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It's possible that Fountainhead Palace was hit by a meteor, hence all the buildings at the bottom of the 'lake'. If the lake is new, then that could also explain why things have started to go bad - we know that when the healing water stagnates it leads to corruption (like the giant ape), so the pooling of it at the top before flowing over the edge could be what turned all the nobles bad.
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Apr 20, 2020 08:16
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My take on Fountainhead was that it was originally just an ordinary palace that went to poo poo once the Dragon appeared (and possibly forcibly relocated the Palace - we know there's buildings at the bottom of the lake so the dragon could've made quite an impact). The dragon is wounded, missing an arm, which seems to me to imply it did not end up there of its own accord - maybe a crash landing? Analogy to spread of Buddhism in Japan? Meditation on the old ways (the small, black, dragons that seem to be worshipping the big one) being replaced by new ones? Either way, immortality seems to corrupt in the long run no matter what: the people in Fountainhead had access to the genuine article so I'd put their descent into what they are now down to simple stagnation and decadence. Asshina is a different case: their version of the water has been polluted somewhere on the way there (we've seen the effects in Mibu village and I can't think of any other explanation for why Mibu's folk are different from the ones in the Palace), possibly in the Palace itself (all those immortal carps can't be healthy) or, on a more spiritual level, by the folk of the Palace abusing the immortality - we don't even know if the dragon offers immortality willingly or it is a side effect, maybe of its wound. I guess that would make the question of what the hell is the Dragon's Heritage and what connection does Kuro have to Fountainhead and frankly I have no idea. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Apr 20, 2020 |
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Apr 20, 2020 08:45
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Remember the dragon is also a giant Sakura blossom tree, and there was the Sakura blossom tree brought from the Fountainhead down to Ashina proper. I’d bet that tree was the missing arm, either gifted to Takeru or stolen by Tomoe.
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Apr 20, 2020 12:35
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Lord_Magmar posted:Remember the dragon is also a giant Sakura blossom tree, and there was the Sakura blossom tree brought from the Fountainhead down to Ashina proper. I’d bet that tree was the missing arm, either gifted to Takeru or stolen by Tomoe. My money's on "Tomoe stole it" and the missing arm is why everything up there is stagnating on down from the dragon.
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Apr 20, 2020 13:12
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Bellmaker posted:My money's on "Tomoe stole it" and the missing arm is why everything up there is stagnating on down from the dragon. The interesting thing is that if this is true, then Tomoe and Takeru died trying to fix this thievery, as the way to make the incense is from Takeru’s journal and they failed to find some of the ingredients, yet Takeru is now dead even though their immortality was the same as Kuro’s by all accounts. Also, Tomoe’s techniques are forbidden now, which is why Genechiro using them is a mark of how far he is willing to fall and profane his honour for the victory of Ashina. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Apr 20, 2020 |
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Apr 20, 2020 13:43
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I believe Isshin has a line in one of his sake conversations about how the area wasn't all messed up when he was younger, before they got invaded by the guy he kills in the opening cinematic. Ashina's decay pretty clearly parallels the escalation of the war and the desire of the people caught up in it to not die. I personally don't think the fountainhead waters and the dragon are separate phenomena. I'm pretty sure the dragon is the source of the waters and the nobles had the palace built around it.
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Apr 20, 2020 13:57
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I think the Dragon and Kuro are an unambiguous good, but like the Bloodborne Old Ones, their presence, even if it's benevolent, ends up loving poo poo up. The Dragon's Immortality is a gift (like Kuro grants Wolf), but it's a gift so powerful that its blessing overflows and grants abundant life to all its followers from the sacred waters, and the blessing is supposed to bring prosperity and all that as it flows down the waterfall. But people didn't want abundant life, they wanted immortality, and so they've set up a whole system of trying to get more that turned what should be a blessing of life into an unending cycle of murder and cannibalism that's driving everyone downstream mad. The system is devouring itself in a mad rush to try to be the last man (or carp) standing and, ideally, become a new Dragon. Kuro's deal, as I take it, is that he means well, but he's realized that his immortality is harmful to everyone around him, regardless of what kind of person he is. His presence destabilizes the political realm, because Genichiro realizes that Kuro's a critical strategic resource. Empowering Wolf endangers everyone with dragonrot. His ancestors blessed this land, and now it's full of psychotic, undying cannibals.
