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Sapozhnik posted:I don't really like roguelikes in general so I don't really have much practice with that sort of thing. I do like Fromgames but the skills aren't really transferrable. On a completely unrelated note, does this game remind anybody else of MDK or is it just me? Every option is true simultaneously and certainty is a lie. I suspect there is a very real Horrible Entity named XAOS that is entertained/fed by your loop of suffering and trauma. You can never fight it and it can never die, though you can glimpse it at times. Selene is not a good person, and has many flaws. She is in Hell because she deserves to be, and believes she deserves to be.
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Mar 20, 2023 20:06
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SlimGoodbody posted:Selene is not a good person, and has many flaws. She is in Hell because she deserves to be, and believes she deserves to be. I've been cleaning up Tower of Sysiphus trophies and this gets explained through the hospital sequences.
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Mar 20, 2023 21:03
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Puddin posted:I've been cleaning up Tower of Sysiphus trophies and this gets explained through the hospital sequences. Yeah that's where I also started to be like "Oh. Ooooh"
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Mar 20, 2023 21:44
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Hemish posted:Oh hell yes I finally beat biome 5 and completed 6 on the same run. I had some bonus with nothing game breaking as far as artefacts and parasites were concerned but I found a pylon gun with some kind of web trait. I unlocked it in biome4 to try it in biome5 and it just wrecked the drones. Mini bosses also didn't like the max amount of pylons stuck right in their face. I kept it for most of biome6, passing a nice hollowseeker just because it did nice damage still. I found a level 24 one in biome6 with also the web trait and kept that one for the rest of the run. They suck against the flying kamikaze enemies but otherwise it was pretty good. Finally catching up on the thread and hell yes brother. Congrats on sticking it out 💪
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Mar 24, 2023 16:14
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Hi, bumping this because I think I figured out the story and it's shockingly simple when you have the context. The chief narrative designer worked on Control. We know the chief narrative designer loves Weird Fiction because of this. Consider the following, what if Returnal's narrative is in part a love letter to the works of Jeff Vandermeer-basically Atropos has an Area X thing going on? Specifically the Southern Reach Trilogy and Dead Astronauts. Things map relatively easily then: Selene => Biologist/Ghost Bird Astra => Southern Reach Area X => Atropos Xaos => The original biologist at the end of Acceptance This also explains The broadcast copy of the speech on the failure to return from the moon landing. In the Southern Reach Trilogy the agency, the Southern Reach, has been hopelessly compromised, perhaps from the beginning by Area X. What if in this universe the astronauts never returned from the moon landing, and something else came back instead and created Astra? Several other important narrative conceits are borrowed as well. For example, one of the main characters in the last book in the Southern Reach Trilogy is A copy of the main character in the first novel who at one point comes face to face with a lovecraftian ascended version of the original protagonist-see Xaos and Selene The forest biomes especially are steeped in a lot of the thematic conceits of the books Also Jeff Vandermeer wrote a book called Dead Astronauts in 2019 which is about a polycule of astronauts who return to earth and fight an evil biotech corporation that is altering reality down to the causal and temporal level over and over and over and over, dying futilely each time. Frankly, it's a bit on the nose when you have that in place. Hate Fibration fucked around with this message at 11:47 on May 31, 2023 |
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May 31, 2023 07:50
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Idk I've read southern reach and I think this is.... reaching a lot. Yes some of the imagery is reminiscent but only because they're both weird creepy sci fi with similar influences.
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May 31, 2023 10:20
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Organza Quiz posted:Idk I've read southern reach and I think this is.... reaching a lot. Yes some of the imagery is reminiscent but only because they're both weird creepy sci fi with similar influences. Boooooooo I don't think "Atropos has an Area X thing going on and Astra is a compromised organization that is basically a part of the same phenomenon" is really that much of a stretch though tbh. Like I definitely worded things a bit strongly with "love letter to Vandermeer's work" but as a way of understanding the story it's perfectly consistent with the way it's presented in game, smoothes over the timeline difficulties extremely cleanly, explains the repeated deaths she has no memory of, and most conveniently-allows the game to have its cake and eat it too with it was a dying dreaaaaaaaaam from Selene's sci-fi addled brain psych Hate Fibration fucked around with this message at 12:05 on May 31, 2023 |
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May 31, 2023 11:59
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it’s just a dying dream, mate
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May 31, 2023 13:15
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Picked up for PC, usually runs pretty smooth but feel like I'm getting some stuttering at moments. Unfortunately my video card does not support Resizable BAR so that's not a possible solution. I have updated all my drivers and settings are low, DLSS, ultra performance: Motherboard - MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3600X GPU - MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 3060 12GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 Video Card RTX 3060 Ventus 3X 12G OC RAM - G.SKILL Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Intel XMP 2.0 Memory Kit Model F4-3200C16D-16GIS I read somewhere a claim that it may demand 32GB of RAM but also that it can run just fine on less. I'm just checking to see if there's anything I'm missing.
