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Simply put, the world's salvation demands sacrifice, and sometimes that sacrifice involves wresting stuffed bears from the hands of little girls to sell for $1 at the nearest vendor. No, I will not be elaborating further.
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Jul 16, 2023 14:59
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OddObserver posted:It's funny to me how much worse Temenos is at questioning people than Castti (well, OK) and... Osvald? tbf I'd probably spill the beans most readily to the nice battlefield medic rather than the (seemingly) un-pious priest. Osvald is also scary and like 10 ft tall even before you find out he can light you on fire so
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Jul 16, 2023 15:11
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GloomMouse posted:tbf I'd probably spill the beans most readily to the nice battlefield medic rather than the (seemingly) un-pious priest. Osvald is also scary and like 10 ft tall even before you find out he can light you on fire so He's also hot, that probably helps.
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Jul 16, 2023 15:42
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I love that they made the wizard guy the tallest and most muscular character while the tanky and hard-hitting warrior is a short king
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Jul 16, 2023 16:25
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I think in some ways, they just reversed some expectations from OT1. Olberic was the tallest party member in OT1, but Hikari is the third shortest. H'aanit was the tallest woman in OT1 (and only slightly shorter than Cyrus), but Ochette is easily the shortest party member in OT2. Ophilia is straightforward and earnest, Temenos dances with words. Primrose is seductive, Agnea turns red at innuendo. Of course in some cases they just leaned into the similarities harder. Throne and Therion have the same goals. Alfyn and Castti are general do-gooders but will drink you under the table.
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Jul 16, 2023 16:45
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I completed Osvald's chapter 1 and 2 and it looks like this game is going to work for me. The short stories have all been pretty good so far. I've moved over to the western continent to continue Throne's story and pick up more characters.
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Jul 16, 2023 17:19
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Just did Father chapter II for her. Coming back after a long while away. Gotta say, I hope her story provides a good twist. Revenge stuff is fine, but I feel like there's little room for crazy poo poo with it until the eleventh hour. Couple to four levels above the recommended, but perhaps with lower level armor. Didn't lose anyone to the boss but the damage output was no joke. I discovered far too late that Ochette could have cleared all the buffs it put on itself with a fully boosted orb thingie. I loving love the combat in this game. So many levers to pull. So many angles of approach because of that. I keep thinking about what can be boosted and how good it might be for any given fight. Makes me almost wish it wouldn't inevitably end up with my being overpowered at the end. Does the challenge hold up evenly through the game? Also I just adore the map, especially if you have been away for a while. Cut scene summaries and the ability to view them all in a nicely organized place is also incredible for that.
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Jul 16, 2023 19:23
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Last boss still has some decent challenge if you don't break out the consumables imo, and there's always the optional super boss if you're still hungry. I feel like beelining you're "main" character to the finish so you can swap them out, then cycle everyone so no one gets super OP works out okay, but you're still going to feel overleveled at some point. I think it's more fun story-wise to follow each tale through rather than bouncing around though. Really interested in your take on Throne story once you finish it up
GloomMouse fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Jul 16, 2023 |
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Jul 16, 2023 19:32
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Uff, done with the eight stories. Had quite some difficulty with final boss of Agnea's (trying to do it second)... putting it off to last helped. Some nice boss variety overall.
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Jul 16, 2023 19:53
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GloomMouse posted:Last boss still has some decent challenge if you don't break out the consumables imo, and there's always the optional super boss if you're still hungry. I feel like beelining you're "main" character to the finish so you can swap them out, then cycle everyone so no one gets super OP works out okay, but you're still going to feel overleveled at some point. I think it's more fun story-wise to follow each tale through rather than bouncing around though. Really interested in your take on Throne story once you finish it up Cool i’ll let you know when I get there. FWIW I think it’ll be satisfying plotwise, since my favorite thing about this game is how it is pretty drat clever with its plots and very economical. It also reminds me of a play, since there’s a lot of soliloquis. Hell, Temonos starts his story by putting on a play. And it fits the sparse, sketched way the stories are told, too. Glad to hear the game keeps its teeth for the most part. I am also an idiot and coming into Winterbloom with 30k didn’t let me buy hardly anything I’d have wanted. I seem to recall some good ways to trivialize money, so I’ll have to look at what I’ve got and what’s salable and everything. But I was fine with going into that chapter undergeared. People were taking 150-ish at minimum, and upwards of 3-400 for the big hits. With everyone in the low thousands HP wise, it felt suitably hard-hitting without being too punitive. I don’t mind if Im suboptimal rn because it keeps things feeling spicy. We will see how it goes. My plan for story clearing was originally to get all eight, do them in the halves as the game presents them, and then go for whatever the endgame is. Broke that rule since I got a couple starts—warrior and dancer—to get before I’ve got all eight, but I wanted to do some plot after some time away so eh.
