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Omobono posted:Mari and Marisa are going to be the game's Lan and Hub (minus being the protagonists).
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Jun 22, 2020 10:54
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anilEhilated posted:The non-typical structure of Shanghai would seem to indicate a MMBN1-ending-style twist. The question is if we'll get Hourai.bat, or the Grimoire of Alice out of it.
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Jun 22, 2020 10:58
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anilEhilated posted:The non-typical structure of Shanghai would seem to indicate a MMBN1-ending-style twist. Something is obviously up, but I don't have enough information to speculate. This game is a massive love letter to MMBN and it assumes you're familiar with it, so I think the reused setup is setting up a different twist about Shangai's specialness. Of course my speculation about Mari and Marisa is based pretty much on nothing, but there's only so many times I can write that I love our Yakuza_Boss.exe before it gets old.
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Jun 22, 2020 11:51
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I feel the situation is a lot more simple. "Mari" is not Marisa Kirisame at all, rather than just a renamed version with herself as her Navi. Mari is Marisa's daughter. The person who made this game shipped Rinnosuke/Marisa and it is canon in this universe - Dr. Rinnosuke Morichika married Marisa Kirisame in the game's backstory, and their daughter would be Mari Morichika here. Rinnosuke then gave her a Navi based on her mother (who is still alive, this isn't a Hub situation from what we're told) because...I dunno, he likes her a lot, I guess.
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Jun 22, 2020 16:21
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Blaziken386 posted:While running around in here I found MORE CRAWFISH. For a second I thought it was literally a second level of "CRAWFISH" enemy just called "MORE CRAWFISH", and now I want a whole family that continues into MANY CRAWFISH and the boss MOST CRAWFISH.
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Jun 22, 2020 18:15
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Blaze Dragon posted:I feel the situation is a lot more simple. "Mari" is not Marisa Kirisame at all, rather than just a renamed version with herself as her Navi. Mari is Marisa's daughter. Putting heterosexuality in a touhou is a crime.
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Jun 22, 2020 20:15
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Seeing Marisa/Rinnosuke ships is still weird to me.Nea posted:Putting heterosexuality in a touhou is a crime. Sure is weird, huh.
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Jun 22, 2020 21:25
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Owning and driving a tank is generally quite legal, by the way, though you usually need to ensure any guns are non-functional. Hellish gas mileage and terrible for the roads, of course. Nea posted:Putting heterosexuality in a touhou is a crime.
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Jun 22, 2020 22:31
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The situation with the two Koas is more than likely a reference to Ms. Mari and Ms. Yuri from Battle Network, though both of them are teachers.
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Jun 23, 2020 01:22
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Ratoslov posted:Kumami is, on the other hand, a definite bad influence on our Alice and also a embezzling inside-trading lunatic who is probably also like eight other kinds of criminal too. 'Hey, little girl, why don't you pick what my front company is going to be?' I love her already. 
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Jun 23, 2020 01:36
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Faillen Angel posted:The situation with the two Koas is more than likely a reference to Ms. Mari and Ms. Yuri from Battle Network, though both of them are teachers. Even their personalities are clear parallels, the protagonist's teacher who's mostly underwritten but clearly a good person, and her sister who has a far shadier past. The big differences here are that Yuriko was a non-character you meet once and you are only told all of this, while here Koakuma #2 is also Higsby, while also they aren't twins which would be unacceptable in MMBN where the amount of twins is way higher than it should logically be to save on spritework.
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Jun 23, 2020 01:37
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Blaze Dragon posted:Rinnosuke then gave her a Navi based on her mother (who is still alive, this isn't a Hub situation from what we're told) because...I dunno, he likes her a lot, I guess. Basically the only thing we know about Rinnosuke is that he's a wife guy.
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Jun 23, 2020 01:48
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Faillen Angel posted:The situation with the two Koas is more than likely a reference to Ms. Mari and Ms. Yuri from Battle Network, though both of them are teachers. It's also a bit of an old fan thing where there's 2 twin Koakumas, differentiated only by hair length.
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Jun 24, 2020 13:50
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Re: current Lowtax poo poo i know the dude pretty much only owns the site, and the mod teams are the people who actually run the place, but this'll be paused for a little bit while poo poo gets sorted out. I love the gaming forums, I'd hate for them to be doomed because the guy who controls the servers is an abusive gently caress. There's been talk of people moving to https://www.lp.zone/ if the site becomes unsalvageable, but uh, that site's apparently terrible for SSLPs, so, 50/50 on whether or not I'd bother trying to continue over there edit: for now, discord link this is not a general discussion server like every other discord, this is literally just a "if the forums die, here's how to contact me" server. I'm in too many general servers to keep up with them as it is, I imagine most of you are as well. If the forums (hopefully) survive, I'll most likely either strip it down to just update notifications, or delete it entirely. eternaldough posted:If you do continue this LP somewhere else, I'm sure a lot of us will be excited to follow it.  thanks, friend. Blaziken386 fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Jun 24, 2020 |
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Jun 24, 2020 19:50
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If you do continue this LP somewhere else, I'm sure a lot of us will be excited to follow it. I love this game a lot, I mean a looooot. I played it over the course of just a few days because I couldn't put it down. It's everything I love and was nostalgic for when it comes to Battle Network. I'm absolutely no expert at the battle network or starforce games, but Shanghai.exe's touches on classic mechanics is really tight and great. Honestly, even more than the gameplay itself, I really grew to adore the story more than I ever expected, and that's mainly because I really grew to love Alice and Shangahi herself. Alice unfortunately gets kinda overshadowed by her Navi, but the pair really feel as unbreakable a bond, maybe even more, as Lan and Hub did. Shanghai is fantastic though, I love every single thing she does and say. I can't believe this weird rockman.exe fangame that uses a surface-level touhou skin gave me one of my favourite female characters ever. Speaking of, the touhou part of this game is absolutely surface-level. I am a big touhou fan and I can confidently say that the creator of this game definitely just applied it to this game so that it would have more appeal. I recommend that everybody just try not to think too hard about how the choices of characters used are connected because after a certain point, they just don't. Additionally, I have to disassociate this game with actual touhou because otherwise that thing with Marisa and Rinnosuke alone would upset me too much.
