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Let’s exterminate our emotions in Lux-Pain! What is this? This Lp involves a dark Urban fantasy adventure/visual-novel released by Kilaware games as a Nintendo DS exclusive. The story follows Atsuki, a shadowy quasi-government operative, as he secretly investigates the growing threat from mind-controlling parasites which invade a small coastal town housing its own dark mysteries. Take control of his day-to-day undercover activities as he desperately tries to save a wide and varied cast of characters from the darkness dwelling in their own hearts, all while uncovering the truth behind his own personal issues and his troubled relationships with his fellow operatives. The brain child of two former employees of Atlus fame, set to an OST filled with beautifully atmospheric music composed by Kenji Ito, and encompassing a wide thematic scope spanning sobering subjects from suicidal ideations to genocide, Lux Pain was certainly an ambitious title for a new IP from an indie developer.  Sounds awesome! Let’s get… wait a second. I know that title. What is this?! Ah shucks, you caught me. Although everything above is factually true, and despite its shiny pedigree, Lux Pain is a critically panned train-wreck which helped nail the coffin lid down on its own screaming developer. With an unfocused plot, repetitive gameplay, and a legendarily awful NA localization/translation, it is well known for being one of the worst titles on the Nintendo hand-held. Localization aside, the story still suffers from a scattered narrative, poor pacing, reams of irrelevant high-brow dialogue, and extraneous “scribble” game mechanics which breaks the flow of tension. It’s like a cross between a knockoff Persona series and a coloring book, without the fun of the former or the catharsis of the latter. In other words, it’s a hot mess. Won’t this be a grueling slog then? Why are you even doing this LP? Because Also, since I didn’t play many videogames at all while growing up, Lux Pain happens to be the first visual novel/anime-like game I ever played. I bought it before a long deployment along with a Nintendo DSi, SMT: Strange Journey, and SMT: Devil Survivor, because they were the only portable games in stock in the mini-mart on base before I left. Playing it with fresh eyes and zero expectations or ideas about the genre allowed me to compare and contrast it with the other games I bought, helping me enjoy the experiences of all of them much more. Without those three games being my gateway drug I never would have become the happy anime and game-loving nerd I am today, So, I thought it should be my first LP as well! So what do you bring to the table for this LP? You’re like an expert now right? With a breadth of knowledge in game design, or comedic talent, or…? Not in the slightest. Outside of my job, which gives me a generally acceptable grasp of basic grammar (I’m kind of like a journalist in the Navy), I am as much an expert on games/the gaming industry as an average dude (and even less funny). Some of the excellent LPs I’ve read, especially those that showcase usually-thought-to-be bad games, are well-informed and highly detailed looks at the game in regard to the industry, or the music, or the development process. I, however, am just doing this for fun and to maybe spark discussion on how the game was handled and generally get discussion going on what I think is an interesting and underappreciated work(for what it is). If there are any people who want to chime in or actually are experts that want to help/derail the discussion, by all means do so, that would be excellent and right in line with what I’m trying to achieve. Alright, I’ll bite. How’s this gonna work? This is going to be a screenshot LP, mostly because bandwidth here and on deployment is awful. My personal commentary will be listed in italics, and any plain text will be straight from the game's script, as written. For your sanity as well as mine, we will be using the dialogue spoken by the voice actors and not what is written on screen when I dictate, except for the dialogue seen in the screenshots (if there is enough desire for it I'll list the Actual script for everything, but you've been warned). I will try to update twice a week depending on how long of a backlog I have on hand. The plus side of my job is that when I’m not working I have plenty of downtime so I don’t foresee that becoming too much of an issue. Oh wow, that new character is totally going to- Stop! No uncensored spoilers please; if we haven’t seen it happen, don’t talk about it yet. If you have to say something then use black bars; I know the plot is muddled as hell, but the game is so hard to get into/confusing that a lot of people haven’t finished it yet. That being said, there are multiple endings. I will be trying for a “good ending” but if people want to I can show the other endings down the line sometime. Update list: Update 1: Introducing Brain Pest-Control. And Murder. Update 2: Have You Heard the Good Word? Update 3: The Harem Begins to Grow Update 4: And the Cast Continues Growing sandnavyguy fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Apr 12, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 22:03
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STATS and DATA PERSONAL: Nami Yui Reiji Mako Melody GLOSSARY: Group FORT 1, 2 History of the FORT 1, 2 ??? ??? ??? Shanghai Incident 1, 2 Target 1 ??? ??? Personnel Atsuki Saijo 1, 2, 3 ??? ??? ??? Liu Yee 1, 2, 3 ??? Sigma Lux-Pain 1, 2, 3, 4 About Sigma 1, 2 Erase 1 Imprint 1 ??? ??? ??? Search 1 ??? Places Kisaragi City 1, 2, 3 ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? Rainbow Hill 1 ??? Triple Step 1, 2 ??? ??? ETC. Silent 1, 2 First 1, 2 Original 1, 2 Hazard 1 Worm 1 Ether 1 Zone-Ether 1 ??? ??? sandnavyguy fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 22:04
