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This is the first I've ever heard of this game, but my money is on Neo-Kenya turning out to have been Earth all along. Also, because my first impulse when I see an obscure Japan-only RPG is "I'm gonna play that game myself", I did a quick Google search and found that there is an ongoing fan translation project, in case anyone wants to try it for themselves someday. I'm curious as to where this goes. There weren't a ton of sci-fi JRPGs in that era that I'm aware of, and most of those that existed mixed it with fantasy or other paranormal elements to various degrees, whereas Linda Cubed looks like it might stick to its guns (no pun intended) and go full sci-fi, which makes me wonder how they'll escalate the threat later on without pulling in the supernatural. Between Linda Cubed and Laplace's Demon (basically Wizardry but Lovecraft), I'm wondering just what other offbeat, Japan-exclusive JRPGs the PC-Engine had.
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Sep 21, 2021 00:35
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I'm assuming that it's a different storyline for each scenario, and not just different amounts of animals/time limits in place? Because I really hope Linda doesn't lose her memory each time.
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Sep 21, 2021 14:52
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Randalor posted:I'm assuming that it's a different storyline for each scenario, and not just different amounts of animals/time limits in place? Because I really hope Linda doesn't lose her memory each time.
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Sep 21, 2021 15:52
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The whole vibe of this game feels very "90s OAV series that got chopped up and recut as a single 96 minute film that aired on SciFi Channel's Saturday morning anime block"quote:Everything that happened after this image had me going "Nope don't like that one bit"
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Sep 22, 2021 04:17
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TurnipFritter posted:The whole vibe of this game feels very "90s OAV series that got chopped up and recut as a single 96 minute film that aired on SciFi Channel's Saturday morning anime block" Yeah, there's something about the very specific strain of weird sci-fi and cyberpunk anime that cropped up in the 80s and 90s that has a very unique feel to it. It's difficult to explain, but if you've encountered it, you know exactly what I mean.
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Sep 22, 2021 13:42
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Apparently Ken also has latent Beastorizer powers.
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Sep 22, 2021 17:16
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I actually really love those pixellated PC Engine graphics and monster sprites. Charming as hell. Please keep showing them off if you can.
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Sep 25, 2021 02:57
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 Welcome back to Linda³! Last time we made some effort to get up to level 3, but then it turned out that there was a strange incident in Minago which made everyone there disappear! The only survivor is, apparently, Linda, who was taken to the "medical town" Hospico, but she seems to have lost her memories, and therefore doesn't even know who Ken is! However, Ken was informed that there is a possibility to cure Linda's amnesia, however it will take some time to arrange, and so Ken was told to continue the task of animal gathering for now. Also, Ken had a chat with a talking flower! In this episode, Ken will be, among other things, heading to the North Pole!  Last time, when we left him, Ken was standing here in the entrance/exit area of Hospico. We really should go and collect a few more species, but there is something else we could check out first, and it also might yield quite a good reward if we're lucky!  So if we head slightly northeast from Hospico...  ...passing by some animal species which don't look like anything we've met so far...  ...we reach a place called Paraside, which we've heard about last time a bit.  Well, seems like an inviting place, but nevertheless, let's head inside!  Rusty metal shacks and stuff... yes that pretty much seems to be what it was described to us as. Let's talk to the person here! Luckily, this is not what we are here for today! So, we'll just head around the corner.  This is the place we're looking for!  The shack houses what I like to call the "animal dismantler". It's basically a guy who will turn some of your caught animals into random items. Well, the items are random out of a set of a few that a particular animal can yield. And even better, his services cost nothing! You just lose the animal you had in exchange for an item (or sometimes just nothing). This guy is also one easy way to earn basically infinite money right here at this spot where we are in the game! But more on that in just a minute, let's first talk to him. Yes, let's. In particular I want to see what we get from male and female rats. First, let's start with a male rat I have from last time.  Here, I have highlighted the male rats and we can see that I have 3 of them. The fact that they are highlighed in yellow colour means that I haven't handed them in at the ark yet (that would be indicated by white). That means I can "spend" a maximum of 2 here, as I have to keep one for the ark, as always. So let's "dismantle" a male rat finally: More on what this item is at a later date. Let's do one more male rat: Well, this is definitely a good outcome. Golden nugget is one of those typical items that you can just sell for money! This one brings us a whole 6400 G! So we'll be making use of that soonish! It will also allow us to already repay our loan. Anyway, I also have 3 female rats, so we can try to "dismantle" 2 of them and see what we get. The first one: Ugh. Ok, the second one: Another decent outcome, actually. Swallow cutter is another weapon we can equip, and it's in fact very slightly better than the one I bought last time:  It brings Ken's attack from 131 to 134. Not really much, but why not, right? Also, swallow cutter is the key to infinite money at this particular point in the game. You can head over to animal dealer and buy rats for however much money you have (they only cost 20 G apiece). Then you bring them here and hope to get as many swallow cutters as you can (of course it's random, but you'll get a few probably). Then you go to the equipment shop and sell the cutters for around 1400 G each! And voilą--as much money as you want, until you get bored of repeating the process. I should note that this is only really possible to do in the early game, since the animals that the dealer sells change to higher level ones as Ken's own level increases, but it's there at least if you need help to get started. For now, we have our golden nugget which we can sell, so we'll just be on our way.  