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ivantod posted: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. I always find translation notes interesting, sometimes they can teach you some neat things!
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Jun 27, 2023 14:57
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ivantod posted: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. Honestly this LP has been like 60% learning of a game, 30% learning of Japan so I wouldn't want them to stop, I'm enjoying them a lot. (the last 10% is laughing at how many vehicles our heroes use once then drop somewhere around the world only to inevitably have to get another later)
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Jun 27, 2023 16:19
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I'm hoping at one point our vehicle is one of those old-timey attempts at a flying machine. Maybe one of the bicycles with wings and an umbrella that just kinda bounces up and down when you pedal it.
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Jun 27, 2023 16:25
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Translation notes are great, especially as also gives insight how some games get picked to be localized and why some may get passed (like this not only the manji issue but a title puzzle that involves kanji shenanigans that'd be impossible to do in English)
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Jun 27, 2023 17:01
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Robindaybird posted:Translation notes are great, especially as also gives insight how some games get picked to be localized and why some may get passed (like this not only the manji issue but a title puzzle that involves kanji shenanigans that'd be impossible to do in English) Yeah, I genuinely don't see how this game can possibly be localised into something other than Japanese. Starting with the things you said, but then moving on to other stuff like names of the spells, etc. and finally ending with the question, how would you even begin to deal with all these references to Japanese mythology, folklore, Buddhist terms and so on. I honestly just don't see how. Also, again thanks to everybody for nice words and I'm glad you're enjoying this! I know my update schedule leaves a bit to be desired, but we'll get there in the end somehow! 
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Jun 27, 2023 18:18
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ivantod posted:Not really any big mystery here, they are just referred to as 鬼.
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Jun 27, 2023 22:19
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Zereth posted:Machine translation is giving me "ogre", are these oni? Not that They are oni (鬼), but the problem is that there isn't necessarily a 1:1 equivalent from Japanese into some word/term from the west/in English. So you will see stuff like this, from a popular online J-E dictionary (jisho.org), where it pretty much hedges its bets:  So I guess, take your pick! I checked also a J-J dictionary and it says roughly the following: "An imaginary monster, based on the concept of yin and yang/the five elements. It has general shape of a human, with horns on its head, a mouth with sharp fangs and wears only a tiger-skin loincloth around its waist." In my experience, I've most often seen this word translated as "demon", but I don't think that "ogre" is necessarily less accurate or anything. Also, Kinu is only half-demon and does have some "demonic" abilities in her repertoire of skills. We'll also find out more about her as the game progresses.
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Jun 27, 2023 23:09
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Let's do this again! Taken from the next episode without context:  I... actually have nothing to add here. Just enjoy the screenshot!
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Jul 1, 2023 21:24
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I can't believe Shiro didn't get a dress, too.
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Jul 1, 2023 21:30
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congrats to the groom but i think they're in for a tumultuous marriage ....i think those are bridal outfits. im pretty sure.
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Jul 1, 2023 23:48
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My only question is why Kinu has either a wig or hair dye, while the other two are just using their normal hair.
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Jul 2, 2023 00:24
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my only guess is Kinu's hair is actually too short to do the full wedding style - it did look like it stopped above her shoulders in the cutscene, while Manjimaru has the big fluffy/spiky anime hair
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Jul 2, 2023 01:24
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Gokuroku rocking that dress like a boss.
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Jul 2, 2023 03:49
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Doc Hawkins posted:congrats to the groom but i think they're in for a tumultuous marriage Here is a photo of a real-life one that looks similar:  Geizt posted:My only question is why Kinu has either a wig or hair dye, while the other two are just using their normal hair. ivantod fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Jul 2, 2023 |
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Jul 2, 2023 05:59
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I can't believe Gokuraku can equip a bride dress, I thought his equipment options were meant to be very limited!
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Jul 2, 2023 18:20
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Just a matter of finding a seamstress. Which seems to be something oddly lacking in... well, most feudal RPGs. It would be pretty neat to have a character who's described as being massive so they can't wear normal armor... until you find a tailor/seamstress/armorer who just takes one look at them and says "So you want this outfit let out a bit to fit them? Sure. Gimme a day."
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Jul 2, 2023 19:27
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Randalor posted:Just a matter of finding a seamstress. Which seems to be something oddly lacking in... well, most feudal RPGs. It would be pretty neat to have a character who's described as being massive so they can't wear normal armor... until you find a tailor/seamstress/armorer who just takes one look at them and says "So you want this outfit let out a bit to fit them? Sure. Gimme a day." Gokuraku is big enough he'd probably need stuff custom-made, but that again would be just as possible, just take longer.
