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grundo1561 posted:I made this account just to say that this is loving awesome. I've been wanting to play Manji Maru for years but this is the next best thing! I'm loving the Ziria fan translation and I hope this gets one too. Thanks and welcome to the forum! As for Manjimaru, there's been a few conflicting infos whether these same guys will do it or not and there's also a guy on twitter who is apparently big in fan translation community (@RetroTranslator) who is saying he will get started on it next year, but either way even if someone does start it in the near future, it's an absolutely huge game and it's probably going to take a not-insignificant amount of time to do it, I would say no less than a couple of years for all the translation and editing work and everything else, if you ask me. But really, the more games are available to play, the better, even if it does take some time. For those who are interested, Tengai Makyou Zero (for SNES) has had a fan translation for a while now and I believe someone is also working on The Fourth Apocalypse for Sega Saturn (which are the two following games chronologically after Kabuki Den).
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Dec 14, 2023 20:23
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ivantod posted:HELL CASTLE exceptional caption. I want to make sure nobody missed it.
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Dec 14, 2023 22:15
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 So, last time we started a new adventure. Kabuki is now a kabuki actor in Kyoto, but soon he gets summoned by his buddy Orochimaru and is informed about a possible re-emergence of Daimon Cult, the villains from the first game, who have been thought to have been defeated once and for all by Ziria, Orochimaru and Tsunade, the first game's heroes. The situation gets worse when somehow all women of Kyoto are kidnapped and the beautiful Golden Pavilion temple is replaced by a garish western-style building. Kabuki tracks down a lord of a nearby town who seems to be in cahoots with one of Daimon Cult acolytes, the Golden Cambie, a guy who has a passion for garishnes. However, the attempt to defeat him fails as Kabuki is lacking a sword made of substance which can dissolve gold. We already have one component of said substance, but now have to go on a quest to find another. Also, I know you're wondering about the title of this chapter. Don't worry, it will be very much worth it!  So, here we are in Toba. As you might recalle, here there was also a closed gate leading to hunting grounds. We should check that out. Talking to the people in town, we're informed that the lord has given up his idea of becoming Taikun and that all the men from the mines have returned. However they also express their annoyance that the women are still gone!  All right, here we go!  We'll continue on the road and toward that bridge.  The Mountain Demon is annoying because it can cast a strong fire spell that does around 30 HP damage to Kabuki!  Looks like where we're going, there aren't any roads.  In fact, we're going to that large tree. Like a single house represents a town on the map, so does this tree represent a forest-style dungeon!  Welcome to Atago Animal Trail. I like this idea of an "open air" dungeon! You don't see that often in games of this time period. It seems it's always just caves of some sort!  These guys die in one hit of Kabuki's lightning spell, but they may sneak in a turn and poison you, which as we've already seen is a bit annoying in this game as it's not so easy to heal it!  Let's head south.  I was wondering about the name of this enemy, but it appears to be a reference to a 1970s manga ("Bachihebi") about a guy searching for a mysterious Tsuchinoko snake. I actually found a cover of one of the issues of said manga:   It's definitely a bit of a maze here, that's for sure!  Strong, but on its own, mostly doable. In general this area is kind of rough, and is made worse by the fact than you can get poisoned from the enemies here.  We go through a more grassy area.  We reach a bit of an area with four chests. I'm just showing it to you, but in reality you don't really want to bother coming here. One chest has enemies to fight, the other two have a couple of consumables and the last one has "Poison Needle Shoes". It's a cursed weapon which drains your MP as you walk. It's actually the best footwear stats-wise you can find so far, but you have to give up on spells if you want to wear them. Like in the previous game, I feel like playing this game without the use of spells would be immensely frustrating, but people actually do it as challenge, so what do I know. One of the consumables here, "Wind Charm" is mildly useful as it allows you to fast travel to any town you've visited before.  As we keep going, we're still accosted by enemies. This is not a great combination as all of these have a bit more HP than you'd want. Incidentally whirlwind-weasel ("kamaitachi") is another mythical Japanese creature who rides on whirlwinds and inflicts sharp wounds. Here's a 18th century drawing of such a creature:  It looks a bit similar to the one in game, I guess!  Finally we head to our destination, towards the west.  Looks a bit freaky here...  ...but it finally leads to the other side of the forest, with a town in sight. Perhaps here we can get some relief?  Welcome to Sagano village. But for some reason, all the doors are shut on houses? Let's talk to this guy here for a sec to find out what's going on. Yeah. We've got a bit of a Bloodborne situation here, as a matter of fact. But at least here, all the shops are still open, however, we do get random encounters as we walk around, which is a bit of pain.  Let's start with the equipment shop. They have some decent equipment upgrades here actually.  As you can see, we have earned a bit of money, so we can buy this "Sharp Sword Hayate" for 480 ryo.  It will temporarily displace our Demon King Sword for an additional +7 in attack power.  Walking back outside, we get attacked! Another one from the Japanese youkai gallery, this one has a form of a paper latern which has split in the middle and through which opening it's tongue comes out! This time I don't need to post additional pictures as the creature looks exactly like you see on the screenshot! Luckily they die in one hit, but be careful as they can cast a really strong fire spell (like a lot of enemies around here).  Over here in the storage room, some good news. Ah! As we were told in the beginning, we can now pick up a couple of extra spells. He gets back two spells, "petal storm" which is a decently strong wind spell that hits all enemies and also "ice blade" which is a low accuracy but strong hit against one enemy. This should be useful later on.  It's pretty rough outside! These ones have high agility and attack, so if you get unlucky it might actually be the end of you! Neverthless, like lantern ghosts, umbrella ghosts too belong to the Japanese youkai pantheon. Here's another 18th century drawing of this one:  If you look carefully at the game screenshot, you can definitely see the spokes!  You can definitely still rest at the inn, at least. Also two people to talk to! At this point I remember that I should do some more equipment upgrades.  So, we'll pick up also this "Armour of Sincerity" for 520 ryo.  It's a not bad +4 compared to our White Tiger Armour.  Also, this "Venus Helm" here is pretty cheap at only 56 ryo.  But it actually gives us a further +6 in defence! While we're upgrading our equipiment...   ...here is another shop.  Here we can pick up these "Gale Sandals" for 220 ryo.  Equipping this will increase our agility by 3!  The item shop has a few people to talk to. Well, that's not great. But it seems we should look for the village chief to hear more about that masked guy!  We can notice here another fox shrine. But this one is a bit special, so more on that later.  Well. Maybe it seems unimportant to you, but it's exactly what we need! The other person here is actually the village chief, so let's see. This sounds promising. Let's head there.  Indeed, just a few steps to the north is a temple building.  We're accosted by more enemies on the way there, though. This is a bad combination, because the Cursed Fire enemy can cast a strong fire spell which does around 30 HP damage to Kabuki. So if you get "stunlocked" with them spamming it, you may end up in a bit of a pickle here. On the other hand, the leech has a decent amount of HP so it takes a few hits.  But anyway, here we are. Looks quite nice to me.  As expected, there's someone living here!  Well, that was certainly... odd. But let's see what happens now.     Zeami has joined the party! And just like that, we have our next party member! Before we move on, I should just explain that the phrase said by Kabuki, "Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am the honoured one" (天上天下唯我独尊) is what is supposed to have been said by Buddha at the moment of his birth. Anyway, if we look at Zeami's stats...  ...we see that he joins is at two levels above Kabuki with decent HP and MP. However, although defence and speed ar about on a par with Kabuki, his attack power is only about 1/3 that of Kabuki (46 to 122). We'll see shortly what's the deal with this.  For now, let's head back to Sagano village.  We should go and seal the monsters in the temple, but first, let's just improve Zeami's equipment a little bit.  First, we'll buy this Daffodil Robe for 530 ryo.  It improves his defence by +10.  We'll also buy another pair of Gale Sandals for a +9 in agility.  Then we want to also pick up this "Flower Moon Cakraratna" for Zeami. "Cakraratna" is the so called, "wheel-jewel", one of seven Buddhist treasures.  This is +6 in attack power. Despite the seemingly low attack power (which makes his physical attacks somewhat useless), we do still need to be upgrading his weapon.  Now, before we proceed any further, let's make a stop with Zeami at this fox shrine here. Despite the address to "Fire Person", actually you can only get this scene if you come here with Zeami in your party. Since now we have an additional reason to sort out the monsters, let's start making our way towards the temple. By the way, the "dialogues" from the fox shrines are really annoying to read because they are written in katakana... But no matter, let's head to the south part of the village.  Looks like it's this way...  On the way, there's a house with an open door... could this be the carpenter's house? Let's have a look inside.  Well. I guess he didn't survive.  Next to the house is the abandoned temple building.  Interestingly here we actually get a new enemy that hasn't appeared before! But I should probably take this opportunity to explain the situation with Zeami in battle. As mentioned, his attack power is quite low. However, his masks allow him to invoke various magical abilities for free (mostly).  So here in the battle menu, where Kabuki has the "techniques" option, Zeami has the "masks" option. The game even defaults to it, rather than the "attack" option! Selecting this option you then get the standard menu of different "mask abilities" to use. To start with, among others he has a single attack fire and lightning spells and also a whole-party heal. They all don't consume any MP, but when he uses a heal, he is then subsequently incapacitated for 2-3 turns and can't act during that time. So that's a tradeoff you will have to take into account when using it! In addition to this, although his physical attack power is weak on its own, it DOES influence the power of his spells. So you do have to keep upgrading his weapons, even though he will never use them directly!  In the meantime, let's go into this temple, which has very definitely seen better days!  That staircase is not in the best condition, but we have no choice but to take it.  Underground is a typical looking cave (just very blue!).  This is not really a proper dungeon...  Sorry, got interrupted by some enemies! These guys have a decent chunk of HP, but Zeami's lightning ability does also a good chunk of damage! Incidentally Noppera-bou is a kind of a Japanese youkai who looks mostly like a human, except with a blank face. Like this 18th century drawing:  So that makes it a bit funny that the in-game version is literally all-face!  Anyway, as I was mentioning, this is not a real dungeon, as all we have to do is take this ladder down...  ...and take a very short walk...  ...and we have already reached our destination. That certainly looks like something that could be the "source of monsters"!  Boss: Earth Spider HP: 450 Boss: Baby Spider HP: 32 Obviously, this is not going to go without a boss fight! But this one is a lot easier than the last, mainly because there are two of us now! Earth Spider comes with a bunch of Baby Spiders, but they can all be obliterated with one cast of Kabuki's multi-target lightning spell. They will reappear a few times over the course of the fight, but just deal with them in the same way as before. The Earth Spider does deal decent damage at 30HP per hit, but it's only to one party member at the time, so between the two of us, it's possible to keep up without too much issue, especially since this boss doesn't have as much agility as Kanbie last time! It can poison you, so I guess bring a couple of status healing items if you remember. Otherwise, there should not be any issues with getting this done on the first try. But this means we can now approach whatever that thing on the ground is! Let's see.  Things will now get a bit weird. Probably you shouldn't skip this cutscene!  Uhh, ok. I have... questions. Why is he speaking in a foreign language? Why are there Germanic runes as part of this process? Not only that, but there was even a clearly audible mention of the goddess Freya at the end of his "chant" or whatever it was. Well, at least that fits together with the appearance of the runes. What in the world is going on here, anyway?  But, those questions will remain unanswered for now, as we have a passageway to go through! That sign there has a warning for us: Danger! Hydrochloric acid gas coming out! Do not approach! Clearly, we have to approach as that is exactly what we need!  Looks like that's our second component for the Aqua Regia sword!   Outside, our characters witness a curious sight.  How interesting. Interestingly, you won't see this cutscene unless you previously accepted the "mission" from the fox shrine and visited the carpenter's house! As for the "fox's wedding" (狐の嫁入り), it's a common name for a sun shower (and a few other real and imaginary atmospheric phenomena) in Japanese and when such a thing happens, it is said that it must mean that "a fox is getting married". There are also legends of people witnessing wedding processions, such as the one seen in our cutscene!  Back in this house...  ...there are now some foxes and a chest to be found! The chest contains the "Fushimi Famous Sake". Fushimi is a part of Kyoto known for its Sake breweries, but as for the item, it simply recovers about 40 MP for one character. It's a single use item, so not really particularly interesting, except for its high price--you can sell it for 1000 ryo, which is probably the best use for it, honestly. We do also get some money added to our purse as a reward for this, in addition!  Let's report back to the fox shrine! We already did, but thank you anyway!  Also as you can see, all the shops are now again with open doors and people are walking in the streets! Let's hear them! The kid is of course another member of the detective club! It's a hint about an upcoming situation. But for now let's listen to others. To be clear: missing the cutscene or not has no influence on the game's plot. It's just an extra. An amusement park, huh? Looks like a pretext for a lot of silly shenanigans.  Yeah, probably. We'll head there shortly.  There's a person here at the inn...  Certainly. We just do that simple thing and we're done with this game. (No.)  Let's head over here, as we have a sword to make.  Ugh, these guys again. Anyway, let's go make a sword.    Zeami goes around the room, doing various things. And then...  ...after a few sparkles, our sword is done!  He does a little twirl with the sword, which doesn't look too unfamiliar to us! Kabuki's twirl is not in the shape of a swastika, though. It's not going to be quite that simple, but sure. The game actually automatically equips Aqua Regia on you...  ...but it's not problem as it gives us +9 compared to our previous weapon. The original "Demon King Sword" is of course gone as it's been replaced by the upgraded version.
