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Blaze Dragon posted:I was about to ask the same, and also where the passwords come from since I didn't quite understand that. I'm surprised the game lets you have a copy of Gore in your party considering how little sense that makes, are these just randomly generated for everything that has data in the game or something? The random characters in the password decide what comes out of it. Everything in the game that is involved in a battle has a set of characters that identify them, and thus can be put into a password. By looking through the game's code, someone found the characters that would generate these extra "demons" that you aren't supposed to get. Think of this password system like the password saves of early NES games. For example, there were all sorts of weird stuff you could start with but putting in random characters into the Metroid game, including one password which has you stuck in the first screen, with Ridley already defeated but nothing else done.
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Jan 22, 2017 23:46
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 Alright, let's step into Eridanus. I'd say we put it off for long enough, but no that's really not true. I almost put off those sidequests but I have a system and it works so...   A Land Controlling Roads   I wanna just get back and get paid.  It's here in the home stretch that we most need to stay alert. Overconfidence is the greatest enemy, huh? Yeah, you're right. I can't fault your enthusiasm, but let's stay focused. Right! Let's find that Vanishing Point and-- Did you hear that, Tadano? Zelenin made a joke!I know, it's amazing! But anyway, Eridanus.  Right out the gate, it's different to everything we've seen before. Antlia, Bootes, Carina and Delphinus all started you off in a tiny corridor (in varying ways). Eridanus starts you out in the open.  It's doors are just normal, simple doors. Carina sort of had that as well to be fair. But it's not just this that immediately sets it apart from the otherwise. Everything is green and looks like its actually living plant life rather than a facsimile of life. The area is referred to as a "Land" and not a "Nation" in the music name and it sounds way less oppressive too. We're definitely on the cusp of freedom from this place, and everything about the area is signaling that already.   My wife's a great cook.Not much from this guy, just appreciating the finer things in life I see.  Also there's a... Thoth, and not Demon again??, just next to the entrance.  The wind told me about you... About the humans that came to this extreme world of spacelike conditions... Still... to think you've come this far... I must say, I didn't believe you could do it. Is that the power of human wisdom? That's right. Hoh hoh hoh...! Pretty confident in ourselves, aren't we?Considering what I could do with this Mayahuel I'm carrying around, I have good reason to be confident... By the way... Do you know who I am? I'm not as special as all that, though... I just know a little more than your average god. Now then... As the god of books and knowledge, tell me this... Do you like riddles? Y'see, it's my duty as that kind of god to test whoever I meet. Those who pass gain more knowledge. It's a little pastime of mine. So? How about it? Want to take a stab at my riddles and earn some new wisdom? Yes. Hoh hoh hoh... I thought you'd agree, my boy. But first, let me explain how this is going to work. I predicted this would happen and gave a certain demon one of my books in advance. You job is to find some book and bring it to me. Here's where the riddle comes in: I'll give you a hint as to who this "certain demon" is. Whether or not you earn your new wisdom depends on if you can solve the riddle. And now, the first riddle. Alrght, my boy, now show me what you can do!So this is basically just a way, way less creepy coat of paint on the sidequests we've been getting from Anthony. Go to place, talk to demon, come back. We obviously haven't just gotten them from him but it's the easiest comparison.  Anyway, the thing about Eridanus is that it has A LOT of sudden dead-ends. This one has a hidden door that we can't even open yet.  But there's a lot more that have absolutely nothing in them. It's kind of ridiculous, really.  ...Okay, this one isn't exactly the best example either, but you can see several on the map.  Anyway, the other major thing about Eridanus is that it's kind of big and sprawling. It's not exactly a maze or anything, but it can take a while to navigate at first.  Also next to that Bead is a hidden door we can only open from this side. That's... kind of weird really. It's not like this is any quicker than the other door we could take to get here.  Presumably from there, some of these other dead ends have something similar. Otherwise stuff like that empty one square past that door are just... irrelevant and dumb.  It also keeps up the trend of having Fixed Forma to lead towards general locations. Except this doesn't help now. It's more of a "hey there might be a thing here!" and then there isn't and you have 5 Recovery Cores when you probably already had 99. It mainly just exists to lead you into more fights. Speaking of which... The Fear of God Toufei is, uh, pretty much exactly as he looks. So, not very good at all. At least his Source gives Garudyne if you really need that still. It also gives Diarama and Giant Slice so even that is kind of terrible! Kin-Ki resists Phys, is weak to Wind and is immune to Elec and Curse. His base skills are a weird mesh (he has Fang Breaker! And Zionga...????) and his source is even weirder but consistent. It gives Ziodyne AND Elec Boost! It's basically Electric Inferno and I am kind of very okay with that.  Vouivre is here and she also has Bai Suzhen is awful. She only resists Ice, and she is weak to Fire. And has a 300% weakness to Paralysis and Charm. And her best skill is Bufula. Her source gives Ice Boost... and Mutudi and Recovery Boost? Bai Suzhen what are you even doing?!  Titan turns up here as well. Which I'm only pointing out in case he ends up relevant in the future in a way that I forgot. An Honor Befitting that Name Let's do the Enemy Searches now as well. There IS a Fiend, because this is a Sector that is not named Antlia, but they have a 2% chance of spawning so that might take some work. Anyway, Tlaloc has a 49% chance of spawning. 20% chance of appearing solo and a 29% chance of appearing with a couple Toufei. He's weak to Ice and resists Fire, Electric and Curse. He has no ailment resistances or weaknesses. His skills are Maragion and Zionga. I shoot him and he becomes a statue. Hitonari with a Luck build is disgusting because Rock Bullet works almost every single time you use it. It's great. Get the Jackal. Do it.  King Frost always rocks up solo and he has a 49% chance of appearing. Yes, there are only 3 enemy search demons here. King Frost is also notable for being the first Tyrant that isn't a Sector boss! Anyway, he's weak to Fire, drains Ice and immune to Expel. He has Mediarahan which is cute and irrelevant, because he does not resist Petrification. Or any ailment really.  He's a special fusion when we hit level 40. He requires both Frost Ace and Black Frost and is strictly worse than both of them. Cold World is kind of a unique skill; it's only on him by default but he doesn't give it as a Source skill (only as a Bonus). Two demons DO give it as a Source skill but they're level 70+ and neither has it by default. Cold World is good but not great. It's got a base power of 150 (same as Bufula) and hits everything. It costs slightly more MP than Mabufudyne and is only worth using because it inflicts instant death. At a 15% base rate. If he had a good Luck stat this might be worth something. Malevolence and Benevolence Anyway, once we blunder into what I can only presume is progress, Arthur chimes in.  An abnormality has just occurred in a crewman's radio on the field. There were no major problems, but all hands should be aware of radio conditions while investigating. Maybe our Demonicas are finally starting to break down. We're looking into the problem, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the Demonicas. The magnetic field was disturbed by a large energy source...? Could it be...? Has the Joint Project begun the destruction of the Schwarzwelt!? That is not a possibility. There is still time before the operation commences. They will not begin without our signal. I wonder if it's possible that the energy source is moving on its own. I just hope it's not another demon out to cause trouble for us. Anything is possible. We cannot allow ourselves to be distracted by unverified data. Strike team, focus on searching for the Vanishing Point. Fear itself is usually worse than what you're afraid of. Let's keep our priorities straight, guys. I'm not sure that quite applies to our situation, but... I'll agree that we do need to find the Vanishing Point now. Work quickly, Hitonari. A Land Controlling Roads There's a terminal over here in case you want to, I'unno, have to make that long trek again for no reason or something.  There's also this guy over here, but he's not got anything exciting or interesting to say.  There is a set of stairs over here, but you probably noticed the other set on the map didn't you? The one in the bottom left. Gonna use the terminal to warp over there real quick and take off Medic since it's clearly irrelevant here.  The stairs in the bottom left lead over to this open area that has nothing in it.  There IS a hidden door here, but we can't open it yet.  Oh and I guess one by the stairs as well that we can open.  It's kind of a shame and a major annoyance that I can't open this one yet either.  Because surprise this entire path is nothing but damage tiles. I may have been a mite too hasty to declare Medic irrelevant.  Oh but wait, there's more! There are also ailment tiles here. And they put you to sleep.  Being asleep on the map regens HP at a much better rate than it does in combat but doesn't affect MP. Hitonari being asleep on the map means that we can't do poo poo and every clock tick the DP Indicator steadily advances towards combat.  This path of danger and tutorials leads to a Summon Stone and nothing else. If we could open those hidden doors, it'd probably make for a minimal effort way to this spot and/or back again. Still eat the one damage tile but that's not as big a deal. I'm really glad it's so easy to have a ridiculous surplus of Life Stones, because they heal 25% HP and all.  Anyway, what about this tile? I sort of forgot to map it huh. My bad, let's fix tha--  Oh, this is new. This is very new.  It teleported us to some very different looking area. Still on the second floor though, according to the map.  There's a terminal AND a healing spot here, at least. The terminal makes sense, but the heal spot is weirder since we are, or at least were, so close to the entrance.  But aside from that one door we can't open, there's nothing else here so we'll take this warp panel in the top-right back to that tiny chamber in the 2nd floor from before.  As for the actual main part of the floor, there's just a door immediately. And, huh, that weird white techno room is pretty close by according to the map. That's kind of interesting and cool.  ...Okay, Eridanus does this and I don't like this. This is just a really bad decision and is honestly just flat-out not defendable IMO. It has a second tier of Dark Rooms because you just got the Visualiser so you're not allowed to use it any more. It was basically there for Delphinus 5F and that's it. Back to blindly wandering for you. It wouldn't be a big deal but this one dark room is pretty big and has one hell of a complicated layout compared to all those simple corridors we got used to before.  There's those four rooms in the corners and two arbitrary and ridiculous ones over on the left. We'll start here I think.  Well, this ain't such a bad place to live. If you get lost, just trust your instincts and walk straight ahead. You might see somethin' then...Okay, so the top-left is probably the exit then. Gonna save that one for last. The Fear of God Pellaidh is pretty boring and bad. Resists ice, weak to Fire and Elec. His best stat is magic and his only spell is Diarama. Just... augh why is everything in Eridanus so underwhelming? A Land Controlling Roads The bottom left just gives us a fixed forma to help alleviate minor ailments. Although with the sleep tiles, this may help.  Man, I can't get anywhere in this darkness... I've just been walking forward. Hm? Just walking forward... Maybe it's not as complicated as I thought...Yeah, so that next door up is an empty corridor. The forma there is, uh...  At least it's potentially nice and useful. The last door in the top left is clearly where we want to go so...   I'm going ahead for another try. See you later! Gotta keep trying until we get the hell outta this drat world, after all. Just past Jimenez, there's probably progress. We just have a set of stairs leading back down.  And now Zelenin interrupts immediately. Sure. How's the investigation going? I called because I wanted you to help me out with something. You're not far from my position, right? Could you come here and give me your opinion? Just go on straight ahead from where you are now.Alright, so that's exactly what we're not going to do then.  There's a door right to the left there and it... leads to a white room with a set of stairs? Huh.  Of course, the brings us up to just adjacent to the teleport-y area.  There's also an Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto just round the corner.   Hm? What do you want? Ah, worse and worse... to run into a human at a time like this. No matter! I must bring back the Lady Amaterasu! Hmm... a thought comes to mind... You humans can find hidden demons with those unearthly machines of yours, no...? I am Ame no Uzume, attendant to the Lady Amaterasu, the goddess of a foreign land far from here. Then I might be able to rejoin the Lady Amaterasu... Very well! I have a request for you, human. Yes. Thank you. Oh yes, it nearly slipped my mind... Should you cross paths, tell him what happened. His is the power to tell fortunes through Futomani, so he would be no small help... My hopes are placed on you.I suppose we'll be going back to Delphinus sooner or later. Later. It's going to be later.  At least we can open a door on this side that gives us a convenient shortcut back here.  Maybe it's time I upgraded my Forma Search function too.I'm not at all sure how he plans on doing that, but this does raise a good point. There really hasn't been much Forma at all in Eridanus.   Speaking of which, just around the corner from that guy we find this rare Forma. Seems weird that they'd have this (obviously named after the Ars Goetia) and the Lemegetonite at the same time but... hmm, wait hang on. I wonder, then... Malevolence and Benevolence And here's the thing that Zelenin was talking about. At least I hope it is.  Thank you for coming. What do you suppose this is...? From the look of it, I don't think it's merely decorative... On examination, I found a weak energy reading. The waveform is... similar to those of the terminals. Oh yes, and here... Some kind of mechanism is in this recession. Have you found anything that might fit that description? Any possible keys to the device? Yes.We DID just pick up that Goetite around the corner. That's all I can think of. Really?! Let me see! ... I'm fairly sure what we're looking for is in the Schwarzwelt... I wonder if we can find it with our Main App. Well... I'll examine this for a little while longer. You keep up the hunt for something that might be used with this. A Land Controlling Roads So now we need to find... something, I guess. Well, let's get looking then.  The one thing you'll inevitably notice around here is that there are a lot of sleep tiles that... just exist to troll you. Like those down there that lead to a one-way door back in a loop. I'unno, I kinda think that's pretty funny.   There's also just kind of a lot of sleep tiles in general around here, jeez. If you don't have Medic equipped, why not? Go fix that! The Fear of God This part of the floors brings us some new demons to deal with. Let's see what we've got. Spriggan's an unusual one. She's a Fairy but she's also a Physical demon. Her Magic is even her lowest stat and has the lowest chance of increasing. Fancy. She's weak to Expel/Curse and resists Phys and Elec. Dantalian meanwhile would explode if she ever looked in his direction. He's immune to Wind and Curse, resists Fire, Ice and Expel and is weak to Elec. He's also extra weak to Phys because he takes 150% damage from it. Also 300% Charm weakness. At least he knows Tetrakarn...?  Shiwanna is much simpler. You can see his skills and resistances here. His source is nice because it gives Resist Phys AND Resist Gun! Sui-Ki is basically an Ice version of Kin-Ki. He's weak to Fire and is immune to Ice and Curse. His source gives Bufudyne and Ice Boost.  Basilisks are weak to Ice and Wind. Null Curse. Has an obvious gimmick being a Basilisk in that it really digs Petrifying dudes to the point where its basic attack has a 3% chance to Petrify. A Land Controlling Roads Right, so where were we?  > A crew member that looks like Jimenez is on the ground. Malevolence and Benevolence This is an absurdly stupid thing to care about, but I do appreciate that this IS a sleep tile. It could've been so easy to just not do that. > You shook Jimenez... > But Jimenez did not wake up.  > You punched Jimenez! > But Jimenez still won't wake up... > Try kicking Jimenez?   For some reason, I'm aching all over. Yo, Bugaboo, you know what happened while I was asleep? B-Boobooo! ...Yeahhh. I guess asking him won't get me anywhere. Anyway, here's something to thank you for saving my rear end again. > Jimenez left with Bugaboo. This is kind of a deeply ironic reward you got there, Jimenez. Like, very ironic. A Land Controlling Roads Strictly speaking, we could've just ignored Jimenez wholesale and not gotten those 5 Patra Stones but what kind of friend would we be if we did that?  Those purple tiles you saw ARE poison, yes. But you know what makes this actually amazing? This is just an empty dead-end!  Progress itself is probably over by where Jimenez was, but looping back from there was the easiest way to get to some places, so.  Okay, yeah, there's a terminal here. This is definitely the path to progress.  And stairs leading up to the 2nd floor. Again.  This part of the floor is fairly sprawling and sort of open but not really? I'unno, you'll see.  Like there are a lot of turns and intersections but not really any directly open-open areas.  There's also a lot of hidden doors. This is kind of Eridanus' MO in general as you may have noticed by now.  But this takes it a step further. This door leads to a corridor that has nothing in it. At all.  I thought this was the main path... No, wait. I've seen something like this before. Is this like that place in sector Carina? Do we need to switch spaces? Or maybe there's a hidden door somewhere... I'll look around a little more. Speaking of hidden doors, this one here might be my favourite. Clearly leads to a small room, right?  And it sure does, but there's nothing in it! This really does just feel like, I dunno, a D&D map designed by an overly eager child or something. A lot of the "traps" and things like this just give off that vibe and it's pretty great.  But this one is different. This one actually leads to something. I know, I'm shocked too.  Turns out that guy was right and there's a phase shifter right here. Good guess, guy!  The sanctum is pretty small and simple, honestly. It doesn't do much, but it doesn't need to do much.  The one thing of note inside the sanctum itself is that there is a hidden door leading to an open area. That is empty. No items, nothing to talk to...  But the area is super linear and leads to stairs back down to the first floor. I'm beginning to see a trend here.  Alright, so this part of the floor has a fair few doors that are all visible and none of them are locked.  I have to get home... My daughter's waiting for me! There IS a hidden door here as well, but we won't be opening this one just yet. You'll see.  Thanks for the... vote of confidence...? there Itsumade. Appreciate it.  Oh and the top-left door leads to a 2x2 room of sleep tiles. And nothing else. This is so ridiculous that I can't even pretend to get mad at it.  Speking of sleep tiles, the last visible door drops us on one as well. Anyway, let's just wake this guy up.  Thanks, man, you saved me. Here, this is for you. Well, it could be better but this might prove more useful later? At least we can use this one if/when the ailment tiles affect everyone or something.  Oh and for what it's worth? That hidden door seems like it's designed exclusively to let you skip these sleep tiles.  But there's a Soma here so you probably don't want to do that, at least at first.  After that though? Feel free to crack it open and ignore those tiles if you care that much about it.  A couple of Agilao stones is fairly underwhelming at this point, to be honest. It wouldn't be too bad for a Magic MC in theory but he would be falling far, far behind in damage output at this point anyway so.  South of there is a shortcut to let us get back here quickly if/when we need to. Eridanus is really beginning to feel a lot like, I dunno, an Etrian Odyssey stratum rather than a usual sector and I am super okay with that.  Door to the left there leads us back to a white area with stairs heading on up.  This brings us back to the large open spot on the second floor but... now we've been everywhere we CAN and we just basically went in a giant circle. We didn't even find a thing that could be used as a key for that spider not-terminal. I suppose the Goetite will help with that after all.
