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i dont think that really counts as a "plot hole"
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Dec 8, 2022 21:20
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e: this is full ending spoilers Mirello so maybe don't read yet well we know Maruki is bit of a dumbshit because rather than use his power to bring Kasumi back to life so the sisters can achieve their goals together, which is what Sumire very obviously actually desires, he doubles down on his original "you just want to THINK you're Kasumi" diagnosis. and instead of making the justice system in Japan simply convict Shido without a witness, he brings Akechi back to life so the protag doesn't have to go to juvie. the real plot hole is that Akechi never points out how Maruki's a loving idiot who doesn't know what he's doing or understand how to effectively use his own power, so everyone just keeps going on about "but this isn't real reality maaan" nonsense
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Dec 8, 2022 21:42
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indigi posted:e: this is full ending spoilers Mirello so maybe don't read yet That isn't him being dumb. It is a character beat. There was a price to pay for fixing his love interest and his entire thing is trying to prove he made the right choice so there needs to be *something* that justifies the world.
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Dec 8, 2022 21:50
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Man I cannot wait for 3 and 4 on switch next month!!!!!!
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Dec 8, 2022 21:52
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indigi posted:e: this is full ending spoilers Mirello so maybe don't read yet He doesn't revive Kasumi because prior to her death Kasumi made Sumire feel inadequate by being significantly better at gymnastics. He allows Sumire to become Kasumi because it cleanly sidesteps both Sumire's guilt over her sister's death and her feelings of inadequacy compared to her. Everything about Maruki's philosophy and how he uses his power is textured by him mind wiping Rumi. He refuses to admit that it was a mistake to do so even though there are a lot of context clues that forgetting him was not what Rumi wanted even if it did immediately zap her PTSD away. He doesn't resolve trauma, he just contrives a scenario where you no longer have to face it even if it means losing parts of yourself, or in Sumire's case losing your entire identity.
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Dec 8, 2022 21:55
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precision posted:Man I cannot wait for 3 and 4 on switch next month!!!!!! My new vita stares at me from my dresser as I play the games again on a new system
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Dec 8, 2022 21:57
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Sydin posted:Maruki grants the specific desires of the phantom thieves as they express to him in their therapy sessions, partly because he actually knows their desires as a result and because he's grateful to them for helping him realize his power and vision. For everybody who is not the phantom thieves, he sucks up their shadow from Mementos and puts them through a battery of psychological test to see if they conform to his values and worldview or not, and if they don't brainwashes their shadow until they do. They're then dropped back into Maruki's "perfect" reality not caring about their issues, but not necessarily having those issues solved. Like Ryuji as a phantom thief gets a perfect life where he gets to be a track superstar and go on to get a scholarship, but all the rando track team people who might not be great at track just get made to decide eh it's not worth it, don't push something you're not all that good at because it's easier that way. Maruki's world is just the world Yaldy wanted to make, slapped with a particularly insidious coat of paint. There's at least a bit more to it than that (Royal semester). All the random background NPCs around Tokyo also get a sudden happy ending similar to the Phantom Thieves': the little girl learning about dog mortality in Yongen-Jaya magically gets her dog back, the overworked salarymen at Shibuya station get swanky promotions, the Novice Pickup Artist outside the arcade is drowning in digits, et cetera et cetera. Maruki is definitely presented as adding the personal touch wherever he can, because the whole point is that the problem doesn't lie in his execution, but in his goal itself.
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Dec 8, 2022 21:57
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ImpAtom posted:That isn't him being dumb. It is a character beat. There was a price to pay for fixing his love interest and his entire thing is trying to prove he made the right choice so there needs to be *something* that justifies the world. Yeah, exactly; the way he uses the powers is dumb in terms of his stated goals, but it makes perfect sense given his actual mindset/desires. He has a Palace after all; the guy isn't exactly a bastion of rationality. To drive this point home, IIRC the end of the Palace is full of giant Rumi statues (or something like that). The main issue is that the protagonist's party don't really point this out, and instead just repeat "but you should face reality" a bunch. But since (I think) Maruki's powers are contingent on having a Palace, it's basically inherently impossible for "Maruki using his powers in a way that actually makes the world a better place" to happen in the first place. Gaius Marius posted:Good news every other game in the series is better than 4 4 is good just because of its setting, which is the best in any Persona game (even if the characters are the worst). It's non-party social links are also generally better than 5's IMO.
