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Hey, so, uh some bad news... I suffered a hard drive failure on my main PC (stupid Apple fusion drive, that should never have been a thing!). Normally this would only mean a delay, however unfortunately one thing that most likely is not backed up is the emulator save state file. So what this means is that as much as I hate to do that, this LP most likely is not going to be able to continue at this point in time. I really don't have the energy to play the game from the beginning right now--later in the future probably yes, but right now starting over is just not something I can deal with, sorry.  I only played the game ONCE in my life from the beginning like that, and it was when Apollo Justice lost my save file when I accidentally dropped my Nintendo DS. Console was fine, but somehow the cartridge save data was lost. I've heard that this is not so uncommon to happen. I know this is disappointing, believe me it's disappointing to me too, but right now this is the situation as it is. But it doesn't mean that I will stop doing LPs of interesting/obscure Japanese games! I will definitely get on with something else as soon as I get organised with my new PC (which is at least going to be fully SSD, so at least no mechanical failures are possible). I know that it's a bit annoying that I will play a new game instead of restarting this one, but honestly I just can't go back from the beginning, and play it all again right now. So I will do a different game for now and then we'll see. I actually had something in mind already that I wanted to do, so I will just go ahead with that. So, how about a PS1game which is kind of a bit like Japanese version of "The Last Express", except it's fullly FMV with real actors, one of whom is Hideo Kojima? I think that should ease the pain somewhat as soon as I get myself organised again! It's also a much shorter game than what I usually play, so that will be a nice change of pace too, I think. Feel free to guess which game, I don't mind if it's "revealed" in this thread!  All right, well, that's it for now, I'll see you in a few days when I receive my new PC (of course this had to happen just as the holiday is coming on too, ugh.).
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Dec 22, 2022 21:37
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The LP curse strikes again!
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Dec 22, 2022 21:45
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Randalor posted:The LP curse strikes again! Nah, in this case I think the Apple fusion drives are just not great--my best friends PC failed in the same way. But we'll see--it seems that it's possible to recover at least the files from the SSD part. So if the save file happens to be there, then I may be able to continue in a few days. If not... then it's going to be like in previous post.
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Dec 22, 2022 21:52
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drat, this has been a fun LP. Hope for the best with your hard drive but I understand.
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Dec 22, 2022 22:09
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ivantod posted:So, how about a PS1game which is kind of a bit like Japanese version of "The Last Express", except it's fullly FMV with real actors, one of whom is Hideo Kojima? I think that should ease the pain somewhat as soon as I get myself organised again! It's also a much shorter game than what I usually play, so that will be a nice change of pace too, I think. Feel free to guess which game, I don't mind if it's "revealed" in this thread! Fingers crossed you can salvage the save data for this LP (those poor people will forever be stuck turning into trees!) but if not this sounds super rad for your next foray.
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Dec 22, 2022 22:52
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...well, gently caress. I'd recommend seeing if someone has the save file online, but what are the chances that they have this game, and played in a similar enough way to you? Yeah, probably best to move on to the next game.
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Dec 22, 2022 23:03
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I’m sorry to hear this! Look forward to your next endeavour.
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Dec 22, 2022 23:06
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Fingers crossed, but looking forward to the next game if this one's a wash.
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Dec 22, 2022 23:15
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That sucks but sometimes luck just isn't on your side. I imagine you lost data that's more important than a game's save data too. Play what you want, I'm sure it'll be neat to follow like all the games you've LPed so far were.
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Dec 22, 2022 23:29
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oh no!!  hopefully you can recover the data or at least find a save online 🙏
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Dec 26, 2022 10:13
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tap tap is this thing on Ahem. Sorry for the prolonged silence, but here is a bit of an update. First of all the silence was because I didn't really have a working PC for a few days and as bad luck would have it this all happened just before a long holiday weekend. So, apologies for that once again. The good news is that I am up and running again and have taken this opportunity to upgrade to a new PC--I was using a 2017 iMac with the dreaded fusion drive (where the HD part failed, and the SSD part is still operational), so fixing that would have probably not been straightforward. Therefore I just decided to upgrade to a Mac Studio which I was going to do anyway in the near future, so this just brough the whole process a bit forward. So the new machine is now operational, there are a few things I still need to set up but it should not be a problem. The bad news is that it does seem that the save file will not be recoverable. There is still some minimal hope, but it's very small. However. The idea of abandoning this LP really started to bother me eventually. My original post was written shortly after the "incident" and I was kind of in a "everything is poo poo" mood at that point. The thought of having to play from the beginning was just something I couldn't deal with. But when the things calmed down and the new PC was on the way I started thinking more clearly. Yes, having to play from the beginning will still be a massive pain in the rear end. But if instead of pressuring myself, I do it in a more leisurely way then I believe this will work. Especially since I just need to play the game via the shortest path--meaning, no need to talk to all NPCs and such since this is only needed if I am preparing an update which I will not be doing here, of course. The only thing I will ensure is that the characters are about at the same level at the end which should be easy. So, here is what we are going to do. I will take a few weeks (I expect about a month should be enough) to get myself back up to where we were and once that is done we will continue from there. But that's not all! While I'm doing that, I will ALSO play the other game that I hinted at in my previous post. It's a fairly short game with no "lore" or anything like that, and it will also be presented in video format, so overall it will require much less effort than a long-rear end JRPGs you typically find in my LPs. This way you will be able to follow that (if you want) while you wait for updates on Tengai Makyou to resume. I will put that in its own thread, but will announce it here. I will also be posting updates here with how I'm progressing with the re-play just to keep myself on track because otherwise I am prone to procrastination lol. So, about the other game. Here it is:  It's a 1998 game published by Enix and the title is, as you can see, "Murder on the Eurasian Express". It's basically a bit like "The Last Express", where the player character investigates a murder on a train. The other passengers are part of a school trip (i.e. teachers and students). And there is also a hard time limit since you need to solve it before the train reaches the next stop! More importantly, the whole game is done in a FMV format with real actors (one of whom, as I mentioned already, is none other than Hideo Kojima somehow). The FMV format means that the game also comes on as much as 4 full discs even though the amount of gameplay wouldn't otheriwise warrant it. So that's the plan and if everything goes well we should be able to resume Tengai Makyou by early February or so. Hope it sounds good to everyone, and I will announce here in a few days when I'm ready to start with all of this. Thanks again for your patience! 
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Dec 30, 2022 18:46
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Oh man, we get two games? You're too kind.
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Dec 30, 2022 21:49
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Blaze Dragon posted:Oh man, we get two games? You're too kind. Well, you know, it just seemed rude to keep people waiting for a few weeks without anything else going on! And this is a short and sweet game, perfect to fill the spot until I'm ready to continue with Tengai Makyou!
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Dec 30, 2022 22:19
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Will there be a new thread for it or will it be in here, too? Excited the LP gets to continue, though!
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Dec 30, 2022 22:33
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Looks like it's going to get a new thread, but will be announced in this one.
