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I'm enjoying this LP but the way people come and go in this game, it's not easy for me to keep track of characters. Like I don't even know who Rosmar and Lyrra are anymore?? Would it be too much to ask for a roundup of notable characters we've met? No problem if that's too much for you to want to bother with.
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May 16, 2019 14:27
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Hey, thanks for that character roundup, it was helpful! I'm fairly sure the high level Guided guy is going to offer to sacrifice the whole city to the devil to help his wife. Or else her problem, that makes her unable to travel, is otherwise why the Guided make a weird exception to their "no settlements" rule. Maybe both.
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May 19, 2019 12:28
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So is it ever made clear what was wrong with Lilah's skin?
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Jun 2, 2019 12:09
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Working theory now is that Rhue isn't a real person and is instead some kind of weapon spirit. Or a vessel for one that sometimes wanders around killing as the Phantom Slasher.
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Jun 3, 2019 12:52
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:I think he's some kind of gestalt personality that's made up of portions of other people's experiences. Okay, that makes a ton more sense honestly, maybe he'll start acting more like Slade now?
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Jun 3, 2019 13:42
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Fleshwit posted:Uhm... The idea of Forerunners is like... integral to the way of life of wanderers... Like... they're the ones who make the invincible wayposts that name stretches and point out safer routes, make the bridges... do lots of things like that... to prepare the way for those who come after... They're also kinda played up as godlike/legendary entities, so maybe that's why he means. Like, there are people who do the stuff Forerunners are said to do, but they're just people?
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Jun 5, 2019 12:27
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Fleshwit posted:Well, I meant that in the sense of... think about possible other implications of there being no such thing as Forerunners, and the closest thing to one is an eccentric old man who seems -very- knowledgeable. Right, so then what's actually "making" the Way and all its assorted infrastructure? Honestly the weirdo setting is probably the best thing about this game, and I fully expect whatever third act off-the-rails bullshit is coming to provide a satisfactory big picture that will not leave more questions than answers!
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Jun 5, 2019 12:35
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I was kinda disappointed to find out from Googling it that "big titty angel babe" is about what it takes to nab "sexiest female RPGMaker character" for 2005 tbh.
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Jun 5, 2019 17:02
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Fleshwit posted:I'd bet you actually found her art for the Laxius Force trilogy rather than the Laxius Power 3 art. Yeah that's it. Of course, I'm sure the competition for "sexist male character" was much tighter but still.
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Jun 6, 2019 01:45
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So basically the fanbase for this kind of game was not impressed by anything that actually set it apart from the pack when there's Anime Cool on the menu.
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Jun 6, 2019 12:48
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The thing that's confusing me the most is what's up with "Ghost Horror." It just... appeared next to Slade, and then Lyrra took it I guess?
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Jun 7, 2019 02:09
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Kind of a weird thing to suddenly introduce, this teleporting spooky sword, but okay Lun
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Jun 7, 2019 02:25
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lol this episode is the best.
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Jun 12, 2019 17:49
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The way those boxes are talked about, it almost feels like we've got a Rhue van Winkle situation. But with all the dead people, notably people he's killed, I have a sneaking suspicion The Girl is Serena.
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Jun 13, 2019 14:24
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Little late but I wanna say I can forgive someone who's lived a basically nomadic life up to now not getting how home ownership works.
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Jun 28, 2019 17:39
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I feel like a dunce for not being able to follow a lot of what's going on but... some random thoughts. EDIT: Whoops, an update went up as I was typing, let's see how wrong I was.  -Phantom Slasher isn't just the name given to a serial killer that is certainly Rhue's alter-ego, it's the name of Rhue's sword, and that sword is probably a Shadow Blade. -The Shadow Blades all started out as Illuminati, magic swords created to kill the devil, but ended up being corrupted in the completion of this task. -At the very least, Rhue's Shadow Blade has a kind of "pocket universe" for the souls/auras it absorbs. Do they all? Are the original wielders of the swords "stuck" in or residing there somehow? Is that what the Phantom Slasher (as a shadowy person) is? -Episode 6 is Rhue, or whoever the current wielder of the Phantom Slasher is, descending into madness as the bonds between aura and body unravel. The pocket universe contains not just stuff relevant to Rhue's journey, but the history of the sword going back to the battle with the Lord Below. Do all the people who wield these swords have a similar end point, getting absorbed into the sword-world? -The part of the ending where Rhue meets and rejects various potential love interests shortly before Phantom Slasher kills them tells me that something is going on with this Shadow Sword that is unusual, or maybe notable. My theory is that Rhue might be an identity based on a real person, but is functionally just an "interface" for pursuing the agenda of whatever is really in control of Phantom Slasher, who is possibly the same as the "Phantom Slasher" shadowy individual. This entity is too hosed up to interact with people so it needs a persona that wants to keep moving through the world to accomplish its goals: Rhue, on a quest to find his childhood sweetheart. But the persona is so "detailed" that it grows a mind of its own and could derail itself. Hence, Phantom Slasher killing all the love interests. If they didn't die, they very well could divert Rhue from continuing the "mission." That's what the business with buying a house in Episode 6 is meant to show, that potential for Rhue to give up on Serena and live a normal life. But Phantom Slasher has other ideas. (Edit: This goes pretty well with the idea that the message is that "grand quests and tragic destinies etc are all just lovely window dressing that gets in the way of people connecting with each other.") -What does Phantom Slasher want? Based on the final interaction, it's some kind of infernal entity that hates humanity. Maybe the same as the guy, "Venge?" who went up from the pits to avenge the Lord Below. The Rhue persona wants to believe in people and have a normal life, but it's just a tool for some kind of demonic incursion? -At the end of Episode 5, for some reason Gaius wanted to help Rhue self-actualize as an independent person rather than an elaborate fake identity/vessel for a demon haunting a sword. Perhaps he was in a similar situation to Rhue, maybe even a former "face" persona for a Shadow Blade, but managed to somehow gain his own independent existence? (Hard to account for his presence in the ending if so, though...) GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jul 1, 2019 |
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Jul 1, 2019 20:00
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Fleshwit posted:You're not the first person to say this one, and I can understand why this is an easy mistake to make, but the idea of The Phantom Slasher being an alternate personality of Rhue is wrong. Eh, should have made clear that this is more what it looked like at first. By the time I finished writing my post I had settled into "sword as a mind and persona of its own" as how I understand things. quote:And Gaius is 'merely' a Blood Lyn specially trained by Kalmar to be his perfect instrument of justice. If he's ever had a shadow sword, we don't know about it, but I highly doubt it. I suspect Kalmar might have experimented on/tested him with Ghost Horror though, but as we wound up seeing, Kalmar still had Ghost Horror right up until he died. The reason I figured he might be something more is because he compares himself to Rhue in terms of "not being exactly human" or something, but I guess getting hosed with in magic experiments could do that too. Somehow I got the feeling he was implying some greater degree of "kinship" with Rhue though... Guess I'll find out.
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Jul 1, 2019 20:58
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Tallgeese posted:What makes you think the Illuminati are the Shadow Swords, out of curiosity? Just the way they were introduced. "Oh you're adventurers, you must be looking for these badass swords. Of course, they no longer exist in their current form..." Meanwhile, the only badass swords relevant in the setting now are Shadow Swords.
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Jul 2, 2019 02:17
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Geez, I kinda want to start this LP over from the beginning just to see how poo poo developed over time to this point. For such a janky game in many ways it is really oddly compelling.
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Jul 2, 2019 17:30
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GunnerJ posted:Geez, I kinda want to start this LP over from the beginning just to see how poo poo developed over time to this point. For such a janky game in many ways it is really oddly compelling. Hell, I'm doing it. First thing notable to me is that Rhue's opening internal monologue is pretty creepy when you realize that it's not a normal person reminiscing about his actual past, but more like a spooky sword demon slowly taking over someone's mind a few hours after possessing him. "Nothing can replace her. I've realized that now." Yes, but it's a more immediate now than we realized at the time, yikes. Edit: The whole thing becomes like a rote mantra to maintain the integrity of the false persona that he repeats to everybody to explain himself. Geez. Edit 2: quote:The shadowy figure draws its sword as it approaches the tent. You also see its faceset silhouette briefly as it says "...". It looks very similar to the outline of a character I'll point out later. Wait, is this yet to happen? Not trying to nag, just trying to see if I missed it.
GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Jul 2, 2019 |
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Jul 2, 2019 19:27
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 02:15 |
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Kinda think that the Reaches ending is the best one, and I don't really see it as leading up to a sequel that never happened. The Rhue identity is freed of Phantom Slasher and gets to exist as his own person, hard as it will be to figure out what that means. In a lot of ways, the Lexus ending is worse to me because Rhue is still "bound" to Phantom Slasher, even if the sword isn't in any kind of control anymore. The part at the end with the house seems to suggest that Rhue's decided to just chill in his little pocket universe full of ghosts he made. I dunno, that seems dark to me, not really triumphant, and if you take the subtext of the game as being about subverting JRPG cliches, "getting the girl" at the end but at the price of rejecting reality seems like a bad end tbh. Yeah you have to work harder at "figuring it out" and "winning" all the affection points, but if the subtext or theme is that these kinds of "quests" are excuses not to face a harder social reality, then the subversion there works. The hardest ending to get in "game terms" is one where you don't have to accept the real world. Not having that "out" and having to accept your own actual ambiguous place in the real world and form real connections now that you know your "destiny" is false is a better end from that perspective. No loving clue what's even going on with the Shoals ending though?? Mostly just to make the themes more explicit? By the way, what's the track that plays as Rhue is talking to Lexus, the one with the weird warbling feedback and poo poo?
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Jul 3, 2019 13:55
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