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Jun 6, 2023 03:51
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Installing to SSD instead of HDD improved my performance a bit but never truly got rid of the stuttering (and cutscenes are still completely messed up for whatever reason). The game was kind of a mess at launch and I shelved it for a while, subsequent patches have improved it enough that it generally runs well and the hitches are more of a visual annoyance than something which will cause me to take damage unnecessarily. Performance is also highly dependent on location, there are a bunch of places in the main campaign where my system will start to chug on modest settings and yet the Tower of Sisyphus consistently runs well enough that I can crank the visuals up and even turn on ray tracing while maintaining a steady FPS. My setup can't enable Resizable BAR either so I'm not sure there's a way to get it running perfectly without some degree of system rebuild.
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Jun 6, 2023 04:10
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NoEyedSquareGuy posted:Installing to SSD instead of HDD improved my performance a bit but never truly got rid of the stuttering (and cutscenes are still completely messed up for whatever reason). The game was kind of a mess at launch and I shelved it for a while, subsequent patches have improved it enough that it generally runs well and the hitches are more of a visual annoyance than something which will cause me to take damage unnecessarily. Performance is also highly dependent on location, there are a bunch of places in the main campaign where my system will start to chug on modest settings and yet the Tower of Sisyphus consistently runs well enough that I can crank the visuals up and even turn on ray tracing while maintaining a steady FPS. My setup can't enable Resizable BAR either so I'm not sure there's a way to get it running perfectly without some degree of system rebuild. Thanks for the additional info, helpful to know I'm not alone in dealing with this issue. I do have it installed to an SSD so it sounds like barring updates I'm likely stuck with what I got it. It's still very playable and hard to say whether the occasional stuttering ever significantly impacts gameplay. I'm on to biome 2 and enjoying the game so far, not looking forward to my next death and returnaling to the start. I don't have a lot of games to compare this with, closest is Enter the Gungeon, which just made me want to go back and play Enter the Gungeon.
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Jun 6, 2023 18:58
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Man so I came back to this game and have been really loving it. I "beat" it one time and it wasn't too bad. I love how this game looks. Playing it at 120 fps is a complete joy, for real. I'm now playing what I guess is the real game, where you start in the gross egg biome with 15 proficiency and it's good but the thing that irks the poo poo out of me is the malformed enemies. They're just so loving unfair? I don't say unfair lightly; I always do the optional, harder stuff in roguelikes and get that it's ok to opt into difficult optional content during a run. That's super fun usually! The problem is, it's just unreal how hard the enemies can be. This is compounded by the malformed underground special rooms that you warp into; the mob you get isn't balanced for being in a tiny room, which can make them easy, but also make them seemingly loving impossible. And if you're not kitted in the run yet it is completely possible to take impossible huge damage in ways that feel impossible to avoid even hiding behind the meager pillars they present. But even normal Avenged enemies can feel completely and totally ridiculous. It's making me not want to pop Avenges or malformed enemy special rooms, which feels bad man. I like the hard stuff. What I don't like is a run coming to an end in a way that I don't feel like I could have played better and come out on top. Overall that's my only real problem with the game though, unless you count how lame purple tainted items are, because they are almost never worth the ether and are rarely worth taking the malfunction chance either, so again the answer is just to ignore the mechanic more or less entirely, which feels like a major missed opportunity. Yeah dude, can't wait to spend like 3 resin to pick up this normal minor health item. For sure. Or 5 ether to unlock a single chest. Let me get on that right away. I'm not counting that as a negative though because I totally concede that maybe the malignant items are good and I'm just being bad by not taking them. Taima fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Jul 27, 2023 |
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Jul 27, 2023 00:38
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for secret rooms remember you can literally just turn around and leave, hit da bricks as they say it's been awhile since I've played so I can't recall exactly how I dealt with the malignant enemies, but there's basically two ways to deal with dangerous enemies - one is get up in their grill and terminate them with extreme prejudice, which may or may not be an option depending on the type, your weapon, and your comfort with melee the other is backing off and taking the time to dodge all their poo poo and learn their patterns - doing this removes any fear or panic response so you can deal with them cleanly, and because they're comparatively rare, you need to practice them specifically like a miniboss tainted items can be real good, I made a point of taking all kinds of awful poo poo just to see how it actually played - some things that seemed terrible at a glance really weren't that bad (some absolutely are  ), and knowing if it's worth the tradeoff improves your overall average run strength
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Jul 27, 2023 01:22
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Er when you say you beat it do you mean you finished three biomes and then stopped? Because you have not at all beat the game then.
