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Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Many, many, many strong men yet await, yes.

It feels like kind of a metaphor for SH2 and why I bounced off the later parts of it that the Man Festival is ridiculous, silly, fun, and also a boring grind that kinda overstays its welcome.

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Ibblebibble
Nov 12, 2013

Fun fact: in areas with a heavy Indian influence mutton is usually used to refer to goat meat rather than sheep.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


drat it, now I'm hungry.

Also you're not getting the full Man Festival experience if you're not staring at butts before every fight.

Junpei
Oct 4, 2015
Probation
Can't post for 11 years!
heheheheheh. One of the double matches made a reference to the OG Kamen Rider. Typhoon. Power and Technique. Just like Takeshi and Hayato.

Rigged Death Trap
Feb 13, 2012

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Pork is a scarcely used ingredient for curries, mainly because a lot of india is vegetarian, then of the remainder that do eat meat a majority is muslim. So I think the localizers may have pulled from a local curry place's menu, which, odds are, ran by pakistani or bangladeshi people, predominantly muslim.

I do love a good curry though.

Violet_Sky
Dec 5, 2011



Fun Shoe
Curry is the best.

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
Fish curry sounds like it would be my thing. If I ate curry regularly. Which I don’t. So before now I didn’t know what things like vindaloo and korma meant. Thanks for that.

I remember doing this and grumbling at the grind also. Ugh.

Leraika
Jun 14, 2015

Luckily, I *did* save your old avatar. Fucked around and found out indeed.
Yeah, 100 floors of weird toku references (nice, Sun Vulcan!) and rear end shots sounds amazing in theory and is awful in practice.

Leraika fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jul 19, 2021

GimmickMan
Dec 27, 2011

You really were not kidding when you said this was a two hour long shitpost, huh.

I am in awe at the dedication to... To whatever the hell they were thinking about while making this section. You do you, Sacnoth, you crazy bastards.

FeyerbrandX
Oct 9, 2012

Thankfully the plague only took out... maybe 2 or 3 restaurants that I wish didn't implode. Well I'm pretty sure another one but that one implodes on a whim and comes back a few years later.

Pseudohog
Apr 4, 2007
Curried goat is awesome and it's a shame most mainstream Indian places don't serve it!

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Leraika posted:

Yeah, 100 floors of weird toku references (nice, Sun Vulcan!) and rear end shots sounds amazing in theory and is awful in practice.

Yeah just in case people didn't know the Panther/Shark/Eagle thing is a direct reference to Sun Vulcan (the 5th Super Sentai series) where the protagonists are VulEagle, VulShark and VulPanther.

Sterski
Jun 30, 2014
Man meat.

Marluxia
May 8, 2008


Congrats, this update has inspired me to get curry tomorrow.

Burger Flipper
Sep 14, 2015

by astral
I've still never had curry. This isn't inspiring me to try it any time soon. Also there's nowhere near where I live that serves it. And I don't feel like buying grocery store curry, if I can even find it.

This does solidify it though. The Man Festival has definitely reminded me that yes, I did play this game and 100% it. I had to have done it not long after the game came out.

Also, as a person who works at a restaurant (pizza place, not Indian, but still), we didn't get hit very hard by the plague. If anything, our business went up. And I was honestly not that happy to be declared an essential worker as a delivery driver. Because it was absolutely essential I drive to the middle of nowhere in the woods just to deliver some poor soul six chicken wings at 11:30 at night.

Ibblebibble
Nov 12, 2013

The idea of someone literally never having curry in their life boggles the mind but I do live somewhere with a major Indian population I guess.

Keldulas
Mar 18, 2009
Restaurants getting hit really does depend on the type. Pizza is already a thing where you order it out 90% of the time. The sushi places around me don't seem to be hit all that hard either.

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

Never had indian curry, but I've had pizza at an indian place where the bottom was made with naan bread dough. That was loving delicious.

GimmickMan
Dec 27, 2011

Ibblebibble posted:

The idea of someone literally never having curry in their life boggles the mind but I do live somewhere with a major Indian population I guess.