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Dec 30, 2022 23:04
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Commander Keene posted:Looks like it's going to get a new thread, but will be announced in this one. Yes, that is more or less the plan!
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Dec 30, 2022 23:18
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Sad to hear about your poor computer / needing to catch up, but glad to hear you're back in business with a new rig, and even better, planning to continue after even a shorter break than I would've expected! Looking forward to seeing the rest of the game in February (or whenever it happens, don't see it as a deadline if things go pear-shaped again). Here's to another year of wonderful LPs of aggressively normal games! 
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Dec 31, 2022 00:30
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About how long do you estimate it would take you to get caught up to where you were, roughly? I'm just curious what the rough playtime is for what you showed off is.
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Dec 31, 2022 13:14
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Randalor posted:About how long do you estimate it would take you to get caught up to where you were, roughly? I'm just curious what the rough playtime is for what you showed off is. I guess we were about a quarter into the game. I actually already recorded a further update that I was not able to post due to the HD failure so i will also have to redo that one. Overall, I guess playtime so far is probably around 12-15 hours or so. It's definitely not a short game overall. So it could have been worse and it's definitely still doable to start over, but I have to do it in smaller chunks in order to keep my sanity lol. So I think that early February should be relatively easy to achieve for the continuation of this LP. I really should have been better with backing stuff up, but it is what it is now and we'll just have to deal with it.
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Dec 31, 2022 18:41
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Hey, so I started working on stuff as promised, and therefore... I made a new thread! Click on the picture to visit it, if you want to find out what it looks like when a game like "The Last Express" is made in full FMV with real actors and all passengers on the train are Japanese high school students and their teachers!  "Murder on the Eurasia Express"
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Jan 4, 2023 23:42
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Hey, me again! Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on the situation: the game re-play is progressing well, and I am currently about halfway to where I was when I lost the save file. So if it goes on like that we should be able to continue this LP at the beginning of February more or less as planned! In the meantime, thank you for your patience! P.S. Yes, I am making sure that I back up the save file properly this time.
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Jan 15, 2023 20:11
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 Right then, where were we? Oh, yes, we were using (among other things) the mirror of the four waters to collect the four bronze bells. We kind of need those in order to be able to reach the Jungle Castle which has been spreading a "leafy" infestation across the local provinces. In addition to that, we're being... stalked, I guess, by this Kikugorou person, but so far he's been content to just let his "friends" fight us, the latest of whom was one "Princess Serpent". She seems to have bewitched a few of the inhabitants of Kiyohime village, so now that her true nature was revealed, we'll take a look around and see what people say about it! Quite a number of boss fights (and not so easy ones too) in this episode since, well, I guess Kikugorou just doesn't know when to give up! So, let's get started as we have quite a lot to cover!  And so, here we are just outside of that house where we defeated Princess Serpent. Let's see what's going on around the village!  Let's start with this person here. Yes, Mt. Kouya is a place we've already been told about and certainly need to visit soon. Apparely it's pretty cold in its caverns.  There are three people to talk with out here.  Over in the hotel, we can also talk to the kid... Uh, sure thing kid. I guess we should also rest and recover here, it was a somewhat tougher fight. I really wish the game would let us have a full party of all four characters. But it's going to be a while yet before we get there, unfortunately. Anyway, at this point we can leave from here. But, where to next? We won't actually go there right now, but I can tell you that if we try going to Mt. Kouya which has just been mentioned, there is an impassable gate there, so that's not going to work. The Jungle Castle is also not accessible. So, then where? Well, it's been a while, truly, but you might recall that back in Wakayama there was a part which was not accessible, namely the part with the castle. And we know that Kikugorou has occupied said castle. So I say, let's pay him a visit!  So, let's just sail away sail away sail away.  Of course, we have to go back through that cave where we got all the pirate equipment!  We'll head north to Wakayama, as mentioned. It may not be entirely obvious based on the layout of the map here, but...  ...you can actually enter here with your ship! And in fact you need to, because...  ...we need to knock on a certain door! We're not heading into the castle just yet. First...  ...we head over this way.  There's a staircase! Unfortunately...  ...after a bit of a walk...  ...it just leads to a dead end. But one that reveals us other parts to this underground bit. So we'll be on the lookout for more stairs going down!  If we go a bit further in and dock our ship here, just outside of the wall where the first staircase was...  ...we can find another one!  It least to two chests! The first one contains just a healing potion which we really do not have space in our inventory at all, being as it is that we're carrying a whole bunch of plot related items which are taking up our limited number of slots. The other on though has the shrimp shell armour, which we'll equip on Manjimaru this time. With that done...  let's park up and head into the castle finally!  I'm actually posting some of the music again since I found a better version. I mean it's still going to be mostly "midi" type music (except for the few "important" tracks), but this is now from the remake so it sounds a bit better. So even if the song name sounds familiar I recommend to check it out as it will be a slightly better sounding version this time!  Let's see. First thing is, we can check out the statues (of Kikugorou, of course!). It's a bronze statue of Kikugorou... of course, its legs are longer than those of the actual person.  Over here in the northeast corner, we find a bunch of clothes drawers. Let's look inside.  This is, of course, a piece of equipment, but in can only be worn by one person. You don't have to guess that we're talking about Kabuki here.  This item is, OF COURSE, a headpiece and in fact it does give to Kabuki +1 in defence compared to his previous helmet! So why not? There is actually another item here, in one of the other drawers. Manjimaru found Clothes in Bad Taste. Certainly this is also an item of clothes that you can put on, but it's probably better that you don't. As it turns out, this is our first encounter with a cursed piece of equipment. So this means the following: first, once you put it on, you cannot take it off until you rest at the inn. And second, in addition to it's normal defensive power, it also has some kind of a negative effect. For example, one of the effect that can appear is to double the MP cost of all spells. So in the end, they are more annoying than dangerous, so you just want to have a think whether then negative effect is worth it for the increase in defence/attack. For me generally the answer is no, so I won't be using these for the most part. Anyway, let's continue. Unfortunately, there are random encounters here.  Continuing with the theme of monsters having various fruit for heads, here now is the watermelon. This creature is called simply "the summer giant" though. It's not super strong, so we deal with it easily.  Continuing on...  ...on the other side of the floor are two staircases. Heading down...  ...takes us to the third and final of these underground bits. This one is also a dead end like the first.  We do encounter some new enemies. What would a game be without some Chtulhu-style tentacle things.  Backing out of here, now we'll take the staricase going up.   There's something written on the wall there... Let's have a look.   But the trapdoor just puts us back to the lower floor where we came from, so it's not like it actually does anything really!  