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Wow, that agility thing sucks. Especially since it's otherwise such a handy stat. It's like if having haste on made the FFX limit break quick-time prompts give you half the time to complete them, but worse, since it's for everything.The Dark Id posted:we still woefully short on funds to fully upgrade everyone.
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Feb 6, 2019 02:45
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Episode LXXXI: Star Shape New Music: Star Shape (Go listen to this! Now these are some final dungeon tunes. That only ever play in this update on the dullest floor of the whole finale.) .jpg) Welcome to the second floor of the Neameto Float. Ignore the part where we're clearly on like the fourth floor given we've gone up multiple sets of stairs terminating on a new, higher level of the shrine. The Formors or whoever the heck crafted this joint had their own ideas of interior design regulations. .jpg) A new gameplay mechanic appears on this floor: a pink save glyph that allows the party to be swapped around. Meaning... they could have had this as a thing the entire game and instead opted to make the noted sex offender, Meiyuan, the primary means of switching the party configuration. What is your DEAL Sacnoth?! .jpg) We're going to be going through Soul Block's chamber quite a few times on this floor. Perhaps an annoying amount. Perhaps an annoying amount coupled with an unyieldingly high encounter rate to the point I equipped the accessory to halve random battle encounters and still was getting a bit frustrated with all the fights that occurred. This room is scattered with exits. But more importantly, there is some treasure. Most of it of the been there, seen that variety I won't go over. Other than this... .jpg) It's the finally Lottery Ticket in the game! We did it! We got 'em all! There's absolutely no reward other than a sense of satisfaction you'll forget about within minutes. It's not too different from the proper Achievements of today in that regard. .jpg) On the eastern half of the Soul Block party, we find a set of stairs and a green switch of some sorts that looks suspiciously like the teleportation aura effect from a previous dungeon minus the recolored save point glyph. Regardless, we've seen that color before on the force field just before the boss fight. What if... .jpg) .jpg) Aha! We find Halley's err... second best weapon in the game. I didn't know William Tell got into a dark pursuit of more arcane and elaborate methods of shooting apples off children's heads as the years rolled on. It makes me wish there were full on Drakengard weapon history stories for some of these things. .jpg) Well, that was a bit pointless. But they did stick a number of second-best sets of armor or weapons for everyone in this dungeon and we've come too far to ignore them now. Anyway, about that staircase to the east... .jpg) Ah, a BLUE force field and a red switch that really doesn't look like any kind of proper switch. You had a giant wall switch downstairs, Float. What gives? Welp, gotta find somewhere that was blocked by a red force field now. Except... .jpg) Music: NDE - Near Death Experience .jpg) There are new random battles on Floor #2! There are only two new enemies on this floor. And to call this one new is a bit of a stretch. This a Keeper, a Wind elemental enemy with 750 HP that likes to cast Lightning. You may remember a sludge monster back in the Ancient Ruins called a Sweeper. Hey... this might just be that but they removed its legs. And by removed, I technically mean just obscured it from the model since it is clearly still doing a walking animation when it lumbers over to punch someone. I suppose deleting parts of an enemy model is a touch more effort than just a palette swap and calling it a day. So points for creativity. Even though I'm just now realizing Soul Block was just Yamaraja: Wind with its head merely removed and not actually replaced with a tentacle thing. .jpg) One of the few actually, for real new enemies present in the Float is this bug woman nightmare creature -- Arcmene. All they do is spam Nova or skitter over to stab a fool with their crotch pincers. Which is a phrase I don't like one bit. The Library entry for this is basically "God got real drunk one night and GEEZ... We don't let God drink anymore." Music: Star Shape .jpg) Back to the pursuit of getting through this area. We've got two more sets of stairs north of the Soul Block rumpus room. Let's check out the stairs to the right first, eh? .jpg) Welp, we found the switch for the blue force field at least. The other two platforms offer a treasure chest with one of those Seal consumables that barely do anything and one with... absolutely nothing! I hit three random battles in this particular room and then put on that encounter halving accessory. .jpg) .jpg) All the way back to the blue force field path and the room beyond! This is just that room Yuri got stuck in earlier rendered at a different angle with a new central vent model. But this time with treasure, so it was definitely worth the backtracking. .jpg) Here we come across Alice's second best armor. I don't know if black and purple are really going to go well with the teal and white color scheme