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4 strength, 4 stam, leather belt
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Jul 6, 2023 17:44
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The larger portraits look much better.
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Jul 6, 2023 18:53
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ApplesandOranges posted:I feel like Panther learning Matarunda can be a bit of a trap; there's only two bosses that are multi-target (you should no longer need debuffs for regular fights), so Tarunda often has the same impact for 1/3 the cost. Though it does help for the final boss, by that point you'll have Debilitate so you're not using Tarunda anyway, and Panther usually has plenty of SP, so it's not a huge deal. I don't really factor in SP concerns when I choose skills for a couple reasons (outside of thinking that Panther's final learned skill, Blazing Hell, chews through it because it's multitarget). Like, Skull has probably the lowest SP pool, but I still replace his Mazio with Mazionga (spoilers for the next update, btw, where I replace his Mazio with Mazionga) despite his low Magic stat meaning he's primarily using it for knockdowns. The main reason for that is that before we enter the next Palace we're going to unlock the Empress Confidant, which will effectively solve our SP woes for the rest of time through the power of fresh vegetables. We'll also eventually max Hierophant for the coffee/curry benefit and get Oracle's Subrecover SP, which will help as well. Matarunda isn't a big deal when you think about it that way. The other thing is that the first person to run out of SP is almost always Joker, and if other people are low enough when that happens I'll generally just use a Soma, which fully restores everyone's SP, negating the issue.
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Jul 6, 2023 19:08
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True, I think the only character that can really feel SP issues after the first couple dungeons is Makoto, because she has less SP than Morgana or Ann, which can weigh on her when she gets Atomic Flare. Concentrate does alleviate that a bit since it's cheaper than using Atomic Flare twice.
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Jul 6, 2023 21:02
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I remember a few months ago I saw some tweet from some guy I'm not super familiar with but who seems to be somewhat relevant in the Persona fandom, at least to the extent that his tweets were getting pushed in the section of my Twitter app that occasionally shows me Persona-related tweets. I dunno what prompted this, but the gist of the tweet was that they didn't think the next upcoming Palace boss was that hard, especially if you know how to cheese it. Anyway, I just recorded the next boss fight, and gently caress that guy. I knew exactly what the optimal strategy was, and it still wasted half an hour of my time. e: YES I KNOW ABOUT THE MERCILESS THING
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Jul 6, 2023 21:17
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I feel weirdly lucky in that the next boss didn't give me that much trouble on Royal, and I can't tell if I was very lucky or have some innate 'good at video games' talent that only came out in that one specific fight and nothing else.
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Jul 6, 2023 21:38
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Arist posted:Anyway, I just recorded the next boss fight, and gently caress that guy. I knew exactly what the optimal strategy was, and it still wasted half an hour of my time. I have to wonder if Okumura being a terrible boss, even in Royal, was supposed to be a meta joke about his in-universe role.
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Jul 7, 2023 00:05
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I actually like that boss, other than the part where you waste a half hour if you don't know the gimmick going in. Or even if you do, sometimes.
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Jul 7, 2023 00:59
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Chapter 134: 9/26: Spaced (New, a bit) This update covers content from Parts 111-112 of the original LP. Music: Sweatshop    Putting it lightly, I believe such an action would lead to our extermination. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to point out that this is untrue. The vacuum would suck all the air straight out of your lungs through your nostrils.  Which is weird, because honestly, I woulda thought we’d just explode out there. Don’t scare us, dammit!Uh, sorry.   Oh god, there was an alarm when we left off, wasn’t there? Ugh… time for more fusion. Music: Aria of the Soul   I want Kougaon for this Unicorn, so I sacrifice a Kumbhanda. Also yes, I have a level 17 Orobas here right now, I wanted it for a specific fusion I didn’t end up making.  Uh-oh, the Gallows cutscene isn’t skippable this time, I know what that means…    It means there was an accident, and on the first try! What a ripoff! And to add insult to injury, there wasn’t even a special animation for the Gallows failure!   I get 2 Endurance and 3 Agility. Weeeeeeak.  And we’re forced out already. Music: Sweatshop  Let’s just float through space. Cheapass Okumura couldn’t even pay to finish these hallways so we have to risk mortal peril every time we want to cross over.   There’s a console here that lets us unlock some doors on both sides of the airlocks.  One of them has some Physical Ointment, which is decent.  On to the next area of the airlock zone.  These are Mithras. They drain Fire, null Nuclear, are strong against Physical, and are weak against Psychokinesis. They use Physical and Nuclear skills.  The Shadows flanking the Mithras here are Thunderbirds, which we’ve fused before. They drain Electricity, which they use exclusively, and are weak to Psychokinesis and Curse.  This entire area is more-or-less identical to how it was laid out in the original game, with one minor exception.   If we head to the new airlock over on the east side, we’ll run into a miniboss Shadow guarding the Palace’s final Will Seed.   Are we fully prepared, Joker?   IT SEEMS WE HAVE A FEW IMPUDENT WORKERS WHO ARE IN NEED OF SOME EXTRA TRAINING! Let’s go, everyone!  This is Melchizedek.  We drop an airplane on him.   All right! Let’s grab that Will Seed!         This new Crystal of Greed we just forged has the skill Attack Master, which gives an automatic Tarukaja at the start of battle.   Skull learns Mazionga, which we slot in to replace Mazio.     And we’re in the final area already.  We don’t have an alarm yet, though, so we won’t be heading back despite the safe room.  Yusuke replaces Dormin Rush with Heat Wave. Dormin Rush hit all enemies for Medium Physical damage and inflicted Sleep, but Heat Wave has Heavy Physical, which is an acceptable tradeoff.   Ah, there’s the alarm.  We’ve done a high number of Technical hits, so we get an award.  Again, this entire area is copy-pasted. There’s really no reason to go into further detail here. And it paid off, since we’re already done!   I wonder what they’re for… Let’s just focus on the Treasure for now! We’re almost there! I suppose he’s right… Now that’s a rare occurrence… Why you gotta be like this, man…?  We’ll be able to return from here once we get to the Treasure in the next room.   Music: Suspicion  It’s odd, though… We haven’t found any information on the mental shutdowns… Guess we’ll have to pound the truth outta him. Uh, sorry, Noir… Hm? I don’t understand. Did you say something objectionable? We’re ready to send the calling card and take the Treasure, Joker. Get prepared and let’s do this.Music: Aria of the Soul  Okay, let’s head back into the Velvet Room one final time on this Palace excursion. This better pay dividends… We’ll be sacrificing a Girimehkala to this Unicorn to get Kougaon.     You may ask why I kept Samarecarm, despite not thinking much of revive skills in this game due to the abundance of revival items. Well…  My original goal for that Orobas was to fuse it with Unicorn to make Hariti, one of the component Personas of Bugs, which is a Group Guillotine Persona, meaning we need three Personas to make it. Since we need Bugs with Samarecarm for the next Strength request, I figured I’d get a head start on it even if Bugs is well above our level right now by getting Samarecarm on Hariti, at least. That is, until I noticed Hariti’s next skill in the bottom-left there. It’s Samarecarm. God, they really took the wrong lesson from Margaret’s requests in P4 and just made these extremely easy, huh? Or maybe that’s the right lesson, whatever. Either way, we clearly no longer need to fuse Hariti in the way we were intending to. We can just do it however we like now. So, we’ll fuse it from… Unicorn and Orobas? Really? Well, okay then.  