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Jun 24, 2020 20:28
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You should migrate to https://lpbeach.co.uk/ , you would be incredibly welcome. There's a bunch of people there who really like BN.
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Jun 27, 2020 03:48
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Leeroh_Zenon posted:You should migrate to https://lpbeach.co.uk/ , you would be incredibly welcome. There's a bunch of people there who really like BN. If the deal falls through... we'll see. It's a tossup between that and B&R, of which the decision will come down to "which is more active" and "which has better emoticon support" (i'm very attached to  , you see)
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Jun 27, 2020 05:20
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Blaziken386 posted:I'm currently waiting on more definitive details about the transition from Lowtax -> Jeff. If Lowtax is actually leaving, this LP will stay where it is for several reasons, chief among them being that lpix.org (and moreso, lparchive) is a host specifically for SAwful LPs. I believe LP Beach is working on getting its own image host up and running Soon(TM). Emoticons, I'm not sure about.
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Jun 27, 2020 05:30
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Roluth posted:I believe LP Beach is working on getting its own image host up and running Soon(TM). Emoticons, I'm not sure about. We're working on images and will have at least some emoticons (TBD).
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Jun 27, 2020 05:56
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Oh man, someone is actually tackling this game? I didn't catch wind of it until now! I requested this game ages ago in the games request thread and I'm happy that someone's playing through it. Thanks, I really appreciate it!
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Jun 27, 2020 08:10
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While there's not been as much concrete info as I'd like, it seems increasingly likely that Lowtax is being removed from the site, so I feel justified in updating again. Also, I live in america, and our terrible response to covid means I'm not leaving my house at all, and it's making me go loving stir-crazy, so I needed to work on something. I can only play so many video games. As a sidenote, I tried out Embodiment of Scarlet Devil the other day. I learned several things, most notably: I'm real fuckin' bad at bullet-hell games. Took me all day to beat the game on easy, and I needed every single life/continue to do it. Still can't get more than halfway through normal mode, aka, "the mode that actually has a final boss"  DevilsLeftHandMan posted:Oh man, someone is actually tackling this game? I didn't catch wind of it until now! I requested this game ages ago in the games request thread and I'm happy that someone's playing through it. Thanks, I really appreciate it!
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Jun 30, 2020 05:21
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Part 5: City Area Might Be Loosely Based On Kamurocho. Music: Internet Last time, before we got sidetracked dealing with Cirno, our goons mentioned something about our Link Gate being operational. So today, we're gonna start off by hitting the Square and seeing what's new!   : "I CAN LINK THIS SQUARE TO YOUR HOMEPAGE!": "THE CONNECTION FEE IS 1000 ZENNY!": "CREATE LINK?" (Y/N) : "I HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN SOON!" And with that, we now have our first Link Gate active. It's not super useful right now, because Genso Area is kinda tiny, but that's all you have to do to get shortcuts in this game. It's extremely convenient and it means we'll be jacking into Alice's PC 90% of the time we're going anywhere on the net! Anyways, what else have we got?   : "You can decorate your homepage beautifully, even on a budget!": "Interested in some Interiors?"   I... that's... those cost a lot of money, dude. Even the cheap stuff! "Even on a budget," my rear end!   : "They're very expensive, and most of them aren't very useful!": "That said, there are actually some useful ones!": "If you have lots of money lying around, you might enjoy them!"This lady over here saves me an explanation, how nice of her. Basically... this whole thing is just a money sink. It's a nifty money sink, but it's something that you may as well not bother with until the tail end of the game. I'll probably do a side update at the end of the LP showcasing everything, because there's a lot, and all of my money is reserved for useful things like chips. That said, I wonder if there's an easy way to get a lot of money fast...? I mean, some of this stuff sounds great - I'm not sure what an EvilEyeSofa looks like, but I want one.   Judging from where I'm posting this, I'm assuming y'all are no stranger to internet forums. Billager posted:Board Open! MakoMako posted:Re: Board Open! Donkichi posted:Re: Board Open!   : "Instead, visit the Chat Board regularly! It keeps the info fresh!"I'll try to remember to check the board(s) semi-frequently, but there's always a chance that I'll forget, and come back to like... twenty or more posts in a row. Hopefully that won't happen! and if it does happen, I'll just... put all of those in a separate mini-update, or something. Anyways!! The Interiors shop and the Chat Board aren't the only new things. There's also something new on the other side of the Square!   : "Would you like to know more?" : "People with various problems write requests on the Request Board.": "Clients offer a reward to whoever resolves their request.": "I should note that you can only accept one request at a time.": "Be careful not to take any requests you can't resolve promptly."So, first up, we have the Request Board already, which is nice. A staple of the BN series, it's where a good chunk of useful items end up! Honestly, I wish more games were nice and put all of their sidequests on a single bulletin board.  : "SP Virus Missions can be taken at that counter over there.": "Each mission has a bounty for eliminating a powerful SP virus.": "Because SP viruses are so dangerous, generic Navis avoid them.": "We run protective protocols that make us invisible to SP viruses.": "However, SP viruses can grow strong enough to overcome our protection.": "To stop SP viruses from harming us all, we must cull them regularly.": "Upon taking a mission, protective protocols will be disabled.": "SP viruses are more powerful than normal Navis, so be careful.": "You can only have one active mission at a time.": "It's a good idea to target an enemy around your skill level.": "After you complete the mission, just claim your bounty at the counter."Now for something completely new: SP Virus missions! I know this guy was trying to warn us off, but I do like the sound of the word "bounty." Besides, they're just viruses! I dunno if you've heard, but Shanghai's kind of awesome? We took out the strongest ROM Navi and everything.     