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im trying to decide which sounds funnier between "princess clam" or "clam princess"
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May 12, 2023 06:11
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| # ? May 29, 2024 00:38 |
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Clam Princess sounds like some kind of seafood special, like an upscale version of a Clambake
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May 12, 2023 08:00
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Doc Hawkins posted:im trying to decide which sounds funnier between "princess clam" or "clam princess"  Randalor posted:So when Kabuki rejoins the party, does he always have the tengu's scroll, or just if you talk to the tengu first?
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May 12, 2023 19:00
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ivantod posted:In Japanese she is called はまぐり姫 which is literally "clam princess", but it's actually not so straightforward since this really can be translated either way into English. But I opted for "Princess Clam" as it sounded a bit nicer to me, since "princess clam" sounds like a pricess which is a clam, but "clam princess" sounds to me like someone who is the princess of all clams. I don't know, I'm not really a native English speaker, so I may be wrong, but it just had a nicer sound to me. i assumed that's what it was and agree with your choice and your judgment. im not sure "whatever-hime" nicknames have a perfect english equivalent. i was just considering the two obvious choices and giggling like a moron.
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May 13, 2023 01:48
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 Previously, Manjimaru and Gokuraku are still on their quest to defeat the third orchid, which does seem to be taking a fair bit longer to do than the previous two. In any case, it seems to involve finding and defeating an individual known as "Princess Clam", but in order to do that, we need to find Root Clan's Phantasm Castle. But that seems difficult as it is apparently hidden and cannot be seen using normal means. So in order to figure THAT out, we have just arrived to a village called Sanjou, where there is supposed to be a person who can help us with that! Here we go. This is a fairly small place, so let's have a look around and see if we can find this Denjirou preson who can supposedly make us a device which reveals the Phantasm Castle! First let's talk to our welcoming committee here... Ok, well, we already know that, but thanks for the reminder, I guess. Oh, and here to the right of him, some more very conspicuous looking flowers! That would be our flower number four, for those who are counting. Luckily, it is right here in Sanjou where we find the resolution of this quest; as it turns out, it's not a separate quest, but in fact the same one that eventually results in getting help from Denjirou! But anyway, let's see what else is here. This is actually a hint, albeit a bit of an obscure one. It means, if you are missing a flower, you can pay the fortune teller 1000 ryo to get a hint about where it is. We'll stop by Niigata later today, so we'll check that out (although obviously, we don't need the hint ourselves). And, three more people over here. Oh no whatever shall we do. Sado island, just off the coast of Niigata (in real life too). We'll definitely have to pay it a visit today, but being an island, it looks like we may need a means of transportation across the sea. I wonder what it'll be this time. Ah, let's not forget that it's soon going to be new year. We should probably visit Kyoto again around that time, I think. But for now, let's see what's inside the houses! Ah-ha! So we need to figure out a way to make this elixir in order to heal Denjirou so that he can help us! Ok, good to know. The house next door actually belongs to Denjirou, but as we've already heard... ...he's very sick and not really able to help us in any way right now. So let's see what else is there in this village. The pharmacy, huh? In a moment. But first, the inn. Well, good to know if we ever need any gold (spoiler alert: do you really think we won't need gold soon?). We'll just have to find some way to get across the sea to this island. By the way, here is the real life map of part of Japan...  ...where you can see the Sado island just off the coast of Niigata city. Well, all right, let's go to the pharmacy. It's located here, conveniently marked with the kanji 薬, which simply means "medicine". Normally, these shops just sell various recovery items, but this one in Sanjou is a bit special. Let's talk to people. Interesting. But before we proceed, I guess I should explain something. It's been mentioned a few times now, the names of the three provinces Echizen, Etchuu and Echigo. You may have noticed that they have suspiciously similar names and perhaps you would like to know what exactly is this all about. If so, keep reading--otherwise feel free to skip this paragraph! When written in Japanese, it's even more interesting, because the names look like this: 越前, 越中, 越後. The interesting things is that if we ignore the first character in their names (越), what we're left with are 前, 中, 後, whose meanings are, in that order: front, middle, back. As it turns out, in old Japan (but like really old), there used to be a province named Koshi, written in Kanji as 越. But then, during the administrative reorganisation of Japan, around the year 702-703, this province was divided into three. The three provinces were then given the three above names, derived from the original name, with added suffixes to indicate their relative distance to the capital (Kyoto). And that's how we ended up with these three, somewhat unusally named provinces. All right, now let's talk to the others here. Well that all sounds very good, but actually we only have been able to gather four kinds of flowers out of five. So we're still missing the last one. We'll have to go looking for it, I suppose. So let's say "yes" to this. So, as you can see, the flowers are simply part of the main quest, and not some kind of subquest. Anyway, after talking to this guy, when we talk to him again, we get two options: "register flowers" and "mix the ingredients". The nice thing is that by choosing "register flowers", they are taken out of the inventory and become available here as ingredients for mixing. We need to go and look for the last flower, but first, let's upgrade our equipment a bit. As you might recall, Gokuraku is actually still barefoot and also not wearing any headgear either. So let's rectify that here at the shop. We'll purchase the "winning headband" for 40 ryo, and also the "shoes size 16-mon" for 3200 ryo. A "mon" (文) is an old Japanese shoe size measure, so 16 mon is about 38.5 cm (15 in), so that's actually pretty huge as far as shoe sizes go! The shoes increase the speed by 8 points... ...and the headband gives +7 in defence. So not too bad. Here in the item shop, there is actually one more person we can talk to. I see, so the pharmacist is pretending to know what he's doing, but in reality is selling people just random stuff. Ok. Before we leave, let's just stop by the weapon shop. Manjimaru has lately been struggling a bit with his attack power, so let's try and help him out a bit. Over here we have a "jar-slicing sword" for a whole 24,000 ryo. But I think it's worth it, because... ...it gives him a whole +14 in attack compared to his current weapon! Not bad, even if it is a bit expensive. All right, now, finally... ...let's go and get the last flower. You can simply go to Niigata and ask the fortune teller to give you a hint for 1000 ryo and she'll pretty much tell you directly where it is. Or... you can remember that there was that one Tengu whose house was in a field of flowers, back in Echizen province. So if we go back there now... ...I guess first we encounter a new enemy we haven't yet seen! But this one is pretty weak and we can one-shot him. Anyway, in front of Tengu's house, now we find just one flower! There we go, that's five. So let's go back to the pharmacy quickly. After registering the flowers, we get a choice like this: So here, of course, we simply need to choose three out of the five listed and try to make an elixir. There aren't actually any hints as to what might be the correct combination, but also (a) choosing 3 out of 5 only has 10 different options to try; (b) giving the wrong medicine to Denjirou has no bad effects, he simply stays sick; and (c) if you try again, you don't have to go and get another flower, the supply is simply infinte right here in the shop. So other than trying a few times, there's not really any tricks or issues here. The correct combination is: dark peony, blood plantain, snow cherry blossom. As you can see, that last one was really necessary to get. Also, the combination is the same in every game and does not change randomly. So let's make this and give it to Denjirou. Our fetch quest continues into its next phase, and Mt. Donden is indeed on Sado island. By the way, after all this, the "medicine which revives the dead" now becomes available to purchase as a regular consumbale at the pharmacy, albeit quite expensive at 20,000 ryo a piece. In my opinion it isn't really worth it, at least at the moment. The way death in battle works in this game is as follows. If Manjimaru is knocked out, you are transferred to the nearest doctor and have to continue from there. In any other party members are knocked out, the battle continues with them out of action and they are revived with 1 HP after the battle. So this item allows you to revive them during the battle instead, like a phoenix down. But it's just too expensive at this stage in the game so I really don't think it's worth it. Interestingly, in the first couple of Final Fantasy games, Phoenix Down was also quite an expensive item (5000 Gil in Final Fantasy II!), until it later became a common and cheap item. Anyway, after concluding the "Atelier Manjimaru: The Alchemist of Jipang" subquest, our next destination is Niigata. But, before that, there are some Tengu's to be found around here. On the way, of course new enemies. This one is also on the easier end of the spectrun, at least when it's on its own like this. Like is there a JRPG with better enemy names than this one? I don't think so! They do however have a "smiling sweetly" ability, which lowers our party members' defence, or also a "smiling quietly" ability which lowers our party members' attack, so you probably want to be a bit careful here. As usual, usage of "kongo" spell is probably not a bad idea here, just to make things go more smoothly. There is a cave here, but actually... ...it's just another Tengu's dwelling. They've been getting more varied lately, huh? Unfortunately, this one Tengu is a bit of a jerk... will still give us his spell, though! Manjimaru obtained the "sunrise" scroll! The thing about dharma (daruma) dolls in Japanese culture/folklore is that they are also meant to be the embodiment of "perseverance" and the old proverb: "Fall down seven times, stand up eight", hence the comment from Tengu. As for the spell, it's a big heal for the whole party, which sounds good, but it also costs a whole 20 MP so it's going to be more just for emergencies, at least for now. It's a bit interesting that we went through like a third of the game without getting anything better than the basic heal spell, but on the other hand the base heal is like really cheap so you can use it a lot. For comparison's sake, the "sunrise" spell gives about 100 HP to each party member but at the cost of 20 MP, whereas the base heal has an initial cost of 3 MP and gives about 50 HP to one party member. In fact, last time I took the opportinity with that one Tengu to reduce the cost to 2 MP. Therefore, "sunrise" is only really useful when you are genuinely about to be wiped out and don't have time for individual heals. In fact, we'll be meeting another spell cost reduction Tengu today and, well, you'll see what happens. As a final note, the name "sunrise" is written in Japanese as 日立 and pronounced "hitachi" and is indeed also the name of the eponymous Japanese mega-comglomerate company! And now, let's be on our way. If I recall correctly we were going to Niigata! And here we reach a coastal village. If we check the in-game map... ...our location is marked by the rectangle, and we can see that there is a large island immediately across--this is the Sado island we are trying to reach. Let's go into the village, which is indeed Niigata. No welcoming committee, huh? Hey, look, people! I should tell you that "Tarai Funaya" たらい舟屋 also means "bathtub shop". Any conclusions you draw about our upcoming means of crossing the ocean are entirely your own. The dialogue here changes depending on your answer, but we'll see the "Yes" option later. In the meantime, the other person: Aikawa is indeed on Sado, or rather was, since it has been integrated into Sado city some time ago and doesn't exist any more as an independent municipality. This is the fortune teller grandma from whom you can get hints about where to find the flowers. If you come here before finishing the flower quest, then you get this dialogue: Then you can pay 1000 ryo per flower and she will more or less tell you where it is. For example, here is the hint for the flower in mermaid village. So as you can see, it's reasonably explicit, actually. But we're done with that, so we get slightly different dialogue. Totally not ominous at all! The other person here gives you a tutorial for cursed equipment items--most importantly that you can only remove them if you rest at the inn. She doesn't mention about their hidden negative effects. Apparently, we're going to be crossing the sea in a tub. Sure. But before that, a couple more people here. But our tub will be fine? Niigata area is the only place in Japan where there are oil reserves and oil fields for drilling. Just in case you were curious what he's talking about. Outside of the village, we find indeed a tub for us to travel in!  