Exiting back to the overworld, we find that it's still actually Summer. I mention this for two reasons. One reason is, if this is your first playthrough and you spend time wandering around the overworld, looking for different animals, here is typically where you might be caught with the season change. It seems that one season on normal difficulty (2) lasts around 15 minutes, but as mentioned, time stops in towns and during battle. The other thing which is interesting to note is that the season change timer is only checked on "screen change". This means, as long as you wander around the overworld, the game just scrolls around the map without an entirely new screen loading, and so the season change will not happen. It will only be actually checked when you enter/exit from a town or a tunnel or something like that. Therefore as long as we stay on the overworld, it will remain Summer and we can spend as much time as we like. Once we enter a town or cause a screen load in some other way, we can probably expect it to become Autumn soon. Anyway, there is one other piece of the puzzle regarding time passage which I haven't covered, and that is what happens with the time when you're in a dungeon. But, we'll talk about that when we actually are in one--as mentioned, only some of the species can be found like this on the overworld, but many can't and for those we need to dig deeper so to speak. But for now, we can still catch a few new species around the East area!  This flying thing we just saw on our way to Paraside, so let's see what it is!  Oh, it's just a bunch of rabbits! Of course! They honestly don't have any exciting abilities so not too much to say here. I should however mention, that the nubers for level and HP that you can see on these info cards are just "average" and both level and HP can vary somewhat, both up and down. But you're not going to suddenly find a level 20 rabbit or anything like that. Incidentally, rabbit is one of the species whose design has changed drastically in the remake. Here is what they used to look like in the PC Engine version originally:  I'm not really sure which version I prefer, they both are interesting in different ways. Anyway, let's move on to our next species. For the record, Ken starts this update as level 4. Also, for now, I'm not going into a lot of detail because I'm still using just the simple attack with Ken. Once things start getting more complex in battles, I'll be sure to show that off. As usual, I will catch typically a few more of each species as I wander around. But soon enough, we run into something else new:   You can kind of already tell on the overworld, but yeah, it's a buch of crabs! Also, nothing much to fear here either. The "lost" status effect just inverts your controls for a little while, but has no other detrimental effects. Luckily, also we're not fighting them on their native terrain (water) so that makes things easier here! Here is number three on our shopping list today:   Some proper Neo-Kenyan moles! Again a pretty simple enemy, so we can quickly move on to the next.  To find our next species, we'll have to step into the water.  It's a group of stonefish! Unlike the stonefish we know in our world, these don't seem to be actually venomous. But they can definitely hit a bit hard so you may want to be careful with them anyway! As you can see, they are bit higher level than Ken is right now! It is manageable, however (but I did have to reload the save state because they nearly murdered me once!). The final species on today's list is also around this area:   This time, it's a pair of monkeys. They are less dangerous, although will chase you on the overworld, so if you're not ready... I hope you have some HP to use for sprinting to run away! In any case, I fight a few more animals on the overworld in order to reach level 7, as we were instructed to do by the hospital director. And just as all that is going on, Ken again gets a notification that there is a phone message waiting for him. So with that in mind, let's head back to the ark to first hand in our backpack content, and then we'll see about the message.  Since we're on the east side of East area, in order to reach the ark (and Hardia), we'll use again that tunnel which we previously used to reach Hospico.  As we exit on the west side, the game helpfully informs us that it's now Autumn 1991 and we only have 7 years and 3 seasons left to finish the task. It also mentions that we still have 27 species to collect, but of course that doesn't include ones in our backpack which we are about to hand in.  Not a fan of this weather, it's a bit too rainy for me. As a matter of fact, as if it doesn't have enough unusual mechanics already, this game has changing/random weather too! So this rain is kind of coincidental, it's entirely possible for it to also be dry in Autumn, or even snowy in the more northerly parts. To help you out, one of the functions that you can invoke on the telephones is to check the satellite weather forecast for a particular area! This of course also has to do with which animals may or may not be out and about in which weather and so on. Anyway, heading into the ark...  We have quite a bunch of species to hand in (all which are written in yellow): crab, rabbit, rat, dragonfly, monkey, mole and stonefish (this includes the ones from last time which I didn't hand in). This results in the usual stat increases, but also this time in some new abilities for our characters! Linda gets a start on her "crab" abilities with Armored skin and then also gains Escape Jump, while Ken gets Desperate attack from a rat and also Fire attack from a dragonfly. We'll try this out soon, especially now when Ken actually finally has some BP to use on this stuff.  Finally, the helpful robot here informs us that we have successfully collected 10 species so far out of 30 we need, so I guess you can say that we're a third of the way done, except that doesn't take into account that it's not always going to be this simple! Anyway, while we're here, we can go and visit Ben, the ranger commander, to see what he thinks about the whole Linda situation. He's over here at his desk:  Ok, now back to the entrace to finally listen to our message!  The message is from Dr. Chen, the hospital director over in Hospico: All right, well, let's do that! We really do need to sort out Linda's memory loss if we can. We'll go through the tunnel back to Hospico and then, in front of Linda's room:  He means Ken's newly gained fame as the second crew member of the ark. Well, that sounds awesome, but could it really be this easy? Somehow I'm not sure. Either way, we have no option but to head over to Eterna. Although before we head over there, there is something I forgot to do last time, which is to visit the hotel:  It's just up here, not really even marked properly!  Honestly, it's worth visiting places if for no other reason then because of funny lines like this. After this, I visit the animal trader and sell all my extra animals for a bit of money which we will need shortly, and then let's check out our navigation device to figure out where we need to even go.  So here's where we are right now, at the eastern side of East area, in Hospico (pointed at by the black line).  