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Mega64 posted:The problem with Rosa is that she has the potential to be a good character, but doesn't quite reach that point. There are moments where Rosa's a solid character, like early on when she takes a leadership role, or when she's helping Rydia overcome her fear of fire, or when it comes to forgiving Kain. Thing is, the game never really bothers developing her any further from these instances, as her main role is to be the damsel in distress for the first half of the game, after which most of her dialogue is "Cecil!" and she becomes irrelevant to the plot except for a minor scene late in the game that doesn't even make any sense (Going to the moon and beating the evil moon man is men's work!). And even then, that "you can do it, Rydia!" dialogue is so generic that anyone in FF4 could have said it instead. Pretty much everyone in that game was a "let's go, team! Time to beat evil!" personality. I think any personality Rydia has in FF4 is from fans of the game reading WAY too much into things and finding character development where there is none. She was just "benevolent girl who needs rescuing as a full time job."
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Jan 18, 2013 03:55
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Well yeah, she's nowhere near a developed character, but to say she's the worst? I just can't buy that. She's not a great character but she's not a terrible one. Besides, I don't think being kidnapped is really a point against her, it's not like Cecil and the others were able to stand up to Golbez at that time either. Basically what I'm saying is if even if she didn't have a significant role in the game, she wasn't annoying or displayed to be particularly weak (that one part is more a mark against Cecil in my eyes). She doesn't really have anything that makes her bad, just she's not complex or particularly interesting. I'd rather have that than have her be insufferable.
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Jan 18, 2013 03:58
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Rydia served as the party's cheerleader and had a couple of pretty significant scenes, like rallying the team after the events in Fabul, or her breakdown about everyone dying after Edge gets his rear end kicked, though she really doesn't get much more than Rosa. Still, being the last living summoner who ends up joining the man who indirectly murders her mother and then gets eaten by the king of summon monsters and randomly ages ten or so years in the span of days is a hell of a much more interesting backstory than "Decided to be a white mage because Cecil," so at least Rydia has that going for her. e: If anything, Rosa's much more insufferable in the sequel, where she actually doesn't do anything at all besides parrot "Cecil!" a hundred or so times. Then again, that game ruined all three of the playable female characters, though at least the game's new women were pretty well-done.
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Jan 18, 2013 04:02
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Zombies' Downfall posted:I grew up with the series and I really liked X, X-2, and XII. It's also possible for someone to just think XIII was a bad game. Correct? I'm simply saying that if you let the overall community and fanbase for these games define what your preconceptions of them, it's not going to go well for you whatsoever. I liked IX, X, XII and XIII and hated X-2 and XIII-2 because I was able to play them without some general opinion/pseudo-consensus about how the game is. I'd claim I never really got to enjoy VII or VIII because of how  many gamers can be about this series.
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Jan 18, 2013 05:29
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The only thing that disappoints me on that list is how Selphie managed to place but Quistis didn't. I mean, I like Selphie and all, but Quistis was always the better character, if only because she spawned 'Go talk to a wall'.
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Jan 18, 2013 09:47
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ApplesandOranges posted:The only thing that disappoints me on that list is how Selphie managed to place but Quistis didn't. There were actually 46 nominations, but the forums only published those, for whatever reason. Edit: apparently it's because the others got very little votes 
Veks fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Jan 18, 2013 |
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Jan 18, 2013 09:52
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I like Rydia because she started as a little girl who had her humble beginnings destroyed, overcomes a bad memory, gets lost at sea and presumed for dead and returns fully grown to save the party from a great evil and single-handedly kicks that evil's rear end. Yeah, sure there wasn't much to it after that, but I think she served an important prototype for later heroes.
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Jan 18, 2013 10:02
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Lightning being no. 1 is disappointing but it's not like the Final Fantasy series is known for its great characters, female or not. Maybe my standards are a little high but I consider very few Final Fantasy characters (males and females) above passable. It'd be pushing it to say ten Final Fantasy females were good enough to be on a best list. Many are either grating, bland, or start with potential but never live up to it. Any best of Final Fantasy character list is doomed to be a disappointment. (Also, hobo Lightning looks pretty decent. She's like an retro RPG protagonist combined with a wastelander from Fallout.)
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Jan 18, 2013 10:30
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I will give them that Lightning is the coolest character in Final Fantasy, if we just judge Final Fantasy XIII by its opening cinematic with the train and then just nothing after that. Maybe it's the "potential" of what Lightning's character could have been. Or that they just projected unto her.