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Jul 3, 2023 13:03
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 So, a lot happened last time. After spending new year holidays in Kyoto, we decided to investigate the whole thing that we've been hearing about a woman who married a demon from Mt. Ooe. As it turned out, they were both decimated in a raid apparently conducted by Taikun's troops, but nevertheless their daughter Kinu survived. However, after the massacre, she woved never to hurt another living thing, and is thus wearing chains on her wrists which prevent her from doing damage to anyone. Still, she was welcome as the next member of our party where she takes over the support role from Manjimaru, leaving him free to be dealing damage. She also brought with her a white dog named Shiro, who is also a capable attacker, although we can't quite control exactly what he does in a battle. Still, extra damage is extra damage. Unlike the last, story focused episode, this one will be a bit more on the dungeoneering side and we'll have the chance to do special fight against a tough optional boss. AlsoIhopeyoudon'tmindspiders.  For now, though, our quartet finds themselves after just having arrived in Inaba province by way of Kinu's light bridge that could be activated thanks to the fact that she's half-demon. Before we continue our journey, let's check in with the situation in the villains' lair!  Master Yomi is not looking too good there, almost like his power is fading a bit, huh? Also: excuses, excuses. You can probably guess also our next task, but it's not going to go necessarily exactly the way you expect!  Anyway, after walking a bit to the south, the party comes across a village. This is a bit cleverly done to force you to walk though a village so it registers on the fast travel destination list. This way if you fast travel back to the other side of Jipang, you have an easy way back without needing to go to the light bridge spot in the north!  Welcome to Tottori! As you can see, here and it a large part of the rest of Inaba province, there is some sort of sand-related problem. Let's check the sign there first. Caution: Those who associate with the Fire Clan are at risk of suffering at the hands of the Root Clan! I mean, yeah, it's been like that for a while now, yes. But we'll try to talk to people here anyway. So let's start with this lady welcoming us here. You don't say.  Hello, sir.  And he just gets swallowed by the sand! Unfortunately, you can't avoid it and some people in this area will just get swallowed by the sand when you speak with them. Maybe you're thinking, well, let's just not talk to them until after the sand situation is resolved, but that doesn't actually work. They'll still be gone after anyway. So you may as well just talk to them because they'll be gone after either way.  But there is no saving her and she is quickly swallowed by the sand.  Maybe we'll have better luck with these two! First the older gentleman. He survives. So let's talk to the other person who is, smartly, not actually standing on the sand surface!  Which temple do you mean? Do you mean this one here, with a massive sculpture of a spider on its roof? The temples in this area sure seem to have some unusual symbols on them. But, we'll go into the temple just a bit later. For now, I should tell you that the Tottori area in real life is actually pretty famous for its sand dunes. Here's a photograph of the real life location:  By Hashi photo - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9420158 In the meantime, let's go into some of the other houses and see what else we can find out.  In the inn, there are two guests. Hmm, so no orchid roots this time huh? Where is the next orchid anyway? There hasn't been any sign of it so far.  Here we have also a few people. Indeed, antlions do like to set up traps in form of pits in the sand. Let's talk to the person in bed. Not doing too well there, buddy. We'll see shortly what this is all about.  Well, all right. Let's head in here finally.  First we'll talk to the miko (the shrine maiden) over on the right. Ok, but... why the spider? Let's see what the monk has to say. Yes, indeed. But before that, let's see what's in the weapon shop here. If nothing else, Kinu needs some additional equipment.  Let me see your wares!  There's actually a few things we can get here.  First of all, this Blue Armour for Manjimaru with +7 in defence.  Then we get this Bridal Headdress ("tsunokakushi") for Kinu. She wasn't wearing anything on her head before, so she gains +28 in defence by using this. I will show you a bit later what this looks like in real life.  And then finally these Gale Wind Straw Sandals for a +35 in speed (she was also barefoot previously so only using her base speed stat). To be honest, I made here a bit of a mistake and could have waited with one of these items, but ok. It's only a couple of thousand ryo lost, so not a big deal. That can be recouped in 4-5 random fights easily. So after this, let's head east.  You can see that bit of sand at the bottom which has a slightly different pattern (the semi-circle). Those are quicksand areas and it's not possible to walk on them.  While heading east, we notice a cave opening, but for now we'll turn a bit south.  We do also encounter an enemy on the way. Not too much to be said about this one as it dies in one hit. When there is more of them, they can absorb each other and double their stats at the cost of losing one of their party in the process.   Ah, here we go, this is Toyo'oka. The name of the village in Japanese (豊岡) means "bountiful hill".  So let's see what we can find out from the person next to the entrance. I guess we'll start with that older gentleman up there in the corner of the screenshot. Getting swallowed by the sand after talking to Manjimaru is still a thing in this village too!  Maybe these two will survive talking to us? The second person has a story to tell us which will only confuse the matters more. I'm sorry, did I hear this right? "After having turned into spiders"? What in the world. Well at least we now know why the spider on the temple roof.   Ah, finally the spider situation is explained a little bit. I supposed we could have guessed it.  And just like that our mission in this part of the world starts to crystallise! Although it seems like it just going to be the same thing, find the way to the castle, get the holy sword, defeat the orchid, I will tell you that in actuality the game will take a somewhat different route for the foreseeable future, rather than repeat itself in structure.  Over at the inn...  Over here in the weapon shop, I again buy new shoes for Kinu which are slightly better than the last shoes.  Namely, these North Wind Shoes, which bring up her speed by 5. Manjimaru can use those also, but honestly I want Kinu to get lots of turns in case healing is needed etc. As mentioned we do have a very tough boss fight to do today. I don't have enough money at the moment for another pair, but we'll be getting a lot of random equipment soon anyway, so we'll sort things out. Anyway, let's keep talking to people.   After this...  ...we can finally go and check out the centre part of the village, which has a big shrine (with a spider) and a monument, dedicated to the four heroes. The woman standing there will explain the situation to us! We will certainly do that, but first let's go inside the temple and see what's there.  As always, we'll first talk to miko. I think it's safe to assume we'll have to visit all four of those, but before we talk to the monk, I should explain the naming convention here. The Azure Dragon (青竜), the White Tiger (白虎), the Black Tortoise (玄武), and the Vermillion Bird (朱雀) are the four so-called "auspicious beasts" in East Asian folkore/mythology. Their primary association is as guardians of four cardinal directions, but there's a lot more to it than that. Even on the map that comes in the game manual, depicting the area where the game events take place:  ...you can see them in the four corners of the map, the tiger, the tortoise, the dragon and the bird. For some more detailed info on this topic, I suggest reading the related Wikipedia article. Anyway, let's see what the monk has to add here. Well, good to know. But before we proceed on to Wagasa...  ...let's stand here in the middle and hear what the four heroes have to say to us! Well, the mission is clear, but I do wonder how this whole thing about "running across quicksand" is going to work. Well, we'll find out soon enough. All right then...  ...we should be heading south to Wagasa, but really we're quite close to another location, so, let's head northeast quickly for a bit.  A new and weird looking enemy is encountered on the way. Again, not super interesting, especially with our new 3+1 party! It took some effort to figure out what the name of this enemy, 人間地獄, is really referring to. But in the end thanks to the help of Doc Hawkins and Commander Keene, finally the conclusion is that it's supposed to be an antlion (蟻地獄, where 蟻 means "ant"), except this one eats humans (人間) instead, hence "mantlion"!   Over here in the corner is a tengu's house. We actually flew over it on the light bridge in the last episode, you can see it in the cutscene!  Hello! Tengu refers to her as "Princess Shizuka", but no one else does, so I guess it's just a sign of respect and not her actual title. Manjimaru obtained the "mistletoe" scroll! So I'm a bit of a divided opinion and I'm not sure how useful this spell really is. The "mistletoe" (宿木) spell allows you to steal up to 16 MP from an enemy when cast. It does cost 1 MP to cast, so you have to have at least one. I guess if you are really in a pinch, you may need to use it. But if you're wondering if you can use it to deplete the enemy's MP to stop them from casting spells and such, then the answer is no. The MP number that you've been seeing on enemy info cards is actually replenished fully on each turn, so getting them permanently down to zero is not possible. Also: why is it called "mistletoe"? Because mistletoe is a parasitic plant, so it fits with the purpose of this spell quite well.  Anyway, let's get back to where we were going.  It's clearly not going to be quite that simple, though. These guys can actually cast "kongo" on themselves, but it doesn't help them much and are still not a paricular threat, especially when Shiro can one-shot them! That dog is super strong.  Back east, we find a bit of a green patch among the sand!  You might notice that there has been a few more palette swaps lately; this is generally the case in the second half of the game (which are now more or less entering)--while there are still plenty of new/unique enemies, the frequency of the palette swaps will visibly go up from this point. Still, another enemy that can be one-shot by Shiro, and is not too much harder for us either.  Before proceeding south, we can find here another one of those border outposts. Clearly the way past this one is blocked.  This one is called Yakuno pass, and as usual it's a small place with just a few people around and an inn and a basic shop. Let's get back on the road!  A bit south from Yakuno, we finally reach Wagasa village!  Hmm, this looks a bit different than usual. Let's see what this person has to say.  There's actually more to this village, as you can see here, but most villagers aren't willing to talk until we sort out the barricade situation.  The shrine they talk about is actually this cave here.  Looks pretty cool in here.  Here is the priest at the far end of the cave.  There is a set encounter here when you step through one part of the cave! But how about those awesome names for these two enemies? I like it, I think it's pretty cool. In any case, a little bit stronger than what we've seen so far, but still nothing special.   Defeating the two thugs allows us to approach the priest, who speaks to us. Well, that was easy. Let's go back outside.  Now we can have a chat with the rest of the people here.  Let's talk to this somewhat disheveled looking guy.   So many people in this house!? Spiders, ants, lots of fun things in this part of the country! A bit of a hint for when we actually visit the four shrines.  All right, we're done here, so let's start looking for the four shrines.  Just a bit south of Wagasa is a cave entrance.  This is not in fact one of the four shrines, but it's very much worth coming here now! This is Shinohara cave, but the fact that "shinohara" (死野原) in Japanese means "field of death" is a bit ominous.  The entire cave is actually just one short straight path like you see above. But there is a little quirk with the setup: the other exit of this cave is in the neighbouring Tanba province. We'll actually be reaching Tanba province later in the game, but as it turns out, the way the game is implemented, this entire cave counts as part of Tanba province and not Inaba any more. In practical terms, this means that the enemies you encounter here are going to be several levels higher than those outside. However, although it may stress you out a bit, it's all very much doable even at our present level, it will just take a bit longer.  As you can see below, the difference is about ten levels up from the enemies outside. Just apply buffs as you can, and you should honestly be fine. It's only a short straight cave.   I should explain about the umbrella thing. It refers to a "janome" style umbrella, such as this one:  This is also a place you can come if you want to grind for a few levels/a bit of money as, of course, these enemies give more of both than those in Inaba.  Back outside, we're now in Tanba province. However this is a small enclosed area from which you can't actually reach the rest of Tanba.  It does however have another one of Tengu's dwellings here! Very sneaky!  Remider: Mari, the good god, opposite to the evil god Yomi. Manjimaru obtained the "military flame" scroll! The "military flame" scroll (軍炎) is a strong fire attack on a whole group of enemies. It is in fact the same spell that can be cast for free by that sword we couldn't buy in Kyoto, because it was too expensive. So now we can still cast the spell, although of course not for free--it's a bit expensive so you can't really go crazy with it. Casting with the sword is free, but it kind of gives you a free pass for the next while in the game because it upsets the difficulty balance. Although sword can only be equipped by Kabuki, anyone can use it as an item to cast the spell! Anyway, from here, you can either fast travel back to Inaba, or just go back through the cave if you feel like it.  