In fact, there's two of them, one for each party member. It is also, as you can see above, accompanied by an appropriately named musical theme! We'll stop on the south coast for now and head northwest. On the way, obviously enemies. Again, these are not threatening as we can one-shot them. Manjimaru's new sword surely helps. Interestingly, the monster appears to have mining equipment on his back? The new enemy here is also not especially interesting and goes down quickly. On the very northwestern tip of the island is, however, another Tengu's house! It also deals stronger lightning damage to all enemies. But more interestingly, we seem to get a further hint about those red treasue chests (of which so far we've only found one). It does seem we're not ready for that yet, though, so we'll leave it alone. For the curous, the "demon pandemonium" in Japanese is 百鬼夜行 (lit. "nightly procession of hundred demons" or something like that). Next we'll get back to our tub(s) and... ...sail around the side of the island. As always, there are enemies in the water too. The golden enemy is a bit stronger, but still nothing to worry about too much. Turns out, north of Sado island, there are two smaller ones, one of which contains... you guessed it, Tengu's hut! Well, we have been told that they like to live in isolated places, so... it's only our own fault if we don't explore! So this is another situation where we can reduce the cost of a spell of our choice by 1 MP. I will actually choose here again our base healing spell, which means that from now on, it will cost only 1 MP to cast! Pretty neat. Let's continue exploring. In the middle of the northern part of Sado island (check the map on a previous screenshot), there is another pointy tip... and another Tengu's house! The spell we get in this one is... quite something, to say the least. As mentioned, the "red shadow" spell (赤影) is certainly something. Upon casting, it creates between 1 and 3 "shadows" as allies in the current battle. The shadows copy the stats of the caster and also have a copy of all their abilities and equipment. So, these are a bit like temporary party members that you can summon in battle! And the best part: you can actually issue them commands like any other party member! The only thing they can't do is to cast "red shadow" themselves, but everything else is pretty much fair game. It's not even hugely expensive to cast it, only 17 MP (that's actually less than the heal spell we just got). One downside is of course, that Gokuraku will never be able to cast it because of lack of MP, but at least it's available to all other party members. Although of course since spells in this game are items that you equip, it can only be used by one person at a time. So you can't have everybody cast it and generate like 9 shadows (3 people without Gokuraku times max 3 shadows--yes, spoiler, our last party member is a magic user). Speaking of which, the number of shadows generated is random. So this spell is definitely not useless, at least that much is clear, especially since there is no downside to it other than using some MP (which you can replenish from items anyway). (Also, about that last party member: I promise you, it's coming soon, it will be the next thing to do after we're done with this orchid--and yes, I know it's taken a LOT longer than the two previous ones!) In the central part of the island, we find a village. It's the only settlement on this island, Aikawa. It's another small place, so let's quickly see what's up here. Hmm, that doesn't sound good. A bit further in... ...we find the entrance to the mine, but it seems to be blocked by a couple of guards! This seems a problem, but let's see what they say. There's also another person standing here who is a miner. This all sounds very sketchy. Lord Toyama seemed to be a pretty nice guy, so none of this situation makes any kind of sense--it's doubtful that he would leave his people trapped inside like that. But, either way, it doesn't look like we'll be able to get into the mine right now, so perhaps it's best to just hop over to Toyama and find out what is actually going on. Here we are. Let's head straight into the castle. We'll head to the top floor. Ok, let's see what he has to say. He looks not quite right... Suddenly a cage falls down on Manjimaru and Gokuraku! I knew this was all very sketchy. Well then. What now? In a least surprising development ever...  ...our three ninja friends come to our rescue!  And with this, they, as usual, disappear! As for us, let's explore the castle a little bit and try and figure out what is actually happening here. As expected, we now have random encounters here. These guys are pretty nasty because they are fast and can seal our spells. Means: cast "kongo" quickly to reduce their damage before they can stop you from doing it! These guys are also pretty strong, so a judicious use of "kongo" is necessary. "Murasa" is one of the "marine spirits" (船幽霊). They are vengeful ghosts who trick the sailors and cause their ships to sink. Their high defence also makes them a bit of a pain to fight. But eventually... ...we make it down where the castle dungeon is. Previously it was empty, but now it seems people have been imprisoned here! Note also in the second cell from the right, what appears to be the actual Lord of Toyama! The impostor is here too. Upon approaching... He goes back to his normal form, and for us that means, of course, a boss fight! And here we go. This fight is actually quite a bit easier than the last one, somehow. Mainly it's because there are no weird special attacks.  There's just this regular physical attack, which you can reduce to single digits with "kongo" and then you can just go all out on him. That's basically it, there's really nothing else to this fight. Honestly, this is also a good time to even cast "red shadow" if you want, as this is exactly the kind of situation where it can be useful. Well, I guess that's three of them done, so we still have 2 left somewhere (guess!). The prisoners are freed! We go back upstairs to his chamber... Well, all right. Looks like we had here a bit of a detour, but for now we can leave. On the way out, we'll talk to this guy standing to the side. All right, back to Aikawa now, let's explore that gold mine. Good thing is, this game has fast travel so we don't need any more our tub/barrel, and can simply teleport back. We only needed it the first time, plus to visit that one Tengu on an island as you can't access that one any other way. So, let's add to the pile of Manjimaru's abandoned vehicles around the country! Back at Aikawa, as promised, the entrance to the mine is now open! Let's have a chat with the three miners that are hanging about! That's good to know, but actually there's just one blocked spot--it is however mandatory to clear it to proceed with the game. Let's see what the guards say. Well, let's head in. I mean it looks like a mine. One of the three sages is actually waiting for us inside by the little mine cart train! Oh my god, he's even wearing a train conductor's hat for this occasion! Weirdly, this is actually true. We've mostly been meeting the other two sages over the course of the game. I mean, how can we refuse, right? And we literally go on a ride... ..around the entire cave, like a big rollercoaster! But, eventually, back at the start... Of course. We have time for this. Let's upgrade to the "Hell Course" this time! On this one, the carts separate! Oh, nooo, Gokuraku! But, eventually...  ...our ride ends. Well, what now. We've lost Gokuraku, at least temporarily. By the way, just to be clear: the sage was blocking the way into the mine and we couldn't walk past him. So the only way to proceed is to let this happen. Anyway, let's have a look around and see what we can find. There are a few people inside here. Ok, let's be on our way, I suppose. The chests there have a consumable and some money. Some new enemies, this time with a very ordinary name. They are actually pretty strong and Manjimaru is (unfortunately) alone. So using the "kongo" spell is one of the few ways to survive this place. It truly is not going to work otherwise. But the game is being its usual nice self, so in the previous chest we actually got a MP refill item to help us out with that a bit! Appropriately, all these "golden" enemies give a decent chunk of money when defeated. Let's head up. Don't worry, there's not long to go to meet up with Gokuraku again. More people! We'll continue exploring. As for that chest... Manjimaru found Miner's Haramaki! A "haramaki" is a kind of a belly wrap that you wear to keep warm. Obviously, it's a piece of equipment, but it's not better than what we already have, so we don't need to worry about that. Interestingly, the name of this item is very obviously misspelled in the game, somehow! Instead of the correct 坑夫の腹巻, it's actually written as 抗夫の腹巻 in the game (note the difference in the first character!). The misspelled part doesn't mean anything, so it's not meant to be a joke or anything like that. Further on, we encounter this unfortunate situation: three burly dudes guarding some items! It's actually possible to fight them (they are strong, but definitely doable), but there is a better way, so we'll leave this alone for the moment! In the meantime, we find another person! Ok, looks like we're on the right track! We'll keep going. Lots of chests here, but mostly just recovery items in them. More enemies too! Pretty weak, though. Some of the chests just push you into a random battle, like this one here. After a bit more wandering... ...finally, we find Gokuraku again! Now things are going to be easier again. So, first of all... ...let's go back here, because:  Easy! But let's talk to this guy. The chests have some equipment for Gokuraku, but it's not better than what we have. After a bit more wandering around... Looks good. Now just to find the gold! These guys do now appear also as a random encounter. As mentioned, they are pretty strong, but with Gokuraku it's definitely doable. We've already been in this place, but maybe you didn't notice that there is also a ladder going down here. Now that we've recovered Gokuraku, we'll take the ladder. Well, no gold, but there is what seems to be a boss fight blocking the way. Oh, well. And I guess this is number four out of five guardians. I should note that Umiushi means "sea slug". Good news is that like the last one, this guy also doesn't have anything particularly dangerous. It does seem that Makigai is the worst fight out of these five due to that insane lightning attack that he has. This guy however, doesn't even have a special animation for his regular attack, against which you can use any of the usual strategies: kongo, reflecting mirror, red shadow, take your pick. He simply isn't going to be doing enough damage to you to cause a problem. Apart from that the only other thing is this...  ...a "slowly spreading umbrella", which expectedly boosts his defence by a lot for a few turns. But in the end, the only thing that prolongs this battle is his high HP. Yeah, yeah. The way forward is now open, though. It leads, however, simply to another ladder. It actually might be a good idea to go back out and rest at the inn before returning here to continue. However, I decide to stop briefly and check out the weapon shop. They have this nice Uesugi body armour here for sale, so since we can afford it, I decide to go for it. By the way, Uesugi was a powerful samurai clan during the Sengoku period of Japanese history. Anyway, it's +5 in defence compared to the previous setup, but again since the damage calculation is not linear, that can actually make a big difference in certain situations. Back to the ladder, though. Let's see where it leads. Well, first of all, it leads to one last boss fight here, the fifth guardian! Surprisingly, he actually has less HP than the last boss. But either way, this is not too bad. "Dokushin" means "poison stinger", and in this case, it's his spiky hair.  The main attack is earthquake. It can attack one or both of your party members for normal damage. So just be a bit careful because of this ability to often attack both party members. Other than that...  ...he can fire his spikes at you and poison you. But I never find poison to be a big deal in this game as it only deals 1-2 HP damage in each turn. So you can mostly ignore the fact that you're poisoned and not waste time on clearing the status effect--especially since you are likely to get it again in a few turns. Just keep an eye on your health to make sure you can withstand the attack with both party members and you should be good here. Sure, sure. I just need some gold from here! The road is again clear... ...until it's not. But no problem. We got some explosives earlier.  So that solves that, and then we can just take the next ladder down that you see right there. And finally, two chests. Don't worry about that third one in the lower corner, some of the chests containing consumables in this dungeon refresh every time you come in. Well, looks like we got what we came here for! The other chest has 2,200 ryo so that's not bad either. Anyway, we can exit from here, and luckily no more random encounters either. All right then. Looks like our next task is to go back to Sanjou and give this to Denjirou so he can make us a tool that can detect the Phantasm Castle location. It has taken quite a while, but looks like we're close to being done with the third orchid. So, that's it for today, take care and see you next time!