of her outfit. .jpg) We also obtain Zhuzhen's second best weapon of which I was annoyed to have to run back and switch to Zhuzhen in order to inspect it. That Taoist Adept really blew it to stick his soul into a weapon for Zhuzhen. He'd have better luck getting used if he'd done it to any random fallen tree branch in a forest. .jpg) OK. One last path left. I told you we'd go through this room a lot. .jpg) This next alien corridor shooter hallway has an exit to the north and east. Spoiler: North goes to the boss. So let's head east to... .jpg) Well, at least they added more industrial crap to this re-render of the treasure room to make it look distinct. The chest on the right just has another pair of Monk Earrings, if you're wondering. .jpg) Here we have Margarete's second set of Nina Williams spy girl armor. And now we know why her ultimate armor was throwing shade at Rubber Armor. .jpg) .jpg) OK. I don't like this floor, really good music aside. Let's get to the end of this area and fight... Err... What am I looking at...? .jpg) Music: Demon's Gig .jpg) Meet Hate -- a giant grub with appendages held together by a thin mucus layer. Oh god... Is that how Rayman works? Ugh. I don't think about that. .jpg) Hate is a Dark elemental affinity enemy with a reasonably high 7000 HP. It's secretly just a buffed Transformed Li Li with a bunch of the parts of its model deleted and rejiggered into an insect looking motif. .jpg) Yuri jumping straight into his Ken Doll Devilman mode and casting For Everyone is once again our opener. But we've got a second round of buffs this time. .jpg) .jpg) It's been a hot minute since the last time we specifically went out of our way to exploit elemental weaknesses since the end game was near-universally Non-Elemental bosses. But this is a Dark element foe and Alice can dust off the old Holy Edge and give everyone a Light element affinity for their attacks. .jpg) This makes Yuri's physical attacks turn into 700+ HP of damage every turn without having to wait for an overly long attack animation and boy I'll take that at this point. Margarete ain't too shabby with pulling around 500+ HP ballpark damage every round herself. .jpg) Meanwhile, Alice can just nuke this thing with Advent over and over for a healthy 600+ HP of damage. We don't even need to worry about healing for this fight. Just pouring on the pain. .jpg) .jpg) Hate does have a couple of attacks. Like Hate Storm. Not the most original thing for something literally named Hate to cast, but here we are... It hits everyone for a big whatever of around 100 HP of damage and would cause status ailments had we not written those off ages ago with the Power of the Lord. .jpg) .jpg) It also has Black Fog which... again, like its predecessor, Soul Block, is just the same exact attack but with more flair. OK, it's Dark elemental so Alice takes like 30 HP additional damage. But beyond that, it's just two full party blasts for not nearly enough damage to concern ourselves. .jpg) Rounding it out with the token physical attack, Hate can squirm its way over to a single target and attempt to hit them with a status ailment inflicting strike. It'd really suck rear end not have Crucifixes for this last stretch of boss battles since EVERYTHING wants to inflict a status effect and it'd just mean juggling the other eight items that ward them off. .jpg) In any event, three or four rounds of holy punishment on the hateful little poo poo and... .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) That's another one biting the dust. Three bosses remain! Music: Results .jpg) .jpg) And with that we are done with the    Video: Episode 81 Highlight Reel The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Feb 9, 2019 |
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Feb 6, 2019 19:17
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Back when status effects were one of the few things that set a boss apart from other bosses and could still be thwarted by a single accessory.
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Feb 6, 2019 20:34
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Star Shape sounds real good, but it's absolutely the kind of song on a boring level that would make me put the controller down and take a nap while it played on loop.
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Feb 6, 2019 22:21
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Gotta say that Star Shape is indeed an amazing song. There's just something so mystical about it.
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Feb 6, 2019 22:25
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A shame it plays for all of
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Feb 7, 2019 01:09
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The Dark Id posted:
1. The old archer spent the last part of his life fleeing from an unknown assailant. Somebody was watching him from the trees. 2. The archer launched furtive counterattacks with the slingshot he had made for his son. Somehow, he always missed. 3. One night, the archer woke from uneasy dreams to find his attacker had caught up to him. He looked up into his killer's scarred, round, shiny, mottled green face. 4. "Next time you shoot an apple," said the apple, "you'd better finish the job."