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Dec 16, 2023 01:14
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 Let's get back on the road.  All right then. First, let's head to Arashiyama hot springs and gather more information before we go looking for that amusement park!  Cross the bridge to the west...  The enemies on this side tend to be a little stronger, and such is the case with Goblin Spirit which can even hit us for around 20 HP. Still, they mostly limit themselves to normal physical attacks at least.  Anyway, here we finally reach the hot springs.  Welcoming committee? Yes. Uhh...   Over here is of course a fox shrine, and also a guy hiding behind the building! He actually has a tutorial for us, explaining that in order to be able to perform the "final blow" command, it's not enough to have the weapon in our inventory, but in fact it must be our active weapon at the time, which makes perfect sense.  The onsen looks prety nice here next to the inn. You can see the separate male and female sections.  Here in the item shop...  ...we'll buy this "Octagonal Hat" for Zeami.  It replaces his previous, uh, Hexagonal Hat for a +4 in defence! There's also one person here to talk to. Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Japan, all the way back in 1543. The actual word used here is バテレン (padren), which is a mangling from Portuguese word "padre" which was used to refer to Portuguese Jesuits who visited Japan back in 16th century. It can be used to refer in general to Western/Christian things although it's a very old fashioned word at this point.  Another shop... Uhh, those Ashimotos are a constant thorn in our side. But sure, let's buy the doll. Last time it was useful to have it; if you recall, this is a cylindrical shaped doll with no arms or legs, just a round head. Perhaps this time it will prove useful to us too? As for the other guy here... In case you're wondering, yes, they actually did really make that joke just now!  Now let's go to the inn.  Orochimaru again, huh? Let's read it.  According to the most recent information I have from Okuni, it seems that the Daimon Cult people are trying to take the kidnapped women overseas! There's no longer a moment to waste! You must hurry! Based on Okuni's report, the secret to entering the Golden Pavilion lies in the Daimon Church inside Arashiyama Amusement Park. Please hurry! The fate of Jipang rests on your shoulders! Sincerely yours, Orochimaru. In Japanese orginal also Orochimaru always uses weirdly formal and/or archaic ways of opening and closing his letters (but always a different one!). I will attempt to replicate this back into English as much as possible. In the end, it was clear we're going to have to go and deal with the amusement park sooner or later. But before that, let's first talk to that guy in the back. Ok. So the game really wants us to go and soak in hot water for a bit.  For that, we can talk to this guy over here.  Kabuki and Zeami go over here in the changing area...  ...and get naked, befor entering the onsen.  It's relaxing as it is, but the game really wants us to look through that very obvious hole in the fence!  Oh, fine. In the end, this is actually optional, but it does result in an extra cutscene if you decide to do it. (Don't worry. There's no "naughty bits" to be seen in the following video!)  It's interesting that unlike the previous game, there are actually optional/missable cutscenes in this one for some reason. Oh well. We'll try to get all (or most) of them in any case.  All right. I think we're mostly done here for now. We learned just a tiny bit more about the amusement park, I guess.  The amusement park is actually just a few steps to the east from Arashiyama onsen.  But instead, we'll first head south, in order to visit the ninja hideout! This quite a treacherous journey with some strong enemies and one particularly troublesome one.  These guys have a special attack which does 40HP damage plus poison. Add in high HP and you have a recipe for trouble. But there's something even worse in this area! As for these guys, "petal storm" is not too bad at around 45 HP damage against them. It will still take a few casts!  We'll keep going south. As you can see all bridges leading east are broken. So only way to get here was via that "animal trail".  This is a huge problem. On their own, these are not too bad. However, they have the ability to absorb other enemies while ADDING their stats to their own (so they can double or triple or even more their HP or strength or whatever). So when one of them absorbs a couple of others, his defence and agility become such that it's very difficult to even hit them and much less deal significant damage. And they always seem to appear in large groups like this, making it easy for them to use absorbtion. This is an extremely tough encounter and quite hard to actually come out alive at the level we're at (which is a normal level you would be around this time in the game anyway).  So it more than likely will end up like this. As you know, in this game series, when the main character is knocked out you don't actually get a "game over", but you are transported to a doctor to heal up and can continue the game again from there.  In this case, we're transported back to the doctor in Kyoto. But as it turns out, there's a familiar person next to Kabuki's bed!  And hey, it's one of the three ninja sisters from Iga! Actually I deliberately let myself get knocked out so I can show you this little extra scene which you can easily miss! And she leaves...  ...in her typical fashion! Now let me just heal up and then I'll meet you outside.  We're actually still in Kyoto, because I wanted to check out what new articles have been posted in the newspaper! It's located in the building here.  We have a few new articles to read here, but unfortunately I have to say that my giving them credit for making more accurate reports was a bit premature. As you'll see, with the newest batch of articles, they're back to their old tricks of just making something up rather than wasting time on doing proper reporting! Well, at least they're pretty funny! So here we go! THE TRUTH ABOUT KIDNAPPING The women of Kyoto have disappeared overnight! This is not a thing that should be possible to happen in modern society, but this magazine has found out the truth behind the incident! It's all about the Fire Heroes! Orochimaru and Kabuki are Fire Clan members whoa re well regarded, but have a bad reputation when it comes to womanising! For the two of them, it would have been a no-brainer to kidnap women from all over Kyoto! And who is the master behind the scenes... the Snake Hermit! There is a strong indication that they kidnapped the women of Kyoto under his guidance. Then, Orochimaru and Kabuki announced that they are investigating the incident in a seeming attempt to distract the public from the real truth. As proof of that, Kabuki is currently on the run, while Orochimaru, who announced his decision to solve this case, is sitting and casually sipping his tea at the teahouse all day long. Before long, we'll have to get rid of both of those Fire Heroes. You will recall that it was mentioned early on that both Kabuki and Orochimaru studied under the Snake Hermit. On to the next article! GOLDEN PAVILION UNDERGOES RENOVATION! The Golden Pavilion, which has been feared to be starting to show its age, underwent a major renovation overnight! Pure gold pillars and pink walls! And the entrance is luxuriously decorated with golden lions. The interior features persian carpets and there is even a miniature garden inside. In even features a golden Jizo statue, but unfortunately, lacks any elegance and style. In an extremely bad taste, it will soon also be decorated with a silver tiger! Apparently, there are also plans to put around Kyoto statues of muscular men and women in bondage gear by the end of the year. Yeah, these guys are just completely out there. A STORY OF LOVE An exclusive scoop on the love lives of the Fire Heroes! First of all, Ziria of the Toad Tribe has switched over from Tsunade and is now passionate about lovely Okini from Kita-za theatre. Tsunade has in turn given up on him and is running around Jipang, looking for Orochimaru, who she has one-sidedly named her husband. Meanwhile, Orochimaru has grown tired of women after being on the run from Tsunade and is thinking of switching to men. On the other hand, Kinu, who has beginning to develop something with Manjimaru is in despair because of him being such a mama's boy. So she's now shifted focus to Kabuki and is sending him love letters every day! One account has her being shocked upon seeing Manjimaru's mother teaching him how to enjoy night life! Gokuraku was the only seemingly normal one, but there are rumours that he and Chiyo are separating due to an argument over cooking seafood dishes! This is all very funny, but not exactly close to the truth except perhaps the part about Tsunade, Ziria and Orochimaru. SIGHTING OF AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL Aliens sighted in Sagano village! Apparently the existence of extraterrestrials was confirmed when a strange magic circle was formed under the village. That figure... a pale and completely flat face. Behind its large sunked eyes shines a blue light! Red hair dyed with the blood of the people he killed! It's said to be wandering around country day and night scaring people! The aliens appear to be taking people and bests with the purpose of analysing their anatomy and taking them home with them. People of Sagano are now careful to knock three times on their doors in order to avoid being captured by aliens. The day before aliens left, Sagano village was enveloped in a mysterious light and the circle beneath the village had disappeard. Maybe that circle was a passage connecting Jipang with another dimension! Poor Zeami, now labeled an alien... IDIOT MONKEY ESCAPES! Manto made a noise! Manto danced! Manto jumped! Manto is an idiot! Manto has escaped! From his castle in Inaba provice, a secret report that the super famous idiot monkey, Manto-2 has recently escaped! That being said, he's too stupid to have escaped by himself, so there must have been someone even stupider who helped him out. But what purpose would it server to let that idiot out? Only time will tell. As I mentioned last time, Manto is a recurring character in these games, so OF COURSE, we'll be seeing him again in this one too! Whew, that was a lot. But now we're caught up for the time being, so please excuse me for a second and then I'll meet you back on that road south towards the ninja hideout that we were trying to travel on before we got interrupted.  We were around here when we left off. Let's see.  Man it's rough down here with some pretty bad random encounters. Well, at least I brought with me an item that allows you to fast travel (same like existed in the first game, although there we had also the spell which did the same), so once we're done here we can just teleport back to Arashiyama onsen without having to walk.  Oh, yes! I can even see it now, it's just across that bridge!  There was actually one more random encounter in those five steps, but finally, here we are!  Hm. Well, I mean, she's in Kyoto at the moment, but... Anyway, we didn't get too much new info here, but there was another reason for coming here now which we'll see soon. Also that chest there in the corner is pretty interesting. It has an item which is called "Pyramid shaped monument". This is a multi-use item, and when used in battle it can have a random effect like healing all allies, or healing all enemies and so on (both positive and negative). So that's pretty interesting on its own, but what's even more interesting is the price: you can sell it for 175,000 ryo. As before, it's good to be suspicios when game gives you this much money so early, so we'll just hold on to it for now. Well, since I'm talking about it, let me explain one more thing. This game distinguishes between "one use", "multi use" and "infinite use" items. The first and the last are clear, but the "multi use" items are those which you can use several times and then they randomly break at some point and you lose them and can't use them any more. There are a few consumables like that in this game. All right then. Let's teleport back to Arashiyama onsen.  From here...  ...we head slightly to the east.  And here we can see the amusement park we've been hearing about! On the other side of the river are Kyoto and (the modified version of) the Golden Pavilion. So thanks to those broken bridges, we had to take quite a detour to get here, as you can see! Let's enter the park.  And somehow... on that last step before walking in, a random encounter is triggered! Despite how it looks, this guy is actually not so bad because of relatively low defence stat.  Here we go. But before we can explore the place, we get interrupted...  ...by the five Ashimoto brothers!  I mean, yeah, I just talked to you in the shop, right?  They depart to make who knows what kind of shady deal...  The park has a bunch of rides, like this ghost house here.  Or what looks like a maze thing here. At least walking around here there are no random encounters!  There is also a ride where you spin around in those coffee cups or something like that.  And finally the fourth and last ride is a rollercoaster.  But we want to go first into this central building here.  It's a place where they do some kind of shows, I guess. Well, we're just in time, because a show is about to begin. And, to quote myself, things are going to get a little weird!  NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED PLS DON'T SUE! But seriously, I'm willing to bet, that's NOT what you expected to happen right now! Anyway, another thing is that if you noticed, the song actually had a musical accompaniment. That only happens if you go to the ninja hideout first before coming here. Otherwise, the song is with vocals only. Truly, don't ask me to explain this!  So, what do we have here then. Two golden lions, and what looks like a giant slot machine, but for some reason it has four slots for coins and not just one? You can also pull the lever...  ...but it just ends up in something random. But you might have noticed that there are also katakana letters which are possible to get on the slot machine. So perhaps this has something to do with the password they mentioned in the song. In any case, it seems we should be trying to obtain the four gold coins, based on the song. Well, being out of other options, let's go and have a look at the rides then.  Let's just start here with the coffee cups, which the game helpfully introduces to us in English!  We start in a hallway.  Oh, hey, it's Dumbo, uh, I mean, "Baby Elephant". Yeah, that's it.  He disappears and lets us explore this whole thing. It's pretty simple. The circular platforms spin around in a circle and you can get on and/or off on the places marked with the corresponding directional arrows. By navigating around like that, we need to find our friend the elephant. Luckily the place is quite small so you can't actually get lost. So let's get going.  Wheeeeeee!  Here there definitely are random encounters. This one is particular is super annoying because of crazy high defence. So you just have to chip away slowly. The only thing that actually does good damage is Kabuki's wind spell we just got. Physical attacks do basically nothing (like 1-2 HP).  Over here is a chest, which has a "Nautical Cakraratna", which is (expectedly) a weapon for Zeami. I actually here literally forget to equip it on him! It gives him +2 in attack power so not the end of the world. I'll remember do it next time! You can pretty much ignore all other chests here except this one.  Luckily, Kabuki's wind spell is also multi-target, so this is easy to deal with now. You just need to not forget to pick up the spell before coming here!  Moving towards the top side here. We'll take the staircase up. For that chest, you have to come at it in a different way.  Upstairs, there is a chest and a hole. The chest just triggers a random encounter!  I... You know what, let's just move on. A couple of hits with the wind spell will dispose of them. Also they sometimes skip a turn: "Crocagator lets the time tick-tock away". Funny. Anyway, falling through that hole next to the chest...  ...brings us back down to the lower floor where the first chest was! It only has one of those fast travel items, but those are easily bought so nothing too interesting.  Obviously, this enemy always appears in groups of three, although they may appear together with other enemies on top.  Anyway, on the other side is another staircase up, so we'll take it.  Back upstairs, we just need to navigate our way to that door in the centre.  Here we go, just make sure not to fall into that hole there in the middle.  And here's the door!  Inside, of course, the baby elephant is waiting for us!  Boss: Baby Elephant HP: 960 Another pretty easy one. HP is a little high for this stage of the game, however, physical defence is a bit on the low side, so not too bad. At least for this one you might want to hand over the heal spell to Zeami as Kabuki will be doing way more damage with his physical attacks, so Zeami can be on support to heal when needed. Kabuki should cast the attack buff and go to town. When fully buffed he'll be doing around 80 HP damage in one hit (otherwise around 60)! The elephant doesn't really have any particularly special abilities either. Anyway, afte the battle, a chest appears here.  Let's look inside!  Well, I guess now we know for sure what the song was referring to. Looks like after we collect all four coins, we should go back and insert them into the slot machine! And somehow, coincidentally, there are four different rides in this park and four "clowns". I think you know where this is going.  But at least for the spinning cups ride, we're done. Now we'll drop to that hole, because it leads directly back to the entrance (hence why you wanted to avoid it previously).  All right. Let's go to the second ride... ...next time! So next time we'll finish the other three rides and see if that lets us get into the Golden Pavilion. Also in the cards for Kabuki is a bit of an... "unexpected journey". But more on that also next time. Until then, take care!
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Dec 16, 2023 01:15
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Surprising amount of cutscenes for a single update. I'm glad Orochimaru has finally come out of the closet and I wish him the best.
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Dec 16, 2023 20:27
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this game is so relentlessly weird and it makes me wonder about the later ones--like with that map of the USA done up in this style
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Dec 16, 2023 20:33
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Blaze Dragon posted:Surprising amount of cutscenes for a single update. Mister Olympus posted:this game is so relentlessly weird and it makes me wonder about the later ones--like with that map of the USA done up in this style For those interested here are quickly the games in publication order (and their platforms): - Tengai Makyou: Ziria (1989) PC Engine - Tengai Makyou II: Manjimaru (1992) PC Engine - Tengai Makyou: A Tumultuous Kabuki Story (1993) PC Engine - Tengai Makyou Zero (1995) SNES - Tengai Makyou: The Fourth Apocalypse (1997) Sega Saturn - Tengai Makyou III: Namida (2005) PS2 As you can see, apart from everything else, the numbering is all over the place. This is because Tengai Makyou III was originally going to be released on PC-FX (the PC Engine's successor), but that console failed hard so the game was shelved until being picked up later on and released on PS2. Also some of the games have ports to other platforms like the first three games on Nintendo DS and PSP and also there are two remakes, Ziria on XBOX 360 and Manjimaru on PS2 and Gamecube. Like I've already said a few times, the remakes of both games are to be absolutely avoided as they are in every way worse than the originals. Although the games are set in a vaguely same/similar universe, their plots are basically self-contained and can really be played in any order without missing much. I think Kabuki game is pretty much the only one that has overt references to a previous game like that (but that one was anyway intended as a bit of a sequel to Manjimaru and Ziria). Other than this, there are also a few non-RPG spinoffs like fighting games and such.
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Dec 16, 2023 21:13
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I love this setup, though the bosses feel a good bit more tame in design this time around.
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Dec 17, 2023 20:57
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I get the distinct impression that'll change soon enough given the last game.
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Dec 17, 2023 21:10
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Definitely feels like this game is a good bit raunchier than the previous one but given how much of a shameless skirt-chaser Kabuki is, it makes some sense. While the change in the combat system is more appealing, I do miss the flourishes in boss fight animation you got in the previous game.
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Dec 17, 2023 23:55
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Robindaybird posted:While the change in the combat system is more appealing, I do miss the flourishes in boss fight animation you got in the previous game. Yeah, I agree. Technically this game is generally an improvement in every way compared to the previous game, and I have nothing against the side view, but I also feel that not having those huge funky attack animations from bosses any more is kind of a loss. As I said, the subsequent games did go back to first person view in battles. To illiustrate this, here's a screenshot from Tengai Makyou: The Fourth Apocalypse:  As you can see there has been a full return to huge bosses with crazy animations after this experiment!
