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I never bothered with stealing anything but from bosses I knew had one of a kind or very rare stuff. Point being that the real prize for stealing everything can easily be matched by 3 other characters without much work and a fourth with about equal effort.
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Aug 15, 2015 00:22
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Stealing is definitely advisable, but really, as long as you play The Best MinigameTM, then you're good to go whether you have the patience to steal or not.
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Aug 15, 2015 00:24
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May be fewer/no updates next week since I'm moving yet again and gotta go through all that usual crap. I'll try to at least finish up the Lindblum stuff and maaaaaybe sneak in an update tomorrow.
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Aug 15, 2015 00:52
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In a way Final Fantasy games can be seen as exploration games only. Every battle is trivialized by the power you inevitably gather, it's a question of where you find it. Grinding is one way. Talking To Everyone is a modest help. Generally there's an extremely grindy minigame. There's also Steal, blue magery, and sometimes Morph (whatever the spell/ability that converts enemies into items is called). Sans gamefaqs, all of these things are available to a player without specified reward, just the implicit promise that awesome loot awaits because the ability exists. You don't have to participate in all of those aspects in a single playthrough, believe it or not. Betting a combat turn on a 5% chance at a marginal equipment upgrade may not be the best use of your resources. But if that's your thing then go to it. Some guys like feet etc.
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Aug 15, 2015 05:10
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Stealing everything is fine, but do not pick up this game with that mentality if you're coming off a similar run of FFT. Stealing Genji stuff and other special equips just wasn't worth it.
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Aug 15, 2015 05:22
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Shinjobi posted:Stealing everything is fine, but do not pick up this game with that mentality if you're coming off a similar run of FFT. Stealing Genji stuff and other special equips just wasn't worth it. True, but striping Elmdor bare is just one of those things that everyone should try at least once. It's a fun challenge. I still can't believe they gave him Maintenance in WotL. What did we ever do to you to deserve THAT, Square? EDIT: AlphaKretin posted:He had maintenance on PSX too in Japan. Same with the higher JP costs. Pretty much everything different in WotL besides the translation and online stuff is actually localisation changes that were forgotten for the remake. So we're the only ones that can steal Elmdor's weeaboo gear? Neat! Suck it, Japan! 
Bufuman fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Aug 15, 2015 |
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Aug 15, 2015 06:45
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Bufuman posted:True, but striping Elmdor bare is just one of those things that everyone should try at least once. It's a fun challenge. He had maintenance on PSX too in Japan. Same with the higher JP costs. Pretty much everything different in WotL besides the translation and online stuff is actually localisation changes that were forgotten for the remake.
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Aug 15, 2015 06:48
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BioMe posted:Yeah, but it's a video game. You aren't saving big bucks in real money, just ruining the fun you are supposed to have fun by turning boss fights into frustrating struggles against the RNG. Getting shiny things in a video game ahead of time is fun. Never stop stealing.
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Aug 15, 2015 09:22
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FeyerbrandX posted:I never bothered with stealing anything but from bosses I knew had one of a kind or very rare stuff. That's actually something I think works in FF9's favor. Lucky steals (or beating your face against a wall) can get you a few shops ahead of the curve (or significantly ahead of the curve now and then) and there's a few late-game steals that you can only find in one or two other places in the whole game, but honestly, nothing you can steal is missable. You can go through the game never using the Steal command once, and you won't really miss much. Or you can steal and be a bit more powerful and not have to worry about buying consumables and multiples of equipment for synthesis. Either works.
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Aug 15, 2015 10:26
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This is very simple. The moment you hit a boss Zidane starts stealing and never stops, and the three other characters kill the boss. If you don't get everything before the boss is dead then too bad, and if you do it's a nice bonus.
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Aug 15, 2015 15:07
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BioMe posted:Plus you know if you can afford to just sit there for 10 minutes trying to steal poo poo you probably don't need some power leveling scheme to beat the next boss either. You're not supposed to power level in this game anyway, skills and equipment are the one weird secret to success, not arbitrary progress numbers (although they help, thanks to the HP gains.) If you're power-leveling you're a scrub, doing it wrong, and can tits or gtfo.
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Aug 15, 2015 17:00
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Personally Zidane is just on Steal duty until either the boss dies, he's looted of everything they own, or if the only thing left is insanely rare. So it's a nice bonus if I get something good, but I'm not going to break my back over it. There are a few exceptions where I'm willing to hold out for Zidane to try to get a good item from a boss (like Holy Lance or the Light Robe, but there's honestly nothing completely missable from stealing. At best you're getting something about a disc earlier.
