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Golden Goat posted:You give her too much credit. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't willingly inhabit the same continent as her for fear she'd tear me apart for my pantry. I'm just saying she's not -completely- evil.
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Aug 4, 2015 20:57
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BattleCattle posted:She's a good person by nature, if not at all by nurture. That seems like a vast over simplification of Zero's character, and human nature in general. There aren't people who are born naturally good or bad at birth only to have the goodness or badness smothered down by external forces, but eventually their ~true nature~ will reveal itself when the opportunity arises. People are more complex than that, and so is Zero. It seems more like, initially at least, the reason Zero goes after the flower is because she's sick of being used. Sure the flower may have been trying to do something that she herself wants to do, but it didn't ask for her permission or consent so she's not going to go along with it's plan for that reason alone. It's the same motivation One had for fighting Zero: I agree with your goals and in fact plan to do the same thing as you, but you didn't bother to treat me with enough respect to ask me to help and instead tried to force me into doing what you want so I'm going to fight tooth and nail to stop you.
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Aug 4, 2015 20:59
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Episode LXXXV: This is a Story About .jpg) Verse 3: A Test of Might Well, we found a tower. I don't see a clock anywhere. But it's still best to be on guard for pirate grandpas on the prowl. You can never be too careful. .jpg)  This place is nice and all, but why are we here, exactly? According to our lore, the flower you carry will bring ruin upon the entire world. That's what they tell me... As such, it is my duty to kill you on this very spot. Ooo-kay? And yet... I have concerns about this. If I believed every cradle tale my elders told me, I would be no better than you foolish, lowborn humans. Look, what's the deal? Are you going to kill me or not? I must test your strength. Huh?.jpg) Why does everyone keep calling this a mountain? It's clearly a tower. It might be a tower atop a mountain. But that's not how location names work. Even the mission location title defaulted to “tower”. C'mon, people! Get your story straight. .jpg) Michael has the chat with Zero and then sort of locks into an idle animation. There's no music or indication the game wants us to continue at this point. So it sort of feels like something in the scripting hosed up until Zero continues a decent clip further into the stage. .jpg) At which point Michael uses his previously unseen instant transmission technique to warp to the lower floor and continue his discussion with Zero about their purpose on Mt. Whatever. .jpg) If you have the strength to defeat them, you likely have the strength to suppress your curse. Overcome this trial, and I will grant you the right to live. <flies into the air> It will not be easy.Michael peaces out till the end of the mission... .jpg) What kind of ridiculous reason is that!? Don't leave me alone on this poo poo heap, you goddamn idiot!.jpg) Music: Exvulsion ~ Battleground Now on with the mission proper. Our goal is to descend from the top of the tower of Mt. Bernstein of the Vice Norden to its base. You know... kind of like we're playing the map in, now get this, reverse! I know! It's a real paradigm shift in Drakengard 3's level design. It is worth mentioning that during the original, that is to say the main Drakengard 3 campaign, trip to this stage Zero briefly mutters “Huh... that gate...” at the top of Mt. Whatever. As though she remembers coming to this place a while back. Which again, makes me think this whole prologue was cut from the original campaign. .jpg) .jpg) This is SUCH a pain in the rear end!Not sure why the gate at the top would be the only thing to trigger a memory of traveling through this tower. When clearly the twenty seconds of basic platforming left a far bigger impression on Zero each visit. Then again, Zero seems like the type that would get pissed an escalator wasn't functioning, yet still get pissed the escalator was so drat slow were it active. No pleasing that type. .jpg)  Dragons are usually intelligent. Dignified. Reluctant to deal with people. Michael tried to act the part, but there was something... off about the whole thing. And what's more, he seemed to take an actual interest in the human race. So I tried to take advantage of that good-natured friendliness... in order to fulfill my own goals..jpg) Up on the tower-mountain, as Michael suggested there is a “hideous clutch of monsters” infesting the place. So the armies of Midgard get a day off from Zero adding more causalities to their ranks, as it's a monster mash this entire mission. The first fearsome lot of foes to test Zero's might is... a pack of sleeping wolves and a few trolls lounging out in the sun. Michael is truly putting Zero to task this day. .jpg) .jpg) Oh well. A test of might is a test of might. Even if the party scheduled to perform the testing wasn't properly informed of the occasion. Nobody ever said dragons were any good at proper event planning and organization. Christ, remember that Drakengard 1 ending when they decided to conquer the world? Rubbish foreshadowing and execution through and through. And the less said about the entirety of Drakengard 2's endgame the better. .jpg) Much like our first trek through Mt. Whatever, the layout is still a series of slightly curved pathways littered with monsters and punctuated with