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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo0F1WlG-Ws Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin is 50% 2D action, 50% 3D Rice Farming Sim, and 100% reason to purchase the game, available on PS4, Switch, and Steam. Story posted:Long ago, the spoiled Princess Sakuna enjoyed a life of leisure in the Mihashira Capital among the gods and spirits of Yanato. But on the floating bridge of heaven separating the immortal Lofty Realm from the Lowly Realm of mortals, a chance encounter with the children of men (or, as they call themselves, the humans) led to a series of mishaps.  In Sakuna, you play as Sakuna. Your job is to keep your gang of lowly humans alive and well by hunting and foraging for food, as well as growing rice. Thankfully, you are the daughter of a harvest goddess, and so growing rice will also increase your might, which you need to hunt greater demons and find better food. The better the rice, the stronger you grow, and the more combat and rice-growing skills you learn.  However, you spoiled noble child, you have yet to learn the backbreaking labor that goes into the rice fields. Proper spacing, water, temperature, weeds, frogs, ducks, fertilizer and more is just scratching the surface of what to keep in mind when growing this wonderful crop. And after it has grown, you must yet prepare the rice to be eaten through drying, threshing, hulling, and then the field must be made ready for next year's harvest! Listen to your friends' advice, or do as the Japanese do and look at Official Government Guidelines for Rice Farming to figure out how this all works.  Of course, your true reason for coming to this Isle of Demons was to secure it. By eating food at the end of each day, you can increase your abilities in combat and gain restorative effects for next day's labor. Keep a balanced diet, but make sure to keep an eye on how long your food can last - sparrow meat will only last so long before it rots away! If your stores will soon rot, it would be a good idea to process your ingredients for preservation.  Once you are rested and fed, and your work at the field is over for the day, it is time to go hunting for demons, food, and materials. As your father was a great warrior god, you too are capable in combat. With numerous weapons and skills and your blessed Divine Raiment at your side, you can overcome all odds... as long as you keep your belly filled, and remember to go home as night falls - the demons grow only stronger as the moon starts to shine. https://twitter.com/isonoyukapero2/status/1327495373909225472 This game owns. Buy this if you like cool combat and want to learn how to make rice.
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Nov 17, 2020 18:00
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I definitely have interest in this game, but I haven't bought it yet. Nice to hear some good things about it.
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Nov 18, 2020 00:54
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Terper posted:If your stores will soon rot, it would be a good idea to process your ingredients for preservation. On the other hand, rotten food makes a great fertilizer ingredient.
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Nov 18, 2020 01:52
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To those who played it, how's the soundtrack? Legit question, makes a difference for me in these sort of games. Also, how's the Switch port?
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Nov 18, 2020 02:40
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The soundtrack isn't amazing but it's nice enough.
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Nov 18, 2020 09:53
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Hwurmp posted:On the other hand, rotten food makes a great fertilizer ingredient.  so I didn't add a lot because I don't know how to combat that yet.I really like how you have to experiment and feel things out. I've no idea if I'm doing things right, but that's okay because neither does Sakuna and we'll learn together. The soundtrack is nice, but is also exactly the kind of music you might expect. Nothing that's really stood out, so far.
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Nov 18, 2020 12:01
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You can reduce Toxicity with Moonlit Stones, which drop from most demons at night.
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Nov 18, 2020 12:15
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Grabbed this game on a whim and am super pleased with it and I have a tough time deciding which half of the gameplay I enjoy more. I'm also surprised how much like the characters, namely Sakuna. She's such a brat lol. I believe I'm on the last leg of this game and I just got a stone that allows me to regain life on killing enemies which kind of trivializes a lot of the combat for me, but my single biggest continuous challenge has been the loving camera when planting rice. Why does it shift just slightly when I move  Saoshyant posted:To those who played it, how's the soundtrack? Legit question, makes a difference for me in these sort of games. Also, how's the Switch port?
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Nov 19, 2020 15:43
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 When planting, keep the camera in front of you rather than behind, and walk directly away from itthis is exactly how the ancient rice farmers of the Jomon period kept their cameras straight
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Nov 19, 2020 16:08
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Maybe Kinta can create some sort of steadicam contraption from all these pieces of bamboo and deer antlers littering my home  Incredibly important info missing from the OP-  I have 15 cats on my farm and I don't think they have any purpose but to be picked up and walked around with
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Nov 20, 2020 14:51
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WAY TO GO WAMPA!! posted:I have 15 cats on my farm and I don't think they have any purpose but to be picked up and walked around with And they said videogames weren't realistic
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Nov 20, 2020 14:55
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It sucks that the $40 Switch version is sold out.