But at least we can check out that painting on the wall there. A portrait of Kikugorou... with a smirk and a mocking smile.  Anyway, we'll return upstairs to another set of clothes drawers. But it's just another set of two items we found previously. So I guess we'll just sell them or something when we get out of the castle.  Heading across this bridge...  ...there seems to be a prisoner of some kind here. Let's see what he says. I don't even want to ask what happens at night. But, anyway, to continue, we'll take the staircase up.  It leads to more prisoners (and two chests also)! What in the world is this guy even doing to people? But no matter, we'll sort him out soon. In the meantime, let's continue back again to the other side over the bridge on the left. But before that, the two chests. One contains, for some reason, yet another pair of floral underpants. The other chest contains a blonde wig. This last one is actually a piece of equipment you can wear, but it's probably better not because it's another cursed piece! Unfortunately, its effect is to completely block the character who is wearing it from being able to use spells. So, uh, no, we won't be equipping this (even though it's better than what Manjimaru is currently wearing). But, for example, we will later have a character in our party who is very slow to gain any MP. So for such a character a piece of equipment like this would be fine, as he can't use spells anyway. For us right now, spells are absolutely critical and our main way of dealing with bosses, so we'll have to pass. In any case, crossing back over the bridge...  ...we find Kikugorou plonking on the piano keys.  But, soon he runs off to that plate on the floor.  Looks like it's a teleporter! But before following him, let's check what is written on the wall there. MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN 3 6 2 8 4,7 9 Well, I think we know what kind, so... let's just follow him and step on the teleporter.  On the way there, we can check the bookshelves, but... Some rather difficult books... but it doesn't look like they've ever been opened? Anyway, stepping on the teleporter...  ...we're suddenly on the roof! What is even going on! What is going on is another lengthy (and hilarious) confrontation between Kabuki and Kikugorou! So, let's watch!  Well, ok then. And so after the battle...  Nice. Also, we found the use for that Seal of Transformation item we got from the ninjas. It's a good thing that it shatters, since that way the game ensures you will definitely have the space in the inventory for the new item, i.e. the key. In any case, we can now make our way back out of the castle. Along the way, we'll talk to a few people.  Like this guy, looking at the schedule.  And some of the freed prisoners... Yeah, because it was the guy who was alone in the prison on the floor below.  Yeah, this guy here.  Not quite sure where this person came from, but...  Thanks, but we've found it already by ourselves! That item is pretty good, so it's definitely worth getting it.  And one last person on the way out... Now we should head over to Mt. Kouya, in hopes that we can find the final bronze bell there. But before that, let's stop by the weapon shop here since we have a decent chunk of money on us.  We'll pick up two turtle-shell armours for both our characters! It's 4,200 ryo each, but as you can see we have 9211 ryo, just enough money for two!  For Manjimaru, this will be +7 in defence compared to his previous equipment for a total of 45  And for Kabuki it's only +3, but I have come to conclusion that there is some kind of "exponential" factor in damage vs. defence formula in this game, because sometimes just a couple of extra points will reduce the damage a lot from certain enemies. So it's always worth it, honestly. Anyway, I'll go and rest at the inn, and then we'll be on our way.  We're sailing along the coast, northwards from Wakayama.  We'll, park here, because...  ...there's another Tengu's hut!  Manjimaru obtained the "winter wilt" scroll. The winter wilt (冬枯) spell has an effect which is sort of predictable from its name: it reduces enemy defence stat by a certain amount. With this done...  ...we'll park our boat at Wakayama and head east.  Across a small bridge, and here we are at the entrance of the icy mountain cave.  Welcome to Mt. Kouya. It's not a very nice place to be, unfortunately. It's icy and cold and enemies here hit pretty hard. It also has a slightly annoying gimick that we'll have to deal with. First of all, though, our way is blocked by the gate. For this, of course, we simply use the key we got from Kikugorou and then we can pass.  Literally after making one step through the gate, we're assaulted by a new enemy!  Compared to some enemies here, they're not too bad really. But, let's see what we have here in the cave.  So, you might notice already ice on the ground in some parts. This is not just visual; stepping on ice will cause you to slide forward until the next obstacle (e.g. a wall). As we'll see shortly, this makes it a bit annoying to reach some staircases etc. Of course while sliding you're still subject to random encounters, so yay! Luckily this cave is not very big, so we'll be in and out pretty quickly.  The ice situation is pretty bad in some areas...  But anyway, we're heading up this staircase.  These two chests over there can be pretty painful to get to because of sliding on ice problem... You can probably not bother about them as they contain a piece of equipment a fair bit worse than what we already have and a consumable which removes status effects. Anyway, our goal is...  ...this staircase, leading up to the next floor. It, too, is a bit hard to reach. But after climbing up...  ...we find that Kikugorou has brought a friend, again! So, let's see.   Ok, so his next fiend is a bull? Sure. Anyway, this is the first of several boss fights today, and we are at a point where these enemies have kind of strong physical defence, therefore our regular physical attacks are not super-viable to be used. So, we'll have to get a bit "tricksy" here (and for the next couple too). Note also the the boss HP is definitely starting to go up noticeably. As for the tricks, well it's a bit interesting I guess. We are going to be relying quite a bit on using regular weapons and (non-consumable) items in battle, in fact. So our first trick is... did you know that you can use that "Mirror of the Four Waters" in battle as item and that it's like insanely useful? When used in battle, it will cause that half of the damage you take will be reflected back to the enemy. So if you take for example 30 HP damage, the enemy will also get damaged for 15 HP. To be clear, you still take full damage, but enemy gets damaged also for half of it. This lasts a few turns, so you will have to re-apply it every once in a while, but at least it seems to have a 100% hit rate! The one problem with this is that the effect is valid only for the party member who uses the item; however this we can also solve--Kabuki has a "technique" called "Swear Words", which angers the enemy and directs all attacks to him for a few turns. So with these two combined, we already have a good start--unfortunately Manjimaru will have to be again a bit on support duty, so he can heal and try to apply an additional debuff if possible. Otherwise, he can attack with a spell or whatever. The "trick" part unfortunately has to be done all by Kabuki alone. As for the attacks from the boss, nothing of too much note. He just has a regular phyiscal attack and also another variation where he trades blows with a party member for a couple of times. When trading blows, each hit is separately subject to reflect, so that's not too bad either. The boss hits us for about 20 damage a hit, so that's within the manageable territory still.  Anyway, after defeating the boss, the way forward is free once again!  Our next goal is this staircase here, if I can figure out how to maneuver to it!  Ah, there we go.  And finally we reach another one of those weird statues, and there is also what seems like the final bell encased in ice right here! Using the mirror on the statue...  ...causes a laser beam, which melts the ice!  So we can pick up the fourth and final bell! By the way, that staircase to the left leads to small extra area.  It has two chests. One contains a piece of equipment: "Tantric Helm", which has an interesting property that wearing it reduces spell cost by 1/3. But it has a super low defence, so it's not a fantastic trade-off. Especially when there are ways of casting at least some spells without using any MP at all (by using various weapons as items in battle). So I'm going to just sell this so it doesn't take up space. The other chest, comically, has a MP recovery item. So, uh, choice, I guess? Anyway, now we can use a return stone to leave this place!  