I choose not to include Samarecarm in the inherited skills. The only reason not to is if I wanted to replace, say, Mabaisudi with it upon level up instead of one of the skills I chose for inheritance, and it really just makes for a bit more tedium by choosing not to. Oh well.   I shall become a mask of affection to guard you, like a mother watching over her weak child…Hariti, also known as Kishimojin, used to eat children, but Buddha changed her ways. She is now a goddess of parenting. Pobody’s nerfect, amirite?!   We choose not to let Dekunda and Bless Amp change.  For the next fusion, I choose to get a little spicy. Let’s do something we’ve been intentionally avoiding: fusing a DLC Persona! Specifically, Athena, Aigis’ Persona, from Mithras and Kikuri-Hime.   Yeah, yeah, Igor, I know it’s OP.  This unique trait, especially, seems bananas. The other thing Athena’s got is her unique skill, Akashic Arts, which deals Severe Physical damage to all foes 1-2x, with a high critical hit rate. Also bananas. Well, let’s fuse!  Oh goddammit    The power to call forth decisive victory is now yours in the form of my mask.This is what I get for breaking the rules, I guess. White Rider, better known as Conquest, is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Conquest tends to be replaced with a different Horseman, Pestilence, in more recent depictions, so it’s probably the least-known Horseman. Unless you’re playing Darksiders where they replaced him and Famine with “Strife” and “Fury,” which is just painfully generic. Anyway, I digress. There’s apparently a bit of debate among theologians over whether Conquest represents unlawful conquest (evil, bad, frowny face) or divine conquest (good, righteous, no problems here). Under certain interpretations of the Four Horsemen, the white rider is actually Christ himself. Under others, he’s just open warfare, which get a bit confusing when you take the red rider, War, into account, but upon research the “war” that rider is referring to is specifically civil war.   Well, that sucks.  Just to check, we can actually fuse Bugs right now… but we don’t have Samarecarm yet, so it would be bad to do so. We’d also have to pay 66824 yen to fuse it because it’s six levels above ours, which is a lot. We need to get Hariti one level to get her Samarecarm, but without Empress unlocked, our EXP gains from Gallows are going to be rather meager. We’ll need to do multiple days of Gallows-ing strong Personas or simply wait a bit first. Music: Sweatshop    Music: Triumph    So the real battle begins once we actually send it. It’s a bit nerve-racking to think about… Let’s prepare well to make sure we don’t mess up now!
Arist fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jul 8, 2023 |
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Jul 8, 2023 19:42
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Arist posted:
I didn't even know you could get a fuckup on the first try. drat, that sucks...
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Jul 9, 2023 03:50
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Arist posted:
Let us beat that rubbish mentality into submission.
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Jul 9, 2023 03:59
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So, is fusion just kind of a "try and see" affair? Or do you always have the list of personas you can obtain available and be able to check that to see what you need to make certain things?
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Jul 10, 2023 08:01
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Kith posted:So, is fusion just kind of a "try and see" affair? Or do you always have the list of personas you can obtain available and be able to check that to see what you need to make certain things? You have a list of things you can make. There's no trial and error involved except when alarms mess things up, at which point the result is pretty random.
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Jul 10, 2023 09:27
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For older persona games it WAS trial and error but they eventually realized that sucks rear end.
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Jul 10, 2023 10:42
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I think 4 already had most quality of life features on the fusion process. (Never played 3) Choosing which skills to inherit got introduced in 4 Golden and I don't remember in which game directly summoning missing components from the compendium got introduced.
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Jul 10, 2023 10:50
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the further you go in the series, the more QoL features you get P5 (and maybe 4?) even has a Fuse by Result option that will list every potential result from the Personas you have on hand. SMTV takes it one step further and lets you cross reference the compendium to see everything possibly available to you, which I think maybe Strikers does also? I forget. In the broader sense, it is theoretically entirely rigorous; for example fusing a Pixie and a Bicorn will always result in a Slime, because fusing a Lovers persona with a Hermit persona turns them into a Chariot persona, and they have starting levels of 2 and 4, which means they'll result in the level 10 Slime instead of Agathion, the level 3 Chariot persona. I don't even know the specific level formula. In practice, you're just supposed to keep fusing up as you get levels, and work with whatever shakes out. If you need a specific persona for a quest or something and it's not on any of your in-game lists, I'd just google a recipe, but for the main gameplay, just slot in whatever you find and slap together on the fly.
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Jul 10, 2023 11:31
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Omobono posted:I think 4 already had most quality of life features on the fusion process. (Never played 3) The most annoying parts of 3 were that skill inheritances was randomized (so you have to back out and re-select the fusion again til you get a roll with your intended skills) and also the compendium was a lot more expensive. Directly summoning components from the compendium was a new thing in P5.
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Jul 10, 2023 11:41
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Kith posted:So, is fusion just kind of a "try and see" affair? Or do you always have the list of personas you can obtain available and be able to check that to see what you need to make certain things? So, in the Velvet Room there's a list of everything you can fuse from the Personas you have, which is nice and cuts out a lot of the guessing. The Inmate Registry will tell you what level and arcana a missing Persona has, but not what it is (Side note: the Inmate Registry also lets you check what items you'll get from the Electric Chair for each Persona as well, which is very handy). You could theoretically reverse-engineer a table of arcana interactions to figure out how to fuse a specific Persona, but that's not really worth the effort and I usually just use an online fusion calculator for the same purpose, which lets me plug in a desired Persona and search how to make it with another Persona I already have. Fusing definitely has an element of randomness, not strictly in the "will this fusion fail" sense but more in the "I'm going to push these buttons and see what happens and I'm going to have to live with the consequences" sense. We almost always want to be fusing new Personas because we want to be able to save different skill loadouts in the Inmate Registry, and we can only save each Persona individually. When I fuse, I'm taking into account several different variables at once. "Have I fused this Persona before?" is the big one. "Are this Persona's skills redundant?" is another major factor. I generally want Mataru-/Maraku-/Masukukaja (or at least Masukunda in place of the latter) and Marakunda at least. I also want full element coverage on Joker, though it usually doesn't matter if I can only hit one enemy vs all targets with all elements (there's an upcoming segment where I will accidentally almost kill myself by not having a source of single-target Nuke, though, so it's definitely preferable to have both). Besides that, we also want to take into account arcana for the purposes of boosting Confidant point gain. Legitimately, elemental resistances are near the bottom of my list of fusion priorities, it's just something I tend to ride by the seat of my pants, which has gotten me in trouble before. P3 and P4 both had Triangle fusions that let you fuse any three Personas, which was nice but also got tedious because you'd have to check a lot of different combinations, and also because those games had randomized skill inheritance (and no way of knowing what skills a Persona couldn't inherit, which added to the frustration). P4G reduced a lot of the frustration by getting rid of random inheritance and also having a list of which Personas you could make.