And here is where Eterna is (the line is pointing at it), at the far north of the North area (which we haven't even visited yet). It seems like quite a trek, and that's not even taking into account that Eterna is also behind a big mountain range and what appears to be a very large lake too. So... what to do? Well, we can take the public transport to get there. It will cost us some money, but at least we don't have to walk, right? Because, of course this game has also a fast travel system, and it's even available from the very beginning of the game! Therefore, let's go and sort out our tickets!  You might have noticed in every entrance/exit area these stairs in the corner, that we havent used so far. Well, now we'll finally go up to the second floor.  There we find the local service counter of the planet-wide Bird Line. Basically a form of public transport on this planet, but also our means of fast travel. So let's talk to them. That's pretty funny, but let's see about those tickets...  There are various destinations listed here along with the prices. The prices in the left hand column are for direct flights, whereas the ones on the right are for a flight with changeover(s). Changeovers are just a minor inconvenience, so there's no reason not to save money here. The flight to Eterna with changeovers costs 410 G (highlighted on the screen), which is not exactly cheap. Oh, if only there was a way to not have to pay for the flights... ah, well, there probably isn't. The service agent gives us some last information: Let's see...  Whoa. Actually that's pretty cool! Some time later, we arrive at Ozport  At every changeover point, you can have a chat with the people at the service desk! Ah, yes, another game mechanic -- drop off and pick up anywhere on the overworld! We don't need it for now, though. Let's continue our trip.  Our last changeover point is Battle Park. There we go--I was wondering about this on the map of North area, but now she's explained it. Along with the weather situation, which I already mentioned. All right, let's hop on one more time and finally head to Eterna.  And here we are!  Before heading in, a quick chat with the Bird Line person: Well good to know I guess! I'll try to remember it when we are looking for weasels. Ok, enough of that, let's put on our Christmas cheer and head into town!  Man, it's full of Santas and Christmas trees! What is even going on here? Let's head over to the inn and see what's up.  Talking to the Santa: And the girl:  There's another person upstairs:  On the other side of the path is another house, somehow also an inn.  Wow. Apart from some weird Christmas obsession, there seems to be also a massive personality cult going on here! Upstairs:  And the other person...  There are also two Santas hanging around here, so let's talk to them too, as usual. And the other one:  But... all houses seem to be inns, even this one here right next to you? Kind of a touristy place? Let's go inside.  I guess we could also stay over in this one, Ken does need to have his HP replenished after all that hunting and leveling up. This is a real inn with HP replenish and everything, but you can pay whatever amount you choose! Let's pay a few G so that Ken can rest. And well, might as well show an update where Ken is currently stat-wise:  He is level 7 and his strength is crab-level (148), his defence is rabbit-level (112) and his speed is squid-level (122). Oh well, I'm sure we'll improve soon. Before we leave this house, let's check upstairs.  Interesting. I'm sure we'll be checking out Lina Valley at some point, so we'll see what that's all about.  The house on the other side is somehow not an inn!  Instead, it houses the animal trader and the butcher for some reason! Talking to the animal trader, we get some good advice: And the butcher... Checking out his inventory...  ...he does indeed sell a pork sausage for 2G, in addition to dolphin roast for a whole 32G. Well, you know what, let's try the sausage. I buy a sausage and eat it. * Ken ate a pork sausage * * Ken's HP is fully recovered. Also, it tasted like rusted metal. * So HP recovery is kind of a default result for eating meat. But depending on the kind of a meat, there could be other, good or bad. Also this game sometimes gives really funny messages! There is also a girl upstairs in this house:  I don't know where to even start with this one, so I guess I won't!  Over here there's three more Santas, so let's finish our tour before going in the big mansion (which actually you can't see because it's a bit further down the path). The second one: Yeah, I see what you mean. Ok, the last one: Oh, so that's what they mean by refugees! Well it makes sense, I guess. You in fact can actually donate money in game, if you want. I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually do anything (except taking your money!). Ok, it's time to go in the mansion!   Here there is a Santa who seems to be like a... receptionist? I don't know. Luckily we can go anywhere we like, so let's go right first.  * Ken receives a pork sausage! * That was the Santa, and now the other person, presumably one of the refugees? There's also this other person over by the shelves:  On the left side, there's also three people, another Santa and two refugees. Let's start with Santa. Well, we already got out food, so we're fine. Now the two refugees:  And then there's this other person by the desk... This is all getting weirder by the minute...  There are definitely two chests in that room, but there's also a locked door. So nothing can be done for now. Therefore we continue around the mansion.  Sure, let's head up, maybe we can also meet her. I mean, she's supposed to be expecting us, right?  And finally, we can go inside.   We start by requesting Memorin Z which was promised to us (sort of). Here you can definitely choose to ask about food, but she just tells you to go down to the ground floor where we've already been. So I guess let's leave. I guess that's that for here. We now have to wait to get a call from this Panheim guy, who apparently is able to make the amnesia medication for Linda. However, things do seem to get weirder by the minute, so we'll have to see what that's all about. There seem to be a lot of things about Green Pharmaceuticals and its chairwoman and employees which can be qualified under varying degrees of "odd", that's for sure. If we go back down the stairs, there is also this dude in the garden, whom I forgot previously:  Cheery. But for us, it's time to head out.   Well, that's it for today. But a question poses itself... where shall we head next then? That's definitely something to think about, but for now I will tell you, although the game didn't specify, that the call from Panheim will arrive around the time Ken reaches level 9, so not too far in the future! Whether that will get us any closer to the medicine, remains to be seen! For now, enjoy some more illustrations!  For today, we have a first a full drawing of Elizabeth and then also another silly one from the PC Engine era! ivantod fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Nov 9, 2022 |
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Sep 26, 2021 19:56
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The animal designs are really fun!