All right then, so what now? Again, it's been a long time, but we should remember where it was that we were first told about the four bronze bells. In fact, that was in Nara, back north in Ise province! So let's head that way!  After passing through Owase border village, let's head straight to Nara!  Here we are! So this time, we'll head to the building on the east side of the town.   Upon entering, there seems to be a mechanism, surrounded by four numbered stands 1-4.  A bit further up, there is a large hatch which seems like it would be possible to open... So I think it's pretty clear what to do. We have four bronze bells, so we'll just position them on four numbered stands. Funnily, it's the bells are also four distinct items, numbered from 1 to 4, so each bell needs to go on the correct stand. This is "complicated" slightly by the game using the "fancy" kanji for numbers (壱, 弐, 参) instead of the "common" ones (一, 二, 三) for numbers 1, 2 and 3. But nothing we can't deal with, really.  Here we go, and most importantly our item inventory space can finally breathe a bit of a sigh of relief! Oh, you want to know what happens when we position the bells correctly? Here you go, watch the cutscene:   Awesome. Or new mode of transportation is a giant robot--finally we get to see it for real after hearing about it previously.  Of course it has a separate map music! But anyway, this allows us to traverse the map much more easily as it can step over anything except the mountains. You also don't have random battles while you're inside; actually the battles get triggered, but then end immediately with a note that the giant stepped on the enemies. You do not, however, get the exp, unfortunately. So, there's only one destination left, which is the Jungle Castle itself, so let's head that way.  We could not pass these areas on foot because of the overgrowth, but now, maneuvering a giant robot, of course we can! By the way, here is a full map of the Ise province, so you can get an idea of what's going on here:  The castle is located on that huge island in the middle.  And here we are, the Jungle Castle. Looks just like a tree.   [JUNGLE CASTLE]  But of course, there is a welcoming committee... we shouldn't be surprised at this point.  Ugh, does he have another friend? Sure, bring it on. Also, that whole story about the castle being alive just means that there are holes that pulsate in a breathing rhytm. So you have to be careful not to fall into one. Certainly, this is an easier gimmick that sliding around on ice! Since most of this dungeon looks a bit samey I'm going to skip the boring bits. Either way, the tree stooges leave so we're free to proceed.  I guess we'll start by going to the north side!  As expected, there are some new enemies here and they are fairly tough, so you should try to conserve the resources a bit if you can.  As you can see, they can silence our magic, which is not super fantastic.  It's all very organic looking...  There are still more new enemies here, at least this one is relatively weak.  No, I don't have an explanation for the name.  Up we go!  And here we can see an example of a hole, it rhytmically opens and closes within its radius. So really pretty easy to avoid (or walk across when it's closed).  Even more up! Like most dungeons in this game, it forces you to go up and down to navigate around closed off sections until you finally get to the goal.  Going upwards, the enemies seem to get even harder, like this one. Love the name!  It's definitely on the tougher side and can even do about 20 HP of damage to us per hit easily on our current level! Manjimaru's total HP is like 120 or thereabouts!  Obviously, what goes up must come down, so now we go back down into a different part of the maze.  Careful here navigating around the hole, though.  Sure, why not. There are three of them, but luckily this is one of the weakest enemies here.   Up down up down, so now we go back up! I also passed by a chest containing another useless "clothes in bad taste" item.  After coming up...  Of course, more new enemies! Pretty nasty, this one: high defence and also will repeatedly cast a spell to lower your speed (mud worm, the same one we have!). They do however give 20 EXP each, which is a decent chunk at this point in the game.   Three chests, but in a typical fashion for this game, only one has an item. It is, however, the MP recovery item, which we'll definitely make use of immediately!  After another up and down journey, we reach this chest. It contains the standard return stone item which every dungeon seems to give us. It's nice, I like it.  This one is not so nice, though, especially as a duo because of their high agility stat. One of these can reach even 30 HP damage per hit to us, so when you get two like this, you can only be thankful that you're playing this on an emulator and save states are a thing. That's all I can say about this.  Oh, yeah about that name. Honestly I have not been able to figure out what it means--as you can see it's simply written phonetically in katakana so there are no kanji to help with the meaning. If somebody has an idea, let me know please. A bit later...  Oh, hey, it's Kikugorou again. And he's brought a friend... again. How long can this actually keep going like this?  It's interesting that all Kikugorou boss friends just have actual names (well other than the serpent lady) and not some kind of typical boss name.  They are getting stronger and stronger, but this is the last one at least. He does about 20-23 HP damage per hit normally and doesn't really have particular special attacks, just a phyiscal hit under two different names, but the damage is similar.  Of course, we'll use the mirror/swearwords trick for some "passive" damage dealing. But that's going to be about 10-12 HP reflected damage per turn which is not really that great considering that he has 300 HP to start with. Our regular hits deal only a few HP, so that's not good either. So, what to do, then? Well, it's time for our second trick for today. Luckily in one of the previous episodes I bought two mysterious swords called "Winter Wind" for our characters to use. You might recall I even had to do a money trick to even be able to afford them at the time since they cost 4400 ryo a piece! And while right now we are unable to deal much physical damage, as it turns out, this sword when used as an item in battle can cast quite a powerful wind elemental spell, "autumn typhoon" (野分). We don't even have that spell yet as a spell (although we'll probably get it next time), but nevertheless we can cast it with this sword. It deals 35-40 HP damage in one hit. So that's pretty nice and will allow us to finish this battle more easily. Not "easy" but at least a bit more "easily". Of course, as with all his "friends", here too you have to contend with Kikugorou coming to heal them in the final part of the battle, but... whatever.   As before, the way forward is now free! So let's head upstairs again. We're almost at the end of this dungeon, don't worry!  And once more. That chest there contains just enemies to fight, by the way.  Finally we reach some kind of a destination, but what is going on here? Looks like there is a some kind of a show about to start? Let's ask one of the members of the audience! Oh. I see. But before we can do anything else, the show starts!  Well that was... I have no idea what that was. Although I will say this... the voice acting for Kikugorou is just so good. The actor is Chiba Shigeru, whom you may know perhaps as Sasuke in Ranma ˝ and many many MANY other shows. Either way, we have a boss fight in front of us (quite a few of those today, huh?). This one even has its own special and very awesome music! So please give it a listen.   It seems every next boss has about 100 HP more than the last lately... But don't worry, boss HP will soon be going into thousands, like in any "normal" JRPG. The good news is that this battle is about on the same level of difficulty as the last. Which means we'll be using about the same strategy with damage reflection and also our "mysterious" sword to cast the wind spell, as that's pretty much the strongest attack we have and still deals damage in mid-30s HP. Applying "mud worm" is nice if possible, but don't waste too many turns on it if it won't hit.  As for his attacks, well, the damage output is definitely going up as you can see above, so that's definitely something to be careful about. Luckily thanks to our sword, we can dedicate our entire MP to healing. But we only have one healing spell, so probably best to give it to the party member with bigger MP (in our case that would be Kabuki) since since we don't really need MP for anything else here. Also check out his little helper!  Of course, the more damage, also the more reflected damage, which is certainly one way to turn this around to your advantage.  