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Dec 8, 2022 22:05
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Ytlaya posted:The main issue is that the protagonist's party don't really point this out, and instead just repeat "but you should face reality" a bunch. I genuinely think this is the best way they could do this, because any way I try to envision the alternative is a significantly worse story. The Phantom Thieves have a rock solid moral compass, and are also idiot teenagers (and a magic cat), so they know the Marukiverse is wrong, even if they lack the critical analysis tools to express exactly why it is wrong on a grand scale. Once they start unearthing Maruki's story, however, they understand it on a personal scale and see it for what it is; a big ol' dissociation from the doctor's own unexamined trauma, and that is a lot closer to their area of expertise. What's the alternative? You could dig into a big meta-ethical analysis and argue the fundamental flaws of Maruki's plan, but that is an absolute minefield of a conversation, out of character for the Phantom Thieves and a hell of a lot more boring than the character drama the story has been so far. Persona 5 is definitely a commentary on social issues, but the actual plot beats center on characters. I respect that Yaldabaoth had to be there because it wouldn't be an SMT game without letting you kill god at some point, but I bet exactly zero posters here would list him as their favorite villain. Maruki ultimately rolls in with the exact same detached utilitarian erasure of the human condition as Yaldy did, and his is a better story not because it has a hotter coat of paint, but because it has an actual person at its core. And it's fun to theorize how Maruki could have been smarter in they ways he uses his powers, but that serves even less of a purpose for the actual plot. That is not a repudiation of what he is doing; it carries with it the implication that there exists a proper implementation of the Marukiverse. Having the Phantom Thieves only address the premise of the idealized world and ultimately reject it is a much stronger display of their convictions than anything involving them examining its finer details. like I'm wholly open to the idea that there's a better way to tell the story, and also I only discovered persona 5 a month ago so if all of this stuff is a dead horse, that's on me Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Dec 8, 2022 |
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Dec 8, 2022 22:41
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persona 4 is a big dumb himbo of a game. it's extremely stupid and sometimes quite rude but ultimately it's just got a lot of enthusiasm and style persona 5, by contrast, is a goth instagram model persona 3, in this tortured simile, is the captain of the anime watching club
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Dec 8, 2022 23:37
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precision posted:persona 3, in this tortured simile, is the captain of the anime watching club 
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Dec 8, 2022 23:44
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Weird Pumpkin posted:Man, palace 4's boss Okumura is one heck of a fight in Royal huh? I can see why people swap it to Merciless for it That was the one boss fight they made way worse than from the OG game. It was really weird.
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Dec 9, 2022 01:48
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I feel like every boss fight, with the exception of Madarame, was made at least a little bit worse in Royal. Though Okumura in Royal is one of the top 10 worst video game bosses of all time
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Dec 9, 2022 03:01
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I felt like I was missing something with that boss. I was not underleveled at all and they seemed to be expecting way more damage output than I was capable of. I should have been baton-passing more but that wouldn't even have helped against the final enemy.
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Dec 9, 2022 03:55
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Scrap Dragon posted:I feel like every boss fight, with the exception of Madarame, was made at least a little bit worse in Royal. Though Okumura in Royal is one of the top 10 worst video game bosses of all time They made the madarame fight super easy, it felt like. He was easier than the first boss
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Dec 9, 2022 04:04
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Zokari posted:I felt like I was missing something with that boss. I was not underleveled at all and they seemed to be expecting way more damage output than I was capable of. Yeah, that was the weird part. I was like 10+ levels higher than any enemies in the dungeon with up to date personas and, using elemental items to ensure full baton passes, I still could barely clear the last few waves. Luckily the bots always seemed to do a wave of attacks first before they could flee, so you got two turns to deal with it. Really strange!
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Dec 9, 2022 04:09
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Palace 1: Added cognitive-Shiho in a skimpy bunny outfit who's weak to physical damage, because Royal is a classy game. Palace 2: Made the portrait phase only happen once, then the fight is against the elemental replicas. This is fine I guess, thematically it fits Madarame better but it makes the fight a joke. Palace 3: Gave him two mooks at the start of the fight you need to whack before he gets into the piggytron, again this is fine and fits more thematically than him trying to fight you by himself like he does in vanilla. Palace 4: Futaba gets to show off more but now the fight is absolutely brain dead easy, also now that you don't fire the ballista a bunch you don't get to hear Ryuji complain about how his arms are tired if you keep picking him to do it over and over. Palace 5: Objectively the worst change since you basically have to jack the difficulty up to merciless and take advantage of baton pass + psy charms to get through the green robo phase. Palace 6: The elemental roulette is fine but the way it gets bolted onto the intro from the vanilla fight is kind of awkward. Palace 7: Objectively the best change, the new last phase is great.
