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FoolyCharged posted:Are you suggesting that pistols shouldn't completely eclipse every other weapon in the game to a comical degree?
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Nov 23, 2017 17:46
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| # ? May 18, 2024 01:56 |
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OutofSight posted:Shame everything else in a competent shooter is so loving bad. you can curse on the internet, it's ok
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Nov 23, 2017 18:16
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Gently caress that!
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Nov 23, 2017 19:11
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PMush Perfect posted:Gently caress that! In Alpha Protocol you can do alot of gently caressing.
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Nov 23, 2017 20:07
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Podima posted:you can curse on the internet, it's ok You can blame my use of forums with PG-13 rules. Also honest swearing and cursing would mean i would be more mad about video games, than any grown person should be.
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Nov 23, 2017 20:58
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Well then you'd fit right in!
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Nov 23, 2017 21:38
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yeah being mad about video games is practically a fuckin' raison d'etre for posting here
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Nov 24, 2017 00:36
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Ciaphas posted:yeah being mad about video games is practically a fuckin' raison d'etre for posting here Or elves, to be honest. Video games and loving elves. Not loving elves, I must point out. Which you can do in Dragon Age Origins, if you're a human male noble. Or anything with a pulse, if we're talking about Zevran. Thank god there's no enforced romance nonsense in Dead Man's Switch. Or in Dragonfall, as far as I can tell. Goddamnit, I really need to get off my rear end and start clearing up my game collection. I'm in the post-game of Batman Arkham Origins, I need to do the expansion campaign... and then I need to either complete Dragonfall, or jump straight to Hong Kong. But damnit, I feel like playing Dragon Age Origins again. I love playing archer, it's so overpowered. Fun times for someone like me, who's terrible at video games.
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Nov 24, 2017 06:20
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painedforever posted:Or elves, to be honest. Video games and loving elves. Not loving elves, I must point out. Speaking of which, Sam was James Telestrian's half-brother, but he was human and Telestrian is the elfiest elf to ever elf. Folks who know more about Shadowrun lore than me: how does this stuff work in SR?
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Nov 25, 2017 04:37
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Fighting Trousers posted:Speaking of which, Sam was James Telestrian's half-brother, but he was human and Telestrian is the elfiest elf to ever elf. Folks who know more about Shadowrun lore than me: how does this stuff work in SR? There's no such thing as "half-breeds". Kids from mixed (human/other) relations tend to pop out as human, though (in this case, elf) the other race can pop out relatively frequently as well. Also, any pairing can produce a human, though it'll be rarer for pairs like dwarf/troll or elf/elf. Plus even if the baby pops out human, there's no guarantee it'll STAY human. If a kid DOES goblinize, it'll happen around puberty. Occasionally (like really really rarely), you get something completely different, like a dwarf from a elf/human pairing. Metagenes are strange like that. Also humans turning into Dwarves/elves is also extremely rare (like, I'm not sure it can still happen rare). Though like I said, post birth goblinization is still a thing (though not as common). mauman fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 05:14
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Fighting Trousers posted:Speaking of which, Sam was James Telestrian's half-brother, but he was human and Telestrian is the elfiest elf to ever elf. Folks who know more about Shadowrun lore than me: how does this stuff work in SR? Wasn't the story that James Telestrian's father (who was an elf) "diddled" a human maid or something, with Sam and Jessica being the result? drat, I'm too lazy to go back and check, but I think that was it. Jessica and Sam are "half-elves", if such a thing were possible in SR. I expect it turns into something like in Dragon Age, where being a half-elf means that you're "elf-touched", in that you don't look any different from a human.