mid-boss arenas periodically. I mean, that's what all the stages are really. But it just feels a lot more videogamey when you're doing it through a tower. .jpg) Ugh! Son of a bitch! This is all that dickhole dragon's fault! As soon as I'm off this stupid mountain, he's dead!.jpg) We have a normal armored gigas to take on here. This one likes to go in berserker mode after only taking a bit of damage. Which can be a bit of a hassle with a much weaker incarnation of Zero with an unleveled default weapon but ehh... .jpg) I mean it's a gigas. These jackasses stopped being noteworthy around the time they started donning zombie make-up 70 updates ago. Meaty. .jpg) The path down to the next boss arena is littered with standard issue ogres. Which are actually kind of rare compared to their desert hailing brothers you can trip over in any biome at this point. .jpg) There's also a handful of double sized trolls down the path. No reason why. They're not particularly stronger or more hearty than their normal sized counterparts. They're just bigguns. We never did see those hairy tier 2 trolls ever again past that one room in Branch C, huh? I'm trying to think if they showed up in any of Accord's Requests and I'm drawing a blank. .jpg) There's also imps floating around the region in the low visibility mid-climates of the tower. I'm surprised they never added any imps to the platforming segments. That seems like a dick move this game would pull at some point but it never happened. Then again, they probably didn't program their AI to fly when over bottomless cliffs. In fact, they almost definitely didn't do that since I've seen them fling themselves into the abyss before. Drakengard 3 AI! .jpg) .jpg) Oh, come on. Again? Did I do something to deserve all this poo poo? Did I!? ..... ...Well, I guess I did do a little something. ...Or a lot..jpg) The final challenge of Zero's might comes in the form of an oversized imp... .jpg) ...and an ogre tag team. Nothing to write home about there on the scale of bloodsport challenges. .jpg) Now the flame centaur stomping into the ring is a bit of a different story. They're a rare breed in this game. .jpg) The method here is... exactly the same as the handful of other times they've cropped up. It just takes longer because Zero has kind of a crap weapon on hand to deal with the beast. I'm a bit sick of writing about mobs of enemies recycled for the hundredth time. Only one more mission with swarms of copy and pasted mooks left after this! Sweet release is at hand! Michael swoops down to chime in after Zero cleans house on the monster's ball... .jpg) You managed to survive. I can't BELIEVE you made me climb this bullshit mountain! You didn't climb it. Oh, whatever! Hurry along. We need to go. Go where? Next up is the Land of Forests, where— What!? You didn't say anything about doing more of this crap! And when did I say this was all there was? You need to pay closer attention. Otherwise, someone will end up swindling you. Shut your trap, would you!?.jpg) .jpg) A short downstairs jog later will bring us to the waiting Michael at the entryway leading to nowhere of the tower. .jpg) And waiting alongside Michael is this mission's end. So long Mount Bernstein of the Vice Norden and the last filler mission of the LP. Maybe someday someone will remember your silly name. Or the entire place will get leveled by war or perhaps an extinction level cataclysm. It's Drakengard. Either scenario is somewhat likely to probable at this point.   Video: Zero's Prologue Verse 3 Highlight Reel The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Aug 5, 2015 |
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Aug 4, 2015 21:21
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:That seems like a vast over simplification of Zero's character, and human nature in general. That was One's stated reason, but in truth she was probably just furious at the possibility that Zero would be the last one standing instead of her.
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Aug 4, 2015 21:22
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My take is that Zero is a terrible person, driven to do terrible things to survive. But even she isn't terrible enough to want the world to end and everyone die. Drakengard 3 is a Yoko Taro Yoko Taro said that he felt Drakengard 1's gameplay could only be justified if the characters and world were insane. Then in Nier the post-9/11 world made him think that you didn't have to be insane to kill, just think you were right. I haven't quite figured out his theme for Drakengard 3 yet, but I think he's continued to evolve his ideas.
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Aug 4, 2015 21:35
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Oxxidation posted:That was One's stated reason, but in truth she was probably just furious at the possibility that Zero would be the last one standing instead of her. Maybe, but One seemed pretty set on killing herself after Zero was dead. She had a dragon, and if that dragon died she had Brone to kill her (I might be misremembering again, but I think he was under orders to kill her after Zero died)
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Aug 4, 2015 21:38
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Presumably, the flower would also probably kill her, anyway. I don't think it's a stretch for a terrible person who did bad things to survive to have something of a moment of clarity about 'You know flower, this whole apocalyptic parasite deal is sorta poo poo even for me'. Nier was a decent person who did terrible things because he thought he was right. Zero is a hardened murderer who has had the vision of total nihilism literally bolted to her face and had that wake up even a psycho like her.