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Update 1: Introducing Emotional Pest-Control. And Crazy Kids. Opening Video Well that was a very anime opening, but with all flash and little substance or symbolism, you don’t really get an idea what the game is about. Oh well, let’s get this started.    The boy has beautiful ash hair and a feminine white face, but his black, shining eyes are especially unforgettable. Anyone who looks into his eyes are met with the feeling they are being hit with a strong searchlight.  Hey, its look up terms! Don’t worry, we’ll keep track of any important terms and characters up next to the OP if you get confused (You’ll get confused).  And remember what I said about being like a Persona Knockoff? Hi Yu!  Wow, you look brooding this evening. *Cell phone rings, Atsuki picks up*  Whenever Yu gets a call on his cell, the other characters will show up like this on the right hand side of the screen.  Less than a minute into the game, and we can all take out our “Anime Trope BINGO” cards. Free space is ‘Gothic Lolita girl sporting body length ponytails’, with a ‘blue spirit-shining magical macguffin pendant’ as call 1!  Magical girl tattoo powers activate!  Magic wire-frame hacking!   You know, I should give points for subverting expectations based on anime stereotypes, as I would think her temperament would be dark and pessimistic to match her clothing style; instead she is a manic-pixie dream girl. However, she does act like a 7 year old child despite working for the government as a magic GPS, so that cancels it out.  : The target is a little past where Atsuki is now. There are many small shinen so I think it’s an apartment building. : I can’t be sure which one is the target… : It’s ok I’ll check it out. : Ok, be careful. That’s… really not much to go on. Furthermore, how is that the only thing they know about their target?  : We know the Original is here because, the Shanghai Silent infectee started this. He infected 10,000 people in only three months. Resulting in 1000s of crimes and suicides. We found him and checked but he wasn’t the original. We found out he was infected in Kisaragi.Our first taste of the many, many exposition dumps to come. Lux Pain’s favorite way of enlightening the player is to yank them out of the action and into a detached internal monologue, or not show it at all and force them to dig through its term glossaries and dossiers.   Everyone in the building seems to be asleep. All the windows are dark. : Around there, Atsuki. Hurry, use Sigma to find the target’s hiding place!: Ok, I’ll search now. Archaic looking magical jewelry #2, Activate!  This symbol means we are about to enter Sigma Mode, which allows us to see… the spirit world? A tangible manifestation of the human psyche? Like much of the lore of the game, It’s never adequately explained what Sigma mode actually is.    Ok so here we have the main interactive element of the game, where we wield Atsuki’s Eye (DS stylus) to dig away at the real world in order to uncover lingering “shinen” and exorcise them. In doing so we get an admittedly pretty cool visual representation of the remaining energies left behind. As one of the few highlights of the game’s narrative, and in an effort to preserve the impact the developers were aiming for, I will link to a short video for each batch.   Filthy World and Black Urges See? It really sets the tone, and the fractured style of the writing will change based on what the shinen wants to covey, as we will see fairly shortly. Basically any emotion strong enough will leave a mark (shinen)that can be “read” in Sigma mode  : Both Residual Shinen feel strongly like death. I’m gonna take on the target and bring Silent out!: Atsuki, wait! Liu Yee will be there soon! There is a foul stench and piles of trash in the room. Hmmm… reminds me of my old 4 man apartment. There are cardboard boxes and trash everywhere, like a garbage dump. Atsuki notices a large Residual Shinen on a cardboard box in the back of the room.    And here is one of the first times I noticed the jarring language issues when I played it back in 2009. On the surface it looks poetic, but it doesn’t really make sense. It’s supposed to convey that the shinen represents a scary, cowering feeling of someone/something being chased.  Reminds me of my old roommates.  I Am God Little Voice    : From the Shinen he died two weeks ago. The shinen of the animals he killed was on the box. He was a sadist who enjoyed torturing animals. He was infected by Silent, but not our target. If he were the original there would be traces of silent. The Res. Shinen on floor five must be it.Ah so that’s why I was getting serial killer vibes. He’s eerily calm after seeing that poo poo. His lack of agency and emotion will be a recurring quirk. Well the first guy wasn’t our target so let’s hit up the other source.  What a trashy apartment complex. There’s garbage in the entrance and the paint is peeling off. The atmosphere is very creepy. If you think that’s creepy…   Ignore the past tense here, the creepy miasma filling the room means its still hiding. *Dark cackling laughter fills the room* The darkness is teeming with violence, waiting. It feels like it’s waiting for an opportunity to pounce, like a hungry beast.  Jaws theme music plays  Despite his shadowy appearance and his entry after the tension building lines and ambience we’ve just heard, this is actually a good guy. We’ll add his info to the profile sheet as well.  : The silent infectees must have gathered together to die. This one was alive but he wasn’t the original.The writing don’t convey it well, but his voice actor in the actual dialogue let us know that the guy in red killed the silent infectee that was about to attack Atsuki. Hence the sudden lack of dark evil blur filter in the room.  AKA: Government Sanctioned Assassin.  Us? Assassins? Atsuki is nowhere near that cool. And boy does Liu look pissed. : Your job is finding infectees and targets right? Don’t do that again.: Liu, listen to me. You should tell us when you arrive! : When I moved in, they were having a falling out. If I didn't hurry, they all may have killed themselves.: Okay, okay, I got it. You'll have PLENTY of reports to write... I look forward to them.Ooooo interagency tension. Hopefully this will add intrigue and flesh out some character backstory.  And having accomplished nothing, we are back outside again.  Even the game admits it. *A Barking Dog in the distance can be heard, coming closer by the second.*  Get it? Because of the Treble Cleft!  Well good thing we’re not actually an assassin, because this next scene could have been pretty dark. The girl bows her head and points to the second floor apartment Atsuki was just in.  : Um, mister... do you know? The guy on the 2nd floor killed a bunch of animals. I'm gonna turn him in! So I came again with Melody to look for evidence. : Woof!: But that guy... He never comes out of his apartment. … It’s like he’s dead. That's what Melody says.Nancy drew and Dr. Dolittle got busy and had a psychic love child apparently. Or she’s schizophrenic. By the way: A random psychic girl runs into presumably stealthy and competent psychic (?) government operatives while running after her dog, at midnight, on a separate quest to expose the very guy they just killed? Sounds believable to me! : What do you think? Here is where Lux Pain flexes its visual novel skills, by giving binary, clearly right and wrong choices with the subtlety of a blinking neon sign. In this case, both answers even give the same outcome with minimal flavor text difference. However, we are going for a Nice Guy approach this play-through, so I say “Maybe you’re Right”.  