I'm not allowed to have coffee because it will noticeably impact my health, I'm pretty sure curry would kill me outright.

Mokinokaro
Sep 11, 2001

At the end of everything, hold onto anything



Fun Shoe

Keldulas posted:

Restaurants getting hit really does depend on the type. Pizza is already a thing where you order it out 90% of the time. The sushi places around me don't seem to be hit all that hard either.

Buffet places are understandably the hardest hit.

Marmaduke!
May 19, 2009

Why would it do that!?

GimmickMan posted:

I'm not allowed to have coffee because it will noticeably impact my health, I'm pretty sure curry would kill me outright.

It's worth the risk

A jargogle
Feb 22, 2011
Curry is Good. Although saying "Curry" is about as descriptive as saying "Chicken" to describe a dish.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Ibblebibble posted:

The idea of someone literally never having curry in their life boggles the mind but I do live somewhere with a major Indian population I guess.

I only had curry for the first time last year. It was really good, though, so I've had it more since.

It helps that I love rice.

Bufuman
Jun 15, 2013

Sleep in the briefing room.
At your own peril.
You know, I've been a weeb for almost 20 years and I've never actually had curry. I was planning on going shopping today so I should look up some ingredients and maybe give it a shot.

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



The Dark Id posted:

The thinks pepper is too much for their palette whitest of white people spice option at an Indian restaurant.

It's the mild spice curry or the white people starting to sweat variety.
Quote marks around "thinks pepper is too much for their palette" for the first, of the "white people starting to sweat" variety for the second.

Junpei
Oct 4, 2015
Probation
Can't post for 11 years!

Violet_Sky
Dec 5, 2011



Fun Shoe

Dude should look more like Hank Hill imo

Taciturn Tactician
Jan 27, 2011

The secret to good health is a balanced diet and unstable healing radiation
Lipstick Apathy

Violet_Sky posted:

Dude should look more like Hank Hill imo

It's the author's reoccuring character, not a character designed for this particular joke.

The Dark Id
Aug 13, 2005

Why
you
know
I
LOVE
THIS SHIT !!!!
[citation needed]
Episode CXXXVII: Their Tears... Their Suffering...


Music: Grand Papillon!! ~ Pro Wrestler




Many more strong men await Joachim and the gang. No sense in keeping them waiting.





Transient bovine form... Empty stock, empty stomach... I am the Oxen Devil... Moooooo!



We now move on to the beef league of the scourge of Curry Men. They said select three men but the squared circle has no place for such frivolities as gender. Only muscle. So Karin and Yuri will square up for another match alongside the path to the peak of wrestling perfection.



Here we have Changri Korma a Fire elemental curry with 420, blaze it, HP. Chingri Madras is a Light elemental flavor with 440 HP. And Chingri Masala, a breezy Wind elemental Curry Man with 430 HP. Each of their spiciness levels inflicts status debilitations identical to the previous round of Curry Men.





This time there are two Chingri Masala and a Chingri Madras.

Again, it seems like there was no talk between whoever localized the enemy name/description stuff and the actual in-game script. As do all the Library entries (did I mention every single goddamn Curry Man gets a Library entry?) Chingri is a curry made with prawns, you know the large shrimp-like things. But all in-game dialog is about beef and their original Japanese names are just Beef Curry - <Spice Level>. Someone hosed up during this enduring shitpost. But I can't blame them too much. I mean look at the state of affairs...





Now two parts Chingri Madras and a pinch of Chingri Masala.

The Himalayan Indian restaurant in town survived the pandemic and I maybe felt compelled to pick up some chicken tandoori and lamb madras curry. It was pretty loving good! Even if some of my less than healthy innards were not pleased with this unfamiliar adventure into the seldom eaten. Younger me would have done a vindaloo but I have had some less than optimal digestive issues the last few years of the slowly killing me variety, so I'll have to make do toning it down a notch. Curry -- still pretty loving good!