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Jul 27, 2023 03:19
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victrix posted:for secret rooms remember you can literally just turn around and leave, hit da bricks as they say Oh you can just leave? That's nice to know thanks. And re: tainted items, I agree that they can be small issues most of the time, what feels bad is that like for example you can just lose your alt fire and it's like... ok... hah. I get it though. I'll try to get more tained stuff, and I've also noticed that some items seem to be made to improve tainted runs, so I'll check it out! Organza Quiz posted:Er when you say you beat it do you mean you finished three biomes and then stopped? Because you have not at all beat the game then. For sure, I feel like I was pretty clear about that from the get go: "Man so I came back to this game and have been really loving it. I "beat" it one time and it wasn't too bad. I'm now playing what I guess is the real game" Anyways thanks for the tips Victrix! Having a go through at the moment and having a great time. The Electropylon driver is insane, that feels like the best gun, but I also really, really like Leech Rounds on the Tachy.
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Jul 27, 2023 15:24
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Taima posted:Oh you can just leave? That's nice to know thanks. And re: tainted items, I agree that they can be small issues most of the time, what feels bad is that like for example you can just lose your alt fire and it's like... ok... hah. I get it though. I'll try to get more tained stuff, and I've also noticed that some items seem to be made to improve tainted runs, so I'll check it out! It wasn't clear because there are other points where someone might say that, and I thought that game made it pretty clear at that point that nothing approaching beating the game had occurred - the cycle still exists exactly as it did before, nothing has been resolved. Electropylon is extremely good and carried me a long way!
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Jul 27, 2023 15:55
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I played this on PS5 and am building a higher end PC.. I can't wait to rebuy this and play at 120. Such an amazing game
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Jul 27, 2023 16:37
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Taima posted:I'm now playing what I guess is the real game" it's not so much "the real game" as the second half of it
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Jul 28, 2023 12:36
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Wafflecopper posted:it's not so much "the real game" as the second half of it Eh they just mean its gloves off. Biome 4 was my hardest biome with 20+ failures. I did manage to clear 5 and 6 on the same run once I beat 4, but they were never as 'smooth'for me after that first win.
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Jul 28, 2023 14:36
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FireWorksWell posted:Eh they just mean its gloves off. Biome 4 was my hardest biome with 20+ failures. I did manage to clear 5 and 6 on the same run once I beat 4, but they were never as 'smooth'for me after that first win. I think a lot of this depends on the build you're dealt or put together. I've breezed through the 2nd half and struggled... Depending on my build.
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Jul 28, 2023 19:17
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I always found biome 5 the most difficult (to fully clear).
Pennfalath fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Jul 29, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 20:36
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FireWorksWell posted:Eh they just mean its gloves off. Maybe that's what the OP meant, sure. It's just that I've seen that phrase used in like MMOs and ARPGs to describe hitting max level/finishing the story and getting into raids/postgame content (which are usually much more time consuming than what came before if you get into them) so I thought maybe that's what they thought was happening
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Jul 29, 2023 07:24
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I swear the tower just straight up one shots me at around level 4 sometimes... Full health to done in a flash
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Aug 10, 2023 00:41
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Krime posted:I swear the tower just straight up one shots me at around level 4 sometimes... Full health to done in a flash Oh absolutely
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Aug 10, 2023 02:14
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SlimGoodbody posted:Oh absolutely Which is why I mostly prioritize the 10% damage upgrades... Melt it so it can't melt you.
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Aug 10, 2023 02:33
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Beat returnal. Then beat it beat it. Then beat it beat it beat it. Got the true ending, and unlocked the car. I ping pong back and forth whether I actually liked how the story was told. Its clearly cohesive, and competent. Its obvious a lot of thought was put into the story, in the world, in the lore, everything. The game is presented wonderfully. I looked up some stuff the writers/developers said and they basically said "We intentionally didn't tell a cohesive story, we gave you bits nad pieces so you can create your own theory." So they always respond to "Yes" when asked things like Is atropos real? Is it all in Selene's head. Which on the one hand I really like, but on the other hand I find a bit frustrating that there is something so detailed and amazing and at the end of the day its sort of shoulder shrug of themes. Plan on completing all the biome surveys and then heading to the tower for the first time.