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Nov 25, 2017 06:06
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painedforever posted:Wasn't the story that James Telestrian's father (who was an elf) "diddled" a human maid or something, with Sam and Jessica being the result? drat, I'm too lazy to go back and check, but I think that was it. Jessica and Sam are "half-elves", if such a thing were possible in SR. I expect it turns into something like in Dragon Age, where being a half-elf means that you're "elf-touched", in that you don't look any different from a human. James' father was (is?) in fact entirely human. And so is his mother. James himself was a spike baby, a member of a magical race born before the actual reAwakening of their race due to a spike in local mana levels triggering in utero goblinization before it should have been possible. Born in 1999, twelve years before the return of magic, he's one of the oldest sixth world elves. Not the oldest though, that honor probably goes to one Liam O'Connor, born in 1979. You've got to remember that magic only returned in 2011. And without magic there's no magical races. Just humans with a few oddly recessive genes. Stroth fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 07:46
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You know, with all the immortal elves floating around, there's probably some kind of Theran blood mage (the Earthdawn guys with the floating castles) out there who got so powerful they stayed alive forever.
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Nov 25, 2017 07:55
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Stroth posted:James' father was (is?) in fact entirely human. And so is his mother. James himself was a spike baby, a member of a magical race born before the actual reAwakening of their race due to a spike in local mana levels triggering in utero goblinization before it should have been possible. Born in 1999, twelve years before the return of magic, he's one of the oldest sixth world elves. Not the oldest though, that honor probably goes to one Liam O'Connor, born in 1979. Oh, thank you Stroth! I was almost entirely not correct. So, heh-heh. How come James Telestrian is so bloody rich then?
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Nov 25, 2017 08:05
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painedforever posted:How come James Telestrian is so bloody rich then? I'm assuming you mean James Telestrian III, so the answer is: same reason most rich white dude the thirds are rich.
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Nov 25, 2017 08:07
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painedforever posted:Oh, thank you Stroth! I was almost entirely not correct. So, heh-heh. Dragon money propping up Tir Tairngire.
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Nov 25, 2017 08:39
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painedforever posted:Oh, thank you Stroth! I was almost entirely not correct. So, heh-heh. He had a really good day at the dog track. chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 08:51
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painedforever posted:Oh, thank you Stroth! I was almost entirely not correct. So, heh-heh. Gray's Sports Almanac.
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Nov 25, 2017 09:18
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mauman posted:There's no such thing as "half-breeds". Kids from mixed (human/other) relations tend to pop out as human, though (in this case, elf) the other race can pop out relatively frequently as well. Also, any pairing can produce a human, though it'll be rarer for pairs like dwarf/troll or elf/elf. Thank you! I had a feeling that was how it worked, but since my knowledge of Shadowrun consists of the Genesis game and the HBS games, it seemed wise to ask.
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Nov 25, 2017 18:50
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Stroth posted:James' father was (is?) in fact entirely human. And so is his mother. James himself was a spike baby, a member of a magical race born before the actual reAwakening of their race due to a spike in local mana levels triggering in utero goblinization before it should have been possible. Born in 1999, twelve years before the return of magic, he's one of the oldest sixth world elves. Not the oldest though, that honor probably goes to one Liam O'Connor, born in 1979. Can you still get elves born to humans? Or is it the case where everyone with elf genes is already an elf?
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Nov 26, 2017 12:59
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You absolutely can, especially in areas of raising magic, and you can easily get the opposite in areas of falling magic.
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Nov 26, 2017 16:15
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Graylien posted:Can you still get elves born to humans? Or is it the case where everyone with elf genes is already an elf? It's rare, but a baby can be born as a metatype and not share a metatype with either of his or her parents. So in 205X you could have a human couple produce an elf, or vise-versa.