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May 24, 2023 22:34
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The sprite work for this game is really great, and it keeps surprising with goofy stuff like the minecart ride. I also absolutely love the sea tub music. I'm assuming that the fifth of Princess Clam's elite goons is a sea urchin... but what animal is the third supposed to be? Sea cucumber?
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May 24, 2023 23:29
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PurpleXVI posted:I'm assuming that the fifth of Princess Clam's elite goons is a sea urchin... but what animal is the third supposed to be? Sea cucumber? Yes on both. I forgot to mention it, but the name of the third guardian, "Namako" in Japanese means exactly "sea cucumber".
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May 24, 2023 23:36
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One more part for the eventual giant robot formed from discarded vehicles. The tub didn't last but it'll be fondly remembered.
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May 25, 2023 02:54
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I'm starting to have fun with these out-of-context previews images from the next updates, so here is another one from the upcoming episode: Manjimaru and Gokuraku... go to space? Maybe?
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May 30, 2023 20:49
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Well, it's a JRPG, you gotta go to space and kill god eventually, may as well get one of those out of the way.
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May 30, 2023 22:55
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"we're going to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by the root clan..."
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May 31, 2023 05:51
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ivantod posted:I'm starting to have fun with these out-of-context previews images from the next updates, so here is another one from the upcoming episode: "Team Manjimaru blasting off agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiinnnn... *bling*"
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May 31, 2023 13:27
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 Previously, Manjimaru and Gokuraku reached the village of Sanjou, where there lives an inventor by the name of Denjirou, who might be able to construct a device for us to find the Phantasm Castle. Upon arriving, it turned out that he's quite ill and not really able to work! Luckily we had some flowers in our pocket and were able to use them to make a medication which "brings people back from the dead"! Unfortunately, then it turned out that he needs some kind of special gold, so we had to go and get THAT too. It involved going deep into a mine, but we did that too! So now, let's head back to Sanjou and see what kind of device he will make for us!   Ah, good, he's back on his feet! And then, a few moments later... Manjimaru obtained the electromagnetic compass! All right, finally! Also, there is a bit of a wordplay going on here, but it only works in kanji. The name of the inventor is Denjirou (電二郎). The last character 郎 (-rou) just means son (a vey common suffix for male Japanese names), so the "prefix" is "Denji" (電二). But, "denji" can also be written as 電磁 in which case it means "electromagnet". So the name of the item we just got, 電二磁石, purely from the reading, can be understood either as "Denji compass" or also as "electromagnetic compass".  Well, let's see. There's not really anything else left to do right now but to finally look for the Phantasm Castle. We're just outside of Sanjou, so let's try using the compass.  Well, no, it's not around here. But where is it, then? The only hint we really have is that area where there was a whole bunch of fake ones. So maybe let's go there and see what happens?  Quite a lot has been going on in this chapter, so maybe you don't remember it any more, but in any case, it was here, near Bijodaira in Etchuu province! So if we use the compass here...  This is more promising! Anyway, these are actual in-game steps that you character takes, so all in all a pretty easy direction to follow.  And following it takes us to this somewhat conspicuous looking mountain. Using the compass again...  ...causes the castle to finally reveal itself!  Let's go in!  [THE PHANTASM CASTLE] As always, we get a nice title screen for the castle, but check out those clam things at the top!  Inside, though...  ...things look just a bit odd as we're suddenly in the middle of a large field! Presumably that is all an illusion so we should not be too worried I guess. We also have our welcoming committee here, as always!  With this, he leaves and we're free to explore. Despite how he made it sound just now, in actuality this castle is far simpler to navigate around than both previous ones! If you want a piece of advice from me, well, here it is. First of all, as you might expect, while we navigate the castle, we'll have to fight again all the bosses from this part of the game, which in this case means all five of them! Therefore, here are the two suggestions: (1) Definitely bring with you a few MP recovery items, as you'll need to rely on your spells a lot here for things like kongo and healing--there are a couple of quite powerful random enemies here too! And (2): don't hesitate after defeating the boss to just leave and go rest at the inn before coming back to continue. As I'll explain in a few moments, the structure of the castle is such that it actually facilitates (and almost encourages you to do exactly this)!  So, as we take a look around on this vast field...  More accurately, this is a type of mask used as part of traditional Japanese "bugaku" dance. They are not super strong, however: they are able to use the "Manjushri" spell (文殊). In buddhism, "Manjushri" is a Bodhisattva which represents "trascedent wisdom", so as you can probably guess, this spell increases the magic power of the entire party (of enemies)! That could be a problem in some situations, for sure!   Oh my lord, what even are you! A many eyed insect of some sort? Anyway, be careful with these as they are quite powerful and without applying "kongo", would easily annihilate you (their default attack hits for 60+ HP)! Plus they have a lower damage attack ("shining eyes") which hits the entiry party! Wow. Anyway, when random battles in the castle are concerned, these guys will truly be the bane of your existence! They almost always appear in a pair like this.   This is a pretty annoying combination: the "girls" like to cast fire spells, and the mask will keep boosting their magic power. Luckily, we can get rid of the girls by casting the "sudden thunder" spell which we got last time. It's quite powerful and will one-shot all three of them in one turn. It does cost a good amount of MP (14), but hey we brought a whole bunch of MP recovery items for that very reason, right? In any case, as you randomly walk around...  ...eventually you'll find a little hut like this. SO let's see what's inside!  Oh, it's just a woman. So yeah, in the middle of the conversation she reveals herselve to actually be one of the five losers.  Obviously, a rematch. But his stats and attacks haven't changed, and we're a couple of levels higher, so just do the same as before and you'll win.  After defeating him...  ...the illusion goes away and we see just a normal dungeon floor. But it's quite small and the only option is a staircase down! Basically, each of the bosses is one of those "illusory" floors and once defeated, that floor completely goes away! This is why I said to not be shy about going out to heal and coming back. Due to this kind of mechanic, it's very easy to come back and just pick up where you stopped!  So we just have this kind of short connecting segment...   ...until we reach the next "illusory" floor.  And then it's just a matter of walking around, until you find the next "hut"!  Looks like a similar situation... And of course...  Again, this is just a repeat of the same battle we've already done, so we'll just get past it as quickly as possible. After we win...   And we move on. Either pop out to rest and recharge or alternately use some of those MP replenishing items and keep going.  As always, through a connecting passage...  ..to reach our next illusory floor, this time with a forest theme!  Here we go!  You already know how this works!  Oh, it's you again. Well, just be careful of the lightning attack (or wear Benimaru's cloak) and he's really not got anything else to offer. Finally...  Let's keep going.  That chest there contains a piece of equipment, "Yaksha's Black Garb". Yaksha is kind of benevolent/mischievous spirit being in Buddhism, but for us, we don't want to equip this (even if it does have stronger defence: it gives us +10 compared to our current equipment!), since it's another cursed piece of equipment. Wearing this one has an additional hidden effect of disabling your magic spells while worn. Obviously, this would be fine for Gokuraku since he can't use spells anyway, but... he also can't wear normal clothes, so it doesn't work. For other characters, we don't really want to disable their spells (as you've seen, they are absolutely essential to any battle, even many of the random ones too), so unfortunately this will have to go into the garbage.  In the meantime, a new enemy! And check out that name! It is however, not a threat compared to the many eyed insects.  Anyway, our next floor is...  ...a bit like the bottom of the sea.  Some more new enemies! You're definitely going to want to use some buffs here as these guys can (and will) summon more of themselves, so that can put you into a bit of situation!   Anyway, here's the hut for this floor!   The river Sanzu, Buddhist equivalent of river Styx. In any case, this fight, too, is the same as before, so not much special to say about it. But he, like the others, this time has a different dialogue upon defeat.  Let's be on our way.  Here we have a slightly different layout.  But as soon as we pass through this entryway...  ...we are teleported to our next illusory floor. This time, we're in space. Somehow.  Lots of different enemies to be found here! Pretty strong and appear in large groups.   This is one of the weaker enemies, luckily.   Anyway, here we are at our fifth (and actually last) hut.   As expected, here is the fifth and final boss, also same as before. After the defeat...   And like the others, this illusion too disapperas.  There is a chest here and it contains a piece of armour for Manjimaru. Its name (幽谷の鎧), technically it means "deep valley armour", but it can be interpreted also as "ghost valley armour". Despite the name, it's not actually cursed, and in fact...  ...it's actually a super nice +8 upgrade in defence! We're definitely going to need it!  Let's head upstairs.  Soon, we reach another dream floor, this time, it seems, based on Manjimaru's home village. It's been quite a while since we've visited.  But the doors to most houses are closed, so we can't go in.  The door to Manjimaru's house is open, though. I'm sure nothing bad will happen when we go in, right?  Inside, we find Manjimaru's mother, so let's see what she says! All right, so let's not pretend that we don't know that this person is actually Princess Clam. There is clearly a boss battle coming up shortly, so I will tell you that if you eat the rice balls, you will start the battle with your HP halved. This time, if you say yes, you will start the battle without any of your equipment. If you say yes here, you will start the battle in "sleep" status. As you can see, all three of these are quite bad, but I should mention that they are not cumulative. As soon as you say "yes" for the first time, the relevant negative effect will be applied and the battle will start immediately. However, for us, there will be no negative effects since we said "no" to everything. Instead...  