I decide to walk, so I encounter more new enemies! "Dog-face" is not a derogatory term in Japan. This is one of the weaker Tanba enemies, though.   In this case, someone who literally has a pot on their head, and not, you know, the "other" meaning that it has in English. I'm writing it with a hyphen in order to make that distinction clear. Dancing while wearing a pot on your head is a traditional activity that happens in shrines in some parts of Japan. In any case, is a good moment to try out our new spell as it does 3-digit damage against enemies here!   The encounter rate is a bit on the high side in here, though.   Back in Inaba. But it was worth it for the spell! Obviously, we'll make the needed stop in Wagasa to heal and recuperate from this whole thing. Now let's go and find our first of four shrines.  There are still new enemies in Inaba, too! But this one is super weak and Shiro just overkills him with ease.   West of wagasa and just south of the desert is the first one.  The shrine of the vermillion bird, as it were (and as it's obvious from the murals, too).  We barely make a step in, before a new enemy appears! This one can seal our spells, but is not otherwise dangerous.   So, let me explain how this works. As was hinted, all four shrines are like small mazes, where you will sometimes find a closed door like this one here.  But also in other parts of the dungeon, you will find panels like these, with an image of a spider on them. Using the key we received from the priest these panels can be activated to unlock a door somewhere in the dungeon. The only thing to be careful about is that some panels (like the one we're standing in front here) can actually open two doors. So you need to use the key on both sides of it. Others, like the one in the top left corner of the picture only open one door. You can easily tell by the number of keyholes they have. Once you activate it...  ...a door will open somewhere. In this case, right behid us, but usually somewhere where you can't even see it. So I'm not going to go into an excruciating amount of detail with the traversal of these dungeons (after the first one), since it's mostly about opening all doors and finding all items (optional), until you find your way to the urn. But there aren't really any specific surprises in these dungeons (except one), although there are a couple of good items in them, so we'll look into those for sure. God that was an absolutely horrific run-on sentence that should never have been allowed to stay like that.  They do have some unique enemies inside these shrines, like this one here.   The dungeons do have multiple floors to traverse, even if they are not generally particularly large.  This chest has a good item in it, but you need to be careful to only approach it from the side.  Like so. I'll show you later what happens if you don't.  Equipping it on Manjimaru gives him +8 in attack power, so that's pretty good. In addition, this sword can be used as an item to cast a spell which halves the accuracy of attack of a group of enemies. By the way, I should mention that you DO NOT need to be saving any equipment for Kabuki to be able to use when he (eventually) rejoins the party. Feel completely free to sell anything you don't have a use for.  Nothing too special about these guys either, except for the fact that they will often run away, thus wasting your time in fighting them.  Now that we've gotten the item, we can step in front of the chest and then this happens:  And you fall one floor down!  This chest here only has a return stone to quickly exit the dungeon. Falling through here is necessary in order to access the "spider key" here.  This chest here has an interesting item: "monument of a martyr". It's a consumable which allows one character to give 25% of its HP to another as a form of a heal.  Thanks a lot game, when I'm trying to save up 45,000 ryo to buy a good item for Kinu back in Kyoto.    Finally we go up this staircase...  ...which leads to a short hallway...  ...which leads to our destination and the item we've been looking for! With this, the first shrine is done and we can leave. Before we continue, though, let's hop over to Kyoto for a moment.  I'm looking for...  ...this here equipment shop. There are several in Kyoto so it's easy to get confused.  I was saving up to buy this item: "The Queen's Clothes". Expectedly, it can only be worn by Kinu...  ...and yeah, that's definitely +45 in defence compared to her previous outfit. Unlike that one sword, I don't feel too bad about equipping this one, because Kinu is your typical "squishy white mage" as was common in JRPGs of the time; but with this item, her defence is simply brought up to be on a par with Manjimaru and Gokuraku. It does not give any other kind of special effect. With that done, back to Inaba we go!  In the west, just a bit south of Tottori, we find our next cave.  The Cave of the White Tiger, as is (again) clear from the mural.  We also have the "spider panels" here to open the doors.  There are also more enemies, of course. Thanks to Shiro, even in a group like this, they are dispatched with not too much difficulty.   Again we traverse this place by going up and down!  Let's see what's in here! One chest has a consumable, but the other has (finally) a better weapon for Gokuraku!  It's a "stone-splitting axe", and as you can see it's full +15 in attack power!  Another new enemy, but again thanks to Shiro, easily dispatched.   Surprisingly, this cave actually has a second exit! Let's see what's outside.  Actually, just another small enclosed area containing only a tengu's dwelling!  Manjimaru obtained the "shikigami" scroll! "Shikigami" (式神) in Japanese folklore is the art of summoning small godlike beings to act as agents of the sorcerer who summonned them. In our case, it will summon one or two such things who will then perform a random action (attack, etc.). However, there are a couple of problems here. First of all, the summoned beings only have an attack power of 20, which is pretty pointless at this stage in the game. They also won't be the targets of the enemy attack. And on top of all that, their action is truly random, so they may also end up attacking someone from our party instead of an enemy. Therefore I see no reason to ever bother with this spell and I'm not sure what is even the point of it. But we got it so that we have a complete set of spells at the end of the game. Anyway, back inside to continue exploring the cave.   This is unfortunately another case where the name of the enemy is written out phonetically even in Japanese, so I have basically no clue what it's supposed to be. If somebody has an idea, let me know, otherwise we'll just have to move on.   This looks promising, but actually three of the chests have boring consumables in them and the last...  ...triggers a random battle. Thanks game!  Interestinginly, by putting together the name of this enemy together with the Goblin Spirit whom we've seen before, we get the following four kanji: 魑魅魍魎. This probably looks like a smudge on your screen, so here is a bigger version:  As it turns out this is not just four random characters, but in fact it's one of the so-called "four character phrases", which Japanese imported from Chinese long ago. This one in particular means "evil spirits of mountains and rivers" and it even has a Wikipedia article written about it!  This one here has a golden scarab egg. So as usual be careful with it so it doesn't start to multiply and eat away the items in your inventory!  So many different enemies in this part of the world! But none of them really pose a threat, honestly. This guy does have very high defence, though, so that warrants taking a bit more care.   Finally, we get here, and... Manjimaru obtained the white urn! That's two out of four and we can now leave this place! So let's continue to the next post. ivantod fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Jul 18, 2023 |