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Jan 23, 2017 07:42
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Dragonatrix posted:
Yeah, that's it exactly. It's not actually objectively bad (though it gets amazingly dickish if you want to map the whole thing, as you've shown), but it's like the game realized, after four sectors, "wait! They're already used to this, these people played the first three Etrian Odyssey games!" and then suddenly it's rear end in a top hat Map Design 101. Except without any squirrels stealing your Warp Wires. I have to admit, seeing you go through it (and not having to deal with random battles on sleep tiles if you happened to miss Medic) at least lets me appreciate it for how sincere it is about being One Of Those First Person Dungeon Crawlers. It's a certain type of heart-felt "gently caress you" that you could only get from something like Wizardry or Etrian Odyssey.
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Jan 23, 2017 08:17
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Okay, at first I was "maybe I was wrong, this isn't so bad... Okay, now there's the bullshit I remember." Instantly nulling the dark room visualizer is utterly inexcusable.
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Jan 23, 2017 21:54
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Prayer So, what is it that the Goetite gives us in the end?  You're probably not at all surprised by this. It was right by a guy who teased it, its name was virtually identical to what gave us Search A...   Guess we're almost outta here, huh? It's all ridin' on you. This material fusion equipment can make all kindsa stuff, but it can't make Mom's meat pies... ...Say, Tadano. I hear tell there's all sortsa booby traps in Eridanus. You havin' any trouble out there? That's what we make them Sub Apps for, ya know. I'll fix ya up anything ya want! We're for y'all! Anythin' to help get back to Earth!Or, in other words, use Medic! The game hands you it for minimal effort for a reason.  But anyway, yeah, with the Forma Search B we can now find Silver Forma! This generally just lets us find upgraded versions of Sector specific Forma...  But Antlia has this thing. 1 of them isn't enough to do anything with though; we need 3.  Each Sector only adds a tiny handful of new Forma with this, but they're potentially worth our time to deal with.  Bootes also has a unique Core, but this one is Magic huh? Hmm..  It's also the only one that gave me this. Rising Cores are a bit different, in that they CAN appear in every Sector but this one is the only one that spawned.  In terms of upgrades on old Forma, two is the most we'll find in any given Sector right now.  But they seem to each have a unique Core that is named after a stat. Odd, that one...  So, if you discount the Rising Core, each sector gives 2 or 3 new Forma and I use the word "new" generously.  In practice, it's just the one. If this pattern holds out, then we should be able to find a Luck Core in Eridanus. Or maybe there isn't one of those just out of spite. Who knows.  Anyway, we got some new stuff so let's see what we can get out of it. Oh, it's just this. Chakra Pots are all we can get with one Rising Core, since its 1 of those and 3 Chakra Cores. Totally worth it, considering what it does. We need more Rising Cores or way more of the stat cores before they'll even appear as mystery items. A Land Controlling Roads Not gonna worry about that for now, though. We have stuff to do in Eridanus and hopefully we can find a thing for progress now. We can also find the basic Defense forma with the Search B so that's something.  The normal area around here had a bunch of empty dead-ends past hidden doors. I'm sure they'll have at least something we can use. It'd be a weird and dumb area otherwise!  The hidden door inside the sanctum at least gives us this.  And while it sure is a rare forma, it gives us a different message. Hmm...  The material detection pattern is unlike anything else we've seen. Can you bring that forma to the device? We may be able to get it online. Let's test it out. We'll do that in a bit. First, we need to make sure that there's nothing else around.... here... There still isn't. Huh, how about that.  Oh and Irving has NOTHING to say about the Asteria Stone at all. Not even a comment about him being unable to use it.  But hey now we can make Agilao Stones for the low-low price of AC Eridite II x1 and Genma Jar x2 (Tlaloc). Yeah, uh, I'm probably not going to bother!  We couldn't do anything with the DF right now, but maybe we'll be able to get something out of the AT. We'll see later.  Oh and if you do loop around with the normal area being active, this is just an empty dead-end as well. At least this one makes marginally more sense...? Malevolence and Benevolence Nothing else to do right now, so let's go back to Zelenin. Let me see it! ...... Let's try it, Hitonari! It's the same size as the recessed area... This could be it.> Zelenin inserted the Asteria Stone.  And I was right--it IS a teleportation device! We can finally make some progress! Let's go and see what's out there. Wow, that was a very short teleport, huh... But this teleportation device... Why was it set there? To test any infiltrators...? Well, at any rate, I'll go and report the device to Arthur. The rest of the crew should be informed so they can use it too. All right, Hitonari. Good luck with the investigation. A Land Controlling Roads So, immediately after stepping through the teleporter we come to a branch in the path. Judging from the map, and our relative location on 2F, south just brings us to a shortcut back to the hub so this teleporter ahead is progress.   And this one's already on... In The Master's Name ...Aaah! A demon!?  Begone.> The demon is guarding the teleporter...  It's just a Ghoul. Let's upgrade it into a Cripsy Dead... Fool... Did you not... hear what I said...?  Begone. Do not... cause trouble... I will let none pass... who do not have permission... I can't pick him up on Enemy Search either... It seems he's here on someone else's orders. We may abe to leave this teleportation device be for the moment... Let's keep looking around for areas we haven't searched yet. A Land Controlling Roads Alright, fine. I guess we need to head on somewhere else after all then. We can't get past the Ghoul because it's a plot barrier and thus we can't just kick its rear end.  Even though it IS a Ghoul. And the game gave us that choice and then went "nuh-uh."  Anyway, aside from the shortcut back to the odd central hub like place, there are... stairs up to the... 3rd floor...?  And it's a white room-esque area but with an open sky. Huh, how about that. Also there's a healing spot right by the stairs for some reason I don't understand.  This floor is big and open, and there's a door over on the left that we can find at least.  It has a guy in it.  We Four Devas have come in response to the restoration of a world full of energy. If you as well desirest energy within... Even should thy goals diverge from our own... ...... First, thou must defeat me. However, pure battle will avail thee little. There are rules thou shalt observe. Skills, specifically. Items are understandably fine, because that's a lot to expect someone to just toss out arbitrarily for a sidequest. Lay these demons aside when thou wouldst challenge me. As well, thou canst not summon new demons in the midst of our combat. If thou dost accept these terms, let us begin. Wilt thou train? Yes. When you art prepared, returned thou to me.When he says recovery and resurrection, he means EVERYTHING that can be described in those terms. Even if its illogical and makes no sense. Oh one of your demons by default has Posumudi and you didn't bother to Source it off? Try again, loser. One quick party shuffle to ensure that he doesn't lolnope later...  Then let us begin thy trial! Kishin Zouchouten Vehement Ragehaha are you serious game oh you are thats depressing  So, Zouchouten is... a colossal joke, to put it nicely.  He's weak to Ice. Which means Frost Cannon time! ...He resists Phys and reflects Fire. Normally resists Expel and Curse but here he's immune for obvious reasons.  Does a bunch of basic Physical attacks. He might - MIGHT - cast like Agidyne at some point maybe? I'unno, he dies too fast for me to notice or care. If he does, well, that's what Frost Ace is for anyway.  Gives awful EXP and far, far below acceptable Macca. The ES Forma here sells for quadruple that. Zouchouten please stop being terrible?? Oh and he is unlocked from this, if you're ever going to use him. His Source gives Fire Amp so it's honestly worth it for getting that as early as you can at least. The next opportunity isn't until level 46, so...  End A Land Controlling Roads Not bad.The gently caress do you mean "not bad"? But I can tell that thou art not satisfied. Keep up thy training that thou might amass more power. This seems like a random reward, but it's a rare forma. We're not taking it back to Irving just yet, though.  Anyway, this loser trashed we'll take on the second De-- oh. I guess we won't. Because we can't. Fine. Be that way.  The floor is kind of mirrored, so there's a hidden door over on the right as well.  A heavenly king on one side and an angel on the other? Hmm. Nope, this doesn't seem symbolic of anything at all to me.  I am Kazfiel. Forgive the brevity of my introduction; it is truly a pleasure to meet you. We have infiltrated this land and are moving to reclaim a world of order. I see that you, too, are conducting an investigation here. May both of our journeys be blessed. ......> The angel is thinking.  We are looking for strong men, in body and in mind. Why not test your strength against me? Should you win, you shall earn greater power... But a simple battle is unworthy of us. We shall fight under special rules. Okay, now THIS one is meaner than "no healing spells!" Fortunately, I have just the setup in mind... Needlessly to say, switching demons during battle is prohibited. If you assent to these conditions, then let us have a match. Will you undergo my trial? Then please prepare yourself and then talk to me again.This is just a question of "can you math" while also being an implicit hard level cap on what you can bring. After a while, you're limiting yourself to one demon but I can bring 3 and technically one of them is unnecessary for this.  Then, here I come... Herald Kazfiel Vehement Rage...Again? Really just give this out to anything these days, huh?  Okay, in all seriousness Kazfiel IS harder than Zouchouten, but that's setting a low bar.  He IS weak to Elec, but unless you have a good Magic demon (or Strength MC) there's not much point to capitalising on it. The Frost Shot from the cannon actually outdamages the Bolt Spray + Co-Op with this setup and since you've probably just thrown together random crap anyway... Oh an he's immune to Wind, Expel and Curse. No other resistances. Except ailments. At best, he's at a 50% rate for everything... except Bomb and Rage which we can't do so welp.  He'll spend some time attacking normally like a loser then actually sort of try and hurl Garudynes constantly. Don't be actually weak to Wind and you'll be fine.  He gives better EXP than Zouchouten, but no macca. We also don't unlock him from this, so I guess he's just usable right out the box. Weird. End A Land Controlling Roads Y'know, I probably could've put more effort into demolishing him but this was already a re-recording done months after the original run for... reasons, so I just focused on getting it done rather than showing off. ...Yes, the same is true for Zouchouten. Dude is made of paper. If you wish to ascend to even greater strength, continue past the hidden door. Your potential is great. I have high expectations. Because this floor is a mirror, we can't open that hidden door yet. Kazfiel being a big ol' lying liar. Who lies. Which if you know anything about Kazfiel is actually pretty accurate. His name should end "biel" but thanks to Japanese quirks it ends "fiel" instead but either way it means "he who lies to God" after all! Because Kazfiel is a fallen angel. The games never make him one and instead make him Biqa (his pre-fall version) but never call him that. Because reasons.  But we have two rare forma. Let's take them BOTH to Irving at once!  Because of this. They each give 3 of these; the Abacus gives Double Down, Hercules and Orion whereas the Paper Sheet gives Orpheus, Achilles and Theseus. It's a weird pair because 5 of these make a set. Double Down is good for skill change abuse and you get it not too long after you can realistically get a Mayahuel. This is ridiculous. I'll explain one of these days, I swear. It's just really long and not a lot of people probably care that much.  Orpheus is Magic; Orion is Vitality; Achilles is Agility; Theseus is Luck. The other 5 all give a potential 4th stat point to a demon. Except you can equip all of them at once (in lieu of any other SubApp) so you can theoretically get 3-8 stat points per level for a demon. It's... not really worth losing All Your SubApps for, but if there was a way around that it might be worth something.   Your world will soon be annihilated. Your actions from this point on are futile.Ah well, back into the sector we go. There's a door down here with a random Titan to talk to.  That door is an elevator that only leads to the... TOP floor? I sure hope that's where we'll find the Vanishing Point. Malevolence and Benevolence  ...What maze? Nothing has been particularly maze like, I wouldn't say. So, you find the Vanishing Point? Our objective may be near. Another non-answer. I hope you're right... Anyway, be careful, Hitonari.Right, so real quick before we do anything else here...  Got a couple demons to make. Dominion gives a source I really want for... reasons and is kind of decentish I guess? They have Megido at least which is something.  But Rakshasa. Whew boy, Rakshasa. His initial skills are awful (why does he have Agilao and two of the worst Phys skills???) but he's easy to make really good. No ailment resistances, mind. And, yeah, his Poison basic attack is a neat surprise. It has a 10% chance too, which is cool.  Anyway, a thing you may have noticed but probably not from the alert about a powerful demon was a white line on the edge of the map. We have a section of this area mapped out already. Hmm...  See, you're all just finite. That's no match for the infinite power and eternal life of Ouroboros!Hey, there's another Kin-Ki up here. And he tells us who the final boss is gonna be. The Master here is Ouroboros, huh? I can see that totally making some sense.  Anyway, there's no door on that wall, so it's either hidden or more likely around the back. This is a big ol' open area, after all and it wouldn't be THAT simple...  Not getting much luck thus far, but there's an outer ring apparently and that item container is something we can see briefly while turning in this one spot. You might fleetingly notice it, get annoyed and move on. 'Swhat I did.  No doors, hidden or otherwise, round the back... but we did get some Defense II out of it so it's not all bad.  Not seeing any doors at all, here. Hidden, locked or normal. Just more new forma, sort of. Can't really complain but... Malevolence and Benevolence > But you can see no spot that leads to the other side...  I'm linked with your Demonica and I see you've detected an intense energy pattern! The Vanishing Point must be ahead! Now we can go back home! Way to go, Hitonari! You got me pumped for the mission again! One last push and we're through!  Huh...? You can't get past there? Oh, don't worry about that! We're on our way to help! If we all look around, I'm sure we can find the Vanishing Point! I'll get in touch with Arthur! He'll be able to assess whether that's the Vanishing Point or not! The phenomenon you have detected is most likely the Vanishing Point. Uhhh.... Silence What...!? Arthur, what's going on!? Attention, all crew. Fear Wait, what? Why?! What!? NOW!? What's going on? What is this emergency!? I demand an explanation! This mission is urgent. Further briefing will be provided upon your return to the ship. Crewman Hitonari, I have examined the equipment of all the Red Sprite's crew. There is no reason to maintain a presence there now. All crew, return to the ship. What could be so urgent that it might affect our escape...? Hey! Hey!! What am I supposed to do, just grin and bear it! Huh!? A Land Controlling Roads Sure enough, it's a hidden door we can't open yet. Great. Well, just out of spite we'll stick around a bit longer and see what we missed. There's that ring around the edge here, that we oughta be able to get to.  There's a hidden door on the right of the lift, but we can't open THAT ONE either.  But there's one over to the left that we can!  ...Oh. It leads to a healing spot, a terminal and nothing else. Fine, have it your way, Arthur. Malevolence and Benevolence Prepare the plane shift to begin our new mission. But we're so close to escaping... Where are we going, Arthur? Its origin, a large object moving within the sector, is currently stationary. Judging from its size, it may be a large ship. A... large ship? Is that the energy signature you were talking about on the comm!? Fear Could it be the Gigantic...? They're alive!? But why Carina...? Were you able to get in touch with them?  But we haven't gotten a response. Could be it's not reaching them. ...It's not a ghost ship, is it? *sigh* If we'd just hauled rear end outta here earlier, we wouldn't have had to deal with this... Given this situation, I have decided to make investigating the signal from Carina our priority. The Schwarzwelt Joint Project concurs with this assessment. We're back to investigating now!? Why!? I'll tell you what we need to do is get the hell outta here! The man said there's no response! B-But... what if there are some survivors...? You'd just leave them stranged in the Schwarzwelt!? I agree with Arthur. ...Pretty easy to be so self-righteous now that you know we can escape, huh? Why we gotta stick our heads back into the lion's mouth? Not my idea of a good time...  Shouldn't you be thinking about their feelings? Wow, what a nice thing to say. Now look me in the eye and tell me it's what you really think. Jimenez! Enough! ...Yeah, yeah,I'll go. Better that than stick around here to argue some more. Why, you...! Rrrrgh! I realize everyone will have their own opinion, but please remain calm and rational. Remain cautious as you carry out the mission. Now begin preparing for the plane shift to Carina. Don't know why they bother with this scene here. It's not even really padding. It's just so... pointless. Malevolence and Benevolence  That's around the helipad, near where we started the Cu Chulainn quest. We've hailed them, but there's no response. I highly doubt they wouldn't be able to pick up our signal from here... I am issuing a new official mission, designated "Signal Investigation." At present, our only method is to get within viewing distance. What, they can't drop us a note? They running into trouble? Let's stay alert. This could be the work of demons... First Lieutenant Zelenin is correct. You should be prepared for any situation. Do not let your assumptions lead you astray. I look forward to the successful completion of your mission.
Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Mar 15, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 07:46
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Dragonatrix posted:
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Jan 25, 2017 16:01
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Jimenez is such a huge dick for no reason. Isn't he supposed to be one of the best soldiers in the world to even be apart of the mission? You'd think that a guy with that bad an attitude would be drummed out of the military, especially since he is constantly questioning and breaking orders.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:53
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theshim posted:Think you mixed up a couple screenshots here (check the filenames, etc). Not so much mixed up as somehow managed to miss one wholesale. Really not sure how that happened, but it's fixed now as is that weird pesky mini-drift. ...It would've been fixed much earlier but I only just got the chance.
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Jan 25, 2017 18:03
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There's always gonna be a fair amount of grousing and grumbling, especially if missions get complicated, but Jimenez really is way out of line - it doesn't help except for the brainwash machines, not one of the other crew members does as so much as griped about the delays, making him stand out all the more.
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Jan 25, 2017 23:19
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Prayer There's probably a ship in Carina. We don't actually know what it is yet. The optimism is helpful, though. It doesn't feel right, then... I'm sure I don't need to remind you what happened with Horkos. Let's be careful.  Everyone says that's the Gigantic, but... is it really? Based on what we've seen, I don't think it's an ally at all.  If they were alive, I'd expect them to be overjoyed. They'd be all too happy to communicate with us. But we've heard nothing. Not even when you called... I don't feel good about this... Be careful.  But I guess no matter what you do in the Schwarzwelt, there'll always be something that's not right... Man... is this karma? Irving, Chen and Blair don't have updated dialogue right now, oddly. We'll still totally check out the store though. The Revolver is a fancy and cool gun. It's pretty weak, but does a minimum of 4 hits that you can target! That's kind of ludicrous. It also has Cripple which is Rakunda with damage and Rock Bullet making it sort of a better Jackal. It's also much easier to get than the Jackal as it only requires AT Antlite III x2, Jaki Bolt x6 (Gremlin) and Kishin Horns x6 (Take-Minakata).  The Mage Ring can gently caress off though. +20 MP and does nothing else? Requiring AC Eridite x2, Snake Runes x2 (Vouivre) and Fallen Tome x3 (Dantalian) is some right bullshit. Just like by default.  Balm of Rising is good and useful. "Only" need Rising Core x3, White Core x4 and Revival Core x3 for each one you make. Not like that's hard or anything but the White Cores especially limit how many you can make in bulk. A Squandered Nation So we're just gonna head into Carina right away. This Momunofu is added here when we're investigating that strange signal. I don't really know why either. Fear Nothing else in Carina itself either, so we'll skip on over to the helipad.  It's just sitting there. Looks like an easy mission for a change. So long as that hog doesn't pop back out, right? This is Ops. We see you've reached the destination without incident. Good work. From what we can see of the Gigantic on our end, there's no damage to it... Hm...? Hold on, that identifying code's... Looks a lot like the Red Sprite actually. That's not it? I have deduced the identity of the ship from its ID code and the pictures we have received. This ship is not the Gigantic. It is a prototype model of the Red Sprite. Ah, so we're about to see what happens when the Lightning finally returns. The Lightning...? You mean... another ship went into the Schwarzwelt!? We weren't informed of this! No one mentioned another ship going in! Who are they? Are they here to rescue us!? From that perspective, it is outside the jurisdiction of the Schwarzwelt Joint Project. Its purposes for entering the Schwarzwelt are unknown. Investigation is necessary. This is starting to smell funny... I'm not quite getting the vibe that they're here to save the day, y'know...? So, what do you want us to do? Barge in and fire a few warning shots into the air!? Silence > Someone radioed in. In The Master's Name  We haven't come to fight, I assure you. Best you refrain from such uncouth assumptions, mm? I presume you are a member of the Lightning's crew. This is the Red Sprite, of the Schwarzwelt investigative team. We're quite aware. I am speaking to the command unit Arthur, yes? Gentlemen, let me get straight to the point. We would rather not have our system infiltrated. And may I just say... We are sympathetic to your situation. At least, as much as the Joint Project is. Relax, and enter. How should we proceed, Arthur? They claim not to be hostile, but we should remain cautious. We will attempt to contact the Lightning using crew trained to handle high-risk situations. Crewman Hitonari, Crewman Jimenez. Board the Lightning and make contact with its crew. They don't seem like enemies... In fact, they don't seem to care much about us one way or the other. Well, c'mon, Tadano. Let's go hear their story. Malevolence and Benevolence  Captain! I've brought two of the Red Sprite crew! > You were taken to a man wearing a black Demonica...  Welcome to the Lightning. For us to meet in this hellish place, so far from home... Perhaps we knew each other in a past life. ...You the boss here? You're certainly blunt for a man sent to negotiate... though my men are the same way. It's all right.  Pleasure meetin' you, Jack. I, uh... thanks for inviting us in. I'm Jimenez, and this here's Tadano. We came on behalf of the investigative team. No one asked you, Bugaboo! You don't need to introduce yourself! Just stay quiet! Excuse the li'l guy. He's a demon I use in combat. He won't hurt you, and he's housebroken too. Don't worry. To fight demons... you use demons. Very well, then. And when you're so close to escaping, at that... ...How much do you know? Fear You should assume we know as much as the Joint Project you stay in contact with does. Your crew being stranded, using demon to fight demons, your progress in the Schwarzwelt... You won't take offense if we pluck what information there is to be had from the ether, I hope?Just in case it wasn't super obvious by now, Jack is absurdly smug for no good reason. Jeez.   So on that point, you have my sincerest gratitude. But as to whether we form a united front... Well, you may as well know that is what you are here to discuss. Okay. While we're following your lead, why don't you tel us what you want? So you've come to this hellish place on a mission to save mankind! Wonderful! Bravo! Just the sort of selflessness that warrants praise! We, though... differ somewhat. I regret to say that we were simply dispatched by our patrons. Our role here is as... businessmen, of sorts. Our priorities: profit and wealth. So long as we retrieve items that prove profitable to our patrons, we may do as we wish. You're here to save mankind, whereas we're here with an eye toward development. Our foting is, shall we say, somewhat inequal. However...  I'd like us to be good neighbors, the sort who help each other in times of need. What say you? Ah, but of course... You regularly make contracts with demons. An agreement with a human should be child's play for you. Can we establish cordial relations? Humans should help each other. Well, I'd rather not rile the only other humans we've met so far... But just to be sure, I want your whole squad's consent. Let's hold off on a firm answer just yet. Though I gotta say, it's refreshing to see a guy who's so honest about his job. In it for the money, huh? I'm not judging or anything, but... isn't that kinda dicey with mankind on the brink of destruction? It may not be easy for ones so noble to hear, but... Earth has nothing more to believe in. We and our patrons are quite comfortable siding with wealth. Uhhhh.... sure. That is definitely how that works. Yep. We believe our greatest chance at that wealth is the power lying within the Schwarzwelt. Hah... In layman's terms, yes. Wealth is what supports people, keeps them off the streets and in their healthy, happy homes. Human society would simply collapse without it. As I said, I would like our two camps to be good neighbors. And as far as I know... both us neighbors have our own problems. If we can solve these problems by cooperating, I belive there may be harmony between us. For our part, we will support your escape efforts. Though of course, we benefit from finding it as well, haha. And what do you want in return, good neighbor? While you've already been an excellent source of useful information... If your Forma Search routine is superior to ours, perhaps we could have a look...? Heh... I think this deal's gonna go pretty smooth. Well, the sticky part is that we can't tell whether ir's superior just by examining it. So I'd like you to deliver a forma that's been beyond our grasp, as proof of its capabilities. As plainly as I can... Forgive my brazenness, but... Needless to say, you will be handsomely compensated. Well, aren't you quite the hneogitator...? Your demands are steep, but it's hard to argue. Very well. Regarding the forma we hope you'll retrieve for us... Ryan! What was it we're missing?   Those are the three the lab's requested, sir! Only those three, then? All right. Those are the three items we'll require from you. If you can retrieve them, we'll assist in your search for the Vanishing Point. I hope that tidbit of information proves useful.Not... really? Sort of already been everywhere we can. Didn't find any of them.  But I'll relieve him of his duty. You should have no trouble passing through. Well, we have your terms, so what we'll do now is go back to our ship and discuss them with our crew. Should we give you a ring once we have an answer? We're keeping our radio use to an absolute minimum. Someone was trying to hack our system earlier. Oh, I don't suspect you, perish the thought. You didn't even know we were here, but... There may be a demon capable of infiltrating the radio waves. No radio, huh? Alright, I'll let our guys know. Then I'll look forward to your answer. We've risked our lives to come here. I'd hate to go home empty-handed. New life... resources... peace... accomplishment... friends... truth... Well, on your way, then. Here's to good relations, eh neighbor? Malevolence and Benevolence Mission "Signal Investigation" is confirmed complete. Those guys are shady like an oak tree, but... at least it looks like they're not hostile. So where do we go from here? The first thing they demanded was a "mutual non-aggression" pact. Just so you guys know, if it comes down to a fight, we don't stand a chance. Their ship's capabilities are miles beyond ours.Well, duh. Arthur did say it was the prototype after all, and I know my anime cliches! The Red Sprite's that different from the Lightning...? Ours was outfitted with investigation in mind. Theirs was made for combat. We'd lose hands down in a fight. Then we must accept the terms of their mutual non-aggression pact. However, it is highly likely that they will refuse to accept it. So... what about these "gifts" they're asking for? Their level of technology indicates that they will prove effective in finding the Vanishing Point. There is no reason not to supply the materials and Forma Search they have requested. Assuming this "cooperation" Jack talked about wasn't a lie... If there are no strong objections, I will incorporate Jack's request into our mission. Strange mission we've got lined up for us, huh, Tadano? I really can't disagree with Jimenez here. Like, at all. Jack himself was absurdly slimy and overly smug and sardonic about, uh, everything which just immediately gives off a bad impression. Sure hope these guys aren't meant to be our proper Neutral faction... A Squandered Nation Just outside the helipad, there are a couple members of Jack's Squad we can talk to now. But don't go acting all superior just because you got to the Schwarzwelt first. Our equipment, technology and facilities are all more advanced than yours. It's only a matter of time before our Demonicas are too. You get results, and no one complains. There's not even any reprimands for hardly anything. The money's good, too. Best job I ever had, man.I can't really say they're doing much to endear me to Jack's crew though. Prayer But this is a pretty big deal, so of course everyone comments on it. I'm grateful they're helping us find the Vanishing Point, of course... Still, though... they have a powerful ship, and we really don't know anything about them. I hope this doesn't turn ugly... But let's be careful about it. They're not part of the Joint Project... The phrase "mutual non-aggression" always sets off warning bells in my mind. That's a phrase that's just begging to be broken... Ironic, huh? The demons are practically more trustworthy than the humans... I wouldn't call him a mercenary so much as a man who's been blinded by the promise of money. ...Though maybe greedy people taste better to demons... Heheheh...  We get to escape, and after that, they can do whatever they want. What's the downside here? But those guys... They're a little twisted, ain't they? They only see forma as products, like they're businessmen or somethin'. ...Just rubs me the wrong way, is all.  How about you, Hitonari? Same. Hmm... You're strict, just like I'd expect from a professional soldier. But personally, I think it's a little too early to call. I mean... he IS a bit fishy, but you can't be prejudiced or even his good side looks bad. Look on the bright side instead: We've gained a powerful ally!  I'm a mercenary myself back on Earth. I know his type when I see it. ...By the way, do you know the story of Jack the Ripper? No? It's a story from a long time ago. He was a serial killer who plunged the city of London into fear. ...I hope our heads aren't chopped off by our own "Jack"...I suppose Blair asking about JTR and then giving a terrible non-explanation makes up for earlier. Let's just go see that Ghoul friend of Jack's. In The Master's Name You may pass. I am no longer needed... my new orders... are to leave... Farewell.> The demon disappeared. A Land Controlling Roads Whew, okay. I think we're finally done with all the talky bits of this sector for at least a little while. You can already see on the hedge there that the visuals here are gonna be a bit... different.  First though, we have a hidden door here that technically serves a purpose. It might as well not for all the minimal difference it makes. You'll see.  There's also this, at long last. Took a while to get for once, huh?  The hedge mazes that surround the control rooms put me in mind of Alice in Wonderland. As for the central control room itself, it's a simple rectangular building. The walls are covered in monitors and control panels. as well as depictions of human history... > The data is corrupted, preventing you from reading further. Right, so that one last path from the teleporter?  Leads to a room that looks very different. That bit of green corruption from that one hedge is now everywhere. It makes it clear that Eridanus' living environment is just a much better facsimile in its original area; this is where its all broken and run down.  Before we actually touch this area though, look! It's a better Mishaguji-sama than the one that guy gave us! His best demon ain't poo poo. Alright, so let' see where we can g--  Heh. Alright, cool. Makes sense. We've had hidden doors and teleporters the entire time. We've been eased in, now let's put it to use!  Okay, now I'm gonna be honest with you here. This part of the Sector? It's short, it's simple, it doesn't pull any nasty tricks. There are barely even any traps. If you know where to go, it takes about 3 minutes to get through all of it.  It also starts off by tutorialising you very heavily on what you're going to be doing. Each room is a small chamber with 4 spots and at most 3 of them are teleporters. The initial area has 1 that brings you back to itself and 2 that put you in the Chakra Pot room. You then have a 50-50 chance of progressing to here, or returning to the start. Making progress is heavily weighted in your favour right now.  I'm not going to cover every single step of this place, because there are more teleporters than there are places you can be teleported to. In terms of SMT teleport mazes, this doesn't even remotely compare to ones that have come before it. The final dungeons of both halves of Digital Devil Saga, for example, are both way meaner. And comprise two of the three dugeons that have teleporting at all across both games, so y'know.  There's an optional terminal about halfway through (yes, really) if you need it for anything. No heal spot, but this is already more generous that I would be if I was designing this place.  Just south of it is some stairs leading up that we will take. The spot behind us is obviously a teleporter back into the maze area.  The stairs just lead up to our first Anubis Stone and a bunch of poison tiles. There's a terminal RIGHT THERE so if you don't have Medic equipped, you can fix that immediately.  Let's see... I went right before, so this time it's left... Or is it? I don't even trust myself anymore...The teleporter on 1F by the terminal brings us to a room with this guy. I'm going to use him as a reference point. That's why he exists after all. Going right from him is a way to get to the terminal if you need it. It's not the fastest or best way, but it's the easiest one to remember. Going up from him?  Leads to what looks scary for all of half a second. If you have Medic equipped (and if you've been paying the slightest bit of attention to Eridanus before now you do), there's nothing to worry about.  Not that it stops this guy from complaining about it, mind.  The spot the right there sends you to the terminal. It is very hard to get lost, because many places do this. They send you to the best place to reorient yourself. It's ridiculously generous in that way.  The teleport at the top of that previous poison area sends you to another one. This the second and last poison tile section of the maze. They're also both completely optional, by the way. Two of the teleporters in this section put you back to the terminal, again. The one that doesn't? Puts you in a one square alcove with a teleporter right in front of it. That teleporter sends you back to the terminal.  So, we'll go back to the left/right guy in the middle here and take this opportunity to talk about the demons in this area. Yes, fights still happen and they are against new things. If this is too much for you to handle, you have Medic. This means you have Enemy Lullaby. There are two conveniently placed Terminals to equip that if you really want (one right by the entrance and one right here). The Fear of God We already have a Mishaguji and he's not that big of a threat to fight against really. Neither is Senri, but she at least has something of note in that she is immune to Charm. Everything else is stock cookie cutter 100% ailment resistance, 125% weak to Elec etc. etc. Very boring! But at least her Source gives Magarudyne so that's something you could maybe care about at some point. ...Except the ma-dynes are awful. Never mind!  Dominion is a thing we have and is more of a "turns up here" thing than anything of actual note. Yurlungur is notable for being level 28, first turns up here, is the Snake BELOW Vouivre and is really awful! Ice Breath is sort of noteworthy for being a skill that is awful. It has a base power of 60 and costs 19MP. It is weaker than Mabufu, costs more than Mabufula and makes up for this deficiency by hitting 1d4 times against random targets. So it doesn't outdamage the ST mid-tier, never mind those dynes you definitely have by now.  Rakshasa is Rakshasa. He would be good if only his base skillset wasn't abysmally terrible! Arachne is new at least. She's immune to Paralyze and Poison; everything else is stock and what you'd expect. Except her base attack. That's Physical and has a 10% chance to Charm. That's pretty darn good for a basic attack from a random demon! Plus her Magic is her worst stat and has a 12% growth rate, so you're double-incentivised to use her properly. A Land Controlling RoadsRight, so back to the left/right guy, we'll go left here like he actually suggests.  This brings us to the Caladbolg, which is right on the critical path (as is the Chakra Pot).  The Celtic sword that can cleave hills in twain here is relegated to simply cleaving a things nerves' instead. Pretty useful and its a stronger, controllable Nihil to boot. Personally, I'm gonna stick with the Gae Bolg but this one is worth using instead if you want.  From the Caladbolg, up gives you a potentially quick way out (it sends you back to the 3rd chamber) and right puts you back at the terminal.  The only other path gives you the Hydro Apple. That's one done, already.  We'll just go dead ahead from there, because that puts you - you guessed it! - back at the terminal so you can save and checkpoint yourself if you need to. Seriously, this place is really generously designed.  South from the Apple might be the meanest spot of the area.  There's a long path that you have to weave between two teleports. One is terminal, the other sticks you in one square between two teleports that send you to either the terminal or the poison tiles that ultimately send you to the terminal.  The stairs lead to an area that gives you a hidden door. The first one in this part of the area, so it's gotta be good!  Haha, nope! It just gives you Spriggan's forma drop as a fixed forma. That's it.  Navigating around to the right brings you to a teleporter here. This one...  Puts you back in the central hub. This is probably the only maybe sort of mean spot and even then it's just a quick exit, getting back to the Hydro Apple chamber takes maybe a minute plus it's so funny that I just have to like it.  The top alcove in the Hydro Apple room brings you to the part of this room that you can do something other than go to the terminal in.  It just drops you on the Kurt Vonnegut reference. ...Yes, really. After the Hydro Apple, the second one is about 30 seconds away.  From here, we have stairs leading back up the hub.  There's a hidden door here, but we can't open it for a while. This is a good time to remove Medic if you haven't already.  Just south of the stairs leading up to the central hub, there's a hidden door.  This leads to a more open area and signifies that we're done with the teleporters.  There's a couple doors in this area, and this is the one we'll be going through first.  