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Glad to see this back. People like to claim that all the bullshit "fetch me 10 bear asses" quests are automated and you don't have to go back, but that's not true. If you got the quest from a person with a non-generic name, or the quest does not have a generic name, then you do have to go back and see them, which does involve NPC schedule wrangling. wdarkk, if you're reading this thread, stop, and go play the game. Seriously. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Jul 17, 2013 |
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Jul 17, 2013 15:13
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Lethemonster posted:Update! You mean like the image in the OP where it it's like you're putting new links onto a blank image? You don't have to do it, but I like that, and it actually inspired me to do the same thing for my eventual LP of Original Sin... And come to think of it, maybe Dragon Commander as well.
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Jul 31, 2013 23:34
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Video 1-4's audio only comes out of the left-hand speaker. Did you record that with the jack not in all the way?
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Aug 2, 2013 21:50
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This LP is tempting me to play the game again, but I know it's really drat long and I don't have that kind of time. I think I'll just settle for listening to "One Who Gets in Our Way" on loop.Lethemonster posted:I just passed the point in the game that I got up to in my last attempt to LP the game. Things are going much smoother in that area than they did before and boy howdy am I having a whale of a time playing. Oh good, you remembered to stop rushing and play the game more normally? I think being too underlevelled for a boss is one of the reasons your previous attempt died.
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Aug 22, 2013 05:48
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By the way, this scene is the only time in the game that I know of where that fantastic music "Unfinished Battle" plays. It's a shame, because that really is fantastic music. drat you Lethemonster, you're going to make me replay this, aren't you. Okasvi posted:You said something about needing to play as Shulk when fighting against the mechon to keep enchant up, but wouldn't that be a less of a problem when playing as Dunban? I started playing a couple of days ago and am about where your latest video ended, but from what I've seen from playing a bit as Dunban is that he can inflict topple all by himself by chaining three of his starting arts (the combo starter, the one that inflicts break if it follows the previous one and the one that topples) allowing your team to wail at the toppled mechon even without enchant up. Yes. Later on, there are other characters who can also inflict topple without aid, although it may take a while to learn all the appropriate arts.
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Aug 26, 2013 00:24
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I think I had Sharla use Gadolt's rifle for a long part of the game because it had 3 gem slots, no other rifle had those.
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Aug 27, 2013 18:36
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Lethemonster, do you still have the raw footage of Journeys 2-6 without your commentary? I'd love to be able to download an MP4 of that to watch again and again.
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Sep 5, 2013 16:23
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When you have an update, it's ENCOURAGED to make a new reply, even if it's a double or triple post. People tend to only check threads if they see new posts. I've started my replay of the game. I'm now supposed to be heading for Raguel Bridge in pursuit of Juju, but the little idiot can wait as far as I'm concerned. However, since I'm now level 18 and have finally completed my collectopaedia for Colony 9 and Tephra Cave, I suppose there's no putting it off anymore. One thing I don't like is searching for the missing collectibles for the collection thing. Even the Google Doc faq doesn't mention where the best chances of finding some are. I've been trying to play as other characters more, other than Shulk. I'm getting better at Reyn, but early-game Sharla is just tedious. I've been trying to use her tranquilizer bullet for crowd control, but I've been screwing it up and switching targets tends to make the other members of my team stop attacking entirely, which is not helpful. I'll come back to her later after she's gotten more useful abilities. She's not fun to control personally at the moment. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 23:26
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Lethemonster posted:I didn't double post because it was a) a repost of a previous post and b) I have over 100 subscribers on youtube and it would never occur to me that they weren't all SA viewers because how the hell do I have more than 2 for one crappy lp?! All your subscribers may be SA viewers, but not all your SA viewers are subscribers. I pretty much never subscribe to any Youtube channels, and never LP channels. I'm just trying to help, since I noticed two days passed between your edit and when I checked the thread.
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Sep 14, 2013 20:17
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This is a great update, but I'm looking forward to the next one even more. 
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Sep 17, 2013 00:18
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I just reached the Xord fight in the Ether Mine. I had been getting a bit worried that I might have been slightly over-levelled, as I was level 26. No, no I am not overlevelled. I was controlling Reyn before the fight (and you don't get a chance to switch party members before the boss battle), and that didn't go so well. Without Shulk's AI using Enchant in a timely fashion, it was troublesome, and once Sharla went down, Shulk eventually went down, and that was about it. I reloaded, switched to Shulk, sat through the cutscene again (I know you don't have to, but I'd rather reload and see the cutscenes than die and then just walk back in like nothing happened.) I died even faster this time. So okay, I guess I should do some more quests.