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Jan 18, 2013 10:58
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The only problem with Lightning per se is that she's not Sazh. But Sazh was never leading man material and Lightning is probably the best Female FF character since probably Beatrix in FFXI Still waiting on Sazh's gambling adventures through space and time part two though
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Jan 18, 2013 11:10
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See, they should be putting Chronobind on iOS instead of these drat blatant money-sinks. Hell, they could make a good bit of money putting some of their more popular minigames like Triple Triad or Blitzball on mobile devices and charging a couple bucks for them.
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Jan 18, 2013 12:33
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Mega64 posted:See, they should be putting Chronobind on iOS instead of these drat blatant money-sinks. You can get an unlicensed free version of triple triad on android, it's still in beta and has very little in the way of content but it helps pass the time a little
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Jan 18, 2013 15:43
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Eggie posted:Lightning being no. 1 is disappointing but it's not like the Final Fantasy series is known for its great characters, female or not. Maybe my standards are a little high but I consider very few Final Fantasy characters (males and females) above passable. It'd be pushing it to say ten Final Fantasy females were good enough to be on a best list. Many are either grating, bland, or start with potential but never live up to it. Any best of Final Fantasy character list is doomed to be a disappointment. I don't know. This is really really depressing to say but as far as female characters go, Final Fantasy is better than a lot of franchises. This isn't praise for FF so much as it is decrying other franchises but still. "Bland" or "generic" can be good enough when the bar is set so so low.
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Jan 18, 2013 16:35
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I'm sorry, what is FF known for if not its great characters? Sure as gently caress ain't those amazing plots.
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Jan 18, 2013 16:44
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kater posted:I'm sorry, what is FF known for if not its great characters? Sure as gently caress ain't those amazing plots. Fun battle systems and ridiculous character/enemy/world designs? That's what I go there for.
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Jan 18, 2013 18:18
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kater posted:I'm sorry, what is FF known for if not its great characters? Sure as gently caress ain't those amazing plots. Everything that isn't those two things usually.
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Jan 18, 2013 18:20
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Pretty locations, fun battles, nice music, plots and characters that usually are better/funnier than what you usually get in JRPGs. A distinct lack of catgirls and creepy six-year-old mannequins. I'd rather replay FFXIII three times than play the latest Star Ocean games for more than five minutes. And I don't even like FFXIII. EDIT: 1up has an article with some more details on FFXIII-3.. It sounds pretty interesting so I hope they are able to make it all work. Renoistic fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jan 18, 2013 |
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Jan 18, 2013 18:34
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Renoistic posted:Pretty locations, fun battles, nice music, plots and characters that usually are better/funnier than what you usually get in JRPGs. A distinct lack of catgirls and creepy six-year-old mannequins. This. As horrible as FFXIII can get, its overall quality is still better than the usual fanservice-filled JRPG garbage. I mean it could be worse. This could be one of your main characters. For bonus points, guess her personality. I'll give you a hint: look at the hair and think "fan-pandering"
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Jan 18, 2013 20:07
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I play FF for its fun gameplay, cool characters and amazing music. I still don't see the need to go on blasting JRPGs like they are this unique cesspool of awfulness. "It's good compared to most of the crap out there" can describe practically every genre of video games, not just JRPGs. And Final Fantasy is just the most mainstream JRPG which in turn helps everything about it, be it gameplay or plot, get more praise than it might deserve. There are undoubtedly many JRPGs with better stories and characters but they aren't as well-known.
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Jan 18, 2013 23:13
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kater posted:I'm sorry, what is FF known for if not its great characters? Sure as gently caress ain't those amazing plots. Um, being one of the few JRPG series that aren't giant slogs to play through and are actually pretty fun to play? I mean yeah, FF has had some stinkers, but their track record for quality is significantly better than pretty much every other JRPG series out there with the possible exception of the MegaTen series, which was nowhere near as good as FF pre-2000. Well, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were the kings of JRPGs pre-2000, anyways, it's pretty fitting how they ended up merging. Captain Baal fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jan 18, 2013 |
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Jan 18, 2013 23:28
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NikkolasKing posted:There are undoubtedly many JRPGs with better stories and characters but they aren't as well-known. Comes up in this thread every 50 pages or so, but Lost Odyssey was amazing.