So we have no context for this yet, but our answer resulted in a change to their wavy profiles (their spirits?) on the upper screen. The color and direction of the cloud it forms' movement lets us know that the subject’s demeanor has changed toward us. We’ll see a full list later, but for right now this purple rising cloud means her affection for us has risen based on our response to her commentary of the animal killer’s life force. This is an example of the game trying to coyly explain obscure game concepts out of the blue, unnecessarily, and without context. : So you have special powers, too. I knew right away because… Melody said so! : Bark! * Melody runs off screen*: Ah! Melody, wait!! *Turns to Atsuki* Whats that? A bolded/colored name? She must be an important character we’ll see again later. I’ll add Schizophrenic Girl to the OP. : I won’t tell anyone about your powers. If someone finds out you’ll get bullied, like me.“And the voices telling me to rend their flesh become annoying after a while, so trust me its just better this way.” The girl chases after the white dog as it runs up the stairs to the apartment. As he watches her run away Atsuki regrets not having checked her mind. The game is hinting at another mechanic we’ll get into next update, it is possible to use Atsuki to read the emotional state of anyone he wants to while in Sigma Mode. Why is she able to see his power? The power of Sigma is top secret. No one has ever found out about it before. The shadow of uneasiness grows over Atsuki’s heart. “Our Secret plans, we would have gotten away with them too if it wasn’t for that psychic kid and her mangy dog!” *Fade to Black*  Next time we’ll explore a bit of Kisaragi city. Thanks for reading! sandnavyguy fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Mar 28, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 22:05
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sandnavyguy posted:
Only ever saw this game in a bargain bin once, never picked it up, never heard about it otherwise. Definitely looking forward to seeing just how awful it actually is.
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Mar 28, 2017 22:30
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PMush Perfect posted:Only ever saw this game in a bargain bin once, never picked it up, never heard about it otherwise. Definitely looking forward to seeing just how awful it actually is. Oh boy just wait.  And yeah, Atsuki is probably the most blatant Mary Sue I've seen in a while.
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Mar 28, 2017 22:35
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Between the extremely anime character designs and the overall tone, it already seems like some sort of SMT knockoff. This'll be...fun? Interesting, at least.sandnavyguy posted:For your sanity as well as mine, we will be using the dialogue spoken by the voice actors and not what is written on screen when I dictate, except for the dialogue seen in the screenshots (if there is enough desire for it I'll list the Actual script for everything, but you've been warned). Is there that much of a difference between the written script and the spoken dialogue?
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Mar 28, 2017 22:52
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I still love this game, horrible translation and all, possibly because it was my first visual novel game. As for the horrific translation, this was revealed in an interview with the publisher, Ignition Entertainment. Apparently, Killaware, the developer had already created an "English" translation for the game, and Ignition decided that it was good enough and left it unchanged. What's worse it that Ignition clearly made their own, more accurate, translation, since that must have been what they used for their English voice actors, but didn't bother to get Killaware to replace their translation with it. MonstrousMouse posted:Is there that much of a difference between the written script and the spoken dialogue? Yes. Aside from one being set in Japan and the other being set somewhere in North America, the written script isn't done by a native English speaker (see the paragraph above for why) and it ends up being a mess because of it. BlazeEmblem fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Mar 28, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 22:57
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MonstrousMouse posted:Is there that much of a difference between the written script and the spoken dialogue? There is, and it's not exactly minor. The voice actors were given dialogue that makes a lot more sense because it was actually translated competently.
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Mar 28, 2017 23:00
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BlazeEmblem posted:I still love this game, horrible translation and all, possibly because it was my first visual novel game. Same, when I first read it I thought all Japanese games read like it with dubbed over scripts. But after playing some games soon after with quality localization, they made the flaws just that much more glaring. Still, I like it enough to subject myself to creating an LP of it, and I'm glad there are people who like the game despite its horrid translation issues.
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Mar 28, 2017 23:14
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Ohhhhhhhh, I've heard about this game and how bad it is. I read a bit of Dragonatrix's earlier LP, as well. Never seen the ending, though. For the vision/Sigma stuff, does the color of certain words have any meaning? Or is it just to highlight words? And given the words/VA difference, is the story better if you close your eyes and just listen to the voice acting (with the better script)?
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Mar 28, 2017 23:32
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Junpei posted:
Yes it definitely is. At least, it's more coherent that way. However, the narration is unvoiced, which is why you can't disregard the text outright. And after the next post I'll be addressing Plutchik's wheel of emotion and how I think the developers may have used his emotional color scheme as the basis of their Seinen colors. Suffice to say the colors are important to the gameplay, but the trippy Sigma sequences tend to play fast and loose with the coloring for highlight as well. sandnavyguy fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Mar 28, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 23:37
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Yeah, this is an interesting visual novel, but I realized that something was terribly wrong with the translation halfway through the game when the writing started to get pretty bizarre.