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Dec 18, 2023 20:50
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 Last time, Kabuki managed to get in touch with a guy named Zeami who is able to create Aqua Regia. After we liberated a village from monsters (a part of which involves Zeami speaking in some Germanic language and runes floating around him!?), but in the end we did upgrade Demon King Sword to Aqua Regia. From there we found out that the Daimon Cult created an amusement park through which the Golden Pavilion may be reached. The amusement park as four borderline copyright infringement clowns operating in it and now we are on a mission to defeat all four of them and collect the four coins.  Having finished with the Baby Elephant, we're ready to go on to our second challenge here in the amusement park! Oh, and also, last time I forgot to equip the weapon upgrade on Zeami, so here it is:  As mentioned it gives him a further +2 in attack power and somehow that translates also into increase in power of his mask abilities. And now, let's deal with the next amusement park ride!  For this, we'll head over to the Maze!  This one belongs to the duck!  The maze is accessed through the northern passage here. Don't worry about the stairs, as they don't lead anywhere (I'll explain this in a bit!).  Here we go. As mentioned by the duck, we need to find "Checkpoint A". The place is not actually huge, so this is not overly difficult to do.  Although there are certainly random encounters here, with a somewhat high frequency. The enemies are not overly problematic, though.  Checkpoint A is actually not too far from the entrance (the actual checkpoint is through that doorway). The tiles labeled "S" allow you to go back to the start if you get lost (although I can't see why you would).  Here, the Duck awaits us again! The way to Checkpoint B is back the way we came. But let' me first show you what the stairs are for.  They take you up on the "roof" of the maze. Here there are no random encounters so if you are lost you can walk around to get the idea where you need to go!  For us, we'll head back the way we came.  Although, over there, there seems to be a roof area with some signs. Let's just quickly go and check that out before we continue looking for Checkpoint B.  Eternal Maze, point 1: If you get lost, try going back to the start and thinking again. In order to get back to the start, step on "S" panels. Eternal Maze, point 2: The correct path has been mapped out from the beginning. In the labyrinth, the grudges of those who have fallen will point you to the blood smeared path! -- The Enternal Maze Management. I suppose that the second point tells us we should be following the dark red tiles.  Well, let's go get the Checkpoint B. You can see the entrance up above.  There are other enemies here too, but this Halloween guy is exceptionally weak.  All right, Checkpoint B!  This time, we continue through the north exit.  That opening there is not Checkpoint C.  It just contains a chest with a HP replenishing consumable if you need it. It's the only chest in this area.  Checkpoint C is a bit further west in the maze.   Again we go back outside...  ...and the goal is just here a few steps to the north from the checkpoint!   Boss: Duck Clown HP: 400 It's time for the second mini-boss fight here! As you can see, it has way less HP than the elephant, so there's hardly even a fight here really. The only thing to be careful about is that he has a "confuse" ability (same as in Final Fantasy). If it hits Zeami it's not a big deal as his attack power is minimal, but if hits Kabuki, you might want to dispel that ASAP. So bring some items that dispel status effects with you, as we don't have really any spells which can do it.  As before, after finishing the battle, we get a chest! Kabuki obtained Duck's gold coin! And that's the second gold coin! So now we can simply step on the "S" to exit out of here!  Our next stop is the rollercoaster!  We start with a narrow passage.  And then the Mouse Clown waits for us here. After a fight, presumably! There's no labyrinth here. The tracks go in a simple loop.  So, as mentioned, there are two options here. You can sit in the rollercoaster, but then it just goes around for a loop (as rollercasters do!). It allows you to see the environment, but it brings you back here.  Or, you can get on the tracks and walk into the tunnel.  The path is linear with no branching, so all you need to to is keep walking forward. Oh, and the rollercoaster still makes loops around the track, so you need to dodge it. It will always happen when you're near this "station" kind of thing and the game will even warn you that you hear "approaching noise".  Then you just move to the side, and wait for it to pass!  Then we can continue going down the rollercoaster tracks.  Some more random enemies. These are very weak and die in one hit each. I guess you're meant to do the Elephant ride (coffee cups) last as that one has the strongest enemies.  Looks complicated, but it's actually completely linear. We can already see our destination to the left.  Let the rollercoaster pass again!  Finally, we get here. Going straight is back to the entrance (but there's a bit of a quirk there). Taking the right turn leads to our destination...  ...the mouses's room!   Boss: The Mouse Clown HP: 320 As you can see, it has actually less HP than the Duck. No special moves like "confuse" this time, but his attack power is higher and will typically hit us for around 30 HP. However, Kabuki buffed with his "Fire Snake" attack increasing ability can do around 65-70 to him, so this will be over pretty quickly. Again, these are not meant to be full-on boss fights anyway. We will have one of those later today, and it will be a slightly different story!  As before a chest is left after defeating a boss. You might be wondering, why a chest and not simply get the item? It's because of this game's severe inventory limit, to give you an easy way of sorting it out if you need to free up the space. You can even leave now, go and sell an item or something and then come back for the chest. Anyway, after opening the chest... Kabuki obtained Mouse's gold coin! We have only one left now, the fairy! But first, we need to make our way out, without needing to go all the way back around (and against the direction of the rollercoaster movement!). First of all...  ...if you go directly to the exit...  ...you will find that the rollercoaster is blocking your way!  So instead, go back to one of these "stations" and wait for a second until the game tells you that the rollercoaster is coming!  Then you can just run in front of it!  And here we go, now we can get out! All right, let's go get the last gold coin!  For this, we go to the Horror House ride!  Nice.  Oh, hi.  All right, downstairs we go!  And hwer we ride the gondola (as you would in a typicall horror house, I suppose.  There are no random encounters here. Instead sometimes a ghost will come out of a wall like this and...  ...you get a set encounter. But the enemies are mostly the same as on the rollercoaster.  Sometimes the gondola will come to the end of the track and you have take a different one.  Yep. I feel like this was one of the major things missing to complete the theme of this whole section. These are just a bit more dangerous as they can put a party member to sleep! They also have more HP/defence.  There's a bit of a maze aspect to this whole thing as sometimes you'll have to pick the correct gondola to continue the ride in!  We keep going.  One last gondola change.  Here we go.  Boss: The Fairy Clown HP: 380 So, one last mini-boss fight against Tinkerb-- sorry I mean "The Fairy Clown". A bit more HP than the previous, but also lower stats. That's all that I can reasonably say about this fight as it's over in just a few turns.  And, one last chest, and one last gold coin! Kabuki obtained the Fairy's gold coin!  We have to ride the gondola back out, but instead of simply going back the way we came, it will actually complete the loop. This means we get to see some parts of the horror house we haven't seen before!  Such as this dining room...  ...or this ghost ship! There's literally no events in this room or anything, they literally just spent time and effort on it just because!  All right, we're done!  We'll make a quick hop to Arashiyama onsen in order to refresh ourselves a bit and get some rest...  ...but then the only place left to go to is here in the central building, and try to make use of our four coins.  The clowns do their show again (but this time it's without musical accompaniment--this only happens the first time, IF you have been to the ninja hideout)! For some reason, every time I see this, I'm reminded of the Romeo and Juliet stage performance scene in Nier: Automata. But maybe it's just me?  After the clowns are gone, we'll put all four coins in their correct spots in order. Here I've already put the first two in. After putting all four in, we pull the lever and...  ...the final outcome spells out the word "KANBIE" (カンビエ) in katakana, and also...  ...a staircase going down opens up in the floor! I guess we'll have to take it.  It leads to a very dark tunnel, going presumably into the Golden Pavilion.  There is a bit of a walk, but no branching paths or random encounters, so it's pretty chill.  And finally a staircase leading up...  ...and we're deposited right next to the Golden Pavilion (or whatever its current version is!).  If we look over to the side, we can see that we're indeed back in Kyoto, right next to those bridges we couldn't cross previously! But let's go into the pavilion!  At the entrance, we can see some rooms with different coloured doors beyond the wall, but for now, the only option is to take the staircase up.  It doesn't look nearly as garish here as expected it to! Also those chests are in rooms on the lower floor, these are just "balconies" we can see them through from above.  There's a bunch of unique new enemies here, and they are somewhat stronger than those in the amusement park.  I guess this might be the "miniature garden" which was mentioned in "Kyoto Sports" article?  There are quite a few chests here, but most of them are part of a "puzzle" (if it can even be called that). You might notice that there are chests of different colours around.  Probably the weakest enemies here, the only ones which require just one hit!  First we want to come here, though. There is a staircase up and also a pair leading down.  Going upstairs, takes us to this place where there is a golden door, which is also locked. So we have to return downstairs.  Ah yeah, the strongest enemy in these parts. It can easily hit you for 30+ HP, but at least they don't seem to appear in groups at all, so...  On the northern side of this room, there is a chest! Let's open it!  I think you can probably get an idea how this will work from here!  We'll return to the entrance hall...  ...and then head over to this side area on the left.  Here is another chest, this time green in colour and predictably... Kabuki obtained the Green Key!  Now we head to the opposite side.  Because over here is a green door, which of course we can open by using... the green key! After unlocking the door, we can also open that chest in there.  You almost definitely do NOT want to miss this item here.  We're done on this floor for now, so we'll head downstairs (we could have also used the other pair of staircases leading down--they all go to the same place).  And here are those rooms which we could see above with diffent coloured doors and chests.  And here is a red door with a pink chest inside! The pink chest yields, of course, the pink key!  Oh, hey, there's still one enemy we haven't encountered here! They are the second weakest.  Anyway, a pink door which we unlock with the pink key, and a blue chest yielding the blue key!  The blue door is just here, and the black chest gives us the black key. I told you that this barely even qualifies as a puzzle!  And finally, the black door, with a golden chest inside, from which we finally get the golden key!  Before we can put the key to use, we are accosed by this guy. This one is a bit tougher and inflicts paralysis status on a single ally! Reminds me of those "eye" type enemies in older Final Fantasy games. I'm pretty sure that they also had the ability to inflict negative statuses.  Anyway, the golden door! Let's finally unlock it!  Behind the door, we of course find Golden Kanbie! It's time to have a real fight! But before that, the game has a little cutscene to properly introduce the boss! This is another one that you should not miss, as it reveals something unexpected about the game! Because this cutscene is... not quite what you would expect from a boss introduction!  Right. Remember how I said this game secretly wants to be a musical? Well, this is already the second song we've encountered! But it's even more interesting than that. Like many games in Japan, this too has had a soundtrack CD published, although this time not a complete one, but just a selection. However it does include this song on it, and... well it turns out that what we hear in the game is just one half of the full song they recorded! I guess they didn't want the cutscene to go on for too long--makes sense, honestly. The CD, however, contains the whole thing, and so I have provided it on the below link if you want to hear the rest of it!  As for us, Kanbie has a few things to say before we get into the fight!  Right, sure. Anyway.  Boss: Golden Kanbie (2) HP: 540 All right, looks like we'll have to do this again! He has now more HP and has gained some abilities, but still there's two of us so maybe it's not so bad? This one is not too bad, but he still hits decently hard, so it's a good idea to divide the healing vs attack duties. For right now, it's ok if Kabuki attacks, so you can give the healing spell to Zeami (he has more MP anyway). You can do it the other way around as Zeami's fire ability does about similar damage as Kabuki's physical attack. However, Kanbie is able to cast "magic barrier" spell, so that's why I suggested Kabuki as the main attacker here. Certainly use his buffing spells too if you have time. As in the previous game, the buffs still apply to the entire party so it will increase also Zeami's damage output too! Kanbie has also a couple of other abilities such as the way to attack both characters at once, and a flame spell which deals about 100 HP damage (that's a lot!) to one character, but he seems to use them very rarely and he actually never used either one while I was doing this boss fight. As a result, you get a normal amount of EXP, but a whole 5000 ryo in money. I guess it makes sense, but still... why is the game showering us in money like this? Let's see what happens next.  Uh, do we have to?  I guess we do. Ok, so a word of warning. Like usual in this game series, you're not locked in here and can leave and refresh/restock yourself and then come back and fight the lion. However, when you DO proceed with the fight, the game doesn't tell you this, but you should know that at that point you will be locked in to a plot event which will change the situation in the game somewhat. I'll explain more after the fight, so...  Boss: Golden Kanbie (3) HP: 660 ...it's time for the third round against this guy!  And we get to hear for the first time this AWESOME main boss theme, so please give it a listen! Anyway, this one is going to be a little harder! First of all, he's weak to lightning, so you may want to switch the heal spell over to Kabuki and attack with Zeami's lightning ability instead. Since I mentioned the elemental weakness, let me go into a small digression. I never really talked about it, but this game (and also the previous one) has a pretty advanced auto-battle system for its vintage. Rather than just auto attack with the default attack, there is actually something similar to a very rudimentary version of the gambit system from FF XII. So you can set whether characters should use spells freely, whether they should heal, that sort of stuff, for party members other than Kabuki (or Manjimaru in the previous game)--the main character you always control manually. So if you set Zeami to freely use abilities, he'll normally use the one that the enemy is weak to. So you can use this auto battle function to discover the enemy weakness in some cases. Anyway, back to the fight at hand. Like in the first Kanbie fight (the one at the beginning of the game), the main issue is not falling behind on healing. LionKanbie has a nasty lightning attack which hits both party members for around 70 HP each. The problem with this is that we don't have a convenient multi target heal spell. Sure, we have Zeami's ability but it renders him unable to act for 2-3 turns after, which is not great as he's the main attacker. In all honesty, there's no real answer here, you'll just have to use a combination of the healing spell and healing items to keep up as best you can. Kanbie does also have the "heat haze" ability which reduces your hit accuracy, so that might be a good moment to do some healing in order to avoid wasting turns on missed attacks. When his HP drops below 50%, Kanbie himself can use a heal spell that heals him for 100 HP. But he can only do that up to 2 times during one battle, so essentially you should consider his "real" total HP to actually be his max HP plus 200 since that's what you normally will have to take off him in the end when all's said and done. The thing in this battle is that, no matter what, you'll always be falling behind a little bit, so the longer it goes on, the less likely it is that you're going to win. So in order to finish it quickly, you can make use of one other ability that Zeami has. It's his "hannya mask" (般若面) ability ("mask of hatred" in English). It gives a good bump to his attack, defence and agility all at once. But you need to be a bit careful here, because it also has a withering effect on the power of his spells, so it will ultimately cause his stats to drop below their normal values when it wears off. But, if you use it when you feel you're close to the finish, then it could help you to quickly finish the battle before its bad effects start to show! It doesn't really make sense to use it in the middle of the battle as you'll be crippled afterwards. Is it just me, or is this a pretty advanced battle mechanic for a 1993 JRPG? Anyway, after a while of this...  Except this time we DO have the weapon that can deal the final blow, so we can do it! And then...  London, huh? Interesting. More on that in a second, though. For now, again after this battle we get a huge amount of money, 45,000 ryo! This can't possibly be right. Also it's interesting to note that Aqua Regia works exactly as it's supposed to: by melting the gold!  In any case, we can now leave. As mentioned, things are going to start happening now, so... if you haven't picked up that watch that was in one of the chests, you definitely want to go and do it now before you exit the building as you won't have a chance to come back. Once outside...  ...the Golden Pavilion returns to its normal state!  Here, Orochimaru is already waiting for us!    Oh, good. So we don't lose a party member in all this!  Orochimaru takes us with him...  ...over to the ship we'll take to London.   They board the ship, and then, quite expectedly, a cutscene takes over!  