Because it gives us these stairs, and they're what we want.  Because they give us a bunch of cold rocks. That's totally all we came up here for.  Oh and I guess because instead of teleporters, we have pit drops.  And one-way doors. Y'know, on paper I should hate this section more than the maze. I don't though. It's still ridiculously small, very generous, there's minimal guesswork involved with which hole drops you where...  It's just way more tedious for me because I am jumping into every last one of these suckers. I gotta get my map completion!  That upper hole makes you go through the one way door back to the teleporter section. It doesn't, but it does. You'll see. This also forces us to take the last teleporter.  That puts us back at the start of the area. If you opened the shortcut in the hub, you just turn around and take the stairs. If not, you have a 2 minute trip instead.  But now that we've done that, this is the entire teleporter maze. All of it. This is how big it is. There are 35 teleporters (I counted), and only like 20 spots they can drop at. Out of those 35, by the way, about half of them send you to the terminal directly or put you on tiny fixed paths leading to the terminal anyway. Even in the remaining small pool, there is still a significant amount of overlap in places. It's really not hard to just remember which one leads where. And if you can't, for any reason, you can just map it out. On paper. It's really not difficult; I don't have a super-good memory and I can memorise this entire area.   The shortest route may be to search for what can't be seen...Anyway, back in the hole-y land, Bifrons here is just clearly telling us about the holes. Seems like we might have to navigate a path of dropping down in the right areas or something.  And given the number of one way doors littering the place, it may also be really easy to screw yourself over.  There's plenty of stairs leading between the two floors at least. The Fear of God But let's take a minute to talk about new demons again. The pit drop section adds a few new ones for good measure! Legion is... kinda crap. He's weak to Fire and Expel, resists Gun, Ice, Elec, Wind and nulls Curse. His skills are Last Resort, which we saw on the Formless and Shock which is electric Ice Breath. He's also 300% weak to Mute and has Dantalian's 150% Phys weakness for good measure. Vivian meanwhile is unfairly good, to be honest. She resists Ice, Expel and Curse. Has no ailment resistances but has no weaknesses either. She has Spring of Life which gives her survivability and Frolic which is multi-target charm at a base 70% rate. Her only attacking spell is Mabufula which is bad but fixable and it's the only one of the three she puts on her Source as well. Spring of Life is replaced with Diarama which is loving terrible. Frolic is replaced with Luster Candy. +1 to all stats (because it's RaSuTa). Yes. This is a thing that happens now.  Orthrus is simple but effective. He drains fire and is weak to Ice. That's it, very ho-hum. He has Fire Breath (lame) and Fire Boost at least. He also has Mega Claw which is something. Mainly only want an Orthrus to Friend Item/Extra Item his forma easily though; it is required for one of the few store bought accessories that isn't completely dogshit terrible. Fuu-Ki is to wind what his brothers are to Electric and Ice. He's weak to Elec, Nulls Curse and Reflects Wind. His source gives Garudyne and Wind Boost. Very simple, but very effective. A Land Controlling Roads Those four are all we have that's new to deal with, combat-wise. The holes over here are kind of way meaner than anything else in the area though. If we fall in any of them, we have to take the one way door back to the teleporter.  Well, like, we don't HAVE to. But we have to.  You are trapped in this area, those stairs lead to holes that drop you back in this area, until you take that door and leave. It being one-way and forcing you onto a teleporter is kind of a weird mercy. If it it didn't, then you could stumble into this area earlier, think it was progress and then get frustrated by how you're just stuck in one small section.  We'll head over here for a minute though. I thought there was a Gate Search reading around here...There is! It's what Bifrons was actually referring to, even.  Just gonna grab this real quick first, though.  See, the dark secret of this entire area? All of it is optional.  That door there is a gate search door that leads to these stairs. This is not a shortcut to these stairs. This is the only way to get to here. They lead to progress. You HAVE to find that Gate Search door to get anywhere. Doing anything at all with the holes is entirely on you.  ...But there's also more to the south, so we'll go through that door first. There might be more things to find!  There's more stairs over here, along with one way doors that loop back onto the upper area and also this area for some reason.  More important though is that those lower stairs lead to a wide-open area with many holes and also these Zionga Stones.  If I don't know where the deadfalls are, there's no point in worrying about it!And also a delusional crewmate.  See, I DO know where the holes are. The holes in this room are the only holes that potentially lead to the progress stairs. The stairs you pass to get to the stairs that lead here. I'm just gonna run around and jump into all of them.  This hole here drops you into the corridor with the right stairs in it, by the way. It's kind of pointless, but it's here so.  This is the only hole that leads anywhere different or interesting.  It sticks you in a tiny corridor with a one-way door and some stairs.  It lets you get 10,000 Macca which I'm sure is going to be ever-so-useful. And there's a one-way door here back to the open area. The only way to get through to that money and the door leading to the open area is to go through it, though, so you can't skip the gate search door this way either.  I knew demons were a pain in the rear end, but I didn't think I'd get so stressed over these little traps.The last hole over on the right open area drops you near a one-way door. That leads to this entrapment here. Poor guy is stuck and doesn't even know it yet. That said, this area is kind of my favourite spot to grind out the Fiend spawn/sector Forma. There's a good spot in every sector and this is the best I found for it here.  loving aaaaa not prepared for this guy and he just jumped me on the way back to the shortcut Fiend Red Rider An Honor Befitting that Name Whew boy, Red Rider is a pretty strong boy in theory. He's probably less threatening than White though.  Much like White Rider, or Hare of Inaba or Mayahuel his weakness is misleading. He's weak to Ice, but he's really just neutral to it; it's just there so we can get through his 1400HP at a reasonable speed with Co-Ops.  Acid Breath also helps a lot with that, though.  I don't know why I gave Sukunda a chance to try and redeem itself. It sure didn't.  What makes Red Rider less threatening than White by the by is that his biggest moves are all single target.  But Hyper Skull Crush lives up to its name in his hands, jeez. I really should've switched Rakshasa in to both resist this better and also to like use War Cry twice to gutter his Strength. The End He CAN also use Maragidyne sometimes, but that's it. His third skill is Retaliate, which is an upgraded Counter. Also, yeah, both this version and the usable one are both immune to all ailments (except Rage which is amazing).  He drops Bead Chains which is nice at least. Shame about that whole 2% spawn rate thing. End A Land Controlling Roads Not much else left to the actual area itself, either, to be honest. Got this to luckily spawn I guess? It could be useful, I suppose.  We'll just take the progress stairs because they complete the mid-tier Elemental stones. We don't get Agilao here, since we got them before giving Irving the Goetite.  There's a heal spot and terminal here if you need them, but there's a long path over here that's a straight line from the stairs.  It leads to the most obvious hole of the bunch.  This in turn leads to an obvious one-way door out and another door to the south. We'll take the latter, of course.  Leads to stairs heading on up and another terminal immediately after the last. That's so weird.  The stairs up lead to this, and the path continues around to another hole. The Luck Incense is pretty nice, since Luck is the only stat that really matters for Hitonari.  That hole drops us by a gate search to return quickly to the entire hole area. It also lets us grab the final rare forma for Jack.  There's a gate search door over here as well, that lets you get to the stairs to the hub. It's kind of redundant, though.  Because there's one over here that puts you right next to the entrance of the sector. Well, that was a good way to stretch our legs. Let's go take this stuff back to Jack... Well, uh, one last thing before we go: You in Wonderland
Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Mar 15, 2017 |
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Jan 27, 2017 14:14
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Dragonatrix posted:
Honestly can't believe I forgot about Captain Jack and his crew. It never occurred to me to think of them as the neutral faction, but it makes an odd amount of sense considering they're, well, neutral to all the deeper stuff going on. So who else thinks the black Demonicas look cooler than the gold ones?
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Jan 27, 2017 16:39
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freshlybaked posted:Repeated line there, also a typo in that third sentence. (at least I assume it's a typo) i don't think dragonatrix thinks the space-time anomaly libertarians are anything approaching nuetral
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Jan 27, 2017 17:16
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and if he does, i certainly don't
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Jan 27, 2017 17:17
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Just looking at the teleport maze minimap makes me scream internally. Why is this sector the best, again?
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Jan 27, 2017 18:37
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GimmickMan posted:Just looking at the teleport maze minimap makes me scream internally. Why is this sector the best, again?
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Jan 27, 2017 19:09
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Wasn't it around this time that the lp started to quite literally break Luisfe?
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Jan 27, 2017 19:21
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GimmickMan posted:Just looking at the teleport maze minimap makes me scream internally. Why is this sector the best, again? he's done it enough to forget that the first time going thru it you will wonder in a circle for like 30 minutes unless you get lucky
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Jan 27, 2017 19:22
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GimmickMan posted:Just looking at the teleport maze minimap makes me scream internally. Why is this sector the best, again? I don't think Dragonatrix is sane anymore.
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Jan 27, 2017 19:54
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Prayer Before we go back to Jack and hand him that rare Forma, we'll check out a few new things we can make. And it is but a few. The Pinlight is kind of eh, gives Magarula and Earthlight Ray deals more damage at New Moon (so Gun elemental Zan-Ei). It's AT Eridite x2, Wilder Mask x2 (Pellaidh) and Tyrant Glacier x2 (King Frost) to make, but ehh, I personally wouldn't bother.  It's better than the Brionac at least (...wait, why is Lugh's spear a gun?!) In basically every way. Crossfire is just straight Gun damage against every enemy. The Brionac is pretty boring as far as guns go! AT Eridite x2, Yoma Cloud x3 (Shiwanna) and Fallen Tome x3 (Dantalian) to make but definitely don't bother.  The Vengeance Ring gives Hitonari the Retaliate skill, basically. Counters Gun/Phys skills at a 50% rate for 150% base power. Boring. AC Bootite II x2, UMA Skin x6 (Chupacabra) and Tyrant Glacier x6. Augh, no thanks.  And lastly we have 3/4s of the elemental stones, but I'll include Bufula in here as well because it's convenient. Agilao is AC Eridite II x1, Genma Jar x2 (Tlaloc); Bufula is AC Eridite II x1, Brute Garment x1 (Sui-Ki); Zionga is AC Eridite II x1, Brute Gold x1 (Kin-Ki); Garula is AC Eridite II x1, Brute Clothes x1 (Fuu-Ki). At least they're consistent and follow the expected pattern. Except the Agilao Stones which is the most annoying one to get because it just is. Be worth grabbing a few if we had a Magic that wasn't our randomly determined dump stat but alas. Fear Now then, what brings you here? Did you bring the items we asked? Yes. Ahhh, splendid! If you'll just allow me to confirm that... And these are for us to keep, yes? Ahh, very kind of you. Get these to the lab! Sir, yes sir! I'll take those. Hand 'em over. You did well... You'll go far in life. If memory serves, there was one other component to the trade, yes? I'll take that now as well. Transmit it to my Demonica, won't you?> You opened a link to Jack's Demonica and uploaded the Forma Search B program.  ...We are? Jack, bud, I think you mean that YOU'RE paid here. We have what we asked for, so it's time we upheld our end. I've ordered my men to coordinate with yours in the search for the Vanishing Point. What was it you called the place? Sector Eridanus...? I'll notify my men there. Best of luck, gentlemen. Mission "Jack's Bargain" is confirmed complete. Jack's Squad has indicated that they will participate in our search for the Vanishing Point. The extent of their support is unknown, but any help would be appreciated. They want us gone so they can have the Schwarzwelt's resources all to themselves, I assume. Rather shameless of them, at a time when the world may be ending... I dunno how far we can trust those vatos, but... We'll put 'em to work, never fear. Right, Tadano?Right, so back to Eridanus we go. But as soon as we enter the Red Sprite... Prayer We will now begin the plane shift. All hands, take your positions. And this plays again. It's really pointless, but whatever.  Let's get prepped for the mission. Our goal is to gain the cooperation of Jack's agent in this sector. I will switch all crewmen to a communications channel that will allow us to speak with them. I'm worried that when push comes to shove... Well, to us, this place is hell. But they seem to treat it more like a gold mine. Huh...!? Is this real!? We're picking up an immense energy pattern! Look at this oscillation... it's off the scale! The situation may have changed since we last searched for the Vanishing Point. Please stay alert and resume the mission. Another hurdle in the way... but if we can get past this one, we're home free. Let's do it, Tadano! But is it right for us to return home and leave Jack and his men here...? Ey! No need to sleep over it, Miss Honor Student. Forget 'em. We use them, they use us... so it goes, y'know? Or are you gonna give them a little polite heads-up on Operation: Schwarzwelt Elimination? The way things have been going, I'm sure they knew before we did! Could you try not picking a fight over everything I say, Jimenez? But you've made yourself clear. Let's just hurry and get out of here. Strike team, proceed to the floor where we found the abnormal energy pattern last time. I look forward to the successful completion of your mission.Despite it seeming like it should, the Red Sprite crew's dialogue does NOT update here! I know, I'm amazed too. A Land Controlling Roads So, it's back to the Top floor of Eridanus we go! drat... I don't know what I'd do with all that cash if i had it! Fear Well, this is different. Very different. It's pretty obvious who this is, but we'll worry about that later. So you have joined forces with those of the evil planet, Hitonari... But you will not escape from this land by that path.  To serve you justice... I will be watching over the end of the virus known as mankind... > The call ended. Malevolence and Benevolence And then we get accosted AGAIN as soon as we step through the door to the open central ring.  This place absolutely reeks of danger. You guys are nuts. Me... I just want to strike oil, or whatever they got here instead of oil, and get rich. Here. You can use this to find doors you couldn't see before. It's got the seal of approval from the boys in our lab.  I dunno if you found your way out or not, but either way, have fun. Oh yeah... they asked me to pick up some materials while I was out here. I gotta get going. Later, Hitonari.> Ryan left.  So, Tadano, looks like you can get to the Vanishing Point. I'm on my way there now. Just in case it's dangerous, be careful. And smile, man! We're almost home! A Land Controlling Roads Hopefully that door IS a Search C door otherwise, we're still very trapped. What do you think, Jack's Squad Member? Keep getting in my way and I'll pull this trigger, I swear to God.Real friendly bunch, these guys...  Fortunately, it IS a type C door so we can head on in and hopefully meet Ouroboros, kick his rear end and win the game. I mean, sure, we could go back and open every other type C door but eh. That's what New Game+ is for. In The Master's Name  There is a price for distubring my heart... You must pay it. Prisoners of matter cannot reach it! After all, the empty infinity cannot be undone... Humans, of limited life and limited power... Do you believe you can rule over we demons? Can you overcome our endless power? Our power is also endless. That changes nothing... humans see the infinite dream from their cradles... Awaken from that dream and behind your frail, children's bodies. I shall return you to the particles that flow through empty space. Break apart, you sinful clumps of matter! Snake Ouroboros Vehement Rage Alright, final boss let's go! Ouroboros is... notably not a Tyrant. That's interesting but expected. That they're just a normal Snake is weirder but I suppose not unheard of.  Resistance-wise, Ouroboros resists Phys and Gun, is weak to Fire and Drains 125% Elec damage. Unlike Asura before, no reflects though.  Attack-wise, it's a big ol' list. Mahama is basically a gimme, especially with a competently put together team.  Wild Lightning is a pretty powerful Elec attack. It just hits everyone, but it doesn't need to do much else.  As per usual, at +/- 4 on stats, she'll Dekunda or Dekaja as appropriate. 3 is totally fine though. You'd think the final boss would just stick these into normal rotation, but considering they're ultimately wasted turns...  You know what's not a wasted turn though? This Almighty dick punch. Not so much for its damage, although if Ouroboros WASN'T debuffed a bunch that would be impressive as well. It just rolls to try and inflict any ailment at random on everyone. It can inflict any and every ailment, except Rage unfortunately. If it Petrifies Hitonari, that's an instant game over. Anything else can be dealt with, but that's just a "you lose, try again" and it's really dumb.  Oh and of course they regen. It's 7% of their HP at the end of every round (they have 2300 for reference). This is kind of cool, since it sort of changes the way you have to focus on this fight. You can't just turtle through it and plink away until you win.  So, there's Ouroboros. A sort of different fight with a wide array of things they can do, and a gimmick that isn't "I beat myself half of the time." Disaster Cycle isn't the most fun thing to have to contend with, but it's ultimately not that big a deal and it being an instant lose isn't overly common or likely anyway. End In The Master's Name The beginning... and end... are one... As long as you fail to understand that, human...> Ouroboros disappeared...  The reinforcements were a moment too late, but all's well in the end, yes? Still... that Ouroboros... She said something odd at the end there. Congratulations, Crewman Hitonari. The Red Sprite can now land at the Vanishing Point. So, how do we escape from here? ......!? Arthur! Something's wrong! What's happening!? That... is the limit of humans. Careful, Tadano! Something's near your position! Hey Gore. Nice of you to turn up this time, after just ranting at us over the radio before we kicked Ouroboros' rear end.  In the end... they are trapped souls... of finite matter... They have no means of resisting Ouroboros Maia. They may as well try to slice the air or pummel the seas. ...The Commander!? Commander Gore!? How is he here!? To punish you... To punish humanity... ...Well, I mean I guess it makes sense that Ouroboros has a second form. She IS the final boss and all. Weird that it's just a bigger/zoomed in version of the first one though. Now, human... you have brought upon yourself the torment of infinity... I will resurrect as many times as it takes... and fight you... There is only one escape: > Ouroboros shot a powerful wave of energy!  Well, this fixed damage can't kill you at least. It's not that big a deal as a result. Ouroboros can come back from the friggin' dead!? Great! Now what, Tadano!? Do we fight her again!? No! You just finished the first battle, you'll wear yourself out! Just run, Hitonari! Hurry! This is an order. Fall back immediately. I can currently calculate no effective means of subjugating Ouroboros. Fall back immediately. The exit was right in front of our faces... Goddammit! Let's get outta here, Tadano!> You fled from Ouroboros... Malevolence and Benevolence Hey, Jack. Remember when you said like 25 minutes ago you didn't want us to radio you because it was potentially unsafe? Because I do. I don't forget these things, Jack. You fought masterfully, but it seems your opponent had the upper hand. My sympathies. I expected that the monsters of this world would make our egress difficult. We must be on guard. Now then, a word of warning about Ouroboros. Perhaps you should try using the Main App we presented you with. Very sorry that I can't be of more assistance, but... well, it seems worth a try, no? There is in fact energy flowing into the Vanishing Point from various points around Eridanus. It's most likely this very energy that's resurrecting Ouroboros. So... as long as those things keep feeding her energy, she's unstoppable... Calling all crew. This energy beam information will likely be useful in overcoming our present situation. Find the sources of this energy and remove them. Doesn't he have any idea how huge this place is!? Tch... I'm sure he knows, and just as sure he doesn't care. Let's split up, it'll go faster. I'll see you later, Tadano. We're done here. Hitonari, Jimenez, wait! I'll send you the data if you'd like to investigate them. Better than stumbling around blindly, yes? The energy sources appear to be spread out around this floor. Okay. I'll go knock out a few of 'em. See ya, Tadano.
Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Mar 15, 2017 |
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Jan 30, 2017 07:52
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Disaster Cycle is an amazingly dickish move in a game with a lot of them. Most of it can be dealt with, but the fact that it can drop an unavoidable game over is just bullshit.
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Jan 30, 2017 16:02
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Yeah, like for all the Contrary Opinions I have about SMT in general, Disaster Cycle is just plain bad. I even forgot to mention the 2nd worst thing about it: Guarding reduces the chance of being inflicted by an ailment and usually reduces damage somewhat. Disaster Cycle deals more damage when you're Guarding from what I can tell. It's based on 100% anecdotal stuff but it was consistent and ugh.
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Jan 30, 2017 18:04
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Good old Eridanus, I made sure to scan this for future reference and still shiver every time I look at it:
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Jan 31, 2017 21:45
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theshim posted:Because Dragonatrix is a broken shell of a human. BlazeEmblem posted:I don't think Dragonatrix is sane anymore. You stop feeling things once you finish mapping this sector. You map this sector because you haven't cured your urge to Do All The Things. Strange Journey punishes you for such hubris. Petiso posted:Good old Eridanus, I made sure to scan this for future reference and still shiver every time I look at it: And if that's not the definition of "JOHN loving MADDEN", I don't know what is. And yeah, Disaster Cycle is absolutely the capstone here. A boss that can just straight up say "yeah nah, try again" at any time it wants is just the pinnacle of gently caress you boss design.
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Feb 1, 2017 02:58
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A Land Controlling Roads Alright, so we'll now deal with that big ol' outer ring.  There ARE other Gate Search C doors that exist, but we don't need to worry about them right now.  We just have a bunch of things to deal with that are more important is all.  These here Mandrakes are just the same as the normal Mandrakes from Delphinus but levelled up to 43 and made to act like minibosses. It's as exciting and difficult as it sounds.  So, not very.  There's a few side-rooms along the outer room that let us get things like this Bead Chain that we saw previously.  Gui Xian is a new demon and the only one up here. He's immune to Ice and Expel. Oddly enough, this is because the enemy Gui Xian has Void Ice as a passive equipped. Usable Gui Xian has Void Fire instead and so only resists Ice. That's... something, I guess. I don't know why that's a thing but it is.  Anyway, that's that for the regular random demons.  The fixed random demons are just more of the same, in basically every way. Just with like more HP and somehow less interesting.  Moving swiftly along, because Kwancha is still Kwancha, we can get 3 AT II if we really needed it. This is a nice fixed Forma, but not the best.  We can go through this door to see what the deal is with this part of the area being mapped. I'm just going to go through it to get the door added to the map for completion; the actual content can wait.  Dzelarhons is really breaking the obvious pattern that was going on. She's totally thinking of platypi here anyway.  She's not even levelled up to 43, presumably because there aren't any random Dzelarhons before now. Which, if it is the entire reason why, is really dumb. She's weak to Ice, resists Fire and Wind and can cast Mamudo sometimes. That's it.  Ooh this is new. Fixed Luck Core in the next room, and that gives a Core for every stat now. Maybe we'll be able to find out what they're used for sooner, rather than later.  Meanwhile, we have these guys. They're not Dragons, though, but it still works better than "frog."  See, they're Drakes! This one is so dumb; they're just the normal Basilisk from this very Sector but with a miniboss template attached (kind of; Macabre back in Bootes had more HP than these guys). At least this should be the last one.  There has been a change in the energy pattern near the Vanishing Point. Go there and assess the situation. I'd say it's around 100%, with the only reason it's not exactly 100 being that she might have just left for some reason. I adivse that you prepare yourself before going. Anyway, the last fixed Forma in this area is a Sword Shard. As in the Forma that Red Rider drops. Yes. What?! This is absurdly generous, it's a Fixed forma so it won't spawn again and Enemy Search Forma cannot appear in the area Forma spawns usually... In The Master's Name Anyway, yeah, let's go beat up Ouroboros now. Hopefully for real this time. The torus of eternity has been severed...! I cannot fall at the hands of humans! Snake Ouroboros (2) Vehement Rage So, Ouroboros is a bit more powerful in this fight. She's gained a few levels and has a small number of new skills. I do mean small, unfortunately.  She's dropped both Dekaja and Dekunda and opted instead to go with Silent Prayer if buffs/debuffs go to 4. This just clears everything on everyone, resetting everything to its base value. This removes her own buffs and debuffs on you if she could do them, but instead it just makes it so you can't Taunt her to +4 attack.  Her only other new skill is this. Wave of Death is what she totally used in the cutscene before, and it's just a very powerful MT Phys skill. Yes, Phys. Not Almighty Phys. Just straight Phys.  Her resistances are completely unchanged, so she's still weak to Fire and drains Elec. The only other changes are that she doesn't regen now, she has 3200HP instead of 2300 and because she's a higher level she takes slightly less damage and deals more.  Also she gives ludicrous EXP, a decent chunk of Macca and drops a Bead Chain. End In The Master's Name No... Humans cannot... pass here... ......> Ouroboros disappeared. > There is something on the ground where Ouroboros was.  Oh, that's clever. A Klein bottle is like a closed Mobius Loop that is a nonorientable surface. It's a bit like one of those impossible triangle illusion things, except... sort of not? This is something I can somehow explain less the impossible imaginary engine the Red Sprite uses.  Silence  Am... Am I supposed to defeat the humans...? Or... is the fate of the world beginning to change...? I don't know... Even with the knowledge you gave me... I don't know... What... What am I supposed to be looking for...?> Gore disappeared somewhere...  Now that his puppet master's gone, he's as imposing as a weak kitten. Poor guy might just have to rot here in the Scwarzwelt... Was it the Commander deep down inside of him that stopped Gore from going all the way...? So long, Gore... Commander... Looks like we can finally ditch this dump. Hey, see that? The Vanishing Point is wide open... Morale Congratulations on defeating Ouroboros. The Vanishing Point has returned to its normal functionality. Mission "Find the Vanishing Point" is confirmed complete. Calling all crew. All crewmen must return to the ship or gather at the Vanishing Point. Look alive, people! Don't fool around or you'll get left behind! I better get going myself! We're finally here, Hitonari! It won't be long before we're back home! It is "bleeding out" to the Earth through here. What we're trying to do is hitch a ride on the energy bleed, though that's oversimplifying a little. We will need to adjust our course constantly during the attempt. Engineering, stay alert and take care with the engine's control. A once-in-a-lifetime job for Space-Time Navigator Terry... Wait 'til my daughter hears! So's that weird thing we got from Ouroboros gonna be the only souvenir we take home, Tadano? Maybe it'll at least be a good-luck charm for the trip home. Hahaha... Listen, friend, that's hardly all we got! Supplies has a whole closet full of goodies to take back home! New materials, new equipment... The boys on Earth'll be swooning over this stuff! It's true... we have much to show for all our hard work. But there were so many casualties, and we never did figure out the truth behind the Schwarzwelt... I dunno... Do we really need to know it that bad? What do you think, Tadano? We owe it to mankind. You just don't learn, do you, man? Don't tell me you wanna stay here... I don't need to hear that poo poo. Guess that's what makes you the team's golden boy.  We'd like to toast the end of your mission... but that'd be a little premature at this point. Yes... we still have the final leg of the journey to complete. ...Good point. We'll raise a glass to your luck and mankind's future once you're back. Now then, gentlemen, let's go over the plan one more time. Once you enter the Vanishing Point to begin your escape... We'll be feeding you navigation data that'll lead you home. Follow those coordinates to arrive back on Earth. As soon as we've confirmed you're clear of the Schwarzwelt... The next time we meet, it'll be on Earth. Looking forward to it. Godspeed, gentlemen. All hands, to your positions... We're finaly going home! Back to Earth at last! Somebody pinch me! Yeah, so long to this hellhole, and good riddance! Silence Still not worth making a video of this, but at least its a different animation now.  There's these cubes floating around in the background and the purple aura void that is the Vanishing Point.  We fly into it, the end.  We are currently on course. According to our calculations, it should take approximately 20 minutes. Crisis An unidentified energy signature is approaching from the rear! It's moving at a faster rate than the ship! We only have a few minutes before it catches up! What is it!? Who could be chasing us here...!? Is another demon after us!? What's wrong!? We hit!? Arthur, on its current course, it's going to ram us! We will take evasive action with short plane shifts. Engineering, prepare the reactor. The reactor's malfunctioned. We can't use the plane shift! It's almost here...! Waaaaaaaaaagh!> The Red Sprite lost control... Silence Well, if it isn't these guys again. We haven't seen them since the intro... when Hitonari died... umm...  In the end, humans have proved themse;ves to be little more than apes. And apes riding in an iron vessel cannot control the providence of the universe. Fear Jimenez...! Zelenin...! Hitonari...! It was to prevent you from becoming arrogant, and believing that you rule the world from on high. The wisdom of humans? The power of science? What did you hope to accomplish with these...? You will learn your boundaries. You will learn your boundaries. You will learn your boundaries. We're begin sucked in...!? Hitonari... Hitonari!? Who are these guys!? Demons!? Dammit, get out of my mind! Let go! Let go of me! We have to fight them, Tadano! ...Well, well. It seems another fruitless struggle has begun. They fail to grasp the depths of the universe's providence. Hmm... and lo, they detonate their "thunder"... But behold: they will be swallowed. I-Is this a vision...!? Is that... the Schwarzwelt being struck with nuclear weapons!? poo poo! The tricked us! We're not out yet, dammit...! Ay Dios mio... it's not working! It didn't even make a scratch! The operation failed! It is no longer given to humans to choose their own way. You and all your kind will live in the cursed lands...! But no... hold... But no... hold... But no... hold...  ...And so I see you have one already, Hitonari. The path may yet open. Foolish descendants who no longer know the voices of the spirits, or the truth of the world...  Silence And so for Ouroboros, the Joint Project and the (important members of the) Red Sprite... Pride came before one hell of a fall. So this is how it ends for us, huh? I can't believe the crew of the Red Sprite are fuckin' dead. Malevolence and Benevolence Where... are we...? Dammit, why isn't he answering!? What's going on!? Did we make it out!? Is this Earth!? Or are we at the ends of space and time!? Monitor team, get the camera feeds up and running! I get banged up, I lose my memory... I have no idea what's going on. Did something happen while we were escaping...? It wasn't just me, right? You guys saw them too, huh!? Did they interfere with the Red Sprite's escape!? Were those demons? Or illusions...? All right, let's get back on the job! C'mon, Arthur, what're you doing...? Self-repair? Hurry it up already...! The main infrastructure seems to be intact. We took a heavy impact, but there doesn't seem to be any major damage to the hull. Now if only Arthur would reboot... Silence Patching it through to all onboard viewscreens! Fear We ended up in another unidentified space-time sector! I don't believe this... we're still stranded out here...? We didn't accomplish a drat thing... Our big escape attempt just dumped us here. There's nothing us humans can do out here, is there...? We've just got in some atmospheric data... Doesn't seem like there's anything out there that'd stop us from operating outside. Oh, right! I'll set up a line... Wh... what!? What the hell is this!? But... how did this happen!? The graviton radio was destroyed? Believe me, I'm wondering the same thing! I'm looking at it right now, though, and it's smashed flat. There's no fixing this... I don't understand... how does a machine break like this...? Correspondence with the Earth... The way it broke... Well, whatever happened, we've lost our only way to contact the Joint Project. We're on our own again... There's no one out there to help us. ......! Well, it's about goddamn time! Arthur is rebooting! Auto-recovery from system crash is complete. All functions normal. Integrating new important data. System update complete. Resuming normal functions. My apologies for worrying you. I have now fully recovered. I will assess the situation and begin devising a plan immediately. Arthur, I just don't get this! What happened? Where are we? What should we do? Can you explain it to us? Do you even know the answers? All hands, please listen to my report. The Red Sprite's escape attempt ended in failure. As well as the interference of the three unknown life forms. In short, we were unprepared to attempt the escape. Haha... hahahahaha! This is hilarious! What a laughingstock we are! What's so goddamned funny!? This is serious! I'm sure it knows what it's talking about. What about the plan to destroy the Schwarzwelt!? They went through with it back on Earth, right!? What we saw when we were escaping... Were those the nukes...!? There is no sign that the Schwarzwelt has been destroyed. ...... So that's where we stand... We must revise our plans. To do so, we must assess the situation. First, we must ascertain the Red Sprite's location. Judging from the available data... So the Schwarzwelt has been expanding infinitely...? I'm surprised we made it here in one piece... Is that all right to say? Just trying to provide some comfort... Hitonari, it seems the Formless Mass you hold is not merely decorative. It was this Exotic Matter that led us here. So this weird stuff decides where we end up? According to my new information... This will expand our navigational options from the Vanishing Point. ...Wait, Arthur. something's not right about this. This "new information" you just referred to... You mentioned some "new important data" when you rebooted, too. Where did you get this information? It was transmitted to me from outside the ship. Could that have been...? Judging by the information's contents and timestamp... Wait, it came from THEM!? Arthur, you're basing our whole plan on information from those monsters!? Yeah, can we trust them!? They're the same ones who just stopped us from escaping! This is unbelievable... Arthur, you're-- Any doubts you harbor are perfectly understandable. It is consistent with our findings and does much to explain the Schwarzwelt phenomenon. I can come to no other conclusion than that their information is legitimate. They simply know more about the Schwarzwelt than we do. Strange though it may sound, the three unknown life forms both helped and hindered us. It appears as though they desire our continued progress.  Mem is the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and Aleph is of course the first. Mem Aleph...? The center of the Schwarzwelt... It's obviously a trap! Mem Aleph is just something they made up to trick us! They're just having fun watching us squirm! But even if it is a trap... what other way is there? I don't like it, but there it is. Can you believe this poo poo, Tadano? You gonna just salute and say, "Yes, Sir!" to that? Arthur, I understand that you're trying to make the best of a bad situation, but... Moreover, given the circumstances, I must question your judgement. However, I understand yours and the rest of the crew's concern that I am malfunctioning. Silence What do you think, Hitonari? Can you proceed with the mission with such concerns? Can you carry out your duties? I can. Malevolence and Benevolence But I'm in... even if I have to do it all myself! Anyone who's tired of it all, go sleep in the engine room! I'll take you home! We can worry all we want, but it won't solve our situation. We're only alive now because we seized every chance we had. I can't say I'm thrilled, but... At least until we find out whether or not there's Exotic Matter here. If there is only one option available to use, I see no point in argument. In that case, let us proceed to the assignment. Fornax is Latin for furnace, it's named afer a Roman personification of... an oven, and you probably even noticed it earlier.  It's adjacent to Eridanus, partially encirlced by the river even. This is in part because Fornax as a constellation also used to be part of Eridanus. Our objective here is to find the Exotic Matter that will expand our options from the Vanishing Point. I am issuing a new official mission, designated "Fornax's Exotic Matter." Our working theory is that the Exotic Matter guided our journey to this sector. It remains possible for us to return to previously explored sectors... I regret that we are no longer able to contact the Joint Project, but please remain calm. I look forward to the successful completion of your mission. ...Okay Fine Here's A Normal Ouroboros (2) Fight
Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Mar 15, 2017 |
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Feb 1, 2017 07:47
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I have to appreciate the fact that Arthur gave the crew an option to not follow him. I also like that the crew all took the heroic option. I think that they might be the Neutral faction, which means that they might start to get real stupid if they are anything like the other faction leads in this game.