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Sep 26, 2021 20:23
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Cyclops, lamprey, armadillo to ear wings is quite a change. I think this Elizabeth is on the up and up. She feels trustworthy.
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Sep 26, 2021 22:47
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I dunno, I feel like her last name should be Bathory.
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Sep 27, 2021 02:28
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Those PC-Engine rabbits  I'm loving that this game continues to be all sorts of weird 
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Sep 27, 2021 02:32
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So if a season is supposed to be 15 minutes long but only transitions after a screenspchange, what happens if you spend 30 minutes before doing a screen transition? Does it just jump to the "correct" season, or does it go to the next one in order?
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Sep 27, 2021 03:55
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Randalor posted:So if a season is supposed to be 15 minutes long but only transitions after a screenspchange, what happens if you spend 30 minutes before doing a screen transition? Does it just jump to the "correct" season, or does it go to the next one in order? No, it doesn't skip. It goes to the next one in order. So this is a way to give yourself a little extra time in certain situations.
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Sep 27, 2021 20:32
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These animal sprites are cool, if often totally nuts. I like it.
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Sep 28, 2021 21:59
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Linda 'cubed'. Or 'to the power of 3'. Speculation: either there's cloning involved or....there's a meat-based pun.
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Sep 29, 2021 09:45
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Bloodly posted:Linda 'cubed'. Or 'to the power of 3'. Speculation: either there's cloning involved or....there's a meat-based pun. We already know what the title's about, at least- there's 3 scenarios you can pick from at the start with different plots. There might very well be cloning/meat processing involved, also- in fact it's a pretty good bet- but that's what the Cubed in the title means. Sum Gai fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Sep 29, 2021 |
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Sep 29, 2021 15:59
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It's a shame more JRPGs didn't run with and develop this game's idea of being the kennelmaster of a squadron of dogs, imo
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Sep 29, 2021 20:26
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GunnerJ posted:It's a shame more JRPGs didn't run with and develop this game's idea of being the kennelmaster of a squadron of dogs, imo 
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Sep 29, 2021 21:51
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GunnerJ posted:It's a shame more JRPGs didn't run with and develop this game's idea of being the kennelmaster of a squadron of dogs, imo At least in Minecraft you can play as games were intended to be played. Surrounded by an army of dogs who go berserk if something touches you. (And then yeet themselves into lava. But they got the spirit.)
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Sep 29, 2021 21:51
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I said dogs. 
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Sep 29, 2021 22:35
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Didn't Metal Saga have several options of canines that could join you?
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Sep 29, 2021 23:36
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GunnerJ posted:I said dogs. Too good for a team of six growlithes are we?
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Sep 30, 2021 00:01
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Fantastic Foreskin posted:Too good for a team of six growlithes are we? Growlithe, Rockruff, Yamper, Furfrou, Poochyena, Lilipup
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Sep 30, 2021 09:16
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Black Robe posted:Growlithe, Rockruff, Yamper, Furfrou, Poochyena, Lilipup It is at times like these that I regret the fact that the game only allows two katakana letters maximum for the names of dogs! 
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Sep 30, 2021 10:35
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Black Robe posted:Growlithe, Rockruff, Yamper, Furfrou, Poochyena, Lilipup Poochyena is a hyena, and thus not a dog. Houndour totally is though.
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Sep 30, 2021 18:10
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Fantastic Foreskin posted:Poochyena is a hyena, and thus not a dog. Houndour totally is though. Pooch = dog. Though it does evolve into a hyena, because Pokemon logic. Houndour is an acceptable replacement though.
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Sep 30, 2021 19:28
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Snubbull or Swirlix are also possibilities. Please appreciate candy dog
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Oct 3, 2021 17:56
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AltaBrown posted:I dunno, I feel like her last name should be Bathory. Or maybe Holmes...