All righty then. So a few things. First of all, how about that Indiana Jones music on the map, I thought that was a particularly inspired touch. Also, looks like Tsunade finally caught up with Orochimaru! He doesn't seem to happy, though! And if you thought we'll be rid of Ashimotos just by virtue of being half a world away, well, you were wrong. But anyway...  ...welcome to Dover, the main port of the country of London!   Presumably they will just sell them, right? No! My spells!  Well, with that done, we can now proceed to enter the country!   This is the immigation area at the port! However, before we talk to people let's check our status...  As you can see here, we have lost all our equipment and weapons!  And as for the items, they're also gone, except the three: the watch we picked up in Golden Pavilion, and two items that I had previously put in storage: the kokeshi doll, and the photograph of Okuni. These are the only three items you can take with you and it's important that you retrieve them from storage before the last fight with Kanbie, because after you leave the Golden Pavilion, until this point the game proceeds automatically and you don't have a chance to do anything before you set off for London! (To be clear, you can get by without these items, but it's better to have them--it's not a "dead man walking" kind of scenario).  Additionally, if we check the menu, we can see that now that we're in London, the game has switched to using English abbreviations for HP/MP and level as opposed to Japanese kanji! It also labels the currency as "P" for "Pound", which is not an abbreviation ever used in real life, so I'll just use the standard symbol £ when talking about the money from now on. Although we had more than the equivalent of £ 500 in our pocket according to his exchange rate, 500 is all we have now. But now, when we talk to people...   ...we find out that not only the abbreviations HP/MP are now in English, but even all the dialogues have switched to English too! Well, that should make life easy for me from now on, huh? Even if this font they are using is not... the greatest looking, to say the least. But oh well. Let's talk to the others.   This is just incredible.    Ok, and now for the best NPC dialogue in the history of JRPGs. Check this out:   ... ..... ............. ..... Ok, I'm back. Sorry, but I couldn't stop laughing for a few minutes there. How did they even come up with this kind of line! All right, all right. Let's talk to that person in the doorway. He's supposed to let us into the country.   Nope. Came here to fight a dangerous cult!  Ok, fine, we'll say yes.   Yeah, it was never going to last. The dialogues are of course back to Japanese now (although the HP/MP stuff stays in English). Also, Zeami is again casting spells based on Germanic runes! "Ansuz" (ᚨ) is a rune which generally stands for letter "a". Ok, now, we have just a little bit more to do today, but before that... let me now tell you something incredible. All the English dialogue we just saw is FULLY VOICE ACTED. And I know what you're thinking. This is an older Japanese game, so you wouldn't really expect it to have an especially good voice acting in English. But actually... it's absolutely incredible and amazing. So much so that I've also made a short video of that part, just so you can enjoy the voices, they are just that good! Please watch it below! You also get to hear a bit of cool music that plays here in London!  All right, now that we've had fun with that, there's just a couple more people around here to talk to before we leave the building.  Now let's talk to this lady here at the counter. Well, we don't have any ryos any more, so we'll just move on then. But... did we get swindled by the Ashimotos on the exchange rate? Hmm...  Next, we'll talk to these four people that are hanging about. We certainly will, in a moment! We'll find out in detail about the lay of the land in just a moment. Now we'll talk to the guy sitting at the bar there. And finally we talk to the guy behind the counter.  Ok, now let's get the lay of the land from the lady at the information desk! So this is like that guy at Kyoto who had the map. But here it's a bit more detailed, so let's say yes and see what she tells us.  And oh god we're presented with a map of London! All right, here we can get brief info about all the towns in all the districts, so uh, let's go! I will try to present this in a bit of an organised fashion!  East End is a small island where the three towns, Dover, Brighton and Cornwall are located. It is know as the "gates of London". The visitors to London usually start on this small island! Now, let's start a new adventure! LET'S GO! DOVER Dover is a port town of London where visitors to London usually first arrive. The sound of the chimes of London's Big Ben brings a warm welcome to everyone who arrives here! BRIGHTON Brighton in the heart of East End is the place where London's professional sumo wrestling tournament is held! This is a unique opportunity to watch the sumo wrestlers from the East collide against each other in London! CORNWALL Cornwall is associated with the legend of King Arthur. There is a tomb where King Arthur is said to rest and it's a bit of a hidden tourist attraction! Also, here you can board a ferry to go the central part of London, The City.  The City, the business and industrial centre of London is made up of three towns: Oxford, Canterbury and Epsom. The Tower of London stands in the centre, but unfortunately, it's not possible to go there now. OXFORD Oxford sits at the entrance to The City, and it's a town that has made a lot of progress in recent years thanks to the industrial revolution. The townscape lined with shipbuilding and weapons factories is truly a sight to behold! Here you can see some of the technology of London who was one of the early movers in the industrial revolution. CANTERBURY If you're heading to Minster, just take the subway from here in Canterbury and it's a GO! GO! The recently built underground station is the largest in the world and is definitely worth seeing! You can now enjoy the comfort of riding our state-of-the-art subway! EPSOM Epsom is a horse racing mecca! The racetrack, which used to be a gathering place of the aristocracy, is now a popular recreation spot! Now you too can enjoy the horse racing life at Epsom! Why not aim for a million?  Minster is a must-see spot in London, for both the Parliament in Judge and the Royal Palace in Queens. JUDGE The Parliament House in Judge is known around the world as the symbol of parliamentary democracy. Although it's not possible to go sightseeing, you can see the mansion of London's Prime Minister across from it. QUEENS The royal palace town of Queens: you can't really say you've visited London unless you've been here! Although you can't tour the inside of the royal palace, the exterior is well worth a look! In addition, to celebrate Princess Reina's return home, a female kabuki show will be held here in Queens! THE LONDON MUSEUM The London Museum has a huge collection on of precious cultural artefacts gathered from all over the world on display. In particular, don't forget to check out the incredible exhibit of mummies excavated in Egypt!  The West End, with its rural scenery, is a perfect spot for a quiet stroll... But, serious tourist attractions like Loch Ness and Stonehenge are also located here! The result of a fusion of parliamentary democracy with a kingdom can be seen here. STONEHENGE Stonehenge is one of London's most famous ancient ruins, but who built it and for what purpose, remains a mystery. Why not go there and try to solve this eternal mystery? KEITHELY Keithely is the only town in West End, so no matter where you're going, you'll be overnighting here. If you're going to Loch Ness, board the bus from here! There's no public transport to Stonehenge, so you'll have to walk it there! LOCH NESS When speaking of Loch Ness, it goes without saying that Nessie is one of the world's most popular figures! Nessie has recently had a baby! You definitely have to see this! ♥ Wow, ok. That was a lot, and obviously we have the whole rest of the game to explore it, so we're not going to worry about it too much right now! Really, this has taken way too long. Let's finally head outside for some fresh air!  Well. It looks like it's, as they say, a whole new world here! Also I wish to welcome you to the end of prologue, because finally, the actual game starts here! We have a whole new country to explore, and I'm sure lots of fun and interesting things to do in it! But of course, we'll start our exploration in earnest next time, since it has been a long journey to get here in the first place, so we should take a break now! Until then, take care!
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Dec 21, 2023 00:25
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i absolutely read those mascot character lines in the appropriate voices and also spoke way too soon on how relentlessly weird the game is Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Dec 21, 2023 |
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Dec 21, 2023 01:07
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Well, overseas travel was definitely not in my list of things I expected to happen in this incredibly Japanese game, much less full voice acting in English even if for a brief period of time. It's just one surprise after the other, huh?
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Dec 21, 2023 15:46
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 So, last time we defeate one of the Daimon Cult acolytes, Golden Kanbie. Upon returning to his normal human form, he informed us about the fact that Daimon Cult base is in the country of London. So, Kabuki and Zeami travel there and arrive at Dover, the main port of London, through which most visitors arrive into the country. Apparently also Okuni is still there too on an undercover mission related to the Daimon Cult situation!  As you will recall, upon arrival, we've been stripped of all our weapons, spells and most of the items. So we'll definitely have to do something about it. The spells are particularly interesting as apparently in London they use a different type of magic than in Jipang! In fact, just as we leave the border crossing/immigation office, Zeami has a bit of a comment on that particular topic!  Absolutely, but first we'll make our usual tour of the town! First we'll also talk to that guy standing right by us. Well, figures that they would be somehow involved in this. I still haven't forgiven them for kidnapping that mermaid once!  Two more people here in the vicinity of the druid church. The person staning in front of the tower: And the game really does play the sound of the bells!  Another person is here, and we can also see a row of shops! Unlike the ones in Jipang which are designated with the appropriate kanji character, the ones in London just have a picture of what they sell.  And one more! Note that the "Daimon Cult" is called the "Demon Cult" here in London.  And finally, there's this lady here, standing in front of what looks like an elaborate church. But it's not a druid church because that one is on the other side of town. So let's see. Hmm, not sure about that...  Thre's quite a bunch of people inside here! Let^s talk to them in order to find out what they are doing. They are all appearing to wear what look like red sweaters, for sure. Huh? Have children been disappearing in Brighton? But why? "Lord Garp"? Is that the leader of the Daimon/Demon Cult?  Finally, we'll talk to this guy here who seems to be the priest? These dudes are a li'l creepy, if you ask me. Well, anyway, other than shops, there are also a couple of houses here, so let's check them out.  Or monsters?  All right, while we're here, let's stop by the weapon shop. First we can talk to that peron in the back there (the blacksmith). All right now, let's deal with the equipment situation. First of all, £500 is not really a huge amount. So in order to rectify that, we'll sell that watch we have. Its only purpose in the game is to tell you how long you have been playing for when you use it as an item. But it can be sold for a whole £1250! This is why I mentioned that you should definitely make sure to take it from the Golden Pavilion as it makes the "new start" here in London much easier. While random encounters outside of town do give decent money, they are also fairly tough, so we'll equip ourselves a little bit before we venture out. Some better equipment can be found in Brighton, but first we have to make it there, so we'll have to buy at least some temporary stuff for now. So, here goes.  First, for Kabuki, this "Warrior Sword" for +28 in attack power.  Then, these "Black Leather Shoes" for +15 in Agility (although the game now calls it speed/SPD in English!).  Next, "Steel Helm", for +17 in defence  And finally "Gentleman's Clothes" for a further +12 in defence. Next, we also buy a few things for Zeami:  A "Rapier Sword", giving a +10 in attack power.  Another pair of "Black Leather Shoes" with +15 in agility.  Another pair of "Gentleman's Clothes" for +12 in defence.  And finally a "Top Hat", for a +8 in defence. As you can see, as before, some equipment items can be equipped by multiple different party members and some cannot.  I'll stop also by the potions/consumables shop and buy a few "Herbs". This what the items are now called which remove status effects, and it's always good to have a couple of those. It only costs £75 for one which is not super cheap but far from expensive anyway.  All right, now let's head into the Druid church!  As you can see, it's a similar setup as the other one with a bunch of people to talk to. So let's do that (they don't all fit on the scrreenshot though). And then there are a few people here who are learning to cast the spells. Don't worry if this makes no sense, I promise I'll explain everything in a few moments!  Yep, that sure looks like you've learned the thunder spell!  And we have these two people standing here at the far end of the room. The other person is just a druid "doctor" who can heal your status effects, revive KOd characters, etc., same as the doctors back in Jipang. So let's take the stairs down.  Talking to the two people on the side, they just tell you to talk to the main guy in the middle (who I guess is the priest here). So let's do that.  Kabuki obtained six tomes of magic spells!  Before we leave, we can now talk to the two other people. Okay. A lot has happened here. So our task is to find and defeat the four disciples of the Demon King Garp, one of whom we've already actualy done back in Kyoto (Golden Kanbie). So that leaves three of them to be found here in London. And then after that, maybe some kind of a final confrontation or something? Also, what is up with Zeami here? We already know that even back in Jipang he was familiar with using rune magic, but what exactly happened in his past? It seems that Mossfield may know him? But for the moment, let's have a look at our magic spell situation. As seen shortly before, we have obtained six books of spells (unfortunately it's just one spell per book), so here we go:  The six spells are: - Hagalaz (ᚺ): Hits all enemies with a fire spell. - Mannaz (ᛗ): Heal one ally for around 150 HP. - Nauthiz (ᚾ): Lower agility of one group of enemies. - Thurisaz (ᚦ): Hits all enemies with a thunder spell. - Ehwaz (ᛖ): Raise defence of one ally. - Wunjo (ᚹ): Lower the hit rate of one group of enemies. As you can already see here, all the spells are named after Germanic runes, so instead of having names in Japanese kanji where you can more easily remember what each spell does, now we get a bit into the Persona territory so you'll just have to learn by heart exactly what each one does, since the names don't have any real connection to their effects. Personally, I just keep a list in another window while I play. The one little issue is that some of these spells are a bit expensive, and we don't have an easy way to replenish our MP (like we had in the previous game), so we'll have to play a bit more conservatively on that topic at least for now--there's a little bit of a related issue here, as we'll soon see. Also, there was a mention there at the end about druid altars where additional spell books may be found. This is exactly the same thing as the Tengu in the previous game who gave us spells. Like the Tengu, the altars are also often in slightly out of the way places that you need to find. At least we got a hint to start us with, that there are two altars in East End district, one of which is just south of Dover.  All right, then. This concludes our current business in Dover, so let's head out...  ...and try to make our way over to Brighton which is just a bit to the west. Oh, and she mentioned about a druid altar just south of Dover, but... we can't easily go south from here because there's water. But don't worry, we'll find that first altar before we reach Brighton.  Oh, hey, we can already see Brighton, and not a single random encounter!  Ah, I spoke too soon. But these enemies are weak and not really worth worrying about. This cannot be said about other encounters in the area, unfortunately.  So the main problem with encounters here is that the enemies mostly appear in larger groups of 3+ and sometimes as high as 5 at once. Considering that a few of them can do about 15-20HP damage per hit (and there's even one which can attack all party members at once!) it becomes clear that you are kind of forced a bit into using the multi-target spells we just got, as otherwise the battles would take too long and (more importantly) we would take too much damage each time. Although, to compensate that a bit, we do have a healing spell which heals a decently large amount, so it's not all bad. By the way, Wererats will steal your money, so that unfortunate mechanic is back again in this game, too...  As promised, we're not heading into Brighton just yet. First we'll turn back east and head along the southern coast.  As you can see, there's a narrow peninsula here leading back east.  And, well, at the end of it is the druid altar we heard about. It is indeed "just south" of Dover, but not quite in the way we envisioned it!  Kabuki obtained the "Fehu" spell book! So, the "Fehu" (ᚠ) spell, as you might have already guessed, removes any status effects from one party member. Finally this will be useful to have so we don't have to keep buying those herb items all the time.  Anyway, as you can see, this is pretty much the exact same mechanic for "spell collecting" like in the previous game, so we'll just do our best to find all these altars around the game world. There are actually not nearly as many of them this time around, but this is a shorter/smaller game anyway to begin with, so... All right, let's continue!  See, this is what I mean about larger groups in random encounters. In this case, Kabuki can actually kill one of them in one hit, but Zeami's mask spells are not strong enough. This kind of leads to just using one of the multi-target rune spells to obliterate them all in one turn, since otherwise you'll be taking quite a bit of damage as you pick them off one by one in successive turns. We'll encounter bit later today a situation which kind off also forces you to conserve a bit your MP, so it's all about balancing it out somehow.  Here we get a "Kobold Lord", a bit of a stronger version of the enemy "Kobold" which we've met in Jipang.  