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Jul 10, 2023 16:31
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I always thought that the Persona series was extremely cool but Fusion always seemed too daunting and complex for me to really get into it. I'm too old for poo poo this complicated nowadays, and have too little patience to look up a guide.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:32
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It's really not complex, you just kind of do whatever. On that note, my first SMT game was Persona 4 and I did not understand fusion at all. I played on the easiest difficulty and got stonewalled by the second major boss because I thought it was like Pokemon and I was just supposed to level my starter, Izanagi, forever. As long as you're fusing something and trying to keep coverage you're fine. Persona is not a difficult series, especially lately. Anyway, I get why they push people to try to think a bit more about what they're fusing with Liz's requests in 3/Empress in 4/Strength in 5, but engaging with the system that deeply and thinking about chains of fusions (using information the game doesn't really provide, or at least emphasize) is usually just kind of a pain in the rear end.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:55
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To be fair, the first two major bosses in Persona 4 are brutal.
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Jul 10, 2023 20:19
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Define major bosses? Shadow Chie can  players new to the series and Shadow Yukiko WILL any unspoiled player but after that it's relatively smooth sailing, assuming the player learned his ABC (always be cfusing) of course.
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Jul 10, 2023 20:55
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It was Kanji.
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Jul 10, 2023 21:04
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Kith posted:I always thought that the Persona series was extremely cool but Fusion always seemed too daunting and complex for me to really get into it. I'm too old for poo poo this complicated nowadays, and have too little patience to look up a guide. You don't really need a guide unless you are trying to fulfill the Strength confidant or beat some of the secret bosses. Otherwise, for the regular story, you mostly just fuse whatever you have towards new Personas that are higher level than what you have currently; aside from the fusion alerts, the game will tell you what you will get.
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Jul 10, 2023 21:18
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Omobono posted:Define major bosses? Yeah I'd say the two major bosses are Yukiko and Kanji. Yukiko still gives me trouble when I do P4G fresh, and she was relatively nerfed in Golden. Kanji is easier but he can still mess you up fairly easily if you're not careful.
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Jul 10, 2023 23:51
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Arist posted:It's really not complex, you just kind of do whatever. On that note, my first SMT game was Persona 4 and I did not understand fusion at all. I played on the easiest difficulty and got stonewalled by the second major boss because I thought it was like Pokemon and I was just supposed to level my starter, Izanagi, forever. As long as you're fusing something and trying to keep coverage you're fine. Persona is not a difficult series, especially lately. Yeah, I think a real smart move in P5 is when the game's teaching you fusion they really push you to sacrifice Arsene, because I'm sure there's a lot of new players (including me) who will have that "save the starter" mentality, but when the game itself is telling you to do it you're just like "well okay then..."
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Jul 11, 2023 01:40
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TwoPair posted:Yeah, I think a real smart move in P5 is when the game's teaching you fusion they really push you to sacrifice Arsene, because I'm sure there's a lot of new players (including me) who will have that "save the starter" mentality, but when the game itself is telling you to do it you're just like "well okay then..." And the old players will remember the SMT 3 Super Pixy...
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Jul 11, 2023 02:40
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Chapter 135: 9/26-9/28: Greed Is Bad, Actually (New) This update covers content from Parts 112-113 of the original LP. After School → Evening Music: Beneath the Mask -Rain-   Don’t patronize me.   Did something happen? Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, y’know the whole kerfuffle between you and Mona?12 H’s. Do you really gotta bring that up again?  It’s all good. It was because of your fight that we met Haru, after all.  Thank you. I wouldn’t be able to do this without your help. Now is not the time to thank us. The finishing touch still remains. The calling card, right? What do I need to do? Maaku will decide when we send it. Once he does that, we’ll meet up and discuss the details. I’ll prepare myself for that. I leave it in your capable hands, Hamiru-kun. This is Haru’s first mission, and we’re going after her father. Give word when you’re ready.    We’ve got a lot of stuff to check out in the next Thieves’ Den update.   Employees have been frantically dealing with complaints, the exhaustion visible on their faces. President Okumura has not yet made a public appearance, as demand for him to make restitution grows. So he’s trying to hide, eh? Let’s hurry and put an end to this.   Let’s take advantage of Kawakami’s massages to free up this time block.  No. What? Why? That doesn’t make any sense. I do mind.Music: My Homie   So? What do you think about the amount of force I’m using, Masterrr? Right? I’m a professional at this, after all.    My body really does feel lighter. Any fatigue I felt earlier is all gone… Ooh, looks like that was pretty effective. Oh, since you’re refreshed now, you can probably do something else before the night ends. All right, I’m heading home. Don’t overwork yourself, okay?Okay, let’s just head downstairs and make the most of this free nigh— Music: Beneath the Mask -Rain-  GAH! You’re still here!? *glare* *sweating* So, uh… Say, that wasn’t Ms. Kawakami, was i— Uhhhh… Who?????Maaku, quick! Retreat upstairs!  While we wait for the heat to die down, let’s browse the dark web. Music: Dark Net   I just want to advance my rank quickly despite not having a ton of use for most of this crap, so I buy out the store. Not hard, because they sell exactly one of everything at a time.   Good news, Mr. Joker! You’ve spent over 50,000 yen!That sounds like bad news, personally. Your member rank is now Dark! Now you can purchase all of our Dark-tier products! Your order will arrive soon. We understand your excitement, but we ask for your patience! We hope to see you again soon! Music: Beneath the Mask -Rain-   Let’s head to the airsoft shop, presumably by climbing out the window to avoid Sojiro. Music: Layer Cake     We’re really just here to cover our losses from all that fusion in the Palace by selling the treasure we picked up. I almost upgrade Haru’s grenade launcher, but I choose not to in the end. Music: Beneath the Mask -Rain-     I wanna get everyone in class to sign it and send it to Saki-chan! (Doting Father) Saki-chan? Is she the girl who came to our house before? Did she move? Yeah. I wonder how she’s doing…     They were working at Okumura Foods. Everybody’s talking about them now!  (Thin-Voiced Woman) Oh no… So they really were corrupt, then… It figures. The food industry’s got a lot of nasty secrets. Let’s not go to group dates in that area anymore. Anyone in corporate’s just going to seem corrupt. Yeah. Better stick with doctors and lawyers. Or we can go for politicians! Maybe we can really live it up as mistresses! Ooh, I could live with that! Politicians are all loaded, too.   