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Mar 28, 2017 23:38
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I am one of the few fans of this game translation and all. That doesn't mean however it won;t get bashed on at every opportunity.
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Mar 28, 2017 23:55
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Pharohman777 posted:Yeah, this is an interesting visual novel, but I realized that something was terribly wrong with the translation halfway through the game when the writing started to get pretty bizarre. Yep. Those parts will be a little more difficult to try conveying both the voice acting and original text screenshots without sounding like two different stories. But thats the fun part 
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Mar 29, 2017 04:52
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I like this game, it owns, Atsuki owns, and the characters own. The translation is bad though. Real bad. I legit had a hard time telling whether one character was a guy or girl since it kept switching pronouns for her. The concept is really well done and IMO it can create atmosphere really, really well. But yeah even with a proper translation its mechanics are super jank. EDIT: Though people who call this plot "unfocused" are sort of missing the point of the game IMO quote:Furthermore, how is that the only thing they know about their target? Prob from his Shinen. I can basically use that sentence to explain everything in the game though
Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Mar 29, 2017 |
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Mar 29, 2017 07:11
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SSNeoman posted:I like this game, it owns, Atsuki owns, and the characters own. The translation is bad though. Real bad. I legit had a hard time telling whether one character was a guy or girl since it kept switching pronouns for her. The solid premise is there and the atmosphere is set well, yes, but I think my biggest problem with the game itself not counting translation is that it over-reached in terms of scope. We'll see what I mean once the plot is in full swing, but it tries to do too much in too little time. In doing so I feel it doesn't address the themes in a cohesive way, and leaves so many open questions as it runs that it becomes frustrating. Still, I'd love to hear your opinions as we get to those points later on, since academic discussion/a book-club feel is definitely what I want out of this thread .
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Mar 29, 2017 08:18
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At the risk of sounding like a total weeb, I imagine the shinen come across more effectively in the original Japanese. I remember a good amount of the more descriptive dialogue coming close to being actually pretty good, but falling short due to a weird turn of phrase or whathaveyou. Did any of the retranslation projects ever pan out, or were they all a case of fanprojectitis?
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Mar 29, 2017 08:28
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Kaboom Dragoon posted:At the risk of sounding like a total weeb, I imagine the shinen come across more effectively in the original Japanese. I remember a good amount of the more descriptive dialogue coming close to being actually pretty good, but falling short due to a weird turn of phrase or whathaveyou. I definitely agree that in the original japanese, with the absence of god-awful translation, the core concepts would have been much more clear and impactful, but even the japanese reviews I've checked such as Famitsu gave it only middling to ok scores which I think is representative of the story as a whole not gelling properly. And no, unfortunately the three or four attempts I've seen over the years all succumbed in short order  .
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Mar 29, 2017 09:00
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To be the world's worst person, is there any chance you or a mod could change the title of the thread into a grammatically correct one? Lets exterminate -> Let's exterminate. It bothers me every time I see it in my bookmarks.
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Mar 29, 2017 09:08
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StrixNebulosa posted:To be the world's worst person, is there any chance you or a mod could change the title of the thread into a grammatically correct one? Lets exterminate -> Let's exterminate. e: Fixed! Thanks Fedule. sandnavyguy fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Mar 29, 2017 |
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Mar 29, 2017 09:18
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sandnavyguy posted:No problem, I'll fix it ASAP. As a quasi-journalist, I'm ashamed I missed it. Perfect, thanks! I can go back to lurking this thread in peace.  Really excited to see someone LP this! I followed the last attempt avidly, so I'm eager to see more of this game.
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Mar 29, 2017 09:21
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StrixNebulosa posted:To be the world's worst person, is there any chance you or a mod could change the title of the thread into a grammatically correct one? Lets exterminate -> Let's exterminate. actually he did it to be consistent with how the game presents grammar so working as intended
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Mar 29, 2017 09:29
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Update 2: Have you heard the good word? Alright, let's explore a bit around town. There are two places open for us to visit right now, and Atsuki's feeling like hitting the beach. Before we do though, let's ask Natsuki for a magical-girl "Psychic Viewing".  Sweet. Notice the blue blob floating around on the map over Rainbow Hill? That means there's a shinen present that we should investigate. The blue color indicates it's a sadness shinen, and its level (an average amount in this case) represents the strength of the involved emotion. In other words, expect waterworks by the water. There's a red one as well, but don't worry we can do both this evening.  Hey its a full moon! I wonder if that will come into play at all...   This poetry has actual voice acting, so it is indeed the intended structure and syntax. ???: Is this a dream, or an illusion? Show me your smile... one more time. When he stops the world is silent. The only sound is the ocean, as he looks off into the distance. Its hard for him to leave or stay, but he walks away with sad eyes. That part there isn't supposed to be poetry, but it is an example of more perspective jumping purple prose. *The man turns and sees Atsuki.*  *SAD UP* He's reading depressing verses about a long lost love while staring listlessly out over the moonlit ocean, but seeing Atsuki's face is what REALLY causes his misery to worsen, apparently. Atsuki feels a strange presence about him. Hello, absolute stranger. You look sad. Time to violate your mind and scratch away at your soul to find out why!   