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Sep 17, 2013 21:38
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The section where you suddenly switch to solo Shulk was a real surprise the first time, and pretty interesting. It's the first time you ever have a solo character running around in a dangerous area. The short sections of solo Shulk and Fiora in Colony 9 don't count. This made the Baby Telethia battle even more memorable. On a side note, I love it when the boss fight music starts in a cutscene, it really gets me pumped up for the fight. I love that they bothered to record lines referring to Alvis just for this one fight. It's that kind of attention to detail that's great. The scene where Melia woke up gave me the strong impression that she was Shulk's new love interest. Fiora is not forgotten of course, and never will be, but acceptance has set in. Once I was told how to use her, Melia became my favorite or second-favorite character to play as. That thing Lethemonster described about ending up in a loop of decreasing tension because you can't hit Telethia to build your Monado gauge happened to me on one fight leading to a defeat, and I found it hilarious. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Sep 18, 2013 |
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Sep 18, 2013 03:29
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Are you controlling Melia, or is she in your active party? You could talk about her playstyle/how to use her.
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Sep 18, 2013 18:15
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Edit: working now.
Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Sep 19, 2013 |
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Sep 18, 2013 22:15
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In the Latest video, Lethemonstyer commented that the Nopon were basically an attempt to take the usual annoying, overly sugary "mascot race" and turn it on its head... but they didn't turn it that much. I still found them annoying and irritating.vaguely posted:God I wish this was true. In her rush to get back to this point, she hasn't really been doing any side-quests at all. Honestly, I think rushing through everything was not the best way to show the game off. We barely saw any of Guar Plains, for instance, one of the first big "Wow" areas in the game. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Sep 19, 2013 |
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Sep 19, 2013 12:54
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As much as I don't care for Riki, I really love his introduction. Possibly because it looks like it hurt. I do also like that the party doesn't particularly like having the fuzzball foisted on them. The game in fact goes out of its way to paint Riki as a joke character, going so far as to have himself suggest that the Chief is making an excuse to kick him out of the village. Even if you have him as your lead when fighting the Telethia, the game treats it as if he did nothing. From Riki and the other Nopon in the previous video who wanted to be a Heropon, it's suggested that far from being a term of endearment, the Heropon title is given to Nopon who rack up huge debts and are forced to become adventurers, doing really dangerous jobs that other Nopon don't want, because that's the only way they stand a chance to pay the debt off. That's actually an interesting idea. I actually tried Riki as my lead the first time I fought the Telethia, and it was pretty hard and annoying. I won by the skin of my teeth, very nearly getting completely wiped out at the finish. It was only later that I realized that I had completely neglected to level up his arts, which didn't help. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Sep 19, 2013 |
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Sep 19, 2013 17:32
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Tupperwarez posted:Also, the one where Melia says Riki is the fluffiest of all Nopons. She says it with such gravitas. I think that was Dunban. Dunban: Truly, Riki is the softest of all Nopon.
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Sep 20, 2013 03:13
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Okay, Blind Sally, what's Shulk/Melia/Riki?
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Sep 20, 2013 03:55
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I think a hybrid approach to the quest stuff would be okay. Mostly screenshots and if anything is interesting on video, you could show that. All the sidequests are unvoiced, so video wouldn't usually add much. You can get overlevelled from doing sidequests, but certain areas need you to have high affinity with them to unlock more characters skill trees, so use your discretion. I'd do only the most interesting sidequests, but I'd give higher priority for the ones that are timed. A lot of them are just "fetch me an item" or "kill me a monster" and those can probably be skipped. EDIT: I've been doing a bunch of the sidequests. I've skipped a fair few in Colony 9 and some in Satorl Marsh, but most everything else, and I'm still just about at the right level. I'm probably going to hold off a little while and do a few quests to see if I can unlock another skill or two for Melia before fighting the mother Telethia. Almost every playable character has an achievement for using their arts 100 times. This can take a little while to get, but I got Melia's in about 20 minutes. Using Dunban, I found myself holding off on arts waiting for some cooldowns to expire (so I could do combos). For Melia, there is pretty much no downtime. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 13:59
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The second one is better. I assume you didn't bother making the audio stereo because it was just a video test. By the way, the last video cuts off as a cutscene is starting. Not an important one, I think, but still. I just passed the LP again. I beat the Telethia with a level 36 party of Melia/Shulk/Dunban. It was amazingly, quite easy. Contrary to what Lethemonster said, you do not need to die a bunch of times or be in a bad way to trigger the halfway point cutscene. No one in the party died once, even though I didn't have the chance to swap out Melia's sleep skill for her healing spell.