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Nov 21, 2020 10:17
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This game's shockingly compelling. I spoiled myself a little on getting better crops and was very surprised at how much detail is involved - individual diseases and pests, number of stalks affecting yield, different nutritional needs at different stages of growth, all sorts. Sakuna's a fun character too, the writing and VA is better than I frankly expected The brawling is satisfying too, if rather mashier-seeming than your devils crying  (e) Probably the one negative I'd put in is I still don't really get how soil nutrition works, and the UI conveys it rather poorly Ciaphas fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Nov 21, 2020 |
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Nov 21, 2020 23:46
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You put basic nutrients in your fertilizer by mixing in five Fallen Leaves, Beast Hooves, and Beast Manures, and then adding some Amber. I always just dump in enough to max out all three; I've never had to refill before a harvest.
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Nov 22, 2020 00:02
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Hwurmp posted:You put basic nutrients in your fertilizer by mixing in five Fallen Leaves, Beast Hooves, and Beast Manures, and then adding some Amber. I always just dump in enough to max out all three; I've never had to refill before a harvest. You eventually unlock a gathering area that can provide medical bases, which give a large all stats up bonus to your rice with no downsides. A little bit of salt + water or moonlit stones gives resistance to all major problems that rice will encounter, and the water or moonlit stones will reduce the toxicity. Also worth noting that stat flakes provide a bonus to base stats and should be consumed as soon as is feasible. You do need medicinal base to consume them as a drink during dinnertime. Powders, on the other hand, double the amount of a stat that you get from a meal, which can be super helpful when you're trying to push through a fight above your current combat strength. Having finished the story and started in on the postgame, one thing I noticed is that because I always made white rice, my magic stat is severely lacking compared to my strength/vitality. It's not the world's biggest deal, but it is something that I'm slowly rectifying by finally making some brown rice to raise aroma (magic). Vitality has been just about the most important stat in my experience; being able to shrug off enemy attacks makes it easier to farm areas and facetank just about everything that isn't on the bleeding edge of what I'm capable of taking on. If I have any complaint about this game, it's that fully upgrading the armor sets can be absurdly grindy. I lost count of how many goddamn beast hides they ask for, and then there are enemies that you can kill by the literal dozens with several abilities boosting drop rates equipped, and you maybe get 1-2 drops when some armor sets are asking for upwards of 80 of them. Otherwise, it's a super fun game, and I'm only just now starting to really get into how parrying works. I probably should have figured out how it works much sooner...
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Nov 22, 2020 11:18
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Hwurmp posted:You put basic nutrients in your fertilizer by mixing in five Fallen Leaves, Beast Hooves, and Beast Manures, and then adding some Amber. I always just dump in enough to max out all three; I've never had to refill before a harvest. My confusion was from the "Sustainability: 10 hours" field. I assumed that meant fertilizer had to be refreshed every single day. Ran through my items like crazy and was generally a pain in the rear end Still don't know what that field actually means
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Nov 22, 2020 11:49
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Oh, that. Yeah, I got no clue. I know fertilizer takes 10 hours to prepare if you don't use Powder of Transformation; your guess is as good as mine whether that's what it's supposed to mean. I haven't found any other materials that reduce the time.
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Nov 22, 2020 12:00
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That was what I concluded, that it takes 10 hours for the poop to, uh, ripen???? but "Sustainability" is a weird fuckin word for that, even allowing for a TL fuckup  Oh well, good to know that. Now maybe I can actually HAVE five of each of the bases next season
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Nov 22, 2020 12:03
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badgers are dicks they aren't even that dangerous, I just hate that stupid dance they do
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Nov 22, 2020 13:34
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Me watching the trailer to this game. https://i.imgur.com/lhxO8Sg.mp4
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Nov 22, 2020 13:58
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https://twitter.com/cluseller/status/1328891646411382784
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Nov 22, 2020 14:37
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Finished the game last night. The last boss was kind of a chore, but not super difficult once I figured things out. Was kind of annoyed that they (sort of spoiler) introduced an entirely new mechanic for literally the last fight that you have to use. Took me a couple tries to get used to using it and figuring out the enemy tells. I also ended up pushing all the way to the 90th floor in the 100-floor dungeon and my weapons seemed to immediately just stop doing any meaningful damage to enemies there so I figure it's just a matter of grinding out some levels which I kind of don't have a ton of interest in. Overall, this game was excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone wandering into this thread with a passing interest in a sidescroller beat-em-up and/or a farming sim !
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Nov 22, 2020 18:21
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tip: talk to Tauemon about the rice when it's raining do this as early as possible and not, for example, when you're wrapping up your prep for the final dungeon
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Nov 22, 2020 18:58
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Ciaphas posted:My confusion was from the "Sustainability: 10 hours" field. I assumed that meant fertilizer had to be refreshed every single day. Ran through my items like crazy and was generally a pain in the rear end It looks like "Sustainability: 10 hours" means that any stat boosts you put into your fertilizer will only help level up your rice for 10 hours after spreading. If that's true, then I've been wasting literally all my stat boosts by dumping them onto the field right at tilling time.  But that would also mean you can add more and more boosts after every ten hours. You wouldn't need any base materials for that either, as long as your nutrient levels are still good.
Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Nov 23, 2020 |
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Nov 23, 2020 01:56
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The fertilizer stays present for 10 hours and I think you only get full value from its added stats if your rice is absorbing nutrients efficiently during that time. Which means it has to be sunny or at least daytime, not dehydrated, and not already fully grown. Nutrients also get wasted if your field is prone to weeds and I believe during the part of it's development when it grows barren offshoots.
Kobogartimer fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Nov 23, 2020 |
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Nov 23, 2020 02:54
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Okay so the game is freshly downloaded and I'm probably trying tonight, what's the secret to growing good rice.
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Nov 23, 2020 08:44
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MiddleOne posted:Okay so the game is freshly downloaded and I'm probably trying tonight, what's the secret to growing good rice. You get tutorials on the subject, and basically whatever you do will impact the rice in some way. As you farm, you get special abilities that will help you to follow guidelines; the first few crops will be difficult to judge, and that is by design. If you listen to the big dude, he will tell you what you need to do to grow lots of rice, but not necessarily the best quality rice. Don't sweat making the perfect rice for the first couple of years, just do your best to try to follow along, as you will not have the tools to follow everything closely. In general, a high quality rice can be achieved with (in the pause menu, it will tell you what stage the rice is on): Sorting (you don't do this for a while) - empty the whole jar of mud, stir until the green thing floats and flips over; sort seedlings thinly to increase quality, but decrease yield Tilling - spread fertilizer before tilling, till the whole field and remove all 10 rocks Planting - a little far apart - once you unlock the grid, planting every other row does this well Seedlings to 2nd offshoots - shoot for 20% water (water slightly above the ankles), eliminate as many weeds as you can, catch as many snails and such as you can 3rd offshoots - drain all water Sprouting - try to keep water around 30% (submerge the foot) Harvesting - drain all water, and ideally you harvest in warm weather, but you also want to harvest ASAP; eventually you can guarantee this, but at first you just have to wing it Drying - put on drying rack, only bring in once dry (usually about a day, Sakuna will tell you when it's dry if you inspect it) Threshing - thresh when cool, ideally at night (tool type doesn't matter) Polishing - polish when cool, ideally at night; white rice is best for most stats (you will want to mix in brown rice every so often to get aroma bonuses, but you can honestly wait until after the story is done to do so, as str/vit is really strong to focus on early) As for fertilizer, you want to ideally keep nutrients around in all 3 categories. Early-mid game (once you start getting enough amber from killing enemies), that means you want to add five Fallen Leaves, Beast Hooves, and Beast Manures (100% to each category), and then enough amber to max out the triangle (I think this number starts low and increases over time; eventually it's trivial). After that, you can add items to increase the stat bonuses you get from rice, but you don't need to fertilize all that frequently. Right now, in the postgame, I literally fertilize once right before tilling and never bother fertilizing again. You can do things like add salt and a bunch of water to offset the toxicity, which will help remove pests/weeds/disease, but you can mostly ignore that mechanic and it doesn't seem to penalize you much. Water level: Rain adds water, sun evaporates water, so you want to leave the water level a little low before you adventure when it's raining, and a little high before you adventure when it's sunny. And all of that being said, sometimes you want to focus on one stat. The game gives you tutorials over time, with yield being the first thing it tells you how to maximize. Talk to the big dude every day and he will help you to get some knowledge about farming. His advice is mostly about yield, and the difference between focusing on yield vs quality is mostly in the sorting (use less mud, sort thickly), and the sprouting (use lots and lots of water; just leave the input open). You may want to focus on yield early so that you have enough rice throughout the year.
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Nov 23, 2020 13:37
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I planted my first rice before reading that wonderful effortpost and the game called me poo poo immediately, soooooooo... Just gonna take some notes... 
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Nov 23, 2020 13:55
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MiddleOne posted:I planted my first rice before reading that wonderful effortpost and the game called me poo poo immediately, soooooooo... Just gonna take some notes... Don't sweat it at all. Sakuna is absolutely poo poo at planting rice early on, and you as the player are supposed to not know what to do. As I mentioned, you will get more abilities over time that let you see water levels, planting grids, and a whole lot more. Your first couple of times doing a task will be arduous and annoying because Sakuna doesn't know what she is doing by design.
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Nov 23, 2020 13:58
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How is the translation on this?
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Nov 25, 2020 11:38
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There is one weird issue where gear is described as having modifiers to "textile & dye collection." That means items you use for crafting new garments, which can be fruits, flowers, roots, fish scales, or any number of other things which absolutely are not textiles or dyes. Otherwise the translation is excellent.