So this is where the basic gameplay is revealed. When in Sigma mode, there is now an active timer. Although for the most part gouging out the shinen "worms" (the little residual blobs of emotion that play out like an acid trip) is still very easy to do within the time constraints the game puts you under, you do get experience points based on how fast you complete each session. That said, the experience and Level up process is mostly arbitrary and has little effect on gameplay. Anyway, after tearing through this lovesick dude's brain we get the following impressions: Video Strange Boy/That Girl  *The man turns away and leaves the area.* Well that's enough sea air and spirit assault for one evening. Back to town!  Hmmm. Looks like someone's a bit annoyed. Atsuki seems up for a bar fight, let's head downtown to the pubs/burger joints and see just how scrappy our dear Mary Sue protagonist is.  Meanwhile two giggiling girls are coming closer. They seem a bit sloshed. Ah, someone's wasted. Well that calls for less fisticuffs and possibly more first aid. Let's meet our resident drunkards, shall we? ???: Id like to fall in love and get married, but there's nobody at the police station.  ?????: Well, you're stuck, it must be hard for the prince waiting for you afar. ???: It's ok... I-I got you... Cheers to us two beeeeauties! ?????: Yeah, Cheers! The two girls saw Atsuki's figure drawing nearer.   : It's already... wait... mmm-one second...The two girls glanced at their watch for who knows how long. They're probably too drunk to get a clear look at the time. If you look closely, you'll see that neither one is actually wearing a watch. I like to think that they're swaying and staring at their empty wrists while Atsuki stares blankly for a solid half minute.   : Well, it's already 1AM. You should go home too.: Mako you're right, it's 1 AM... 1 AM!! We are... We are gonna arrrrest you for bein' out so late... got it?! Well that was to be expected. At least its not projectile, that would kinda mar a first meeting. : Ugh... Yui, I told you... Are you alright, Yui?!: I... I think so...: Oof. I think we may have had a few too many. : We'll be put in protective custody if we don't...But I thought you were the police?  Well, that's it for downtown, but there's one more stop before we go home for the night. Off to church young man!    Hmmm... Seems someone is pretty happy at the church, let's go say hi.  ???: ...Hmm, not enough power? A large man stands in front of a church-like building, trying to operate a strange-shaped machine. He utters his thoughts. ???: Well, this will have to do. I think I'm done for today. The man stands up tall. He notices Atsuki. He approaches Atsuki with a smile on his face.   : Are you taking a walk this nice autumn evening? Oh, sorry I'm not some kinda weirdo. I'm Reiji Takano. I teach history at Kisaragi High school. Sure whats up? : I know it's abrupt, but do you believe in powers that you can't see?"Have you heard the good word?"   "The word of r'lyeh?"   Well, I mean, we have been reaching into the spiritual realm to unearth the desires and lingering emotional detrius of our fellow man so... Maybe? Maybe...*JOY UP!*  "Amon-Gorloth will be so pleased!" : Heh, a lot of people just make fun and don't listen. Ah, maybe I'm a little bit over-interested.: That machine's my 3rd. Cost about $50,000 to make. As an enlisted military guy, that number made me choke the first time I played this. Especially as a public school teacher living at home with is mother, how the hell could he afford 150 grand on anything, let alone on weird machines?! : It a machine that measures life energy called ' odo.' Basically it's a radar that can spot the unseen. On full moons like tonight readings are more accurate. : Maybe it lacks power, or the cycle's off, but... The measurements are low. So I figured I'd call it a night.We've literally found blobs of shinen and spiritual energy/emotions just laying around all over town, and your machine has low readings? That Nigerian Prince/Odo machine vendor you met online might not be trustworthy, sir.  : Well, see you around boy.As Takano spoke, he carried the heavy machine and waddled back home. Well that was... something. Next stop, Atsuki's apartment.   It's a new apartment with the furniture Atsuki had requested.  : A message from the Fort...  : It's unfortunate that it wasn't the target, but... One suspect has been eliminated, so that's good. One more thing. Before Liu entered the room "they" were mailing someone. It's interesting... : What's a highschool got to do with group suicides? You may be able to find something out, in Shanghai a similar case was reported. The group suicides had the same motives as our target. Looks like we're going undercover as a high school student reaching out to the truth behind a psychological and emotionally laden mystery, while gaining friends and helping others along the way. Join us next time on Persona 4 Gaiden: Back in Class!  *NOTE: At the end of each episode, I will gather all the glossary terms and info we have gathered and update the post beneath the OP. Expect the first batch to be posted later today.* sandnavyguy fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Mar 29, 2017 |
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Mar 29, 2017 16:47
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That white-suited guy is a few steps away from a Linken Park song. Also, the Strange Boy shinen is about Atsuki, right?
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Mar 29, 2017 17:37
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Junpei posted:That white-suited guy is a few steps away from a Linken Park song. Yes on both counts.
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Mar 29, 2017 17:41
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I don't think I knew about this game before this so thank you for bringing this to my attention but goddamn does this seem baaaad
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Mar 30, 2017 00:48
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Finally updated the Glossary below the OP in sync with today's update!
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Mar 30, 2017 01:10
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Honestly the idea of playing a psychic who roots around in people's brains and makes them better has some promise as a story and a gameplay cycle, and especially if we have/had a rival who makes people worse but thinks he's doing the right thing there could be some good dramatic tension, but whatever the actual plot is I am not sure I am into it yet.
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Mar 30, 2017 02:30
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marshmallow creep posted:Honestly the idea of playing a psychic who roots around in people's brains and makes them better has some promise as a story and a gameplay cycle, and especially if we have/had a rival who makes people worse but thinks he's doing the right thing there could be some good dramatic tension, but whatever the actual plot is I am not sure I am into it yet. ...I think you just gave me an idea for a short story. Thanks.