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Jul 17, 2023 00:09
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 Let's go to the third cave, over here.   As is visible on the wall, this one is dedicated to the black tortoise. Same principle applies, with spider panels and locked doors. By the way the Black Tortoise cave is an actual cave in Japan, in Kinosaki (which is a part of Toyo'oka). Here's what it looks like:   We are attacked immediately, of course! The insects we have already seen last time, but the the other two are new. And yes, those are literally the names of those two enemies.    There is something a bit special in this cave, though. Take this staircase up...  ...follow the short hallway...  ...and you find a second of the red chests!. The ones we've been told to not open under any circumstances! But you know what. We did skip it last time, but we're a fair bit stronger now, so... what the heck, let's give it a go and see what happens!   It all starts with a normal random battle against an enemy which seems to be on an appropriate level for us to handle right now. And so we do.  But then instead of getting experience etc., we get the following message...  Ah. So now it's clear. We have been told that these red chests contain "a hundred demons". So indeed, there are 100 fights you need to fight in one go and win in this one chest. The first 99 of those, contain just simple enemies like this one, that you can reasonably plow through with just some very intermittent healing. There are in fact only four different enemies you can fight here, so they randomly repeat until you do it 99 times. So let's briefly have a look at the other three.  Very far from sturdy, actually.   The easiest of the four, at our present level always dies in one hit from any of our characters!   I mean, it's a pouring jar, just look at it! This one is the strongest of the four and has a noticeably higher attack and defence stat from the other three. Will take the most hits to defeat because of high defence and may land some at you in the meantime. But still fairly easy in the end.  And so repeat this for 99 times total and then...   Oops! The last battle is (not entirely unexpectely) a proper boss fight. Well, you wouldn't expect it to be just 100 easy fights now, would you? Anyway, as you can see on the screenshot, our characters are all around level 40 at this point. But this guy is actually level 50 and has a pretty high defence stat. This means it's going to be a bit of a struggle to deal sufficient damage to him due to the exponential nature of the damage calculation. For example, normal attack from Gokuraku deals only 17 damage! So we're going to need here a different strategy in order for this to not take hours. But more on that in a second, first let's look at which attacks he has. His first attack doesn't have an animation, but it's described as a "grab" attack. This is his "normal" attack and does one (or rarely two) hits of about 80 HP to one character. So that's pretty survivable. In addition to that he also has a "sweet breath" attack which puts one character to sleep for a few turns. This is also generally not a big problem as the sleep doesn't last long. It's his last attack attack which is a problem.  It's called simply "fire breath" and will do about 160-180 HP damage to one character. This can be a problem, so unfortunately, making sure you're healed to at least 200+ HP at all times is again a must. Otherwise you may not survive this. It's also not affected by the "kongo" spell. All right now, so what to do here? (Short of grinding for more levels, of course.) We'll have to pull out of storage some old tools here. First of all, none of Manjimaru's abilities do a whole lot of damage, however, using our famous spell sword that we've been carrying almost since the beginning of the game, it does about 30-40 HP damage per hit, so that's pretty good. The other thing is to get that mirror out (does anybody still even remember it?) because when the boss is doing about 80 HP per hit, you can also reflect back 40! On the other hand for Kinu, try to use the lowest healing spell that you can--you can go pretty far with just the basic one. This will conserve MP for what is a bit of a longer fight. When she's free, Kinu can try to put any debuffs on boss (e.g. use the chains of purity to temporarily lower the damage output of the boss--but this also lowers the reflected damage so it's a bit of a trade-off). You can also temporarily cast the "red shadow" to increase the number of targets for the boss, but that won't last too long here. So that's more or less about it. You can of course come back a few levels later, but I guess I just wanted to do it now.  There's no special dialogue here, so let's just see what we get for defeating the boss. First of all...  To put this in context, both Manjimaru and Kinu end up gaining two levels from this, and Gokuraku gains one level. So, yeah. In addition to that...  This is an equipment piece.  Check this out, +31 in agility for Manjimaru compared to his previous shoes! All right, so. There are four of these in the game, we have already found one previously. Each of these four fights are completely identical, i.e. there are no four different bosses or different enemies for each one. The enemies also don't scale with your level. So I will do these "off screen" and just show you what we get when we encounter another one of these. I will also go back and do the first one probably for the next episode so we can see what is the reward there. Other than that, we can move on with this dungeon now.  Somehow there are still more new enemies to be found here. Based on the name I assume they are supposed to be some kind of a mosquito. However, be very careful about this guys, because they can (and will) steal your money and items. Not all of it at once, of course, but e.g. you can lose a couple of thosand ryo in one attack. So I would almost recomment running away from any battle they are in (or alternately putting your money in storage when you go to an area with such enemies roaming about). They aren't otherwise problematic to defeat, though.   There's one more chest of interest here. It contains the "Reflecting Water Helm".  It's an equipment item for Manjimaru only, which gives us a new +4 in defence. Good. That's about all that's of interest in this dungeon so let's proceed to the end.  Manjimaru obtained the black urn! So, let's see, there's one more of these left.  And here it is.  This one is, of course, dedicated to the azure dragon.  