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Jul 16, 2023 20:48
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A nice thing is that enemies hit hard in relation to your hp pools pretty much throughout the game and it's more you having increasing options for healing or being able to sweep trash quickly. Also a lot of your strength comes from gear so you can definitely reign in the power creep by only using equips from the chapter/nearby town. Like yeah an Ochette at level cap is still going to hit harder and be tougher but giving her a rusty shiv and rags will put her pretty close to a character working through their chapter at-level
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Jul 16, 2023 23:29
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GloomMouse posted:A nice thing is that enemies hit hard in relation to your hp pools pretty much throughout the game and it's more you having increasing options for healing or being able to sweep trash quickly. Also a lot of your strength comes from gear so you can definitely reign in the power creep by only using equips from the chapter/nearby town. Like yeah an Ochette at level cap is still going to hit harder and be tougher but giving her a rusty shiv and rags will put her pretty close to a character working through their chapter at-level Awesome. About to gut Winterbloom. gonna be very upstanding and heroic.
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Jul 17, 2023 02:39
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i'm doing crime in this game
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Jul 17, 2023 03:13
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roomtone posted:i'm doing crime in this game 
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Jul 17, 2023 03:26
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Kaddish posted:Speaking of, are there any 'must have' abilities I should get? There are so many and limited slots. It sort of sucks for experimentation. Two in Timberrain. Go challenge the old guard looking for a duel near the castle, and the judge on the courtroom steps.
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Jul 17, 2023 03:56
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Castti Chapter 3: I'll admit, I did not see that twist coming. I'm somewhat impressed that the game managed to make me feel so dumb. If I ever play this game again I'll probably start with Osvald, we're all just living in that smooth Valjean-rear end motherfucker's world.
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Jul 17, 2023 11:21
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ApplesandOranges posted:Somehow still less blatantly gay than Agnea's sister. So I hadn't found this one yet at the time, but I have now, and wow, it really is true. That said, even when I first read the post I wasn't exactly surprised, because the vibes are there in a few earlier scenes if you connect the dots.
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Jul 17, 2023 16:05
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i have a three pronged approach on commiting crimes against the townsfolk - first i send in agnea to try and charm their valuables away, and if that doesn't work, i send throne in to try and sneak them away, and if that doesn't work, well i just have osvald beat the poo poo out of them
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Jul 17, 2023 16:10
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I always prefer the direct combat approach to getting stuff cause its not binary. This all goes out the window with a high enough percentage obviously but when it's ambiguous that's how I like to do it.
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Jul 17, 2023 20:34
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unattended spaghetti posted:Just did Father chapter II for her. Coming back after a long while away. Gotta say, I hope her story provides a good twist. Revenge stuff is fine, but I feel like there's little room for crazy poo poo with it until the eleventh hour. Do please keep us up-to-date on this 
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Jul 17, 2023 20:43
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unattended spaghetti posted:I always prefer the direct combat approach to getting stuff cause its not binary. This all goes out the window with a high enough percentage obviously but when it's ambiguous that's how I like to do it. It’s cool that the relative difficulty of different methods of item/information acquisition isn’t linearly proportional for an individual NPC. That 8* grizzled veteran soldier will put up a fight if you try to mug him, but he’s a sucker for a cute girl with a country accent.
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Jul 17, 2023 20:47
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Boogaloo Shrimp posted:It’s cool that the relative difficulty of different methods of item/information acquisition isn’t linearly proportional for an individual NPC. That 8* grizzled veteran soldier will put up a fight if you try to mug him, but he’s a sucker for a cute girl with a country accent. And even better all those little components of the npc are used to extremely clever effect to make observations exactly like this one.
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Jul 17, 2023 20:49
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Boogaloo Shrimp posted:It’s cool that the relative difficulty of different methods of item/information acquisition isn’t linearly proportional for an individual NPC. That 8* grizzled veteran soldier will put up a fight if you try to mug him, but he’s a sucker for a cute girl with a country accent. Yeah, that’s one of the coolest parts of the game for sure. They really push you to utilize all 16 path actions. Some of the quests change based of which path actions you use, too! I’m looking at you, theatre director.
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Jul 17, 2023 21:12
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scrutinise is one of the best NPC flavour features i've ever seen. you know it's worked out when i read their blurb before i pillage the items.
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Jul 17, 2023 21:20
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I also really like how they use the Path Actions to help provide character to the world. It's incredibly neat when you run into a minor character with a big secret or some seemingly average dude but if you check his info it's like "This guy was once Ballcrusher The Nadstroyer but he retired because he wanted to chill with his wife, who was Omnitrix Godqueen, so maybe don't fight them at level 5?"