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Sep 22, 2013 19:21
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MentholsNBeer posted:Kind of unrelated, but if anyone in here has archives I would go read TheDarkId's Xenogears LP. It's his masterpiece. You don't need forums archives, It's on the LP Archive. Wow, over 150 parts.  I will get around to reading that at some point.
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Sep 23, 2013 22:50
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It was a bit surprising to have the party get captured and end up in control of Melia, who is a newcomer to the group. It does make sense though, as it serves the dual purpose of emphasizing that Melia is going to be important to the story (as if her interactions with Shulk weren't a big enough clue), and it shows that Melia was not responsible for Shulk's arrest and was indeed honestly trying to help. This sequence also makes it clear that Melia is humble and highly respected by the High Entia, so much so that her own brother pushed her to be the next ruler instead of himself. Alcamoth was where a lot of people got burned out on side-questing. On my first run, I stopped most of that in Makna after getting Melia, who was so much fun to control that I pushed through Frontier village and this part of the game as fast as possible in the hope that I'd permanently get her in my party. Wonderslug posted:I still haven't made up my mind whether the design of the High Entia is awesome or stupid. I think I'll go with "stupid". Even in-lore, basically none of them can actually use those head-wings to fly, they're just kinda pointless.
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Sep 27, 2013 05:51
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Some people have made maps for the more obnoxious NPC locations like Frontier village and Alcamoth.
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Sep 27, 2013 13:44
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Riki, notably, has very little impact on the story from here on out. It's been a year or more since I played, so my memory might be faulty, but I can only remember one or two scenes where he does something noteworthy.
Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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Sep 28, 2013 22:01
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Wind God Sety posted:Not to mention she's basically just a woman in a refrigerator. I remember liking Melia a lot, but when I played through the game I didn't really do it with much of an analytical eye, so I dunno if she's exactly well written. I'd dispute this myself, but in the aborted LP last year, Mazed put it better than I ever could. (The link requires Archives access). Mazed posted:The thing I wanted to bring up here was the death of Fiora, and how she was not so much a "strong female character" but genuinely a "strong character (that's female)", and how well-done that whole sequence of events was altogether in terms of both gameplay and story. I think that I can give Monolith a bit of a break on Fiora's death because any one of the Colony 9 four could have taken her place in the mech, and died just the same. (Okay, Shulk's Monado powers gave him a plot shield, but other than that...) To answer the second part, I think Melia is well written, and she has a fairly strong presence in the rest of the game. Oberndorf posted:When I first played the game, I actually thought that Fiora's tour through Colony 9 was actually a really clever way of dodging the creaky old trope of the childhood friend becoming the love interest. I even thought it was done fairly well, given she was clearly smart, action oriented, and fairly heroic. After all, she did nearly as much damage to the invulnerable enemy forces with one half powered mech she didn't even know how to drive as the soldier and the guy with the magical superweapon did. (I was also under the impression that "women in refrigerators" was a problem because they got killed offhandedly as a motivation, rather than going out doing something important/relevant/heroic, but I could be wrong on that bit.) No, I think you're right on, I think that refrigerators are mostly about helpless women being killed. Fiora wasn't killed off like a helpless damsel, she acted like a hero. She knew the danger, and she faced it head-on, no hesitation. Any of the other three would have done the exact same thing, died the exact same way, and prompted very similar reactions from the survivors. quote:(Actually, as an aside, it's a complement to the little things this game does right that Fiora gets what appears to be a full set of battle dialog despite a tragically brief career in the active party.) That's not unique to Fiora. Dickson and Alvis also only have one single battle in the active party, and the full party members also have a set of battle dialogue referring specifically to them. It's a testament to the detail and care put into this game. There's even  .)
Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Sep 29, 2013 |
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Sep 29, 2013 02:57
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PleasingFungus posted:Is Fiora's death better than many other 'women in refrigerators'? Sure. She does at least go down fighting, more or less, and she shows some signs of agency beforehand. But it's still not good. That's a fair point, I suppose. quote:It seems a little odd that the reward for getting a relationship strong enough is the chance to... strengthen it further. I mean, I know the point of the heart-to-hearts is bonus characterization, and the further relationship bonuses are an aside; it's just a slightly strange choice for a reward. You bet, characters have skills they learn that give them passive boosts. Characters can link those skills to other party members. How many skills they can link is tied directly to affinity level, and skills have different shapes, so it's not just any old skills which can be linked, but specific ones. Characters who have higher affinity in battle also get higher chances for things like continuing chain attacks repeatedly, there's a very noticable difference in how often you can extend a chain attack with Shulk and Reyn on the team as opposed to when one of them isn't there. Higher affinity is also used in Gem Crafting. I think there are other effects, but I don't remember what they are offhand. Alavaria posted:So are there also men in refrigerators Not very often. Male characters are sometimes killed off, but usually they go out well, a lot like Fiora did, in a heroic fashion with full agency. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Sep 29, 2013 |
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Sep 29, 2013 05:13
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Critic of the Dawn posted:As for Melia... well, we don't really know her well enough to talk about that yet. I will, however, say that neither my friend nor I were big fans of how she played in-game, either under player control or as an AI. Maybe that had something to do with why neither of us really liked Alcamoth or the High Entia much in general. Or maybe it was the fact that Alcamoth is basically a huge dull empty palace overlooking a huge dull empty park with the game's least interesting music. I don't think that a character's hometown or their playstyle are factors should be considered when judging the content of said character. I'll say that Melia is one of my (if not my most) favorite characters to control (and it's too bad the AI is bad at using her), because she is surprisingly versatile and plays quite uniquely compared to almost any other "blaster mage" character I've seen.
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Sep 30, 2013 13:24
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The only reason I'm against Shulk-Reyn-Sharla-Dunban... is because we've gotten a generally good idea how they play already. Since this is Melia's first big arc, I'd like to hear more about her first. (And she hasn't been in the active party. Yes, I know that at the moment she still isn't in the active party.)
Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Oct 7, 2013 |
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Oct 7, 2013 04:03
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The quest markers are quite helpful on the islands, as (I think) they don't point to the same location on the overworld map all the time, but to which teleporter you need to take to get to where you're going. On my recent playthrough, I tried to main Riki for the engineer fight. I got easily crushed, but then again, that was also hard when I switched to Shulk/Reyn/Dunban. I think I had problems because they cast art seal or something, which is really annoying. I suppose I should try using him some more, but then again, Sharla finally unlocked her red ability, so I'd like to test to see if I can make her work offensively. I find that talk about the tomb being too dangerous for Melia amusing.
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Oct 15, 2013 16:14
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Tupperwarez posted:The first time I played, I had bought Makna equipment for Melia and decked her out in it. So it was that Crown Princess Melia Antiqua returned to the royal court of the High Entia dressed like a deranged guerrilla hippie. You can do that? I guess I never bothered buying stuff for her in Makna. I do know for sure that you are not allowed to remove her headgear until after the next video. EDIT: Change her outfit that early, I mean. I know there's no reaction to wearing different things. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Oct 16, 2013 |
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Oct 16, 2013 02:10
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Lethemonster posted:I promise this hasn't died again, I just picked up some mutant strain of fresher's flu / bronchitis that made recording impossible. Are you okay? You seem to be crippled with illness like, 11 months out of the year.
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Nov 8, 2013 23:29
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This game is quite cutscene heavy at times.
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Nov 19, 2013 19:44
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Renoistic posted:Pretty interesting how the computer scanned Melia's genetic data after permission had been granted. That's because the genetic scan is not for the purpose of granting permission to enter. Wind God Sety posted:I can appreciate that they at least break it up with that miniboss, and the option to do sidequests or whatever before going to the tomb. And even without those, 10-15 minute cutscenes aren't exactly out of the norm for JRPGs I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, I enjoy the cutscenes in this game. But I realized that the only thing I could talk about that was really relevant to this update and not the next was the assassin miniboss, and Lethemonster already said everything I had to say about that.
