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That's a nice resolution to Kross's storyline, the dude can live out his life peacefully now. Brodik turned out kind of an okay guy after that. He's still a bit odd. Bush and Anette's child sure has some interesting thoughts already.. I wonder who had that outfit already prepared for her? Edit: Update on the last page
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Apr 12, 2023 21:27
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So... Brodik is a secret agent sent to track down and presumably capture or at least report on a deserter. And his reaction to seeing someone who sort of matched the vague physical description was to... absolutely not investigate any further or send any kind of reports and just spend a year or so slightly irritating him. Anyway, welcome Bush Jr. You live in a very strange place, little shrub.
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Apr 12, 2023 21:40
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sandorius posted:Annette looks great in that wedding outfit, shame you only see it the once. Congratulations, I really thought Selphy would win though. She pulls off the look pretty well, it's unfortunate that's the only time you get to see it. I remember appreciating how the savescreen on RF3 would occasionally show different outfits, so you'd get a chance to see them in it again. I honestly had no idea who would win at first, and in the later stages of the poll, I still didn't know. Selphy and Anette have pretty much been thread favorites since they've been around. The night before I called it, the vote had gone back and forth at least twice between the two. I went to sleep, woke up, and found the vote tied again with two more votes on the board. Oh, and because I just realized I never actually showed the final results:  I was watching it on my second monitor for like an hour that morning before the Anette vote came in to break the tie. sandorius posted:I dropped the game shortly after beating the final boss, so seeing stuff like the later festivals and that golem has been really great. One thing I do recall is that if you invite someone else other than your wife on a date, your wife will show up and both girls will get angry with you. Not that Bush would ever do something like that, obviously. In regards to not playing long after the final boss, I get that. My playstyle for these games is very much "talk to everyone, optimize all gifts, optimize everything", which usually crunches the game's content pretty hard. I'm not joking when I say some days on this playthrough were over an hour long in realtime. The end result is, well, this, where the postgame is stuck with a pretty hefty content drought. A faster, less obsessively optimized playthrough is really what this game wants, I guess. And that's why I'm going out of my way to pick up the highlights of the second year in the first place. Normally, I might've not seen a lot of this either. I was aware you can double date while married- as it turns out, a text dump is helpful for more than just sparing you the transcribing work. It's really easy to pick up on content you could've missed. BraveLittleToaster posted:That's a nice resolution to Kross's storyline, the dude can live out his life peacefully now. Brodik turned out kind of an okay guy after that. He's still a bit odd. Yeah, it's nice to see Kross can finally move on to being himself. The guy deserves it. "A bit odd" is par for the course in Norad, really. I get the feeling Brodik would've been an eccentric inventor in another life. BraveLittleToaster posted:I wonder who had that outfit already prepared for her? Asking the real questions here. At least the mysterious clothier understands the importance of a hat. edit: Black Robe posted:So... Brodik is a secret agent sent to track down and presumably capture or at least report on a deserter. And his reaction to seeing someone who sort of matched the vague physical description was to... absolutely not investigate any further or send any kind of reports and just spend a year or so slightly irritating him. Both of these statements are true, yes. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Apr 12, 2023 |
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Apr 12, 2023 21:41
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That is a nice fakeout for those of us familiar with what we learn of Bush's past from the RF1 plotline. Does Brodik explicitly say he's from the empire before the final resolution?
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Apr 12, 2023 23:33
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Rawkking posted:That is a nice fakeout for those of us familiar with what we learn of Bush's past from the RF1 plotline. Does Brodik explicitly say he's from the empire before the final resolution? He never says where he's from. In assuming Bush is Weber, he assumes you know exactly who he is, where he's from, and what he's there for. Anette doesn't recognize the foreign addresses on his mail, and nobody knows what he is here for until Kross brings it up in the hospital. People who have played RF1 might be able to connect the dots beforehand, but you can also maybe draw similarities to the generic soldier portrait seen at that game's ending sequence. That's about it.