Yeah, that's a bounty alright. Fancy sofa, here I come!  Okay, that's a lot of HP, but it's just a Kedama. And there's only one! This'll be easy-  Oh, uh, you're kinda fast aren't you-  Hang on, where did all my hp go???   okay maybe this was a mistake  Music: Game Over Wellp.  *ahem* ...So, what'cha got on the request board?   : "Whoever takes my request should meet me near the mansion in Genso Town."You know for some strange reason I have an urge to stay far away from the internet right now, so that sounds just peachy!   : "I want you to deliver this DataPack to Genso Square.": "It's really just some Sub Chip data for business use.": "I actually wanted to take care of this myself, but something just came up.": "You'll get your reward from the recipient, so please get the data to him."  Any sidequest that involves you doing a fetch quest generally has a keyitem associated with it, which is kinda neat.   : "Thank you! With this, I can cut the price of my Sub Chips!": "A reward? Okay, here you go.": "Thanks again!"He gives us a RegUp2 for our troubles, but that's not the only reward for this quest.  Him mentioning a discount wasn't just flavor text. HalfEnrg and Anti-Vrs only dropped by 50z and 20z, respectively, but CrakTool used to be 5000z each. A 1500z price drop isn't too shabby! Especially considering the fact that we'll be buying a fair number of these over the course of the game, and this guy is right next to our new Link Gate.  : "It was a simple request, but you really saved me! Thank you very much!"Now, ordinarily, I'd just leave it there and get on with the plot, but this next one actually leads into the area we're going to next, so we may as well take care of it right away.  : "Would someone strong come catch and punish this Navi for me?": "I'll be waiting in the main plaza of Genso Area 2."  : "Ohoho! You and I are cut from the same cloth. This'll be good."Another reason to do sidequests: you get to meet all sorts of New Friends™  : "There's a bad Navi in City Area 2 who keeps pestering beautiful women like me.": "I feel uneasy walking through City Area. I've had enough.": "I'd like you to punish that Navi so I can roam the net in peace.": "I'm counting on you to take care of this quickly."No, you're not misinterpreting the dialogue, this is literally a sidequest to track down a sleazy creeper dude and beat the poo poo out of him. Seriously, do the sidequests.  Without further ado,  Welcome to City Area.   : "If you bring your boyfriend here, it'll be a steamy date for sure!": "...If you have a boyfriend, that is."I would like to personally thank the blink animation for making bedroom eyes at such an appropriate line. Anyways, you might've noticed something interesting about City Area already.  : "City Area 2 is right in the middle, so it's called the heart of City Area!"Specifically, as this Navi points out, we don't start in City Area 1! Genso Area connects to City Area 2. Honestly, it doesn't change much, but the fact you come out in the middle of the area actually makes it feel more like a city, if that makes sense? But that's not important right now. What's important is the fact that the sleazebag we're hunting down is in this area. Let's see if we can't track him down, hm?  : "UP ON THE NETOP'S SCREEN, I MEAN!" More meta-jokes about the interface! thank you, helpful Sprite   GMDs are starting to get pretty good already. Which is good, because I tend to get chips after most virus battles, so they're the main way I get money right now!  Another Interiors shop in the center of the area here. His furniture is even more expensive than the guy in Genso Square.  Just directly south of him, there's an invisible path to access this island with another PMD on it! Unfortunately, even after getting the discount, I am still too poor to buy a bunch of CrakTools, alas. And this guy on the path here...  ...is our target.  : "You for real!? You think little ol' me would just take that lying down!?": "Go, my viruses! Attack!!" I don't remember if we've seen Kedama2 yet. They're, uh, basically the same as regular Kedama! Honestly, I usually don't even notice the difference.  Things go about as well for him as you'd expect.  : "I won't show my face around here anymore! P-Please forgive me!"And good riddance to ya!  : "Now I can rest easy and walk through City Area in peace.": "Take this as a thank you. Or should I call it a reward?"  For our work, she gives us a pretty useful chip. Do you remember VarSwrd? It's kinda like a weaker version of its Sonic Boom attack, where the sword slash keeps going. Also, despite it being called Aura Sword, the attack pierces even if you're just using a Barrier chip. Not very strong, but situationally useful!   : "Navi's with the P-Code can go through, while others can't.": "The cyberworld is a mysterious place~!" Well, before we move onto City Area 1, I should probably go over the new viruses here, huh? We've already seen Kedama2 when fighting ShadyGuy, who was self-explanatory, but there's a few new ones as well! Music: VS. Virus   PoisLily: it is a plant. It spits out seeds at you to make poison panels... and that's about it? They're really not dangerous, even if they attack quicker than you'd expect. The chip does the same thing, but in a plus shape.  Kedama2 drop an upgrade of ShotWave! Faster, does 100 damage instead of 60. As a slight annoyance, this chip gets used for a PA later on... but only using the code which drops at Busting Rank 4, which will almost always reward Zenny instead.   BibitiBat teleports around a bit before shooting that giant orb at you from its eye. It's really slow moving, but it tracks you as you move, so you have to lead it a bit to dodge it. If you get hit, you become inflicted with the Heavy status, and you'll crack the panels as you walk. Chip is Earth element, and does the same. Honestly, I never use it.   Fujin are where you find the equivalent of the Tornado chip, which is always nice to have, especially where things like Full Synchro, and Atk+ chips are concerned. If the wind touches a sand panel, it'll pick up the sand and double the damage, so watch out for that. When they attack, the tornado goes down the row and then back, and it'll keep the sand buff if any of the panels it crosses are sand.   