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the Cthulhu/Hastur references and Mr. Kitteh were definitely the work of the same translator e: how much prep time does the 7-year-old get Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 22:50 on May 13, 2022 |
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May 13, 2022 22:47
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| # ? May 3, 2024 11:13 |
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Well H is right above N on a qwerty keyboard so I believe "kitteh" is a typo.
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May 14, 2022 02:48
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- There's just no excuse for it taking this long for everyone to realize the lack of decorations. The best thing I can say is that might be miscommunication between the writers and the "set designers", but it's still inexcusable, it makes the characters look like total idiots for not noticing. - Seriously? You ignored that crystal on purpose? That was not Ryouta's dad, it was Chizuru, and such it's actually part of the "Ryouta redemption arc", as you would put it. If you ignored it, you also miss out on a decent Ryouta-specific accessory. - Since these tiny dungeons aren't real dungeons they also are not repeatable. - If you didn't ignore the crystal, you can get that person to take care of the cat.
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May 14, 2022 03:42
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 Part 106: The Incredible Saeki Gorou I don't know what else I could possibly add to this video other than to say I don't think it's a coincidence that the game's best moments (intentional or otherwise) all seem to revolve around our favorite military man.
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May 16, 2022 23:28
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Fox Kid's just doing the Eclipse equivalent of toilet-papering everyone's house
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May 17, 2022 00:34
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Why Fox Kid abducts important people to simply lock them in crystal jail is a mystery.
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May 17, 2022 04:01
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Cyouni posted:Why Fox Kid abducts important people to simply lock them in crystal jail is a mystery. I have seen the end of the game. Nothing about this little poo poo’s master plane makes a lick of sense.
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May 17, 2022 04:48
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nine-gear crow posted:I have seen the end of the game. Nothing about this little poo poo’s master plane makes a lick of sense.
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May 18, 2022 20:56
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AradoBalanga posted:I mean, you've been going through the Ace Combat series. You of all people should be able to handle planes that make no logical sense.  pretend I painted this purple and wrote MIKURIYA on the side Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 23:28 on May 18, 2022 |
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May 18, 2022 23:13
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Part 107: Get in the Robot, Towa At the JDF base, we briefly reunite with Asuka and Shiori, only to be pulled into a fight with another giant robot and *check notes* oh I'm sorry, I'm being informed this is a cutscene.
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May 21, 2022 03:47
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it still weirds me out how often "Quit whining" is somehow a solution to people's woes
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May 21, 2022 12:21
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It might have been fun to fight a (scaled down) Panzer Soldat. Maybe. At least it had all the right sound effects.
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May 21, 2022 22:42
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Part 108: Proactively Stabbing Children If more of our party thought like Asuka, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess right now, really makes u think 
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May 23, 2022 23:18
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Part 106 - I understand the issue with the bonding point system putting a lot of character development stuff into optional, missable scenes, but it hardly seems fair to ignore almost every opportunity to talk with certain characters, and then complain that the characters don't get much screentime. - The alternative to optional scenes is making the scenes mandatory, but the LP also seemed to resent the mandatory scenes with Ryouta and Shiori (as wastes of time), and forced choices like Kou diving off the platform after Shiori. - It's honestly even more badass that Shiori, as just a normal person, stays to try and help Asuka escape than it would be if she got a conveniently-timed Soul Device. - There isn't really much time spent with Actual Shiori, instead of just the "hollow existence" version, so I do like scenes like this showing that Shiori being her own person with her own agency. - Towa is behind Yukki. Part 107 - I don't think it's supposed to sound like a normal human laugh. It sounds pretty alien and disturbing, which I believe is the point. - I like what they do with the explanation of the face behind the mask. It clearly seems like it's setting up some kind of M. Night Shyamalan-esque plot twist.