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Mar 30, 2017 02:42
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Herr Tog posted:I don't think I knew about this game before this so thank you for bringing this to my attention but goddamn does this seem baaaad Happy to oblige, lol
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Mar 30, 2017 04:17
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marshmallow creep posted:Honestly the idea of playing a psychic who roots around in people's brains and makes them better has some promise as a story and a gameplay cycle, well, lucky for you there is Psychonauts
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Mar 30, 2017 05:25
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Hey everyone! While we wait a bit for the next update to post, as promised I'm going to explain the use of color as symbolism and as a mechanic in Lux Pain. Despite having spent a little while over the last couple of months trying to, I didn't find many theories as to where Kilaware got the inspiration for their emotion/shinen color/level scheme. "But Sandnavy," I can hear you thinking while rolling your eyes, "It's really simple. Yellow for happy, blue for sad, red for anger, and they go up or down depending on context. Its preschool level information. Why are you looking into something so trivial?" Well, my hypothetical naysayer, it's because based on my "thourough" (read: two community college classes) background in Psychology, there is a clear template that the game uses that when taken into account helps clarify alot of the games puzzling idiosynchrosies. So, strap yourselves in, we are going to discuss Plutchik's wheel of emotions!  From the wiki page on Dr. Plutchik: Robert Plutchik (21 October 1927 – 29 April 2006) was professor emeritus at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University... His research interests include the study of emotions, the study of suicide and violence, and the study of the psychotherapy process. So right off the bat we have a famous and prolific psychologist who deals with not only basic emotions, but also the exact and very heavy themes this game tries to cover. When worldbuilding, especially with expansive lore (at least from my experience as a consumer), a creator often uses established mythologies or philosophical concepts as a base from which they can grow their own backstory. As such, someone who is familiar with the original concepts can typically predict certain applications of the tropes inherent to them. For example, Atlus's Persona series, especially Persona 3 and 4, borrows heavily from the psychological theories and concepts posed by Dr. Carl Jung. Jungian psychology deals with the theories of shared unconsiousness (TV world), archetypical manifestation of emotions (the Tarot cards and their associated personalities/character arcs), and the very terms Persona and Shadow, which allows a genre savvy viewer to readily predict some of the twists and turns in the game's plot that otherwise would have taken longer to discover. This in itself is not a bad thing, in fact it typically creates a case of "genius bonus" where someone who does know the source material feels a sense of pride at knowing whats happening before it actually happens. In a similar vein, Persona uses well known characters from Greek and Norse Mythology, and during their battles their weaknesses and movesets are very representative of their real-life counter parts. It is likely that Kilaware decided that taking a supernatural approach to Robert Plutchik's teachings would lead to similar success, and went all in on the wheel of emotions.  So what does all this have to do with anything? Well, it sheds some crucial light on the game's use of Shinen colors, levels, psychoviewing/Sigma abilities and much needed context in regard to some of the later dialog interactions in the game. For example I think the game breaks down into borrowing 6 of the color schemes/emotional labels verbatim. Joy= Yellow, Sadness= Blue, Dismay (fear)= Green, Cool (Awe)= Orange, Hatred (Loathing)= Purple. What colors/emotions don't come into play? Anticipation and trust. In an effort to streamline the number of options at play and simplify the effect overall, Kilaware may have decided that instead of having a separate category for the extremes of vigilance and admiration, they would simply make them scalable with their counter parts. In other words, Instead of purple just meaning hatred (loathing) it can also convey its opposite, affection (trust); Instead of light blue for suprise, just use it's opposite anticipation color Orange to represent both sides. That is the only proper explanation I can think of for dialog options that obviously elicit affection making the purple shinen go up in level and vice versa. In this way, the game makes more sense. Where say -5 purple is absolute loathing, +5 purple is absolute admiration and likewise for the orange scale. So unlike the other shinen which seem to exist on a 1-5 point scale, both Purple and Orange exist on a -5-=5 interger scale (so no 0). This helps to alliviate the confusion and near guessing at what the different emotional responses in the game toward player actions. A good infographic that I found explains the different blends of the core emotions, though this goes beyond the confines of the game and is added for curiosity value. http://cdn.infographicsarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/basic-emotions.jpg So as a point of discussion for the thread, Do you guys think: A) That I'm on the right track? Do you agree or disagree/have another theory? and B) If you do agree, do you think Kilaware did a good job of showcasing/adapting the source material, and if not where could they have improved the formula?
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Apr 1, 2017 02:29
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You might wanna show off more parts of the game before people can really say one way or the other. Though given that diagram, I can certainly see which characters line up with each category.
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Apr 1, 2017 18:23
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Having only taken one Psychology class, I can say that I can't think of a better idea for the colors. It does explain why they went with purple for affection.
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Apr 3, 2017 00:30
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I was thinking about LPing this game (and did like just the intro at that) a few years ago. I really like this game for the reasons you listed out as well, and one of the characters in particular is still very memorable to me. I remember staying up late in the night playing this game, not affected by it at all, but after a few years and trying to do it again I got a little too creeped out. Also I always played with the sound off. Thank you for doing this! I really appreciate that someone would tackle this game as it is near and dear to my heart, and I hope you see it to the end. I'm rooting you on!
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Apr 3, 2017 05:01
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Dogbutt posted:I was thinking about LPing this game (and did like just the intro at that) a few years ago. I really like this game for the reasons you listed out as well, and one of the characters in particular is still very memorable to me. I remember staying up late in the night playing this game, not affected by it at all, but after a few years and trying to do it again I got a little too creeped out. Also I always played with the sound off. Thanks! I will definitely try to see it through, I think of it like a challenge :p. I have the next three updates backlogged, but my computer with all the files crashed. My buddy actually knows how computers work, and he said he'd get around to fixing the problem tonight so update tomorrow morning/afternoon i hope!