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Apr 13, 2023 00:09
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Odd Wilson posted:He never says where he's from. In assuming Bush is Weber, he assumes you know exactly who he is, where he's from, and what he's there for. Anette doesn't recognize the foreign addresses on his mail, and nobody knows what he is here for until Kross brings it up in the hospital. I mean not knowing the details of soldier uniforms, I mistakenly thought that Brodik was part of whatever Noradian military organization Bush was part of before getting amnesia and was here to make him rejoin that
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Apr 13, 2023 04:17
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Rawkking posted:I mean not knowing the details of soldier uniforms, I mistakenly thought that Brodik was part of whatever Noradian military organization Bush was part of before getting amnesia and was here to make him rejoin that It's not entirely unfounded. All we know for the longest time is that Brodik is probably some sort of military, and we don't hear much about Sechs outside of Kross. I do think Norad would send a much better agent and have a far more peaceful recruitment if this was the case though. All they have to do is call up Ivan and send him over. In regards to the outfiits.   The outfits aren't even as similar as I remembered. I guess they do have some similarities at least, particularly in the shirt and arm strap things. His cloak hides a lot of it. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Apr 13, 2023 |
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Apr 13, 2023 05:06
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Update 62: The Juniper Bush Music: Trampoli Family Life Her name shall be Juniper! (decided by the voices in Bush's head, of course) ...Or at least, Junipe for now. I'll fix that in moment.   ANETTE: Juniper... What a nice name. Welcome to this world, Juniper.  JUNIPER: *hick* Bababa. JUNIPER: (Fah! That is not my true moniker. My rightful title is...) JUNIPER: Gagagoo. JUNIPER: (Um... I forgot.) ANETTE: Looks like Juniper likes the name, too.   ANETTE: It's so strange to think we used to be complete strangers, but now we're married, with a child... ANETTE: We're building a family, one by one...  BUSH: Yeah. Well, I'm glad that now I have two people to love with all my heart. ANETTE: Me, too... We'll be a happy family.   Oh, hello, credits. These just play again for some reason.  And we are unceremoniously dropped back where we were before they played.  "Juniper - The result of Bush and Anette's love. Eat plenty, sleep plenty, and grow!!" Juniper now has her own entry in our log, where we can watch her rotate in space endlessly.  Today also happens to be Coming of Age festival, but her birthday now overrides this on our calendar. (Do note that Juniper was technically born on the 24th as their birth is roughly 60 days after obtaining the child bed, so I save edited this too.)  JUNIPER: Waaaaaaah! JUNIPER: (Your face is funny, strange creature, it perturbs me.) We can also talk to Juniper, but she just makes various baby noises at us. They are voice acted though, so that's something. She won't gain any FP or be capable of recieving any gifts for a while, so we have to figure out something else to do for her birthday.  And so, we shall look at a last bit of new content available with Coming of Age day. Last year, everyone tried to cheat or got lost. Now that we have our own supply of Golden Turnips, however...  Of course we found this turnip in under 5 minutes, why do you ask?  Proceedings progress as normal...   STELLA: And in 1st place... Bush! A new champion! BUSH: All right! I won! (a reminder that we ruined the festival last year to get the turnip seeds in the first place) Looks like we're getting out of this one freely. Take that, other cheaters.   STELLA: Bush... I have something to ask you. Do you have time?   *Bush reacts in shock!*  STELLA: This Golden Turnip isn't the one I hid, is it? It's missing my mark, so I know. STELLA: You cheated, so I'll give you a special prize, Bush. Hey, I resent that! How is Bush a cheater if everyone else cheats? (ignore my statement saying "other cheaters" 5 seconds ago)  [You got a [Toy Sword] as your prize! STELLA: How is it? It's perfect for the immature Bush, right? Laugh all at us all you want, Bush did this for his daughter.  Also, this is an nice way to get a Toy Sword if you can't make one yourself. -----------------------------------------------------------------------  MYSTERY: Holy St. Poli, that's where the other sword is from? You only told me you won it.  BUSH: Um... yeah. I think that might've been the final straw too, because it got changed after that. MYSTERY: Freakin' awesome. JUNIPER: Can't believe a corrupt establishment was taken down on my birthday. You're cool, Dad. MYSTERY: Whoops! I should get back in character! ------------------------------------------------------------------  ----------------------------------------------------- ~"Surf Day" - Stella~ Tomorrow is Sea Surf Day, the day Spirits prepare for hibernation and Whale Island eclipses the sun. We must thank the sun and the Spirits for their providence. Let's a wish for another year of prosperity! ----------------------------------------------------- We jump forward a week to our final unique festival.  ----------------------------------------------------- ~"Recommendations for Tomorrow" - Rosetta~ Hot Milk is perfect for Sea Surf Day. Drink up and warm yourself as winter rolls in! ----------------------------------------------------- As this letter suggests, pretty much all you do is go around and gift Hot Milk. But before we do that...  ----------------------------------------------------- ~"Congratulations yet again!" - Minerva~ Hey, it's Minerva! I heard you had a kid! I can't really picture you as a dad... Anyways, I be sure to come by to see your kid when I can. ♪ ----------------------------------------------------- Minerva underestimates Bush's ability to be a stay-at-home dad. Either that or she was voting for the Kross or Lute options. And finally...  ----------------------------------------------------- ~"Congrats on your baby!" - Tart~ Hello, it's Torte. Long time... I heard that you had child... I am a bit busy... right now... but I hope to one day be able to meet your child in person. ----------------------------------------------------- And so we get a final letter from Tart. I hope you get that chance to visit someday, too.  