues, is that intentional? Ugh, no, that was absolutely not intentional (it was actually a typo for "clue" in both places, I'm not entirely sure how I did that); how did I make the same exact typo twice? It's fixed now, at any rate. Thanks for the catch. Alxprit posted:Also if it helps, we probably wouldn't mind a split-up update where they're not posted consecutively, if it makes your schedule feel more appropriately timed out or whatever. I will keep that in mind, although in most of the cases where I've split updates I didn't feel like the content was sufficient to be two full posts (and I'd rather not do cliffhangers if I can avoid it). Alxprit posted:Not much to say about this part other than I didn't know how to get that HP Plus for the longest time. Thought I needed some weird ice block stuff. Getting that HP Plus is definitely a bit janky (since this is a screenshot LP, you mercifully didn't have to see me spending several minutes falling off the rocks again and again). It took me a bit to realise what to do the first time, also, because I'd had other priming - I kept thinking of the Runaway Pay badge in Paper Mario 64, which is on a pillar in the desert like this but you get there by riding a tornado from another screen. Alxprit posted:Also the buff to the Tardigrade medal seems awesome, something I probably would have used a lot more were it that way when I played it. Ah well! Tardigrade Shield is really weird even after the buff, honestly; I like it in theory, but the TP cost is high enough that I still rarely use it just because there are so many other things to spend it on. And the "lose extra turns" thing is awkward (I honestly don't even think that was a game balance decision, I think it's because the skill puts the character in a different pose, and they didn't want to have to implement all the animation changes for taking turns from it). At least it's finally worth using; its first incarnation was so underwhelming I could never figure out what to do with it. (The buff also applies to the item version of this ability.)
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May 26, 2021 01:40
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Explopyro posted:
He's talking about himself and Vi. They crossed through the desert at different times, as they mention in a later banter, but they still both went through that gate. Explopyro posted:That said, I do think it feels a bit awkward already having this capability later in the game (at the point where Dash Through would originally have been unlocked) Without saying too much spoiler-y I will say that while I never found the dashing unlocking here to feel awkwardly placed, it definitely makes the later point where you get Dash Through feel weird, like "Wasn't I already able to do this?" Knowing that it wasn't in earlier versions suddenly makes the whole thing make more sense as to why you can't do certain things at this point despite ostensibly having the ability for it.
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May 26, 2021 02:03
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