And yeah, there's also poison here, but as we already know, poison is such a minor thing in this game that it's not really even worth talking about. Just tank it. And that's about it. It's just going take a couple of minutes, but there should really not be too much trouble with this.   And with that...  ...he runs off through a secret door. Well, you didn't think it was going to be this easy, did you? Well, let's get ourselves healed up and such and then we'll follow behind him.   There you are. Now hold still...  This doesn't look good...  The "door" closes behind us... Uh-oh.  And then it seems, somehow Kikugorou just fuses with the whole tree thing?  Oh, I guess the worm is us, huh?  He's gone totally mad (well, more than before anyway). This time we get the standard big boss music! Our strategy however remains mostly the same. The things which are different is that we definitely deal less damage (and he's become much harder to hit). Also, his damage to us has gotten up to low-40s HP per hit which is pretty nasty, so keeping on top of healing will be important. Coincidentally, the attack is called "bad breath" (well, he has no arms any more, right?). The other thing he can do is, emit sticky tree sap which has the same effect as "mud worm" spell, i.e. lowers your speed. And finally he can "lick his wound with his black tongue", which is still the same heal ability that was present in all fights with this guy and/or his friends. Unfortunately, there is no special animation for it. So in the end this is more of a battle of attrition than anything else. And finally...   Finally. That really took some doing. (Yes, Kabuki got knocked out there at the end, but I managed to finish it anyway.)  The next holy sword is ours for the taking! Make sure to free up space in your weapons inventory for it! As Manjimaru takes it, he hears the message of another ghost of the former Fire Braves from one thousand years ago!  You might recall that Manjimaru gains a new sword technique each time he finds a new holy sword. Such is the case this time, too. As already explained by Crow, this technique (Black Feather) allows you to deal 2-2.5 x normal damage in one hit, but you will after be incapacitated for 1-2 turns. So it's a thing where if you get lucky it's great, but not so much if you don't.  And finally, as always, Manjimaru does his sword swirl! There isn't anything more to be found in the castle, so we're free to use the return stone for a quick exit.  Outside, the Jugle Castle fades into nothingness...  ...and this part of the world is restored to its normal condition! Well then, let's stop here for now. Next time we'll deal with the orchid and see how a few of the people feel about it. And then, our next destination is Kyoto, the capital of Jipang! (Don't worry we WILL check on that mother and son who were turned into trees!) Also... uh, welcome back everyone! Hopefully the delay was not too annoying, but now we're back and hopefully no more unexpected incidents to the end! Take care and see you next time!
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Feb 17, 2023 00:03
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W-wait is he... is he really gone? Noooooooooooooooooo. He was absolutely the funniest part of the game to me, I kind of expected him to stick around through the game like Gilgamesh or something, after the rooftop battle and the theater(and you weren't kidding, the rooftop battle was hilarious). I was even kind of suspecting maybe he'd end up being the third or fourth party member somehow. RIP to a real cool dude.
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Feb 17, 2023 00:42
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Oh nice, this is back! And with the death of a recurring enemy at that, that's a big update to bring the LP back with.
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Feb 17, 2023 02:09
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Is there some joke I missed with the schedule that makes it something other than what it looks like?
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Feb 17, 2023 03:05
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The only way that stupid rooftop battle could be any more accurate to a children's playground fight is if neither of them actually transformed, they just did vaguely evoactive poses of the things they claimed to be transforming into. GLORIOUS.
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Feb 17, 2023 08:40
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Tallgeese posted:Is there some joke I missed with the schedule that makes it something other than what it looks like? Honestly my thinking was that it was a schedule for who had to listen to him that day, not something greasier, since the first caged guy complained about that.
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Feb 17, 2023 09:34
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PurpleXVI posted:Honestly my thinking was that it was a schedule for who had to listen to him that day, not something greasier, since the first caged guy complained about that. I thought maybe it was the piano, which was played so badly it killed two women. And it's just played up to sound way worse than it is. ...not that bad piano playing can't be horrible, of course.
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Feb 17, 2023 09:55
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Tallgeese posted:I thought maybe it was the piano, which was played so badly it killed two women. And it's just played up to sound way worse than it is. Well the game doesn't really say it directly, only that he somehow makes the prisoners suffer--so you can choose how dark you want to go with it. And the schedule is just which prisoner he does it with on which day, so I don't think there's really a particular joke there.
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Feb 17, 2023 10:04
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Ahh so glad this is back on Ivantod; loving this
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Feb 19, 2023 12:27
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 All right, so. Last time Manjimaru and Kabuki have braved an icy mountain and a tree castle, but in the end prevailed and obtained the second holy sword! It's time to go and deal with the second orchid, then! We have quite a LOT to cover today, so I suggest to get comfortable as it will take us a while !  Although the whole forest situation has withdrawn, we are still on an island without a boat (I guess we left it in Wakayama!), so we're going to have to use our giant robot to get over to the mainland.  But we don't need to go far, as the island is right next to the temple where the orchid is.  Let's not forget about the annoying teleportation plates on the ground. Ugh, I hate these. And there are of course still radom encounters here to make things more fun! Nevertheless, since this is a shrine, there are a few monks here to talk to before we deal with the orchid.   If you plan on going through here, let me tell you something. In this Ise head shrine, several barriers are set up to protect it from unscrupulous fellows. If you step on a barrier, you'll jump to another barrier, so just be careful about that.Well, I guess we figured it out on our own already.  Somehow, there is still here one enemy which we didn't previously encounter!  Just don't ask me to explain the name. But either way they pose no threat at this point--although they do have the ability to seal our magic, they'll be dead before they even get to cast it! Anyway, as I was saying, there are two more monks around here, but since their buildings are all identical, I'll just post here their comments.  Eventually, with some difficulty, we make our way to the orchid! This one with, officially, cyan coloured petals! And then...  ...Manjimaru deals with it, as expected.  And like before, it's finally gone. This means there is still five of them remaining all around Jipang. Did I mention that this game is huge?  Anyway, we can go and talk to the three monks again, now that the orchid is gone! So, nothing really too dramatic here. But I know what everyone wants me to do! We need to go and check on that mother and son who were turned into trees!  They are located here, in Akame village. Well, at least from the outside, it looks pretty good, so let's go in.  Yeah, things are looking back to normal here, and even our two friends are right there waiting for us! And the son: Well, all right, looks like they're going to be fine. This almost concludes our business related to the second orchid, but there's just one little thing... If we head back down south to Kii province...  ...and head a bit north from Kushimoto vilage on the coast...  ...after following a narrow valley between the mountains, we reach another Tengu's cabin! This one was not reachable before, because of the roots.  