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Feb 7, 2019 07:10
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The Dark Id posted:But they did stick a number of second-best sets of armor or weapons for everyone in this dungeon and we've come far to ignore them now. Anyway, about that staircase to the east...
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Feb 7, 2019 12:34
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They missed a trick by not having everybody's second-best equipment be some kind of weird alien poo poo.
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Feb 7, 2019 16:13
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RoeCocoa posted:1. I’m in for this. It’d be DrakeNeir, but without the depression. Glazius posted:They missed a trick by not having everybody's second-best equipment be some kind of weird alien poo poo. That is kind of an oversight, yeah. I mean, Alice’s gear has been tomes of increasingly edritch lore, so you’d think that having one be from this place. Possibly with mentions of “alien whispers” in the description.
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Feb 7, 2019 16:26
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Geostomp posted:That is kind of an oversight, yeah. I mean, Alice’s gear has been tomes of increasingly edritch lore, so you’d think that having one be from this place. Possibly with mentions of “alien whispers” in the description.  'To Serve Man'? I like helping people, this is the book for me!
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Feb 7, 2019 18:21
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For whatever it's worth, Arcmene is a very, very minor translation error. It should be Alcmene, giving it an inexplicable tie to Greek mythology. There's a few noteworthy things about her, but the biggest is that she was Heracles' mother. Which the enemy design captures so well. It's impressive really! 
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Feb 7, 2019 19:46
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For all that they're reskins with polygonal fiddling, it at least makes for a more visually interesting corner cutting than just palette swapping, considering they've done that, too.Dragonatrix posted:For whatever it's worth, Arcmene is a very, very minor translation error. It should be Alcmene, giving it an inexplicable tie to Greek mythology. There's a few noteworthy things about her, but the biggest is that she was Heracles' mother. Huh, didn't know she was a descendant of Zeus, herself. Always thought the Greek myths generally kept the incest among the godly/titanic pantheons proper. The Dark Id posted:we've seen that color before on force field just before the boss fight. "on the force field" and "It'd"
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Feb 8, 2019 03:17
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Episode LXXXII: Middle of Nowhere Music: Star Shape .jpg) Back at it again in the Neameto Float. It is time to conquer the "Third Floor" which is composed of no less than around five standard floors for sane people. I think... This one is a little bit harder to gauge for reasons that will become apparent shortly. .jpg) .jpg) For now, let's take one last trek through the sci-fi tech corridors of the lower levels of the Float. It's kind of unclear how high up the flying castle is meant to be at this point. There are still clouds outside in that last shot, so it isn't actually in space. But, that could just be weird vape smoke emanating from the fortress. Albert Simon definitely looks like he vapes and would admonish any real smokers for their crude ways. New Music: Middle of Nowhere (This only ever plays here so you should probably listen to it.) .jpg) Welcome to the final stretch of the float. All of the techno-organic business gives way to something that looks more akin to the gothic aesthetic of the Nemeton Monastery of Koudelka. Just somewhat more fleshy on the sides. .jpg) This area is a wee bit on the pain in the rear end side for one key reason. A type of dungeon gimmick that in no point in my life have I ever welcomed in any dungeon's design. .jpg) .jpg) < W A R P - M A Z E > .jpg)  Yeah, NOW this place is getting weird. Tch. You know what I mean. I think there must be a space warp here…    NO! ... ...... What does that mean? Well, it means a distortion in the spatial continuum links this place directly with somewhere else. ... ...The heck does THAT mean!? <sigh> It'll teleport us between two points. Why didn't you just say that then? It's really hard to gauge how much I have to dumb down everything I say, kid. Can we go back? I think so. We can probably go back from the same place where we arrived. The tricky part is that you can’t actually see with your eyes where the space warp is. <shakes head> Ha! So it’s like a maze. ... Crud. I hate mazes..jpg) In the grand pantheon of warp mazes, this one isn't bad at all. I've played my fair share of Shin Megami Tensei games. Trust me, this poo poo could be WAY worse. .jpg) .jpg) Our first order of business is heading up several