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Aug 15, 2015 17:18
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There's also the fact if you play your cards right across the game, you can min-max your party (Even members we've yet to see) to no loving end. Once we have the whole playable cast (Which is late disk 2 at the soonest), I'll -happily- dig into some hidden systems of the game and explain why power leveling should wait until Disk 4 at the earliest if you're into that sort of thing. (Which involves complex formulas and poo poo that most people aren't even aware exist)
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Aug 15, 2015 17:32
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I remember as a kid thinking if I did a pattern of Detect-Steal-Detect-Steal-Detect-Steal I would get the first 3 items no problem. It always seemed to work that way for me
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Aug 15, 2015 20:31
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FeyerbrandX posted:I never bothered with stealing anything but from bosses I knew had one of a kind or very rare stuff. I stole from all of the bosses ritualistically. Which sucks, because there's one boss in particular that seems to have an absurdly low steal rate. Then again, Steal seems to fail more often than not as it is. 
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Aug 16, 2015 22:47
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:I stole from all of the bosses ritualistically. Which sucks, because there's one boss in particular that seems to have an absurdly low steal rate. It's not so much "absurdly low steal rate", it's the perfect storm of "is the first boss with all four slots filled" and "happens right before you're able to get the means to improve your chances for rare steals". But we'll get there when we get there.
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Aug 16, 2015 22:53
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There's a mid-disk 2 boss that is particularly infamous for it's rare steal and comes out of butt loving nowhere, no indication of it's existence. And there are reports of it taking -hours- to get said steal while it's common and uncommon steals are fairly common as a whole. That is one such boss I would recommend NOT trying for it's rare steal. the loving 'jolly' green giant is this boss and it's otherwise an easy boss to kill, barring it's Curaga spell. Vivi killed the motherfucker with about seven castings of Bio.
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Aug 16, 2015 23:41
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Kemix posted:There's a mid-disk 2 boss that is particularly infamous for it's rare steal and comes out of butt loving nowhere, no indication of it's existence. Yeah, this is the one I meant. I'm not sure which boss Katarani means, though once I see it, it'll no doubt fill me with bitter rage. Sum Mors posted:Have the Moombas been featured in any other game than 8? Pupu too. Weird that they had staying power despite only being in 1 game, while other references have carried over from several games. Moombas, no. PuPu are in XIII-2 as a referential boss, though.
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Aug 16, 2015 23:43
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Well I'm glad I fund this Had no idea this was going on. Coming off my FFIX hard mod run which is the first time I've completed FFIX in almost a decade, I can say I never found any steals too hard. There wee two, maybe three, that were problematic but overall I thought it added an extra element of challenge to boss fights. Before this, when I saw some LPs on YouTube, and saw people edit out their taking time to steal everything, I thought it seemed really stupid and almost insulting. Like they were saying "yeah, these bosses are nothing so I'm just gonna waste minutes on end stealing because the boss won't ever stand a chance anyway.""" That might be true in the vanilla game but the aforementioned mid-disk 2 boss, as well as an early Disk 3 boss that gave me the beloved Holy Lance, were actually really fun to steal from because the game was staying alive while Zidane keeps failing and then when you succeed you just feel a rush of elation. The rewards are almost always very nice. I was actually a bit sad when I got to the final dungeon and no boss had anything worth stealing except one or two and even then I could have Synth'ed that stuff had I felt like it.
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Aug 18, 2015 22:43
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NikkolasKing posted:Well I'm glad I fund this Had no idea this was going on. How was the hard mod run? Which were you using and was it more challenging/enjoyable besides artificial difficulty (just raised stats for enemies?)
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Aug 19, 2015 06:00
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It's called Final Fantasy IX Unleashed. I won't link to it because it obviously contains spoilers where the modder listed all the changes but you can find it easily with Google. Notable alterations would be: Weapons and armor no longer increase stats. All they do is improve Attack and Defense What Abilities weapons/armor teach has largely been switched around. I think Auto-Protect and Auto-Shell were removed from the game entirely. MP costs have been increased or reduced. Protect and Shell now only work on the entire party and can't be cast at a single target. Characters get entirely new abilities, with the"Warriors" having "Armor" abilities that cast Protect or Shell on the whole party for free. Zidane loses his best move but in exchange he can learn several of his Dyne abilities as just regular Skills. It substantially increases his worth as a damage dealer. Some bosses have entirely new movesets Quina has new Blue Magic A certain random encounter is no longer Level 60 so you can't gain crazy EXP on Disk 1. As far as I could tell, he didn't alter enemy HP or anything really. They all seem to have as much health as in the original They fixed some bugs, like a certain attack. Overall it was a much more "balanced" mod than the FFVIII one I played and I think people here might like it. Then again, FFVIII was a heinous mess of broken mechanics while FFIX was just kind of boring. "Fixing" FFIX is a much less ambitious task than fixing FFVIII. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Aug 19, 2015 |
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Aug 19, 2015 08:06
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NikkolasKing posted:"Fixing" FFIX is a much less ambitious task than fixing FFVIII. Why do people concentrate on "fixing" the games that aren't code-broken? This baffles me. FF6 was as broken as a Black Lotus, yet I've never heard of any modders trying to "fix" that buggy thing. 2 and 3 were heinously broken, and I think I've only heard of one project to fix 2 so some of the resistances actually work, yet people are out there making mods to "fix" the games that aren't broken. Some peoples' priorities. 