We'll just walk past Brighton at this time, because I just want to quickly finish something else first!  Let's head along the western coast to the north!  As you can see, the random encounters here are not joking around! The Tar Jelly (which in real life is a kind of a lychen) can cast a lightning spell that hits everyone for around 30 HP and also has a decent amount of HP, so it takes a moment to get rid of it. However, our fire rune spell (Hagalaz) does well against them (albeit still not able to kill them in one hit).  This is what I was talking about. In this sort of situation where none of the enemies can be downed in a single hit by normal attacks, you really kind of have to use the multi-target spells to help yourself out! Once again, ᚺ to the rescue!  Finally, at the far northwestern tip of the island, we discover another one of these! As we were told, this the second of the two which are present on the East End island!  Kabuki obtained the "Othala" spell book! The "Othala" (ᛟ) spell allows us to have a guaranteed escape from a battle. And so you might say, well, that's good right. You can spend a couple of MP and save yourself from an unfavourable enemy combination (as the one above!). Well, yeah, you can save yourself, but the cost of this spell is... 25 MP. There are only two spells in this game which are more expensive and even that is at 26 and 27 MP so not too far from this one. So this is only really for emergencies, honestly.  Somehow, we make it back to Brighton in one piece! Let's finally go in and check it out!  Over by the entrance is Aerith, selling flowers as usual.  Huh, interesting. The circus is not here in Brighton, though. The flower has no purpose, the only thing you get if you buy is this extra bit of dialogue from the flower girl.  All right, let's talk to two more people standing here on this intersection. Ah, so that's where the circus is located.  There's always something, right? Also, yeah, there are some notice boards there by the house. Let's read. Cornwall Ferry: Notice of Suspension of Operation We have recently received information of a suspicious person having entered the country. Therefore, the ferry operations will be suspended until the investigation is finished. -- Garp, London's Prime Minister So like the leader of the demons has managed to become the PM? That's wild. Actually there is a second info board there, so let's read that too! Announcement: Piccadilly Circus is visiting Cornwall! Children coming on their own can enter for free! Oh, yeah, that's not suspicious.  Here's another druid church and also a person standing in front of it!  And finally, you! Ahahaha, because I entered the town from the other side, this guy ended up almost the last who I talked to!  But actually there's just one more person here! I don't know, what do you think?  You might recall that there is currently a sumo wrestling competition in Brighton! So here is the sumo ring! There is a signboard there too, but it just says: This location currently closed.  But we can still go inside and talk to the wrestlers! First we'll talk to the two guys inside the ring. Kabuki obtained some gyouza! Incidentally, Gyouza are dumplings with minced pork and vegetables, looking like this:  And it seems that one of the wrestlers may have gone to try and save the children? Let's see if others will tell us anything more. "Dosukoi" is a typical chant associated with sumo wrestlers, although not sure how much it's actually really used in reality. Well, I guess we'll have to look for this Fujiyama guy ourselves then. For now, however, let's just go to the pub!  After that welcome from the bartender, we can talk to the others. That last one is actually the sumo wrestler standing near the bar!  We'll visit some of the other houses here, too. I'm sorry, who are you again? Where's this stuff coming from? I mean we know it's (probably) true since we alread heard it from the witches in the game's opening, but...  Hm, weird, there's a red sheep there in the corner? Let's talk to the house owner I guess?  I love the Japanese expression for "not my problem": 対岸の火事. It literally means "the fire is on the other side of the river"! Also, I guess this means the Demon King has been around for a while already?  You can go into the druid church, but it only provides services like reviving, removing status effects, etc. There's no dialogue to be had here.   There's one person here in the inn to talk to, she came to watch the sumo fights, apparently.  Also upstairs...  All right, here's the equipment shop. But first, there's a person in the back we can talk to. Oh! I see where this is going, then! But before we venture out again, let's give our equipment a slight upgrade first!  First, Zeami gets this "Sage's Staff" which ups his attack power by +5.  And then, also for Zeami, these "Hermit's Clothes" up his defence by +3.  For Kabuki, we'll pick up this "Steel Thread Armour" which ups his defence by a whole +16 (but don't worry, it has a price to match at £1200!). There's actually another shop in this town, so going there...  ...we can do a couple more upgrades!  First these, uh, "Clown Shoes" for Zeami, but they up his agility by +3 somehow!  And then also this "Straw Hat" for him, which increases his defence by +6!  Well, all right. Let's try to make our way over to Cornwall. It seems that's the place we need to go to next based on what we've been hearing from everybody. ivantod fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 22:59
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 On the way to Cornwall...  We'll head north to go around these cliffs...  ...and then slightly to the west, and here we are!  Welcome to Cornwall! Here's what looks like a circus tent, but the town itself appears deserted? Let's have a look.  Well, there's a graveyard at least. Maybe some of the stones have something interesting written on them?   Hm. What actually happened here? Also there is a third gravestone that you can examine. That one belongs, of course, to King Arthur! Anyway, let's go into that house next to the graveyard?  Ah! There are people here after all! Uh, ok, sure, thanks. The chest there has an item "White Bone Flute", but it's just a multi-use consumable that casts confusion on enemies. You can sell it for £750 though if you're short on cash!  This one is the ferry building, probably?  It has a nice waiting area, but doesn't look like the service is in operation. We can read that notice on the wall, though. The first one just repeats the same warning about service suspension we already read in Brighton. The second notice is more interesting. WANTED! For the capture of the one who calls themselves Fire Hero, The Azure Wolf, reward will be given of £1,000,000! -- Demon Cult Faith Management Office What in the world. Nothing else here, so let's head next door into the inn.  Oh, hey, there's someone here actually?  So, uh, it's it just me, or is she literally all over the place? Also, if she knows about the secret passage, why has nobody done anything about... This is all just extremely weird.  Well, I don't think we have a choice.  The auditorium is empty, of course.  Backstage, there's an elephant and a lion. The signs there are warning you not to feed the elephant and to stay away from the lion.  On the other side is yellow door as we were told.  We can interact with the door, which results in it being open and revaling a secret passage! Let's head downstairs.  Well, what is happening here? There's a large dude trapped in a pot and some imprisoned children? Hmmm. If you talk to the big guy, he just struggles a bit but can't free himself. So let's talk to the prisoners first. All right, so the big guy is Fujiyama then. He probably got hungry at some point and lost his strength. Luckily, we have some dumplings with us. So let's feed him! After you feed him, this happens:  Yep.   Fantastic.      Haha, casting a fire spell just like that inside a wooden building. Sure. Man, these two really found each other, huh? By the way, "yokozuna" (横綱) is a term designating the top ranked sumo wrestler. Anyway, he leaves with the children...  ...so we can go through the door finally.  Inside, there's someone waiting for us!   Boss: Circus Leader HP: 880 Yeah, it's a miniboss. I wonder why the circus leader doesn't want to talk to us, though. Anyway, it's another pretty easy fight. The leader has only a regular attack (with that whip you see!) which does around 45-50 HP damage. Also sometimes the attack may happen twice, so you need to keep yourself above 100-ish HP at all times. Between the all-party healing ability from Zeami and the "Mannaz" rune we should be more than good on that. It's also an option to use the "Wunjo" rune to reduce the boss's hit rate, but it's almost not even needed! Anyway, after the fight, things start to happen!  And then...  We're done here...  ...so let's head back out.  You can visit here again, but she just gives you the condensed version of that story.  Back over here in front of Ungie's grave... Kabuki examined the grave! The grave contained no dead body... But! He found a Silver Handgun! Anyway, so. It turns out this Ungie is our second of four disciples of the Demon King and this time he's a werewolf! So here we got the silver handgun, but now we need to turn the silver necklace back into a silver bullet. But how to do that? Yes, as I was saying. That's actually pretty easily done, in fact we can do it right here in Cornwall!  If we go over into the weapon shop, it does have a small forge in the back room, and if we go in there...   He lights the furnace...  ...and goes to work on it! Soon enough... Kabuki obtained a Silver Bullet! Kabuki put the Silver Bullet into the Silver Handgun! Well, yeah, except... we don't know where Ungie might currently be?  But we can return here to the inn and ask her!  You know, neither of these disciples seem to have a very happy story about them... But anyway, we're done here. However, before we leave, we can go in and have another chat with that other guy in the house next to the graveyard.    All right, here we are, outside Cornwall. Before we proceed to look for Ungie, let's return to Brighton for a moment, as we should report back to Fujiyama about the events here.  Actually before even that, if you go back into this one random house in Brighton...  ...and talk to this person... Kabuki obtained the Sleeping Incense! Turns out this girl is one of the children saved from the circus by Fujiyama (and us). The item itself, puts one enemy to sleep (multiple uses). However, its more interesting property is that it sells for £6000 so it can be used to improve your funds in order to buy some equipment upgrade sooner!  Fujiyama is over here in front of the sumo ring.  Oh, what is it with this guy and the word "push"! Anyway, from the guys inside you can find out that sumo tournament is open again now that Fujiyama has returned.  All right, let's head to Dartmoor.  We'll go around these cliffs and turn back east immediately.  There are actually some strong enemies in this part. They still appear often in larger groups of 3+ enemies!  After passing by these cliffs, we can turn north.  And here is the cave entrance.  But before we can get to it... yeah. Why are random encounters so strong here?  All right, finally we've reached Dartmoor. This is your typical maze-like dungeon as these games tend to do.  And it comes of course with its own set of annoyingly strong random encounters. Poison is still a thing of course, so make sure you have herbs (or use the spell).  This place is a bit weird, but nevertheless, the tree stump allows us to go one level down.  Not really sure what these guys are supposed to be. Also, I'm kind of missing the complicated enemy names from the last game, but on the other hand, we're not in Jipang any more, so it's normal that we don't get Japanese youkai-style enemies, right? Anyway, these guys are weak to fire, so not a huge issue.  There are a few chests to be found in here, but we are looking for a particular couple of them. Not this one though, as it just has a cursed spear weapon.  Like I said, this is a bit like a maze so it's easy to get lost.  Also when you approach some of the passages, a barrier like this springs out and stops you from proceeding. There's no way to get rid of them, so you just have to find another way around  So we'll just head one more level down, then.  Let's head this way.  Aren't Myconides also monsters from D&D? Anyway these guys are not super strong but have an ability to call up more of them. So when you get into a battle like this, it may take a while as they'll keep calling more and more. On the other hand, as I said, they're not too dangerous, so good opportunity to grind some money and EXP?  This one has a good amount of HP and also the ability to "suicide" which damages every party members for 80+ HP. So, uh, I hope you weren't below that in this battle because you'll die!  The strongest monster around here, will easily hit you for 35 HP or so. Zeami's ice ability does reasonably well against him, despite a pretty high HP. Also casts an annoying wind spell which hits everyone!.  Huh, what's going on here? There are some red sheep, but also some that appear to have been sheared? Well, there's also a person here, so let's find out. Oh, wait, so... they've been turning children into specifically red sheep, so they could use the wool to make the sweaters? But does that mean that the children are alive? Questions, questions.  But anyway, right next to us are four treasure chests. One of them contains the "Gale Sword" for Kabuki:  It's a nice +8 bonus in attack power! Despite the name, unfortunately, no, it cannot cast a wind spell when used as an item. One of the others has a "Purple and Black Winged Robe", which is of course for Zeami:  This time, for +6 in defence.  Let's continue on our way. There's another chest here, but it just has a HP restoring item.  Let's go further down!  Sometimes you'll find these broken barriers, but you can just walk through then, there's nothing special about them.  I guess smaller cousins of the larger balloon enemy, huh? As far as things go, not overly dangerous.  After a bit more walking, we reach this staircase here.  It leads to a different looking area!  Across the bridge...  ...and we found someone, finally! Let's approach.  Well, there's a full moon there... even if it appears to be just a prop hanging from the ceiling! Nevertheless, with full moon here, we can only conclude that this is our werewolf friend, Ungie--exactly the person we were looking for. As before, we get of course a cutscene by way of introduction!  As you can see, boss characters introducing themselves in the form of a song is definitely going to be a thing in this game! Hope you like it, because it's here to stay! Anyway, like before, the game soundtrack CD again includes the full version of this song, so you can listen to it below if you're interested.  In the meantime, Ungie has something to say!   Boss: Full Moon Ungie HP: 880 You know how this goes! This time, the boss again doesn't have any special moves, really, except that he can go into "continuous attack" where he may attack more than once (but only the same party member). Strategy is pretty simple. Zeami should cast "Wunjo" to reduce the enemy's hit rate--this spell lasts a good few turns and will probably lower the hit rate to around 50% or so. This already pretty much trivialises the fight. From here, just continue to use normal attack with Kabuki and with Zeami use his lightning attack mask ability, as that is the element that Ungie is the weakest to. If "Wunjo" expires at any point recast it as soon as Zeami gets a turn. In the meantime, Kabuki should hold the "Mannaz" spell so that he can heal if needed. Mostly it's a good idea to keep yourself above 100 HP or so, as Ungie's regular attack does around 35 or so HP damage. And so, after the fight...   Well, we can hardly call this a surprise of course. We already knew about his werewolf tendencies... Obviously, it's time for the second phase and as usual, you're free to go and refresh yourself, although in this case it's probably not worth it as it's quite a trek to get all the way back to Brighton from here. So rather make sure to take some MP recovery items with you (you get one in the preceding dungeon anyway which should be enough to refresh Kabuki a bit so he can continue healing). Anyway, when you're ready...  Boss: Full Moon Ungie (2) HP: 1230 ...start the second part of this battle. Or, to put it directly, the second phase, (mostly) the same as the first phase. So his HP and attack power have now increased, but on the other hand, his defence is lower and he's lost the "continuous attack" ability. The essence of the strategy is still the same, cast "Wunjo" to reduce the amount of hits you suffer, and go to town, still with regular attack from Kabuki and lightning mask ability from Zeami. Do be careful, as he has a couple of (small) tricks up his sleeve. One is that he can temporarily lower the defence of one of the party members, and the other is that he has the ability to "concentrate his power", which simply means a few turns with increased attack power. In both of these cases, you can try casting "Ehwaz" on one or more of your characters to increase their defence, or in the second case use the defend command also to reduce damage. But it's not too bad either way. Of course, when the time comes, we'll use our silver handgun with the silver bullet to finish him off. As usual, the battle afrtermath is in a cutscene:  Well. At least doing this "frees" these guys again, even if they do die immediately afterwards. Also, with the disappearance of the Demon Lord's magic, the children are now returned back to their normal form (which we'll be able to see next time). Anyway...  But, Zeami is uneasy for some reason...   No, let him... let him say what he was going to say! There's clearly something going on with Zeami and I doubt it's anything good!  Finally, we can now leave this whole place! You do have to walk back out, but it's not so bad as with the Demon King's influence gone, also the random encounters are gone.  Coming outside, it turns out that for the same reason, the random encounters are completely gone on this whole territory of East End island! So it's much easier to move around. Anyway, we still have some loose end to tie up and people to talk to, but we'll take care of that next time! In the meantime, you might be wondering about the fact that the game plot is progressing rather quickly. To be fair, on one hand, the remaining two disciples, plus whatever comes after, will take a bit longer than the first two took, but on the other hand, this is definitely more along the lines of what today would be like an "extended length DLC" rather than a full 50+ hours JRPG game. Which is also part of the reason why I decided to just include it in this Let's Play: it provides a nice extra bit of content after the end of Tengai Makyou II, but it's also not overlong and doesn't overstay its welcome. In any case, there's definitely a fair bit more to the plot than what we've seen so far. There's certainly a few twists and turns in store, plus we still need to gather more party members--no it's not going to stay just Kabuki and Zeami until the end! Although I'm pretty sure you can take a good guess at who our other party members might be from the characters we have encoutered so far! All right, take care and see you soon!