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Jan 18, 2013 23:29
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zerox147o posted:Comes up in this thread every 50 pages or so, but Lost Odyssey was amazing. The in game story is fairly bland and generic except the end of disc 1 and Seth but the thousand years of dreams were amazing. Coincidentally, one of these things were written by an actual writer and the other wasn't. You can read them all online and I think everyone should, especially the story of the mixed race couple.
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Jan 18, 2013 23:30
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NikkolasKing posted:I play FF for its fun gameplay, cool characters and amazing music. I still don't see the need to go on blasting JRPGs like they are this unique cesspool of awfulness. "It's good compared to most of the crap out there" can describe practically every genre of video games, not just JRPGs. I suppose "JRPG garbage" was too harsh on my part. I really meant character design and personality-wise. I find that FF is better about those than many other JRPGs that have to rely on common anime tropes to tell their story. For example, you can say what you want about FF, but they never have a straight tsundere character. I love JRPGs, but even if the game is fun to play, having such cookie-cutter character personalities from game-to-game becomes obnoxious. Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jan 19, 2013 |
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Jan 19, 2013 00:11
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That is a fair point. Star Ocean 3 was a conga line of anime stereotypes and it did get taxing after a while. Final Fantasy is at least somewhat ambitious. People talk about Square not being as "daring" as they once were and that's certainly true. However each FF does at least try to do something special so that's commendable I guess.
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Jan 19, 2013 00:20
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NikkolasKing posted:Final Fantasy is at least somewhat ambitious. People talk about Square not being as "daring" as they once were and that's certainly true. However each FF does at least try to do something special so that's commendable I guess. Oh, for sure. One positive thing that can be said for the series all the way back to the NES is that they try to do something new each time with gameplay, story, or both instead of resting on their laurels. It really makes me wonder what XII and XIII might've been, if they hadn't had such troubled developments.
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Jan 19, 2013 00:22
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Well XII had the IZJS edition out which fixed most of the flaws the game had. I personally loved having the ability to make my characters become any class I wanted, though it did make them considerably less unique. Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jan 19, 2013 |
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Jan 19, 2013 00:32
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NikkolasKing posted:That is a fair point. Star Ocean 3 was a conga line of anime stereotypes and it did get taxing after a while. Star Ocean 3 was a loving abomination of a game after how good the first two were. "Hey, let's take all the stuff like skills and item creation and make them terrible!" But this isn't the Star Ocean thread so I'll just leave it at that. (Virginia from Wild Arms 3 is one of the best female characters ever. But this isn't the Wild Arms thread either.) SSNeoman posted:Well XII had the IZJS edition out which fixed most of the flaws the game had. The original game sorely needed the "Enemy: has item" Gambit because trying to set a stealing Gambit otherwise was hell. Unfortunately I don't understand Japanese so getting IZJS isn't really an option for me. Besides as a completionist I'd probably try to get that stupid bow and go insane.
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Jan 19, 2013 01:58
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Twelve by Pies posted:Star Ocean 3 was a loving abomination of a game after how good the first two were. "Hey, let's take all the stuff like skills and item creation and make them terrible!" SO3, it was like they said, "Gee, I wonder how we could take the monetary/time investment into crafting... and make it completely loving unbearable?" Actually, they were probably just wondering how they could keep the cost relevant in the endgame, but they did a poo poo job balancing it.
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Jan 19, 2013 02:08
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Edit: You know what, I think I'm misremembering. This was a dumb post.
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Jan 19, 2013 02:15
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Andrew_1985 posted:Bought FF ATB for the iPhone yesterday. It is terrible. Just dreadful. You just continually swipe your finger over your units until the enemy is dead a few minutes later. There is no strategy - Just swipe. You don't get to choose your party makeup, it's just random classes you've unlocked. I also made the mistake of purchasing two *randomised* premium units. I got Tifa and Celes. While they do more damage than the standard units, at $1 each, it's a steep ask. At least take a minute to give the game the 1 star review it deserves.
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Jan 19, 2013 04:58
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Evil Fluffy posted:At least take a minute to give the game the 1 star review it deserves. Already done. If I can stop at least one other person buying FF ATB, I'm making the world a better place. Somehow this game already has 37 reviews in the itunes appstore, with a 3 1/2 star average.
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Jan 19, 2013 07:12
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I gave it a 1, the problem is that if the game actually WAS literally a series of battles with more customization I would enjoy it a lot. If I was actually building my party and trying to kinda balance it even a tiny bit more it would be an actual game past this FarmVille level stuff.