This is the final unique letter we'll recieve in the LP. There's one or two request letters left in the game (Bianca and Ganesha) we don't end up seeing, but from here on we only get the usual advertisements and notices for our playthrough. End of an era.  ------------------------------------- BUSH: I got message from the Norad capital a few weeks back that says I can finally disclose that Tart was a cover being used by an agent from the capital. MYSTERY: Wait, really?! I knew it was something like that! Only a special agent would have a trenchcoat that cool! BUSH: She was there reporting information on the dragon crisis, and kept in contact with me to retrieve information on other "matters of interest". MYSTERY: So she was a spy even when you were in Kardia? BUSH: Yep. She was posing as the innkeeper's daughter from a separate marriage. Apparently she's older than me, somehow. MYSTERY: ...Okay, this is getting too farfetched now. Are you sure any of this is true? BUSH: I have no idea, this is just what I was told I could say. MYSTERY: Oh, well, in it goes anyways! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Wild speculation on the lives of characters not appearing in this game, aside, Bush sets to making some Hot Milk for the day. We don't have a lot to spare, but we'll make do.  ANETTE: Thanks! It's been getting cold recently, so Hot Milk tastes great during this time.   KROSS: I will be having a toast with "Hot Milk" for the sake of the Spirits, too, today. KROSS: Heh... KROSS: Is that for me? Thank you.   LUTE: Thanks. Is this a festival where you pass out Hot Milk? LUTE: I already got it from Tabatha earlier. This is a day to remember.   SELPHY: Wow, thanks! Drinking Hot Milk while reading is actually pretty nice. Not a lot particularly interesting gets said today, unfortunately, but it is nice to go around and hand out gifts.  The next day after the first snowfall, we hit up Lute for another new painting, "Winter City".  LUTE: Thanks again. LUTE: I drew this hoping that you'd feel even a little bit more at peace, Bush. LUTE: Please take care of it. If it was possible for Bush to be any more at peace than he already is, he's there now.  Today is the best festival, (the bestival, if you will): Quiz Day.   KANNO: The former champion aims for glory once more!  KANNO: The newlywed! KANNO: The light and hope of Trampoli, Bush!  BUSH: I'm ready. KANNO: I have high hopes for you. kanno it's been almost a year, we're hardly newlyweds  ANETTE: Good luck, honey!  JUNIPER: Dada! Abububa! JUNIPER: (Go! Prove to me that you are my intellectual peer!)  CANDY: What a cute cheer. As we're now married, the family shows up to cheer us on.  The plan was to completely ruin the festival by making everyone get zero points, but it impressively difficult to achieve as you barely have the time to kick the correct answers out of the square. Add Mist randomly pushing around the contestants as she changes answers, and it makes it extremely hard to do. The reason I wanted to is this dialogue: disaster posted:
 There's only two highlights of this year's festival. The first is that Turner is so drunk he gets the question asking who's the town's innkeeper (him) incorrect. The second is that Super Gramps time is extremely rigged this year.  KANNO: ...everyone except Bush will gain 10 points! It's anyone's game now!  BUSH: Wait, what?! Are you telling me the game until now is meaningless? CANDY: Um... If you don't listen to Grandpa, you'll get DQ'ed. JUNIPER: Ababa! Agooga! JUNIPER: (Injustice! Down with the system!)  CANDY: Um... Hello. General Store "Materia" welcomes you... Huh? This isn't a plug? The mystery voice this year is Rosetta, who mistook this for an advertisement opportunity.   KANNO: It seems the champion has kept the dignity of the title. With 8, Bush is the winner! With Mist foiling our attempts to joke around, we have to settle for just winning the contest. Oh well   We return home and take a look at "Winter City". It's a shot of the Clocktower and the Archives covered in snow, also from an improbable angle. I think Lute might've climbed up a tree to paint this.  We put a strawberry in the Hotpot this year, but it turns out badly.  At least we didn't explode this time. --------------------------------------------------------- MYSTERY: You never spontaneously combusted at the Hotpot Festival. We've been over this. BUSH: That's what you and everyone else thinks, at least. I know what happened. *shudder* MYSTERY: Well, what interesting thing happened next? BUSH: You learned how to crawl around on your own overnight. MYSTERY: Daaad! Stay in character! ----------------------------------------------------------  ANETTE: Look! Juniper can crawl around now!   JUNIPER: Papa! ANETTE: Juniper is adorable. Maybe because it's our kid? Haha... She's growing up so fast. It's really amazing. ANETTE: Raising a kid is tough, but every day is filled with surprises JUNIPER: Ababa! Gagagooga! JUNIPER: (Your paltry cage can contain me no longer! I am free!)  And so, a month after she was born, she's out crawling around. She's not up here, so she found her way downstairs somehow. If you're worried about her lack of hat, don't worry, she'll get a new one soon. Although, it doesn't rock as much as her initial hat.  She'll spend a lot of time sitting right here on the first floor, in fact.   JUNIPER: Papa! JUNIPER: My suplicashion is for brekkist!  BUSH: ...What? JUNIPER: Provide vicshuls! BUSH: ...Um. JUNIPER: Food! BUSH: Oh, right. Got it. --------------------------------------------------- MYSTERY: I stopped using proper language just because it got annoying that nobody could understand me. MYSTERY: Formality's boring and overrated anyways. BUSH: ...Sometimes I worry I read too many books. MYSTERY: Nonsense! Knowledge is the future! Literature is the greatest food! BUSH: I also sometimes worry I let Selphy around you too often. MYSTERY: Aunt Selphy is great, what are you on about? MYSTERY: Anyways, I was soooo pretentious when I was little. BUSH: You're still little. You're 5 years old. -----------------------------------------------------  Outiside of the present creative liberties, Juniper is capable of only saying "Papa" or her usual babbling.  It's still somehow too early to give her the stuffed toys.  "Juniper- She's starting to crawl! It's so cute how she works so hard to crawl this way." She gets an updated entry, and can now even build FP.  