And then she, of course, reveals her true form!  And here we...  ...go! Unlike the rematches, this fight is not so easy. First of all, hope you got some of those MP restore items, because you'll probably need them here. Her HP is highest so far of all bosses and she has some pretty damaging attacks, so healing will be necessary, certainly including the "sunrise" spell which, as we recall, is 20 MP a cast! Obviously, maintaining the "kongo" status is a must too. Apart from the MP restore items, you probably want to bring a few of the status healing items, since she has a pretty nasty ability to silence your magic ("Princess clam's eyes shine with corrupted light!"), which is really bad, as once again the spells are absolutely needed here and I don't see how you can even win this without using them (of course, I mean without massive overlevel). Of course, if Gokuraku is hit with this, you can completely ignore it, since he can't cast any spells anyway. I find it quite interesting that in this game, you really need to use both magic and physical attacks if you want to win against most bosses. Replacing spells with items is not a viable option due to a very limited amount of items you can carry with you.  "Princess Clam's slender arms go wild" is a very annoying attack which bypasses defence to deal ~50HP to each party member. She also has no problem to use this two or three times in a row. Therefore being well healed is essential here. The easiest way to lose this fight is to fail to keep up with the healing. This does mean to use the "sunrise" spell when needed, that's why we brought MP restoratives with us. That's mostly all there is here, apart from that, it's mostly a race to keep up with her damage while trying to damage her instead. She has decently high agility, so will be getting a fair amount of turns.  Anyway, after the battle:  Of course, there is a second phase! But, even at this point, it's still possible to go out and rest and heal and then come back and continue.  But even while I'm looking to exit...  ...somehow, I manage to trigger a random battle. Groan. One of the enemies seems to be just a floating lump of fat?  Anyway, while you're restocking, don't forget the MP recovery items. Status effects are not an issue in the second phase, though. On the upper floor, we find this...  Going inside...  ...we find, that Princess Clam has apparently managed to capture Kabuki! Or, to be more precise, two Kabukis!  Ok, but, you're both telling me the other is a fake? How does that work? Well, let's try talking to each of them individually. First the one on the right.  Hmm... no, that doesn't sound quite right. Let's try the one on the left.  Ah, yeah, that sounds a bit more likely. After hearing them both out, the game asks us. Which Kabuki will you attack? You're, of course, supposed to use your powers of deduction to realise that the real Kabuki absolutely does not have the word "sorry" in his dictionary. Or maybe you can simply conclude that the Kabuki with the "correctly" oriented portrait (as opposed to the mirrored one) is the true one. Either way the one on the right is the impostor and we should attack him! And thus, Princess Clam reveals to us her actual true form!  (By the way, it's not your ears. The sound mixing/quality in this scene is very poor for some reason.) This segues directly into our next boss battle, against the very same true form! Also, the real Kabuki is still tied up, so no, you don't get to have him join the battle, unfortunately.  This fight is, in some ways, actually easier than phase one. As it turns out, although her defence is higher now (so you'll be doing less damage), in fact both her attack and agility are lower than last time! Lower agility is nice as it means she won't be getting as many turns any more! Her normal attack, "Princess Clam slowly stretches out her tentacles", deals about 50 damage to one party member, however, due to her lower attack stat it can be even more effectively neutralised by the "kongo" spell. As last time, she has a couple of special attacks, too.  "Princess Clam spits out red saliva!" This doesn't actually do any damage, but may put one party member to sleep. However it seems to have a very low actual hit rate, so it isn't something to worry about too much.  "Princess Clam's many tentacles attack rushing out for blood!". It's similar to her previous special attack in that it deals about 45-50 HP to each party member, bypassing defence. Again, it's worth noting that she can do this several times in a row so be careful. These are all of her attacks, so like last time, from here on it's just a matter of not falling behind with the healing, as once you fall back it will be difficult to catch up with her damage.   And that's the end of Princess Clam.  As for us, we have a holy sword to pick up (and maybe a Kabuki to free, but I'll think about that one). Sure, let's check on Kabuki first.  Well, all right. Let's just get the sword then.  As always, the ghost of the Fire Clan hero from a thousand years ago speaks to us!  Manjimaru learned a new sword technique: Yoshitsune Slash! Also, with a new holy sword, Manjimaru also learns a new technique. This one allows to hit a whole group of enemies at once, but the hit rate decreases with the number of enemies present in the group! And now, finally, Kabuki...  ...who somehow manages to free himself! But the news is not good, because...  Oh, sorry, did you think he was actually going to rejoin the party now? Nope, it's still going to be a while before that happens! In any case, we're really done with the Phantasm Castle and can now leave.  As usual, the castle crumbles to dust. Surprisingly, Gokuraku has a comment to make.  And we will. But before that... I am sure almost all players of this game completely miss this next bit, but as it turns out... you can go back to the Mermaid village at this point and get just a tiny little bit more story about Princess Clam! Mermaid village is a bit out of the way, and there's not really a reason to expect anything special there at this moment in the game, so you wouldn't thnink to go there really. However, if you do, you can get a couple of new bits of dialogue!   So that's pretty interesting. Anyway, our next stop before going to the Dark Orchid will be in the village of Bijodaira. If you recall, it's the place where all beautiful women were turned into clams, and now I guess we understand a bit better the motives behind doing such a thing.  Let's see who we can find.  Here are a couple of "beautiful women" restored to their normal appearance, rather than being turned into clams. They all say the same thing! Man, this guy.  This guy also here has a bit of a funny comment. So, these two people are the parents of that girl named Miho who was supposed to get married, but was unable to do so when turned into a clam. Let's check out the situation now. First the wife. And then the husband. That's more or less a few interesting bits of dialogue here after Princess Clam is defeated. All right, now let's just go and finally deal with the dark orchid number three. Does anybody even remember at this point where it was in the first place?  It was in fact over here, in the village of Fukui in the Echizen province! Remember, the place where all the monks from the temple were praying for some sort of miracle? Yeah, that place.  It's time to end this!  And that's the end of the yellow orchid. That's Majimaru jumping to hit it, but the animation is not very detailed.  And there we go, things are back to normal here, well, other than that gaping crater that remains, but still. This is the third orchid done, and it sure took quite some effort to get to this point. Nevertheless, we still have four remaining to deal with. No, it's not always going to take this long, don't worry. We should definitely have a look around and see what new things people have to say here!  Like our ninja friend here! Well that's good to know, at least gives us some idea where we might try going next.  And also this gentleman here. Well now, that's also good to know, since we were told we should go a visit Kyoto during the new year season, too. We're hearing quite a lot about this person(?) living in Mt. Ooe, but a lot of it seems a bit wild. So I guess we'll have to go and see for ourselves.    Also this guy here who wasn't feeling too well because all his life energy was being sucked away by Yomi. And his son... Hmm, yes, we had those two lottery tickets, but one was left with Kabuki who took it with him... Anyway, we'll leave this place for now. We have a few options where to go next, but before we do either of them, let's first visit a couple of places which were previously not accessible due to orchid roots blocking the path!  In Etchuu province, south of Kanazawa, there is this narrow pass between the mountains which we can now go through!  Rather unsurprisinly, it leads to another Tengu's hut!  Manjimaru obtained the "thousand hot springs" spell! This is another debuff spell, and it reduces slightly one enemy's magic power temporarily. So it's another one of those very situational spells that you may or may not find a use for. As it turns out, we have another Tengu which now accessible, so let's go and do that quickly.  This one is located in that very narrow valley southeast from Kyoto (the big thing in the west), on the eastern edge of the map.  Here. Except I forgot I don't have any free spell slots, so I had to trek all the way back to Kyoto to drop one spell off in storage and then all the way back here again! Anyway, we're here now.  Manjimaru obtained the "thunder and lightning" spell! I probably don't have to explain in great detail this spell is simply another variant of the lightning based attack! Anyway, we're done with cleanup for now, so I guess let's first head to Kyoto to see what's going on during the new year holiday time.  Here we go.  Inside, we make a beeline for the hotel, since truly we've done a lot and we can relax for a bit!  But inside are... all five shady merchant brothers! I'm not sure what to make of this, honestly. But in any case, they leave after this.  I just want to go to sleep, how hard can it be? Let's just finally talk to the innkeeper (ryokankeeper?). I never mentioned anything specific about it, but prices of inns vary across towns, generally they will be more expensive in bigger towns, but sometimes there is more than one inn in a town so you should check which one has the cheapest price. Although generally they are all pretty cheap--88 ryo is actually one of the most expensive inns we've seen so far. In Japanese folklore, the first dream in a new year supposedly foretells the persons future for that upcoming year. As you can imagine with all this preamble, sleeping at the inn goes this time a bit different than usual. In fact, this time, Manjimaru really does have a dream!  A dream, a premonition, or a message? Who knows, but we certainly can make some educated guesses at who exactly she might be! In fact, why don't we make following this dream to be our next goal in the game? That sounds good to me.  But for now, we'll stop here. Next time we'll continue to have a look around Kyoto and see what's going on during the new year celebrations. And you know what else? I'm getting truly tired of only having two party members. We're getting close to halfway through the game and STILL haven't managed to properly gather our party. So we'll make some movement finally on that front too next time! Take care and see you soon!