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Apr 3, 2017 07:38
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Update 3: And the Harem Begins to Grow. Alright, now that we have a little context for the esoteric color schema, let's go to school and track down that email. But first, trippy dream sequence!  So instead of showing what happens, enjoy this swirling purple miasma as we hear about Atsuki's nightmare. Among the infinite images in my head, I noticed I had been crying out loud. I cried from deep inside my soul at the regret, sorrow, and urges of rage that i felt. Notice that the miasma in the back is made of Blue, Purple, and Reddish flakes swirling together mimicking the above emotions. Kilaware is nothing if not subtle.  Well thats sad, I guess that must be his start of dark-   That's pretty awful and so soon after his mom, that must have been the traumatic- Seeing the images of my parents I realized how much I loved them. There was no reason to die. I see my little sister's smiling face. Bright and wise she had a beautiul smile.  The intruding monsters overtook me in my sleep and devoured my sister. Oh come on now, I've heard of trauma conga lines but this is a trauma party.  These heinous monsters, a merciless God, everything... I will make them all pay for this curse.  A lump, tasting like metal, tightens up in my chest. My mouth tastes bitter. The cold sweat on my body feels like blood.  Wait, what? Then what the hell did we just read? And why is he covered in the sweaty aftermath of a night terror? I'm just going to assume since he can't dream he takes drugs before bed each night and hallucinates instead.  Atsuki rubs his left arm. Blood builds up in Atsuki's arm & face, and he loses consciousness. : I was powerless. A person I loved was killed and I froze up with fear. "You haven't been tripping balls again have you?" : OK, Let's start the briefing! Target, age, and sex unknown. All we know is that they love art. We at FORT know the target is in Kisaragi because its the same place the Shanghai Incident started. : As a result, thousands of crimes and suicides have occurred. We found him & checked, and he wasn't the infectee. Someone else infected him with Silent. : Your job is to find and confirm any infectees. Last night's incident seems to be Silent-related...Kilaware: "We know you've gone through this information multiple times in the last half hour, but we are worried your poor brains won't be able to store more than five minutes of information since all of our beta testers for this game were goldfish."  : They sent mail to your new school, right Atsuki? It's a good opportunity, look into that for me ok?: If we find anything new we'll contact you. We'll check out the girl from yesterday, too. It's creepy that she knew you had powers. We are scouring the mind of strangers to track down emotion inducing parasites that cause catastrophe as part of a secret society, and this kid creeps you out?  Well that was a complete waste of time and a rehash of the only info we've had so far, glad for a morning briefing that mirrors what happens in my real life office.  Ah the first day of school. By the way, if you haven't noticed the game doesn't really trust you to make 'real' decisions right now you unfortunate goldfish you, so although I'll ask for your guys' input before we do major decisions later on, for the first day of school I'll just go with the basic flow of the game.  Yellow Level 1, eh? Someone is pretty serene on campus so maybe they can help us calm down a bit after that episode we had earlier.  A teacher is at the gate. She's checking each student that passes by. She looks serious, and makes sure to look each student in the eye as she greets them. Suddenly her gaze stops on a group of students. ???: Hey, wait! She was talking to a boy and a girl who were holding hands. In an instant the romantic atmosphere had completely disappeared. ???: What are you doing, holding hands like that?! Hey now, if the developers can do it why cant the kids?  ?????: S-sorry! They split up and run into the school.   We are supposed to be undercover, so let's not be a dick to our teachers. I transferred here today. *JOY UP: Serene->Happy*  : I'm the language teacher, Aoi Matsumura. I hope you like it here! Atsuki's Mary Sue levels are so high he's making his teacher blush within seconds of meeting him. That or she's catching contact high. : Uh, um... It must be hard to transfer this time of year.*Someone off screen yells good morning Ms. Matsumura* : Good morning! Oh yeah... your new teacher, Mr. Yamato isn't here today. If you need anything let me know right away. I hope you enjoy it here!Well she was certainly chipper. Back to the school map.  We have to check up on that email, but why don't we head to the art room first?  One female student has been in the art room, painting since early morning. There's no one else there. She concentrates hard on the canvas, the only audible sound being the movement of the brush. She holds the brush out & checks over the painting. Then, she finally realizes that Atsuki had entered the room.  "Hey there, I've just been standing silently staring at you paint. Don't mind me, carry on.  : You're here early, here to paint something? But, hmm... Have we met before?"No, but have you played Persona 4? I get that all the time." : We haven't, right? You're a transfer student! The teacher said we'd have a new student today. Atsuki introduces himself. Then asks why she's painting so early. God Atsuki, so nosy. : I'm here because Arthur may be coming back soon. Arthur Mays, world famous modern art painter. He works as a substitute teacher here.Because nothing says world famous level artist like substitute teaching at a public high school.  Recently he's been sick, and hasn't come... *SADNESS UP Sad->Grief* Looks like she cares a lot about her art teacher. Wait... art? Oddly specific knowledge early on of both first and last name of a non-present character as well as a hobby that happens to coincide with the mystery infectee? Hmmm... I wonder if this could have anything to do with plot... Atsuki can't take his eyes off a particular painting. It's because he felt a fleeting, but black & bent Shinen from it. Ding Ding in One.   