Music: Kichijoji 199X  As I mentioned earlier, we’ll be heading to Penguin Sniper to get in a round of darts with Haru.    Notably, Futaba does not have a darts rank, which makes sense, because she can’t Baton Pass. There’s really no benefit to picking her, thus. The only potential benefit is Confidant points with the people who show up, but you can’t control the people who arrive outside of the one you select, so that’s not a great means of getting those points unless you really love reloading.  Well, we’re here for Haru. Suffice it to say we really, really want her Baton Pass at Rank 3 before the next boss.   Oh, right, we bought that exorbitantly expensive Darts Set.   Let’s try it out.    As for the rules… Let’s go with 301. I can handle this… I think.     As you can see, the targeting oval is now tiny in comparison to its usual size, thanks to the Darts Set. This makes it kind of a joke to get triple bullseyes or especially Ton 80s (getting all three darts to hit triple 20 for a round score of 180). The usual strategy of putting the very end of the oval over where you’re trying to hit so it has to enter and bounce out before leaving still applies, giving you twice as much time to line up your shot. In addition, because the oval is so small now, we can actually rotate it 90 degrees and line it up with the triple 20 rectangle, not just covering the rectangle completely but having minimal spillover into other sectors of the dartboard. What this means is, there’s almost no risk of failure in going for Ton 80s—you’re near-guaranteed to hit the triple 20 every time.     And that we do. While I’m on the subject, that book we read, Learn Pro Darts, lets us use Third Eye while throwing. This functions in a similar way to using Third Eye while batting: it allows us to slow the movement of the circle within the oval. This is kind of overkill, honestly. I not only didn’t need it in this round, I forgot I had it.     Haru is definitely within range of finishing this game in the second round, but doesn’t seem to have the confidence to go for it. Oh well.  And it’s Maaku’s turn again.  We’ll tee it up for Haru to finish.     Of all these “encouragement” dialogue options for party members so far, Haru’s seems the hardest to get right. I get why it’s not the second one, it’s funny but it doesn’t quite fit, but you’d think it would be “With elegance.” I guess that’s just laying on the pressure? Whatever.  …That’s right! I feel kind of excited now!   And Haru throws a 20 to finish off the game.  We’re the greatest pair ever… Maybe? All right, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. And we got what we came for.   You’ve had enough, Ann.   I guess we’ll just play some other time! I doubt it. Maaku gains Proficiency +2, plus an extra Proficiency +1 from getting a High Ton or Ton 80.  What are you talking about? You didn’t even play, Makoto. We can train up, and have fun at the same time. This is a pretty handy place. See you later. Anon: This should be easy~ Early Morning Music: Beneath the Mask (Instrumental Version)   (Phangirl) Yeah, it’s a new fall fragrance. It’s supposed to be mysterious, like the Phantom Thieves. I thought I’d wear it to show my support while they’re out there taking down an evil corporation.  A show of support, huh? I could post a photo online of all the Phan merch I’ve amassed. Maybe they’ll be motivated by how passionate their fans are. Early Morning → Morning   Hm? But flowers die in autumn, do they not…? Aaand ignore. How about you, Haru? Have you gotten used to all of this yet? Yes, thanks to all of you. Just chatting like this is great. I never really had a chance to do such things until now. This isn’t the time for me to be enjoying myself though. Don’t worry about it. This class is boring as poo poo anyways. You know I’m reading this, right? Here we go again. Haru, one’s personal resolve paves new paths. It was the same circumstance for me. Regardless, about two weeks remain. We should stay on guard.Morning → After School Music: Tokyo Daylight  No hanging out with our fellow #Millennials due to the pressing calling card issue.    Teachers must act as role models for the students! I need you to get it together!VP, Kawakami just had an epiphanous breakthrough about her role as a teacher like, last week. Maybe chill and bother someone who actually deserves it like Ushimaru. I know you don’t wanna hear his stand-up, but come on.  I… I’m sorry… *sigh* This is why the board is concerned about us. We need to prove that Shujin Academy is a fine school… Oh, what am I supposed to do?  Ha, the dialogue tag above his head is “Nag.”    We’re going to send the calling card today, but there’s still something we want to see Chihaya about.   See, sending the calling card will prevent us from leaving Leblanc tonight… which is actually good, because it will force us to spend time on stat raising instead of Confidants. The only social stat we have left to raise is Guts, which is still “somewhat close” to ranking up, so we’ll pick that.     Now, let’s head to the hideout. Music: Wicked Plan   Oh? I’m the first one here? Yep, you’ve got ‘em all beat.  I see…    Mmhm. What’s the situation? I’ve been thinking—I want to be more helpful to the Phantom Thieves.   But I need your help to make it happen, Mona-chan. Oho! Me, eh? Thank you! So, I’ll get right to it—what I’m thinking is…   Haru… Sometimes, the stuff you come up with honestly scares me. Oh… It’s absolutely fine if you don’t want to… Not another word—I’ll do it! You deserve only the grandest of performances! …Great! Thank you, Mona-chan! I wonder if the Star will grant us our wish…     And we get a new Showtime.  Music: Suspicion   But she’s new to the team, right? Shouldn’t we do what we did for Yusuke and Makoto? Ah, you mean the Phantom Thief Basic Training. There’s much we need to teach her. You *named* it? Doooooork. Actually, I already filled her in on pretty much all of it. Oh… I do have a question though… Will defeating my fiance in there have any effect on my father? Nah. They did pretty much the same thing in my Palace and I’m fine. Wait, you had a Palace? Are you sure you’re alright…? But man, that cognitive person stuff is crazy! He was so similar that even Haru couldn’t tell! That might have just been a coincidence. Usually cognitive people look totally different. The version of me in Kamoshida’s castle was terrible. Ah, and the version of me at the museum was a painting, not even a person. Now that you mention it, why isn’t there a cognitive version of me? Is it somewhere in there? Well, I could imagine a couple of reasons why we haven’t seen it… but I don’t think you’d like them. …… Come on, don’t think about that dark stuff. Anyways, if a dude’s cognition can change the scenery or even the people in the Palace… Couldn’t you use that to make a dream world filled with places and people you love!? Man, Palaces are super promising! My greatest hopes and dreams might still come true! Well, that’s kinda impossible this time, hehehe… but maybe we should try in the future!? I already have that in my own brain. I’m jealous! Don’t be. It’s not that great. *sigh* …In any case, if Haru followed that conversation, there’s nothing else we need to teach her. Music: Tokyo Emergency   Music: Suspicion  Okay… I place this in my father’s study, and the Treasure will appear, correct?  He just has to notice it. Are you sure you’re comfortable doing this? I’ll be fine. I’m a little nervous, but I’ll push through by remembering why I’m doing this. Try to recall your anger. It will guide you in the right direction. I’m way ahead of you there. Oh, just checking… We’ll get to beat him up, right? Huh? That’s not really the plan… That said, it does generally work out that way, yes. Oh, good. Deliver unto me sweet, violent catharsis! What’d you say? Nothing! Thank you all for helping me with this. We’re enacting the plan tomorrow, correct? That’s right. It’s our only shot at this. I’m counting on all of you!After School → Evening Music: Beneath the Mask   Are you among those who are waiting to see the president of that company meet his judgment?  