The 24th roll back around, and it's been a whole year since Bush got married. With this, something special does happen!  Music: RomanceANETTE: Honey... Let's go on a date. BUSH: Sure! ANETTE: Really? Then let's meet up by the bridge over the lake at 5pm. You do have the option to say you can't do it today, but I don't imagine that ends well.  While we wait for the date, I show off one last thing I missed in last year's winter. The lake is frozen over and you can walk on it, but there remains a hole cut in the ice you can fish in. All the fish from it come out as level 10 regardless of how good you are. The only fish available are Pond Smelt, Taimen, and rarely Carp (or at least that I ended up catching). I guess I didn't need to wait until Spring for that request after all.  Anette arrives about 50 minutes early.  Music: To You*Talking to her immediately starts the cutscene.*  *Bush and Anette approach the Lake Poli bridge...*   ANETTE: Going on a date like this reminds me of before we got married... BUSH: Yeah...  *They walk on...*    *We get various views of them walking across. They stop to take in the view from the center of the bridge.*  ANETTE: Look... What a beautiful view... BUSH: Wow, you're right.   *Following that, we get a view of the snowcapped mountains, dimly lit by the sunset under cover of dark clouds..*  BUSH: I'm so happy I was able to meet you here in Trampoli. BUSH: I've looked forward to every day since I married you. ANETTE: Me, too...  BUSH: Shall we head home? ANETTE: You go on ahead. I want to stay here a bit longer.  Now, Bush has proved dense and oblivious over the course of our time here, but even he can read the room.  I've had a second wristwatch prepared for a while, and here's the best time for it.  ANETTE: What's...this...? BUSH: It's your anniversary present. Thank you for putting up with me until now. ANETTE: ...!! Oh, honey... Thank you... ANETTE: I'm so happy...  *From this angle, we can see she's already wearing it under her sleeve.*  ANETTE: I...I have a favor to ask you.  ANETTE: Could you...um... come a little closer?    *And so they share a romantic kiss to close out the scene.*  ANETTE: ... She's left speechless. Only thing left to do is to actually go home.  Well, let's see how Juniper is doing-  MIST   MIST: Hello, Bush. BUSH: ...!  MIST: I was just watching after your little chick since you were out having a secret meeting.  MIST: She's adorable. She looks just like you... BUSH: Um... thank you. JUNIPER: Papa! Hungry! JUNIPER: I request turnip! MIST: I might've taught her to say that. I hope you don't mind. BUSH: Really... Even though we're married, Mist will just show up in our house on rainy days as usual, conveniently right next to where Juniper sits.  Not long after our anniversary date is the 3rd year, of course.  This also means we can talk to Lute again to get a new painting. I think we already have this one though? Either way, here's "Summer Ocean".  LUTE: By the way, I sold a painting of mine the other day! That's the first time someone other than you bought one! BUSH: Really? Congratulations! LUTE: This is all thanks to you, Bush. LUTE: I'll be coming more often to draw in this village. Lute's business is finally taking off, it's good to see. ...And yes, we've been his only buyer of his paintings over the years up to this point.  In a few weeks, we catch up with him again, and...!  BUSH: A...present? LUTE: That's right. LUTE: The person that bought my painting the other day really liked it. LUTE: So that person is going to come to buy my paintings from time to time. BUSH: Oh, really? Congratulations! LUTE: Thank you kindly. This is all thanks to you, Bush. I was able to build my confidence because you encouraged me.  LUTE: Now about the present... I'd like to use you as my model for a painting. LUTE: I'll hang this up in the usual place at your house. Please take a look whenever you feel like it. BUSH: Th-thank you very much. But, hanging up a painting of myself feels kind of weird... We obtain the final painting!  When we come home late, we can find Anette in the chair upstairs watching over a sleeping Juniper.  JUNIPER: Mrmm... Well, she doesn't have a lot to say, predictably.  We check our painting list, to see the new "Portrait of Bush" at the bottom.  Amazing.  Just exceptional Chef's kiss.  I do like the autumn forest painting the most so that gets put back up. In a few days time, we hit Summer 24th, and...!  ANETTE: Juniper seems to have endless energy.   JUNIPER: Daddy! Hug!  *And so she toddles towards Bush...*  ANETTE: Juniper! Stop running around the house! ANETTE: You'll fall and hurt yourself!  JUNIPER: I've mastered walking! I'm fine. *Juniper moves back to Anette...*  ANETTE: Juniper is getting really interested in your work lately and wants to start tilling the fields. ANETTE: Juniper still can't read. I'm a little worried about that... JUNIPER: Mooom! Where's the history textbook? ANETTE: Actually I meant to say she reads too well for her age... ANETTE: Will I get to teach her anything at this rate...? Well, anyways... ANETTE: I always feel my best when the three of us are together.  JUNIPER: Morning, Daddy! JUNIPER: Are you off to fix nature again or something?  JUNIPER: Come back soon! With that, Juniper is as old as she'll get. She has entered her FINAL FORM.  "Juniper - It's too cute the way she walks. What if some prince from afar comes to tak her away??" This is her final logbook entry. You may also note that she's wearing a Ribbon and holding the Toy Waterpot already.  We can finally give her all the toys we prepared. She can only have two on her as accessories at a time, although most of the ones that aren't the Ribbon replace one another. Any toys that get replaced just teleport up into the toybox upstairs   She wears the Wooly and the Duck on her head for some reason.   JUNIPER: I wanna go, too! BUSH: Didn't you just say that you were staying inside? JUNIPER: Nah, I'm bored now! I'll follow you around. As we leave the house, Juniper will follow us around town. Unfortunately she counts as a follower in the same way as Pony so we can't have them both out at the same time. ...Or can we? ==================================== CURRENT DAY ==================================== Music: Trampoli JUNIPER: Aaaand done! JUNIPER: The Shrub Family history is complete! JUNIPER: Well, the first draft at least. ANETTE: That's what this has all been about? JUNIPER: Yup! BUSH: I think Selphy put her up to it. JUNIPER: It was my idea, Auntie's just been helping! ANETTE: (Selphy's not your aunt...) JUNIPER: Now I have to discover my next great project... ANETTE: You do realize the history of our family doesn't stop here, right? What about tomorrow, or next month? JUNIPER: ... JUNIPER: Whoops. I'll let the next Shrub handle that. JUNIPER: Isn't that right, Pony? We have to go on our own adventures first! *Pony barks, wagging her tail.