Halfway done now, we've got the Reftile. They don't attack you. Ever. They "attack" by putting up frontal shields - if you attack that, then the shield counters you with a laser to the face. Luckily, it's only a frontal shield, so anything that hits from the side or air or whatever will hit them just fine. Their chip does the same thing, but, uh. I've tried to use it, really, I have, but the timing is unforgiving. I can parry semi-reliably in Dark Souls/Sekiro, but I've only ever gotten the timing for this chip right once. ...That, and reflecting attacks just isn't my style.   Liba are another slow moving virus, who attack by spawning sandtraps in your area, and then teleporting into them. Right now, they can only make the one, but later versions can make the stage into a hazard zone pretty quick. Their chip (especially the later versions) is surprisingly useful, because it lasts for a long time. Pair it with a stun chip, and you can leave multiple landmines in the enemy's area!   The final virus in this area, the FlaMeow. ...It's a cat, sitting under a kotatsu, who breathes fire at you. It's honestly kind of adorable?  Their chip is more useful than it seems - not only does it launch fire 3 squares ahead, but the fire lingers juuuust slightly longer than the mercy invis that being hit does. If you hit something with this chip and they don't move (either because they're stationary or because you used a stun support chip), you hit them twice! Very useful. Okay. I think that's everything? I try to go over new viruses as we encounter them, but City Area has a lot of variety, and almost no overlap with what we've already seen. Also, while we're going over all these new viruses, it's probably a good time to bring this up:  : "Earth is weak to Aqua and Leaf, but strong against Heat and Elec!": "Also, Earth types can't be Heavy or be stuck in sand."There's a new element system! And with all these new viruses around dropping elemental chips, it's actually relevant to us, so let's go over it now.  Behold, the new type chart! Each element beats two, is beaten by two, and is neutral to the other one. I like it! It's much more fluid than the original Rock Paper Scissors order, and it means you've got more options for dealing super effective attacks. Not only that, but each type has their own terrain and status immunities:  We haven't seen the Heat and Elec panels just yet, but they're pretty similar: standing on a heat panel for too long causes it to shoot up a burst of flame. Heat types either don't trigger it, or don't take damage from it, I don't remember which. Elec panels get struck by bursts of lightning intermittently, regardless of where you're standing. I don't quite remember if it does damage or just stuns you, but again, not a problem for Elec. Poison Panels and Grass panels both deal with HP - poison drains it, and grass panels heal it (for grass types). Additionally, grass panels can be removed - if you hit it with a poison type attack, the panel will become poisoned. If you hit it with a fire chip, it'll burn up, doing 2x as much damage. Or, in the event of a grass type enemy, 4x as much. Sand panels and Ice panels are movement hazards - as seen with KedamaSP, sand slows you down to a crawl, which makes it a lot harder to dodge! Ice panels do the opposite, and cause you to slide over them while moving. Their respective elements can ignore that entirely. Additionally, Sand panels boost wind attacks like storm, removing them as they do, while Ice panels give a x2 bonus to Elec attacks, but Finally, we have the status afflictions. No handy graphic for this one, unfortunately. Melt (Heat) - Offense is halved. Aqua attacks will do 2x damage, but end the status early. Slip (Aqua) - Constantly sliding as though you're on ice. Adds an Elec weakness. Blind (Leaf) - Enemies are invisible. If you use it on an enemy, they won't attack at all. Adds a Heat weakness. Heavy (Earth) - Crack panels when you walk over them, Navis/Viruses who can normally fly won't be able to cross holes. If you get stuck in sand, you'll be trapped until it wears off. Poison (Poison) - You are poisoned. Paralyze (Elec) - Temporarily stuns. Incredibly useful when you use it, terrible when it happens to you. Now, those first couple statuses are interesting. Because, like all things in these games, they stack. For example... if you use a Heat chip on a Poison type, they'll take 2x damage. If they're standing on a Grass panel, they'll take 4x damage. If they're standing on a Grass panel and Blinded, they'll take 8x damage. I mentioned earlier that the Storm chip has elemental versions, right?  ....That being said, I tend to favor overwhelming firepower, rather than clever strategies, but, you know. I could do that. Theoretically.  Music: Internet Okay, that's enough tutorializing. Back to the update proper! The BMD next to that girl has a BrkShot chip in it, which is identical to the VnmShot chip from earlier, but it cracks the panels, rather than poisoning them. ShadyGuy actually used this chip in the fight, despite the fact that he summoned Kedama2 to help him.  Backtracking a bit, we've finally made it to City Area 1!  (text version)  Fun fact™: the first time I was here, I skipped this lady and did not realize that the purple path was the main road.   I run around looking for GMDs, but sadly, most of them only give me varying (usually low) amounts of zenny, instead of anything interesting.  : "If I run into the owner, I wonder if I'll recognize them."Hmmm...   : (I can't unlock it unless I know who owns it.)Hmmmmmm.... The cyberworld is a mysterious place~! I don't actually remember who owns this one, but hopefully we can become friends with them!     Following the purple line, it's pretty much a straight shot towards Campus Square, despite all the teleporters.   A bit bigger than Genso Square was, which is fitting.  : "Ah, the Navi in charge of that went out into City Area a while back.": "But he's been gone for quite some time now. Did something happen?"Aw, dammit. The guy who gives out Metro Passes isn't here! What the hell. You'd think there'd be someone else to cover his shift while he's on break, but no.  : "That's because it's on a Genso University server."   There's a couple other people milling about, but no one else knows (or cares) where the Metro Pass guy might've gone, unfortunately.   : "Huh? N-Nothing! I definitely wasn't thinking the store clerk is cute!"Also, one of our goons is here! Up to something shady, no doubt.  : You tryin' to seduce one ah' my goons, eh? I'm on to you, lady.  