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Aug 19, 2015 18:25
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Hey man, you're preaching to the choir here. I'd love a mod for FF2. I like the game but it is a horrible mess. It's just a horrible mess of really cool ideas I wish someone online could fix. There's also a billion-and-one mods for FFVII while I found about...two for VIII. VIII needs help a lot more than VII. The answer is simple, though. People mod games they actually like. So, yeah, FFII and FFVIII are broken to high hell but no one gives enough of a poo poo to help them. I suppose a better term for FFIX Unleashed is "rebalance."
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Aug 19, 2015 18:39
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SorataYuy posted:FF6 was as broken as a Black Lotus, yet I've never heard of any modders trying to "fix" that buggy thing. Google "FF6 Brave New World"  There was an LP of it earlier this year- everybody's stats and roles are rebalanced (characters can only equip certain espers!) and it's actually pretty frustrating and tough at times. Definitely gets into "you need to know spirit is important on Sabin now or he's useless" territory, though. Nerds are going to mod their favorite games to make them harder  Edit: Oh! It was actually by Mega64! Whodathunkit! Poulpe fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Aug 19, 2015 |
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Aug 19, 2015 18:46
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SorataYuy posted:Why do people concentrate on "fixing" the games that aren't code-broken? This baffles me. FF6 was as broken as a Black Lotus, yet I've never heard of any modders trying to "fix" that buggy thing. There's tons of fix mods for the SNES FF6.  Then the GBA version took care of most of the bugs natively so it wasn't done there.Of course, I think balance-wise the game is pretty much unsalvageable, and yes, I know of attempts to do so, but w/e really. neongrey fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Aug 19, 2015 |
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Aug 19, 2015 18:49
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SorataYuy posted:Why do people concentrate on "fixing" the games that aren't code-broken? This baffles me. FF6 was as broken as a Black Lotus, yet I've never heard of any modders trying to "fix" that buggy thing. 2 and 3 were heinously broken, and I think I've only heard of one project to fix 2 so some of the resistances actually work, yet people are out there making mods to "fix" the games that aren't broken. Some peoples' priorities. It's also weird to see a mechanic "fix" on a mostly story-driven game like FFIX. The combat is nice and works, but most of the game is exploration and story-telling. Making the game more "challenging" seems to miss the point by about 180°. Now the hardcore mod for Grandia II I understand, that game is like FFIX reversed: The story works and is understandable, but the core of the game is the combat. And said combat is very good, but also very easy. Two good reasons for a challenge mod to exist. A challenge mod for FFIX is the video game equivalent of those strange novelty items you sometimes find in corner shops while visiting some weird and far-away land. Interesting, but overall pointless.
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Aug 19, 2015 18:54
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Libluini posted:Now the hardcore mod for Grandia II I understand, that game is like FFIX reversed: The story works and is understandable, but the core of the game is the combat. And said combat is very good, but also very easy. Two good reasons for a challenge mod to exist. There's also like eighty different "rebalance"/challenge mods for Final Fantasy Tactics for the same reason. Now if anyone could make a rebalance/challenge mod for FFTA2 without making it just into "All Brightmoon Tor, All The Time".
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Aug 19, 2015 20:17
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Some people like the gameplay of FF9 but wish it was more challenging, or better balanced, whatever that might entail. This isn't that hard to figure out.
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Aug 19, 2015 20:36
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Fister Roboto posted:Some people like the gameplay of FF9 but wish it was more challenging, or better balanced, whatever that might entail. This isn't that hard to figure out. They could start by not making the battles take practically forever. I don't want to deal with playing FF9 again, challenge hack or otherwise, just because of how goddamn slow even random battles are, and it may have my favorite story out of the series.