This time it's just a solo fight between Joachim and Chingri Korma. You're, we're back to the solo match well.





And a solo against a Chingri Masala.

Let's date this LP for you in the future reading. I was editing this update while Jeff Bezos strapped himself to a rocket and said he was going to space...





Just Chingri Madras.

I took a bathroom break and cleaned out my SO's cat bowl and gave it a fresh helping of food and some pets. As it is a cat. And you've got to pet the cat. It's just what you do. And that motherfucker was back from space already? 66 miles up? That's not going to space. That's strapping yourself to a rocket and falling back down. gently caress off, you discount Lex Luthor shitlord and your vanity project. That's more of a shitpost than this sidequest.



But I digress, as I've run out of things to talk about in this sidequest. But guess what...





...So has the game. It cannot keep up with this joke. There aren't enough flavors of curry to keep this shitpost going and there is no way a player is going to actually want to do 100 rounds of food puns and fighting palette swaps of the same enemy. And the developers don't want to program that poo poo either. So gently caress IT! We're briefly going to draw power from the Xenogears Narration Zone™ and just skipping to the 89th floor now!



There were many harrowing battles...
But... we just didn't do them. What was that void with the text? I saw a chair with a spotlight over it in the distance and some sort of swinging cross thing... Am I the only one that thinks that was super weird?!
<closes eyes and clenches fist> The journey to true manhood is dense with mystery.




One, two, moo! Time for you to leave us, you jerkies! Mooo!



We're back to the tag team card so the Harmonizer/Grand Papillion ultimate max alliance is back on until further notice against the first round of Chingri Korma and Chingri Masala.





Someone out there has Man Festival Vice President on their resume applying for a middle manager factory position in a dusty city somewhere in India sometime in in late 1920 and an eyebrow is being raised. And this is a Chingri Korma and Chingri Madras fight.





Do not partake in the microwave curry. Especially if it is a combo of Chingri Madras and Chingri Masala.







Now we're getting a Wild Speed: Super Combo of leagues of top Curry Men in the spiciest of meals of Chingri Vandaloo a 450 HP Dark elemental curry. Fish Curry has also taken a heel turn and joined the New Beef/Prawn Order. And Chingri Madras is here too because they've got good mic work and social media presence. Karin is coming back in for this round.



This fight has the rude quirk of the party being surrounded at the start everyone will take some bumps to sell the angle.



Defeating that trifecta unlocks the last breather of the Man Festival and we're going to definitely want to save our game and make sure everyone in the party is topped off to max before we point at the Wrestlemania sign for the PPV event of the Man Festival.





<steps forward> I'll take this one! You all go on up!
What...?
<clenches fist> He is putting his manhood on display! For honor! And glory!
OK. Phrasing... But. Whatever. If it makes this go faster...
What a man!


Joachim leaps to the next level and the rest of the party follows.





The final gauntlet of Curry Men before we reach the top level is all going to be 1v1 matches with each of our party members, hence why we took those preparatory steps at the very beginning before we began The Man Festival. This is the part of the sidequest where things could turn rotten because this all does have to be done in a single sitting and we're taking actual mid-boss level Curry Men that have a respectable amount of HP for a solo fight and inflict damage not to be entirely scoffed at compared to the rest.

The Curry Prince is a Light elemental class Curry Man with 1120 HP. His gimmick is he will immediately cast Gale and his attacks will inflict debilitations to Kurando's speed had we not a Pocket Watch equipped.



But with Jutendouji in his kit, Kurando can easily take this fool in three rounds with little effort. Anyway, now to climb down 93 wrestling rings with poofy pants.





There's a change of pace! Gone all matter-of-fact, eh? I'll take you on!
Hasn't the only thing you've said in months been explaining or questioning situations further?
You get dialog?
You're one to talk.
More than you.
Tch!


Joachim and the gang leave Gepetto to take the heat.