Don't get happy, because all three of these chests are empty!  The procedure is still the same, though. Activate panels to open doors.  There is one new enemy, though. But this is not one of these unexplainable names. Taotie (or Toutetsu in Japanese) is a monster creature dating from ancient Chinese mythology. First appearances are recorded around 1700 BCE, but possibly even as far back as 3000 BCE. You may know it also as a recurring enemy in the Shin Megami Tensei games franchise.   A very grand presentation, but the item inside is just one of those consumable elixirs... The rest of this dungeon doesn't have anything of interest, not even any good items, so we proceed straight to the end.  As we approach...   Sure, we need to go back anyway. Here we are.  Upon entering, we find out that the Root Clan has apparently burned down the shrine! Let's find out more from the people gathered here. And the priest... Well, the building is certainly in bad shape, but at least everyone's still alive. Also, the monument is undamaged too. So now that we've brought the four urns, we should attach them to their respective gravestone (north/south/east/west).  The floor starts to glow...  Then the four urns spawn four spiders... The disembodied voice of a her from 1000 years ago tells us the story.  Beams of energy converge in the centre.  And... say hello to our new vehicle. Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, it's a carriage pulled by four spiders. There is honestly no use questioning this situation. It just is. The voice continues.  And we're back outside. Yes, it's still a carriage pulled by spiders. There's no use denying it. But anyway, enough joking around. What this allows us to do is one simple thing: we can now traverse the quicksand.  That's important, because...  ...the castle is in the middle of a huge patch of quicksand! But now we can enter it, so let's do so.  [THE CASTLE OF THE SAND GOD] As always, inside we are greeted by the welcoming committee!   And with this they leave and we're free to explore. This place is actually surprisingly small, and you can reach the end pretty easily. So let's see.  Don't worry about qucksand though, it just makes you fall one level below. But this is interesting: a pool of quicksand but no way to get to it... Hmm.  But there is this sign that we can read. Beware the cleverly hidden pitfall on the floor above! Oh, sure, thanks!  So let's head upstairs.  There's an interesting situation to the left there. That quicksand is flowing away from the chests, so the only way to get to them is fall from above!  Another one of those quicksand pools... But we'll head back down for now.  Just to check out this chest, but it's just one of those consumable elixirs. So we go back upstairs...  ...and then we take this other staircase back down.  Then we go around and back up.  This takes us over to the other side of that situation with chests being blocked by quicksand.  And then one more floor up!  Here we have a locked door (finally, something!) and a sign over on the wall to the left of the door. The sign says: Beyond this point is a pitfall. Don't steal from my treasure chests! There is an invisible pitfall to the left of the sign. It leads to those two blocked chests, but if we fall from this side, we fall on quicksand below and are forced away from the chests. So we need to make our way around and fall in from the north end of the hole (which is invisible)!  Over here in the chest is an equipment iteam: "Queen's Crown". It's a headgear for Kinu and it has pretty good stats... but don't put it on because it's cursed and will decrease the wearer's agility while worn! There's also a weapon that can be found in this dungeon, "Empress's Ignorance"; again it has good stats, but it's cursed and will hit one of the allies instead of one of the enemies with a probability of 3/4. You still might want to pick both of these up, since the merchants definitely don't care about the curse. They will happily buy these items off you, so you might at least earn a few thousand ryo for them!  On this floor we also have a pool of quicksand, but this one can be approached from the south side, however we have to get through that door first!  Anyway, here we are on the other side of the invisible hole, so let's fall through.  And we're exactly where we wanted to be! One chest has the "sand key" which opens the door above. The other has 5100 ryo. Not bad.  Now let's use the key.  And the way is clear.  Now, there's nothing left but to finally check out those quicksand pools.  Turns out we fall through to the floor below into one of those pools!  And again!  All right, new area!  Kind of weird connected platforms, I guess?  On one of them, there is a staircase up!  After that...   ...the way leads past several chests, all of which simply trigger a random battle.  But we finally reach back here, into an area which we couldn't access. This chest contains another "queen's clothes" that we already bought for Kinu. Well, I just didn't want to wait for it, but at least it means we get ours for half price when we sell back this one (items always sell for half price of what they cost to buy).  Back on those platforms, we also find this area. Clearly the only way is up!  The other staircase down leads just to a chest containing a consumable.  But we can continue down this other path.  It leads to a room full of weird... things?  This is starting to feel like Bloodborne, honestly!  Ah, this looks important!  Oh, hey, we've found the ant queen lady! And one of her male ants!   Yes, this is a boss fight! I mean, what else! It's interesting that this time (unlike before), the boss was not really hyped up in any way, other than that one random comment about it. But they at least have some dialogue! Oh, and since nobody else has said anything so far, their names are "Madam Barbara" and "Duke Pepe". No I have no idea either. But let's see what they have to say.  All right, it's a fight! Against a double boss this time! Actually no. You only have to defeat Madam Barbara to win. Duke Pepe will always be revived if you defeat him! So attacking him is a complete waste of time. Even apart from that, based on the last several boss fights, you might expect this to be quite tough, especially with two bosses at the same time... but, actually no. This fight is a complete joke, and chances of failure are close to 0%. She has a scythe attack, which does around 50-60 HP and may also sometimes do two hits on the same person. That's more or less it, there are no huge damage special attacks or anything like that. Duke Pepe has more moves in his repertoire, but most of them are support moves. Usually he'll be casting debuffs on you which lower your attack, defence or agility. But he may also do the "pat his wife's rear end" move, which increases her attack power temporarily. In addition to that, if attacked, he will often "hide in his wife's shadow" to avoid damage. He may actually rarely also use a lightning spell that hits our entire party, but that's also pretty run of the mill. So I have to say, on the scale of how interesting a boss fight might be, this one is not among the top tier. After defeating her, we get more dialogue. And then Duke Pepe starts running away!  