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Jan 1, 2024 23:00
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It's a bit disappointing that the last two party members are both
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Jan 2, 2024 01:44
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 All righty then, last time we (somehow) managed to defeat the second Daimon/Demon Cult disciple, Full Moon Ungie, after learning about the sad story that happened to his family. We also started exploring around different towns in London and made a start on using the rune based druid magic! Well, today it's time to have a bit of a look around several more places in London and, why not, also obtain a new party member! We have quite a lot to do, so best get confortable!  All right, here we are outside of boss's lair. As mentioned, there are no longer any random encounters around here so we can move around freely. Before we proceed, we'll have a look around first to see what are the reactions to the recent events!  So, let's first stop at Brighton and see what people are saying. First of all...  ...of course, we'll talk to Mr. Push, sorry I mean Fujiyama, who is standing here inside the sumo ring. Oh my god. But I guess he has nothing to say about the children, huh. You can talk also to the manager and he's happy that his reputation has been repaired now that the sumo tournament can proceed! Also if you check that noticeboard in front of the ring, it now shows the ranking of the wrestlers, and "Push" Fujiyama is listed as "komusubi", which is the fourth-ranked wrestler.  We can also now talk to the (female) spectators over here.  There are also other spectators on the opposite side, this time they're all male.  All right, let's come back to this house and hear what kind of prophecy she has to tell us now that her kid is back! The last part of this is just a repeat from before. I guess something is going to go wrong with the princess soon, huh? Let's talk to the kid:  We have also this freed boy here.  Let's visit some more houses where children have now returned to. Ah, yeah, this was the house where this woman said that the sheep reminds her of her lost daughter... I guess because it was her daughter!  This lady here has a different take on the situation. No, really not. Anyway, those are some extra dialogues that you can have here. But now...  ...let's head back to Cornwall, as there we need to report back to Julia (and show her the fang as proof).  Here we go.  Well, all right, I guess that's that.  There is actually a person here to talk to. (Also note that the ferry is operational again!) She then proceeds to remind us to seek out the druid altars to gain additional spells.  This guy also has one last comment...  The pub is open again too! By the way, can you imagine how the western publishers would have reacted to having pubs in the game if it were ever to get a release in US/EU? I think this would have been definitely at least renamed into "cafe" or something like that! No way they would have left it in as is. Hmmm. All right then, with this, we're basically done with East End...  ...so you can talk to this guy here to take the ferry over to the main part of the country.  The ferry ride proceeds automatically, so it's not going to be one of those "use once and abandon" vehicles that we littered all over the previous game! But don't worry, this game does have at least one vehicle which is actually unique and not like any of those we've used in the previous game! It's quite insane, you'll see soon.  But in the meantime, the ferry brings us to The City district...  ...or more precisely to the city (lowercase) of Oxford. Oxford is kind of the center of the industry of London. Yes, it does my head in every time I have to write about e.g. Oxford being a city in the country of London, but what can you do. The guy waiting here on the pier has some news for us! Oh no. Well, I guess let's read it.  Orochimaru is now using English greetings! Let's continue reading, though. I expect it's been a little while since you arrived in London. Have you mananged already to meet up with Okuni? It would be good if you could meet her promptly. Actually, the last communication we had from Okuni before they stopped was that she was going to have an audience with Princess Reina of London. Okuni is the best secret agent I have mentored. I have full confidence in all her abilities. I wouldn't normally worry, but London is a foreign place... Kabuki, you must meet up with Okuni as soon as possible! She should be in Queens, in the Minster district! Please take haste and find her!  Well, all right. I guess our goal is to make it to Queens and try to find out what's happened with Okuni. But for the moment, we're in Oxford, so let's have a look around! The postman guy gives us a bit more info:  There's this other guy here and also what looks like another Demon Church... Oh well, let's at least talk to him. The Demon Cult seems to have a pattern here, huh?  Hello there!  Uhh...  A couple more people over here... So apparently in this world, the industrial revolution was caused by the Demon Cult!  Also, that notice board by the railroad tracks has a job advert! Job Advertisement: Demon Shipbuilding Factory Salary: Depending on experience and ability; offering increase from previous salary. Considerate treatment according to our company regulations. Special: Salary increase once a year; bonus twice a year; full insurance. Overseas travel. To apply: Bring your resume to the Demon Church. The other board just shows the same wanted notice for the Azure Wolf person.  Maybe that job advert is not quite so truthful?  Of course, we'll visit the Demon Church too. There's a few people here.  The priest:  As usual, we stop by the pub! Over by the counter are two ladies of, uh, certain profession. Finally, by talking to the guy in the top left corner, the game starts to play the boss fight music at first, but then stops and... I bet nobody expected that we'll get a Jack the Ripper joke in this game. Also, in a typical fashion where all history is completely mixed up, Jack the Ripper's time was like a whole century AFTER the industrial revolution start!  At the inn, a conversation can be had.  Also upstairs. A monkey? Oh no. No no no no no. I don't want to deal with that guy again!  Let's have a look at some of the factories too. This one appears to make swords! By the way, if you go into the weapon shop here, every single thing is made of steel (stell helmet, steel sword, steel armour, etc.)!  Over here they make ships!  Well, the working conditions don't seem to be the best...  All right, here we are back outside! We're done talking in Oxford for the time being, so let's go pick up a new spell for a change!  Just a few steps to the north, we can already see one druid altar!  As expected, the "Sowilo" rune (ᛋ) indeed casts a fire spell on a group of enemies! Since each character can cary up to a maximum of 6 spells, we are soon going to run out of space. But we'll take care of it in due time.  Let's head west.  On the way, we run into this curious thing. I guess it must be the ruins we've been told about. Well, let's leave it alone for now. We have a task on hand that we need to focus on: finding Okuni.  In the far west is another druid alter, so let's pick that spell up, too. By the way, The City as a whole is a pretty small area and actually there aren't any random encounters here (since the area is not associated with any of the four disciples of Demon King Garp). This is a nice reprieve, since the next area has some pretty rough ones--in fact in this whole game, the random encounters are pretty tough and definitely pose a bit of a drain on resources as you're trying to explore. However, there are a couple of ways to mitigate this slightly.  And, here is one way already. The "Laguz" (ᛚ) spell, singificantly lowers the random encounter rate; however, as you can gather from the description above, it mostly works when you're exploring on the overworld and not in dungeons or for any "set" encounters. It's quite expensive at 22 MP, but "when you need it, you need it".  We'll turn north from here.  We've reached a town. This here is Epsom, where the horse races are held! But if you recall from the tourist map, here in the middle of The City should be the Tower of London. Let's quickly have a look...  Ah, yeah. we're not getting through that any time soon! Let's just head into Epsom them.  As usual, let's find out what people have to say.  Over here are some horse stables with a few people around... And then the two ladies with their nice umbrellas! You'll have to excuse me here, since I have absolutely no knowledge about horse racing, and even less about betting. So I may get things wrong when people talk about it.  No dialogue here, but it's a cool looking shop. Here you can buy various "rune" items, which are kind of items that have similar effects to various spells. We'll come back here later.  As always, we stop for a pint in the local pub! This betting stuff will be explained to us in a second (especially the numbers he's mentioning). We can also go inside the stables!   The race track entrance is over here!  There are a few people here, so let's see how they've been doing betting-wise! Well, that's good. Now we know what those numbers mean that the other guy was mentioning. Anyway, if you talk to one of the three ladies at the counters, you can do some gambling.  Here's the betting screen. It simply lists the odds for each combination of two horses (out of six which participate in the race). You can choose to buy as many or as few tickets as you wish, and one ticket costs £ 100. The indication "2.0 x 口" means that you win 2x what you put in if that combination wins. Place your bets and click on "Start" at the bottom and...  ...you can watch the race play out!  After the race is done, you simply receive your winnings (if any) and that's it. There are not any tricks here, nor is this in any way required to play in order to finish the game. It's simply a way to try and earn some money. So other than one more instance later in the game, I'm not going to worry about it too much.  Anyway, so much about Epsom for the time being. Our real goal here in The City is Canterbury, because we want to catch a train to Queens.  Heading north, we come across another druid altar here, across the bridge.  Let's add the Algiz (ᛉ) spell to our collection! It simply blocks magic-based attacks on one ally for a few turns. So not too bad, and it's not super expensive either.  From here we head back east.  And, somehow on the other side is yet another druid altar!  So, this one is also pretty clear. The Tiwaz (ᛏ) spell increases the attack power of one ally by 40% (which is kind of a lot!).  All right, now that we've picked up all the spells in The City, let's head back west...  ...because our destination, Canterbury, is kind of in the middle northern part!   Indeed. As you can easily guess, the train station is that grand building in the back!  There aren't too many people outside on the streets here. Oh, I'm sure we'll find a way to get in. But also it explains what that mysterious light was that we saw near Epsom.   A couple of weirdly shabby looking houses over here...  In fact, one of them is completely empty!  But the other one is in a slightly better state and also not empty! Her son has only one thing to say: Well, that's not great. Hopefully we can get rid of the Demon Cult soon...  For now, we'll stop at the inn (not that we need it, since there weren't any fights since the last time we've been in a town). Here is also the items storage office, so I take the opportunity to unload a few spells temporarily, so we have space for more when we get to Minster. Soon we'll have one more party member, so we'll be able to pick them back up.  On the upper floor there's one more person. Yeah, we've seen those warrants all over the place. Luckily it seems they don't have a picture!  This place, too, has a pub (of course). From the remaining two guys we get some good info about the political situation in London: Well, I guess we're going to have to help the princess, won't we?  Of course, we have here also a druid church, so let's go inside.  Yeah, you can definitely feel the plot gears shifting around to set up the next important chapter!  Well, I guess it's time to catch our train! But first, we can read this notice on the wall here. Underground Railway Operation Information The mainline between Canterbury (The City) and Judge (Minster) is in normal operation. The line between Queens (Minster) and Keithely (West End) is currently suspended. -- The Underground Railway Administration Bureau of the Council of London Well, that's ok. We're just going to Judge anyway as Queens is reached from there simply by crossing over the London Bridge.  Upon entering the station, over on this side are some parked trains and workers performing maintenance on them! No, we're definitely going to ignore this and talk to the four maintenance workers! Uh, you probably shouldn't be doing repairs on a complicated piece of technology in that state? Not really. Should we really get on one of these trains?  Over here one of the station workers and also a passenger (presumably). These are the actual platforms where you can board the train. We do wish to board, but not just yet.  Lots of people here in the train station, huh? Anyway this here is a small shop with items and a few people standing around it. Well, that's not great. But finally it's time to board. Let's just talk to the last station attendand here. Yes, let's!  And off we go...  ...through the tunnel! While we're travelling, there is stuff happening on another location, as depicted in the following cutscene!  Oh, yeah! Everyone's favourite dumb ape is back! Well, I did tell you that he appears in every Tengai Makyou game, so here he is in this one too!  In the meantime, we have arrived in Judge! This town has one super annoying thing about it, but more on that in a second. For now let's get ourselves introduced to other people here in the station!  This station is MUCH smaller, so after this, we can just make our way upstairs into the town!
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Jan 14, 2024 23:45
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  Here we go. Let's make a tour and see what's up in Minster!  And yes, of course, there is a Demon church here!  Yeah, the random encounters around here are... not a joke! But then again, I've been saying that about pretty much every region here. The game's difficulty is just tuned a bit higher as far as random encounters go.  Nice building! Also check out that statue. I wonder who is it of? If we examine the statue, it turns out that it represents London's prime minister Goto!  Things are clearly very much not all right in London!  If we go into the inn, we find out something unusual! Huh, what? I have to purcase a permit so that I can then come back here and still pay you again to stay at the inn? Are you being serious right now? In fact, spoiler alert, situation with permits here is even worse than it sounds, but more on that in a few moments!  Still, despite that, there are other guests upstairs!  We'll check out the Demon Church, although this time only a couple of people are here. And the priest:  I try going into the equipment shop... but of course am told that I can't purchase anything without a "weapon purchasing permit". Well, isn't that nice.  You know what, let's just head into the parliament building and see what this nonsense is all about. Because it's kind of annoying me now.  Oookay, this is going to take a while, huh? This guy by the door actually tells us what is where. Also the person behind the wall who is staring at that shelf with bottles: The counter next to her is actually the doctor who can remove status effects, etc. as usual. But of course even that needs you to buy the permit first!  A bunch of sick people over here, but we can still talk to them. Not sure why there is a hospital/clinic in the parliament building, but that's how it is, so... All right, well, let's just take that staircase up which is there.  All right, let's talk to those two guys on the right.  As you might have already noticed, in the centre is the assembly hall. I guess we can just walk in during the session? It's possible to actually talk to the guy at the lectern, too, but he just tells you off:  There's one guy here in the side room!  Back down on the ground floor, a couple more people over on this side of the building. And the guy at the bookshelf.  This guy here at the counter (a policeman) sells permits which allow you to purchase equipment. I want to buy some stuff, so I have to also buy a permit first for £30. At least they're not super expensive. On the other hand, these permits are actually worse than you think, because they are single use only. If you buy one and then to go a shop, next time when you want to go to the shop again, you also have to buy another permit again! Luckily, we only need to do one thing for now.  Finally let's stop here by the large counter. The person by the doorway reiterates the permit situation. The three people behind the counter sell permits for various things (inn, item shop, etc.) But we don't need those at the moment anyway.  Permit in hand, we're back at the equipment shop! Let's see what we'll be buying!  First we'll buy this "Chalk Robe" for Zeami for £ 1430...  This is a +4 in defence, but hey!  And then also this "Meteor Sword" for Kabuki for £ 3600.  This does give a +17 in attack power (we'll definitely need it!).  Also these "10,000 Steps Shoes" for £ 2600  This one we'll also give to Kabuki for a +8 in agility!  And with this, we can head out a bit. To the north of the town you can see a bit of the London Bridge. To the west is actually Goto's mansion.  You can go in there, but the gate is simply shut so nothing can be done right now!  Cool! On the north side of the bridge is Queens (although you can't really see it from here). Well, let's explore a bit.  Going a bit to the west, we can already see another druid altar! We'll get to it shortly.  Also, let's not forget that there are random encounters here again! It has been a little while, but they're back! Enemies here generally have decent HP and this one kind of hits hard at 35 HP per hit or so!  Just a few steps later, these guys show up. The theme with having mostly larger groups of 3+ enemies continues here too! These hit just as hard, but now there's four of them! Luckily, the lightning spell makes short work of them in one hit!  On the south end, there's actually a wall!  This is kind of a bad combination. Actually anything involving cockatrices is a bad combination because they can inflict paralysis or poison on a party member and have reasonably high HP and high agility! So that's pretty annoying.  Anyway, along the eastern wall, we find a druid altar! So let's get our next spell!  Indeed, the "kenaz" (ᚲ) does have a meaning of "torch" and the effect is as described above, to provide light in dark dungeons. So it's definitely very situational.  Over here is another bridge (to the east of the big one) so let's just cross it.  We see here a big road. South, it leads to Queens and then across London Bridge to Judge. But we'll continue north for a bit.  To be honest, I'm not sure what this "Torrent" enemy is supposed to be. But they hit really hard, like 50 HP damage per hit.  Anyway, at the north end of the road is The London Museum! So let's go in and have a quick look at the exhibits.  This place is actually not so big. So let's start in the centre. A beautiful chalice made of silver is displayed.  Here we have a glass case: King Karune's Ornaments.  Over here we have some statues: The statues of Jackal, the guardian deity of mummies. Indeed, the Egyptian god Anubis, the real guardian deity of things like mummies and funerary rites, is often depicted with the head of a jackal. We also have there a glass encased mummy: The coffin of King Karune, who died young after fighting the Demon King. He is said to have been a devoted husband.  On the other side of the building, we have more exibits. The glass case: The great detective Holmes's favourite items! Indeed, you can see the hat, the pipe and the cane in there. Luckily we can't get sued by the Conan Doyle estate any more for mentioning this. The boat: Noah's Ark, which survived the Great Flood.  And even more things! The sword in the stone: The Fairy King Arthur's (of the Knights of the Round Table) holy sword Excalibur. The stone slab: The Ark is said to have contained the rock with the Ten Commandments written on it. Well, ok. Those are some, uh, unusual exhibits. But we don't have anything to do here at the moment...  ...so we'll head back south.  I... I mean, yeah... It's a head. The strongest enemy around here, it can hit you for around 90 HP (that's like a third of our health!).  As mentioned, at the south end of this road is Queens, but before we go in there, let's check out the bridge! There's a surprise, out of nowhere, cutscene here!  So, if you were wondering when he'll show up for real after that introduction a short while ago, there he is, everybody's favourite stupid ape, Manto, this time in the "R" version. But luckily, we don't have to fight him X times this time around, and he won't be seen again after this until the next game (which is "Tengai Makyou Zero")!  He did manage to destroy the bridge though, but no matter as there is another one just a few steps away. This scene is actually completely optional, and you will only see it if you approach the bridge before going to Queens! But now that we have done this, well, let's go to Queens ourselves!  Hello there!  Sure, sure, we'll find Okuni!  Ok, sure, I mean we know already.  Nice house!  Uh, let's not actually. If you talk to the other person, it's even worse:  There's another similar looking house on the east side of the town.  Well, demonism will do that to you I guess... but at a price.  Our next stop is at the pub! Hmm, yeah, but I think we will talk to him actually.  I see. Well, the fact that there's something going on with the mummy is... hardly surprising, really. Anyway, for now, we have to find Okuni and then we'll see about the mummy.  Let's also visit the equipment shop! At least here we don't need a permit for using shops!  We'll purchase this "Hunter's Hat" for Zeami for £ 1300.  It's a +12 in defence, so well worth getting at this point!  The royal palace is here, and it does look pretty grand! Uhh, best not to ask for too many details here. Anyway, we do want to visit the palace, of course, but before that...  ...let's head out for a bit again.  These guys can summon more enemies, but... at least they don't hit so hard comparatively speaking.  Here is that one druid altar we saw across the river, it's located southwest from Queens.  This one is pretty crazy. The "Isaz" (ᛁ) spell deals ice damage to one group of enemies... and it also has a chance of putting them into frozen status. Needless to say, there's going to be some abusing of this happening. It is the most expensive of all spells, though, at a whole 27 MP unfortunately.  Now we'll head diagonally opposite, to the northeastern corner, to pick up one more spell!  As is probably again obvious from the description, "Berkanan" (ᛒ) is a spell which heals all allies for about 100 HP each. So this is nice to have.  All right, now let's return to Queens...  ...and head into the palace!   The guards block us. That's quite an attitude you got there, huh?  But they let us in.  Looks very posh in here. There's actually a specific person we need to see here, but first we'll make our usual tour!  Sure there is, us! But this Alex is the person we really want to talk to.  The palace is quite large and detailed!  Interesting bit of background.  Let's check out the kitchen!   Like I said, there's so many rooms in this building! They really went all out.  For now, let's head to the upper floor!  A couple of druids in this room. The other druid is just a doctor.    All right then, we have one last room here!  As soon as we enter, we're approached by someone!   Well, all right. I guess it's back to Judge!  In Judge in this house over here...  ...we find our man!  All right, here is the statue, let's examine the plaque. Kabuki examined the plaque. Behind the plaque is a lever. Pull the lever? But of course!   This leads us to one of those poorly lit hallways. But as before, there are no random encounters here, so we just need to walk to the other side.  And the other side...  ...leads straight to the mansion! The main door is closed, but we can use the servants entrance to get in.  Let's see how is this guy feeling about things? Huh? Feed the monsters?  We'll have a chance to explore here later, but there's some weird stuff going on with those mummies there or whatever they are.  For now, we'll just head upstairs.   Weird. But no matter, we go further up.  Hello there. Hmm, isn't Karune the guy whose mummy we found in the museum? I guess that Jones guy mentioned something about the mummy being resurrected?  More rooms... But then things start to happen!  Well, I guess we found her! Nice summoning abilities too! Also those monsters in Goto's entourage must be the ones that the cook has to prepare food for? Anyway, shortly after, back in the royal palace.     Well he said to go north, so let's go north.  It's definitely a treacherous journey, due to some strong enemies in the northern parts. This Torrent guy has way too much HP.  And hidden away in a forest, we find...  Huh, why is Jones here?  Hm, ok, but that's for later. First of all...  Kabuki obtained the Fairy Dust! Well, that was easy! Incidentally, Fairy Dust is a legitimate item which you can use as a full revive and heal of one party member. But as she said, there can only ever be one of them in existence, i.e. you can only hold one and can't get more until you use the one you have. However, for now, we need it for Okuni, so let's head back there.  We have a nice cutscene here to watch for what happens next!  And then the moment we've been waiting for! Okuni has jouned the party!  All right, well, we had quite a tour of some major towns in London today and we've gained a party member, so let's take a break now. Of course, next time, Okuni needs to catch everybody else up on what's been going on in London, and then we'll proceed with trying to locate the princess! Until then, take care!