sets of stairs. At least the party is getting a good work-out if nothing else. Mid-way up the third set of stairs, we're whisked off to... .jpg) Now, this just looks like a Mortal Kombat stage. Our ultimate goal is actually the set of stairs in the center of this room. But it's going to take some doing to make it up there with all the spatial distortions and what not. Also last of the ever present threat of every dungeon -- random battles. .jpg) Music: NDE - Near Death Experience .jpg) Surprise! It's all just reskins of enemies we've already seen! Well, at least they've altered the models of 'em somewhat. Technically, there are three variations of the bug women in this dungeon. The previous iteration also had a pink haired variety that was virtually identical other than a different elemental affiliation. This one, Black Widow, is simply a Dark elemental version of the previous enemy with marginally jacked up hit points. That's it. .jpg) The final random battle trash mob filling out the enemy roster is naturally a variant of the Wind Shear. We are ending the same place we started. Look at the little imp. It's got a hood now. That's adorable. These are Red Caps. For being the 37th variant of this enemy type, these boys are surprisingly hardy with a good 2000 HP to their name and the ability to shave off a couple hundred hit points to our party, if they're feeling sassy. I do believe this is the last creature in the game that has a vaguely mythological origin. Wikipedia on Redcap posted:
Music: Middle of Nowhere .jpg) Farewell, random battles. You happened, I suppose. And I'm sure you'll happen again. Getting back to the maze. There's another warp on the far side of this Mortal Kombat arena. It's hard to see the distortion effect given how busy the background is already, but it's up the stairs on the left-hand side, behind the err... flesh tubes? .jpg) This plops Yuri out on one of those precarious rafter walkways they always put archers on in Dark Souls. This doesn't lead to any progress. It does lead to the penultimate piece of new gear in the game. .jpg) It's Yuri's second best armor. Sorry, coat with the power to defy deities. You're second rate compared to a hand-me-down Japanese army trench coat found inside a mind palace. .jpg) .jpg) Returning to the Mortal Kombat flesh pits stage and attempting to climb the central stairs will teleport us to another part of the precarious Dark Souls rafters. .jpg) .jpg) Continuing along the path here will warp the party to another OSHA violation central. I don't know how technologically advanced your civilization might be. Put in some dang handrails. Especially if your structure can fly. That's just begging for a Star Trek bridge tumble escalating into a Wilhelm scream into the abyss. Don't worry about that open chest. It was just a Talisman of Power. This dungeon gives out the assorted Talisman items like candy. Heading to the west platform here leads us... .jpg) Back to the rafters from early. No teleportation involved. It is here where we stumble upon the very last piece of new gear in the game. Uhh... whatever that word salad means up there. It says Blade in the middle, so it is probably for Keith. Probably... .jpg) I'm taking issue with this blurb. This thing is in the top of an ancient aliens civilization fortress sunken at the bottom of the Irish Sea, presumably for thousands of years, up until a few weeks ago. How, exactly, were the Darkness Clan passing this down for centuries? Were they just coming to Wales, pointing at the sea and going "I bequeath thee the family legacy" to their very confused offspring? Citation needed for every drat one of these flavor texts. .jpg) .jpg) Continuing along the rafters here gets us warped back to the previous room, but further north. Trying to walk north here earlier would teleport us back to the start of the maze. In fact, approaching any of these teleporters from the incorrect angle just warps the party back to the beginning of the maze or at least further back in the series of teleportations. I'm just doing this the correct path from start to finish. It's significantly more annoying to do it blind. .jpg) .jpg) In any event, walking a few steps further in this room lands us at the top of the Mortal Kombat arena and the final set of stairs leading us to... .jpg) Ergh... I'm not exactly sure what we're looking at it. But we're gonna fight it. As you do. .jpg) Music: Demon's Gig .jpg) Seriously, this was just a stage in like Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance or some poo poo. Sub-Zero uppercut Bo Rai Cho off this thing earlier that year. .jpg) .jpg) Well, that's a nightmare creature right there. But at least I can identify a goat part to make its name, Scapegoat, make a... little bit of sense, I suppose. I'm not sure about the three alien heads covered in eyes, gashes, and mouths or the sinewy wing-like appendages. Still, I'd take this thing over the Koudelka incarnation. .jpg) That's just too many legs and some of them are spider legs. No sir. Not a fan. That's not even a goat anywhere in that one. It's ridiculous. Though, the