*  BUSH: Hey, before you two go, be sure to eat your pie. JUNIPER: Food! Yaaay! ==================================== JUNIPER: Ooh, there's one last letter in here! How did I miss this? JUNIPER: ...It's still sealed? Why's there no address? ANETTE: H-Hold on! Don't open it! ANETTE: That letter needs to stay there. It's a... very important memory. JUNIPER: You and Dad always have trouble remembering things. Is this a magic charm to help with that? Or is it just a another post office thing? ANETTE: Haha... It's something like that, yeah. ANETTE: There's a time in the future I'll let you open it. I'll deliver it to you then. JUNIPER: Aww. how much in the future? Everything's "when I'm older!" JUNIPER: I can already recite the contents of every Noradian dictionary, you know! ANETTE: I know, Junie, I know... JUNIPER: ...Oh, I guess I forgot to close this episode out. JUNIPER: This has been Trampoli TV! We thank you for watching and reading along to the end! JUNIPER: Until next time... JUNIPER: Goodnight! Music: Goodnight
Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Apr 20, 2023 |
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Apr 14, 2023 22:45
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To clarify, this isn't the final FINAL update, tomorrow's will be. This is the end of the actual gameplay though. Next time, we'll go over any last bits of interesting dialogue I've found, in the game or cut content, briefly cover that Iris Noire fight I promised forever ago, and I'll put in my last comments on the game as a whole. And from there, what comes next. I won't lie, I've had a bit of heartache today and yesterday writing this, now fully realizing this was the end.
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Apr 14, 2023 22:50
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It's sad to finally see the end of gameplay, but Bush has made a good little weird life for himself with Anette. Maybe he'll finally solve the Runey disaster one day. The future adventures of Juniper and Pony will surely bring the world into a bold new age of magic and innovation.
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Apr 15, 2023 00:37
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Odd Wilson posted:We check our painting list, to see the new "Portrait of Bush" at the bottom. Bush: 
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Apr 15, 2023 09:55
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Final Update: Epilogue Well, here we are. Still hard to believe it's finally here. I said I'd get this LP done, and by Bush, I did it. But instead of waffling on endlessly about that, let's look at the last bit of content I can dig up for the LP. ====================================== CONTENT WRAPUP ====================================== IRIS NOIRE BOSS FIGHT  I promised this way long ago, and here it is at last. The cutscenes progress the same up until after the animated cutscene of Noire charging Bush.  Music: Iris Noire BattleFrom there, we're dropped right into the fight. For this, I'm actually using my old file from nearly a decade ago pulled off my Wii SD card, which conveniently wasn't far away from this point in the game. I tried for forever to get to this point on an old Bush savestate, but the event for Gelwein to open the gates on Whale Island just wouldn't happen. We're currently invincible for sake of demonstration and carrying a max level farming hammer, aptly called The Hammer.  Iris fights exclusively with spells and no melee, despite what her animated cutscene would suggest. The first of them is a slow moving wave of fire that explodes on contact.  It spreads out by a lot.   IRIS NOIRE: Go. Another of her attacks has her create a frozen mist...   Then drops a moonlit meteor that travels slowly at you before exploding into a second wave out in 6 directions. Also yes that green bar is our HP. We've got so much it doesn't fit on the screen or render properly half the time. This is totally legitimate and not a result of cheat codes, I assure you.  IRIS NOIRE: Fly. Another attack is a large circle of violet lightning strikes. Her voice acting is appropriately emotionless and reverb-y, given the mind control magic stuff going on.  IRIS NOIRE: Away with you! This attack throws out a wave of dark runes in a random distribution. It's not easy to dodge, and does a hefty chunk of damage. I have unnecessarily boosted defense here, so in reality every one of her attacks does a lot of damage.  She rarely strays outside of the center circle and will often teleport back to the Dark Rune.  She can also strafe while casting, so good luck landing a hit.  There's also the fact you can't hurt her anyways.  It's these 4 computer monitor things evenly spread in the corners of the rooms that's the actual target.  They're not lightweight either. Bush is using a hammer with over 140 base damage and spamming the charge attack and they're not going down fast at all. The challenge is Noire spamming magic at you while you try to break these.  Her moveset gets an update by the last machine. This attack summons a large variety of bat shaped projectiles that remain in place briefly...  Before all of them charge at your last position, giving you little time to escape. Complete with bat noises!  They then just swarm around briefly, although it's worth noting they don't hurt much. It's a move to stagger you so she can drop something real on your head.  Her other new attack summons a massive ring of blue spheres...  That descend to the ground in a chain of icicles.   Your best chance to get in and get hits is to bait her to use the fire wall. If your timing is right, you can get in between casts of the wave and have enough time to drop a special.  With a flash of light and a scream, the fight ends.    From there, the scene progresses kinda similarly. Gelwein just attributes the awareness-control being weakened thanks to Mist's presence and hidden power. So that's that. I do still like how they have an alternate, no-fight route if you've spent a lot of time befriending Blanche. In the vein of some final gameplay stuff we never touched...  