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Jun 6, 2023 22:20
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Poor Princess Clam.
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Jun 6, 2023 23:51
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PurpleXVI posted:Poor Princess Clam.  I more or less saw the twist coming, though I expected her to be the big guy's ex-wife. Also, oh nooo, Kabuki didn't come back, whatever shall we doooo~. 
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Jun 7, 2023 00:13
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Those two... things going off the side of Princess Clam's human sprite keep making me think of those AI generated photos where people had extra limbs. Amd does this mean her human form was technically just her tounge?
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Jun 7, 2023 04:13
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Randalor posted:Those two... things going off the side of Princess Clam's human sprite keep making me think of those AI generated photos where people had extra limbs. Amd does this mean her human form was technically just her tounge? Clams usually have a pair of siphons that they use for inhaling and exhaling water as part of their filter feeding, even if in most cases they're hidden by the shell, so I imagine they're what we can see.
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Jun 7, 2023 09:37
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PurpleXVI posted:Clams usually have a pair of siphons that they use for inhaling and exhaling water as part of their filter feeding, even if in most cases they're hidden by the shell, so I imagine they're what we can see. Neat! ... still reminds me of the extra limbs in AI images.
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Jun 7, 2023 11:27
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Randalor posted:Neat! ... still reminds me of the extra limbs in AI images. Oh, yeah, for sure, but I need to share my extensive collection of largely-pointless trivia every now and then.
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Jun 7, 2023 15:33
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Yes! Again, it's time for... Screenshot from the next update, posted out of context! Yes, I am truly having fun with this, so I might keep doing it. Obviously, any real spoilers will be avoided, so you don't have to worry when looking at this. Here's one from the next update. I've been mentioning that we're very close to our next party member, so...  ...maybe not quite the kind of party member you expected to see?
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Jun 11, 2023 19:43
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...okay I did not expect that. Now I'm deeply excited for the next update(I already was, but now even more so!).
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Jun 11, 2023 20:27
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Huh, so maybe you do get a dog party member and cause trouble in the Tanuki village?
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Jun 11, 2023 21:30
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Fire Brave dog! Fire Brave dog! Fire Brave dog!
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Jun 12, 2023 01:11
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...And like that, we've already found a suitable replacement for Kabuki. /shittalk But yeah, like the other poster said, I'm guessing we're hitting Tanuki village
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Jun 12, 2023 08:25
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No, no, you were right, that's not shittalk. The dog is probably more loyal than him too. I'm sorry, that was mean. The dog is DEFINITELY more loyal than him, my apologies to future party member doggo.
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Jun 12, 2023 12:09
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Sorry to disappoint, but doggo has definitely nothing to with the tanuki village. In fact it's a bit of a combination of how it worked with Rinoa and also a bit how the dogs worked in Linda³ (like a few other things in this game, this too is a proto-version of a mechanic that got a bit more refined a couple of years later in Linda³). I think this should give you enough hints to deduce what this is all about!
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Jun 12, 2023 22:28
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You know, I didn't have "a dog with a hulking arm as big as the dog" on lists of things to see, but apparently that's what I'm gonna get! That is what you were referring to, right?
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Jun 12, 2023 23:04
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Randalor posted:You know, I didn't have "a dog with a hulking arm as big as the dog" on lists of things to see, but apparently that's what I'm gonna get! Basically what I meant is the following: - The Rinoa thing: Dog's behaviour in the party is somewhat dependent on the state of its human (like Rinoa and Angelo in Final Fantasy VIII) - The Linda³ thing: The dog is not just a decoration, but an actual party member, and will act on its turn in battles, but like in Linda you can't issue commands to it.
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Jun 12, 2023 23:28
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But can we pet the dog?
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Jun 13, 2023 00:02
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ivantod posted:Basically what I meant is the following: Awwww, I was looking forward ro the dog having its leg cut off, a monstrous arm attached, it runs away and the next time we see it, it had become the head of a giant gang.
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Jun 13, 2023 00:15
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Randalor posted:Awwww, I was looking forward ro the dog having its leg cut off, a monstrous arm attached, it runs away and the next time we see it, it had become the head of a giant gang. No no, that would only apply if there was an impending apocalypse coming. ...I mean, sure, you could argue that the poo poo the dark clan is pulling could be construed as a possible incoming apocalypse, but no, we kind of have ancient ancestral blood and possibly a prophecy on our side. ...I might need a fact check on the prophecy part.
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Jun 13, 2023 03:43
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 Previously, we finally managed to reach the Phantasm Castle and eventually after a couple of fights with Princess Clam, to obtain the third holy sword. This in turn allowed us to (finally) get rid of the third orchid. It sure did take a while, this one. As we continue, we find Manjimaru and Gokuraku back in Kyoto during the new year celebrations. The first dream of the new year, at least for Manjimaru, consisted of a vision (?) of a young woman saying something, but we couldn't hear what. As we approach the halfway point of this game, somehow, somehow, we still don't have our full party gathered and have still been struggling a bit with just two party members. This has kind of forced us to push Manjimaru into a semi-support role in fights, which is not great as if he's doing support stuff, he's not able to do damage at the same time, of course. So in today's episode, we'll be looking to finally significantly improve our party situation and also to fight a boss that some consider the first big difficulty spike in this game (but actually, I disagree--we'll talk about that more when we get to it). Anyway, it's going to be a very long one, so best get comfortable!  Here we are, in front of the inn. So let's see what people have to say about things today, starting with the grandpa there by the door. As mentioned last time, 88 ryo for an inn stay is horrendously expensive (like everything in Kyoto, I guess). Normally an inn would not cost more than 20ish ryo and there are many which are under 10! However, if you want to see that cutscene, you gotta pay for it. It's not mandatory though and the course of the game doesn't change even if you skip it. Now let's see what the other three people around here have to say. The dream cutscene is definitely skippable, but the game sure as heck is trying to make sure you don't accidentally skip it! Then let's talk to the girl there. I have my doubts about this, but certainly there's room to worry that he's still going to steal the boat from us that we could have used. Then we'd have to found an alternate means of transport and our bathtub maker is left back on Sado island! Worry not, we'll use this time something much better than a boat! Although it depicted a woman, I really don't think that's what the dream was about at all!  There are a few younger women around the town (like this one and the one on the previous screenshot), but they all say the same thing about getting a New Year card from Kabuki! So, a typical situation for him. The building that she's standing in front is, you might recall, the mercantile exchange. We skipped that last time, but let's go in and have a look now!  Looks cool in here. Let's start with two people on the left side. I see. Unfortunately, as we'll soon see, like in real life investments, you "gotta have money to make money", so it's not quite that easy. The other guy: We'll check out later some of the new equipment they have for sale here, and by that I mean, we'll stare longingly at it since the prices are way out of our budget. But no worries though, the game difficulty is balanced around you NOT having it and it actually makes the game too easy if you do buy it at this point in the game. Although the game is generally not on the easier side of the spectrum, I still think the difficulty balance is quite ok for the most part and excessive grinding is generally not needed. The most I've ever had to do is get up an extra level for a little bit of breathing room in an upcoming boss fight, but that's about it. And one last person before we talk to the guy behind the counter. And now let's talk to the guy behind the counter and find out more about how this works. First, we can ask for an explanation. Well, ok, we could have figured it out ourselves, I guess. If we choose to trade, then we are presented with this screen:  This is all very simple, really. On the left are the four commodities (rice, wheat, soya beans and salt). Underneath are commands to buy and sel and in the middle we have the current prices of all goods, including the historcal high and low price for each (reminder: 両 kanji is the currency "symbol" for ryo). And, well, you can basically buy and sell those certificates of ownership we've seen before. Certificates are sold in units of 1, 10 and 100 units. So if a unit price is 100, then for 10,000 you can buy one certificate of 100 units--this is the way to ease a bit the limited inventory problem. The other problem, which should be obvious by now, is that the only way to profit here is to really put in a lot (certainly on the order of several 10,000 ryo). Otherwise any winnings will be entirely negligble when compared how much you can earn from a random battle at this stage in the game. We do have a few of those certificates, but they are all for a single unit of whatever commodity. Therefore even selling them will not net us any kind of amount that makes it worth the effort. On a side note, as you can see, Shoji Masuda, one of the main designers of this game, already had the propensity for inclusion of unexpected real-life mechanics in his games. Of course, this was later take to the next level in Linda. Let's continue by stopping by (one of the several) weapon shop.  