Let's see... Manjimaru obtained the "backwash" scroll! As it turns out, this "backwash" (引波) scroll has simply the same effect as the return stone item, i.e. it lets you teleport out of a dungeon. So the only point of it is really to save the inventory slot that the item would otherwise take--the spells inventory space is much more generously sized than the item inventory space! Anyway, this is about it for the second orchid situation--there is a bit additional dialogue to be found from some of the people after getting rid of the orchit, but it's mostly then thanking you and/or hinting where to go next. But truly, as far as a world traversal goes on a high level scale in this game, there's really only one place we CAN go to in the first place. So, as our "road trip" adventure continues, here is the map of our travels so far:  (Click on the map to embiggen.) As is visible from the map, our next major destination is none other than the capital of Jipang, Kyoto! In order to do that...  ...we'll go to the location of Iga, the village of ninjas, and head north from there!  Soon we reach one of those typical "border crossing" villages!  This one is called Yamashiro (山城), or in English, "Mountain Castle". Since we're now in a "gathering information" phase for the third orchid, we'll make a short stop here to see what everyone has to say! For example, there is a bunch of people visible here, so let's start! It's true, as the country's capital, Kyoto is a far bigger and a more varied place than what we've been used to for now, so much so that it's divided into different districts on the map! But we'll check that out in a moment, for now let's talk to the other people visible on this screenshot, such as the elderly lady standing by the house. Yeah, this is not true. We'll find monsters in Kyoto already today. I should also mention that many people here speak with a slight Kansai dialect in their word choices and phrasing, but being in and around Kyoto, that's only to be expected!  Let's move on and talk to this kid sitting by the pond! So, uh, we're going to have a bit of translation nightmare with this character (the foreigner, I mean). We'll be meeting him a bit later today with a proper cutscene so it will be more obvious what the problem is, but for now just take note of the fact that the text written in a different font (like above) indicates a character speaking in English!  Let's also head into this house and talk to a brother and sister: I'm sorry, you HOPE the spring comes soon? Doesn't it always come around the same time of the year? But, yes, this is indeed a game mechanic, although it mostly applies to Kyoto and not so much to the rest of the world. We'll see ove time how it works--for now, most of the goods in Kyoto will prove outside of our price range anyway! Let's talk to the brother now:  If we go to the shop next door, we can talk to another one of those travelling salesmen people: Yeah, if you're shopping in Kyoto, this is a good idea. In shops there, the prices can vary for up to double of the base price. For example, while recording the video of this part, I saw a weapon we paid around 4000 ryo for (our trusty spell sword) selling for around 8000 ryo! So you do need to be careful here, or at least consult a guide!  Another house with a bunch of people! Well, we'll see about that, but it does seems that there is something a bit different here.  And one last bit with this elderly person here...  And finally, this house here where there is a whole bunch of people! Yeah the situation here is clearly a bit precarious, but we'll see how it develops. For now though, we'll leave this place and head straight to Kyoto! As we leave the village, the game gives us again a glimpse of what's happening with the three sages!  To clarify: before we talked about biwa in the sense of a musical instrument, but there is also an actual lake in Japan with that name, located north of Kyoto. Also there is an interesting situation here... if there's no dark orchids in Kyoto, but also all roads out of it are blocked (except the one which we came through), then, uh, how will we leave this part of the world? Anyway, back to our travels...  ...as mentioned, we'll start by heading west. Of course...  ...there are more new enemies to be found here. These are still not too bad and die in two regular hits basically.   Cool bit here on the way, where you can see a cave that is not accessible because of Orchid roots! I guess we'll have to come back there later.  Anyway, more new enemies here! I mean it's certainly a party--it even has party hats and everything, so... This one is a little harder, though, and probably would be a bit of a problem if two or three appeared at the same time. Any by this I mean we would have to use our spell sword!   From this point, we'll head in the north direction.  And after a short while, we finally reach Kyoto. That place looks rather big actually, but let's head inside.  Now we can get a better look. It's actually divided into five "disticts": commercial (bottom left), residential (bottom right), temple (upper left), slums (upper right), and the imperial palace (top). Originally there was supposed to be also a red light/entertainment district (Gion), but that was cut from the game in early stages. So let's start with the commercial district.  That looks kinda nicer than the towns we've been seeing so far! Well, let's talk to this lady here.  If we approach this gentlement here... But just as he says that...  ...five guys spill out of that house! Let's see what happens!   And with that, they leave. However, a word of explanation... As it turns out, these are returning characters from the first game, where they were giving some trouble to Ziria, the main character of that game (who was mentioned in the cutscene)! Here is a screenshot from the first game, showing one of the brothers in that version:  All right, anyway, as mentioned, we'll probably meet up with them again somewhere down the line. So let's talk to the other gentleman there, standing by the bridge. Anyway...  ...we have more people to talk to around here, like these two here. (We're actually standing outside of a weapon/armour shop (武). And we'll check this out later, but I think we're too poor to afford anything really.  For now, we'll just talk to this guy here. This, actually, is not just talk. You can indeed trade in items like rice and wheat and to profit from changing prices. We'll check that out a bit later on, but for now, let me mention this. Based on inclusion of these kinds of interesting "real world"-like mechanics in a JRPG, you can probably tell that the person who later designed the game Lindał had a big part in designing this one, too (Masuda Shoji). He just expanded on this kind of idea in the latter game.  Let's head across the bridge to the other side, then.  First, let's talk to these girls here... Actually they both have the same dialogue, so it doesn't matter which one you talk to. Manjimaru received the lottery ticket with number 33! Kabuki received the lottery ticket with number 34! Ok, sure, we'll have to make sure we come back for new year's day here to see what happens. I should explain the thing with their names. In Japanese, there are two numbering systems, the native Japanese system and the other system which is imported from Chinese. For all practical purposes in most cases the Japanese system only goes up to 10 and is used mostly for counting the number of things in some cases, where the Chinese system is used for pretty much everything else. So here the point is that in the Japanese system, the words for counting 3 and 4 "things" begin respectively with "mi" and "yo" (e.g. "mittsu" for "three things" and "yottsu" for "four things"). Based on this, you get 33 = mimi and 34=miyo. In the meantime, let's continue exploring! Let's just head into that house they're standing in front.  There are a few people here... And finally the last person, who is acually the merchant here. Hm, well, ok, let's have a look, why not?  Well, certainly most of it seems to be out of our price range, too. We do seem to have stumbled upon a sidequest of some kind, so let's get ourselves at least informed about what they are selling. So, here goes. 1. "Passionate Flower Bouquet" for 2000 ryo: not much to be said here, it's just a flower bouquet. 2. "Open Heart Necklace" for 7500 ryo: a joke on the Tiffany open heart necklace. 3. "Perfume No. 18" for 15,000 ryo: a joke on the Chanel No. 18 perfume. 4. The "Harness" scarf 30,000 ryo: of course, a joke on the Hermčs brand. It's even funnier in Japanese as it uses just the normal Japanese word for "harness" (馬具) which is not pronounced similar to "Hermčs", so you have to get it back to English to figure out the joke! 5. The "へく Brand Purse" for 60,000 ryo: The hiragana へく is "he-ku", but actually they're meant to be a parody of LV (Louis Vuitton) logo if you rotate them around. 