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Apr 20, 2020 15:36
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Precambrian posted:I think the Dragon and Kuro are an unambiguous good, but like the Bloodborne Old Ones, their presence, even if it's benevolent, ends up loving poo poo up. The Dragon's Immortality is a gift (like Kuro grants Wolf), but it's a gift so powerful that its blessing overflows and grants abundant life to all its followers from the sacred waters, and the blessing is supposed to bring prosperity and all that as it flows down the waterfall. This seems to gel with everything we've seen so far, and makes the most sense to me.
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Apr 21, 2020 15:23
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The constant war gripping the land is also part of the whole mess. This is not the first time war has come to Ashina, and the place is just worn out. Even when Genichiro's guys are in charge the palace is practically deserted, and that's before the actual government's army rolls in to burn this hellhole to the ground because they don't know any other way to deal with the province full of demons.
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Apr 22, 2020 04:42
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I don't think the ministry are supposed to be good guys or even a necessary evil, so much as an outside force swooping to get their hands on immortality. I'm by no means an expert on Japanese history, but from what I hear the game's supposed to take place at the end the end of the warring states period, and the ministry are less the "actual government" so much as the guys with the biggest army declaring they own this island and every province in it now. Is there any indication Ashina's problems are spreading outside its borders? There's the whole top-down corruption aspect to it, but it seems like most of Ashina's problems are self-contained if they're not outsiders bringing in even more problems.
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Apr 22, 2020 21:23
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a cartoon duck posted:I don't think the ministry are supposed to be good guys or even a necessary evil, so much as an outside force swooping to get their hands on immortality. I'm by no means an expert on Japanese history, but from what I hear the game's supposed to take place at the end the end of the warring states period, and the ministry are less the "actual government" so much as the guys with the biggest army declaring they own this island and every province in it now. They probably aren't even interested in anything in Ashina for its own sake.
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Apr 23, 2020 10:33
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VictualSquid posted:The ministry are the recently unified tokugawa governement, who are now mopping up all those minor nobles who tried to become independent during the civil war. Technically, they're being guided in by Owl, who is trying to use their invasion to further his own goals. Which is what the Shura ending is kind of about.
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Apr 23, 2020 11:32
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I think its good that they chose not to use any real names or places in Sekiro. It sorta makes the setting and the story easier to follow. In contrast, Nioh goes through the Sengoku era in great detail which can be really hard to follow.
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Apr 23, 2020 14:27
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WaltherFeng posted:I think its good that they chose not to use any real names or places in Sekiro. It sorta makes the setting and the story easier to follow. It can be hard to follow with Nioh, but if you know the era there is payoff when *insert you-know-who of choice* shows up. Ashina took me a bit to figure out, because it's a bit undefined at the get-go. The whole area kinda running on From logic sometimes (especially the Hirata Estate) didn't help that.
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Apr 24, 2020 00:55
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This game is way more comprehensible than Nioh for those of us that are not as familiar with Feudal Japan
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Apr 24, 2020 15:02
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I really like that the story's basically backdropped by a war between Historical Japan and Mythical Japan. It's the twilight of fire demons and gun monkeys and immortal fish, and like a lot of From's narratives, the supernatural is bad, but it also gives a bit of a melancholy feel to it. Kuro needs to sever immortality for the obvious good of Ashina, but it is kind of sad.
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Apr 24, 2020 18:15
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The fire and the guns lead me to believe the Interior Ministry is Oda Nobunaga's crew, apparently he was way into those.