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Jul 17, 2023 22:09
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ImpAtom posted:I also really like how they use the Path Actions to help provide character to the world. It's incredibly neat when you run into a minor character with a big secret or some seemingly average dude but if you check his info it's like "This guy was once Ballcrusher The Nadstroyer but he retired because he wanted to chill with his wife, who was Omnitrix Godqueen, so maybe don't fight them at level 5?" Clockbank Which yeah… of course the Industrial Revolution capitalism guy names his town after the things that record time and money
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Jul 17, 2023 22:13
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Boogaloo Shrimp posted:Clockbank Omfg. I feel like an idiot for not noticing that and I love this game.
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Jul 17, 2023 23:03
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Man, the final boss is kicking my rear end and it's just phase one...
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Jul 17, 2023 23:59
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Blackbelt Bobman posted:Yeah, that’s one of the coolest parts of the game for sure. They really push you to utilize all 16 path actions. They do encourage you to use most but I don't think it's evenly spread. Like I almost never use Concoct unless I absolutely have to get past a guard that Throne can't knock out or Hikari can't take on. It's also often easier to just Inquire or Scrutinize rather than go through the trouble of breaking with Temenos. Similarly, I just about never use Ochette's path actions; Hikari can Challenge anything she can Provoke but easier, and unless there's a quest that requires Befriend specifically, it's easier to Allure/Guide/Hire a NPC instead.
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Jul 18, 2023 00:41
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unattended spaghetti posted:Omfg. I feel like an idiot for not noticing that and I love this game. Don’t feel too bad; I literally figured it out from writing that post.
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Jul 18, 2023 03:18
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ApplesandOranges posted:They do encourage you to use most but I don't think it's evenly spread. Like I almost never use Concoct unless I absolutely have to get past a guard that Throne can't knock out or Hikari can't take on. It's also often easier to just Inquire or Scrutinize rather than go through the trouble of breaking with Temenos. I used Temenos’ interrogate skill a lot. It’s easier to inquire or scrutinize sometimes (or bribe) but when inquire isn’t available and scrutinize has a 15% chance, it’s likely Temenos is gonna have to get them acquainted with his staff. Bribe is tough early on but easier later when you have basically infinite money. I agree about Ochette, though.
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Jul 18, 2023 03:43
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turning wildlife into delicious jerky (that you can then trade for pomegranate leaves) is also one of Ochette's path actions, though
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Jul 18, 2023 03:51
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ApplesandOranges posted:They do encourage you to use most but I don't think it's evenly spread. Like I almost never use Concoct unless I absolutely have to get past a guard that Throne can't knock out or Hikari can't take on. It's also often easier to just Inquire or Scrutinize rather than go through the trouble of breaking with Temenos. Yeah, but if your team is Patitio, Agnea, Temenos, and Ochette you can have a party train of 9 sprites running around. Which actually has a functional gameplay use in one side quest.
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Jul 18, 2023 03:58
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Boogaloo Shrimp posted:Yeah, but if your team is Patitio, Agnea, Temenos, and Ochette you can have a party train of 9 sprites running around. Which actually has a functional gameplay use in one side quest. Related to that, I like that some quests have more than one ending or way to compete. And that most side quests don't involve fighting.
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Jul 18, 2023 04:07
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FireWorksWell posted:Related to that, I like that some quests have more than one ending or way to compete. And that most side quests don't involve fighting. My favorite is from the first game, where one guy is hopelessly in love with a woman and won't leave her alone. You can either intentionally lose a fight to him so he can woo her over with his fighting prowess, or bring his mom over to chew him out and tell him to stop being a creep.
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Jul 18, 2023 09:48
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Throne Chapter 3: That fight with Father goes hard. To find out your mentor/abuser killed your birth mother, after she aborted her own child with him, and then raised you as his own all in the span of about five minutes. And then after all that, to still mourn him in a really hosed up way because he's the only father figure you've ever really known. What a tragic character! Didn't expect this cutesy retro JRPG to get that dark. And then the complete tonal whiplash as you head to Beast Island and now it's a Disney film with sprightly feral children and talking animals. I got Throne a pair of cat ears as consolation and immediately robbed BOTH the human and beast villages in a heroic display of equality.
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Jul 18, 2023 11:47
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:turning wildlife into delicious jerky (that you can then trade for pomegranate leaves) is also one of Ochette's path actions, though That’s her unique battle command. Path actions are specifically the ones done outside battle.
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Jul 18, 2023 12:27
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No, capturing is a battle command, making jerky is a path action.
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Jul 18, 2023 13:40
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Huh? You make jerky from animals you capture. Ochettes path actions are either provoke or befriend, by bribing them with jerky
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Jul 18, 2023 13:58
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Jul 18, 2023 13:59
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