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Feb 1, 2017 09:14
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"Mem is the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and Aleph is of course the first." This makes me imagine it's name is shortened to initials. If translated to English, could we call them T.J. or something, I wonder. Anyhow, Fornax. We haven't stepped foot in it yet but... at the start of this LP, I completely forgot it existed, despite remembering the boss pretty clearly, and yet not recalling Ouroborous. I think Eridanus stuck out so much to me, and the big snake didn't, that my mind kinda replaced them with the following boss entirely. (Though now I definitely recall DIsaster Cycle turning my protagonist into stone once!)
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Feb 1, 2017 10:52
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This bullshit is where the game lost me completely. If you keep breaking the rules of the setting, what's the point? The characters aren't good enough to salvage this trainwreck.
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Feb 1, 2017 11:27
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Fornax is the second coolest looking sector of Strange Journey. It also has one of the best moments of SJ. Can't wait to see you trash it hardcore.
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Feb 1, 2017 12:16
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Fun fact: the Hebrew word for Mother is spelled Aleph Mem 
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Feb 1, 2017 17:05
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Despite probably being my favourite sector visually, Fornax is my other pick for 'so boring I forget it in its entirety'. I know some people feel that way about the next one but idk, I had a much better time with that one.
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Feb 1, 2017 21:42
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neongrey posted:Despite probably being my favourite sector visually, Fornax is my other pick for 'so boring I forget it in its entirety'. I know some people feel that way about the next one but idk, I had a much better time with that one. Honestly, the entire back half of the game is just struggling along aesthetically now that we've mostly dropped the "mirroring humanity" motif. Granted, there's still more of the Deadly Sinnage, but it's less... in your face and noticable.
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Feb 1, 2017 21:57
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GeneX posted:This bullshit is where the game lost me completely. If you keep breaking the rules of the setting, what's the point? The characters aren't good enough to salvage this trainwreck. what rules did it break exactly? the 3 other beings were introduced at the very beginning and were shown to be fine with interfering with the protag's mission even then, so shunting them off to a different part of the space-time anomaly isn't really that out there
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Feb 1, 2017 21:59
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KataraniSword posted:Honestly, the entire back half of the game is just struggling along aesthetically now that we've mostly dropped the "mirroring humanity" motif. Granted, there's still more of the Deadly Sinnage, but it's less... in your face and noticable. Yeah, I just like black-and-gold in general so Fornax works for me on that level. I just fall asleep the minute I ever contemplate doing anything in the area. And yeah, the whole late-game dungeon design is... not great. There's a few things I like but they're few and far between. SJ's style of 'here is our current dungeon gimmick' doesn't do a whole lot for me either.
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Feb 1, 2017 22:06
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I'd forgotten about this because everything started to blur together around this point in the previous LP for me but the four demons that support Ouroboros are: A plant that is born from the dead (makes sense), an underworld dweller (okay, sure), a reptile (eh, a bit lazy but I'll take it) ... And a frog person? What? And she's supposed to be referencing a platypus? What am I missing here? Also, Clowning Ouroboros 2v1 (technically 3, but you know what I mean) is the superior video.
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Feb 1, 2017 22:54
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freshlybaked posted:"Mem is the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and Aleph is of course the first." This makes me imagine it's name is shortened to initials. If translated to English, could we call them T.J. or something, I wonder. MA. As in Mother. Probably intentional.
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Feb 1, 2017 22:55
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GimmickMan posted:And a frog person? What? And she's supposed to be referencing a platypus? What am I missing here? The frog thing, yeah, I dunno. I did try to find out what that was supposed to be referencing, but it just got me Super Mario RPG stuff and Zeno's Paradox on halves reskinned to be a frog crossing a pond. And other things, but they were somehow even less relevant. the platypus thing is a joke because i had nothing else and she said it was "burned for eternity" 
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Feb 1, 2017 23:02
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I can answer this one. In Japan, the word for frog is "kaeru". Like how you have the color red and the word read, the word for frog and the word for "to return" sound the same in Japan, but are written differently. In other words, it's an untranslatable Japanese pun. The burning part is just referring to her legend as a fire-starter. Something may have gotten mixed up either in Atlus' understanding of her story or in translation of the line. Tallgeese fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Feb 1, 2017 |
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Feb 1, 2017 23:18
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Prayer Alright, so as per our normal routine we'll gather the crew's thoughts before proceeding to do... something or other. The Joint Project was so sure... all of mankind was! This is imposible! What else don't we know about the Schwarzwelt...!? It's like there's literally some higher power ruling over us... toying with us... Can we break free from its rule? We'll just keep doing what we can... It's the only thing we have left... If you keep stewing inside over this failure, it may trip you up on future missions. Keep a clear head. I do my best to care for the crew's mental health, too. "Is this really the end? Did we maybe overlook something?" And then boom, this happens. I have such good intuition, it makes me wanna cry. Well... nothing will come of me rambling on here. Let's go back out and hope for another chance. Of course, the Klein Bottle is a rare forma that we can turn into a few more SubApps.  The Klein Bottle nets us a couple of useful, restorative SubApps. HP Regen II is pretty nice as an upgrade to Regen I, but the Regens/Recovers are sort of unique in that the base and upgraded versions can both be equipped for HP and they will stack. You'll have like 2 spaces left afterwards for other stuff, but at least you can stack these.  The other thing that the Klein Bottle gives you is the Green, Green Grass of Home. It's okay I guess. At the start of a fight, demons sometimes ask you if they can join your party straight up. Sometimes it's a trick, sometimes it's not. I guess this just makes that event happen more often. It's... not worth wasting half your SubApp space on.  Ahh, but my heart ain't in it this time. I'm feelin' lower'n a rattlesnake's belly. But I can't stay down. It's times like these that we gotta collect forma to turn things around! If they went ahead with it, they must have had enough data to believe it'd work... But is anything ever "enough" when it comes to the Schwarzwelt? Anyway, I think we all need to rethink our assumptions about this place. This whole situation just proves how little we know about the Schwarzwelt. Fornax is... on a second page of sectors, huh? Judging from the bottom screen I mean; kinda figured it would go in that gap in the top-left of Eridanus. Guess not.  I don't know what they want, but they've got some nerve treating us like pawns... I guess talking it over won't solve anything. We have to go. That's the only way we can fight back. A Land Controlling Roads Alright, so back to Eridanus we go for many things. We have a few doors we can open with the Search C so we'll start there.  ...The gently caress is this? This... what. Why are there 4 Dis-Paras as the only thing behind a hidden door? What.  On the plus side, we have the entire first floor mapped out now. Well, that's a plus side to me anyway.  A bigger plus is that these doors around the path of damage and sleep tiles can be opened now.  This exists solely to let us get these... two... Anubis Stones easily. Wow, that's weird. I was expecting it to be 3 fixed ones that give one each. Not one bronze that gives one and one silver that gives the other 2.  Oh and the door to the nort of the teleporter gives a fixed Luck Core. How bizarrely generous!  Gonna take a quick detour to hand these materials over to the Dwarf at Carina before we continue.  You're good at this, boy! I'll make you a mighty fine weapon! It'll take me some time. Mind waiting 'til I'm done?Got another 10 moon cycles to kill, so we'll probably finish this last. Or, uh, thereabouts anyway. I think the materials for shop stock will be very definitely last...  But that's for me to worry about later. Right now, we've got this one door on 2F to open. That other one still can't be opened.  There's a... whatever this thing is just chilling out here. Uhh....  It's not even hostile. It just says whatever this is supposed to mean and that's it. There's nothing else in this room either. Weird.  3rd floor has two more doors for us to crack open. You know where they are, and we know for a fact what's behind one of them. We'll do that one second.  There's an actual Unlock door here, too. But we can't open this one yet, unfortunately. Kinda odd that the only Unlock doors in Eridanus are in sidequest paths.   We Four Devas have come in response to the restoration of a world full of energy. Thou, as we, dost move according to thy beliefs. If thou desirest the strength to carry out thy will... I am willing to train thee. Even should thy way divergeth from our own. Then thou shalt fight me. But this shall not be any ordinary battle. Before our duel, thy spirit shall be limited to the barest minimum. ...Is... is that all? Huh. Yeah, I can deal with this. 'Tis under these conditions that thou must defeat me. Naturally, thou canst not change demons in battle, either. If thou dost accept these terms, let us begin. Wilt thou train? Yes. > Koumokuten raised his hand... Now thy MP hath been reduced to 1. Attack me in whatever manner thou canst! Kishin Koumokuten Vehement RageStill really don't think this belongs anywhere near here...  So, Koumokuten? Well, yeah, he definitely set our MP to 1. Can't deny that.  Can promptly fix that, though. It's really kind of a weird and pointless gimmick in practice.  I guess he hits hard and it makes healing more difficu-- Wait, no, you heal with items as well. Preventing the Item command from being used would be the biggest threat anything could do in a sense. Bowyer would be a tricky boss from that angle alone.  Koumokuten resists Physical but not Gun (cough, cough) is weak to Wind and reflects Electric. He has a whole 1300HP, for all the good that does him. That's it.  His Source gives Elec Amp so it's a good idea to get that; you saw against Ouroboros before what stacking Boosts and Amps can do to a thing. End A Land Controlling Roads But thou must aim for even higher peaks. As far as rewards go, this is the... worst one for our current situation.  It's a crap weapon anyway, but it can only be equipped if your alignment is Chaos. Ours currently isn't, so this is just going to gather dust. Forever.  We already knew this guy was over on the right, at least.  To think that a human could come so far... It is clear that your power should not be taken lightly. What is less clear is how you shall use that power. It is this factor that will determine whether I am your friend or your foe.> The angel is thinking... Well? Won't you try to gain greater power here? Perhaps you could fight me? With certain conditions, of course. If you cannot, then even if you eventually emerge victorious, you will fail the trial. One thing besides... I will not allow you to change demons once the trial has begun. If you have no objections to my terms, then by all means, let us battle one another. Will you accept this trial? Yes.If you can beat Koumokuten, you can beat Aniel is less than 7 turns easy.  Then, here I go! Herald Aniel Vehement Rage Okay, so Aniel is stronger than Koumokuten but that's about it.  He can and will throw out Ziodynes to make you waste time healing or whatever, but since you throw that to Hitonari to deal with it doesn't matter.  Speaking of healing, he can totally do that just to be annoying but it heals sub-100HP anyway so whatever.  He's weak to Wind and only nullifies Elec, so in that regard he's a worse Koumokuten. He only has 1700HP, so 7 turns isn't exactly a high bar to cross a this point. Notably we do not unlock him for fusion either... End A Land Controlling Roads The battle was decided in only 3 turns... Victory is yours. Well done. Aha... it seems you have conquered Kazfiel's trial. Then both Kazfiel and I together shall be your next opponent... Son of man. If you can enter the door in the back, then do so.Yeah, we can't. It's locked for real, like the one on the left. So we'll be back when we can deal with them I guess.  As you probably expected, the Plasma Sword is a Law weapon. It's... really not good though. It's worse than the Vajra (not by much but that's not the point) but we can actually use it. Not going to, though.  Gonna jump on up to the Top floor next. Inside the room that was already on our map before, we can find Yggdrasil just... hanging out. Silence And then this happens when we try and leave.    With Yggdrasil again stabilized, we were able to recover our true power. This is the true nature of the three sisters you met. And I see you, too, have grown a great deal in power. We scarcely recognized you... But it is this moment we have waited for. Listen, and remember. You wandered the border between life and death here in the past. But you survived. That was due to the aid of a certain man... Have you guessed it? That man... was you yourself. We know you can do it; we have seen it happen. Change our fate. Will you go to the past? Yes. Thank you very much. We shall now journey to the past. Are you ready? Yes. Then we shall go... to the time of your battle... In The Master's Name  I was right to wrest for myself this power to control time! Thou canst not comprehend what I have done!> Your past self is facing off with Yggdrasil... Silence > It was then that the Dis noticed you...  Thou again!? Thou art certainly persistent! But 'twill be no different this time. I shall stop time and smite thee! ＺＡ ＷＡＲＵＤＯ！ ...Thou art from another time, art thou not? Accursed human!> Yggdrasil attacked! Tree Yggdrasil Vehement Rage Alright, so Yggdrasil is honestly one of the smarter bosses we've seen. Not like it matters though; he can and will Dekaja whenever he wants. I don't think he has Dekunda at all though, so uh...m  Attack-wise, he goes all in on Gun attacks.  And even then he doesn't go for the actual scary good ones so it's only a big threat to someone like Gurr.  He has 1800HP, is weak to Fire and nulls Gun. Honestly, he's way better when we get to use him. In 20 levels. Yeesh.  Gives semi-decent EXP and piss poor macca, as we're used to at this point. End Silence Wh-Who art thou!? How dost thou hold such power...!? Arrrrrrgh...!> Yggdrasil became tame.   We send you to this moment when we regain our power, don't we? Still... I didn't think you would return with such strength. The deeds of humans which show faintly in their fading power. The prophecy was true. Thank you so much for saving us. Let us meet again in the future. We will wait for you until then... A Land Controlling Roads Never for a moment since did I forget that battle... You fought well. Thank you ever so. I shall return to Asgard and monitor Yggdrasil's main trunk. But should you need me, I will not hesistate to come to your aid. Then, it will be my turn to help you. Until that day... I shall look forward to it.> Norn and Yggdrasil left.  Norn is, uh, level 72. We might not even get to use her; we'll see.  The Nornir Ring is... eh. It's thoroughly not bad; it increases every Stat by 1. It doesn't do anything else, so it's not exactly good either. Flat stat boosts are pretty boring and uninteresting.  And the last thing on the Top floor is a Dantalian. He's in the same room as the Sword Shard was, which makes him quite hard to miss really.  My store of knowledge grows vaster and vaster. I see the fate of this world as through polished crystal. Hm...? You are human, are you not? I am Dantalian. Do not mistake me for those other foolish demons. Knowledge is my joy. It was thanks to my wisdom that humans, of all beings on Earth, evolved thus... You seem to have an understanding of this world, however unsure. Ah... you store your knowledge in this device, rather than grimoires. Permit me to take a look... Most interesting. Why, some of this information, even I had no inkling of. I propose a task for you, sir. I see you divide your knowledge of this world into "sectors"... Oh, is that all? I've kinda been doing that already. If you can map for me 3 areas, I shall reward you handsomely. Have you any interest in the task? Yes. Then, I shall send you to three different lands. You should know them all well. I'd not request you to explore completely virgin territory.  What...!? Can it be!? You've already explored that land from stem to stern. Marvelous! Then I shall choose another land to explore by proxy.  There appears to be a hidden space within its boundaries, but such a place does not interest me.Basically we just have to map the entirety of the normal floor; anything inside the Phase Shifter sanctums isn't counted but only for Dantalian. What...!? Can it be!? You've already explored that land from stem to stern. Marvelous! Then I shall choose another land to explore by proxy.  