Way back when, we read a book about a guy and his squirrel. What it suggests to do is give a Rune Stone to a monster you like.  BUSH: I hope you'll lay some great eggs. bush,  This prompts us to name a new monster...   And, um, we now have an egg! I stand corrected, I guess everything lays eggs. These take a long while to hatch, but pop out a monster with a higher level and the same friendship as the parent. But of course, no monster can replace Pony, so I just didn't do this. (i also forgot) And while we're in the menu, let's take a final look at Bush's stats.  Total Villager Friendship: Mist: 9.9 FP, 6.7 LP Rosetta: Maxed Lara: 9.5 LP & FP Melody: Maxed Bianca: 5 FP, 6 LP (strange how LP is higher than FP) Tabatha: Maxed  Eunice: 10 FP, 8.8 LP Cinnamon: Maxed Anette: Maxed Selphy: Maxed Uzuki: 10 FP, 7.4 LP Iris: Maxed  Turner : 5.8 FP Rita: 5 FP Erik: 7.8 FP Kanno: Maxed Candy: 6.8 FP Stella: Maxed  Ganesha: Maxed Marco: 4.6 FP Danny: 5.4 FP Lute: Maxed Minerva: 2.9 FP Kross: Maxed  Brodik: 0.8 FP Nolan: 5.5 FP Juniper: 4.3 FP  House has every decoration possible, plus a barn with 30 slots total. 1043 Lumber to spare too, not bad.  A buncha books. It's nearly every cookbook and all the crafting books except for weapons that arent Axes or Magic.  Goes to show that nothing outdid the absolutely crazy 1st summer's output. In the top 5 alone, it makes up for 3 slots and adds up to over 300,000g of total profit. One summer.   Most of our monsters hover around the 2-3 FP range.  Pony is at 5 because she traveled with us constantly. I did brush all the monsters every day before the large timeskips, so this goes to show the friendship benefits from that and how impossible it is to get FP 10 on a high level monster. Level 59, and our eternal MVP and best friend.  Bush himself ended just shy of 67, with a very strong skillset. The general average is around 60 skillpoints, with Weapons being our lowest. 75 Lumber/Axe and 57 Magic ain't bad. We've also got about 50 something Fruit Subs and 40 something Bamboo Rice stockpiled. And for our last bit of image content, here's some bonus images.  Here's a looping gif of Bianca brushing Franswah. I think I forgot to ever use this. But it goes with the Mist and Rosetta ones.   Here's Bush and Pony's HUD icons.       And here's some profile icons for some of the villagers. On to the far more text based stuff.... DIALOGUE WE DIDN'T SEE Having a text dump really lets you pick up on things you might never have found yourself. Some of this, I tried to see, some of it we just didn't because it never came up. First up is comments on Juniper. The various villagers have lines for it, some if they're the parent others if they're just visiting but I couldn't get them to go off.  Seriously, I tried. Maybe I was getting shot down thanks to festival or pre-festival dialogue, I dunno. Some of these definitely seem exclusive to them being the parents though. Anyways, here they are. Book Club Induction posted:
Juniper needs no help being a book lover though. She was literate before she could speak. (At least, according to her retelling of the events.) These are the dangers of too much knowledge + drinking weird snake oil nearly a year ago. Rune Factory's Continuing Aunt Situation posted:
Obviously, this is if you married Tabatha. Juniper doesn't look any different in this regard, although she should be a half-elf. Is this the time I mention that Turner and Rita will eventually have another kid, meaning if you married Eunice, Bush's kid will have an aunt/uncle younger than them? Early Rune Factory, I swear. Melody's Bath Pricing posted:
Melody doesn't charge for kids. Given that 10g is already a pittance, she really just runs the bath as a non-profit. Juniper's Spirit Song posted:
We don't know if she posesses the ability to sing the spirit song, but I imagine Candy will be a good teacher. The Gimmick of Erik Singleman posted:
Erik persists with his quirky means of address, even into the future. We never saw it, but rarely he'll say "my pastoral brother".  ERIK: What is it, my pastoral brother?! Are you researching your own plants after seeing my work? Wonderful, wonderful! This guy. Another font of dialogue is Quiz Day. Mystery of the Half-Elf posted:
Apparently Ganesha is half-elven? Her ears are huge if that's the case. There's three half-elves in RF2 and they're all on the normal-sized but pointy ear variety. Maybe this meant to say Marco? Erik Wins (But Also Loses) posted:
destroyed  Cinnamon Victory posted:
Selphy, Knowledgemaster posted:
I think that line is Kanno's at least. I have to guess with some of these. Still, Super Gramps doesn't hold back, sheesh. The nun overcomes stage fright posted:
Lara barely gets a chance to talk. What's the Buffamoo Foundation? We'll never know. A win for the Coquilles posted:
And a last little note, if there's a tie in points, Kanno gives the top prize to a random audience member. The most interesting one is:  ROSETTA: Just as I planned. See that, Mist? I win! Rosetta's rivalry extends even to pure chance. I don't know the speaker of this last line, but it's funny so: UNKNOWN: You know, I'm the one that donated this... And now for some other random stuff. Marco's Innovative Self Defense Technique posted:
Backscratchers are pretty decent weapons in later games, usually in the early game. Bianca Does A Thing (Tabatha Proposal) posted:
Iris's Ambitions posted:
Finally, all of the bachelorettes have different nicknames for Bush when married. Here's the list. Marriage Nicknames posted:
Some final other bits: - Mist's later LP event reveals that Mr. Dog is getting better at controlling the rune absorption. Also her two ducks have a baby around the same time as you, I think. - Apparently Rita owns a whip, and she threatens to whip Bush 100 times if you try to take from her apple stock. No, I'm not joking. "If you try to sneak a bite, I'm gonna whip you 100 times, Bush!" "Well, this is perfect. I was just itching to test out my whip." Anyways. [CUT CONTENT] I've picked up a decent bit of cut content through the text dump, and strangely, looking in the savefile. Yeah, there's leftover filler data in there for some reason, mostly interaction text. It's nothing that isn't already in the files though. The notable cut content is this selection of events that seemed to have played when staring at the sky. I have had Bush make a minor comment when staring at the sky for a long while, but I'm led to believe these are cut thanks to their use of @Raguna@ internally, instead of the actual player variable, ÿ 0é0°0Êÿ. Or, in hex, 0A FF 20 30 E9 30 B0 30 CA FF 20. (ÿ [PO›ÿ is Juniper's variable, by the way.) If they're actually in the game and I just missed them... whoops? This is me just making an inference. Whether or not they're used, here they are anyways. There's a little over 20,000 characters here, so I put the rest in a separate test post. Here's just the most interesting ones, sans portraits. Looking at the Sky (Unknown Speaker/ Mist?) posted:
Anette's Events posted:-LOOKING AT THE SKY- There's also a final one that revisits Lara talking to the dream tree. Lara, Tree Mom posted:
You can find the rest of this potentially unused text HERE. ====================================== MY RETROSPECTIVE ====================================== Music: The Sweetest Time(Have some music links of some of my favorite tracks to spread it out.) So, final opinion on the game having come back to it after all these years? Frontier is far from a perfect game, but it has it's moments and I've honestly grown really attached to the adventures of Bush and this strange little town. I suppose when you spend nearly 90 hours of gameplay and hundreds more in writing updates, you either learn to love it or hate it. Writing the last updates were very bittersweet- I'm happy to have completed this, but I'm sad to see it go. That was Rune Factory: Frontier- and with it, my first LP. It's hard to believe it's been a year and a half since it started and since I decided to pick up the art of doing LPs. The whole of this not only shows Bush's adventure, but also that of finding my footing here and in the medium itself. It's a large jump from merely reading what finds it's way to the archive over a few years, and it's been one with a lot of up and downs. I haven't touched any of my old commentary in proofreading, even if I might have wanted to change it. Did I ever tell you that doing RFF was a last-minute change from what I did have planned? Turned out better than it should've, really. Music: To YouThe Runey system remains dysfunctional, and I'll join in with the chorus that says to just Action Replay that mechanic away. It's just so very, very time consuming to the point where the faster crop growths don't even feel that rewarding. But I proved it could be done, I suppose. I think if the harvester was quality-of-lifed into just a menu where you can pick how many you want to take or put out at time, it'd help A LOT. And maybe if there was something more interesting to the bonuses or something, like certain crops being able to gain levels if there was a heavy majority of a certain kind of Runey. Goodbye Runey menace, if only you weren't so tedious. Music: Whale Island OutsideThe soundtrack's now got some particular favorites for me, Whale Island Outside is one I've always liked, I've got a deeper appreciation for Kross's theme, and the seasonal tracks all land pretty well. The Spring theme remains uniquely interesting to me, as I remember loading up the Flash powered before it was lost forever website to hear it as I awaited the day I could play the game. Music: Grimoire Song - Full VersionGrimoire Song, particularly the finale version, always gives me some chills. Sure, the finale passes by rather swiftly and we only meet Gelwein proper a total of 3 times, but I think it's assisted by how much time you spend with these characters. All those little tunes you hear the girls hum from time to time coming together is great. And speaking of the girls... Music: SpringThe bachelorettes are all pretty good, though some definitely outshine the others. The seeds of the unbelievably wacky characters that would come in RF3 can be seen here through a number of the girls, (Selphy and Melody in particular,) and they're all generally likeable. I do wish Eunice wasn't stuck with the unfortunate shadow lingering over hers (be it the diet or the strained marriage), and I feel like Rosetta kinda didn't get a lot in the end. Cinnamon's was really minor too, but I can kinda respect it. She delivered content through other means. Music: SummerAnette is high on the list for me, not in just because her situation is pretty relatable, but particularly for remaining a constant highlight to every morning. I went out of the way to do the narrative thing just because I felt like it, but also because I wanted to give her a bit more agency in the overall story. They never do explain why she can't see Kross or why monsters chase her, though. Music: Kross' ThemeOn that note, Kross himself deserves special mention for being such an interesting figure you have to go out of your way to learn more about. There's no mechanical reward for it, it's just being friends with a cool guy and a bit of connective info from this game to RF1. I didn't remember a lot about Kross from when I first played this, so seeing the story play out was rather fun. Music: Green RuinsMist's Turnip Mafia thing remains a thing I joked about, ran with the joke, put the joke down, and eventually picked it back up. I don't actually dislike Mist, she's got some funny lines, I just feel like she's not very stand-out in this game compared to her RF1 appearance. (Though to be fair, she gets way more dialogue than most other characters in that game.) I still don't know what her hidden power is, whether or not she's a vampire, related to the experiments, or some sort of Earthmate variant, the game never really said. Music: Iris' Spirit SongI kinda wish the game had focused more on Iris, to be honest. It really looks as if it was supposed to be more about them, but it was decided Mist had to take focus being this weird, pseudo-sequel. Or maybe they ran out of time or ideas- unrealized potential is ever the name of the game with Neverland. Still, it's unfortunate that her final event mostly deletes the other Iris in practice. Still, probably budget/time constraints.  