I buy another HPMemory from the shop here, but none of the chips catch my eye right now.  : "To the girl who took my request, thank you."The last sidequest on the board is a little bit out of the way, so I'll get to it later, but hey, we've got more praise from our BFF back in Genso!  Down here, there's another Link Gate Sprite, who lets us connect our Home Page to here as well. Only 5 updates in, and we already have shortcuts to two major Squares! Fantastic.  : "The more of those flaws a virus consumes, the stronger it becomes."That doesn't sound right, but I also don't know enough about the fantasy internet to dispute it. You'd think it'd be the other way around - more powerful viruses can do that easier, rather than having more makes them more powerful. fake edit: while writing this, I realize she was talking about Bug, Freeze, and Error- frags.  Well, whatever. If the Metro Pass guy isn't at the Square, we'll just have to track him down ourselves!  Heading back to the first teleporter and heading north, we find this guy. But what does he know, really?   ...Oh, well. I guess he was right? Well, this circles back to the other teleporter (#3), so we may as well take that and see where it goes. The guy's gotta be around here somewhere.   Oh?  : "I-I can't! The rule is one per person!": "C'mon, you wouldn't want anyone getting hurt, would you~?"This seems... familiar.  Did y'all forget? This might not be Genso Area, but Shanghai is still this area's Supreme Ruler™. You wanna harass someone, you go through her first.   : "We meet again.": "Jeez... You punks have changed at all.": "You dolt! There's three of us this time!": "This won't go the same as last time!"Bring in another three reinforcements, and it might be a fair fight.   : "What should we do?"But really...  : "Servants! To my side!"...Shanghai's not interested in being fair.  : "Beat 'em to bits! Every single one!": "Whaddaya want!? You wanna go, punks!?": (It's hard to tell which ones are on our side...): "drat it! Take this!"And really, what's the point of running a gang if you're not gonna get into a couple of street fights?   Music: VS. Tournament PunkBroV2! Stronger than last time, but is he strong enough?   Yeah, I didn't think so. (note: When you end a battle with a chip that has after effects, like, say, a bullet casing ejecting, the game kinda freaks out a bit, and makes it go haywire, which is what's happening in the second pic.)  : "Now that you know how weak you are, you don't have to act tough anymore.": "Run awaaaaay!"And they jack out in fear.  : "If it's for Miss Shanghai, stuff like this ain't nothin'!": "Please call us whenever you need us!"Shanghai treats her servants well, so they're always eager to help out. She's the best gang leader they could ask for!  : "Th-Thank you..."The poor government official is luckily, no worse for wear, though he's still shaken up a bit.  : "Oh, and I'd like a metro pass as soon as possible." And Shanghai continues to be the best.  : "Sorry, but I can only issue them in the Campus Square. Please meet me there.": "I'll go on ahead and prepare one for you.": "Got it. I'll meet you in the Campus Square."  Back to the Square we go!  : "I'll issue you a student metro pass. Please wait a moment.": "...There. With this, you can ride the metro as much as you want." : "Thank you for supporting the Linear Metro."And that takes care of that. See you next time, when we'll be heading to college to bug Mari's dad! And possibly getting into even more trouble, who can say. Blaziken386 fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Aug 21, 2020 |
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Jun 30, 2020 06:01
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Blaziken386 posted:Oh hey! I was wondering who requested it. That was actually what gave me the final push to do so: the fact that someone wanted it meant that I knew I wouldn't be talking into the void. Glad to have you here! It's such a well-crafted and beautiful game that I had to request it and share it with the rest of the world. I'm glad that someone finally tackled my request! Thank you for making this LP, maybe more people will see the game from here and give it a go themselves. Granted, I never actually finished the game myself (I got fairly close to the end), but I loved just about every minute of it. Hopefully everyone else will, too!
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Jun 30, 2020 06:48
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Blaziken386 posted:
... I'm actually mildly disappointed that we didn't end up getting an actual 3v3 fight, here.  Ah, well. Maybe in a later update...This game looks super fun and extremely charming so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here!
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Jun 30, 2020 07:08
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Taking out the SP Viruses early is difficult, but absolutely possible. Doing so gave me such a huge cash buffer for the rest of the game. The Cat Kotatsu having two tails means that it's likely a reference to Chen, who is a Nekomata. Also, the BibitiBats are a reference to mooks from the PC-98 era. I'm sorry if I come off as backseating, I just have Big Passion for Touhou.
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Jun 30, 2020 07:08
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I found (most of) the SP Viruses are super fun. Pretty much all of them utterly destroyed me in the first (and several subsequent) encounter, but seeing just what kind of insane trick they have is also part of the fun!
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Jun 30, 2020 07:15
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eternaldough posted:I found (most of) the SP Viruses are super fun. Pretty much all of them utterly destroyed me in the first (and several subsequent) encounter, but seeing just what kind of insane trick they have is also part of the fun! Faillen Angel posted:Taking out the SP Viruses early is difficult, but absolutely possible. Doing so gave me such a huge cash buffer for the rest of the game. last playthrough, even when I had a bunch of money, I was still hunting them down for the fun of it. Faillen Angel posted:The Cat Kotatsu having two tails means that it's likely a reference to Chen, who is a Nekomata. Also, the BibitiBats are a reference to mooks from the PC-98 era. I'm sorry if I come off as backseating, I just have Big Passion for Touhou. NAME REDACTED posted:... I'm actually mildly disappointed that we didn't end up getting an actual 3v3 fight, here. ...but the game might just do some interesting stuff with the combat system later on. 