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Aug 12, 2023 01:51
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Kwolok posted:Plan on completing all the biome surveys and then heading to the tower for the first time. Depending on your level of patience it might be better to just head to the tower. I tried completing the biome surveys after doing everything else the game had to offer and never finished them, being at the whim of RNG can get tiresome when runs are multiple hours long unless you're sprinting through levels ignoring everything and restarting if the logs don't spawn. Even then it can take a while if you're hunting glyphs in the third or sixth biomes. The tower has a bunch of additional story sequences which clear up a lot of questions in the base game as well, it's a lot more than just a tacked on high score mode for people who wanted to keep playing.
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Aug 12, 2023 02:18
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It should hopefully give me time to level my guns before the tower
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Aug 12, 2023 03:53
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If I had patience, I would unlock all of the full item logs, because it seems like the third unlock for each is a clip from a story, and the clip will begin and end with a unique string of characters that I think will each match up with a different clip so you know what order to read them in.
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Aug 12, 2023 04:04
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Ugh just had my best tower run end in a crash to desktop. I was set up... Leech II, huge pool of health, tons of protection and stagger.... drat
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Aug 13, 2023 04:52
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Krime posted:Ugh just had my best tower run end in a crash to desktop. That's how all mine usually end too. I believe its some enemy type that spawns in later floors that does it
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Aug 13, 2023 05:23
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I had that a lot too, figured it would get patched. Shame to hear it hasn't because I would have played a lot more tower if all my good runs didn't eventually crash
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Aug 13, 2023 10:31
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Jusupov posted:That's how all mine usually end too. I believe its some enemy type that spawns in later floors that does it My floor had 2 of those hard shell turtle things. Quite the shame as I was going to use them to top off my health. Maybe there's a trend?
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Aug 13, 2023 18:45
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Beat the entire game, including the dlc. I really enjoyed it but I can't recommend it because of how often it crashes and in the tower you lose all your progress. I liked the game enough to push through it and think it's a wonderful game but simply can't recommend it on PC in the state it's currently in. Really disappointing to see especially considering how great the base game is.
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Aug 16, 2023 06:14
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I fortunately played it on PS5 and haven't encountered too many game breaking, run ending glitches (note that I did not say that I encountered zero game breaking, run ending glitches).
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Aug 16, 2023 06:39
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I've beat everything (except finding a few cyphers) and put close to 50 hours on the PC version and have only had 1 crash which was in the tower. This game is too good to not recommend
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Aug 16, 2023 13:00
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Af6er playing it to death on ps5, I grabbed it on pc, but the game is just a bit too much for my comp, doesn't run very smooth. Regardless I soldier on and beat the first miniboss encounter where you're expected to die, and went on to complete the first biome. Can't remember the specifics but I had a good build going...I think I had the adrenaline heal perk? Anyway I was in real good shape to finish the three biomes. I'm gonna do it! My first game on the pc will be a full run...I'm never going to get the R E T U R N A L screen after you die the first time! I'm so good at this game! Welp time for a break, I'll do biome 2 tomorrow. The next day I boot up the game and Celene falls through the floor into an endless void 
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Aug 16, 2023 13:38
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Krime posted:I've beat everything (except finding a few cyphers) and put close to 50 hours on the PC version and have only had 1 crash which was in the tower. I blue screened three times. It also completely deleted my save after 40 hours. Every single run in the tower of Sisyphus crashes with the "fatal error" crash and on several occasions my audio was corrupted I'm glad it was good for you but this is not the state of a game I can recommend
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Aug 16, 2023 20:18
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a game making your computer bluescreen indicates a problem with the computer, not the game, outside of specific edge cases like buggy anticheat that don't apply here do you overclock at all and if so are you sure it's actually stable
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Aug 16, 2023 20:51
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I play tons and tons and tons of demanding games without an issue. And lots and lots and lots of people are reporting the tower of Sisyphus crash. The fact that they let their saves corrupt and have no backups locally is insane too. For a game that takes strong control of how it saves has a lot of faith it never breaks when it does in fact break
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Aug 16, 2023 21:14
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