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May 24, 2022 16:22
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The problem with Shiori and Ryouta is that the counterpart of "mandatory" needs to be "good", or at least "interesting". Shiori, despite literally being the final boss and probably the most important character in the entire plot, has functionally no development until like, Chapter 7. The most interesting thing they do with Ryouta in literally the entire plot is that he's the one that recognized Jun as White Shroud, and that happens about 2 hours before the end of the game. You never get the sense that Kou does anything with them or even cares about them at all, short of the game telling you via narration. I don't think it's unfair at all to criticize the game for hiding the things that make them interesting behind optional scenes, ESPECIALLY ones that require you to choose them over characters don't have that problem. If you want me to pick them and see the stuff that makes them interesting, maybe consider making them more interesting to start with? For example, take a character who doesn't have that problem, Jun. He also looks like one of the useless friends until the game drops the reveal that he's been White Shroud the whole time, and then crucially, it gives you an opportunity to hang out with him after that. It doesn't matter that it has nothing to do with the White Shroud reveal, because now you have a promise that they're going somewhere with this, he has a narrative purpose and it's..."okay" isn't the right word, but it's the one I'm gonna use here, to get invested in his story and see what's up with him. In fact, if I have any complaints about it at all, it's that they don't reveal the Jun/White Shroud thing earlier in the game, even if it's just to the player (see the reveal of Yin in Trails to Zero for another good use of this setup). Shiori fails not just because she's boring as sin to begin with, but also because by the time they get around to making her interesting, you're already long past the point where you could get invested in her if you weren't already. Ryouta...well, he exists I guess. How well they handled him is an exercise for the reader. Also all of this comes with the giant-glaring-neon-sign-that's-also-on-fire caveat that literally none of this exists in the base game. All of the side stories and the everything we're playing right now are eX+ additions, and in the base game Jun is 100% in the disappointment bucket. Artix fucked around with this message at 20:42 on May 26, 2022 |
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May 26, 2022 20:36
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Yeah, that is fair. On my first playthrough, I myself didn't spend a lot of time with Shiori, and I didn't really find her that interesting. Part of that is of course because she was written to be a hollow, shallow existence... which comes with the natural problem of a shallow existence being shallow and uninteresting. Ryouta has the issue of being the representative Out-of-the-Loop-Guy who is there to give the player the perspective of the Normal People. They probably could have done more to at least give him more depth than just the comic relief guy. This isn't just a Tokyo Xanadu issue. There are usually a handful of characters in the Trails games which suffer from that sort of thing, where a lot of the development is shallow or comes too late. (Zin in Trails in the Sky. Elie in the Crossbell games has her major life goal tied up in trying to resolve the unresolvable problem of Crossbell. Elliot in Cold Steel 1/2 has music as their sole, single focus, which leads to repetition. Gaius also from Cold Steel 1/2 has a happy family life with no trauma or issues which means they come off as less interesting than those with clear Issues. This problem still isn't fixed even with the smaller base cast in CS 3/4, as Kurt, one of the main characters, is a completely humorless, dull, formal, subdued stiff who fades into the background.)
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May 26, 2022 21:42
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Well, for instance, Ryouta and Chizuru have a ton of interaction even in just normal background talk, not even counting bonding ones (which I didn't really do either). But with the LP solely focused on things that get rewards or progress the plot, you don't see any of that. Same way the gacha only came up now despite having been there since the mall became available. If you purposefully ignore him except for mandatory scenes, is it really his fault that his life doesn't revolve around Kou and the Eclipse?
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May 26, 2022 23:18
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Something that I've always believed is that if you're going to make someone integral to the plot of any story, really, you have to have something resembling mandatory interaction and development with them. Because Shiori's and Ryouta's character developments, such they are, are tied up in optional scenes, it's entirely possible for said integral inclusion to fall flat because the player just doesn't care about that character at all. It's a problem which can and does happen to some players anyway, but issues like this only worsen if they're not forced into the spotlight on occasion.
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May 27, 2022 01:00
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Part 109: The Extradimensional Goatse Hole Maybe this one is the final dungeon. They can't all be fake!
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May 27, 2022 18:16
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no ring e: the original Labyrinth of Crete was also just a straight line   e2: Kronos Orden uses Sin Signs rather than the secular Greed Grades Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 22:01 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 21:18
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- Most of the NPC's give out some items at this point, but the most interesting one is from Chizuru, she gives you 2 Solar Somas and Chizuru's Charm, which is a Ryouta-specific accessory which gives ATK/DEF +50, and increases evasion bonuses and the amount of life orbs which come from destroying objects. It's obviously mostly useful if you want to bring him to the final dungeon. - 851% damage seems about right, I hit the 999% damage cap the first attempt and it took a few other attempts to get my damage taken low enough to hit the S-Rank. - I fell down more than I would have liked.
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May 28, 2022 22:58
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Part 110: One Last Loose End Hey, remember that big world-devouring greed that killed hundreds of people and nearly destroyed Morimiya 10 years ago? Falcom finally did!
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May 30, 2022 19:42
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There's an extra bit of hilarity of the final boss taking on the form of young Kou after all that monologuing: when you think about it, the entirety of the eX+ content has effectively been a small child throwing a massively long and protracted temper tantrum at the protagonists for getting everything they wanted. It goes a long way to help bolster Kou's final "if it bleeds, we can kill it" speech at the end. He realizes this and just can't help but laugh at how pathetic the Twilight Apostle actually is.