actual origin of the scapegoat is kind of ridiculous too. It was just the early Judeo-Christian belief you could pour all your sin, like it's just a meter you can empty, into a literal goat and then tossing that fucker off a cliff into the desert and everyone was good. Raw deal for the goat and I'd wager a guess God would probably be like "What?! No! gently caress off! I didn't put that in the rules! Why'd you do that to that goat?!" .jpg) Anyway, Scapegoat here is a Wind elemental enemy with 7700 HP. This is the last mid-boss before we get to the finale. It looks like the Earth and Fire elements are getting shafted on boss representation. .jpg) .jpg) Hey, guess what. The game's combat is basically solved at this point until the actual final boss throws a wrench into it hard. So let's skip past what the party is doing... again and get to the Scapegoat's abilities. .jpg) This boss is another enemy that has Deathtouch which just straight up deletes 75% of the target's health regardless of stats or resistances. Alice will fix that up the next turn with an Arc cast long before Goatse will get another turn, so whatever. Minor nuisance. .jpg) .jpg) Beyond that, it can fling a Sonic Boom at the entire party for a little over 100 HP of damage which Alice doesn't even need to bother healing at this point if we're being honest. Is Guile's Sonic Boom a wind-based attack? Is Guile a Wind elemental...? Could you slot the Street Fighters into Shadow Hearts based elemental affiliations? A few of them would be easy to do. But like... what's Zangief? Or Balrog? Would Ryu and Ken be the same element? What about Akuma? Is Psycho Power a Dark elemental or Non-Elemental ability? This is a can of worms we cannot get into here. .jpg) .jpg) Oh right, the fight. The horrific goat demon... alien... deal tried to eat Alice and Yuri took umbrage with a monster trying to make a snack out of his girlfriend. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) This did not end well for the Scapegoat. I reckon it would be difficult for a scapegoat to dump its sins on another goat. That's just asking for a pyramid scheme of goats dumping sin into other goats until you're eventually left with the dark SIN GOAT, a power the likes of which nobody could hope to combat. Music: Results .jpg) In case you've skipped all the end game content to get to this point, the game REALLY wants you to have at least one person with a Crucifix so your entire party is not getting beamed with status ailments. Here, have a free one! EQUIP IT! Music: Middle of Nowhere .jpg) And that concludes the third (or like eleventh, depending on what you count as being a floor) and final floor of the Neameto Float. Our reward for defeating the Scapegoat is the final save point and warp out of the Neameto Float in the game. Up ahead is the point of no return in which we're locked into the ending of the game. .jpg) We may as well step past that point before we wrap up the update. We are going to do one last touch of prep work before heading forward. Crucifixes are a must on all characters. But we're also going to equip Will Power since perhaps there are a number of SP draining dick moves coming up that will put a damper on our gameplan unless we nip that in the bud beforehand. .jpg) Welp. This is it... No turning back! .jpg) Tune in next time for the beginning of the end of Shadow Hearts!  Video: Scapegoat Battle Highlights (You should watch this. He's a gross demon boy.) The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Feb 12, 2019 |
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Feb 9, 2019 19:16
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I did not know that was the origin of the term scapegoat. That's darkly humorous. The more I learn about ancient religion the more I realize that people used to be big into sacrificing animals for whatever reason they could find.the update posted:Is Guild a Wind elemental...? Typo.
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Feb 9, 2019 23:54
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GimmickMan posted:I did not know that was the origin of the term scapegoat. That's darkly humorous. The more I learn about ancient religion the more I realize that people used to be big into sacrificing animals for whatever reason they could find. The bigger/more valuable the animal, the "better". That's why the "best" sacrifice was God's own son.
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Feb 10, 2019 00:02
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The Dark Id posted:That's just begging for a Star Trek bridge tumble escalating into a Wilhelm scream into the abyss.
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Feb 10, 2019 00:23
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That Vampire-Blade nonsense looks like a garbled attempt at "Vlad", as in Vlad Dracula. This is the kanji they use in the sword: ヴラドス ("Vlados/th") And this is On that note, one of his other swords, Deathblade Jiru might to be a reference to Gilles de Rais - bit harder to guage that one though, as the kanji is just "ジル" (Jill).