Haha, I appreciate your honesty. I also can’t deny the excitement I feel in my heart. It’s clear that they have power. They have an ethical obligation to use it wisely. The pressure and expectations that burden exceptional people… I know it well, hahaha. Haha, there’s no need to hide it. There’ s no shame in projecting your suppressed hopes onto them. It’s clear that they have power. They have an ethical obligation to use it wisely. The pressure and expectations that burden exceptional people… I know it well, hahaha. Former Okumura Foods employees who feel they are victims have formed an association and held a meeting. The association exchanged ideas among one another and vowed not to give up until justice is done. Oh, they’re all working together. It’s tough to accomplish something that difficult all by yourself.  Nothing goes your way in life. You’ll end up failing if you tense up like that. You can try to relax, or do as much prep as you can. Just… do what you need to, before it’s too late.   We’ve got Chihaya’s Guts buff, a Guts-raising DVD, and the boost to social stat gain from DVDS from reading The Craft of Cinema. Let’s do this.  Music: Tense, thrilling soundtrack Grizzled voice: Doesn’t matter whether he’s a zombie or not. “Stranger”’s just another word for “enemy,” right? Scared voice: Stop! Wait! Ahh! I’m human! I’m still… human!  Everyone’s losing it… I think the humans are scarier than the zombies!It’s almost like… we’re the real monsters… whoa… Music: Everyday Days  I bet you’ve summoned a little more Guts by watching this drama. You philistines clearly don’t appreciate the zombies on as many levels as I do. Maaku gains Guts +3, including the Craft of Cinema bonus and the Guts bonus from Chihaya. It’s still 3 notes, but it’s 10 points of Guts instead of the 5 we’d get with neither of those bonuses (but the game doesn’t tell you how many actual points the notes correlate to anyhow, so this is just inside baseball poo poo). Pretty good. Let’s go return the DVD soon.You’re not the boss of me… is what I would say if that wasn’t a good idea, because we need to replace that DVD with another one ASAP so we can hopefully max our Guts pronto.   Early Morning Music: Desire    “Your success and global fame exists due to the tyranny you reign over your employees. Thus, we have decided to make you confess all your crimes with your own mouth.” Hmph. “From, #Millennials…”   Uh, doesn’t this carry the risk of exposing the massive political murder conspiracy you’re involved with that uses the same methods? Silence, peon! I’m ordering you to give it to the police! I’m just saying, man… *brow furrows* Grr… Sir, are you trying to stare me down over the phone again? I told you that doesn’t work… Just do it! Fine, it’s your funeral. Probably literally…  I’ll kill those Phantom Thieves! And then we’re going TO THE MOON!  Music: Beneath the Mask (Instrumental Version)   There are no Guts books left, so we’ll get to work on these tomes we picked up at Book Town. Remember, there’s a reward for finishing all of them, so we want to churn through these as fast as we can. Music: Everyday Days  Stories about great people from the past, huh? I’m just a little suspicious of how true they are…    Music: Beneath the Mask (Instrumental Version)    There are a lot of students here at this hour. It’s refreshing to make the work commute at a different time every now and then.  Of course not. I woke up on time… Although I am running late.   So I was offering to help carry their things, but then my back made this sound that it shouldn’t make…  *nod* I’m so happy for her. It makes me feel like doing my best too! Of course, as I say that, I’m running late. Well, hey, we all need to switch it up every now and then! So let’s do our best for today, shall we?    Have you seen the Totem Pole at the diner in Shibuya yet? (Discerning Student) Haha, yeah—it really is a Totem Pole. It’s so colorful. I just love watching people try to eat it! You know those people who can eat it without it falling over? I’d never be able to do that! Eating a Totem Pole? Without it falling over…? I wonder why they call it the Totem Pole? Well what does it look like…? You didn’t really think about that, did you. Hmm… Eating without it fallijng over… You might be able to improve your Proficiency there.  Early Morning → Afternoon Music: So Boring   It seems so many of us have experienced this that a term has been created for it. The English name for that particular phenomenon can be abbreviated to “PVS”… Would anyone like to tell me what that stands for? Mr. Hamiru! Let’s hear it. What is this phenomenon commonly called in English? Okay! Let’s remember what she said together. So “PVS,” referring to when you mistakenly think your phone is going off… What’s the P? Right. It’s gotta start with “phantom,” since you’re only imagining it. So next is the V part. That means it’d be “phantom…” what? Yeah, that’s it! When your phone buzzes, you say it’s “vibrating.” Last is the S. So if we have “phantom vibration” so far…  Good! The correct English term is “phantom vibration syndrome.” If you’re anxiously waiting for someone to contact you, your brain will apparently trick you. This is an affliction that can only affect a modern society, where being connected 24/7 is commonplace. Maaku gains Knowledge +1. When I was a student, I’d get all worked up waiting for my S.O. to call me at night. Nowadays people complain if you don’t reply to a text you just saw. Kind of obnoxious, if you ask me. Think it’ll ever get to a point where we’ll be able to read each other’s minds? …I’ll pass on that, thanks.What? No. What? Afternoon → After School Music: Disquiet   Wait, he even figured out when we’re gonna do it!? He even delivered the calling card to the police himself. The gall… It’s possible he’s been colluding with the police from the beginning… …That’s not impossible, as much as it pains me to admit. Whoa, the comments are going nuts on the site! “Take him down, Phantom Thieves!” “I don’t care what the Phantom Thieves do as long as they show up haha.” “Just do it quick lol.” “I hope the Phantom Thieves go to the following address and—” Oh, this one’s just an actionable threat. They’re just saying whatever they want. At this point all they care about is seeing those in power beg for forgiveness. Certainly not a bad thing to want, but I will admit the priorities seem a bit backwards here. The means and the ends have been reversed. We’re starting to be seen purely as entertainment…  But we’ve come too far! We can’t hit the brakes now! It’s not like he doesn’t need a change of heart… The Palace proves that, if nothing else. We should just take care of this… right? It’s a little late to be getting cold feet, guys. We already sent it. No take-backs where the Treasure’s concerned. Besides, there’s also the issue of— Right, Haru’s fiancé. Rude. Anyway, yes, Haru’s kind of boned if we don’t do this. Er, not like that. Well, actually, kind of— We get it. We’re so close to figurin’ this poo poo out… If we don’t do this, it’s all been for nothing! I need this. Please. Uh, I mean, my father needs this. That’s what I meant. I won’t say I’m not bothered by the way the public is talking about us right now… but they’re right. We’ve come too far and done too much to not follow through here. If he is the one behind the mental collapses… We need to know. Eh, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Let’s do this. Line Changes!!!!!! In the text message conversation that opens this update, Ryuji’s text “Huh? What happened?” has been changed to “Did something happen?” Weird change. Arist fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jul 12, 2023 |
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Jul 11, 2023 20:19
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Shouldn't the Maruki conversation have the New Stuff tag, or did you run out of characters?
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Jul 11, 2023 21:34
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I forgot, but also, the station platform conversations are so marginal I don't really count those.