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Aug 19, 2015 20:49
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That's why there is a speed-up button on the emulator. Honestly, people who say FFXII needed that speedup button never played IX. I think I enjoyed IX's gameplay more this time around not only because of the increased difficulty but also because I could fast forward through the unbearably long animations and camera pans and travel.
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Aug 19, 2015 20:57
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I don't really notice IX being slow, because I really like the game and its aesthetic and think it's basically always a joy to look at. But XII drags on forever and I'm only vaguely aware of what the plot is because it never actually managed to make me care about anything in it. I remember it as essentially a list of locations I had to visit in order for some reason that was never particularly clear.
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Aug 19, 2015 21:07
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That's obviously a very subjective view. You could say that exact same thing about a lot of games. If you don't care about the story, then you don't care, and no amount of pretty environments will fix that. Look at all the bitching about Chrono Cross. Me personally, I like both FFIX and FFXII and their stories and gameplay.
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Aug 19, 2015 21:16
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Fister Roboto posted:Some people like the gameplay of FF9 but wish it was more challenging, or better balanced, whatever that might entail. This isn't that hard to figure out. It just makes little sense to me because if one wants a more challenging game, then one should - go play a more challenging game. Ain't rocket magic.
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Aug 19, 2015 23:38
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SorataYuy posted:It just makes little sense to me because if one wants a more challenging game, then one should - go play a more challenging game. Ain't rocket magic. Or better yet, CHALLENGE RUNS. Like a Level 1 run! BECAUSE
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Aug 19, 2015 23:42
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SorataYuy posted:It just makes little sense to me because if one wants a more challenging game, then one should - go play a more challenging game. Ain't rocket magic. getting confused about this is weird.
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Aug 20, 2015 00:05
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I kinda get the impression SorataYuy is being intentionally thick to stick to their point. "I don't get why people want sequels to games. If you want to keep playing games, why not just play a different game?" "I don't get why people like difficulty settings in games. If you want a harder challenge, why not just play a different, harder game?" "I don't get why people try to think of ways to make things they enjoy be even more enjoyable to them." "I don't get why people ever try to improve things."
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Aug 20, 2015 00:28
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Schwartzcough posted:I kinda get the impression SorataYuy is being intentionally thick to stick to their point. I kinda get the impression that you missed my point, which isn't any of that stuff you're spouting. It's this thing called "per-son-al pref-er-ence". I am a-llow-ed to be puzzled by the attitude of "this game is so great, let's make it BETTER by making it BRAIN-BLEEDINGLY DIFFICULT and spending untold hours of my finite mortality on changing it, instead of making my own game entirely and maybe getting reparations for my labors!" Because seriously, the majority of the time, that mindset leads to loving browser-camping at fanfiction.net. And no one wants that.
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Aug 20, 2015 00:36
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SorataYuy posted:I kinda get the impression that you missed my point, which isn't any of that stuff you're spouting. It's this thing called "per-son-al pref-er-ence". I am a-llow-ed to be puzzled by the attitude of "this game is so great, let's make it BETTER by making it BRAIN-BLEEDINGLY DIFFICULT and spending untold hours of my finite mortality on changing it, instead of making my own game entirely and maybe getting reparations for my labors!" Because seriously, the majority of the time, that mindset leads to loving browser-camping at fanfiction.net. And no one wants that. Yeah, and some people's "personal preference" is that they want a game that they love and know inside-and-out to still provide them with engaging challenges. I don't enjoy insanely hard challenge mods either, but I get why people make them. You're allowed to be puzzled by it, sure; but your puzzlement is more puzzling to me. Plus, I believe it's much, much easier to mod an existing game than it is to create an entirely new one. You're also much more likely to end up with something decent and playable.
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Aug 20, 2015 00:43
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SorataYuy posted:I kinda get the impression that you missed my point, which isn't any of that stuff you're spouting. It's this thing called "per-son-al pref-er-ence". I am a-llow-ed to be puzzled by the attitude of "this game is so great, let's make it BETTER by making it BRAIN-BLEEDINGLY DIFFICULT and spending untold hours of my finite mortality on changing it, instead of making my own game entirely and maybe getting reparations for my labors!" Because seriously, the majority of the time, that mindset leads to loving browser-camping at fanfiction.net. And no one wants that. "I have played this game to death. I know it inside out. It would be pretty fun if it were more of a challenge to me." Is that acc-ep-ta-ble to you or are you going to continue being con-des-cend-ing?
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Aug 20, 2015 01:49
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I have to say, this entire sequence is very good at making everybody feel kind of powerless and lost, which is really something to accomplish since they're largely safe in a giant techno-paradisical city.
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Aug 20, 2015 02:04
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