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Nov 25, 2020 12:08
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I really see this as a hidden gem that no one's gonna be talking about. On the bright side when basically get to learn everything from scratch which is kinda fun. I just started this morning - planted my first crop which I assume will be garbage. The game already told me my spacing was off. I appreciate it's telling me where I'm going wrong instead of just telling me I failed.
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Dec 7, 2020 23:42
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Deified Data posted:I really see this as a hidden gem that no one's gonna be talking about. I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this game too. It's not the best game ever but it's an odd mix of things and it does all of them B+ or better. Like Muramasa the Demon Blade meets Harvest Moon. It's really holding my attention and I recommend giving it a shot if you're stuck inside with cabin fever like I am. The rice farming can be a little head crushing if you try to min/max it but just listening to Tauemon's tips each day seems to be working well enough so far. The human characters are fun too and really make your homestead feel lived in. I just wish I'd realized there was a PS4 version. Seems like the Switch version is all anyone talks about. It's fine but it does feel graphically cut down. Edit: Oh, and I'll mention one thing that almost put me off it but didn't in the end. For some reason they do that thing where the main character looks and acts like a kid but is actually supposed to be an adult (goddess). So far the game hasn't done anything creepy or off putting with it so I've kept going. I just don't understand why it's even a thing. wash bucket fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Dec 17, 2020 |
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Dec 17, 2020 17:18
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McCracAttack posted:Edit: Oh, and I'll mention one thing that almost put me off it but didn't in the end. For some reason they do that thing where the main character looks and acts like a kid but is actually supposed to be an adult (goddess). So far the game hasn't done anything creepy or off putting with it so I've kept going. I just don't understand why it's even a thing. The idea behind the gods and goddesses is that their appearance is metaphorical, and Sakuna has yet to actually grow up despite how long she has been around. They also, thankfully, don't do anything creepy with it.
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Dec 17, 2020 19:16
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Yeah that's always cringe but I don't see them doing anything weird with it - I think they did it solely for the comedic value of playing as a small character who talks like a smug adult. In other news I got to the part a couple years in when Touemon and Kaimaru get lost and thought it was funny they had to wait a whole season out in the wilderness to be rescued, because my rice harvest sure wasn't about to wait.
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Dec 17, 2020 21:05
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Deified Data posted:In other news I got to the part a couple years in when Touemon and Kaimaru get lost and thought it was funny they had to wait a whole season out in the wilderness to be rescued, because my rice harvest sure wasn't about to wait. That part stressed me out! My exploration level wasn't high enough but the rice needed my attention. I wonder if that was a situation where you were supposed to let one of the humans handle it? But nope, they spent fall in a cave during my play through. The whole idea of time kinda breaks down if you think about it too much. We've spent several winters on that island but the toddler still isn't old enough to talk and none of the other kids have aged. I've just hand-waved it away as "magical demon island stuff". Also, the rabbit and sparrow meat the characters eat is kinda odd. It's literally the meat of the demons I've been killing. But they wear clothes and wield weapons. Presumably they have language and culture. Eating them feels... unsettling. They have a dinner conversation about eating meat but they never touch on eating other sapient creature. wash bucket fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Dec 17, 2020 |
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Dec 17, 2020 21:15
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The story does touch on those things eventually.
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Dec 17, 2020 21:29
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Ah, guess I need to just write my questions down and save them till the end of the game then. I wonder if you can do a vegetarian run and never get that conversation about eating meat? I'll write that one down too.
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Dec 17, 2020 21:35
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Story discussion/spoiler thing (mostly about why the people don't age): I really like how the story is essentially building a mythology and a new set of gods/goddesses to go along with that mythology. It's the reason I don't mind the trope where Sakuna is old, but looks like a child; in reality, she is a child and her journey through the story is how she grows into power and assumes the mantle of a warrior/harvest goddess who brings prosperity to the people. And adding to that, you have the mythical people who journeyed with her, with the smith who forges her legendary weapons, the tailor who weaves her legendary garments, the old advisor who sets her down the path of farming, etc. And on top of that, those same people go on to have their own stories and create their own mythologies. It's really neat. Not a really deep or complex story, but a nice and pleasant story that is enjoyable to play through.
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Dec 17, 2020 21:51
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McCracAttack posted:That part stressed me out! My exploration level wasn't high enough but the rice needed my attention. I wonder if that was a situation where you were supposed to let one of the humans handle it? But nope, they spent fall in a cave during my play through. Exactly, if I had waited one more day to harvest my rice wouldn't have been dry by the start of winter since it rained on the final day of fall - sorry guys! That said I did maybe rush the area where they were to get them back and dealt with some enemies at night who I really didn't have the stats for lol, so I guess their emotional manipulation worked.
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Dec 17, 2020 23:21
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