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Oct 7, 2021 21:20
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Well, Christmas town was quite the surprise, but a lot of things so far have been quite unexpected. Nothing strange going on in this town at all. Always love seeing a
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Oct 8, 2021 05:12
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 Hello everyone, and welcome back to Linda³! In his quest to restore Linda's memory, last time Ken went to visit the town of Eterna, all the way up in the North. There he met Elizabeth Green, the chairwoman of the Green Pharmaceutical Co. She promised him that she can produce for him a quantity of "Memorin Z", a medication which allegedly cures amnesia. She promised Ken that someone named Dr. Panheim will get in touch with him over that (we've already head about him previously as one of the three most renowned scientists on Neo-Kenya). Also, in Eterna it seems to be a permanent Christmas time and everybody wears Santa Claus suits. Before we continue with todays episode, I have to make a correction--last time I was referring to Eterna's location as "North Area", but that's not entirely accurate: even though it's located quite far to the North, in fact the game considers this to be the "West Area" instead, due to the shifted arrangement of the areas on the map. There is, in fact, no "North Area" in this game at all! Well, with that done, let's go and catch up with Ken, who has just finished his meeting with Elizabeth.  So, let's head outside.  Oh, good, it hasn't started snowing yet! Snow can be a bit of a problem as it slows down your movement by quite a bit! But as I said, luckily, it's not snowing at the moment, although it's very possible to do so at this time of year at this kind of northern location.  Another thing, you might recall that Eterna is situated north of a rather large lake. For now, we want to pay a visit to a nearby place which is to the west, so we'll just go around the lake and follow the mountain range which separates this whole northern region from the rest of the map.  Eventually, over here, there is a tunnel leading west. If you recall, again, last time one of the Bird Line employees told us about the tunnel which is the only way to access the locations north of coordinate 7 (which is where we currently are). Taking this tunnel will lead us to a place called Battle Park, which we passed through during our connecting flights. Today we're going to explore it a bit just to see what's going on in the world.   Here we are, on the other side of the tunnel! The sign with the arrow simply points out that going east leads to Eterna and Lina Valley which we already know. So let's start with our usual tour of the place!  We'll start with this lady over here. I can't help but notice that she also seems to be pregnant...  The tent to the left of her is empty. This is a bit unfortunate, as sometimes you can find here a guy to whom you can sell those medals (like the one we got last time). But he only has some percentage of showing up, and apparently today we're not in that range so he's not here. We could have sold the medal for about 1000G, but that's ok, I'm sure we'll find him another time. So for now, let's check out the other two tents which are immediately next to us.   This is good advice, because you genuinely might miss them otherwise because they are kind of hard to see. But, yes, fleas definitely count as animals we need to catch in this game, and we'll be doing just that a bit later today!  Located centrally, there is quite a large tent here, so let's check that out.  Near the entrance is the bar, where Ken can order a drink to replenish his HP. But as usual, make sure to only have ONE drink, as having more will inflict the "lost" status effect for short duration--you know the really annoying one which inverts all directional controls!  That's pretty cool... I wonder if there's ever going to be a musical performance here? Hmm... well, never mind.  What we do have here, is a waitress. I just love how philosophical some of the NPCs in this game are. It's just plain fun to talk to everybody, because you never know what kind of crazy thing they may say! There's also that guy standing at the blue desk, over there.  Uh, what do you mean? Helpfully, we can ask him for an explanation. Ah, so this is some sort of battle arena, where you have a gauntlet of 8 fights in a row! In fact, you can see the fighting area over the the left. What he didn't mention is that there are three different rings, in order of difficulty, and this one where we're standing right now is the hardest. Eithe way, we're a bit busy, so we won't bother with this right now, but we'll definitely check it out later.  You can also talk to the dudes inside the ring... that is, you could if the waitress would finally decide to move! But NPCs in this game have somewhat randomised pathing and sometimes just. don't. want. to. move! I literally had to exit and re-enter the tent to reset her position so I could talk to that guy!  There we go, that's better! They DO NOT have particularly profound things to say, that's for sure! Further to the left is the second (middle) ring.  And the guys inside: Still a bit further to the left is the first ring!  Ah, I guess this one is the easiest. I'm going to take a wild guess that the prizes are not nearly as good. By the way, if we become the "champion", as mentioned, we get one of those medals that can be sold to that special guy who only appears sometimes in one of the tents outside. We can also see what the waitress here has to say.  The guys in the ring, as always, have nothing particularly profound to say... But then there is also that guy hanging just outside the ring... Most of these dialogue options really don't change anything, so I'll generally just try to pick whichever one is funnier. Anyway, moving swiftly onwards to the guy in the corner who is wearing a lab coat... Oh, right, this is one of those doctors who "revive" you when you die in a battle. The official explanation is also that your body is transferred into the backpack, hence why when it happens you lose some of your captured animals, to make space! Let's head back outside...  There are two guys standing outside the tent entances. As you can imagine, their purpose is to get people to come inside! As opposed to that medal item we have, champion's belt is a higher level award. Anyway, there's this other guy here...  I think it was mentioned before, but Hume is, of course, Linda's dad. We haven't met him over the course of the game, though. Next, let's head into the equipment shop.  This will become important already today! In any case, there is not really any useful equipment to buy here, so we'll hold off on that (we'll anyway find some good stuff shortly for free). But I will sell some of my not needed stuff like the old weapons, and in particular, this thing...  The famous "gold nugget" which we got previously, and which, as you can see, actually sells for 6400G! Not bad at all for basically no work! And then the guy in the corner who seems to be... sharpening knives? The joke here is mostly because the word for "slingshot" in Japanese is "pachinko", which is also used to refer to the popular pinball-like game! There is also a butcher to the left...  There's also one more guy here in the corner... Yeah, that's pretty bad, not to mention the radiation preventing anybody (us) from going down there...  