6. A "Three-stranded Ring" for 120,000 ryo: This is a reference to Cartier "trinity rings". So I was talking a bit earlier about some similarities in writing style/game mechanics with the writer's other game, Lindał, but now it's even more obvious as this kind of stuff could easily have been in that game too without feeling out of place. Anyway, we'll deal with this sidequest in due time, but for now I will just mention that the whole thing is a bit more evil than it seems, since there is also a secret seventh item that you can't get here in the shop and... things get a bit complicated there. All right, that was a bit of a longer detour, so let's get back to exploring for now.  We'll head into this shrine next.  What on earth is he talking about? We'll find out in just a few moments for ourselves!  But first, a few more people standing in the streets, starting with this person directly in front of us! And then the two girls standing together there at the bottom in front of the shops! Hmmm, the skewer talk continues... Also the "seven lucky gems" is an actual item in the game. It's a consumable that can have one of seven random effects when you use it in battle. E.g. increase attack for 25% or increase defence, things like that. Of course there are a couple of negative effects that can happen, too. All right, let's go into the weapon shop there at the bottom right.  Other than the saleslady, there's another person here... Hm, yeah, I can definitely see that. I don't think gold is nearly hard enough to be useful for sword-making. But, talking to the saleslady:  Oh, wow, the prices! I mean, there are some good items here, but... oh, wow, the prices. Interestingly our spell sword is selling for double what we paid (8800 vs. 4400). Also, the golden sword is a cool 30,000 ryo, but actually it's quite a bit weaker from what we have right now (and we paid far less for it too)! So it truly is useless, despite the price! Anyway, we may come back here later since right now, we don't have the money!  Let's visit some more shops! Actually here people on the lower floor don't have anything interesting to say, but...  ...on the upper floor: Yes, we noticed the prices actually. And when they say "more expensive", they mean like double! So we'll follow this advice and hold off for now.  Now, this place here is interesting. First we'll talk to the guy by the door. Ah, maybe we've come to the right place to figure out the "mystery of the skewers"! Well, let's see what the shopkeeper has to say about it. We can ask him to explain! Let's see what you sell...  Ah. That's a whole lot of dumplings on a skewer you have there, boss. Anyway, it works exactly as he said. You buy some of these, and eat them. Randomly you will be left with a skewer of some colour, which you can then go and talk to the other person to exchange for a prize. So it's kind of like pachinko style that you have to go somewhere else to exchange your winnings for an actual prize, since gambling is, you know, not actually legal in Japan! From what I know the randomness here is not quite so random, so apparently if you put the skewer in Manjimaru's first item slot and eat it immediately after reloading the game then there is a good chance to get the top prize. To be honest, we're ok on the money so I haven't really bothered too much with it. Yeah, I know we can exploit this to buy some of those strong weapons they have here for a lot of money, but really I'm not going to do that because it trivialises a large portion of the game until the enemies catch up. It's more fun to just play it normally, and this game is indeed a lot of fun to play, despite some need for a bit QOL improvement in the user interface. So let's talk to the prize girl and see what goes on there. So here's how it goes with different colours: - Gold: you get an item which revives all fallen allies in battle with 50-100% health. Normally this item sells for 30,000 (although we haven't even come across one yet). - Silver: exchanges for the seven lucky gems item which I already talked about. - Red, Navy, Green, Black: exchanges for various healing consumables. - White: exchanges for another skewer with dumplings which you can eat and see what colour it is. - Bamboo: exchanges for the "shopkeeper's smile" ("niko-niko") So, it's something you can play around with if you want, but for now, we'll just continue exploring, since this is already taking quite a long time! I did try a few, but I didn't get anything more than a consumable.  As usual we'll stop by the inn and see what people are saying. Oh, that's interesting. I wonder how we will overcome our "transportation issues" in this part of the game. Ah. Probably this is the foreigner we've been hearing about. We'll get there soon.  And one more shop here before we head on. Ah, right, another thing. So there's several different kinds of elixirs that you can find in the game (again, we haven't come across them yet), but basically their effect are randomised in a particular playthrough, so you have to try them out to see what each one does. They typically have effects (positive or negative) on your stats, and such. All right, that's enough for the commercial district for now, so...  ...let's head into the slums, which are over on this side!  Well, that certainly looks a lot worse than the "shiny" part we've just been in. So, let's see what these two guys have to say.  And now, let's check in with the three people around the bonfire! Sure thing.  One more person over here.  And finally, two more people here. Let's check out a few houses here too...  Love the straw mats there... It's a bit hard to tell on the screenshot, but he's actually naked. Please don't eat your clothes.  I assume this must have happened before he got turned into stone? But this is actually the first hint we're getting about what we may have to do to get the third holy sword.   Thanks for the tutorial, game! But on another note... I've already mentioned, but for some reason, in this part of the game especially to me similarities in writting style (and in general) between this game and Lindał are really obvious. I mean, this whole slum district is literally just an earlier version of Paraside from that game!  Well, let's check these two last people before we go under the bridge. Ok, let's head in then.  So there are three elders here, so let's first talk to them. So the first one: The second: Indeed, the people from Kyoto would know who "Julie from Kawaramachi" was. It's a nickname given to a homeless person frequently seen wandering around the Kawaramachi neighbourhood of Kyoto around the 1970s/1980s, and known for her unusual appearance. Her real name and date of birth are not known and she was found dead of hypothermia on the streets of Kyoto in February 1984. Also they are probably searching for the third holy sword, if I were to guess. Anyway, let's talk to the last elder: And finally, what we came here for, we get some pointers about where we might go next. All right, now, let's steel ourselves to meet the missionary guy (a.k.a. "the foreigner"). Here too we get a short cutscene, but I guess I should explain a bit before you watch it. To be brief, this person does not speak Japanese very well--so it's an unholy mixture of English and desperately mangled Japanese. It's all very funny, I guess more so if you know at least a little Japanese. Also, you'll have to accept my apology for not even attempting to localise this mess into anything and only giving you a plain English translation. When you watch the video you will completely understand why I gave up on that.  Yeah, that was pretty crazy. I think you can get now why I am not even making an attempt here. But here is one funny example from that word salad--we're going into another of those "linguistics notes", so feel free to skip this paragraph if you're not interested. Japanese doesn't generally distinguish gramatical singular/plural in speech, but it's possible in some cases to use a noun-suffix to indicate plural. It's not exactly a plural, but kind of looks like that sometimes. One of those suffixes is "-tachi" and Hoteimaru here has found a creative way to make a plural "you" by simply saying "you-tachi". Actually, you know what, just thinking about this, I was reminded of this funny screenshot from an actual fansub of Magiranger:  Other than being funny, this has nothing to do with anything, so, uh, let me focus for a moment and we'll continue on. Actually, before that, since I've been mentioning Lindał, I should tell you that these games share not only some of the staff, but also voice actors, so this guy is voiced by Dr. Emory's actor and the five brothers from the previous cutscene are voiced by Ken's actor. Also, one of the three ninja ladies we've seen before was voiced by Linda's actress! Finally, Hoteimaru is, perhaps unexpectedly, also a returning character from the first Tengai Makyou game. So, here he is from back then:  Anyway, let's keep moving. Our next stop is...  ...the residential district, over here. But this episode is very very long, so it had to be split into two parts! So please continue reading in the next part.