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Jul 11, 2023 21:45
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I always thought it was weird how the public outrage against Okumura just disappears from the plot after this arc. There's like daily reports about whistleblowers and class action lawsuits. You're always going on about Reforming Society in vague, safely apolitical terms, but here you've got actual material public action against the villain and it just gets totally memory holed. Which would be fine if it actually got commented on, but you don't get a single scene of a mysterious phone villain gloating that they managed to distract the public, or the Phantom Thieves even noticing that anything outside their own circumstances ever happened. I feel like there's a name for it, where the background flavor text gets more latitude than the primary or secondary plotlines because it's low priority, and sometimes it's just more interesting than the big focus grouped director's vision stuff.
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Jul 12, 2023 05:43
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Arist posted:You’re not the boss of me… is what I would say if that wasn’t a good idea, because we need to replace that DVD with another one ASAP so we can hopefully max our Guts pronto.[/u] Typo
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Jul 12, 2023 07:53
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Is it better to have cathartic violence or violent catharsis?
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Jul 12, 2023 08:35
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Kith posted:Is it better to have cathartic violence or violent catharsis? Cathartic violence is when you punch a jerk who traumatized you. Violent catharsis is when you get punched and realize it's not worth it to be a traumatizing jerk.
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Jul 12, 2023 13:31
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Did anyone else have the dream about us all in a dance competition with some losers at a boarding school organized by the weird twins who make me fuse dumb poo poo? No? Just me? Okay then.
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Jul 12, 2023 15:17
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Just took the screenshots for the next update, which includes the boss fight! Oh dear.
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Jul 12, 2023 18:58
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Arist posted:Just took the screenshots for the next update, which includes the boss fight! One must strike while the iron is hot. 
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Jul 12, 2023 22:36
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:One must strike while the iron is hot. Or in this case, the grill.
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Jul 13, 2023 21:45
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Chapter 136: 9/28: A Bad Boss (New) This update covers content from Part 113 of the original LP. Music: Life Will Change (Instrumental Version)  Before we get into the meat of this, I’d like to take a moment to go over some of my preparations for this boss. I know I haven’t really gone in-depth like this before. I just thought it’d be interesting. No other reason. Ignore the title of this update.  First up, my Personas.  I really wanted this Kaiwan because it learns Psiodyne, which it has. Giant Slice and Double Shot are also pretty good.  Queen Mab’s two -dyne spells will be nice to have.  We’ll mainly be using Legion for Mapsio.  As for Yurlungur, Maziodyne is extremely good. I skipped over Hell Biker because it might be the only Persona in this lineup I don’t use at all in this update.  Swift Strike and Magarula are Hecatoncheires’ main draws, though I’m not sure I use it either.  Daisoujou also knows Agidyne, but Diarahan is the main reason I have it.  Hariti knows Marakunda, but that’s about it.  White Rider has Mafreila and Mediarama.  Kikuri-Hime has Mediarama as well as Marakukaja. She also has the trait Relief Bloodline, which lowers the SP costs for support skills. This will come in handy eventually.  As for accessories, Joker has the Spiral Rasetsu Anklet, which gives the skill Matarukaja. We’ll also be bringing Mona, Panther, and Noir for this fight. I will kind of regret bringing Panther over literally anyone else, though. This is not a fight that plays to her strengths.  Mona has the Prayer Ring, which gives Kouha, a Medium Bless skill. This is mainly just because we’re lacking coverage and there aren’t a lot of other great accessories in our inventory at the moment.  Panther has the Ring of Wrath, which gives the user Speed Master (auto-Sukukaja at the start of battle) and the skill Wings of Wisdom, which heals all (non-special) negative status ailments from the party.  We’ve changed Noir’s accessory again to the Spiral Curse Ring, which gives her Maeiga, which deals Medium Curse to all targets. But… we might use Hifumi’s Confidant ability to switch some people in and out, so for that sake we’ll mention the others.  Skull has the Ring of Lust on still, which gives the skill Champion’s Cup, a combination Diarama and Tarukaja.  Fox has the Spiral Wind Ring, which gives Magarula.  Lastly, Queen has the Ring of Gluttony, which gives her an automatic Tetrakarn and Makarakarn at the start of battle, which are shields that repel one Physical and one magic attack respectively. It also gives her the skill Vault Guardian, which is a cheaper Marakukaja.  Well, let’s get to it.   Is that… the frisbee Skull mentioned before? That’s what they’re making here!?  (PA System) The SS Utopia will soon enter its launch sequence after retrieval of the main core. Suck it, peons. We’re going to space! The SS Utopia!?  Project: Escape to Utopia… So this is what that was about.  Father did say he was going to ascend into the political world…  So even this company is a stepping stone for him… He will discard this place for his “utopia”… Yes, yes, we’re all very smart and understand the metaphor here. Let’s mosey. Wait up… If he gets outta here, we’re not gonna be able to make him tell us about the shutdowns!  You’re right… We gotta hurry! I think we can go further in now!    Certain areas may be shut off or destroyed. If you are in one of those areas, please stay calm and die with dignity.   You can all stand and watch in despair as you go down along with this base! Your destruction is imminent! Hahahahahahaha!     So, we have ten minutes to get to the UFO before it departs.   Unfortunately, because nothing can be simple, there’s enemies in our path.  I don’t think the localization team was aware this was a Fox line. It’s the only explanation I can come up with for why he’s saying “all of ‘em” like Skull.  That’d be nice if it were true, Queen, but it’s actually very annoying to try to avoid the enemies in this area, and escaping from the battles makes them respawn right in front of us.       Thankfully, Oracle’s Position Hack lets us skip a fight…  …even if, again, another one pops up to gently caress with us right after we get out of it.  Noir learns Psy Boost to replace Psy Break over the course of these fights.   Three items that cause Electricity damage to enemies.   In the next area, more enemies!  No way! We ain’t got time for that. We gotta plow through ‘em! Are you even thinking!? If we use up all of our energy now, we may as well toss our entire plan! Hold on, guys! Calm down. Joker! You make the call, Joker! I’ve got your back either way!  Let’s just fight them.   At this point, I need to hit a Nuclear weakness, but my only source of Nuke is Mafreila from White Rider. So I use it…   …and almost kill myself with the reflected spell. Nice!  And before I can even lick my wounds from that fight, another enemy pops up in front of us!    Thankfully, I’m not killed by the enemy going first.  Queen does not learn Nuke Break.  Oh hey, a party full-heal item. This might come in handy.  