Here is the tunnel leading west, on the other side of the town, an a person standing in front of it... Ah, sure, whatever you say... The sign, by the way, indicates that a place named Koshikata is to the west. We've already heard about it... apparently the former mayor of this place is being held captive in Hospico because of some kind of an "incident" that happened there? Let's now head into the dog shop...  One of the hunters is here...  And the person at the counter... So, remember how we bought a hunting dog. In fact it's possible, when you catch wild dogs, to bring them to the dog shop and register them to be in your party! And so what this guy is saying that apparently there are some illegal shops which will even let you register wolves as "hunting dogs". Maybe that's something we'll try at some point. I wonder if there are still other kinds of animals you can add to your party...? But in order to try that, we would also have to find someone willing to do it first... Next, we'll head into this building here:   It houses the inn, and also the bank! So if we talk to the guy at the reception desk... So, a few things here... it was mentioned to us at the very beginning of the game that Ken will at level 4 learn the "Camp" ability, allowing him to camp anywhere on the overworld to restore his health--this ability is entirely free and basically eliminates any need to stay at an inn/hotel. And so I also mentioned that seasons will change only when the screen "reloads". Using the camping option counts as "reload" and may cause a season change if the time has come. Using the camp option on the overworld also provides access to some other functions, which we'll actually have a chance to see later today! Talking to the woman standing next to the INN sign... I guess this just reinfoces the gameplay notion to simply get on with the collecting work when there is nothing better to do, until you get contacted by someone. We are definitely heading into a more plot-heavy section of this scenario, however, so we don't need to worry about this so much right now! Anyway, let's stop by the bank too...  Yeah, people keep mentioning this... but there's just SO MANY THINGS to do in this game! I'm sure we'll get there eventually. Since we are pretty loaded with money, I take the opportunity to pay off that loan we took out at the start of the game. It helped us out to get going, but now there's no reason to keep paying the interest when we don't have to! Let's also have a look at Ken's bank book:  Here we can see a few things... First of all, that "20" was the seasonal loan interest that was taken out from our account at the start of autumn. Second, the "600" figure is Ken's autumn salary. As you can see, when Ken's level goes up, his salary will also increase--makes sense. Finally the last "100" at the bottom is me showing that you can also deposit money into the bank if you want--although at present we don't really have any particular reason to do so. Having done that, we'll exit through that door on the right.  This brings us in front of a farm-like thing. If we talk to the girl... Um, ok. But the more interesting conversation is to be had from the woman standing on the right. I definitely want to hear this one! Hmm. I'm not sure what think about this. We can also go into the farm building...   Right by the entrance is an animal trader, and he has a good hint for us!  A bit further inside is another person... Some of the dialogue in this game is genuinely funny! However, I know you didn't miss those stairs in the corner, leading into the basement, so lets check that out!  What even is this down here? Some kind of machine room? Anyway, there is a guy here to talk to. Does he mean that he's just going to stay on the planet, or what? In any case, yes, that is definitely another chest in that room over there, and yes, that is also definitely another locked door that the chest sits behind. So nothing can done with that right now.  Looking around the room, yeah I guess it's some kind of machine/technical room for the farm upstairs. And that's where we'll return now.  Back upstairs, there is another person here... Luckily, there's an option here to ask him to explain. Animal breeders, it seems. Well, let's add this to our list of things to check out later. This is already a very long list, but worry not. Even though we seem to be pushed along by the plot for the most part, I promise you there will come a time when we'll really be able to explore this world in detail and try out anything and everything that this game offers!  Further to the left, we can see where some of the animals are kept... those are definitely rabbits in the first compartment, flying around. There is also a persom here! This isn't quite true. Different animals have different ways of choosing whom they will attack, and believe it or not, this information is actually outlined in the game guide book I have! All right, we're kind of done here for the moment, so let's head over to the entrance area of Battle Park.  One last guy to talk to, though. Maybe they don't, but we will use it today! Let's leave this place for now.  Upon exiting, I'm happy to realise that it hasn't been snowing, so that will make our life definitely easier! Let's do some hunting! Although, before we start, there's something I forgot last time. When we were fighting stonefish, I forgot to post a picture showing what they used to look like back in the PC Engine version:  I'm sure you'll agree with me that not posting this screenshot would have been entirely unforgivable, right? Anyway, NOW let's see what we can find in these parts! First of all...   ...here we have some dolphins! Other than slightly higher HP than what we're used to, there's still nothing special here. But check out what they used to look like in the PC Engine version:  I'm just going to leave that there with no comment, all right? Anyway, when you're around here, try to avoid these birds flying around... those are eagles, and they will mess up your day. In other words, we're not strong enough to take them on. I will catch a bunch more dolphins, because if nothing else, we can sell them.  So let's just be careful with that one.  As you can see on the screenshot above, one other animal we can find here are fleas. What do you mean, you don't see it? All right, here you go:  Well, I guess, it's not like we haven't been warned to be on the lookout for tiny flying dots! Anyway, here they are in battle:  They do have one interesting ability, which is to split and multiply creating more enemies on the field. This can be a bit annoying, not because it's threatening, but because it also halves their HP making it VERY difficult not to over-damage them--and they have pretty low defense stat to begin with. Another point to take from the screenshot above is that there can be quite a few enemies at once in a battle! Let's keep moving.  Here's the next species on our list for today:  Otters! Here we can already see a hint of complexity that will come into play for catching animals eventually. For example, otters become extinct over the course of time, and can no longer be found in the later parts of the game. So if you don't get them while you can, you never will!  Ugh, no, please eagles, not today! Unfortunately, they will chase you and it can end badly, like here! Anyway, here's one other animal we can find here for now:   Some koalas! All right, well, that's enough for this area for now. Let's go and find that tunnel leading back to the East Area!  