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Feb 10, 2019 00:54
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The sword "Blodauth" seems like it should be "Blood Oath", but maybe not. Edit: or maybe what he said ^
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Feb 10, 2019 01:09
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Pesky Splinter posted:On that note, one of his other swords, Deathblade Jiru might to be a reference to Gilles de Rais - bit harder to guage that one though, as the kanji is just "ジル" (Jill). French has enough silent letters in it that I could buy that. The Dark Id posted:Is Guile a Wind elemental...? Could you slot the Street Fighters into Shadow Hearts based elemental affiliations? A few of them would be easy to do. But like... what's Zangief? Or Balrog? Would Ryu and Ken be the same element? What about Akuma? Is Psycho Power a Dark elemental or Non-Elemental ability? Cygames did some of this a while back when they did two Granblue Fantasy/Street Fighter collabs. Ryu is Wind, Chun-Li is Water, Rashid is also Wind (duh), and Karin is Fire. It looks like Sagat, M. Bison, F.A.N.G. (whoever that is?), and Necalli also got assignments but they were enemies and their statblocks aren't on the wiki. For what it's worth I think Ken would be a Fire, so that's a "no" on at least one of those questions.
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Feb 10, 2019 01:19
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GimmickMan posted:I did not know that was the origin of the term scapegoat. That's darkly humorous. The more I learn about ancient religion the more I realize that people used to be big into sacrificing animals for whatever reason they could find. Something to remember about animal sacrifice is you usually got to eat the animal after. Even if you did burnt offering you usually burned up the parts you wouldn't have eaten anyway, and then ate the rest yourself. It was such a common thing that one of the reasons the Apostle Paul had to answer questions from early Christians about 'hey can we cleanly eat food sacrificed to an idol?' was because in the marketplaces, people would just wrap up your chicken, say a prayer, and then chop its head off as an offering before cutting it up to sell. You're already going to kill the animal, might as well make the Gods cool with you at the same time. That's just practical.
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Feb 10, 2019 01:42
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quote:So are we just going to gloss over the fact the Scapegoat has what appears to be an erection? 
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Feb 10, 2019 02:17
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Neddy Seagoon posted:So are we just going to gloss over the fact the Scapegoat has what appears to be an erection?
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Feb 10, 2019 02:20
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Neddy Seagoon posted:So are we just going to gloss over the fact the Scapegoat has what appears to be an erection? I believe the technical term is a "Ram Rod"
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Feb 10, 2019 02:23
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Pesky Splinter posted:I believe the technical term is a "Ram Rod" 
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Feb 10, 2019 03:13
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Given Blodauth's original Japanese name, clearly this undersea altar for Cthulhu is Castlevania. Which would make whatever Simon's summoning is Chaos, and Scapegoat was Death being interrupted in the middle of his hibernation.
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Feb 10, 2019 03:30
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The Dark Id posted:And also the last of the ever-looming dungeon threat of random battles.
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Feb 10, 2019 05:38
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On the subject of scapegoats making scapegoats, isn't shoving bad things repeatedly into one vessel until it turns powerful and evil basically the backstory of FFV's Exdeath?The Dark Id posted:the final random battle trash mob filling out the roster is naturally a variant of the Wind Shear. Beginning the same place we started. Guessing the first one should be "Ending", the third "don't care how" and the fourth "from earlier", maybe. The fifth should be "are".
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Feb 10, 2019 06:29
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The rafters area kinda makes me think of the Penrose stairs. Which I guess is appropriate considering how misleading the area is supposed to be.Zagglezig posted:On the subject of scapegoats making scapegoats, isn't shoving bad things repeatedly into one vessel until it turns powerful and evil basically the backstory of FFV's Exdeath? It was also the backstory for F/SN's take on the Angra Mainyu. Brainamp fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Feb 10, 2019 |
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Feb 10, 2019 06:33
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GimmickMan posted:I did not know that was the origin of the term scapegoat. That's darkly humorous. The more I learn about ancient religion the more I realize that people used to be big into sacrificing animals for whatever reason they could find. To be fair, there are two goats involved in the scapegoat tradition, and the scapegoat is the one that doesn't get sacrificed. It gets to live out its goat life in the wilderness (no cliffs involved in my sources). And I don't think it was actually blamed for the sins or anything; it's just carrying them away.