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Nov 26, 2017 16:16
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Part 32 - The Finale .jpg)  Harlequin speaks up as soon as we arrive.   This ain't a game. Oh, but it is. On more than one level. Onward!Oh, I get it.  The only noteworthy thing about this first room is that it houses the most useless air vent in existence.  It also has bugs coming out of the walls, but that's a regular feature 'round these parts. These two guys are a little sneaky in that they only come out after you're some ways into the room, potentially leaving people lagging behind in a bad spot.  A third one joins in a little after the initial two, further prolonging the delightful experience of having to fight and kill these things over and over again.    It's heartbreaking to see this kind of Ghost-on-ghost violence, but nature can sometimes be cruel like that.  The way forward is in the southeast corner. There are even more vents here, but none of them are especially useful.  People! Honest to goodness dies-to-ordinary-bullets-like-god-intended people!    Refreshing, like a cool spring breeze.  But our joy is short-lived, as another ugly jerk crawls out of the wall behind us. True Form Bombardiers are pretty much the artillery unit of Bug Nation, easy to kill but capable of dealing nasty area-wide damage if they do get to attack.  We make sure that doesn't happen.  And sadly it's back to wallbugs in the next room as well.  And again with the same "late third enemy" trick. At least they don't get to attack the same turn they appear, we're not in Thracia here.  please  go  away  A bridge this prominent can only mean we're about to reach the end. Surprisingly there's no ambush from both sides when we get to the middle or anything like that.  After crossing the bridge, we find a locked door in front of us and a small storeroom to the side, watched over by a couple of Brotherhood goons.  Amazon   Despite being the last ordinary human enemies in the game, they aren't in any way different from all the other chumps we've mowed down on our way here.  Just in case it wasn't yet obvious that we're about to fight the final boss, the room contains no less than five items: A Phosphorous Grenade, two Premium Medkits, a Gold Trauma Kit and a Platinum Trauma kit which is inside a safe and requires 5 Decking (but no cyberdeck) to get.  The panel in the corner opens up the locked door outside, allowing us to progress.  At last, we've reached the heart of the hive. I was originally planning on ending the update here, until I realized how short and boring this'd end up if I did that. So screw it, let's go all the way and finish this thing for good.  .jpg)  A branching path? Nah, only the door ahead is openable. Also we're finally free from combat mode, though that's not going to last for very long.  Geez finally, we've been looking all over for you guys!  I don't know, you seem plenty disturbed already to me. Your vessel is gone! This is over, Jessica! But you'll be the mother of a dead world! [Harlequin still sports a wry smile.] On the plus side, a billion creepy crawly children makes for one hell of a Mother's Day. No! I will become a perfect being. Through me and through my sacrifice, a new age will begin!You've played too many video games, lady.  We have three dialogue choices here which all amount to "Well guess we gotta shoot you now", but also a fourth which continues the conversation a little longer. Sam had a hunger too, didn't he, Jessica? [This seems to throw her off.] What? You said it yourself, Sam had appetites. All that mattered to him was his next fix. Vile appetites! Appetites he couldn't control. And he died for them. Because *I* willed it. Yes, but why? There was more to it than just your mother.[The hum of magical energy permeating the room seems to quiet. She's listening.] You came under the thrall of these creatures long before you knew of your mother's death. The Brotherhood... They... they were a family to me. Yes, and they had already freed you from your old life. So why come back? Why kill Sam? [She falters.] I... I had to. For what he did... what he had become. You said Sam represented a sickness in the world. But I think he represented the sickness in you. You're... trying to... confuse me. You saw a wrongness in yourself, and you projected it onto Sam. No, I... He... He was your brother, Jessica. Your twin! Don't you see? [She falls quiet and bows her head.] I... I'm sorry. But there's no turning back. I cannot undo what's been done. And I can't stop what's to come.I don't like this bit much since it feels a little forced, like they had to include a part where you can try and talk down the final boss because that's just a thing you do in western RPGs. It doesn't even make any practical difference since you still have to do the fight, and you don't even get to pick what you say because there's only one choice each time! Like so many other things, they do this better in the later games.  Had we picked one of the other three choices earlier, we would've jumped here directly. Commence the final showdown!   (It's the final boss theme, so if you're only gonna click one music link in this LP you should probably make it this one, especially if you've nostalgia for SNES Shadowrun music. This is the soundtrack version by the way, the in-game one is a shorter loop.)  Here we go. Right away Lynne jogs it to the center of this fairly large chamber, striking some kind of yoga pose on the altar there. She's going to be standing there for this entire fight and isn't actually even targetable.  