Note the term black earlier being used for distortion and unnatural emotion? It's not one of the normal emotion types. Let's see why with Colors Fade. COLORS FADE, SEEMS NICE -> PEOPLE So, when you have two or more shinen in a single frame from the same person or in close proximity, you can combine both the thoughts in the mind of the  : I'll be in the classroom. See you later! : Same as the man at rainbow hill last night. Therefore, it must have been Arthur. As for Silent, he's closest to the target from what I can tell.What, you thought the heavy handed plot details and a crumb trail the size of bread loaves would be enough for the developers to let you draw your own conclusions? Nonsense!  Alright, onward to the email!  He's sitting at a computer. ???: Ok, finished. He's done transferring data onto a portable PC. He gets up and trots over to the exit, and sees Atsuki.  ???: I haven't seen you around, are you new? Well, whatever! We've just met, no point in discussing that. What? That's literally the most common thing to discuss with a new face at school you've never met before in a small town/small school! ???: OK I'll hurry! *The young boy runs off into the hallway* : Who were they sending mail to? : If anyone here is infected it would be a strong silent. The Original must be very powerful.Do you want some exposition? Some information through a soooooong... Atsuki looks around for new Residual Shinen on the PC. If their partner received their mail, then residual shinen must still be here.  SUICIDE SPOT  : The Shinen tells me he read that mail. But he's not related to them. He happened to find the mail. His Shinen tells me he went home to trace the sender on his own.See, now it's just getting annoying. Do they think so little of their playerbase that the developers felt they had to reiterate almost verbatim what just happened? I love some parts of this game, but the lack of player agency or respect toward the player is glaring.  *Atsuki's phone rings*  : How about the boy on the computer that morning?Atsuki tells her that judging by residual shinen he wasn't involved. He reports that since the boy had erased the mail in question, he had certainly seen it. : I see, let's follow these two routes. : We've got to find them. 2 Follow that boy and read his thoughts. We need to find out what that mail said. And time for class! Up first we have English with Ms. Blushy.  Aoi said this while looking around the room. : Oh, it looks like Naruse isn't here. Well then everyone take good notes and show them to the absentees later. : Oh, Nozaki, you weren't here either?She must have the easiest class to cut.  : What?! Oh my, oh my... Is that so? I'm sorry! Ryo wasn't here either...If this was truly the first day of term it wouldn't be so bad, but for all intents and purposes it's halfway through a semester and she has a class of maybe 20 kids; only a handful of whom have multi-colored hair and permanent fashion choices. Aoi is embarrased as her cheeks turn red. Then she turns her attention to Atsuki.  : After that I'm a bit afraid to ask, but... Saijo what do you think of this school? It's Great! *JOY UP Happy->Joyful* : Really? That's good. I really hope that you enjoy your time here. The kids in this class are friendly and helpful. Well then, let's start the lesson! : Open your textbooks to page 276. Ms. Blushy is Harem Cougar Lady confirmed. : Here we have Shimazaki's 'A Collection of Young Herbs'. Know for it's 5/7 syllable form, it's called Japan's own romantic anthology. It's been a popular one since last week.: The anthology also contains the well known First Love, perhaps you've come across it before? : Well? Nothing? This next novel should come with ease. Here's a hint...: It deals with Spring, starting anew, the joys and sadness of youth.About as helpful a hint as " It deals with words, starting paragraphs, and is a romance story", jeez Blushy don't give it away!    : Yeah there are.Speaking of hints, those last three sentence fragments are the first big hint of how unintelligible the writing in this will become. : Hmm... such a wonderful love as this...*45 minutes pass* You spent a long while with Ms. Blushy...  : Saijo, if you need help with anything from today... I'll be in the staff room. Come see me anytime.  : Don't forget to study!  : Ms. Matsumura's class is pretty deep, isn't it? Her lessons are so good because she's so diligent, but she can get side tracked easily...Aren't those two qualities kind of connotatively opposed? But you can't blame her for being sidetracked by Atsuki's searchlight eyes...  : Unfortunately we are gonna be doing love poems for a while... Next class she'll probably start from the same place!: It's rare though. It'll get easier soon enough. See you later!*Mika leaves the classroom.* : How was your first class? Are you tired? It must be hard adjusting to a new school. : Oh, right! I forgot! Please wait a minute!She said while turning to Rui Yamase across the room. : Rui do you have a minute?: Sure! What's up!? Unlike Ms. Blushy, Rui seems to be outright repulsed by our protagonist. just look at that expression. : And you want me to...?: I'd like you to show him around during lunch.  : Ok, you got it! Since you teach us and take care of us and stuff. Well, let's go!  The narration really can't decide who's perspective it wants to be from one slide to the next. Then she felt unsure about her decision to let Rui show Saijo around. So do we, Blushy, so do we. Join us next time as we explore campus and sandnavyguy fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 02:45
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sandnavyguy posted:
Clearly this teacher knows a lot about current trends, if she is already doing a lecture on something that has only been popular for the past week .
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Apr 4, 2017 03:47
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BlazeEmblem posted:Clearly this teacher knows a lot about current trends, if she is already doing a lecture on something that has only been popular for the past week Yeah, the very fabric of time and space is pliable in Lux Pain, just wait until we play 'Where in the World is Kisaragi City'.
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Apr 4, 2017 05:10
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I think what they meant to say is that Atsuki doesn't have dreams, just nightmarish flashbacks. 'Course who the gently caress knows what the game is trying to say there. I will give the game credit for doing this obligatory intro sequence in an interesting way. We already got some intrigue with Yayoi.
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Apr 4, 2017 05:48
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