We do not have money for the crazy good equipment (which I will show you in a little bit), but we do have money for this: "the famous seven-body sword". This name has a basis in actual Japanese history: the body (胴) is a 17th century sword sharpness "measure". It describes how many stacked human corpses a sword can cut through in a single stroke. Apparently the record cutting was recorded in the year 1681, and the record was seven corpses. So I guess our new sword should be pretty good since it can also cut seven! (By the way, for these tests, corpses of decaptiated criminals were used.)  As for in-game, it provides a +8 upgrade to our attack from what we currently have, so it's indeed not too bad! Let's continue talking to people. We'll only be stopping by those who have something new to say...  ...such as this gentleman here. He's talking about that rich family's daughter for whom you can buy expensive gifts! Although we'll pay her a brief visit today, it's better to wait with any gifts for the time being!  And while we're here, let's remind ourselves of that other plot strand here in Kyoto: Ayako, who apparently ended up marrying a demon; and a more recent event of Taikun sending a demon suppression team to Mt. Ooe here in the vicinity. Unlike the gift thing, we'll definitely make quite a bit of progress on this one today.  Certainly something we want to tackle, but today we have some rather important other business to take care about!  Going back to the hotel, a few new things are to be heard here. First the person on the right. That's good to hear, especially as we'll need to make our way to Kameoka also today! Incidentally, Kameoka (亀岡) means "turtle hill". And then, two guys attempting to sleep. This is a tale from the Japanese mythology. The god Susanoo (須佐之男) is the brother of sun-goddess Amaterasu (天照) in Shinto mythology. The other guy: Uh, yeah, I'm sure that's what it is... We can also go upstairs for one more person:  He's got things a little bit mixed up here. The correct phrase is 一富士二鷹三茄子, which means: "First Mt. Fuji, second a hawk and third an eggplant", as a list of things in order of "luck level" to see in a dream (i.e. Mt. Fuji is the luckiest) and even more so if it's the first dream of the new year! It's kind of a Japanese proverb/saying, but nobody seems quite sure how the darn eggplant made its way in there! This hotel is today just a treasure trove of Japanese folklore, isn't it?  In one of the other hotels, we can disturb a couple more people trying to sleep! I'm glad I'm not the only on complaining about the ripoff price at the other inn. However, to be fair, you can earn several times 88 ryo in just one random battle right now, so maybe I should stop complaining.  But in this house here, we now have something special.  Despite the name of the newspaper, they have articles on general topics/events from around Jipang. It costs 90 ryo to read each article, but honestly you can just save the game, read everything and then reload! However, their claims about having the most accurate information in Jipang are... somewhat dubious, to say the least. There are a few articles available already, so let's read them all! SHOCKING APPEARANCE OF A HUMAN FACED FLOWER IN HIDA PROVINCE! During the stay of Master Tycoon in Takayama, a human-faced flower called the dark orchid has appeared! Is this a new village revitalisation attempt to follow after the failure of the human-faced fish? The residents of Kyoto feel that it is just the kind of an idea that a country bumpkin would come up with! BREAKING NEWS! DEMON BONE CASTLE DEFEATED! A new champ is borm! Manjimaru, a delinquent youth from Hida, achieves complete victory! The Demon Bone Castle is KOd! The monster from the castle had a skinny body, consisting only of bones, so those with the knowledge of the situation indicate that his bad diet may have had something to do with his demise! NI HAO FIRE CLAN! Fire Clan members have visited Kyoto from China and enjoyed their time with geisha entertainment in Gion! The residents of Kyoto were impressed with the strength of the Fire Heroes! THE ELOPEMENT OF LOVE: KABUKI AND PRINCESS CLAM! At the same time of Princess Clam's Phantasm Castle's disappearance, Kabuki Danjurou's whereabouts had also become unknown. Kabuki who seems to have ran away from his fans, has indicated: "I don't care if I switch to Root Clan!", before eloping with Princess Clam. A SECRET MEETING DISCOVERED! Manjimaru, a member of the Fire Clan, has recently been spending his days enjoying himself in the chamber of goddess Benten! Has even the Fire Clan been taken out of action by the sex appeal of a mature woman? It looks like the defeat of the Root Clan will have to be postponed by a few weeks! PINK TORNADO ARRIVES IN JIPANG FOR THE FIRST TIME! A pink tornado has been flying around the Ise province, but its true identity is that of a show-off Yankee named Kikugorou! Apparently, he's the former member of Pink Lady bodyguards and industry sources say that he's a particular fan of Pink Lady Kei! FURIOUS JAILBREAK OF GOKURAKU TAROU! One of the Fire Clan members, Gokuraku Tarou, escaped from his prison in mermaid village and kidnapped the princess (16) in the process! Gokuraku is a middle aged man who has lived without a woman for a thousand years, so the princess's safety is a worry! Notes: - Gion: Entertainment district in Kyoto, for a number of centuries already. Notably NOT depicted in the game version of Kyoto. - Pink Lady: A Japanese pop duo from mid-1970s. "Pink Lady Kei" is Keiko Masuda, one half of the duo. (Despite sharing the last name, not related to this game's designer). Anyway, as you can see, all of these are wildly inaccurate and have only a very strenuous connection with reality. Nevertheless, they are pretty funny, so we'll stop by here again to read any new articles that appear over the course of the game! Well, all right. Let's keep moving.  As you recall, Kyoto has four districts in the game, so let's move on to the shrine district now.  The building behind is the school, so let's go in a check it out. Last time it was not in session...  ...but now it is! Let's see first with the teacher. Sure, let's talk to the kids. They're going all in with this proverb today, aren't they? Don't forget that they're being taught English by that silly missionary! Incidentally, also what Manjimaru shouted upon cutting down the first orchid! Lot's of things need explaining today, but at least this one is easy: 謹賀新年 (pronounced as "kin ga shin'nen") is one way to say "Happy new year" in Japanese, whereas the "(I) believe in money" phrase that the kid mentions is written as 金が信念. Despite using different kanji, the pronunciation of both phrases is completely identical, hence this completely untranslatable joke!   The monks all say the same thing ("namu" is like a Buddhist version of "amen" or something like that): Uh...  We also find some more people outside. Oh man, what in the world is Kabuki now up to?  Well, 10,000 ryo is not a super huge amount, although I wouldn't throw it away for sure. Anyway, I almost forgot about this, but we received two tickets from those girls. One was no. 33, which we still have, and the other one, with the number 34, was taken by Kabuki so its whereabouts are currently unknown. We'll go and check if we won anything in a moment.  Let's see, over here are three monks. The third one just repeats the thing about checking the results of the lottery. But we can do that by reading what's on the white sign there: Winning Numbers: 1st prize: 34 2nd prize: 29 65 3rd prize: 85 46 71 4th prize: 50 38 33 If you have a winning ticket, please talk to the lottery clerk at this shrine. Prizes can be claimed until the end of April. Well then, looks like the ticket Kabuki took with him (34) won the 1st prize. The one Manjimaru still has with him (33) won the 4th prize. I mean we should still claim it, but really how much can it be? Let's check out those two shrine buildings.  First the person on the left. The person on the right gives out the lottery prizes. We do have the ticket number 33 at least with us. Let's see how much we got. Now the game is just taking the piss with this whole thing! What am I going to do with 8 ryo? Anyway, the lady at the top is selling the fortune slips for 10 ryo. There is eight different ones you can get and they all have different sayings on them. However, their content is a bit on the obscure side, so I will skip them for now and include later as an extra when I've had time to look into it a bit more. In the other temple is another woman selling fortune slips, but this one let's you buy them for 0, 1, 10, 100 or 1000 ryo and then just tells you something like "May you have the X ryo of fortune", where X is the amount you paid. This concludes our visit to the shrine district. Let's continue with the residential part of town.  As usual we'll start with these people outside. Well, the game is doing nothing if not going in HARD on this whole story about a woman who married a demon! There better be a point to it all. (Spoiler: there is.)  And then this older gentleman in front of the mansion belonging to Ikeda... Really? I find that hard to believe. Anyway, let's go inside.  One person is over on this side...  Another person is over here with Ikeda... Hmm, so it seems that the force sent by Taikun to Mt. Ooe did something there, but it resulted in the apparent death of both Ayako and the demon who kidnapped her? Hmm. I think we'll need to check this out for ourselves. For now, let's talk to Ikeda. Let's visit a few more housees while we're here.   Both kids say the same thing:  Ah man is he going to steal the boat again and we'll have to find some other weird means of transportation. (Spoiler: yes he will and weird doesn't even begin to cover this one!) At a guess, they're probably talking about Hoteimaru the missionary. We'll pay him a visit shortly anyway.  In the big house here is of course Omir. But without buying an expensive item...  ...this is all you get to see. Also no access to those three chests there. I don't really want to spend stupid money on a useless item, so we'll try to see if there's another way around this problem...  Finally, this soldier-looking fellow. Yeah, that's actually a good question! Anyway, that's all in this part of town, so let's now head over to the slums!  Well, let's start. As discussed last time, Koshi is that name for the big area which later got split into Echizen, Etchuu and Echigo provinces that we've spent quite a bit of time traipsing around recently.  A bunch more people outside... Nicely, we're getting a few new destiations to look out for. Obviously, we should first head north to Mt. Ooe and checkout out the "bride of the demon" situation, but it looks like Inaba province will be our next target after that. Oh, go away! We also have the three people around the bonfire there.  All right, let's check the situation at Hoteimaru's house! Uh, sure. Let's go inside!  As usual, Hoteimaru is here with three elders, so let's talk to them first. And finally the last of the elders: Quite a lot of words here, but the most important thing is the mention of "The Heavenly Bridge". The Heavenly bridge, or Amano Hashidate (天の橋立) is, as I'm sure you can guess by now, an actually a real location in Japan. It's situated somewhat north of Kyoto and is a natural thin strip of land, that connects two sides of a bay. It looks like this:  By 663highland - Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12637624 The game version is actually going to be... quite different, as we'll soon see. Anyway, let's talk also to Hoteimaru to finish this off. As usual he talks in an infuriating nearly incomprehensible mixture of English and Japanese and just ugh.  