What...!? But this is miraculous... You have already completeted this map, too? Such skill, such diligence... I feel as though I know this place like the back of my hand. Here, a reward from me. Thus does my store of knowledge increase ever more... If you like, you may come to me at any time. I shall pay in good coin for your information on other lands. I look forward to future dealings with you...So if we talk to Dantalian again, he'll send us to every other floor of every sector in the game one at a time for their maps. This isn't an EX Mission or anything, but it does have a reward for doing all of them.   We, uh, we can't even do the first yet though. We can skip ones that are currently impossible but I'm just gonna wait until we have every map done and then hand them in in bulk.  Quick fusion before we continue. Scathach's pretty great; she's normally weak to Elec so we'll remove that just 'cause. She has no ailment weaknesses or anything, so that's fine. She's a Phys demon with a high focus on spells for some reason? But her basic attack has a 10% chance to Fear so that more than makes up for her weird skills. We're nearly done with everything we can finish at this point, so let's see... what's next...Oh, I know. Encounter  ...How can I tell? Because Grandpa Thoth told me! He said a human would talk to me, and when he did, to give him this book! So this is for you guys. Okay! Have fun! > The demon left... Nice and easy. Back to Thoth we go, then. A Land Controlling Roads Hoh hohhh... Well done. I knew you could do it. I can prepare another riddle for you if you want. I'm sure it would lead you to more wisdom. We'll get to that in a minute. First, we have the Odin Passage here that clearly exists for a password and nothing else.  But it doesn't work. Alright, fine. I suppose "Passage" isn't just the name of the item; it's just a fragment of the password.  So, let's see if we can get the rest. I already gave volume 2 of the Books of Thoth to another demon... You know the game, my boy. Find that demon and get the book. Now this sounds all too familiar, at this point... Let's see how well you do with that one. Encounter We've seen many a Bifrons, so it's pretty easy to figure this one out. The Book of Thoth, volume two, penned by the god knowledge and wisdom himself. ...By all means, takest thou the book. ...This god doth indeed possess remarkable prophetic powers. He foresaw thy coming, as though it had happened already. I doubt very much that even I could accomplish such a feat... But I'd never have thought that a son of man could challenge that supremely wise god... Ohohoho... I shall be most interested to learn the outcome. A Land Controlling Roads Hoh hohhh... Well done. I knew you could do it. Odin and then Tyr, huh? I'm beginning to see a pattern here.  And sure enough, the Tyr Passage makes it apparent that the password has something to do with the days of the week. Which makes sense, given the names of the passages. The modern days of the week ARE named after common deities after all; Tyr/Mars is Tuesday and Odin/Mercury is Wednesday. Sunday/Monday are... exactly what you think they are.  If this pattern keeps up, we should have 3 more passages to go. Hurm... It seems you've fallen for the charms of knowledge. If I could see beneath that mechanical mask, would your eyes be shining ferociously...? Ahhh... you'll probably lose interest if I ask too much. But I thought you might be back for more. I already took the liberty of setting up the next riddle. Well, uh, we haven't run into anyone with scissors in any capacity yet. Between this and the camel-rider, we're swiftly hitting walls on these chains, huh? A Frivolous Nation Melchom's got a new quest for us and he wants... a full party full MP restorative. It's actively impossible to have one at this point. Thanks Melchom. A Squandered Nation Was about to go to Antlia, but this got done first somehow so... Here, take it. One of my best works, if I do say so myself. I might ask you to fetch some materials for me if I run out again, so don't fail me, boy. The Cursed Sarai is a cool weapon for sure. It's the strongest we can get easily ("easily"), is a single random strike and it can Charm whatever it hits. Definitely gonna use this. A Scorched Nation That just leaves the Fairy Village as per usual.   I'd like them to be posted as the village guards here. Things have been dangerous around here lately, so I'd feel reassured having strong demons protecting us. So please...! Can you bring Vivian and Spriggan here?Next two fairies are, uh, the next two fairies. Useful and convenient. It's super-easy to do as well, so whatever the amazing new subapp is we'll snag it immediately.  Here's a little something to say "thank you." Go on, take it! ...Th-That's not a Rare Forma?  It's a terrible, boring weapon! What the hell? Weaker than the Cursed Sarai, doesn't do anything fancy but it can be targetted! Which doesn't matter all that much in practice. Man, I hope the next Fairy Village reward isn't a colossal letdown. Prayer Oh right, the Bookmark! I nearly forgot about that already.  That's what gives us MP Regen II. Which is good but has a size of 7 so we can't stack the MP Regens because there's not enough space.  But anyway, speaking of letdown weapons, let's see what we can get from Irving before we head off to Fornax. Though, uh, for reasons that'll make sense later there will be some left locked when we're done here. The Snake Knife is bland and boring; AT Eridite x2, Snake Runes x3 (Yurlungur and Vouivre) and Drake Scale x3 (Bai Suzhen and Basilisk) to make.  The Caliburn Knife is just a worse Answerer Knife. Disappointing and boring in ever way. AT Eridite II x2, Divine Chain x1 (Dominion) and Fairy Water x2 (Vivian) but don't go out of your way for this one.  The Onimaru is kind of okay, albeit a giant pain to get. Minimum of 2 hits, you pick which enemy it hits, and it can inflict Fear. AT Eridite II x2, Brute Garment x7 (Sui-Ki) and Brute Clothes x6 (Fuu-Ki) to get but uh that might take a while.  Not as long as the Hawthorn Spear from this though. It's quicker and easier to get from the Dwarf in Carina. AT Eridite II x2, Genma Jar x9 (Tlaloc) and Spirit Acid x8 (Legion) is really tedious and time-consuming to get. The Acid is the harder of the two by far just by default.  Speaking of tedious and time-consuming, that sums up the Yoshiyuki very nicely. It's an okay weapon, nothing super fancy but Sleep is a nice ailment. Just a shame it takes AT Carite III x2, UMA Muzzle x7 (Kuda) and Genma Spear x7 (Tam Lin) to make.  And the Gankou Sword is the last one of these things. It's... honestly really bad. Fixed 3 hits is nice, but it hits everythig and that could have some nasty repercussions. AT Antlite III x2, Divine Wings x9 (Angel and Archangel) and Genma Conch x5 (Kurama Tengu) if you disagree for some reason.  Hey look, you can just buy an Abba Dingo. After it's already questionable period of being maybe useful has long since passed! Good job, Abba Dingo. It's also a hilariously cruel joke in making it because it requires AT Eridite II x2, Snake Shell x6 (Gui Xian) and... Sword Shard x2 (Red Rider) for some insane reason. What the gently caress?  The Scouter is a weird, niche weapon that I dislike. Soul Scanner is a weird ability; it deals more damage if you've fully analyzed the thing you're fighting. It's really not a good weapon the best of time so I don't get it. It's more reasonable than the Abba Dingo to make but it's still AT Carite III x2, UMA Foot x6 (Hare of Inaba) and Beast Hairball x8 (Nekomata). Just.... just don't bother with any gun here except the Revolver.  Next up is armor. Tsukikage Vest's curse resistance is nice in theory but it's less durable then the Belobog Vest and makes you weak to Gun. Normally not a big deal, but in Eridanus of all places that might not be a good thing. DF Eridite x2, Drake Scale x3 and Yoma Cloud x2 (Shiwanna) if you're not bothered by that.  The Armor Vest would be absolutely worth using without issue. The Elec weakness is only a big deal for Ouroboros (and then you just use the Belobog Vest anyway) and it makes you resist Phys, Gun AND Curse. Shame it's not quite as durable as we already have in raw defense but it's still a pretty good piece of armor and makes a good replacement if you don't have a Hawthorn Spear to give to Kresnik. DF Eridite x2, Jirae Plate x1 (Titan) and Fairy Shroud x5 (Spriggan) are what you need here andthat's relatively sensible all told.  The Thiotimo Vest is a piece of armor I see recommended a lot for things. I'm gonna disagree by sheer virtue of being weak to two of the most common elements, while having no physical defense whatsoever. It's got a bigger defense value than anything else but thats all it has going for it and that's not much of a backup. DF Eridite II x2, Vile Veins x2 (Mishaguji) and Tyrant Glacier x2 (King Frost) if you want it though.  God, the Jet Vest is so bad. It's got no resistances, a low Defense Value and it gives you 10 MP and +5 Agility. The one stat that matters the least for the MC. And then it has the audacity to require DF Bootite III x2, Jaki Hammer x5 (Ippon-Datara) and Enigma Himorogi x6 (Futotama)? Well, at least it's not making you go hunt Fiends for this one.  Keeping up the underwhelming parade, we have the Daruma Vest which crosses the ever-so-low bar of being better than the Jet Vest. And kind of just giving up after that. It's got really high defense, and boosts Vitality by 5 (which means it adds 10 HP! Yay!) but that's all it does. DF Delphite III x2, Genma Jar x4 and Beast Flask x3 (Hsing-Hsing) are what you need here, so at least it's relatively easy to make all things considered.  AC Eridite x2, Brute Gold x2 (Kin-Ki) and Flight Talon x5 (Toufei) for a ring that does a whole +20 HP. And nothing else. gently caress this entire line of accessories. Who thought they were a good idea?  Especially with THIS thing right here. The Supple Ring is frankly unfairly good for how easy it is to get. It makes you immune to petrification. That's all it does. That's all it needs to do. If Hitonari gets petrified, that's a game over and we have no mulligans for that one. There are no do-overs, there are no saving graces. It's an immediate one and done. The Supple Ring is flatout either the 2nd or 3rd best accessory period for wiping out the chance of an errant immediate bullshit game over no questiosn asked. Grab that AC Eridite II x2, Beast Mane x3 (Orthrus) and Vermind Thread x2 (Arachne) as soon as you can and never look back.  The Life Ring is... really bad, surprise surprise. +10 HP and the equivalent to HP Recover I. AC Delphite II x2, Enigma Clay x5 (Kanbari) and Vile Veins x6. Augh, no.  The Cohesion Ring is kind of maybe nice. Bomb is not that big of a deal though; there are so many ways to get around it, and the only things that we've seen that CAN capitalise on it are pissweak baby losers anyway. Bosses that can inflict Bomb (like Ouroboros randomly can) are even less of a threat because everything gets 1 action and no more. AC Eridite x2, Nymph Hat x1 (Senri) and Jaki Hair x4 (Rakshasa) are needed here, but not something I'd go out of my way for.  Dauntless Ring is even less impressive. Paralyze is potentially dangerous due to that whole 1.5x damage thing and all but it's really easy to cure, and I don't understand why this makes you wait longer to get: AC Eridite II x2, Nymph Hat x2 (Senri) and Tyrant Glacier x3. So, that just leaves items. In particular that leaves 5 items. It is actively impossible right now to unlock all 5, so I just did the one:  Those stat cores are half of what you need to make the Incenses. Each Incense takes 3 of their relevant Core and, umm...  3 of a Fiends forma. Except Matador. Matador gets no respect. And just in case this wasn't already tedious enough, the Core and the Fiend are from different sectors entirely. Strength Cores are in Antlia and the Sword Shard is from Eridanus. There is no reason to bother with actually ever buying these things, because they're super expensive and ridiculously tedious to get but they're there if you really, really want them I guess. Well, eventually they are but that's not for a long, LONG time. That's for me to worry about though. For now, we have Fornax to go and check out. Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Mar 15, 2017 |
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 Well, uh, Fornax sure is the next Sector. Let's give it a look-see. The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buriedjeez that track name sure is a mouthful  Sad to say, but this definitely isn't Earth. We sure got dumped into one crazy place, huh?(B) It feels almost mystical... How was this place made? How far does it go...? Why is it here...?(A) All we know is that it's full of mysteries. The weird atmosphere spooking you or something? Nah, man... I'm not scared. (B) Hmm, unflappable, huh? Wish I could say the same.(A) You too, huh, Hitonari? Stay cool out there. Alright, let's go! So, Fornax starts off by being... an open corridor. I guess that's something.  Got a couple doors at the end, and we'll head through the right side first.  No real rhyme or reason to picking one over the other, though in the top-right there's a... healing spot? Already? That's pretty weird.  A couple Amrita Sodas just adjacent, so you can cure any and all ailments on a single target.  Fornax is not exactly a bustling hub of content, after how dense Eridanus could be. It has this weird feeling of emptiness, really.  I get that it's totally by design, so it can at least start off as a bit of a breather but it's just... so weirdly barren in basically every way. The Fear of God But it has some rad-rear end random demons. Emphasis on some in that sentence, unfortunately. Reapers are new, and that's a sensible localisation; their Japanese name is Hel. So, yes, she is Hel Hel. Speaking of which, yes, the lady encased in ice IS weak to Fire! And Elec for good measure. She resists Expel and is immune to Ice and Curse. She can cast Mamudoon and the usable version gets Sabbatma. Balor has much less going on, but see? He looks NOTHING like Fomor despite being one! Anyway, the first random Tyrant is immune to Fire and Curse. But weak to Expel and 300% weak to Mute.  Kaiwan is keeping up the apparent trend round here and is immune to Curse. He's weak to Ice though, and nothing else. The usable version is naturally neutral to Expel but has Void Expel as a skill which is something I guess. He also has Tetraja which is hella redunant. What are you even doing Kaiwan? ...There ARE more things on this floor, but they only turned up once as Unknowns and then never again. Weird. The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buried So, anyway, over on the left-hand side now, there's this one square corridor that has broken panels lying in it. It's actually visually interesting, so of course it's just here and nowhere else nearby.  I don't know what it is about Fornax but it almost feels like it's trying to go out of its way to be as boring as possible.  Like, that might just be me but what you see here IS what you get. There's no locked doors, no hidden doors, no Phase Shifters, no dark rooms...  But there IS a terminal in the top-left corner which is very close to the entrance. What, why is this even here? What's the point?  There's even a shortcut you can open right here. Can only open from this side of course. I dunno, I don't get it. It's not like it's even nece--  In The Master's Name  It's been a while, foolish adventurers! The time I spent licking my wounds was quite disgraceful! But surely you have not forgotten me. I am Morax... Though in this world, I have another name.   In this land of seeds, I can express my true form! See how I overflow with energy to such an extent that my sanity is fleeting! This time, I will show you who is worthy to rule! Learn the greatness of demons! Demons should die. Gah! Arrogant humans! Do you think yourself to be a saint!? No more! I shall reduce you to ash! Tyrant Moloch Vehement Rage It's understandable why Pride and Vainglory were combined into one thing by Pope Gregory I. The two are very similar but vanity originally emerged from a delusion of grandeur whereas pride in oneself usually is excessive arrogance. Vanagloria, the original Latin name for the sin, literally translates as "vain boasting" as opposed to the somewhat more inherently positive concept of glory.  Anyway, Moloch is uh.... Morax. He's just Morax but with more HP and Maragidyne instead of Maragi.  He still has loving Lunge for God's sake! The one tangible difference between the two is that Moloch resists Electricity. Good for you, Moloch.  They totally went with this design because he looks like a giant furnace and this is Fornax and all. I bet you that's the entire reason why. End In The Master's Name Our... revenge... will not... end here... And give birth... to demons...> Moloch disappeared. Yeah, yeah, good riddance you fuckin' loser. Silence Oh, Jimenez. Did you see what happened to Ouroboros? Moloch got off easy. He's not worth any actual effort. ...This sector seems a little different from the others. Let's both stay on our toes and make sure we don't end up letting out screams like those!I will give him this; it's a good thing he smashed that wall. There's no other way to progress!  > You can hear voices echoing from behind the doors... In The Master's Name   Oh, what a surprise. The other three Masters are here as well.  So I guess this is Fornax's gimmick. Boss refights but they evolve first.   And regained the glory of our true forms......I wonder if Asura is even going to do anything then. That one was explicitly listed called out as his true form already.  The defiled spirit of Hitonari! Of the humans! All shall be slaughtered! All shall be slaughtered! All shall be slaughtered! Silence > You felt a sudden presence behind you! Chaos Theme  You might call this sector a different playing field than the others you've investigated. Here, the demons you refer to as Rosettas are able to maintain their true forms. They're very eager to see you again, I think. I will be watching...> Louisa Ferre disappeared.  I have verified strong energy signatures, those of demons, through Hitonari's Demonica. There are three energy signatures. These demons pose a threat to the investigation. Your mission is to defeat them. Note that they do not have Rosetta readings, making it impossible to pinpoint their locations. Stay alert as you go about the mission. The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buried If Morax/Moloch was any indication, they don't pose much of a threat. We'll go through the left-hand door first and just go in order from there I guess.  