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Aug 4, 2015 21:40
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I think people are thinking about this too hard. Zero's someone who killed to live, and got so utterly used to killing to live that even she has no idea exactly why she mass murders. She's also shown that she kinda would like to believe something better would exist(See the whole thing with Indigo)-even if she can't find it-and has a massive well of self-loathing for being such a murder-hobo already. Basically she wants to keep the world from ending out of a vague sense of optimism, despite proof to the contrary that Drakengard's world is totally hosed, or possibly out of a sense of it being a redemptive act, or both. Otherwise, she acts totally sensibly for a character in Drakengard, which is to say she killed so many horrible people that she went seven eighths or more of the way to batshit bonkers, mostly because what started out as killing to live and defend herself turned into "Well everyone is terrible, better just get ahead of it and kill them.". The only oddity is that she's still kinda got a nice streak left, and people just keep that through trauma and insanity sometimes.
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Aug 4, 2015 22:39
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The thing about insanity is that sometimes a person goes so far up the rapids of crazy that they locate a calm lake of utter madness in which to paddle around.
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Aug 5, 2015 04:02
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WOW BOY, howsabout that update huh?
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Aug 5, 2015 04:08
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BattleCattle posted:She's a good person by nature, if not at all by nurture. In your opinion, how many children does one have to kill, regardless of the reasons, before they officially become not a good person anymore? Like is there a certain number that's okay, but then at some point it just crosses a line? How many digits does this number contain?
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Aug 5, 2015 05:19
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Zoe posted:In your opinion, how many children does one have to kill, regardless of the reasons, before they officially become not a good person anymore? Like is there a certain number that's okay, but then at some point it just crosses a line? How many digits does this number contain? I think its more like you don't stop being a good person until you do something for a bad reason and 'survival' is not a bad reason in and of itself. It's the dichotomy of intent vs impact. Neruz fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Aug 5, 2015 |
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Aug 5, 2015 05:20
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Gologle posted:WOW BOY, howsabout that update huh? I like the part where she's all, "Man, what'd I do to deserve this crap?! ... oh, right."
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Aug 5, 2015 05:22
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Video game morality 101 in this thread.
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Aug 5, 2015 05:48
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Neruz posted:I think its more like you don't stop being a good person until you do something for a bad reason and 'survival' is not a bad reason in and of itself. It's the dichotomy of intent vs impact. But a lot if not all of the children she killed she didn't kill for survival, she did it because that was just what she did. That was the whole point of her short story, remember that unarmed girl she killed after killing her parents who asked her "Why are you doing this?" and then after she killed her Zero realized she didn't have a reason and then kept killing anyway?
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Aug 5, 2015 05:51
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Lets theorize about what traumatic event in Zero's childhood caused her to hate platforming segments.
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Aug 5, 2015 06:33
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Internet Kraken posted:Lets theorize about what traumatic event in Zero's childhood caused her to hate platforming segments. Being bad at Mario.
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Aug 5, 2015 06:38
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Internet Kraken posted:Lets theorize about what traumatic event in Zero's childhood caused her to hate platforming segments. Dodging plates thrown by mother or Assassins Creed escaping by rooftops.
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Aug 5, 2015 06:38
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Internet Kraken posted:Lets theorize about what traumatic event in Zero's childhood caused her to hate platforming segments. Oddly enough. It's a copy of Drakengard 3 sent from the future of our world to the past of hers before Nier happens.
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Aug 5, 2015 06:38
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Zoe posted:In your opinion, how many children does one have to kill, regardless of the reasons, before they officially become not a good person anymore? Like is there a certain number that's okay, but then at some point it just crosses a line? How many digits does this number contain? I did say "not at all by nurture". I commented on the nature of her evil, not the magnitude. She's a loving vicious psycho in a world of loving vicious psychos. I'm not arguing that. By the way, gently caress you for trying to shame me over a videogame character. You don't get to malign me for trying to find one redeemable quality in a loving drakengard game.
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Aug 5, 2015 06:40
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Internet Kraken posted:Lets theorize about what traumatic event in Zero's childhood caused her to hate platforming segments. Who doesn't hate first person platforming?
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Aug 5, 2015 06:44
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Bad Seafood posted:Well, remember, for her it's in first person. So you're saying it's not just the controls; Zero actually moves in a floaty and imprecise manner while having no sense of where her feet actually are in the physical space around her?
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Aug 5, 2015 06:48
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Neruz posted:So you're saying it's not just the controls; Zero actually moves in a floaty and imprecise manner? Well she is slowly dying from a debilitating and deadly flower growing inside her.
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Aug 5, 2015 06:49
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Actually I thought the implication was more that she is in fact dead and has been the whole time since the end of her story. She's just an undead puppet of the flower trying to self-terminate.