Another future destination, I guess. But for now, the priorities are first Mt. Ooe and then Inaba province via the Heavenly Bridge (whatever that is!). And with this, incredibly, we are done exploring Kyoto for now and can move on. Before that, though, let me just show you some prices in the other weapon shop in town:  The highlighted item is "Secret Sword 'Mysterious Light'" and as you can see, apart from its comical price, it has 93 attack power (so about +20 to what Manjimaru currently has). In fact it CANNOT be equipped by Manjimaru as a weapon (you can see on top right Manjimaru's symbol 卍 is "greyed out"), however he can still use it as an item in battle in order to cast a very powerful fire spell on all enemies. If you have time, farming for money is pretty easy. Just go back to that cave, grab a golden scarab egg and bring it to that guy here in Kyoto, easy 10,000 ryo a piece and you'll have the money in no time. However, as mentioned, I really don't recommend it at this point as it will completely collapse the difficulty balance of the game for the next while. The authors have taken some care to keep the balance of the game on the relatively more difficult side, but it always feels just hard enough to be just about doable if you play normally. Using this sword for its spell will trivialise the encounters (including bosses) for quite some time until they catch up. Oh and... maybe you want to know, well, if not Manjimaru, then who can equip this weapon? We know it's not Gokuraku because he uses special equipment, so... it can't possibly be... Kabuki? Yes. Yes, it can. This is a Kabuki-exclusive weapon. So once he's back in our party, we can revisit this thing then, how about that?  In any case, here we are, just outside Kyoto, ready to head north! And not a moment too soon, either!  Crossing the bridge.  And here is the border corssing, which we previously couldn't access.  This the Kurama crossing. Indeed, in real life too, Mt. Kurama is just north of Kyoto. In Japanese "kurama" (鞍馬) means "saddled horse". But back to the topic at hand, this is just a small place with only an inn and an item shop. The people outside don't have much to say. We definitely do want to reach Kameoka, that's for sure. So with that in mind...  Welcome to Oomi province! After making just one step here...  ...we're immediately thrust into a random battle! Ah, yet another variant of those two headed snakes, huh? They seem to be a popular palette swap in this game. In any case, you can one shot all of them at once if you use our recently obtained lightning spell. However, they also like to summon more of themselves, so this is also not such a bad opportunity for grinding, if that's what you want to do, as you can get rid of the Cutter and just stay in this battle for a few minutes. One of them gives 62 exp, so you can easily get a couple of thousand exp if you take a few minutes. The cutter can silence your magic, so be careful of that.   Continuing just a bit north...  ...we come across a village.  As expected, this is Kameoka. Kameoka (亀岡) means "turtle hill". In any case, we're in a new territory here, so let's start gathering some info. As usual, we'll start with the people who are here. We've already heard that the Root Clan has turned it all into sand, so... No worries, we'll be able to use a much cooler way of travelling to Inaba province!    As always, we'll check out the houses too.   Ah, finally. We are about to get a proper next second level healing spell! We'll seek out the Tengu in a little bit. But, that's about it here. Before we go...  ...we'll pick up this thing for Gokuraku: "Lion dance headgear".  It's only a +1 in defence, but equipment for Gokuraku is pretty hard to come by, so...  Let's head further north, I suppose.  Obviously more new enemies pop up on the way. If you are wondering how can these possibly by mayflies, well, check out the tail. It's the right shape. They are a bit dangerous as they can cast a spell which does 80+ HP in damage.   A bit further north is another of those ninja hideouts where we can rest for free.   And here, if you haven't already figured it out, the game also gives you a hint. Most enemies hit too hard to be possible to easily be fought without at least some kind of a buff or debuff (which all of the listed spells are one or the other). Kongo has certainly been pretty much making a difference between life and death for a while now! Maybe you have forgotten, but this game does have a "left luggage" facility where you can leave items to free up your inventory. Although I haven't been mentioning it, I have been using it when needed (e.g. to store our lottery ticket while we were away from Kyoto). I like that these are also like mini-tutorial places. We have one last bit for today.  We'll continue this in the next post!
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Jun 26, 2023 22:51
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 Let's continue our journey! We can actually read that sign on the road.  Not a big fan of seafood myself, but still let's keep going...  ...and also running into random battles! The only thing I know about the name Najara is that it's a serpent kingdom in Forgotten Realms. So we'll just go with that. Using kongo pretty much neutralises these guys entirely.   Soon, we reach another village. But before going in... let's head a bit further north. 8:35  We reach what looks like a somewhat interesting location.  Approaching closer, it looks like something should be possible to happen here... but nothing does. It seems we may have to come here again a bit later. So I guess, let's head back to that village then.  Turns out, it's indeed Maizuru that we've been looking for! Again, let's gather some info. A bit random, but sure. Interesting. I guess we should try to find out more about this. But also, it seems the demons may have been running towards that thing we just visited?    Over here, we have this granny on the beach. We're definitely on our way there to check out the situation. For now, though, we'll talk to that girl on the pier. Why is everyone going gaga for Kabuki? I mean if they knew him like we know him...  Ah. Well then, do you think a demon's daughter would suffice here? Maybe we should ask her to come with us? You know, like a... party member? I don't know. We're getting a lot of cotradictory information about this whole demon marriage situation.  While we're here...  ...we'll pick up this thing for Gokuraku: "Low rank sumo wrestler's belt".  Again, it's only +2 in defence, but eh.  Of course, we stop by the inn too. Yeah, or maybe not quite so reliable is what I'm thinking by this point. This dude is pretty grim. Also, "there are rumours" is about the only thing we can actually be sure is true.  We should be heading west to Ayabe, but actually let's first head east!  On the way, of course more enemies. I should explain the name though: the stagehand is a person dressed in black, standing just off-stage during a Kabuki performance. Hence the way these enemies look. They are probably the weakest enemy here, and even Manjimaru can oneshot them. Most of the enemies around here have a level in high 30s, but this guy as you can see is level 26, so about 10 lower. No idea what he's doing here.   As mentioned, on the northern peninsula on the eastern side, there is a tengu's hut!  Manjimaru obtained the "breath" scroll! Well, this one has kind of already been spoiled for us, but it's finally a proper upgrade to our base heal spell. The "fresh breath" spell (息吹) heals one person for 150 HP for a cost of 7 MP. So this is not such a bad deal. Our base healing spell does 50 HP to one person and costs us (after two reductions) only 1 MP, so if you want to heal after a battle or such, it's still better to use that; however 150 HP is a lot, so if you're felling a squeeze during a battle, then this is just the ticket. Of course, there are still more MP usage reducing tengu in the world, so we can certainly improve this situation even more.  With this done, we can head back to Maizuru.  But this time we head west, across the bridge  And then turning south, we see a cave entrance and a village.  The village is of course Ayabe, which we were looking to find. We get some nice information from this lady.  To be clear, "Silk" here is a person's name, "Kinu" (絹) in Japanese.  Well, we were going that way anyway, but also, I suppose we can assume at this point that Silk is Ayako's daughter. This is even more clear in Japanese since one of the characters used to write the name Ayako (綾) also has to do with silk/satin/clothes.  So, turns out, there's a dog in the mix too. His name in Japanese is Shiro (シロ), but for some reason for both him and Silk, it feels more natural to use the translated version of their names. I don't really know why. Also, this thing about Whitey's strength is very true, as we'll soon see.   Is it just me, or have things, after nice and relaxed festive atmosphere in Kyoto, taken quite a dark turn lately? To quote Dr. Ian Malcolm: "Life finds a way.".  Finally, let's stop by the weapon shop. There's actually one other person than the vendor who we can talk to! As for the equipment...  ...we'll pick up these "gale straw sandals" for Manjimaru.  It gives us +2 in agility, which I guess is better than nothing. We're done here for now, so lets head out!  But we're not heading into that cave there, instead we'll proceed a bit further south.  Passing by some orchid roots...  ...we reach another cave!  But this one is just another tengu's dwelling! Manjimaru obtained the "moonlight" scroll! The "moonlight" (月光) scroll allows us to decrease attack power of one group of enemies. It only costs 7 MP, so we'll see if we can somehow make use of it.  And now, let's head back to that other cave that we walked past!  Welcome to Mt. Ooe, as expected it was right next to Ayabe village.  There actually are no random encounters here, so we can just walk through it freely. There are also no items or treasures to be found.  So we just go up and down a few floors, until...  ...until we reach the part with this symbol on the ground. As for what the symbol is... well, it certainly looks like a very, very ancient version of a certain kanji, most likely 火 (fire) or something like that, but I don't know much about this so I'm not really sure.  We reach this kind of area. It's the underground demon village. But all huts are already empty and have been looted, so there are no items to be found.  We do find a slightly larger one, though. Inside...  ...we find a person with a dog! It seems it's just who we were looking for!  Considering the level of messed up with this whole situation, her request is not too surprisng. So let's go back out.  But you might be wondering, where in the world is now Mt. Hiei and how long is this now going to take? In fact, we've already been to it, and it's actually just a bit east of Kyoto!  Here we are at Kyoto, so let's just head east!  Ah-ha!  You might remember this place from last time when we were here. But back then, we were told it's too early to come yet. Actually in both of these buildings there are a couple of people to talk to.    And now we go into the main building!  Manjimaru obtained The Chains of Purity! So that was pretty quick and easy, we got the item that Silk needed in order to bind her hands to prevent herself from attacking anyone. Therefore, let's head back to Mt. Ooe and bring this back to her. But, upon exiting...  ...a dog literally teleports in front of us!  What's... what's that in your mouth, buddy?  