Ah, there it is. After exiting the tunnel, by walking just a bit to the south...  ...we reach again Hardia and the ark! But, before we go and hand in our animals, let's go and exact a bit of revenge first!  Down on the southern coast, we can easily find...  ...dogs! I mean, make no mistake, they're still pretty strong, and they will still mess up your day, but we can just barely deal with it now, unlike before! "Lick wound" is of course a healing ability, and it's actually pretty neat, because our own dogs also learn it as they level up. So you will sometimes just get a random heal in a battle from one of your dogs, completely free! Let's head back to the ark and hand all of this in...  As we approach, Ken gets another one of those notifications that he has a new phone message. We'll check that later. In the ark...   ...today, we'll be handing in the following: dolphins, fleas, otters, koalas and dogs! By handing in a dolphin, Ken learns their "ultrasonic wave" ability. Linda learns her first "dog" ability, which is again the aforementioned "lick wounds" heal thing. Apart from that, it's the usual tiny stat boosts for both. Let's check the situation with the friendly robot...  Nice, we have collected 15 species so far, so I guess we're halfway there. You know, I just realised there is another species we can easily catch while we're here, so let's just go and do it. It's a bit north from the ark.  Here we can find...  ...some squids! As you can see, they can cause the "pheromone" status effect. This is mostly important after battle when you're on the overworld as it, expectedly, causes most animal species to start chasing you. So you might want to avoid being afflicted by it.  As Ken is heading to the nearest phone to check the message, he receives a notification of another message! So, let's go and listen to both of them!  All right, so, first message: It was mentioned before that if we carry meat for too long (usually longer than a season) it will spoil. Therefore we need to bring him goat meat before it spoils. Second message: Well, our task is clear. We need to go back north and find some goats (and hope that it doesn't snow). However, before we do that, I think it's about time to go and check on Linda! I'm sure you will agree with me. So, let's first go over to Hospico!  Going inside...  ...before going upstairs to Linda's room, we can head over here to the right and find another person we know.  What even is this room she's in? Looks like some kind of control room with computers and stuff? A few moments later in Linda's room...  ...it looks like she might be doing a bit better?  Cute. But now, if we want her to get better, we have a task to perform! Dr. Panheim mentioned that goats can be found around Koshikata (although he also mentioned something about the town being abandoned). So let's see if we can travel over there...  If we check the list of destinations of the Bird Line...  ...Koshikata is definitely listed! So let's buy a ticket! Ah. Well, I guess it probably has something to do with the "abandoned" thing. Ok then. The closest place to it we CAN travel to, is indeed none other than Battle Park, so let's go back there again!  After arriving in Battle Park, we'll head straight to the west side...  ...where that tunnel leading outside is located.  At the other end of the tunnel, there seems to be some kind of an office! In fact it's the "Rent-A-Animal" service desk! Let's see. Well, that explains why those dolphinse there appear to have saddles on them, at least. We can ask for a further explanation. So number 2, at least, is simply because in different seasons you will get different animals to ride. Were it winter and snow, we would have gotten a polar bear instead of a dolphin! But otherwise this seems pretty much exactly what you'd expect it to be, more or less like riding a Chocobo in a Final Fantasy game. All right, let's rent ourselves a dolphin (even if we really don't need it since it's not snowy outside). Here we go...  ...hop on, and...  ...off we go! As mentioned, this would be much more useful in the snow as it allows you to move at normal speed instead of being seriously slowed down.  Going past Koshikata (there in the corner)...  ...we do indeed find some goats. (Of course, I had to hop off the dolphin to be able to fight them.)  Here. We. Go. So this is a bit of a precarious situation (slightly), since there is a fair few of them, and they have relatively higher HP. Therefore, I decide this is the right time to try out turning Ken into a "beastman". So, if we select that option from the menu...  ...we get a whole bunch of options to choose from, which animal we want to transform into (there's more if you scroll down), including, on top, the option to turn back into a human. Ken is a bit low level with his beast prowess, so for now he only turns into a "beast-boy", not yet a full "beast-man", that will come as he learns more abilities. The number on the left shows how much BP will be consumed by the transformation, and on the right you can see what effect it will have on your stats (HP, attack, defense, speed). So here I have highlighted the "rat" option, which does decrease our attack by 21, but also brings our speed up by a whole 55! So I turn Ken into a rat-boy, which is even reflected on the battle screen:  ...and now we can proceed with this battle as normal. Our increased speed almost gets us to a point where the enemies are basically not getting many turns... but when they do get a turn, they decide to use the "call reinforcements of another species" ability, and, well... a whole bunch of weasels show up too!  Luckily, we were pretty much already finished with the goats by this point, so we finish this easily. So we got weasels summoned here by the goats, but normally you would have to find them yourself. As mentioned above, and as we were told previously at some point, you can't really see weasels on the overworld, because they masquerade as trees. So what you have to do is walk around in wooded areas...  ...like here, where there's plenty of them, and they will eventually pop out. Regarding the beast transformations, there is also one good one which you may want to use: if you transform into a dolphin, your HP and defense go down slightly, but your attack power is increased by 51! Here is what Ken looks like on the battle screen as a "dolphin-boy":  But anyway, now that we have a goat, we should finally head over to Eterna!  Here we are... but there's one problem. We have a goat, but we've been asked to bring goat meat! Luckily, as he's been leveling up, Ken has also learned an ability to process animals into meat. He can use it by activating the "camp" option...  ...like so. This allows us to choose what each party member should do while they camp out. Default selected option is to simply sleep, but here we can choose for Ken to process the meat. We can then pick a goat and the end result will be that we have processed one of our goats into goat meat that we can give to Panheim. Also, as we wake up the next morning... turns out, winter has come!  Seven years and two seasons left, 15 species still left to hand in!  Also, there was some snowfall over night it seems! Well, no matter, we'll head into Eterna...  ...straight into the mansion! Let's go talk to Elizabeth.  Turns out, we can find out a bit more about the whole Christmas deal, so let's do that before we get to the topic of Panheim! Well, enough chit-chat.   