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Dec 9, 2022 04:17
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I don't understand, how does turning the difficulty UP make the fight easier 
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Dec 9, 2022 05:45
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precision posted:I don't understand, how does turning the difficulty UP make the fight easier You do 3x damage on weakness/technical/critical hits on Merciless (and so do enemies).
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Dec 9, 2022 05:46
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All the Royal boss changes were for the worse
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Dec 9, 2022 06:08
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Even 7?
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Dec 9, 2022 06:15
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Yes. That fight had enough phases already and Persona's battle system isn't very exciting 1v1.
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Dec 9, 2022 06:21
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What's the new phase of the palace 7 boss fight? I never played Royal
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Dec 9, 2022 10:25
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Item Getter posted:What's the new phase of the palace 7 boss fight? I never played Royal Jacked Shido goes '1v1 me bro' at Joker in the final phase. anakha fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Dec 9, 2022 |
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Dec 9, 2022 11:54
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so I just finished the game, and man Royal's additions are just ... excellent. even as the biggest persona 4 fanboy and biggest p5 hater, I'd have to say that the 3rd semester is the best writing in modern persona. yoshizawa is sooooo much better than marie was. night and day. great design, fun character, should've had her join your party before shido's palace, but w/e. it was still extremely difficult to say no to haru, but i'd say yoshizawa is the best romance option they've written. the only things I don't like was some laziness, like not letting you say goodbye to the new s-links at the end. that was really dumb. ok from here on out spoilers Maruki was so well written. I wish the rest of the game had been up to his level. the entire time, I was wondering if stopping him really is the right thing to do. he really was dedicated to making the world a better place. extremely awesome character. I do wish that they went a little bit more into how what he does and the phantom thieves aren't really so different. I was also certain that at the end, he and rumi would be back together. even if it isn't "logical" I felt like that would be the best way to show that he was wrong, because he doesn't know what's right for every person. him being a cab driver wasn't great imo. if he's pushing around rumi in a wheel chair, that'd be chef's kiss. also I thought akechi being alive was pretty stupid. Sumire was robbed at the end lol, giving her such a small part. also kind of weird to make everyone move, I don't remember that from vanilla. but man, walking around, talking to all the people you've gotten close to over the last 60 hours, what an amazing feeling. while I hope they improve persona 6, especially the plot writing, I really don't mind if they don't change it up too much. these games just work for me, the mix of dungeon crawling and life sim is so perfect, and there's really no other series that comes close to getting it right. I regret to say that after thinking about it, I'd have to say that persona 5 royal is now as good as persona 4 in my eyes. they're good at different things, but they're both really great. now if you could have the gameplay of 5, the group dynamics of 4, the plot heights of 3/royal, and pacing that isn't all hosed up/repetitive, that'd probably be the best jrpg of all time!
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Dec 9, 2022 21:19
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Also hard disagree on the losing party members stuff, because I shamefully never got to the end of Futaba's confidant and it would both really suck to not have Futaba and be an extremely different world state if she stuck to her alternate reality. Okay, but on the other hand, wouldn't that mean you'd stick with Akechi as your nav? That would be very awesome. Oh wait, drat it, Mona is a plot slink, so he'd always rejoin.
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Dec 9, 2022 22:22
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Just started 5R. Coming off of 4 as my first persona game, the amped up production values are quite a thing. I’m excited! Game is already dripping with style and I have a whole new game to experience. Hopefully it captivates me the way 4 did.