And so we read it. Mt. Ooe has been invaded by the Root Clan! It's dangerous to be here, so please don't come near it. As for me, nobody knew I was alive from the start anyway, so please continue the Fire Clan mission by yourselves. I beg you to please take care of Whitey for me. Farewell. Uhhh. Yeah, that's not how this is going to go. And Gokuraku agrees!  Oh, Gokuraku. But at least he's fun to be around, if nothing else! But also this:  Oh, yes!  Anyway, there's nothing else to do here, so let's head back to Mt. Ooe, together with the dog, of course. So you might be wondering how does the dog work in the party? Well, I will actually discuss that in a little bit, but for now let's say that at present, the dog will not do anything on his turn (nor can you give it orders), but it will act as a possible target for the enemies in addtion to Manjimaru and Gokuraku. So that already helps a bit as some hits will miss the other two characters. Apart from that Whitey is fully healed after each battle (or revived if he gets knocked out) wihtout you needing to do anything about it. Before we continue, I just quickly hop over to resupply the MP recovery items. You know what that means!  On the way there, of course more enemies. These are not super super hard, but they do have the ability to summon more and also high agility so can be difficult to hit. Not to mention the ability to inflict the "acid" status effect which just like a stronger poison more or less. So maybe not that easy in the end? By the way, no your're not having a déjà vu moment. These enemies look almost the same as the bees in Linda³.   All right, here we go. As expected, now there will be random encounters here of course.  Like these hellhounds! Kongo will neutralise their attacks and then you just have to deal with their extremely high agility (so they are a bit hard to hit). Also note how Whitey's HP/MP is not even shown on the screen during the battle. I guess it makes sense, since you don't have control over it anyway.   Or these fire rats! Some pretty cool enemy designs lately.  Finally, we reach Silk's hiding place, but...  ...this time, the way is blocked! Let's approach. I'm sure everything will be fine.  And of course, it's a boss fight!  So, first of all, let's notice his HP. Last boss we fought was Princess Clam's second form and that only had about 1200 HP. But now we're already on 4000 with this guy. So this is definitely going to take a bit more effort for sure. As mentioned, some people view this boss as a bit of a difficulty spike, but I don't really entirely agree. Sure, to start with, this is definitely going to take longer than previous fights, but you can prepare for that, mostly by bringing enough MP restoratives. Also, if you got the breath spell then you're pretty set for healing in emergency. There's really only one catch in this battle, but you can learn that in one single failure attempt. Obviously, we'll maintain kongo active on both characters to reduce damage. You could also try the "moonlight" spell, but I think kongo is better beause it never misses, unlike the debuffs you cast on enemies which have a decent chance of missing.  His regular attack is just a normal swing with his weapon. It only hits one character. At our present level it will do about 15-20 HP damage with kongo applied, but more like in the 60s without it. Obviously, Manjimaru is going to be on support, but if he gets a chance to attack it's probably best to use exactly the ability we got last time from the third holy sword. It does 50+ damage and never misses against this guy. He does also have the ability to slightly increase his attack power temporarily, but that's neither here nor there. So where the problem comes in in this fight is when his HP gets below about 40%. Then another attack comes into play. It doesn't even have a special animation, but basically the attack is "forgo defence power for attack", meaning his defence goes to 0, but instead his attack power will increase by the same amount. This will do around 150-200 HP damage to one character... when kongo is active. If you don't have it on the character that gets hit, well... goodnight! And this is basically where you get caught out, because it turns out, in addition to kongo, you need to make sure both characters are healed to about 200 HP at least, at all times! If you don't neglect that and have made sure to bring MP restoratives, then there is genuinely no problem, it just takes a little while.   What in the world is this mess.  He steps aside and lets us through.  And we're back with Silk!  And then, finally...  Hey, so we finally have three members in our party (to say nothing of the dog)! Also, yes, since she is half demon, she might be able to do something about the Heavenly Bridge! So let's head out! But then...   But for the sake of my child, I am still going to take credit for your death! Let's fall to hell together! Mt. Ooe and all of you are done! Everything starts falling apart around us...  ...but we still make it out in time! Poor guy. Anyway, let's take a breath. Silk is now a proper member of our party, so let's take a look what she comes with.  So. Unlike Gokuraku, she comes with a whole bunch of stuff. As you can see, one thing she doesn't come with is attack power, which sits at exactly zero. This is caused by her "weapon", "The Chains of Purity" so nothing can be done about that one. It can be used as an item in battle though and in such cases casts a spell which lowers the defence of one enemy. We'll have to buy some more equipment for her at some point, of course. Luckily again she joins around the same level as the rest of the party, so no need to start leveling her up from level 1. The items are just consumables which are similar to some of the spells, but she also comes with a few defensive spells and also with a few "demonic techniques". I didn't really put the names in there because they are too long in English but we'll talk about it when we use them. But none of them can do damage, as expected. Importantly, she can use 21 spell slots instead of Manjimaru and Kabuki's 14 (and Gokuraku's 7 but he can't cast them). So what I would recommend, immediately transfer all non-damage dealing spells over to her (she can't use any offensive spells). This frees up Manjimaru to take back some spells he didn't have the space for. She comes with quita a large MP pool, so she will take on the role of battle support, and Manjimaru is finally able to focus back on damage dealing. However, she only has 3 item slots instead of 6, so with Gokuraku's 9 it all averages out back to 6 per character. After a long, long while, we can actually breathe a bit more easily in battles finally!  Ah, it's nice to see three people in a battle instead of just two. This is Silk's turn and note how even her attack command is "greyed out" in the menu on the right there. But before we move on, I should explain about the dog. Now that Silk is with us, he becomes more active in battles. And you might notice that this is again a "proto" version of a mechanic that was later refined in Linda³ with dogs being able to be members of your party. So, the way Whitey functions in battle is as follows: - If Silk is not in the party, he will do nothing on his turn (although obviously still can get attacked by an enemy). - If Silk is in the party then he will attack an enemy on his turn. It normally attacks the enemy with the lowest HP. - If Silk is in the party but her HP is critical, then he will always defend and take the hit for her on his turn. Whitey is also, as mentioned to us, extremely strong in both attack and defence, so he will in fact be doing more damage than Manjimaru to a typical enemy! So all in all, this is a pretty nice party situation we have going on here. Anyway, we were going to head to the Heavenly Bridge again, now that Silk is with us in the party.  This looks very cute, by the way.  Here we go. Let's see what happens now!  We actually have another cutscene here!  And here we are!  Welcome to Inaba province! So, uh, let's stop here for now since we accomplished a fair bit today. Next time we'll try to see what is happening with over here and try to figure out our way to the next (fourth) dark orchid! Also, it probably didn't escape your attention that we flew or an island in that cutscene. So it might be worthwhile going back and checking that out when we have a suitable mode of transport. Take care!
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Jun 26, 2023 22:51
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We finally have a proper third party member. Here's hoping they don't piss off after one boss fight.
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Jun 26, 2023 23:07
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The Chain of Purity to me implies that Silk would go all "Doomguy with a Berserker Pack" if her hands weren't tied.
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Jun 27, 2023 00:08
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I'll ad,it, my first reaction to Silk saying she wouldn't hurt anyone with her hands was "So she's going to kill everyone with kicks. Or she's a dedicated spellcaster!" Then the chain was put on her and... she is totally going to garotte the woman who killer her parents, isn't she?
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Jun 27, 2023 04:03
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What are you translating as "Demon"? If they're being buried in a normal cemetery I think that is not the correct translation.
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Jun 27, 2023 06:22
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Zereth posted:What are you translating as "Demon"? If they're being buried in a normal cemetery I think that is not the correct translation. Not really any big mystery here, they are just referred to as 鬼. Here is the whole line about the graves: ここの寺って鬼の墓があるんだってね。死んだら魂に区別がないからって… 墓を並べられるほうはいやよね。 For those who are curious, the individual I was referring to as the "chief demon" is called 酒呑童子 in Japanese.
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Jun 27, 2023 07:34
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Is there any reason why you decided to translate the names here? It's a choice I'm almost always opposed to since...names don't get translated in any situation. I can understand if there's some kind of meaning later on but even there, this game is so Japanese that I find it weird to believe you would've gone for that and not changed anything else here, considering how many times you've gone for (very informative, may I add!) translation notes. Also we had Kurama and Hiei this update, can't wait for Yusuke and Kuwabara.
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Jun 27, 2023 13:26
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| # ? May 29, 2024 00:38 |
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Blaze Dragon posted:Is there any reason why you decided to translate the names here? It's a choice I'm almost always opposed to since...names don't get translated in any situation. I can understand if there's some kind of meaning later on but even there, this game is so Japanese that I find it weird to believe you would've gone for that and not changed anything else here, considering how many times you've gone for (very informative, may I add!) translation notes. I'm glad you enjoy the "translation notes", but please let me know if anybody at any point feels it's too much since I can sometimes get a bit distracted. Blaze Dragon posted:Also we had Kurama and Hiei this update, can't wait for Yusuke and Kuwabara.
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Jun 27, 2023 14:39
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