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Nov 19, 2013 21:42
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I thought the Melia-only section was too easy. I was hoping to try and take on a boss with her. I suppose that was done in case you never bothered to control her before, though. I started using her in the Makna forest, and after getting some tips from the forum, I quite enjoyed playing as her, even a bit more than Shulk. Once you get into the rhythm of summoning and firing, it's quite a lot of fun. It helps to think of Melia's attacks as First In, Last Out. That's useful because you can get up one buff you want to have active for the entire fight, and you can maintain it as long as you're careful to only fire two of the three you have summoned. One big downside is that the AI likes to keep Melia holding her buffs and not using them to attack, so she's best controlled by the player. I hope Lethemonster will control her on occasion when she rejoins the party. I actually like the aesthetics of the High Entia Tomb. There are thousands of tombs in videogames, but most of them look alike. This one is high tech and brightly lit. The wall-climbing sections I could do without, though. This update answers why they had both an audio authorization and a genetic scan. It's because the scan was for a different reason. Yes, you can come back to the Tomb later, Lethemonster. I don't think it even gets sealed off again. There are Heart-to-Hearts in there (well at least one: Reyn-Melia). There are also secrets and other things that you can't get to at the moment. I think that you can get the chest that Vil mentioned on your first visit. Ashram posted:To the newest video: So no one who is not of royal blood can get inside the Tomb and Melia's father and brother don't look like they want to kill her...So is this a self fullfilling prophesy? Shulk has a vision of Melia being in danger, goes in there after her and because of that Melia gets endangered? As the video showed, this was not the case, the assassin was already there ahead of us. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 22:36
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Lethemonster handled that boss fight easily. The first time I played it, I got screwed. My party was Shulk, Melia and Sharla, and I got stuck in a loop where Shulk didn't have enough Monado charge to remove the Telethia's Aura seal, nor could he build it up attacking the High Entia assassin, so I was screwed for that fight and couldn't do anything. I had to laugh at myself.Lethemonster posted:I tried and I couldn't get the drat thing to open. I decided the area was cursed and ran away! Argh. That has the ultimate upgrade for Melia's most damaging spell - Summon Bolt. It's really really useful. Luckily, once the plot lets you re-enter (which shouldn't be too long) you can use the landmark system to teleport right into the Tomb nearby to get it, so you can't complain about having to wander back out of there. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 18:47
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Even though Melia was in your party before, and you could change her weapon and maybe some other gear, you were not allowed to remove her hat - making this the first possible time you could see her headwings. I'm not sure if you've recorded much further ahead, but please try using Melia for a bit (although Prison Island is of course better with Shulk leading).
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Jan 20, 2014 23:57
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Omobono posted:Don't Alvis' and Shulk's visions have the same origin, namely the Monado? It would be strange if Shulk's visions avoided predestination but Alvis' showed an immutable future. In fact, in the "1 Month ago" flashback, Alvis specifically said "The vision is a sign. By your will, it can be changed." I think the Emperor decided to go partly out of curiosity, and partly out of trust in Shulk. Ashram posted:I don't think I will ever get used to "Metal" Face... It does sound a bit silly, but Leaving it as the original "Black Face" wouldn't have been wise. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 14:12
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I started a second playthrough because of this LP, but I stopped soon after reaching this point. I should pick it up again soon if I want to keep ahead of the LP.
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Jan 29, 2014 00:55
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I like to stuff Melia's armour with a couple HP up gems to make her a little less fragile. I think it helps. I do like that (this video spoilers) Shulk was unable to save the Emperor. Just because you see a vision doesn't mean that you can always do something to change it. Some of the things seen in this video and the next aren't going to make sense for a long time. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Feb 3, 2014 |
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Feb 3, 2014 17:42
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I just started playing again today. I'm not much farther ahead at all. In fact, my saved game was right after where the video ends. I decided to try and main Sharla for a while to see if I could put her attack skills to use. Eh, not great. Most of her attack skills have huge cooldowns. It wouldn't be so bad if her worthless "Cool Off" talent art actually reset her cooldowns as well, but noooooo. And I've been waiting for the LP to reach this part for a long time. I've got a bunch to say, but I'll wait for more people to see the video first.
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Feb 5, 2014 23:27
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