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Aug 5, 2015 06:53
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The weird thing is that she hates this (platforming) poo poo, so it's safe to assume that the entirety of the Drakengard world was made to look like that. Want to get a loaf of bread? Pass the bottomless chasms and take a left, can't miss it.
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Aug 5, 2015 06:55
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Let's be honest here, floaty moving platforms would lose their novelty the moment you had to actually traverse them.
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Aug 5, 2015 07:49
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Zoe posted:In your opinion, how many children does one have to kill, regardless of the reasons, before they officially become not a good person anymore? Like is there a certain number that's okay, but then at some point it just crosses a line? How many digits does this number contain?
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Aug 5, 2015 08:14
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Elric posted:42. The answer to life, the universe, and everything. And now we know what the question was.
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Aug 5, 2015 08:16
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Internet Kraken posted:Lets theorize about what traumatic event in Zero's childhood caused her to hate platforming segments. For most children, their first experience with platformers was maybe a Mario or Kirby game. Zero, however, ended up with a copy of Super Meat Boy that was somehow backwards. Her first level was Dark Cotton Alley.
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Aug 5, 2015 09:46
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I can't ever see Zero as anything remotely close to a "good person", but can see her as less than an absolute monster. She had been abused and betrayed so often in life that she basically gave up on the world, becoming a muderous thief. After a while, killing became so easy for her that she didn't even think of it. Not even remembering why she does anymore. Then she was captured, tortured and left alongside the first decent people she'd interacted with for any extended period (if only because she was restrained from killing them). Listening to at least one of them having a good cause to fight for and still being kind after enduring worse torture than her while still being left to the same fate as a common killer like her was a wake-up call. The injustice of it all made Zero actually think beyond her twisted survivalist mentality and realize that she actually hated herself and the world she lived in. Actually caring enough to have an opinion instead of just being numb. This newfound rage towards existence is what she says attracted the flower. After being revived and realizing what the flower was, she rejected it for using her and because its goal represented everything she now hated about herself. So she decided death was preferable to being the undead puppet she now or the senseless killer she had been. When it spawned her sisters, each as dangerous as herself, she resolved to kill them all and end with herself, possibly out of some sense of responsibility. Other than that that, she's just tired of life in general; wanting t put an end to everything related to herself and hope that the first being she has ever really come to care for can have a better future in a world without her. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Aug 5, 2015 |
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Aug 5, 2015 12:50
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Elric posted:42. The answer to life, the universe, and everything. 42 dead children, or 42 digits in the number?
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Aug 5, 2015 13:27
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Platforming was just one of those mandatory PE classes Zero had to take in school. Now I'm wondering what other sports/clubs there are in Midgard High.
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Aug 5, 2015 13:41
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DialTheDude posted:Platforming was just one of those mandatory PE classes Zero had to take in school. Now I'm wondering what other sports/clubs there are in Midgard High. Caim runs a little league baseball team in his spare time.
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Aug 5, 2015 13:49
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If Nier was about what it takes to make a good man do the wrong thing, then Drakengard 3 feels like what it takes to make a bad person do the right thing.
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Aug 5, 2015 14:06
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Night10194 posted:If Nier was about what it takes to make a good man do the wrong thing, then Drakengard 3 feels like what it takes to make a bad person do the right thing. This sounds like it could in fact be the case. Good job there. I can have moments of... eccentricity and sometimes be quite curious about things. Please forgive me if I do something foolish or rude.
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Aug 5, 2015 14:27
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DialTheDude posted:Platforming was just one of those mandatory PE classes Zero had to take in school. Now I'm wondering what other sports/clubs there are in Midgard High. Arioch teaches Home Ec. Her specialty is young children.
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Aug 5, 2015 16:07
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BattleCattle posted:
Wow, aren't you excitable.
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Aug 5, 2015 16:27
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Night10194 posted:If Nier was about what it takes to make a good man do the wrong thing, then Drakengard 3 feels like what it takes to make a bad person do the right thing. This is what I always thought with Nier and Drakengard 3 having the complete opposite story with the protagonist, another thing to add is that Nier knew as much as the player (until New Game+) and Zero hid things until now.
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Aug 5, 2015 16:31
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Geostomp posted:I can't ever see Zero as anything remotely close to a "good person", but can see her as less than an absolute monster. Thank you for this; these are basically my thoughts on Zero as well, but I have trouble properly articulating them.
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Aug 5, 2015 18:29
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Zoe posted:Wow, aren't you excitable. You made it personal. Don't. Night10194 posted:If Nier was about what it takes to make a good man do the wrong thing, then Drakengard 3 feels like what it takes to make a bad person do the right thing. That sounds good and right. I want to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Aug 5, 2015 19:27
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