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Jan 19, 2013 12:38
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THE AWESOME GHOST posted:I gave it a 1, the problem is that if the game actually WAS literally a series of battles with more customization I would enjoy it a lot. If I was actually building my party and trying to kinda balance it even a tiny bit more it would be an actual game past this FarmVille level stuff. Hell, if they just gave you the option of using those entire-army-of-single-Job groups at will it'd fare much better, because fights do get genuinely amusing when that happens and you're given poo poo like Beastmasters or Berserkers. But, no, still entirely random. 
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Jan 19, 2013 13:39
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Im thinking about getting a PS Vita and like the idea of playing some of the ps1 FF games on it. Does anyone know if the graphics are upscaled, frame rates improved and widescreen supported?
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Jan 19, 2013 13:46
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AgentJotun posted:Im thinking about getting a PS Vita and like the idea of playing some of the ps1 FF games on it. Does anyone know if the graphics are upscaled, frame rates improved and widescreen supported? Final Fantasy I, II and IV have full PSP remakes, which have higher resolution graphics, widescreen support and orchestrated soundtracks. V and VI are ports of the PS1 games, and feature loading times and lower quality audio. I'd recommend the GBA version of V, and either the SNES or GBA version of VI. VII, VIII and IX are completely unchanged from the PS1 versions, but the upscaling the Vita provides makes the pre-rendered backgrounds and FMVs look much better than on a TV. They are not in widescreen, though. Final Fantasy Tactics has a PSP remake, but there are a lot of complaints about the slowdown caused by spells, which was intentionally added due to restrictions of the UMD drive. You can either play the PS1 version with the bad translation, or play the remake on a modded PSP and use a patch to remove the slowdown.
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Jan 19, 2013 14:11
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They aren't upscaled but they do look quite good on the vita screen. You can customize aspect ratios but there is no widescreen support unless you cut off a bit off the top. It's my preferred way of playing them at this point though (7-9, 4-6 are best on a GBA emulator) THE AWESOME GHOST fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jan 19, 2013 |
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Jan 19, 2013 14:12
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That loving Sned posted:Final Fantasy I, II and IV have full PSP remakes, which have higher resolution graphics, widescreen support and orchestrated soundtracks. I'd argue for Final Fantasy Origins over the PSP version of Final Fantasy 1, but that comes from a long-standing dislike for the severe crippling of the game's difficulty the Dawn of Souls version of FF1- and all versions following it's lead- has done. Some of the extra stuff tries to fill the void (in the cheaty 'break the game' way FF Superbosses tend to do) but the main game itself is extremely easy to the point of dullness. FF Origins is basically the best port of 'classic' Final Fantasy 1, fixing most of the glitches and broken items/spells while keeping the gameplay intact. I guess it comes down to if you want more content and prettier graphics vs a much more balanced experience. And yeah, Final Fantasy Tactics is kinda a tossup. Personally, I'd play through War of the Lions once for the better translation and presentation of the story, and then do any subsequent playthroughs on the PS1 Classics release, but if you don't want to buy the same game twice (or you didn't get one of the versions for free off Playstation Plus like I did) then I'd probably go War of the Lions.
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Jan 19, 2013 14:42
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To add to the above, the FF3 remake also recently got ported to the PSP, so you can get all of the first nine FF games on the PSP/Vita, though as mentioned you're better off skipping the PS1 versions of 5 and 6. The FF4 port also comes with its sequel, which is pretty fun even if the plot is poo poo, so there's a bit more incentive for that one.
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Jan 19, 2013 14:49
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I don't know if the FFT PSP slowdown was intentional or just laziness, but it has been fixed by a fan on PSPs running custom firmware. It doesn't matter if you are using an ISO or the physical UMD. It brings the game to the level it should have been from the start, and it's incredible.
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Jan 19, 2013 15:30
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Shaezerus posted:Hell, if they just gave you the option of using those entire-army-of-single-Job groups at will it'd fare much better, because fights do get genuinely amusing when that happens and you're given poo poo like Beastmasters or Berserkers. But, no, still entirely random. It's especially weird, given that in the official release trailer, there's a shot of an entire army of Dragoons just going nuts with jump attacks. Other goons posted:*FF on the Vita stuff* Just a quick heads up; the PSOne classics version of FF V won't play on the Vita for some reason. It annoys the hell out of me, since if it could, it would've meant I wouldn't have to futz around with a separate camera for the Four Job Fiesta this year.
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