There IS an elevator over here, but we'll ignore it for now.  This area is also really, really bland and uninteresting. It has a whole 4 one-way doors. How exciting.  There is a pair of Dekunda Stones in the bottom right corner. Just in case Hare of Inaba didn't you give you more than enough than you'd need for everything ever, I guess. The Fear of God But hey, new demons already. Yes, really. Zaccoum is probably one of the more interesting things we'll see; his main stat is Vitality of all things. He's immune to Stone, Paralysis, Poison, Charm, Mute and Fear. Everything else is as it looks. Clotho is marginally less exciting. She's immune to Sleep and yes Dream Needle is her only offense. The usable version has Recarm as a third skill. Her source upgrades that to Samarecarm (100% HP revive; Balm of Life but worse then) and drops Diarahan for Recovery Amp. Clotho is baaaaaaaaad. I rag on healing spells in this game a lot because they're almost all worthless; there is ONE exception to that and even then it's very niche in its use. Items are just flatout better 99.9999% of the time.  Gurr is also on the first floor. We used one for a while to, like, zero fanfare. He's really not that interesting beyond being a very quick Magic demon who slotted into our party fine last sector. Manticore is immune to Poison, resists Electricity and Curse and is weak to Wind. He has Ziodyne by default and his source gives Maziodyne. The Ma-Dyne spells are honestly super underwhelming; the MT spells in general are pretty eh since they're way weaker than the STs of the same tier and are barely stronger than the STs of the tier below. And that only applies to the Dynes. Like, Maragion has a base power of 110. So does Agi. Agilao has a base power of 150; Maragidyne is 160. This holds true across all elements. MT spells are bad, yo.  Rukh is also encounterable on 1F. Resists gun, Weak to Fire and 300% weak to Mute. His source gives Mabufudyne (meh) and Void Gun. Oh my!  Malevolence and Benevolence  Wow, a human! Hey, um, mister? I sorta have this problem... I was playing with a cute bunny and trying to chase him. But I can't catch him... Well, a little girl lost her bunny that she was playing with. What kind of monster do you have to be to refuse to help? Yes. Yay! Thanks, mister. I'm so happy! We'll be the best of friends! Okay, ready... Go! The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buried Alice is like the only thing worth caring about on this part of the floor. I really didn't gloss over anything here.   : I have to hurry, or she'll come. And then...: Ohhh... How terrifying...> Hare of Inaba noticed you.  > Hare of Inaba ran away further in.  ...Y'know, I'll give the second floor this. It has a few pit drops that are all signalled really blatantly. We'll just go with the top-left one for now.  : Are you doing this for Alice...? Are you here to catch me? Yes.: Eep! I knew it! I don't want to play with Alice!> Hare of Inaba ran away further in.  I am genuinely trying to think of nice things to say about Fornax, in between the steps of this sidequest. The quest itself is functional and works and serves as a good tutorial of the area. Sort of. If you don't know that there's hidden doors here, for example, then you'll hit a hole and be unable to beat the quest in time.  Because the 3rd floor is just a bunch of tiny corridors with a single hole. The corridors are paired by hidden doors. This only matters for this sidequest but it is nice to know anyway; makes it easier to progress on the whole.  > Hare of Inaba ran away further in.  Honestly, Fornax is like... okay, the Morax thing as a concept was really cool, right? Well, it was a neat idea and it had Actual Animation for once and everything. Just a shame it was, uh, Morax.  Oh, finally! Something vaguely interesting! Damage tiles! And here I am without Medic equipped, so this IS the best option here. ...I do have like a lot of Life Stones, so it's not actually a big deal.  : Ahhh...! N-No escape now...> The Hare of Inaba is looking behind you.  Yay! Didja really catch the bunny for me, mister? Hee hee hee! Mr. Bunny, Alice won the game. Since you lost, we need to play a punishment game now. What should we play? Well, that escalated quickly... > Alice is moving to skin the rabbit... Anyway, we CAN intervene but I think we'll just see where this is going. I'm sure the Hare can still escape.  : Ow ow ow! Stop it, stop it! Ahaha! You look cold, Mr. Bunny. How funny! Hmmm... but just doing this is too boring. > Alice rubbed salt water on the rabbit... : Gyaaaaaaaah! It hurts! It hurts!> The Hare of Inaba is rolling around in pain... *sigh* I'm bored of this. This game isn't fun anymore, so I'm going to kill and eat you. Bunny stew tonight!> Alice is walking towards the rabbit...   That's... pretty impressive. Huh. Ahaha! Mr. Bunny died. He looks delicious! Hey... Mister, can I ask you a favor before I eat? Ummm... Fiend Alice Vehement Rage Man, at face value Alice is way harder than Ouroboros. She's a significantly higher level, she reflects Gun and resists Phys, is a Fiend and thus immune to all ailments...  Except, well, her best stat is her Magic by a mile. And she doesn't use it.  Ever. She'll gladly punch you or shoot you with that needle that she just used on the rabbit but she won't cast any magic.  ...Well, okay, except That One but that's a Curse elemental instant kill so Tetraja nullifies it. And if you don't do that, it has a base 80% chance to work. So, uh, nullify it.  The usable Alice is a much lower level than she should be, but she makes up for it by having one of the best Sources in general. As an actual demon, she's fairly eh at first outside of that whole reflecting Gun thing... except her Magic is ludicrous and has a 21% growth rate which is VERY HIGH. End Sorrow The mean old man hit me!> Alice disappeared...  > The dead rabbit resurrected. > All of his wounds are now healed... : Geez. That was excruciating. If we did, we'd get a Bead Chain here. We just sat back, so we get no bonus extras. : That Alice has been doing the same thing to me over and over...: To tell you the truth, Alice is actually some sort of illusion. : It seems she was given form in this world of memories. I'm just part of the memory, too.: I was manifested so Alice could chase and torture me. Memories of that innocent prank have been repeated... eternally.: But this time there was something different: you. Maybe we've finally been able to replace that memory.: ...Thank you. I want you to have this. : It seems Alice's memories have changed... Looks like there's no need for me to be here anymore.: Thank you so much. I'm finally free...! That Hexagram is honestly super-important. It's a sidequest reward, but the game immediately presumes you grabbed it and gates everything worthwhile after this point behind what it gives you. That's why we did this now. The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buried But we'll just sit on it for the time being. Poison was the alternative path we could've taken over the raw damage. It was definitely the lesser of the two evils, yes, but I'd rather just eat the damage since that only costs Life Stones. Poison eats both that AND Dis-Poisons. I will gladly jump trough these ludicrous mental hoops to justify bad decisions.  The only other thing over in this area is a Strength Incense. We'll put it with all the others, I guess.  Leaving that area thrusts us through a one-way door. We'll ignore that path to the right just below that one for now. The path we will take just forces us towards the elevator. This is why we didn't use it before; it's just a shortcut back to B1F.  Though we will take a brief trip to B2F here, since that's the only way to get to these Beads. Now we'll go back up.  And then walk back to the main part of B2F. There's a few holes here, but we only need to use 3 to explore all the lower areas due to the hidden doors.  There's also a heal spot here as well. No, I don't know why there's another one already, but it is inherently more worthwhile than the other one.  ...Just because we don't NEED to jump down all the holes, doesn't mean I won't. It makes it easier to keep track of where we've been if we just pretend the hidden doors on 3F don't exist. Well, except the one we used for the Alice quest. We'll use that one to explore where the first hole WOULD take us instead. The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buried  This place is full of holes... Though if you ask me, I prefer that to a pitch-black path.Yeah, I gotta agree with this Zaccoum. Holes are annoying but managable. Dark Rooms are just plain bad and my least favourite mechanic.  ...That said, the hole behind Zaccoum is loving worthless. Great. Thanks!  Back to B2F's main "hub" and, sure enough, there's a terminal here as well. This one makes more sense than the one by Moloch at least.  Hole 3 drops us by a bunch of sleeping tiles. Guess what I forgot to re-equip! We were just given a chance and I sort of ignored it, because I'm a dumbass. Fornax is probably the sector I remember the least, honestly. The Fear of God So, look, a distraction! New demons! And by demons, I mean Strigoii. And nothing else. He's, uh, exactly as how he looks. His skills are fairly eh, his resistances aren't lying, he has no ailment resistances, his Strength is his best skill and he wastes it on Getsu-Ei, his source just gives Resist Elec/Wind and Life Drain... Boy, Strigoii might be genuinely the most boring demon in Fornax thus far. Weird, huh. An Honor Befitting that Name So, uh, funny thing about Fornax. It has a Fiend that isn't Alice, sure, but... aside from that it only has one Enemy Search demon. Kinmamon here has a 50% chance of appearing solo and a 48% chance of appearing with a Balor friend. He's immune to Fire, Expel and Curse. He's technically neutral to every ailment but has the Void Mind passive which grants immunity to Charm, Fear... and Mute, Sleep and Strain. Sure, okay. Strain I can sort of buy, but Mute and Sleep? Weird. Anyway, you see what's not on that list? Yep, that's right. Petrify! Oh and he has Megido and his source gives Megidola. That's nice but Kinmamon is an Enigma and so I will never, ever remember to use him. The Land Where The Seed's Memories Lie Buried Oh, right and we COULD explore to the right here as well but we're not going to. It's something we'll get to soon enough, don't worry.  So, hole number four then.  Aside from having an obvious hole over to the left, it also gives us a Bead Chain. I guess that makes up for the one I skipped over from the Hare but not really. So, about that hole down to B5F...  As soon as we land, we get warned about a boss fight nearby. I wonder which of the three it's going to be.  But there's a terminal right behind us, so we'll take advantage of this.  Not for what you would first think. No, we're going back to B2F to see where the next holes lead.  We can deal with whatever the boss is after we've finished exploring the left-hand side of Fornax fully.  ...Though I wish I hadn't bothered. Boy was that one a waste of my time!  So, what about the last hole? You'd probably initially expect this one to lead to the inevitable fight.  Instead, it just lets us snag a couple Attack Mirrors. That's oh-so-generous I'm sure. I dunno, they're good but using them ever is kind of a bad idea when you would want to.  Also, one-way door that makes us take damage tiles. This is why I didn't walk over here originally, yes. ...And yet I somehow still forgot to equip Medic. Still. I dunno, I think my brain just kind of checked out here.  So, anyway, back on B5F by the terminal we can see more destroyed panels. I feel like this visual cue would work way better than just having the game scream HEY A BOSS IS NEARBY as bluntly as possible. It's sort of subtle, but after Morax/Moloch you're kind of now expecting it, y'know?  Also there's a rare Forma here. Neat. We'll see what Irving can do with this in a bit.  Just below the Sun Mirror, there's a Heal Spot so I guess the fight is a little bit further south of here.  A couple Somas is definitely a nice thing to get, but I don't think I'm ever going to really use them? I mean, sure, I might because they're good but Beads do the job more'n well enough in almost every situation.  Fixed Rising Core forma nearby and... that's it. There's nothing here. Weird. Guess the Demonica was wrong, then; it makes sense since we're not picking up Rosetta or Exotic Matter signals from those guys. Let's see what Irving can do with the Sun Mirro--  In The Master's Name Hrrrrmmmm! We meet for the last time, human! I, Mitra shall have my vengeance! Or rather...  "Mitra" is my tame aspect for the humans! You have not forgotten me, I trust? That is right! We were not made to serve humans! Humans were made to serve us! We should rule over humans! That way is wrong. Evil? You claim it is we who are the impure ones!? Do you foolish humans not remember who made this planet!? And you... you will not escape my curse! No more experiments! The time for research is over! Now is the time for atonement and death, human! Fallen Mithras Vehement Rage So, if Vanagloria is thoroughly unjustified and borne of delusion how does that differ from Superbia? Pride is generally regarded as negative because it leads to hubris and overlooking ones flaws. Vanity can do the same, but it generally originated from ones own mindset. Pride is made manifest by the environment, hence why I said before that it has a basis in reality. One gains pride by having your own skill or knowledge or capability recognised by an external source. It is the result of an initial praise and then an internal corruption of ones self-worth to an inflated status.  Okay, so Mithras IS notably different from Mitra in a few ways. For one thing, he's actually a downgrade. Seriously. Mitra is a special one-of-a-kind demon with a unique internal mechanic. Mithras does not have that. Skill-wise, he's mostly identical to before but with one change.  He dropped Mabufudyne for Ice Breath. Mithras, what the gently caress? No, really. He kicked out one of the better ice spells (which is more damning of Ice as an element) for the worst it has?  He makes up for that by being able to just drop a Light of Order whenever he wants now. He doesn't need to prime it with a Waking Dream first. So if he wants, he can just kill a demon at any time. No save.  He CAN still use Waking Dream, of course, and it's just as underwhelming as ever. It didn't even inflict Strain on anyone. At all.  Mithras is a joke. Like Moloch before, his resistances are the same as Mitra's. Except, unlike Moloch, while he does get a Fire resistance added, this gets counter balanced by having something that the game never tells you about removed. End In The Master's Name This is the first and last time I will ever say this about literally anything, but this true form thing? Morax did it better. Not just once, but twice... No, counting my form, three times...!> Mithras disappeared. Silence Ugh... That certainly brings back some painful memories... If he couldn't better himself outside of battle, he deserves to die as a mockery! ...I'm sorry for that outburst. Good luck with the rest of the expedition! Crisis All crewmen are to halt their activities and return to the Red Sprite. A new mission has arisen which requires us to change sectors. ...Wait, again? Didn't we... just do this plot beat? Like, it was a bit different but... Halt all activites and return to the Red Sprite immediately. ...Man, what now? He really is a slave driver... Let him leave me behind, see if I care. Oh well. Guess it's time to go back, Tadano.Fine, let me just check out the area where Mitra came from and I'll be right the-- wait, why is there a fadeout?  What, you thought you'd get to actually manually go back again? Ahaha, sucker! I have detected suspicious activity from Jack's squad. This may affect out investigation. We must confirm their intentions. Please set a course to their coordinates in order for us to question them directly.Like, seriously. Didn't we JUST do this in Eridanus? It's been like an hour since we first went to the Lightning and we're already reusing that plot beat? An emergency? Did Jack's men do something? I thought we promised not to get in each other's way... Do they have anything to gain from coming after us? They looked like they were serious when we were talking about each other's interests. However, it is important that we reconfirm their goals in the Schwarzwelt. So... back to Carina? No. Carina is not our destination. ...Wait, what? How? Why can't we do that? I have so many questions! They are using it as a base camp to plan their operations. That is our destination. They... made... a space-time location!? They have such technology!? I can only theorize that it is technology obtained after we entered the Schwarzwelt. Perhaps they tapped into our communications and intercepted the data we sent to the Joint Project. That's incredible... Am I the only one a little afraid of Jack's squad right now? I'd feel better if they were on our side, that's for sure... Like, okay, sure, Jack's Squad has the advantage of having an Anime Prototype ship so it's automatically better than ours. In terms of crew, they lose handily. We're the best of the best. There is no reason to be scared of anything Jack's Squad can do outside of whatever weapons are on the Lightning. ...I am way overthinking this, aren't I? They were a buncha jackasses when I met 'em inside the Lightning... I definitely don't trust 'em now. Know what I mean, Tadano? We cannot rely on assumptions with regards to Jack's squad. We must confirm their reasons for creating their own space-time location and remaining there. I have finished calculating the space-time coordinates of Jack's squad. We will travel there immediately. All hands, prepare to plane shift.
Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Mar 15, 2017 |
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Feb 6, 2017 07:40
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You raise a good point about the Red Sprite having the best of the best, but the game has forgotten that repeatedly and consistently. So Jack's Squad is somehow going to have better soldiers in addition to Anime Prototype equipment, I bet.
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Feb 6, 2017 09:00
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