Music: Rune Factory 1 - Kardia ParkI still can't tell you how this game is a sequel, just that it takes place in a time period later than RF1. But I suppose I've yammered enough commentary at you for sixty-something updates, there's more important things to talk about now that we're here. The question I'm sure at least one person wants to ask is... ====================================== WHERE TO GO FROM HERE? ====================================== Well, on forwards with Tides of Destiny is the easy answer, right? Unlike Frontier, I never saw a lot of that game, and honestly, didn't give it much of a chance at the time so who knows where my opinion will land? While, I definitely could and still plan to LP it someday, (perhaps it'll happen in the next year or two,) I need some space from Rune Factory as well as time for other LPs. As much as I wish I could just write LP updates every day all the time, I'm not capable of surviving off the absorption of knowledge like Selphy. Then, is the answer reviving my other languishing LPs? No, but rest assured I will ressurect them someday. I did with this one, right? (I own that import cart of J2 for a reason, after all.) And it's not to say I won't find the time for something small to run on the side every once in a while, here's just to hoping I don't underestimate the workload again Doing Frontier was driven by Lord Hippoman's LP of Rune Factory 1, one of two LPs that first got me hooked on this. The other is Sylphid's Atelier Shallie LP. And thus, it only makes sense I move forward with a game that has ties to the latter... The next LP I will be launching soon (after a short break or so) is...  (if you watch the SA Sandcastle thread, you've already known about this) Blue Reflection: Second Light, followed by the original Blue Reflection (and maybe even Ray too, if LPing an anime is something that's even possible). It's an endeavor that will take a long time to complete and I've been so excited to get it started- it's a series I absolutely adore and Second Light is on par with RF3 for me as an all-time favorite. With Frontier done and my footing found, I feel like I'm ready to give this the highest quality, most extensive LP I can manage for it. If you enjoyed the slice-of-life or the romance aspects of this game, you'll readily enjoy what Second Light has to offer in that regard, and it has so much more beyond just that in it's music, visual presentation, and combat. We'll even have voting, which despite being spaced out, will still be more frequent than in this LP. (It's also a sequel and also about amnesia, somehow.) Give it a shot when the LP drops, I hope you won't be disappointed. ====================================== FAREWELL ======================================  To close this out, thank you to each and everyone of you readers for sticking through to the end. Whether you're an active poster, just a voter, or even a lurker, you have my thanks. There's nothing better than knowing people enjoy my work.  If you want to support me, the best way is to just keep on reading. Post if you can think of something to comment on or ask- I won't judge if you don't, I lurk in a lot of threads too. It can be hard to think of something to post sometimes, really. (you can also throw a tip my way if you really want to, but don't feel pressured. heck, mentioning it feels weird) The thread will stay up until it gets archived (proofreading and a bit of cleanup work), but feel free to ask any unanswered questions you have. You can find Bush's savefile and the text dump here, for whatever use you may have of them. Here's also an anonymous comment box that I'll keep open. So even if you weren't here when this was live, you can still leave your own message.  Music: Title Theme 88 Hours. Man. ..,Well, that's really all that's left to say. Bush will live on in his own peaceful life now, working to remove the runey threat from all future games. For now, we say farewell to Trampoli and the strange people that inhabit it. Bush, Pony, Anette, Juniper- until we meet again.  ...After one last dirt nap, for old time's sake.
Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Apr 20, 2023 |
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Apr 16, 2023 00:22
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Thanks for the LP, Odd Wilson! Been following since the start and it's been fun. I'm rather looking forward to your next one.
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Apr 16, 2023 02:11
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Napping in front of Juniper like that? That's bad parenting Bush, you'll teach her laziness and/or overworking Thanks for the great LP!
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Apr 16, 2023 03:12
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Thanks for sticking with it until the end, this was great.
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Apr 16, 2023 09:16
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Yeah, this was a great read, Odd Wilson and I´ll happily follow your next LP as well.
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Apr 16, 2023 10:39
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It was great, thanks for saving us all from having to manage runeys, and looking forward to the next game!
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Apr 17, 2023 03:55
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Excellent work, a joy to read from start to finish. Looking forward to Blue Reflection as well as (eventually) Tides.
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Apr 17, 2023 04:33
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It's still great seeing all these familiar names, especially after the impromptu hiatus. Again, thank you all for reading and posting the whole way. Blue Reflection: Second Light will launch sometime this week! Still working on cleaning this up for the archive and a little something for the recent randomizer megathread. Tides of Destiny spoiler: Anette is a guest NPC in it Slaan posted:Napping in front of Juniper like that? That's bad parenting Bush, you'll teach her laziness and/or overworking JUNIPER: Moooom! Dad's on the ground again! BUSH: im fine BUSH: its just for the camera JUNIPER: Nevermind! He's just being weird again! BUSH: actually i cant get up JUNIPER: Moooooooom! Laraaaaaaa!
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Apr 18, 2023 17:27
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Bush's story is officially live on the archive: https://lparchive.org/Rune-Factory-Frontier/ If you're looking for any of my other work, amnesia based storytelling continues with Blue Reflection: Second Light here as well as an ongoing and incredibly jank Dark Souls LP and some SSLPs to come in Double Negative's fantastic Randomizer Megathread. There's also the slow but steady Gay Fates: Revelation, where we're currently on pace to be done with it in... about another year and a half. It sure is one of the LPs of all time. And again, thanks for reading!
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May 14, 2023 20:54
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