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Apr 24, 2020 19:20
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Precambrian posted:IKuro's deal, as I take it, is that he means well, but he's realized that his immortality is harmful to everyone around him, regardless of what kind of person he is. His presence destabilizes the political realm, because Genichiro realizes that Kuro's a critical strategic resource. Empowering Wolf endangers everyone with dragonrot. His ancestors blessed this land, and now it's full of psychotic, undying cannibals. I like this interpretation; it helps the player sympathize with Kuro as another possible From Software protagonist, because we know well the burden of "here, let me do something to help make things better! Oh crap, how the gently caress did I make everything worse!?"
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Apr 25, 2020 15:42
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azren posted:I like this interpretation; it helps the player sympathize with Kuro as another possible From Software protagonist, because we know well the burden of "here, let me do something to help make things better! Oh crap, how the gently caress did I make everything worse!?" huh, no one told me Kuro was a software dev
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Apr 25, 2020 17:18
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 Some quick cleanup including the last prayer beads and minibosses before we fight the final boss next time. ...Which might be a few weeks, due to a small cavalcade of things preventing us from being able to record more. Hopefully we'll be back in mid-May.
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Apr 25, 2020 20:01
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Around-the-corner deathblows do exist, you have to shimmy to the corner and stick your head around.
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Apr 25, 2020 23:32
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When I encountered the Seven Spear/samurai combo, I always popped a stealth sugar. You can sneak right between the two guys and stealth kill the samurai and even puppeteer his corpse. All without using 'sploits! The Seven Spears guy has the name Oniwa, like our boy Gyobu "the Demon." A family name? Or family nickname, since Onis are a type of demon?
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Apr 26, 2020 00:03
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You know, I just realized something. In Dark Souls, the player's health bar and what not are at the top, and the enemy/boss health bar, etc are at the bottom. Sekiro reverses this, with the enemy healthbar and stagger meter on top and the player health and stagger meter on bottom, and it royally fucks with me.
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Apr 26, 2020 00:58
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Dr Christmas posted:When I encountered the Seven Spear/samurai combo, I always popped a stealth sugar. You can sneak right between the two guys and stealth kill the samurai and even puppeteer his corpse. All without using 'sploits! Oniwa is straight up just a title meaning “the Demon” if I remember correctly. Gyoubu is also a courtly name, his name is actually Masataka. Hence his full feudal name is Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa. He was a bandit leader defeated by Isshin and thanks to his strength offered a position in the Ashina rebellion. But yeah, Gyoubu Oniwa means, Gyoubu the Demon. Possibly Oniwa is a name given by Isshin, who seems to enjoy giving names like that to people, as he also names Sekiro (One-Armed Wolf) and Sekijo (One-Armed Ape) with similar simple titles. Incidentally Gyoubu being a courtly name/title is why he says “You will not take this Gyoubu’s head” in English instead of “my head” he’s stating his title. The shouting of his full name is similar, Samurai deeds need to be recorded for them to be “valid” so in war they would shout out their names and kills/deeds so that all present can agree that they did it. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Apr 26, 2020 |
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Apr 26, 2020 01:21
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Dr Christmas posted:When I encountered the Seven Spear/samurai combo, I always popped a stealth sugar. You can sneak right between the two guys and stealth kill the samurai and even puppeteer his corpse. All without using 'sploits! You can take this even further with some clever ninpo use and the right skill! Gachiin your way in between the two and deathblow Oniwa, then run over to the little guy in the corner that's sitting against a wall. 1 hit will stagger him, then use Vault Over to get a deathblow on him and trigger Bloodsmoke. After that you can switch to puppeteer and kill the other samurai with a deathblow, and boom. You've taken a pip from Oniwa, and have a bonus samurai to help you with the remaining.