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May 30, 2022 21:53
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AradoBalanga posted:There's an extra bit of hilarity of the final boss taking on the form of young Kou after all that monologuing: when you think about it, the entirety of the eX+ content has effectively been a small child throwing a massively long and protracted temper tantrum at the protagonists for getting everything they wanted. It goes a long way to help bolster Kou's final "if it bleeds, we can kill it" speech at the end. He realizes this and just can't help but laugh at how pathetic the Twilight Apostle actually is. The thesis of eX+ is effectively "Satan is a whiny little bitch and you should mercilessly kick the poo poo out of him." 
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May 30, 2022 21:58
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Part 111: Twilight Apostle We finally made it to the final boss! Somehow, they made him mechanically as obnoxious to fight as his monologue was.
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Jun 3, 2022 19:42
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I can no longer hear anything except the noise the Apostle makes when you hit it
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Jun 4, 2022 00:08
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Wow, that sure was a battle. What an ill-thought out gimmick.
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Jun 4, 2022 15:01
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Look, as long as you don't stare into the Bagel of Doom you'll be fine.
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Jun 5, 2022 01:59
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- I do like the catch that by resurrecting Shiori, it also resurrected the Twilight Apostle. It doesn't fully undo the bad taste of the True Ending, but it is a side-effect instead of just a deus ex machina freebee. - I also like that there isn't a grand twist behind the Twilight Apostle looking like Kou. - The black holes in the sky are a pretty rad background. - The healing from the third slot is pretty minimal in any case. If you really need healing it's from orbs, items or the special soul device features which grant healing. - The "shadow armor" sort of thing is absolutely a pain to deal with, but I do like how it's something you've never seen before. Final bosses should have tricks up their sleeve which are unexpected. It somewhat emphasizes how powerful this thing which caused so much destruction 10 years earlier was. - The twist at the end wasn't the existential crisis, it was that the Twilight said that it didn't exist before the Tokyo Twilight Disaster. It wasn't a greed which over time got stronger and stringer, it was created fully formed by something. That's actually one reason why this thing seems so simplistic, with as Kou put it, just a mindless instinct to destroy.
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Jun 5, 2022 04:01
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Part 112: Sunshine Road Somehow, some way, we have made it all the way to the end of Tokyo Xanadu, for real this time! To hopefully not repeat myself too much, I do genuinely like this game a lot, even if it desperately needed another month or three for the editors to comb through it and maybe condense some of the early content down a bit. It definitely has a lot of problems, but none of those problems are things a sequel couldn't iron out, and Falcom has stated that they are interested in doing one after TX sold significantly above projections, so who knows? Til next time, folks.
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Jun 6, 2022 22:21
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Well, that wasn't half bad of an ending. Thanks for showing the game off, Artix. It's been quite a trip.
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Jun 6, 2022 23:26
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So long, and thanks for all the fukkleducks
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Jun 6, 2022 23:52
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FYI, Ys 8 and 9 don't actually run on PhyreEngine, even though they look very similar to this and Cold Steel. They're on some custom in-house engine instead. Anyway, thanks! I hope for your sake that your next LP isn't quite as long as this one.
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Jun 7, 2022 00:03
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An attempted and overly vague sequel hook is always the worst.
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Jun 7, 2022 00:20
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- Most of the Sunshine Road endings are more-or-less the same, but if you've seen both Asuka and Shiori's endings of the After Story, you have the option to take both of them around Sunshine Road at the same time (reload the save from after the final boss), and that has a bit of a different feel to it. - I think that if you have either Shio or Mitsuki with you, the other is indeed with the Kyouka/Akihiro group. - I think "fuddleducks" is a clever way to imply the swear word "gently caress" without putting it in the text. (Maybe for rating reasons?) - Cold Steel 3 and 4 have clear improvements which show more experience with the engine, even just in subtle things like how NPC's in the world turn their heads to look at the player when they approach, and how more expressive they are.
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Jun 7, 2022 00:39
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| # ? May 3, 2024 11:13 |
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Well, you said it best, Artix. There are good ideas and interesting concepts here, but really needed more time to cook before being served. In the end, Tokyo Xanadu definitely stood out from the crowd, even if it was due to all the wrong or unintentionally hilarious reasons. But seriously, if this game gets a sequel, I only hope Falcom rectifies the biggest shortcoming of this game and finally gives Towa a goddamn gun.
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Jun 7, 2022 05:14
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