Well, we’ve made it to the ship. Unfortunately, we spent a good amount of SP getting there. Music: Desire   *panting heavily* Nowhere… to run… fucko… Oh god, gimme a second to catch my breath…  Uhh… Sorry I talked all that poo poo earlier! I’m better now, honest! Already had my change of heart! Please, step into that conspicuous circle on the ground so I can prostrate myself before you! Haru, I’m so proud of your newfound independence!  Really?Music: Blood of Villain Nope! Thanks a lot, *Queen*. How exactly is this my fault? You’re the smart one, it’s your job to prevent us from falling for obvious traps. Actually, I’m the smart one. Yeah, but Sojiro said I’m not allowed to bully you. “Overcome failure at any cost, even if it means betraying others”… That is our family motto! That’s a really bad motto. Not catchy at all. The cold reality of kicking people down is part of business! Virtues and sentiments are for losers. I don’t have anything to say about this line, I just always found it hilarious in a bad way. Better to destroy others clawing your way to the top than to fail! Better that than to lose! I will make my political debut, and then I will have my utopia! You can still change your mind, Haru. Cast your friends aside, and you can join me. That or be incinerated with the rest of the base. Make your choice! Uh… No thank you… Pathetic. Anyway, weird cat thing. You seem chill. You wanna ditch those losers instead of my foolish daughter?Music: Regret  Don’t take me for such a fool…  You lived with Haru for seventeen years and you still haven’t realized? In this world, there are tons of things that money and fame can’t buy! What point would there be in only saving myself!? Nobody could replace these guys, period! Music: Blooming Villain       Was I cool or what, you guys? Eh, it was alright. Little corny, though… And you really killed the vibe at the end there… Oh, sorry… Not the point, guys… Just something to keep in mind for next time. I crack up every time I see this shot of the pathetic, cowering little spaceman. Father… So much for the negotiation…   Very well then. Bring it!   Video: Kunikazu Mammon Okumura  Witness the power of Okumura Foods! Give up…? Try saying that after you’ve taken down my company’s elite soldiers!   Go, my employees! Be the foundation upon which my victory is built…! Now, my devoted workers! Targeting them at random won’t do the trick! You have to take each one out individually—here target that one first!  I’m sorry, *what* did you just say!?  Well, we’re once more up against Kunikazu “Mammon” Okumura. Mammon, like before, has his workforce doing the fighting for him. Also like before, we’re on a thirty-minute time limit.   We’ll start off with a Matarukaja courtesy of Joker. This is rather dramatic overkill at this early stage of the fight, but whatever.  A stroke of good fortune in this fight is that the Corporobos that Mammon summons have weaknesses. Another is that while they’re not the exact same enemies (they can’t Recarmdra, if nothing else), they’re similar enough that the game just tells us what affinities we’ve tested on their original counterparts from back in the Palace during the security card game.  These Corporobo MDL-WKRs we’re fighting here are weak to Wind and Fire, so we’re well-equipped to take them down. Knock them down with Mona…   …Then Baton Pass to Panther to finish them off.  …Very well then, Haru! Teach our employees how to demonstrate their loyalty properly!    Huh!? M-Me!?  Basically… that’s my father’s cognitive version of me…  Hey guys, don’t let this get to you! Just remember: once we take Okumura down, it’ll all be over. Let’s wrap this up quick! Not happening. You shouldn’t have underestimated the strength of my company. Employees, fall in line!  Employees, to me!  Every problem can be solved with more manpower… That is the strength of my company! Happiness based on the sacrifices of others isn’t true happiness…!  The MDL-CHs are weak to Psychokinesis and Ice.  With Noir’s help, we easily dispatch this round.      Two quick notes: First, as you can see here, Mammon can debuff our Defense with Rakunda. Second, and more immediately relevant, this is Mammon’s first actual turn since the battle started. The Work Orders don’t count as his turn, and the turn order does not reset between waves. This means that the party’s turns will happen, in order, no matter how many waves we defeat in a full round of actions, with the enemy always going after the last party member to act. This can also have rather severe knock-on effects due to an interaction with a different mechanic of this fight that I’ll explain in a minute. The other thing to keep in mind is that since Noir just acted, it’s now the enemy’s turn…   Naturally, these MDL-AMs are all following Mammon’s last order, which was to target Panther, which they will do with various single-target elemental spells.   Given the lowered Defense and the weakness hit just now, seems like she’s completely hosed, to be honest.     And they have successfully taken her out.   I’m not pompous! You’re pompous!Worth noting that Mammon has a different little dig for every party member, which I will now list for the sake of completeness: The obnoxious blond one! What was that…? That… bizarre, black-and-white thing! Hey! The oddball with the fox mask! Why, I never… The barbaric, dark-haired woman! “Barbaric”!? The phony with the face of my daughter! Father…  Anyway, the remaining Corporobos will take their actions on the new target now.    Cognitive Haru’s obsequiousness actually buffs Mammon here.    With this buff, he not only gets more turns, he can also use Marakunda to lower the entire party’s Defense.    And then he buffs the Defense of one of the MDL-AMs for good measure.   And then he uses Dekaja to remove all of our buffs! For those of you in the audience who’ve been counting, that’s FOUR actions he’s taken this round!   I immediately try to apply Marakunda to mitigate the simultaneous enemy Defense buff and loss of the party’s Attack buff, and get Panther back up on her feet with Mona’s next action. Unfortunately, these MDL-AMs are weak to Electricity and Nuke, which only Joker can use in this party. However, the one thing they don’t resist is Gun, so maybe Noir still has a chance of taking them down. If not, we’ll get them on the next turn.    Oh, so close! We almost had it!  Huh? It’s running away?  You’ve made a grave error underestimating my company body!    gently caress. So, the gimmick here is that if we don’t take down all four enemies before their second round of actions, they will flee. Notice how I didn’t say “within two turns,” I said “before their second round of actions .” See, we were pretty screwed from the start on this wave, because not only was someone KO’d, we ended the previous wave on our last party member’s turn, meaning the enemy’s first action was immediate and so we only got one round to take them down before the second action where they flee. This is where the problems start appearing in this fight. This is just very, very inconvenient design.  Nevertheless, we have Yurlungur with Maziodyne, so we’ll probably be all right with this wave now.  That we are.   Time to work!     Oh, by the way this back-and-forth with Mammon and Cognitive Haru happens every. single. turn.   This time he uses Famine’s Scream to inflict party-wide Hunger, which massively reduces our outgoing damage. Thankfully, Mona’s Me Patra and Panther’s Wings of Wisdom will cure that right up.   He also buffs the Defense of another random MDL-DM, which is extremely annoying.   Joker switches to Daisoujou to heal Panther up to full with Diarahan, Mona uses Marakunda, and Panther uses Wings of Wisdom to get rid of the party’s Hunger.   I mention that Joker switched to Daisoujou on the previous turn, which is extremely lucky of me because this round of Corporobos only uses Assault Dive, a Physical move, which Daisoujou resists. If not for this, Joker could very well have died here, forcing us to restart. But, because Joker didn’t die…    Since the target survived a full barrage of attacks, Okumura instructs his lackeys to switch targets.  Show some brand loyalty!  