Ken hands over the goat meat to Dr. Panheim Before you ask, there's no variation in dialogue here no matter which option you pick! Anyway, I think we're ready to be on our way here...  We're done talking to them, but before we leave let's have a snoop around the house a bit more!  On the same floor, in the southeast corner there is a staircase leading down.  Hm, let's keep going down. There seems to be quite a lot going on here under the mansion, huh?  Now if we head down that hallway to the right... it's a bit of a long hallway, but eventually...  Oh, hey! Two chests which are, for once, actualy NOT behind a locked door! The first one contains "sheep sweater" a clothing item, and the other one contains a weapon: "jellyfish needle". So, here's where Ken is now with his stats:  Let's check out the new gear.  First, the jellyfish needle brings his attack power from 169 to 175, so a small upgrade, but either way no reason to not do it.  The sheep sweater brings his defense up from 134 to 157 and increases a whole bunch of resistances, so even if it does lower physical and fire resist by 1 point, it's still pretty good. Overall, it's been worth coming down here. So, let's return to that spot where we came down on the stairs...  We can use the stairs in the top corner to head further down...  Errr... Well, that door where Ken is standing is very definitely locked, but, uh, why does it look like there are people here who are imprisoned and are being watched over by dogs? What even is this situation? But, well, the door is locked, so all we can do is go back the way we came.  Finally, there's a convenient shortcut here--if we climb that ladder there...  ...it deposits us directly outside, next to the mansion! Let's head out of here for now, then. Well, that's it for today. We'll see what happens next, but at least we seem to be getting closer to having the medication for Linda! In addition to that, I'll try to remember to talk a bit next time about all the abilities that Ken has learned over the course of the game and what they do, since I've been neglecting it a bit. Also, I just wanted to warn you that next time things are going to get a bit weird plot-wise, so be prepared for that. As for our regular art section, today we have two illustrations from the PC Engine era. First of all, a pretty cool one of Elizabeth and Panheim... ...and then another silly one of Linda:
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Oct 9, 2021 23:27
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ivantod posted:Also, I just wanted to warn you that next time things are going to get a bit weird plot-wise, so be prepared for that.[/i] Weird? This game? Nah, there's no way. I don't believe you, OP. Also, fleas. Of all the creatures to bring on an ark, you're intentionally bringing fleas with you too? I guess Neo-Kenyan flea burgers are a delicacy or something, and that warrants bringing them.
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Oct 10, 2021 00:03
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ivantod posted:The joke here is mostly because the word for "slingshot" in Japanese is "pachinko", which is also used to refer to the popular pinball-like game! This is an amazing game. I always look forward to new updates. Keep up the great work! e: Also, the "animals" are all pretty drat grotesque. Um, nice job, artists? 
Hirayuki fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 00:52
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I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the game's structure so far. On one hand, stuff like "Come back at level 5" and "It should be ready by the time you go visit Linda again" is refreshingly transparent, but on the other the "Go level up while we devise a treatment plan for Linda/Go level up while you wait for my employee to call you/Go visit Linda again while I get the medicine ready" story beats are a little weak given how otherwise intriguing the setting is. Though I guess that's fixing to change. It's otherwise a really interesting game and I'm glad you're taking the time to do this. Odd Wilson posted:Also, fleas. Of all the creatures to bring on an ark, you're intentionally bringing fleas with you too? I guess Neo-Kenyan flea burgers are a delicacy or something, and that warrants bringing them. Honestly from how most of the animals in this game look perhaps we should just set the ark on fire.
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Oct 10, 2021 05:38
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TurnipFritter posted:I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the game's structure so far. On one hand, stuff like "Come back at level 5" and "It should be ready by the time you go visit Linda again" is refreshingly transparent, but on the other the "Go level up while we devise a treatment plan for Linda/Go level up while you wait for my employee to call you/Go visit Linda again while I get the medicine ready" story beats are a little weak given how otherwise intriguing the setting is. Though I guess that's fixing to change. To be honest, this is one thing that people do sometimes point out as a bit of a flaw in this game, so it's not just you. But I think it's also not such an easy task to fit together a timed task you have to accomplish (collecting animals), but also to have somehow a plot which progresses in parallel as you do it, and then also to allow you to explore the world in parallel with both of those things. I could say more about this, but it would go somewhat into the spoiler territory, so I'll refrain for now. TurnipFritter posted:Honestly from how most of the animals in this game look perhaps we should just set the ark on fire. Hirayuki posted:e: Also, the "animals" are all pretty drat grotesque. Um, nice job, artists? (Also thank you both for kind words! I try to give this game the kind of presentation it deserves--it's truly a shame it was never released outside of Japan.) ivantod fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 19:19
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Case in point: why do the weasels have tits?
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Oct 10, 2021 19:31
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I love the atmosphere/vibe this game has going for it, but I probably would hate playing it for myself. So thank you for showing it off like this.Kaboom Dragoon posted:Case in point: why do the weasels have tits? Because they're mammals, silly.
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Oct 10, 2021 20:14
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ivantod posted:I'm sure you'll agree with me that not posting this screenshot would have been entirely unforgivable, right? yes, I agree also what a whirlwind of "hey here's a bunch of hints about things you ... uh, basically can't do yet since you're still on the early game plot railroad" that and the guy who's trying to sell you on blizzards by saying 'hey at least the bodies stay hidden' which uhhhhhhhhh Psion fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 20:32
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I think the goats are kind of cute. But I'm ready for things to go full weird.
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Oct 11, 2021 03:34
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what you're telling me you guys don't have people pens in your basements?
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Oct 12, 2021 00:50
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