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Dec 9, 2022 22:35
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precision posted:I don't understand, how does turning the difficulty UP make the fight easier The fight is essentially a final exam on if you know how to baton pass and hit weaknesses. If you aren't able to clear a full wave then it resets over and over infinitely until you can. Since Merciless jacks up weakness damage by 3x for everybody, it becomes much easier to sweep a full wave as long as everybody can hit the weakness. This helps get over one particular hump in the Okumura fight where on normal/hard it is very difficult to do the damage needed unless you build up a full baton pass chain (which requires half the party have psy charms or use psy items). Sapozhnik posted:Yes. That fight had enough phases already and Persona's battle system isn't very exciting 1v1. Counterpoint it rules and the game is mostly about spectacle anyway. Akechi may or may not be alive, the devs have never confirmed. I agree Sumire kinda gets shafted in the ending, particularly if you romanced her. I've gone back and forth on Maruki's ending, and I think where I've finally landed is that I'm okay with it. Maruki's whole thing was that he was unable to confront his own traumas and simply ran from them, and then used his power to push this approach first on Rumi and Sumire, and then later on society as a whole. Even at the very end of his palace after he's defeated Maruki doesn't resolve to face his trauma: he tries to escape yet again by committing suicide and begs Joker to let him do it when Joker tries to save him. Yet when you see him in the ending cutscene, his language changes slightly. Rather than telling Joker "if it becomes too much, you can always run away" like he used to, now he says "if it becomes too much, you can always start over." It's a subtle difference, but a meaningful one: by his own words Maruki gave everything he had to creating a world without trauma, and he failed. But rather than simply running from that failure and allowing it to consume him as he did with Rumi, he accepts it and moves past it in the hopes finding new a new meaning and purpose. It's not as clean a good ending as "Maruki finally faces his traumas head on and reunites with Rumi" but it is still a positive step forward for Maruki.
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Dec 9, 2022 22:47
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From the sound of it, P5R's additional plot changes kinda reminds me of how Mobius works in The Caligula Effect series, offering a seductive reality that needs everyone to buy into it to keep it going, and it's premised upon the desire to run away from the reality of their problems.
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Dec 9, 2022 23:35
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man nurse posted:Just started 5R. Coming off of 4 as my first persona game, the amped up production values are quite a thing. I’m excited! Game is already dripping with style and I have a whole new game to experience. Hopefully it captivates me the way 4 did. Hell yeah. 5 is a great ride and Royal deffo makes it more fun to play
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Dec 9, 2022 23:40
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Just finished P4 Golden on Steam Deck and thought it was a great game! Had played a bit of it back in the day but never actually got to the very end of which I got the good ending, not the golden one. Janky in places, overly long but not unbearably so - the last stretch in particular feels out of place in comparison to the rest of the story. Obviously pretty dated in terms of its humour with a fair few lines flying wide of the mark but it's a supernatural high school murder mystery JRPG so, uh, yeah, I'm not gonna pick too many holes in its supidity at points. It's dumb and enjoyable for the most part and even though I knew who the killer was from the get go from having seen previous spoilers years ago, it didn't diminish the fun I had with it. Did genuinely find myself laughing at some of the dialogue choices in the game, particularly ones where you can dog out who you're talking to with an insensitive or stupid response. All in all, a massive game which was a fun ride but I'm not desperate to replay again for quite a while. Definitely had uts moments though and I'm happy I played it.
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Dec 11, 2022 14:03
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Finished Strikers last night. Gonna miss those drat kids. Cannot believe you never get to reveal your identities to Akane.
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Dec 12, 2022 18:00
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First, I am a child: And second: TIL that if you toss the Yasogami outfits on everyone (and the Teddie outfit on Mona), the battle music switches to Time To Make History, and the post-battle to...whatever that song from P4 is called. Neat!
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Dec 12, 2022 22:38
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HaB posted:And second: Whatever you, the MC, are wearing will change the music. Basically all the DLC outfits ahve music changing effects.
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Dec 12, 2022 23:04
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P5R trip report so far: Owns. Really good. Living my best vigilante thief life
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Dec 13, 2022 17:18
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Just beat Okumura. Why the hell was that so hard.
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Dec 14, 2022 16:21
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the problem is that the game doesn't really require you to engage with the battle system on that level in any other fight, so it's a bit of a surprise when you need to set your party up to do full-chain baton passes consistently
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Dec 14, 2022 16:24
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It’s for that reason the Okamura fight has been my favorite in the game so far! Had to put on my thinking cap.
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Dec 14, 2022 16:27
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It really didn't need the timer on top of everything else. I managed to pick up what they wanted in the first couple waves and the final wave took me like five tries because I was underleveled and needed to stack my buffs and time everything just right. It felt good, and I felt cool for powering through it and being able to engage with a system I hadn't really actively employed! Then the next phase is just a wall that eats into your timer, and there's another phase after that which is plain ol' timed and I ran out of time during that. That sucked! Like, yeah, a baton pass boss fight is a good idea, and a timed battle, sure, but it is unspeakably rude to do both at once and make it such a long fight that you have to start over from scratch if you lose. 
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Dec 14, 2022 16:38
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tbh the timer isn't really an issue beyond making it very clear that you can't just infinitely stall the fight. if it's taking that long you aren't gonna win anyway
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Dec 14, 2022 16:42
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