Dry Curry Man is an Earth elemental, being dry and all, and has 1120 HP. His deal is he'll immediately boost his Special Attack power and inflicts Deadly Poison had we not put a button on avoiding that beforehand. And with Gepetto's frail old man that is underleveled, because literally, nobody has ever used Gepetto at length playing this game, that would be a problem losing a third of his HP every turn. Spamming Advent is the way out of this business. Alongside healing every other turn because, again, underleveled as hell.

Beyond that, Dry Curry is what if I want the curry meat part but not the liquid stew part. Just dump that on a bowl of rice. So you basically have a chili con carne and rice. Which doesn't sound too bad, honestly. Apparently, it's pretty popular in Japan with some egg on top. Which... again, not too bad sounding. In fact, that sound amazing at about 3:00 AM after a night of drinking. For some reason that is reminding me of the time I visited my sister and we drank for 12 hours straight and had a Rochester Garbage Plate. I would not order this under normal conditions but drunk at the wee hours of the morning we are in flavor country.



Gepetto... I don't know how you got this high up. But good luck climbing down 94 floors.





Wait a minute! ...That smell! You're not curry at all! You can't trick my nose!
I know every curry in the world's stank!

Lucia is left with her nose.





This false shadow of a Curry Man, Hashed Beef Man is a Fire Elemental with 1120 HP will use Mirage to increase his Evasion rate... against a character good for nothing but magic casting. And will also attempt to inflict Up Ring with its flailing. There's still plenty of meat on that bone. You take this home, throw it in a pot, add some broth, a potato... Baby, you've got a stew going!



Pictured: The conclusion of times I ever use Lucia in the game. I mean, Gepetto and Kurando too. Kurando I would at least consider in a pinch. Those other two? Cast them off the side of the Tower of the Holy Ring.





<steps forward> You go on. I'll deal with this one. I was born poor. This one's for me!
Plus "veggies" has two g's in it and I take issue with your syntax!

The party bounces to a higher social class.





Being poor means the Dark element and 1120 HP with just casting Mirage as its only trait of note. Karin, I know your family was down on its luck but it didn't exactly feel like you were from the streets giving you have expert fencer training and that you were a moderately high-ranking German military official before this adventure. You aren't finding enough loose change to get something off the McDonald's dollar menu for a bonus meal while waiting two hours for my mom to get off of work to pick me up from school poor, Karin. I was. So gently caress off, you bourgeoisie having to scrap by only being comfortable middle-class fake rear end poor.



Only 96 floors of climbing down flashing the whole of Japan with your bright blue panties! Lord knows you've done it to me every single time you've been in a battle the entire goddamn game. At least Alice Elliot had the courtesy to not have extremely contrasting colors when she did that non-stop in the previous title.





Awroo! Aw-awroo...! (Looks like it's my turn...)
Awroo... Awroo... (Do not ask me why... I'm just reading from the script and the director is motioning me toward the fight...)

Joachim and the others leave Blanca to a bout not about wolves.





The Curry Sage has 1120 HP and is of the Light element. It was originally the Curry Hermit in Japanese. I suppose being a sage of curry is respectable while a hermit of curry is just... some rear end in a top hat in the woods that fixes himself curry for lunch. This one casts Surge to augment its SP Attack down innate physical hit abilities hence why we gave Blanca a Will Power accessory to combat that at the start. Otherwise, we just get Blanca's ghost familiars and the furry founder of the Boy Scouts of America to trounce this guy.



What are any of us doing here, Blanca? What are any of us doing here...?





<marches forward and points> Egg! This one's for me! Let's see who's number one, shall we?!
I bet your eggs don't even have supernatural properties!
They are the whitest of egg white shells you have ever seen in this curry!
......
...You mean egg whites?
Yes! The shell's texture is pristine!
The shell the egg whites came out of?
Yes, the white shells in the curry.
...The shells in the curry?!
Yes, the egg whites.
No. The shell is a shell.
Yes, the white shell. The egg white.
The egg white is the part inside an egg that isn't the yolk.
I don't follow.
You crack open an egg and there is the yellow mass, the yolk, and the rest that is the egg whites.
No, the hard shell is the egg whites.
No it is not! That is a SHELL!
The white shell... The egg white.
......
Did... did you cook the shell and put that in your curry?
Yes. I cooked the egg white.
......
OK. I cannot subject everyone else to something this stupid. You all can go. I have to hurt this man.