And then he's gone and we'll never see him again! I'm actually kidding. He will become one of the most absolutely irritatingly annoying characters in this entire game--and I'm not exaggerating; if anything this is an understatement. But I mean this in the best possible way. For now though, he's really gone and there's no second phase here where he takes over her powers or something Ornstein and Smough style.   But this does mean that the way to our next holy sword (no. 4) is now clear! Hmm, that was suspiciously fast, I hear you say? But let me tell you this... we have no idea where is the next orchid and how to even get to it! So we got the sword pretty easily, but things are definitely going to get much more complicated from now on! As usual, after picking up the sword, the ghost of the old hero speaks to Manjimaru.  So a few things here. First of all, at least now we have a hint where to head next. Second, that new sword techique does double damage to an enemy, but in return you also take 50% of that damage yourself. And third, Onnahiko (女彦) is a bit of an odd name in Japanese. The "onna" part (女) means "woman" in Japanese, but the "hiko" (彦) part is a common ending for masculine names in Japan and means "boy". So it's an unusual combination, although I will say that Onnahiko is at least not an actual Japanese name in real life, so there's that. He speaks in an ultra-masculine sounding voice. Manjimaru obtained the holy sword of Onnahiko! All right, we can leave now. I like how this part of the game inverts things a little bit, so that getting to the orchid is actually the difficult part!  Outside, the castle crumbles into dust, as always. And the voice of the heroes from 1000 years ago is heard again.  And everything is back to normal and the area is no longer overrun by sand! Sure, thanks to you too. As for us, we have more work to do today.  In a Dark Souls game, there would be a message here saying "Beware of the tight spot". But in this game, it's just another tengu's dwelling.  Manjimaru obtained the "disturbed cow" scroll! So this "disturbed cow" (乱牛) is a bit similar to the "confuse" spell in Final Fantasy. You can "confuse" the enemy to randomly attack one of their own group. However, unlike in Final Fantasy they won't randomly also sometimes attack themselves, so it's unfortunately useless for boss fights for the most part. Well, that is, unless we encounter another double boss like the last one. And if you ask me, is this spell name a joke on "mad cow disease", well, I don't know for sure, but it doesn't seem so. Mad cow disease in Japanese is 狂牛病, so as you can see it uses completely different characters, except for the one that means "cow" in both cases. Anyway, after all this, those weird hurricanes are gone too, because they were part of the whole castle thing (not sure why they had to introduce those random hurricanes, it could have been a sandstorm, or something). So, let's head that way!  Ah, here it is.  Welcome to Shikano village. Shikano (鹿野) means "deer field". But you should be on alert from now, because we have some kanji reading shenanginans in service of jokes coming up. I'll do my best to explain, as always. For now, though, let's see what's up here. Wait, what, another one? Just like that? And what is up with that name? Well... if you some knowledge of Japanese, think about what would "Horse-Deer" be written like in Japanese. Otherwise, it will be clear in a minute. We'll skip for now the lady which is blocking the entrance to that house. So for now let's, as usual, explain the joke. This is a simple joke that is actually really hard to explain in English. First of all, "Horse Deer Field Castle" is written in Japanese as 馬鹿野城 with the four characters corresponding exactly to the four words in the name in order. The problem is, sometimes (not often) the kanji that are used to write a word are only used for their pronunciation, and the meaning of the word has nothing to do with the meaning of the characters. As mentioned, this doesn't happen too often, but it so happens that "horse-deer" (馬鹿) is also the world-famous BAKA! (=fool). But we're not done yet. The character which means "field" (野) is pronounced "no", but in Japanese "no" is also the possessive marker like English "'s", to finally it comes out that this name can mean either "Horse Deer Field Castle" (pronounced as "umashikano jou") or "Fool's Castle" (pronounced as "baka no shiro"), depending on how you look at the characters and the pronunciation! This joke actually goes even further than this, but now we're getting into sligly more out there territory. In the above pronunciations, the character for castle (城) is pronounced differently in the two names: the "jou" version is normally used in names of places and such, where the "shiro" version just means a physical castle. So they made sure to get even this little detail right. In the original line in Japanese, she is talking more about how to pronounce the name ("if you pronounce it like this, I will murder you"). Anyway, now that we know this, let's move on! Incidentally, this should definitely be your warning sign that things are about to get extremely silly. And considering how this game was up to this point, that's saying a lot! Before talking to more people, let's also check out the sign there at the entrance. In the near future, if three cute brides don't present themselves at the castle, I will slaughter everyone in the village. -- The Lord of the Horse Deer Field Castle, the strongest person in the world. This... seems off, somehow. I can't quite put my finger on it, though.  Three more people here...  I guess this is about the "bride" thing from the sign.  No, I know there's a castle and everything, but this still feels off.  These buildings are storehouses.   There's actually four people here, but one of them (the daughter of the family) is boxed in by the other three, so we can't speak to her.   All right, now it's time to talk to this lady standing in front of the door! All right, let's find out what's the issue. This all still feels very off.  We'll talk to the lady first. All right, chief, what's bothering you? The unexpected person pipes up!  And a few moments later...  I mean, yeah, there's three of you, but... By the way, they're wearing Shinto style bridal kimonos (shiromuki) here. The Japanese word "shiromuki" (白無垢) simply means "white without blemishes". Here is a clearer drawing of it, so you can see what it's supposed to look like:  And so the village chief is delighted:  Tomorrow morning...  ...the village chief takes us out of the house...  ...and then starts leading us to this... castle? What in the world is going on here? But, that we'll find out next time, when things do indeed get very silly in the land of Jipang! Until then, take care!  Actually, we have a (very) small extra today--because this episode is not already long enough. In 1996, a Sega Saturn version of the Bomberman game was published. Presumably because the next Tegai Makyou game (The Fourth Apocalypse) was about to be published soon on that same console, the Bomberman game also featured some of the Tengai Makyou II characters as playable characters:    Kinu really doesn't look that recognisable to me, and Gokuraku is not even included, so it was really a very low effort thing, but there you go.