Our actual target is Jessica who has taken some serious bug steroids, giving her several large trolls' worth of HP. There will also be a constant stream of bug monsters entering the fight, all of which need to be eliminted the usual annoying way. Now there are two ways to go about this fight, the long and difficult way and the short and easy way. Let's start with the former.  You may have noticed this glowy spiky thing near Jessica. There are four of these Insect Pillars scattered around the room, with one being active and vulnerable to damage at any given time.  Jessica spends most of the fight running for these pillars, gaining the mysterious "Favor of the Queen" buff when she reaches an active one.  What this does is allow her to use the Insect Totem power, a room-wide buff which gives a major power-up to all living bugs in the area. Not only does this increase their movement speed but also allows them to attack twice per turn, something enemies aren't normally capable of doing. Needless to say, this is something you want to avoid.  Luckily that's only slightly easier said than done as the pillars aren't that tough. Once a pillar's HP is depleted it deals 15 damage to Jessica and all living bugs and removes Favor of the Queen. After that it shuts down and becomes invulnerable, causing one of the other three pillars to activate instead. There's no way to permanently destroy them, so dealing with these pillars is something you have to do throughout the entire fight. On a side note, drones can go through the small holes on the walls here which is what that icon in the middle there is indicating, but it only seems to work about half the time.  The main difficulty of this fight comes from the fact that you have to spread your damage pretty thin. In addition to dealing with the pillars you have to kill the constantly spawning bugs...  ...eradicate their spirits with Aegis...  ...and also find the time to deal damage to Jessica who is running all around the room chasing after the pillars.  As if that wasn't enough, after a while these very tanky bastards make their first and only appearance, requiring quite a bit of time and effort to bring down as well.  All in all a prolonged fight where you try to fight everything can be quite the pain in the rear end to deal with. So, here's the easier way:  You just shoot Jessica in her dumb face repeatedly from the start, completely ignoring all the nonsense I've told you about. Yeah, 325 is a lot of HP, but with the whole group focusing on the same target we can easily deal over half that in a single turn.  As a result Jessica is defeated on turn 2, causing her to shout a bit and then run off. From here all we need to do is eliminate the remaining enemies in the room.  In this case "all remaining enemies" means "the only one that had time to spawn". And with one last gloopy splurt of Aegis, it's all over. "But hold on now" I can hear you say. "I bet that's not it, and now Lynne's going to transform into the Queen which ends up being the real final boss, right?" Hey good thinking ace, that is how it looks like isn't it? But no, that's it. We're done. Those two turns were the final boss fight in its entirety, no second forms or additional phases or any of that. Lynne? Never gonna see her again.  Instead we chase after and corner Jessica in some small room somewhere.  It's gone... My link to the... the Queen. She has... abandoned me... expelled me. Unworthy... Unworthy. It had to be done. This nest would have overrun the city if we hadn't stopped you. Eh, I'm sure it's all under control. [Tears run down her face.] Oh God. What have I done? And Sam... I'm so sorry, Sam...She only speaks that last line because we brought up Sam before the fight. Otherwise she doesn't give a drat about the guy.  But what's this? A pair of True Form Soldiers suddenly burst through the walls. Is there another fight after all?  Nah, they're more interested in making dinner out of Jessica. And it's us who get to choose her fate here: Either we let her get eaten as karmic justice for Sam, shoot her ourselves, or take her with us to be arrested. It's a little tempting, but we were never really in this just for Sam himself and shooting someone who's surrendered and pleading for their life doesn't really feel right, so let's be magnanimous. It makes little real difference one way or another anyway. Death would be too quick a punishment. You're going to pay for what you've done. [She lowers her head in shame.] I understand.And with one last completely useless reward of 5 karma, Amazon's and this LP's final mission has come to a close. All that's left now is to report back to James and to make a call to the law firm for our money. Payday at last, and well-deserved! Kanfy fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Dec 6, 2017 |
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Nov 26, 2017 17:36
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Yay, Kanfy!  Total respect. Did not know you could get through this without having to shoot the pillars repeatedly. I always went for the hard way. Just the ending left. Finally, the pay-off! painedforever fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Nov 26, 2017 |
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Nov 26, 2017 18:15
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Man, this is a terrible end level. The other two games in the series were much better.