Because the robots have survived into their second turn of sentience, Mammon decides to teach them that existence is fleeting by having one of their number go out with a bang. This is pretty much the same as it was in the original fight; the robot will simply self-destruct on its next turn, dealing massive damage. Depending on your perspective, this can interact with the 2-turn limit in a beneficial or detrimental way, because if the Sacrifice Order robot is the only one alive at the end, it dying by self-destructing will allow you to proceed. I consider it more harmful than helpful though, personally. Having the last robot alive be the Sacrifice Order robot isn’t that likely unless Mammon Rakukaja’d it, and even if you do end up in that situation, the explosion does a ton of damage. You’d be better off just trying to kill them all.  Anyway, these MDL-DMs are weak against Wind and Bless, so between Queen Mab and Mona, we can take care of them.   Time to work! Oh boy. This is the hard wave.         This is where I bring up that while I understand and appreciate the overall construction of this fight and the way it’s built to encourage liberal use of Baton Pass, the end result is… not great. This wave of Corporobo MDL-GMs is just a loving nightmare for casual players, and I’m using “casual” here not as the antonym of “hardcore” but instead in the speedrunning sense where it just means “anyone who isn’t a lunatic.” These guys just have too much health for this to be comfortable, and that’s not even getting into the fact that this boss fight is a DPS race where the boss’ entire skillset is built around disrupting your ability to do damage. He has Rakukaja and Hunger to reduce the party’s outgoing damage, Dekaja to get rid of our attack buffs, and Marakunda to make us waste actions on healing. It’s complete bullshit. Anyway, the MDL-GMs are weak against Curse and Psychokinesis, and resist everything else besides Gun. This means Noir is great here… but also means that I put her Maeiga accessory on the worst possible person. If Mona or Panther had it, it’d be smooth sailing. Hell, it’d give Panther something to do here, because plinking away with Fire attacks that are just going to be resisted is not a good idea. I really shouldn’t have brought her. I’ll tell you what has become more-or-less the optimal strategy for this, though:   I start with Matarukaja and Marakunda from Joker and Mona. This is not necessarily part of the optimal strategy, to be clear, especially because most people probably didn’t give Mona Marakunda at the jazz club.  Here’s where I gently caress up, very slightly. Yes, I gently caress up right at the start, sue me. I use Noir’s Psio (the single-target version, yes, this doesn’t work if you start with Mapsio) to hit one of the Corporobos. If necessary, we can also do this with Joker starting instead of Noir.   I then Baton Pass to Mona or Panther, doesn’t matter which, because…   We’re going to be tossing one of our very limited supply of Psycho Bombs and Psy Magatamas at another one of the Corporobos. These do a set fifty damage to one target. I then Baton Pass to the other party member with no Psychokinesis skills and do the same thing to a third target.   Then, we Baton Pass to the final party member, in this case Joker, and Mapsio to hit all four Corporobos including the last one, which gets knocked down.   And now, since we have an extra turn with our third-tier Baton Pass and can’t All-Out Attack since it’s a boss fight, we just Mapsio again to maximize our damage. As you can see, even this is only getting us about halfway. The optimal way to do this, I’m just now realizing, would have been to start with the two Psycho Bomb throws and then Baton Pass to Noir or Joker for more Baton Pass damage, but oh well.  And now it’s time for them to murder Mona.     I swear to *god*… He removes our buffs on the next turn…   But thankfully, Oracle restores Matarukaja.  We’ve only got half our time left… but we should be fine at this rate, assuming we don’t get held up on this wave.    All right, we got them! Didn’t even have to repeat the wave!  Executive Director! Come to me!   Time for the big boy.  For the eternal prosperity of Okumura Foods!  All right, our SP levels are looking real bad, so I’m gonna spend this round getting them back up with some Snuff Souls.  Also, I’m worried about Joker, so let’s use Tetrakarn on him.  Evidently, I used it on the wrong person. That loving hurt. Also, notice that Noir’s Trait is activating here, because the Punch inflicts, you guessed it, Hunger. It’s also more likely to target Noir with this attack.   There are no flaws in my father’s logic. That’s right, Haru. One must strike the enemy while the iron is hot! And then he makes everyone hungry and boosts the Executive Director’s Defense. We’ll get rid of that buff with Panther’s Dekaja, though.  As I mentioned earlier, Kikuri-Hime has Relief Bloodline as its Trait, which is good for buffs and I should have been taking advantage of earlier.   Work harder! Contribute more! The fate of my company rests upon how hard you work!  Remember this? Well, even if you don’t, it’s obvious it’s no good.  Let’s guard up.    Okay, we’re now in the part of the fight where it’ll start using Big Bang Orders to charge up for a Big Bang Challenge. We need to heal up and defend for those, so we’ll have to play more carefully from here on out. As a reminder, this actually heals anyone who is inflicted with Hunger... with the caveat that Noir's Trait reduces the likelihood of getting inflicted with Hunger in the first place, kind of breaking that mechanic.  And it can use Makarakarn, too.    Much too late, I decide to switch out Panther for Skull.  I’m still buffing, but it’s mainly Marakukaja now.  Our time’s getting pretty low now, and these Big Bang Challenges aren’t helping.  This is more-or-less the boss enemy here, but it’s still vulnerable to knockdowns, huh. Not gonna complain, though.  Let’s keep whittling away at its health.  You carry the Okumura Foods company name! Kill those thieves, even if it costs you your life!  Again…?    That KO’d Noir through her guard, ugh. We’ll have to get her back up, ASAP.  Fired up! And once we do, this happens. Video: Noir and Mona’s Showtime (Boss Version) (Watch this) Ultimate power!  That’s our cue! Ha! Transform!  Do pardon me!    Okay, now he’s just using it back-to-back. Get a new gimmick, buddy!            Let’s end this, Joker!Whew, we’re nearly out of time, but it looks like we’re going to make i—    Oh come on!!!     Oh my god, speed this up! I’m running out of time here!        You know, normally I’d invite Moral Support to proc, but here’s it’s just wasting more time.    Somewhat infuriatingly, Cognitive Haru Okumura doesn’t seem to have the boss flag that prevents our attacks from missing applied to her. We can still crit her, though, even if we can’t knock her down.   Gah, it seems I’ve no other choice… Haru—self-destruct! Detonate and take those damned thieves with you! No way!? Okumura’s even willing to sacrifice his own daughter!? …Everyone, let’s destroy it before it can self-destruct! But, Noir… That’s…     Welp, we’re hosed.   Ugh. Music: Desire         RIP. Music: Aria of the Soul    I’ll say! So… Yeah. This all was a ruse, and I wasted your time just like the game wasted half an hour of mine. Even the video from earlier was fake, to deepen the deception. To be clear, we were really close. Like, really, really close. That’s probably obvious, though. The difference between a defeat and a victory would have been, say, the time one might waste by refusing to skip through the text boxes because they’re recording an LP, or the time one naturally takes to decide on their moves in a turn-based RPG. Basically, I got screwed. But that’s okay, because if you’ve done this boss, you probably got screwed in a similar way. Next time, let’s come back and do this thing for real. Arist fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Jul 13, 2023 22:04
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 23:58 |
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It's even more horrible than I realized. 
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Jul 13, 2023 22:28
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