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Apr 26, 2020 01:44
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Lord_Magmar posted:Incidentally Gyoubu being a courtly name/title is why he says “You will not take this Gyoubu’s head” in English instead of “my head” he’s stating his title. The shouting of his full name is similar, Samurai deeds need to be recorded for them to be “valid” so in war they would shout out their names and kills/deeds so that all present can agree that they did it. One unit announcing fact and others re-validating it? Early blockchain. Did Sekiro ever get DLC or is there any plans for it? While it seems the story will be self-contained fully, it's such a cool game that it's a shame that we'll have seen all of it.
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Apr 26, 2020 06:32
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Donkringel posted:One unit announcing fact and others re-validating it? At first everyone was convinced it would get one because there's a lot of references to Lady Tomoe who was a badass on the level of Isshin and traveling to the past is a thing in Sekiro. Dark Souls and Bloodborne did a similar thing where they would bring up some cool dude and you end up fighting him as a boss in the dlc. It could be that From's deal with Activision only included the base game tho and no additional dlc. WaltherFeng fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Apr 26, 2020 |
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Apr 26, 2020 06:50
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Whilst there is no DLC yet, as mentioned Lady Tomoe is a cool badass who basically doesn't exist outside references, but From have said there were no plans for DLC. This doesn't mean there will be no DLC, they didn't have plans for Bloodborne DLC until they made it afaik, but for now nothing announced at all.
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Apr 26, 2020 08:48
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Id be completely fine if there was no DLC. The game is pretty much complete. And while it is set in the Ashina, it s the story of Kuro and Wolf. The things that dont matter to that story remain in reference.
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Apr 26, 2020 15:34
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This game came out over a year ago, I would think if they were going to do DLC we would know by now
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Apr 26, 2020 20:27
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So apparently this dropped a couple of days ago and it's been more or less spot on. At about 27 minutes in this catches up to the LP so don't watch further unless you want (ridiculous) spoilers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31V6ifW3tNk
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May 14, 2020 23:01
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Albu-quirky Guy posted:So apparently this dropped a couple of days ago and it's been more or less spot on. At about 27 minutes in this catches up to the LP so don't watch further unless you want (ridiculous) spoilers. Well now I'm definitely going to need a gif of him lightly tapping the Demon of Hatred in the ball-sack over and over.
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May 15, 2020 01:32
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Just wanted to touch base and find out what the status for the final few episodes are. Thanks for your work.
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Jun 3, 2020 20:07
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I think that last boss killed the OP. That's cool - he does that. Many, many, many times.
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Jun 3, 2020 20:45
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Our current status is the LP is on a longer hiatus than I'd hoped. We planned to finish recording the last four parts this week, but not all of us ended up having the time like we thought we would. I'm definitely gonna try to get the guys together and record everything before the start of July, though, so hopefully we won't have to wait before long. I can possibly entice folks (or concern them), as I've already decided to follow-up Sekiro with Bloodborne and then Code Vein.
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Jun 4, 2020 03:37
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ThornBrain posted:Our current status is the LP is on a longer hiatus than I'd hoped. We planned to finish recording the last four parts this week, but not all of us ended up having the time like we thought we would. I'm definitely gonna try to get the guys together and record everything before the start of July, though, so hopefully we won't have to wait before long.
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Jun 4, 2020 04:31
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NGDBSS posted:What are your thoughts on the Code Vein DLC? I've done everything there is to do in the base game, and quite enjoyed it. But unlike standard Soulsborne fare by FromSoft we seem to just have...three big challenge maps for $25? They're not worth the cost. I played most of the lava one and thought "Ooh boy, that's something I'm not doing for the LP."
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Jun 4, 2020 09:25
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Update: we were able to record the parts this week like we'd planned, so the LP will resume on the 20th!
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Jun 5, 2020 18:07
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 We at last return to wrap up the main story, fight one of the hardest bosses in Soulsborne, and see the last three endings.
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Jun 20, 2020 20:01
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 That was some very nice fighting.
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Jun 20, 2020 21:05
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