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Jul 17, 2023 00:10
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Y'know, I'm not that surprised Gokuraku suggested disguising as the dresses, he's really rocking it in the image right after.
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Jul 17, 2023 11:43
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+1 vehicle that was used exactly once then dropped. +1 very weird choice of vehicle too. Also I feel we all know where this is going but it'd be very funny if we were totally wrong now.
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Jul 17, 2023 14:59
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...spider car. That was a weird goddamn vehicle. More games need poo poo like that.
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Jul 17, 2023 20:51
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 lol an 蟻地獄 is the animal we call an "ant lion" in english. so this is presumably one big enough to eat people instead of ants. they do have mandibles like that and reach up from sand. i am not sure how to localize it. we couldn't say "human lion," but maybe "man-eating ant lion," like "man-eating lion"?
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Jul 18, 2023 08:43
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Doc Hawkins posted:
Hah, thanks! I actually know about the antlion, and it's even mentioned elsewhere in this episode even (using the exact kanji name you mention), but somehow I never actually made a connection that this is what this name is meant to be--I guess the way this monster looks should have given me a hint, but it didn't somehow! The enemy monster names are often very obscure in this game and I do my best to translate into something sensible in English, but it's not easy and I'm sure I got a few wrong here and there. As you say, none of the options here are quite right to convey the exact intent of the Japanese original--probably "man-eating ant lion" maybe comes close, but it's not so concise like the Japanese version. Anyway, thanks for this addition! If you don't mind I will make the change in the previous post to reflect the updated name as per your suggestion.
ivantod fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Jul 18, 2023 |
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Jul 18, 2023 08:51
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Drawing from the same well as the Dragon Quest localization team, might I suggest MANt Lion? I also posit that the DQ team would run with the "Pot-Head" enemy name and call it something like a "Pot Fiend". Commander Keene fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Jul 18, 2023 |
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Jul 18, 2023 13:36
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I noticed the antlion thing but Human Hell is such a metal name.
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Jul 18, 2023 13:48
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Commander Keene posted:Drawing from the same well as the Dragon Quest localization team, might I suggest MANt Lion? i like this better than my idea Blaze Dragon posted:I noticed the antlion thing but Human Hell is such a metal name. look at that googly-eyed guy, i can even hear him yelling "let's open up this pit!!"
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Jul 18, 2023 16:18
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Commander Keene posted:Drawing from the same well as the Dragon Quest localization team, might I suggest MANt Lion? Doc Hawkins posted:i like this better than my idea I like this one too, if this is an antlion that eats humans, then "mantlion" is absolutely perfect! Thank you both, I have already updated the text and the pictures (and added the credit to both of you for figuring this out, of course)!
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Jul 18, 2023 18:16
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Yes, I have a suspicion where this is going, and again I love that Gokuraku is the one who came up with this
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Jul 18, 2023 23:17
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Gokuraku seems way more sure about this than Kinu or Manjimaru.
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Jul 20, 2023 00:39
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Gokuraku is 100% sure this will work and is going all in, and it's great.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:09
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Robindaybird posted:Yes, I have a suspicion where this is going, and again I love that Gokuraku is the one who came up with this A redhead with facial hair disguising himself as a bride-to-be? Not only will he pull it off, he'll eat the whole buffet while he's at it.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:34
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nobody: literally nobody: gokuraku: aha, i see exactly what you mean, ill get our dresses
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Jul 20, 2023 16:41
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Randalor posted:A redhead with facial hair disguising himself as a bride-to-be? Not only will he pull it off, he'll eat the whole buffet while he's at it. Honestly, I had a certain other god/demigod in mind, specifically more of this game's region, but yeah, I can see Gokuraku pulling what you said off.
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Jul 20, 2023 19:35
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ivantod posted:the next Tegai Makyou game (The Fourth Apocalypse) Speaking of this game, is it something that you might have any plans for in the future? I've always been really curious about it because of its setting.
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Jul 25, 2023 09:43
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If not, professional translator Clyde Mandelin - the Mother 3 fan translation guy - did a series of streams where he live-translated the game a few years back; the videos are on his YouTube channel, but unfortunately I couldn't find a playlist of them so you'll need to do some digging.
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Jul 25, 2023 10:03
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Item Getter posted:Speaking of this game, is it something that you might have any plans for in the future? I've always been really curious about it because of its setting. Commander Keene posted:If not, professional translator Clyde Mandelin - the Mother 3 fan translation guy - did a series of streams where he live-translated the game a few years back; the videos are on his YouTube channel, but unfortunately I couldn't find a playlist of them so you'll need to do some digging. 
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Jul 25, 2023 20:19
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Hey I hate to ask this again, but the next episode is coming later today, so I was wondering if we could have a couple of posts to get to the next page since we're almost at the bottom! Thanks!
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Jul 29, 2023 12:03
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Well, uh...I'm a little disappointed Kabuki wasn't here to be forced to wear a dress. Wonder what pit we'll have to drag him out of next?
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Jul 29, 2023 12:41
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It still kinda blows my mind that Kabuki had his own fighting game and that it's the only one to have ever gotten a release outside of Japan. So obviously we'll have to drag him out of a fighting tournament to remind him he has a world to save.
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Jul 29, 2023 13:02
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