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Feb 11, 2019 04:10
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NullBlack posted:To be fair, there are two goats involved in the scapegoat tradition, and the scapegoat is the one that doesn't get sacrificed. It gets to live out its goat life in the wilderness (no cliffs involved in my sources). And I don't think it was actually blamed for the sins or anything; it's just carrying them away. Yeah, it's not like the goat was the bad guy, it was basically sacrificed as a vehicle to get a specific set of sins (against god, vs against other people) away from the people. (Possibly to a demon but iirc the word "Azazel" actually shows up first in the tanakh, not in a prior semitic religion.) Maimonides sez it's really just symbolism anyway, which makes sense, because Judaism in general is really keen on "lol no just praying to god doesn't actually absolve you, unless your sin was literally against god alone." No idea how Christians warped it tho, it might be satan eating the goat alive or something
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Feb 11, 2019 05:31
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Appropriate really that goats were first to master the art of sin-eating. They really can eat anything.
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Feb 11, 2019 15:15
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I have to admit, I barely remember anything about the final dungeon aside from Star Shape being a good track and like, a few specific lines from Yuri. Shadow Hearts is a good game but memorable dungeon design sure isn't its forte.
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Feb 12, 2019 15:00
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Kanfy posted:Shadow Hearts is a good game but memorable dungeon design sure isn't its forte. Yeah, I have to agree there. It's fun, yeah, but drat if I remember much outside China.
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Feb 12, 2019 18:23
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Yeah, this LP has made me realize that while I love this game, its still kind of rough and clearly rushed. Makes me appreciate Covenant even more though because it such a huge improvement to the point where I think its one of the best JRPGs of all time. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Feb 12, 2019 |
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Feb 12, 2019 18:48
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Episode LXXXIII: Messiah Music: Middle of Nowhere .jpg) It has been a long road. But I feel like it's time we finally sorted things out with Albert Simon. He has been waiting patiently for a more than reasonable length or time. .jpg)  Hyahah… I’m impressed. That you of all men were the last to remain standing in my way. Perhaps this was our destiny, even at that moment we met on the train. I must say, I expected you to be here a touch sooner. Ehh... we had some things to take care of... I gave you a week deadline before the end of the world. It has been nearly two months... <looks around> Yeah, called your bluff. I think you were a bit off the mark on that God arrival estimate, champ. <grumble> ...Indeed..jpg) <shrugs and shakes head> Couldn’t say, really. <turns away> I will create a new world, perfected to God’s will. A pure world, without deceit or defilement. <shakes head> Would such a world… be any fun? Sounds like a dull bummer. <turns back> Of course it will be fun! It will be a wondrous place. Yeah, how...? As I said, it will be a pure world built as God intended. What's fun about that though? Ergh... Infinite bliss and whatnot, you see. God's plan is mysterious, even to me... I dunno, man... You gotta work on that sales pitch. I really wanted to show it to all of you..jpg) …I see. In that case, fine. Let’s promise then. No matter who wins, no hard feelings, eh? No second forms. No back-up plans. No merging with God or any of that crap. We're just gonna duke it out like respectable folk. Leave the surviving world to the mercy of fate? Fine. I promise you. There need only be one fight that determines the course of the planet. Granted, you will have to defeat God if you manage to best me. There is precious little I can do about that. Of course. Then very well, it is agreed. Heheh, now there’s my Albert! Glad we agree on something..jpg) If it kinda feels like Albert and Yuri having some sort of mutual respect for one another is coming out of nowhere... well, it is. It sort of feels as though we were meant to see Simon a few more times between Nemeton Underground and here. But then again, the guy's characterization has been kind of all over the place ever since the not being Roger Bacon thing came to light, so who knows? It's final battle time! .jpg) .jpg) Music: Demon's Gig .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Alright! It's time! The final battle against .jpg) Hehehehahaha!.jpg) .jpg) I suppose Albert did promise this would be the deciding fight for the fate of the world, so he's kind enough to just skip past the filler first phase of his battle and jump right to the meat of the thing. It seems Albert has learned another Fusion or... something of that like, while left to his devices in the Palace of the Deranged Gods for a few weeks He's also maybe developed a wee bit of a complex too, considering his new form is just known as "Messiah." I feel like I fought this thing in a Bloodborne Chalice Dungeon but sure, Albert. You do you. Messiah is a Non-Elemental enemy with a somewhat meager 6000 HP to its name. Though, that number may be larger than it appears. We'll get to that in a minute. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Before we can do anything, Messiah's starting gambit is cracking open the Ark of the Covenant again to dish out around 225-250 HP of damage to the entire party. The Holy Chest will make an encore appearance roughly every fifth turn Messiah gets unless it's busy with an emergency technique for that turn. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Unfortunately for poor Albert here, he's missed an entire story arc of training the party has undertaken since the last time we saw him. Dude is a Frieza and we're ready to go punch out Cell. Heck, he never even got to see the Demon Rays spam from the Amon Fusion we stole off him during the last encounter. This is just kind of a stomp match as it stands. But we'll give him a chance to show his stuff. .jpg) .jpg) Messiah has a standard combo which hits for around 200 HP of damage and a Status Abnormality single strike that does around 120 damage. On top of that, sometimes his physical hits will drain SP as well. But we've guarded against that beforehand. I know for a fact he also has !!!! -- the reduce a target's health to 1 HP attack that Fox Face loved to use back in the day. But Albert failed to perform it during this bout. Possibly because he was getting smoked too hard. .jpg) While this fight goes well in our favor to the point Messiah is in the weakened state by five rounds in, there is one little wrinkle that makes this fight end up lasting twice as long. I don't think possible to damage race past this occurring. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Once Messiah drops to critical levels of HP, it will cast Grace which... I'm not sure how much HP it actually heals. 999 is just the cap for what can be displayed in-battle. It's more like 2000+ HP considering it takes around 3500 HP to drop him afterward and I'm going to assume he was in the ballpark of 1000 HP when he cast Grace. .jpg) .jpg) Not that it does much other than delay the inevitable. For Everyone wore off and even that just gave Messiah a slight reprieve from the party just lining up to kick him in the dick to submission. Or... whatever gnashing maw is sitting in his crotch region in this form. .jpg) .jpg) Music: Results .jpg) Alas, Albert Simon's Hail Mary of transforming into a Bloodborne boss did not pan out the way he desired. This is also the final Results screen we'll see in the game. Level 59 Yuri, 58 Alice and 56 Margarete will be taking us into the home stretch with their 414,716 Cash war chest. Music: ALICE  .jpg) I see you all... grew strong... while you were... away... Yeah... I fought my dad's ghost in my mind. ...OK. Yuri… You’ve… all of you have chosen your fate…Yuri approaches Albert. .jpg) But, none of this will come true… unless you defeat the god that is arriving soon… But it should be fine. With people as strong as you, humans may yet be able to overcome their mistakes. If you really think you can arise victorious, then take my blessing, too. May my soul assist you… Albert… Your motivations have gotten really murky since we learned your identity. Heh... Indeed... I must be... getting old....jpg) <looks around> Err... wasn't that here? Alice wasn't that supposed to be here? I... though so...?.jpg) Hey, wait. What the f—.jpg) .jpg) B... ar... f....jpg) So ends Albert Simon. I'm not sure what it means if your body explodes into light instead of fades away like everyone else who has died. It's probably fine. Probably. In any event, tune in next time as the gang travels to the ONE place that has yet to be corrupted by .jpg) ...SPACE!  Video: Episode 83 Highlight Reel (You should watch this. The main villain dies during it.) The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Feb 12, 2019 |
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Feb 12, 2019 19:42
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This show of mutual respect between Yuri and Albert feels a little sudden, but I always found their last exchanges kind of cool. RIP Simon, you were a pretty rotten guy but at least in some aspects you remained a gentleman to the end.
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Feb 12, 2019 20:06
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How many JRPG villain sympathy arcs aren't completely ham-fisted as all hell, anyway? The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are this game's sequel, Magus from Chrono Trigger, and Loewe from Trails in the Sky.
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Feb 12, 2019 20:31
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This scene makes me think that either something involving Albert was cut from the end of the game fairly late in development, or they just wrote it early on and never looked back.
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Feb 12, 2019 20:47
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 12:45 |
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Really Pants posted:How many JRPG villain sympathy arcs aren't completely ham-fisted as all hell, anyway? The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are this game's sequel, Magus from Chrono Trigger, and Loewe from Trails in the Sky.
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Feb 12, 2019 22:41
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