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Nov 26, 2017 18:34
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That last part is quite irritating with the pacing and the boss fight. First you have this very forced fourth dialogue option with Ms. Watts here and then you have to figure out what the game actually want to accomplish in the last fight. Lynne Telestrian? Can't target here Weird insect pillars? Apparently immune to damage. Jessica? Whopping 300+ HP. Bugs from all directions. Those big bugs are terrifying with their bullshit AoE and two attacks. It is very hectic and only fun with a proper kitted out PC worth a drat in combat. I hunted down Jessica with Coyote while doing bug control with AP buffed PC and Harlequin enjoying every buff Mr. Falk and Jazz had to offer. Still did take a lot of time. Music is good, though.
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Nov 26, 2017 19:14
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...I don't have any recollection of those pillars. Pretty sure I just stunlocked Jessica with Kneecap repeatedly while everyone else bum rushed her. 
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Nov 26, 2017 19:37
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GunnerJ posted:...I don't have any recollection of those pillars. Pretty sure I just stunlocked Jessica with Kneecap repeatedly while everyone else bum rushed her. Take note of this everyone, that's the proper way of handling insane shamans.
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Nov 26, 2017 20:11
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GunnerJ posted:...I don't have any recollection of those pillars. Pretty sure I just stunlocked Jessica with Kneecap repeatedly while everyone else bum rushed her. I feel like the later games put in mechanics to prevent you from doing this because why wouldn't you do that?
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Nov 26, 2017 20:15
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Double Plus Undead posted:I feel like the later games put in mechanics to prevent you from doing this because why wouldn't you do that? I'm pretty sure they patched DMS to give Kneecap a longer cooldown to prevent this strategy, but I beat the game before that patch came out I guess. It really did need to be patched, that poo poo was broken good. Remember the optional side-run that Kanfy did solo with drones? You could solo it with just a guy who was really good with a shotgun using Kneecap before the patch.
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Nov 26, 2017 20:30
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Ah, I'm glad you showed off both boss fight methods. The one everyone tried first and then the successful one when we were all tired of that poo poo the second time
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Nov 26, 2017 20:37
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Kanfy posted:
The final boss fight is DEFINITELY something the other two games did better. You certainly can't say that HBS didn't learn as they went.
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Nov 26, 2017 21:05
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Psion posted:Ah, I'm glad you showed off both boss fight methods. The one everyone tried first and then the successful one when we were all tired of that poo poo the second time I never knew about the pillars  I just shot her a bajillion times.
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Nov 26, 2017 21:19
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CommissarMega posted:I never knew about the pillars you lucked out! Consider yourself a pro player without even knowing it
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Nov 26, 2017 21:26
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It's a shame that you can't productively engage with that boss fight gimmick.
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Nov 26, 2017 22:24
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Nice job swatting through that horrible slog. I don't regret quitting before this part at all.
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Nov 26, 2017 22:32
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ha, turns out I quit dms in disgust just before the final fight. can't say I'm sorry.
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Nov 26, 2017 22:36
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Fighting Trousers posted:The final boss fight is DEFINITELY something the other two games did better. You certainly can't say that HBS didn't learn as they went. If I were someone completely unfamiliar with these games I'd probably think "They did this better in the later games" is some kind of a running gag with how many times it's been said, but they really did improve on nearly every aspect. It's actually quite impressive. But yeah, the final dungeon overall is not great and practically reeks of a rush job. It's almost certainly my least favorite part in the entire series, though I do still like Returns as a game. At least it can only get better from here!
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Nov 26, 2017 23:18
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Now for the epilogue where I ended up nursing a grudge until Dragonfall and Hong Kong let me settle it.
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Nov 27, 2017 00:37
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| # ? May 18, 2024 01:56 |
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I too just mulched her hp never realizing the fight gimmick.
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Nov 27, 2017 01:22
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