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Jan 14, 2024 23:46
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A small correction: the "Torrent" enemy is almost certainly meant to be "Trent", like this Yu-Gi-Oh card: https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Trent
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Jan 15, 2024 02:37
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I was going to say, I believe that text is usually translated as Treant.
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Jan 15, 2024 07:08
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Blaze Dragon posted:A small correction: the "Torrent" enemy is almost certainly meant to be "Trent", like this Yu-Gi-Oh card: https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Trent Tallgeese posted:I was going to say, I believe that text is usually translated as Treant. Yeah it would appear that I completely missed the fact that this is a common type of monster in various RPG environments. This game actually predates Yu-gi-oh (1993 vs. 1996) but nevertheless it seems to be a common name for a tree monster in various media. Thanks, I'll go back and fix it later!
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Jan 15, 2024 16:32
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 Kabuki and Zeami went on a bit of a tour of London last time. Along the way, we found out a bit about how the Prime Minister Goto is keeping London in his grip with the assistance of the Demon Cult. We also heard a bit how Princess Reina of London's royal family ay have been kidnapped by him. Meanwhile Okuni, a kabuki actress (and superspy in her spare time) Okuni was trying to infiltrate Goto's mansion and find the princess, but unfortunately was caught and had to be rescued by our duo. With some fairy dust, she was able to recover from her injuries and is now a new member of our party! Today is also the first time we will prpoperly use a vehicle in this game, and let me tell you nothing you've seen in the previous game can prepare you for this one. Before moving on, Okuni will fill us in with the details of the current situation. Well. Anyway, before we go on... ...let's have a quick look at Okuni's stats etc. As befits what we've seen so far of her character, she's definitely not the "squishy healer" type. Due to her large MP pool compared to the guys, she CAN be a healer, but that would be a waste as we'll soon get some strong offensive spells. But, her physical attack and defence is only a little lower than Kabuki, so if you want to, you can definitely do physical attacks with her too (unlike Zeami) and she does have notably higher agility than the guys. As is tradition with these games, she joins us at about the same level as the other characters in the party are already at. So none of that leveling from level 1 nonsense here with a new party member! As for the equipment, she comes with "Secret Ninja Sword", "Ninja Clothes", "Purple Headgear" and "Starlily Shoes". They are fine for now, so we'll just upgrade them as we go, same as we've done so far. She does not come with any new magic spells, but she does come with a few abilities: - White Tiger (白虎): Summons a "white tiger" and deals damage to one enemy. - Long Time No See (暫く): Summons Benkei and damages all enemies. - Oshichi (お七): Deals fire damage to all enemies. - Angel (天使): Heals all allies for around 90 HP and removes status effects. Unfortunately, unlike the crazy abilities from the previous game which were all free to use (0 MP cost), it's not the case for these and they aren't cheap. But especially with the last one, when you need it you need it! Also, I should mention that Benkei is the famous 12th century warrior monk, whom we've already learned about in the previous game. the huge turtle was named after him. On the other hand, "Oshichi", refers to Yaoya Oshichi (八百屋 お七), a 17th century woman from Edo, who was sentenced to be burned at a stake after committing arson (for somewhat crazy reasons) at the age of 16 years old. It's a pretty crazy/complicated story so I recommend you to look it up, but in the meantime, Oshichi is quite a well known character in Japan, subject of several books and kabuki plays about her life! With this game being set in London, we don't get to talk much about aspects of Japanese history and folklore this time, but here we managed to sneak one in a bit! Anyway, just for reference, here are the current stats for all three characters at this point in the game (from top: Kabuki, Zeami and Okuni in that order)! So let's go and rescue the princess, finally! Of course, since we presume that the princess is held in Goto's mansion, we'll have to make our way back south to Judge and activate the hidden passage by the statue to get there. Here we go... ...and then through the underground passage... ...and here we are! Before we head in, though... ...if you walk around the back of the building, there are two chests sneakily hidden here! One of them has a "Light Blade Longsword" for Kabuki only, which is definitely weaker than what we already have. The other one has a "Strength Rune". I mentioned last time these "rune" items. They are all "multi-use" items (until they randomly break) and this one in particular increases temporarily the attack power of one ally by 40%. So for an item we got for free, not too bad (but you can also buy them if you want)! Anyway, having done this, let's go inside. We'll follow a similar path like last time, except now we also have to deal with random encounters in here! I feel like, compared to the previous game, the random encounters in this game seem much more Final Fantasy-like. "Thoth", as in the Egyptian deity. As you can see, this part of the game has a bit of an Egyptian theme what with mummies and such. Neither of these monsters is overly dangerous, but they have way too much HP for their own good, like a lot of other random encounters in this game! As before, we head up. And up! And then just towards the area where we found Okuni initially. This is where she was trying to reach when she got attacked. Cool statue, but soon Okuni fills us in. Indeed, as we approach...  ...we fall through a trapdoor in front of the statue! It looks much more creepy down here! You definitely want to take this small path here. The Centaur is again a pretty run of the mill enemy for this part of the game. Anyway, the path takes us down to these four chests. One of them contains the "Helm of Silence", which is a cursed piece of equipment which blocks the usage of spells. As always, a cursed equipment has very good stats, but you have to be able to live with the limitation imposed by its curse. So far I haven't really been able to, and definitely won't be able to with this one either (spells are kind of essential), but... maybe, just maybe, at some point we'll actually come across a cursed weapon we can actually find the use for? Hmm. Well. The other chest has a consumable that casts "Confuse" on the enemies. The third chests has the "Rust Winged Robe", which is also cursed and gives you "acid" status when you wear it (which is similar to poison). So we'll toss that one too. The last chest here, however... It's a weapon. And you REALLY do not want to miss picking this up. You can actually buy it later on, but it's worth having it as early as possible. First of all, it's a weapon for Zeami, which gives him a further +15 in attack power. That's already good, but as they say on the home shopping channel, but wait there's more! So, you remember how at some point in the previous game we got that Bone Sword, which you could use as an item in battle and it would restore one character's MP for free? I'm sure you'll agree with me that it was a pretty broken piece of equipment that made the subsequent fights a lot easier. Well, The Spanner is similarly, if not even more broken weapon! What does it do when you use it as an item in battle, you may ask? Why, nothing special, it just puts a whole group of enemies to sleep! Of course, it doesn't have a 100% success rate, but trust me, it's high enough! Yeah, so you can REALLY abuse this for the entire rest of the game as it definitely works on bosses too! This game series doesn't follow the Final Fantasy doctrine of bosses usually being immune to such status effects. Anyway, if you want an easy mode in this game, well, here you go. The Spanner is it! For now though, let's keep going. A few moments later, I run into this bunch. After defeating them, The Lamia drops an item: Sea King's Helmet! Item drops from defeated trash mobs in this game happen quite rarely, and even when they do usually it's some worthless and/or cursed piece of equipment. But... not this time! This one is legit, and we'll give it to Kabuki because it's a real +12 in defence compared to the Steel Helm he's been wearing until now! You can actually find one of these in a chest a bit later in the game, but it's nice to get it early like this! Anyway, we'll be taking the staircase further down. I guess it's a mix of Greek and Egyptian themed enemies here (which also makes a bit of sense I guess). This one is a bit stronger than the others and hits for 40+ HP. The fire spell we got last time (Sowilo) absolutely destroys him at 110+ HP per hit! So still nothing to be feared. We continue down a narrow hallway. And then we have to head further down! Not quite sure what these are supposed to be? Furnaces of some kind? Not sure. But what I am sure is that we'll be taking the stairs down again! Hmmm. A prisoner? Let's see what they have to say. Ok, sure. Let's find the room. But as we pass through here...  Uh. I'm sure nothing bad will happen, right? Ah, here is the room. And in the room... ...are Goto and the captured princess! It's time for our team to crash this conversation! Also, she's 16, but who's counting. Let's come inside!  Ah, these must be the monsters that the cook was complaining about having to prepare the food for! Boss: Chimera HP: 1245 For us though, we have a boss fight to deal with, against Chimera this time! The boss does have a few different attacks. The ordinary physical attack will hit one person for around 50-60 HP so that's not too bad. You might be tempted to cast Wunjo to reduce the boss's accuracy, but honestly that's kind of a waste of time, as the more damaging attacks that chimera has are magic based: ice (hits one party member for around 80) and fire (hits everybody for around 80 or one party member for around 120). You may want to use here a spell which temporarily blocks magic attacks if you want, but it's only for one person so probably not very efficient. From our side, we'll rely again on Sowilo fire spell cast by Okuni as it will do around 115 HP damage each time. It's an expensive spell, so try not to use Okuni's MP for anything else, but I think that should not be a problem. This coupled, with Zeami and Kabuki hitting for around 40-50 HP per hit, should really make a short work of this boss. Obviously, you can use the Spanner to simply put Chimera to sleep. I tried this also, and the boss only woke up once during the fight, only to be put back to slumber immediately, never to wake up again until defeat. Unlike the Final Fantasy game series, here doing a physical hit on someone does not actually wake them up from the sleep status! I still can't believe how broken this item is. This is actually far worse than the Bone Sword. Anyway, we're done with Chimera, so let's see what happens now! And after saying that... ...he runs off through the secret door in the bookcase! Well, let's just free up the princess then. Before continuing the conversation, he goes to untie her. She means "mole" as in the kind of a machine you use to dig tunnels. All right, let's go. The princess joins us temporarily, but is not an active party member unfortunately. Anyway, we head through the secret passage. And downstairs. Unfortunately, Goto escapes in one of the moles... ...but unwisely leaves the second one for us to use! Let's take a look! Wait, what. Why are the graphics suddenly looking so ridiculously detailed? Yes, I agree. So, yeah, if you thought they will not be able to top the vehicles used in the previous game, you were definitely wrong, because... here we are. Anyway, our goal is to travel through the earth and find an exit! It's a bit dark, but thankfully there are no random encounters here, so you can explore as long as you wish! It looks like a wall/rock here, but if you drive into it... ...you end up in a secret room with an item! Of course, it wouldn't be a 1990s JRPG if it didn't have hidden stuff like this! The chest has another Sea King's Helmet. If you didn't get it as random drop from Lamias, you can get one here for free. It's unfortunately only for Kabuki, so for us, we don't have a use for a second one and will simply sell it as soon as we are able to visit a shop. This wall here also leads to a secret room. This chest has an Ice Rune. It's a multiple use item which does around 200 HP in ice based damage to a single enemy. Not actually bad, considering that it would cost £ 3500 to buy it in a shop! I don't think there are any other items to be found here, so now we can make our way out back to the surface. Even for that, you have to drive into a rock wall! We have to climb several floors up. And we end up next to another statue, this time just by the royal palace. Was Goto literally building tunnels all over London or what? By the way, all of these items, including the Spanner and the Sea King Helmet, you can never get again if you miss them. You cannot go back to Goto's mansion once you leave at this point. From here, a cutscene takes over!  But then... Kabuki decides to try to pull some of his old nonsense again. And he leaves. Didn't we already do this nonsense in the last game? Zeami and Okuni head out... ...all the way to the pub, to relax with a few drinks! Also let's note that our friend Professor Jones seems to be here again! Suddely, Kabuki's music theme starts to play!  And then... ...the music is followed by the man himself! (By the way, the music in this game is just fantastic and at least as good as that in the last, if not even better. Well, it's no wonder when it's been composed by Kouhei Tanaka, the future regular composer of Sakura Wars series and many other games and anime shows.) Nope. Instead we're approached by Jones again. As he walks over to us, Jones is a bit unsteady on his feet. Too much to drink, I assume. And with that, he passes out right there on the spot. And with this, we're finally able to continue our adventure! Nice that the whole thing with Kabuki leaving the party was just a massive troll! But where do we go? Well, first of all, we already know that Holy Grail is in the London Museum, because we've seen it there ourselves. So let's head there and pick it up. However, before that, let's refresh our equipment a bit at the weapon shop! We'll just pick up this "Golden Lion Armour" for Kabuki. It's quite expensive at £ 11,600, but also it increases his defence by +22! Also, let's make another stop in the throne room before we head out. That Alex guy from the Royal Guards is also here! The other guys around are the rest of the guards. Mostly they thank us for saving the princess, although one of them mentions that Goto has probably escaped to the London Museum, now that he's lost the use of his mansion. But this is also something we could have already guessed from Jones's story about having escaped from there. Oh, yeah, this kid here. Wait, what? How do those kids from Jipang who play detectives have someone here too? I don't think we'll ever find that out. So like I said quite some time ago, let's head to London Museum to pick up the Holy Grail. But, uh, I have some news. After defeating the Chimera, the overworld enemies in this area have now been replaced by stronger ones! So that should be fun! This game actually has a bit of a scaling/level adjustment system. Generally, after each boss fight, the game will "adjust" party levels to where they are "expected" to be for a normal playthrough. But by the same token, it will also swap the enemies in the area to match your new level (to be clear: each particular type of enemy is always the same, so there's no scaling in that sense). So you never really get the feeling of being completely overpowered, like it happened a few times in the last game. But it's an interesting way of doing things, for sure. I guess because this was not a mainline/numbered game in this series, they were experimenting a little bit here and there. The bottom line is that the "random encounters have too much HP" theme kind of continues, although this one is REALLY weak to fire, so you should definitely make use of that! "Tiger Boar"? I mean, sure game, you do you. Probably this wouldn't be out of place as an enemy in Linda³, if you ask me though. All right, here we go, London Museum and we can... just pick up the Holy Grail and take it! Despite the fact that we were pointed here by, uh, "Professor Jones", there are definitely no Indiana Jones style shenanigans around the Holy Grail. Note also that there is now an open doorway in the background, presumably this was the route through which Jones escaped! Obviously, we're not going to walk through it just yet. Our next destination is of course the fairy forest, so that we can fill up the grail with holy water. You'll recall that Jones was hanging about there earlier to give us a hint about that. Anyway, the fairies are just around those trees and to the west. Why are all the enemies here somehow a combination of two different animal species? This one is actually surprisingly weak. Anyway, the fairy forest. Surprisingly, there's no dialogue here or anything. You just fill the grail with water and are on your way back to the museum! I also take a moment to grab a Fairy Dust. Well, you never know. Back at the London Museum, let's now head through the doorway! It of course leads further down, because where else would it possibly lead, right? Did you notice that unlike the first game, which was full of caves of all kinds, in this