Egg curry is just substituting meat with softboiled eggs if you're doing a vegetarian thing. Seems alright for breakfast. Egg Curry Man is a Wind class enemy with 1120 HP.



They hit quite hard, especially against the very squishy Anastasia. And are just tainted with Instant Death. This is another fight like Gepetto's where it was a big attack, maybe a second big attack with caution since Anastasia is somewhat underleveled. Heal between those times. But this one did manage to get two critical hits in a single turn. Which did not take Anastasia out of the game. But via the magic of just making a save state on an emulator and letting nature run its course.


Music: Death and Defeat ~ Game Over






Should Anastasia have sped up the timeline by a few years and met an early demise, it's worth mentioning that The Man Festival does have a unique Game Over screen. Of a rendered plate of curry, naturally.


Music: Vicious 1915 ~ Battle in Europe




But that's not what happened! While everyone else has just tapped out of participating and helping Joachim in The Man Festival. Anastasia is staying in as group manager because she wants to see the final throw-down title match between Joachim and Gama so she will ascend to the top. But not before...





Yeah, yeah, whatever! Looks like this one is up to me...
Protagonist duties... I got it... I'm cutting curry out of my diet for years after this.

Joachim leaves Yuri behind and ascends to the summit.





It's up to Yuri to take on the final Curry Man -- Cutlet Curry. He is of Fire element and has 1120 HP. And is a dishonorable lout as he is the only Curry Man who uses offensive magic and has access to every second to last tier elemental spell on top of casting Gale at the beginning. But... Yuri has Neo Amon so no big deal.



And with that, the menace of the Curry Men has been vanquished. All that remains is the summit. Floor 100 of The Tower of the Holy Ring. The Man Festival Main Event awaits... A battle of muscle. Will. Strength. Honor. And a question deep in all men's hearts will all be answered.

In the ring...







The Great Gama's Insignia - Jovial.

The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Jul 22, 2021

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
So many curry flavors they could have included but didn’t… I’m actually glad. :D

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


For some reason I thought that leaving meant I'd have to start over again, so I didn't stop to save before taking Gepetto into that fight with no protection against poison. :argh:

FeyerbrandX
Oct 9, 2012

Anastasia consider yourself lucky it was the chair dimension and you didn't end up in a different time skip where you end up kidnapped by Nega-Joachim and Joachim loses an eye, takes to random gardening sometimes and boar drifting.

Eeepies
May 29, 2013

Bocchi-chan's... dead.
We'll have to find a new guitarist.
I saw Kurando's, Gepetto's and Lucia's line over and over again because i kept losing the Lucia fight. I still remember the dry curry and stew quotes to this day.

Qrr
Aug 14, 2015


Surprisingly benevolent of the game to skip 60 levels like that. I guess "40 stories of MAN" just doesn't have the same ring to it as 100.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

The Dark Id posted:

The Curry Sage has 1120 HP and is of the Light element. It was originally the Curry Hermit in Japanese.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆


That really sums up this entire adventure, doesn't it?

Marmaduke!
May 19, 2009

Why would it do that!?
Poor Man's Curry was always my favourite

Weeble
Feb 26, 2016
Put me down as also not realizing that I could bail to save and resume from where I left the first time I did this.

Attempted to do it all in one shot, only to not have instant death protection on Anastasia.

I put the game down for about a week.

Malachite_Dragon
Mar 31, 2010

Weaving Merry Christmas magic
A lovingly rendered plate of curry, at that.

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Bufuman
Jun 15, 2013

Sleep in the briefing room.
At your own peril.
Would that more 100-floor gauntlets just skipped like 65 floors like that.

Final Fantasy X-2, Wild Arms 3, I'm lookin' at you two in particular.

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