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Jun 30, 2020 07:42
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Faillen Angel posted:The Cat Kotatsu having two tails means that it's likely a reference to Chen, who is a Nekomata.  Personally, I imagine they're more of a reference to Rin, who is also a Nekomata (or just cat-based in general, I can't be bothered to check) that has two tails and an affinity with fire - of which the FlaMeow uses itself. Could be wrong, though, - it's a little hard to tell in this case, even if it leans more towards Rin.
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Jun 30, 2020 07:48
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Hey, um, I apologize for complaining, but could you please compress your PNGs further before publication? Each is currently ~450KB in size, and they don't load well even on my cable internet connection. When I opened one and saved it again in Preview (still as PNG), the size dropped from 462kb to 15kb... Hit me up if you want advice on compressing your files.
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Jun 30, 2020 08:10
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Quackles posted:Hey, um, I apologize for complaining, but could you please compress your PNGs further before publication? Each is currently ~450KB in size, and they don't load well even on my cable internet connection. When I opened one and saved it again in Preview (still as PNG), the size dropped from 462kb to 15kb... That being said, isnt 450kb per image super small compared to something like browsing twitter?
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Jun 30, 2020 08:55
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If you're using IrfanView, it might help to install and use the PNGOUT compression plugin while saving.Blaziken386 posted:That being said, isnt 450kb per image super small compared to something like browsing twitter? I don't use Twitter, so I couldn't tell you.
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Jun 30, 2020 09:07
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I also don't have Twitter, so all I can say is that anything over 100kb is generally considered pretty hefty for LPs, especially retro-styled games like this one. Considering there are frequently 100 or more images in an SSLP update, and several updates on a page, it can get to be pretty murderous on people with bad internet connections. That said, I'm pretty sure there's a way to optimize PNG compression from the batch function in irfanview. I'll check it out when I get home and get some sleep, I'm posting from a tablet at work right now.
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Jun 30, 2020 09:27
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fair enough if there's an option in irfanview that makea things smaller without noticeably affecting the quality, I'll take it i wont pretend to know anything about how file sizes work - my raw file when fighting Cirno was 85mb; after I edited it to cut out the extraneous footage, the exported file was 300mb
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Jun 30, 2020 13:17
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Quackles posted:Hey, um, I apologize for complaining, but could you please compress your PNGs further before publication? Each is currently ~450KB in size, and they don't load well even on my cable internet connection. When I opened one and saved it again in Preview (still as PNG), the size dropped from 462kb to 15kb... this is compression level 0, 450kb  and this is compression level 1, at 13.5kb  and as far as I can tell, there's absolutely 0 difference in quality. TL;DR - i'm a big idiot when it comes to computers, future updates will have much smaller file sizes! Blaziken386 fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Jul 1, 2020 |
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Jul 1, 2020 05:58
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Yeah, PNG is a lossless format, so I'm not even sure why those options exist, but a no compression PNG is basically a BMP file.
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Jul 1, 2020 06:22
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Hooray! Thank you!
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Jul 1, 2020 07:58
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Blaziken386 posted:As a sidenote, I tried out Embodiment of Scarlet Devil the other day. I learned several things, most notably: I'm real fuckin' bad at bullet-hell games. Took me all day to beat the game on easy, and I needed every single life/continue to do it. Still can't get more than halfway through normal mode, aka, "the mode that actually has a final boss" EoSD is proooobably not the best game to start with, unless you really want to play all of them. It can be quite unforgiving. Some of the later games are much more accessible.
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Jul 1, 2020 23:29
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The FlaMeow being Rin instead of Chen is quite possible, since Rin's also from the Underworld, and the FlaMeow is hiding under a kotatsu. Alternatively, we may all be overthinking it.
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Jul 2, 2020 00:07
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Part 6: Knowledge is Power Well, it took a bit, but we finally have a Metro Pass. Let's hope Mari and Rika weren't waiting too long. We kinda got sidetracked with, y'know. Tanks and Gang Fights. Normal girl stuff.   Mari's a little annoyed by us taking as long as we did, but Rika's as  as ever, so I count that as a win! Not sure what she's so excited about though... unless she also met Kumami? Tanks are kind of like, her thing, and now there's an irresponsible adult in town who drives one like it's a car.Truly, a match made in heaven.   : "Hohoho! Because my intellectual curiosity is a never-ending journey!" : "She decided to invite herself. Kinda selfish if ya ask me." : "I don't mind! Having more people is fun! It is!": "That's enough chitchat. Let's get going.": "Sounds good! Let's go!"Remilia is, apparently, coming too. The more the merrier, I suppose.  We're here! Music: Genso University You know what a new area means? ...It means we need to run around talking to everyone, yes yes.   : "You too can study here someday, as long as you study hard!"  : "He should be in his lab, so you should check there."  And if we check out the fountain these two are standing next to...  : (In the summer, students gather around this refreshing resting spot.): (...Huh? I found a jack-in port!): (It must be for the fountain controls!)...We can jack in!   : "THESE DIGITAL CONTROLS CHANGE THE FOUNTAIN'S ROUTINE!": "DURING THE SCHOOL FESTIVAL, THE JETS ARE TURNED UP HIGH!"If we're going around talking to everyone, it just makes sense to talk to the Sprites, too!  Two BMDs in here, one's a RegUp1, the other's 2500z. Slowly but surely, our Regular Memory is becoming more useful!  : "AND THE FINALE! PSHOOOOOOON!": "I'M PRACTICING LIKE I'M PERFORMING FOR AN EVENT!": "NOW GO! SHOO! I GOTTA PRACTICE!"This is why I always talk to Sprites. They're the only ones who routinely spout off dialogue like this, and I love them for it. Pshooooooon~!   There's also a couple new viruses in here. First is the HatFrog, a slow moving enemy who spits out fish which home in on you, turning once. Similar to the Ratton virus from BN3, but not nearly as annoying to hit. They're also based on a Touhou character, buuuuuut... we'll cover them more in depth later.   A good rule of thumb: if there's a virus in a comp and you've seen it before? Chances are, that comp is where you can find its second or third form. Case in point, there was a Screwn chilling with those HatFrogs, and one of the other encounters was a Screwn2. Slightly better damage, terrible chip code for my folder.  We should probably head inside though, we've kept everyone waiting long enough.  : "If we have any holes in our security, I wouldn't know where they were."Wait, hang on, someone in this game actually cares about IT security? ...Are we sure this is a BN fangame?  : (The prices are cheap, but it's filled with strange products.): (I can also jack into it!)Note: you can also jack into the display next to this, and it'll take you to Campus Square! But we've already explored there, sooo...  : "SORRY! TRY AGAIN!" : "CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE WON SOME MOSQUITO REPELLANT!"I... thought this was a vending machine? What the hell.  : "THEY SAY GOOD MEDICINE TASTES BITTER, BUT...": "NOBODY'S BUYING THEM!"Sorry, Sprite, but I dunno if I would trust medicine from a vending machine?   Another new virus in here, the Bronzer. Or, as I call them, "the annoying bastard". They're not dangerous or anything, but, they're impervious to damage unless their mouth is open to shoot a firebomb at you. And, their chip aside, this game doesn't have a lot of chips with the Breaking attribute, so chances are, you'll have to sit and wait to attack them.  They do have one redeeming quality, though: they have a really wide counter window and come in groups of 3, so you can farm them for easy BugFrags.  Second version of the TinyOni, the MiniOni is hanging around here all by it's lonesome as well. Which is nice, because ElecChain is one of my favorite utility chips!  Last things in here: a BMD with 1600z, and this PMD. At this point, I'm documenting all the PMDs I find, just so I know where to go to run back to when I'm not poor + have enough submemory to carry more than three craktools!! Expect me to go on an massive unlocking spree a couple dungeons from now.  : "Our students and faculty are hard at work, so please try to keep your voices down."I will be the pinacle of decorum as I run around touching everything, don't worry.  : "Genso University is such a cool place! I want to go here too! I do!": "It's their first time at a university and they're just playing around."I like that Remilia is trying to act all dignified and mature, but Rika's just here to have a good time.  Nothing else to do but head on up.   Upon arriving to Dr. Morichika's office, someone unexpected steps out!  : "Actually, we came to see dad." : "You're Dr. Morichika's daughter?": "You came at a good time. Something interesting just arrived."Oh man, she didn't even know we were coming and she brought us presents.  : "Well, it was de-light-ful to see you! Fufu! Take care!" And she leaves, leaving us in suspense!  : "That was Yukari Yakumo, the president of 'Border Concern'."And we have a name drop! Meet our newest cast member, Yukari Yakumo~!  In original Touhou canon, Yukari was a special kind of Youkai. As in, she's literally one-of-a-kind. She's one of the oldest in Gensokyo, and is partially responsible for it existing - she's the one who came up with the barrier that keeps the Outside World outside, allowing youkai to exist even as the modern world stops believing in them. (Her relation to the barrier in question is where "Border Concern" comes from.) Although, seeing as her specialty is the "Manipulation of Boundaries", she can kind of just ignore that barrier and go wherever she pleases. She can also take anyone else anywhere she pleases, and claims responsibility for people being "spirited away". Here, she's a rich CEO lady. ...Who wears a very nice suit.    : "Isn't that company based in Central City? Their slogan is...": "'From the cradle to the new age.' Ugh, how annoying.": "You know 'em well, huh?": "It's one of my family's rival companies.": "Father Vlad always used to tell us to 'know thine enemy'."Yes, Remilia's dad is named Vlad. As in, Vlad friggin' Țepeș.  : "Hmph. Flattery is more than welcome, but let's not dawdle.": "I simply must find out what's so interesting to her.": "Alright, alright! In we go!"Are you excited? I'm excited.  And here's another new character, though his name's come up already: Rinnosuke Morichika.  Rinnosuke is notable for one main reason: he's one of the, like, four guys in Touhou. Half-youkai, half-human, he's the proprietor of an antique shop. An antique shop which almost nobody ever visits, alas. Aside from that, as a hobby, he also creates his own magical objects, like Marisa's own Mini-Hakkero, which is what she uses to do the attack seen in her Navi-chip here:  His main power is "understanding of tools," ie: if he sees an object, he knows exactly what it is, and what it can do, although, he won't necessarily know how to use it, especially where modern technology is concerned. Sounds like exactly the kind of guy who should take a look at our Mysterious_Treasure.EXE, huh?   : "I'll let you look around later. Anyhow...": "The Border Concern president said something interesting arrived.": "Hahaha! You already knew?": "She brought me samples of the new products I helped develop."Funnily enough, one of the main suppliers of canon-Rinnosuke's antique shop is Yukari. Parallels!  : "First, the 'AddOn Manager'!": "AddOns? Don't those just add features to computer applications?": "Right, but this one is the Navi version."Oh, yes. Yes, I like where this is going. Gimme. Gimme gimme gimme.  : "But the AddOn Manager should make things a lot easier!": "Neat! Sounds pretty useful!": "That's what I like to hear!": "Oh, right! Since you came all the way out here, why not try it out?": "Here, try installing this data into your PETs."  yesssss  Music: Add On  : "Here, you can apply AddOns to your Navi.": "Will it hurt?": "Not at all. It's no more painful than using a Sub Chip.": "Now I'll explain how to install AddOns. There are a few rules to keep in mind." : "These are the CPU specs. They limit what you can install." : "You can't install more than the CPU can handle.": "The CPU has two parts: 'Hertz' and 'Cores'.Leaving aside the fact that Navis are software, rather than hardware, and thus shouldn't have processors, I like that they tied this to real world computer parts. Presumably the parts of the AddOn Manager were simply named after processor components. Also, sorry Rinnosuke, but tutorials are terrible, so I'm summarizing the rest of this. You start out with 10 Hz, and 2 Cores. Every program has a cost to equip, whether that be Hertz, Cores, or Both! Additionally, there's colors to consider: grey programs can be equipped as long as you have room, but you can only equip one program of each color. Colored programs will always take up Cores, and the respective slot will be filled with that color, so you can tell what you can and can't equip at a glance. As the game progresses, we'll find upgrades that give us more Hertz and Cores, letting us equip more and more programs.  : "If she breaks the rules, will that cause any bugs?": "Oh, don't worry. That shouldn't be possible."NaviCust this is not, the AddOn Manager is user-error proof. No making Shanghai's buster shoot flowers or spawn rockcubes by accident, no sirree.  And there we go!  : "Everyone's already looking around the lab.": "If I remember correctly, didn't you two want to ask me something?": "Oh, right! We completely forgot!"Shanghai, how could you forget about treasure. We beat up two rival goons to find that treasure!   : "Hm. This is quite a rare file extension. I'll see what i can do.": "Thank you!"Have you tried 7zip? ...oh, wait, you said rare, not rar. hello again, blink animation  Shanghai demands we touch everything. Truly, she gets me.  : "I want a door with digital locks! I do!"In her most galaxy-brained moment yet, Rika decides the most interesting thing in Rinnosuke's office is the door. Never change, Rika.  : (It looks useful, but it doesn't seem like it's used much. Poor thing.)  : (We wouldn't want to mess anything up, so let's leave it alone.)Presumably, Mari has no such compunctions, and is using her dad's computer to browse twitter.  : (They claim it releases various ions to clean the air, but that seems suspicious to me.)Honestly, I don't know how air purifiers work either! Most of the portable ones seem kinda like they're more placebo than anything. They have to work, they cost so much money!  This one seems like it's hooked up to the vent system, though, so it probably works?  : (It displays NetBattles using 3D holograms so anyone can enjoy them!): (Dr. Morichika oversaw its development, so they gave gim a sample machine.): (I can also jack-in, of course!)Oh? Well, don't mind if I do.  : "K.O.! YOU WIN! PERFECT!": "I'M PRACTICING FOR WHEN LIVE COMMENTARY IS IMPLEMENTED!": "HUH? THEY'RE NOT PLANNING ON IT? AWW..." : "DOES THAT MAKE IT FEEL LIKE A FAMILIAR COMP?"Aside from Sprites, there's one BMD in this comp, containing a GrvBall2 chip. Pass. More importantly, new viruses!   The second level of Bronzer, Metalica. It's just as bad as the first. Chip's better, though - where it lands, it does 170 damage, but it also creates a plus shape of fires when it detonates.   More importantly, Lansir! They're Swordys who only know how to stab. Lance * is a very welcome addition to my folder, yes yes.  Remilia is also rather interested in Rinnosuke's new toy.  : "NetBattles inside are projected overhead.": "Now NetBattles can be shown to large audiences quite easily.": "There's also one in the Game Center that'll be used for tournaments."Tournaments, huh? You don't say~!  Shanghai is not the kind of person who could be described as "humble."   : "Milady, there's no point in telling her the truth."And apparently, neither are these two. Still cocky after winning that virus battle, aren't they?  : "Shanghai, calm down...": "How about they settle this in the NetBattle Machine?": "Hm, that's a good idea."Alice starts trying to defuse the situation, but TankMan and Rinnosuke are on the side of violence.  : "You got me. Well, let's get everything ready."Or, rather, Rinnosuke wants to play with his new toy, and if Shanghai's volunteering~?   Because this entire scene is reliant on flicker effects, this screenshot had the potential to be very silly. But I was nice and made multiple redundant captures.  : "Of course! I'm gonna give her a taste of her own medicine!": "Still pretending to be a big shot, are we?"    Of course, despite taking multiple screenshots, sometimes the game will not cooperate.Music: VS. Navi  Sakuya! I already gave her an introduction back in the first update, but now we're actually fighting her for realsies! That means she gets an overview, and I might as well show off her original art while I'm at it, right?.  (...Alright, I'll post a more recent one too. ZUN's artstyle has become rather cute over the years, after all.) All of Sakuya's attacks revolve around her knives. She's very proficient with them!  She can throw them in a straight line, much like you can when using the input code,   She can jump into your area and slash at you from the front or the back,  And she can spawn a trio of knives and fling them at you individually. She has a couple other attacks, but either those only get added in later versions, or she just didn't want to use them today. Let's take her down.   As a side note, defeating a boss with a counter nets you 10 BugFrags!   : "You did it, Alice!": "That was such an intense battle! It was!"To the victor goes the praise.  I- um. Shanghai, that might be a little harsh..?  : "...Huh?"     : "...Maybe I went too far."...Well. poo poo. Blaziken386 fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Aug 21, 2020 |
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Jul 3, 2020 11:40
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EEEEE IT'S YUKARI! And she looks like she might be secretly evil.  
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Jul 3, 2020 11:49
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