one "dungeons" seem to almost always be basically set in basements of people's houses or other buildings? Other than Dartmoor, there really haven't been any caves especially since coming to London! This dungeon can be a little confusing, because when you take stairs in one direction and then back again you don't necessarily come back to the same place where you came from. We had one of those dungeons with shifting floors back in the previous game too, so I guess it's time to do it again. Continuing on, we come to a woman who seems to be imprisoned... in a bedroom? She also seems to have clothes which look vaguely ancient Egypt, but it's a bit hard to tell at this resolution. We can of course talk to her. There's more of them... But why do they all seem to be imprisoned? Well, I guess it's time to proceed downwards. This floor is a bit dark... ...so we can cast a spell to make it brighter (but you don't need to do this if you already know where you're going--no secrets are revealed in the light or anything like that). For now, we just head further down again. Interestingly this staircase drops us kind of in the middle. To the right is a chest! But it just has monsters in it! And yes, somehow the name of this monster is just "Fire", although in Japanese text it's spelled out phonetically in English as ファイヤー. Despite the look and the name, our crazy fire spell still does well against them and then you can finish them off with a single mellee attack. The monsters here are not actually as strong as outside, but they appear in larger groups, so. On the left side of that staircase is somehow also a chest. It also contains just monsters. By the way, "Bastet" or "Bast" is another Egyptian goddess, usually depicted as a woman with cat's head (or the head of a lioness in an earlier version). Bastet is a little dangerous as it can cast an ice spell with 60+ HP damage, but on the other hand, they're easily dispatched with a single cast of our fire spell. The statue is a bit more resistant and does around 80 HP damage per hit. Seems like a good moment to remember we have a spanner and to put that statue to sleep temporarily! Then we'll just head back up! There are actually regular random encounters here too. Khnum is also an Egyptian god with, this time, the head of a ram (or sometimes a crocodile, but our in game version is clearly not that). The thing he's holding in his hand is the "ankh" (☥) symbol, standing for life, death, reincarnation, that sort of thing. Anyway, let's get some light in here. And also some more enemies. Harpies are not really an Egyptian thing, but I guess these have been made to be Egyptian by virtue of that headpiece they wear! Other than that, their depiction is pretty much exactly right. They can put you to sleep, which can be annoying. Okuni comes through again with the fire spell which absolutely decimates them. Unlike poison, the sleep status does wear out after the battle. And back up again. On this floor, more of this prison cell bedrooms. Here are two of them. And the other one. There's clearly some stuff going here that I'd rather not think about. Continung on through these hallways, we find another, what I can now call only as abuse victim. Things are getting a bit ugly here. Hm, this one is empty. Is this woman he "called up on" today? Well, we have a staircase down that we'll take. Huh. This is different, this looks like an actual prison cell. Ugh, this is pretty bad. Apart from the staircase we arrived on, there is one staircase leading up and one leading down here. For now, we head down. But as we round a corner... ...we definitely see Goto running off! He enters what definitely looks like a pyramid! From the outside, we can only hear the voices but we can't see what happens. And then we can see a light through the doorway and hear awful noises... And then it goes away again. Well, I guess we've found Karune, so let's go in. Somehow, the enemies get one last drop on us, before we can reach the pyramid! Taweret is another Egyptian deity, often depticted as a woman with the head of a hippo. Here we go... There are two chests and we can also talk to (what remains of) Goto: Okay. As for the chests, though, one of them contains just a herb, but the other has a "Binding Sword" ("binding" in the sense of binding spell or curse: 呪縛). This one even contains the character for "curse" in its name (呪) so there's no doubt at all that it's cursed. It's quite strong, but its curse is that it prevents you from being able to use regular physical attacks while having it equipped. Although for many cursed weapons, one can think of a way to live with the limitation their curse enforces in exchange for increased attack power, this one seems more interesting than most somehow. But more on that shortly (will we dare to actually for once--gasp!--equip a cursed weapon?) because first we need to meet up with our next Demon Cult disciple! As usual, this will be done in the form of a song!  So in a bit of an unexpected twist, this time we do get to hear the entire song in the actual game! I have to say this concept of major bosses doing a musical number before the fight is so insanely ridiculous, but in this game... it just works and it doesn't feel out of place even for a second! Well, I don't know. Your "love" for women seems to be to keep them imprisoned and abuse them, so Kabuki still seems like a much better option. Boss: Thousand Years Karune HP: 1800 And as usual it's time for a boss fight. He has pretty decent attack and defence power, and even his normal attack with deal around 100 HP damage to one person. But... that's actually all he has as for attacks which deal damage! He does have a few other abilities, e.g. he can put one of our characters to sleep sometimes. Even without putting him to sleep, his only way to deal damage can be therefore largely neutralised by using the Wunjo spell to lower his hit accuracy. At that point you've already won more or less. He IS weak to fire, but I would recommend to conserve your MP on whoever has the fire spell for the second phase! Although Zeami should definitely use his fire ability as that doesn't cost any MP. Other than that, sometimes he will temporarily put a barrier, so you can't damage him. Nothing to do but to wait it out for a few turns! And just like that...  ..he transforms into a monster, like they all do! This time, of course, it's a grotesque mummy! It is, of course, time for the second phase, but as usual the game gives you a moment to regroup before triggering it! His attack and defence in the second phase are actually weaker, but he's gained some nasty spells, so I would like to end it as fast as possible. Since he's still very weak to fire, I would like to use the fire spell which is already pretty strong. But it would be nice to make it even stronger! I was conserving Okuni's MP because my plan is to let her spam the fire spell (she has the highest MP in the party) and this plus regular attack from Kabuki and mask fire ability from Zeami should really decimate him. So to make things even more fun, I'm just going to go ahead... ...and equip that cursed sword on Okuni! It gies her a +25 in attack power, but blocks her physical attacks. However, she's not going to be using any this time, so this will be perfectly fine! I love how in this game the cursed equipment is not necessarily competely useless and you can still find some ways to make use of them if you want. Anyway, let's get into it! Boss: Thousand Years Karune (2) HP: 2200 So I've more or less explained how we're going to do this, but there's even another way. There seems to be a bug with this weapon, so if you give it to Okuni and turn on her auto-battle with strategy type being set to "physical attacks", the game will not apply the curse and she will still do a physical attacks (but at a much greater power than without it!). But I don't count this because it's not really intended. Anyway, as mentioned, his defence is now weaker, so Okuni will casually hit for 130+ with just one cast of the spell. Zeami can also use his fire ability for around 60 HP damage at a time. Kabuki can either attack physically or make sure everybody is healed up. The boss has an awful lightning spell now which hits the entire party for 130+ HP each. Being magic, this can't be blocked with Wunjo, unfortunately, so you'll just have to heal up. The boss is also able to heal for about 130 HP at a time, but he can (and will) use it only up to 3 times during the fight. So you pretty much have to add this to the HP total. He does also have a spell which temporarily ups his defence, but that's not really so interesting. After defeating the boss, we get to use our holy water to finish him off, and then the usual final cutscene:  And that's it. It was not really a super hard boss fight. On the way out, the women are gone from their prison cells. After exiting, the entrance to his "lair" caves in, so we can't go back. A "load bearing boss", I suppose. Let's go back and report to the princess! As usual, there are no random encounters here any more, and in addition to that, since Goto is now gone, the nonsense with having to purchase permits for everything in Judge is no longer in effect! In the royal palace, we first stop by the druid doctor, so he can break Okuni's curse and remove that cursed weapon again (you will recall from the first game that you can't take these off at will once you put them on)! And then we're back in the throne room! And then princess joins in again. We're done here, but before we leave, we can get a few word of encouragement from Alex! We'll be heading to west end in a moment, but before that one last quick trip to London Museum! Here we find again Professor Jones! All right, now... ...let's head back to Judge. If you visit the parliament now, there's only a couple of people and they tell you how now when Goto is gone, a new leaf can be turned and a proper non-corrupt parliament will be organised! So that's nice. And if you talk to people who were selling the permits before, they tell you that Princess Reina has ordered that practice to stop! And now finally back again to Queens. Also, if you recall, the train for West End goes from here, but the line was not in service during Goto's reign. This is similar how the previous game was also blocking you from visiting places "out of order" through various means. But here, you can't even walk between different districts. You pretty much have to take the train. So let's go down into the train station. Hello! There's the train! But before that... And we can board the train! It takes us west, to, uh, West End. Here we are! Welcome to Keithely, the only proper town in West End. We'll explore it next time and see what's going with this whole vampirism situation. Of course, the Eternal Sangue is the last of the four disciples of Demon Cult, and then after thet we'll probably need to have some kind of a final confrontation in or around the Tower of London... maybe? But that's all in the future, so until then, take care!
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Jan 29, 2024 00:36
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I feel like there was a mild missed opportunity to name the guy "Millennium Karune", what with the Egyptian pharaoh theme and Yugioh's millennium items.
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Jan 29, 2024 10:10
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LJN92 posted:I feel like there was a mild missed opportunity to name the guy "Millennium Karune", what with the Egyptian pharaoh theme and Yugioh's millennium items. This game is three years older than Yu-Gi-Oh so unless they could see the future, that'd be impossible.
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Jan 29, 2024 12:43
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Blaze Dragon posted:This game is three years older than Yu-Gi-Oh so unless they could see the future, that'd be impossible. I was talking about Ivantod, not the devs. This game was never localized in English. And if it's not clear, they use the same word (Sennen = Thousand-Years = Millennium) that Yugioh went on to use for the items in question.
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Jan 29, 2024 20:45
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Well, in my defence I have basically zero familiarity with Yugioh, so that part was never going to happen no matter what.  I guess translating this as "Millennium" would definitely have been an option, but it didn't come to my mind at the time. Anyway the guy is now gone, so we'll never have to deal with it again! 
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Jan 29, 2024 21:26
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ivantod posted:Well, in my defence I have basically zero familiarity with Yugioh, so that part was never going to happen no matter what. Oh, yeah, fair enough, if you don't know Yugioh, you don't know Yugioh. It was never a big deal, just thought it would have made a fun reference.
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Jan 29, 2024 21:31
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Oh by the way, I was posting before some stuff about that VHS tape which was published as promotion to this game. But now I have found a clear picture of the front and back cover! Here they are: .JPG) .JPG) quote:Starring Kabuki Danjurou! The woman on the right side of the front cover is supposed to be Okuni, but she doesn't look anything like in game. Her clothes are not even the right colour! If you're wondering about Zeami, here's another screenshot depicting all three characters from our party:  So, uh, I'm going to call that one a miss too. He's not even wearing the mask, and the actor doesn't look at all like the in-game character! Although this time they at least got the clothes mostly right. The fact that this even exists should tell you about the level of popularity Tengai Makyou series had in Japan at the time. Shame none of the mainline games ever got properly released in the west, although at least the fan translations are slowly coming in!
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Jan 31, 2024 23:56
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Wasn't there like one one-v-one fighting game that got released in the US, so there was absolutely no context as to who any of these characters were?
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Feb 1, 2024 20:53
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Snorb posted:Wasn't there like one one-v-one fighting game that got released in the US, so there was absolutely no context as to who any of these characters were? Yes, it was called "Kabuki Klash":  But there was actually a second game released in the west which featured Tengai Makyou characters. In the Sega Saturn version of the Bomberman game ("Saturn Bomberman"), the characters of Manjimaru, Kinu and Kabuki appear as playable characters: You can see them on the right side in the corner there.
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Feb 1, 2024 21:49
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Was Tengai Makyou II far more popular than I? I feel that everything I see (which is, in fairness, very little) takes from II and not from I.
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Feb 1, 2024 22:14
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Blaze Dragon posted:Was Tengai Makyou II far more popular than I? I feel that everything I see (which is, in fairness, very little) takes from II and not from I. Yeah, it seems to be a bit like that. I think it has to do a bit with the fact that the first game is all the way back from 1989 and to say it honestly, it's a little bit more mechanically dated to play in some way. (Think about how in the original Dragon Quest I you have to literally pull up the menu to select "Stairs" to go up and down the stairs, something like that). Some parts of it (but definitely not all) also look a bit more dated, especially the towns and the overworld so probably that has also something to do with it. But yeah, the second game is just massively popular even to this day.
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Feb 1, 2024 22:46
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Oh, by the way, another thing especially for those who were following my previous thread... In a long-awaited turn of events, the full fan translation for Linda³ has somwhow finally been released! Get it here: https://github.com/Eight-Mansions/linda-cubed-again Note: The fan translation is applicable to the PS1 version of this game.
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Feb 3, 2024 18:16
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Hey everyone! I'm planning to post the next part tomorrow, but this page is already pretty heavy with images, so it would be nice if we could get a few posts to push it to the next page since we're not too far from it! Thanks! P.S. It's going to be a very special episode!
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Feb 10, 2024 22:51
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Special, you say? 
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Feb 10, 2024 23:25
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i too like special things
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Feb 11, 2024 00:13
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:i too like special things and "special" by the standards of this series promises to be downright ☆magical☆
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Feb 11, 2024 00:17
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Looking forward to whatever madness this portends.
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Feb 11, 2024 00:24
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 21:02 |
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Might just need one more post on the default layout, right? Then the special page will be ready.
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Feb 11, 2024 01:02
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