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Mar 5, 2023 00:58
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 Let's continue where we left off, in the residential district!  Let's see what these people have to say!  And then, this older gentleman here. Another sidequest? No, actually, this one is an important part of the main plot (even if it does not seem so at the moment). But... we'll find out more about this in due course (and not in a too distant future either). Also, I should mention that here the name Ayako is spelled in an unusual way as 綾姫 using the character meaning "princess" (姫) instead of the more usual 子 in the second position.  Our next victims are the two people here. This is definitely a sidequest. After almost nothing for a long while, there is suddenly quite a lot going on on that front for some reason here in Kyoto. Well, let's check out a few houses, why not?   And also his children...  And now, let's go into this nice house!  What's going on here? Let's talk first to the two people who are standing... And finally let's talk to the guy lying on the floor, presumably the lord and Ayako's father. So, it's the continuation of that Ayako storyline. We'll see where that goes, but for now let me say that Mt. Ooe is a mountain in Kyoto region and is known in folklore for the Shuten-doji demons who supposedly live on it. Here is an illustration of such a demon. -p000-frontispiece-oeyama.jpg) By Creator: Settai Komura 1887-1940; Settai Komura (illustr.) (1927) "Momotarō" in Iwaya, Sazanami, ed. (in Japanese) Nihon otogibanashishū, ARS, pp. 3–15, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89408083 (It's the thing whose head is poking from the top.) Also the Japanese text at the bottom says Mt. Ooe, but since this illustration is from 1927, i.e. pre-writing reform, the characters have to be read from right to left instead of left to right.  Over here is another nice house, and another guy to talk to. Hm, ok, let's go inside.  Well, this is an interesting situation here. First we have three people to talk to. Ah, this thing. As mentioned, we are kind of skint now for the prices of those items that you can give to her. She's over there behind the screen in that room with the three chests. We can try talking to her...  And we're prompted to choose an item from our inventory. As mentioned, we don't have anything suitable, so this sidequest will have to wait a bit. If we cancel out of the inventory choice, she simply tells us to "come back again". So let's move on for now to one last house for now.  Hahaha, this one is good! There is actually a bit more to do here in the residential district (another sidequest), but fow now...  ...let's visit the shrine district, the last of the four!  Well, let's start with the people we can see here on the screen. Incidentally, "Eiheiji" (永平寺) means "temple of eternal peace".  Let's talk also to this gentleman here. Hmm, ok. Maybe let's visit that temple behind him.  First, let's talk to the two monks. And then there is a kid and his mother.  Let's now go into this one.  I'm sure we'll find out soon. But in the meantime, here is a photograph of the Eiheiji temple in Fukui. It dates from the 13th century.  Looks quite nice. Incidentally, Eiheiji (永平寺) means "temple of eternal peace".  The buildings here look really nice!  New Year's Calligraphy, "kakizome" (書き初め) is certainly a long existing tradition in Japan and usually it's done on the 2nd of January.  Let's have a look at these too. First there is a person here in front (a bit hard to see, I'll give you that). Well, I don't know about that, but we'll see.    All right, two more people and two more buildings! Or, buy a single sword. By the way, that sign board there between the buildings is an announcement for the lottery: From a singe lottery ticket, a dream spreads! 10,000 ryo can be yours! (The number of tickets is limited, so if you want to win, please come and buy the tickets at our shrine as soon as possible! The winner will be announced on New Year's day!)   That's ok, we did manage to get two lottery tickets, so...  And the last few people standing over here... The old lady: And then the two guys: Oh my god.  I love this. All right, that about covers all the Kyoto districts for now. We should definitely go into the palace and see what's going on there, but how about we make first a short excursion into the countryside? I think it would be good to leave the town for a bit? We'll be heading to Mt. Hiei, a popular spot northeast of Kyoto.  So let's head east.  It's actually only a few steps away.    There's not much here, but let's first have a look at these two houses.  The first one is an inn. Hmm.  Hmm, this clearly has something to do with the Ayako story, then.  Well, let's have a look at the temple itself.  Interestingly, a very blatant hint by the game here. Oh well, I guess nothing to do here at present. In that case...  Let's check out the palace as the last unexplored part of Kyoto for now.   There is a specific thing we actually want to do here, in fact. Also, because of the Root Clan situation with the Taikun, there are definitely random encounters here, and some pretty tough ones too for some reason!  Actually, we'll head over to the left first.  And, oops. Nicely, one of these is able to lower our defence so that's pretty cool. With that, they can quite casually hit us for like 50 HP damage, as opposed to normal 35-40. Needless to say, our trusty spell sword remains still the only real way past this and even so it takes two hits for each enemy. Although this palace is not big, due to strong enemies and a high encounter rate, there is a necessity to heal pretty much after every battle, therefore overall progress will be relatively slow.   That chest there only has a fast travel consumable, so not worth worrying about too much.  I honestly don't even know with the design and enemy names in this game any more... Luckily this enemy is pretty weak and dies in two regular hits, usually before it can even land an attack in the first place.   Over here are two people who appear to be locked up behind bars for some reason. Well, all right. Let's go looking for her then.  Over here is a chest containing a golden sword. You know the one that costs a lot of money in town. We'll definitely be selling it as soon as we get out this place because it's way too weak for us at this point!  Let's go upstairs. There is only two floors anyway.  Oh, hey, there's a woman here. The princess, perhaps? Let's see what she has to say. All right, let's go and find the bedroom.  So we go back down again and past this chest from last time...  Only to reach the second staircase back up.  All right this looks to me like a "flower bed next to the bedroom".  As we head back...  This is a pretty nasty combination right here! Lots of "drums" here, but what's important is that all three of these hit like trucks, so, uh, hope you survive.    We missed this chest previously when we walked past here.  Huh, that's a weird item. But it has to do with the mercantile exchange, which we'll check out next time.  Anyway, the store room is here next to the bedroom, but you have to go down and back up a different staircase to reach it.  There are two chests here. In the first... Manjimaru found a certificate of ownership of ten bags of soya beans! You know what this is for. And in the other... Manjimaru found Mountain Area Entry Permit! ...is the thing we actually came here for.  And with that, let's stop for today! There was certainly a lot happening, with the game seemingly starting to "open up" a bit. The storytelling here is nothing if not leisurely, that's for sure. I was talking a lot about Lindał today, but in this part of the game you can even see also a proto-season change mechanic--although it only really impacts Kyoto and is not some kind of global thing, but still. To me, this is kind of the first part of Tengai Makyou II where it becomes sort of really obvious that the same person was heavily involved in designing both games, that's for sure. Anyway, take care and see you soon!
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Mar 5, 2023 00:59
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Ah, access to a Lump of Salt, exactly what every legendary hero needs.
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Mar 5, 2023 02:35
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Hmmmm. Proof of Ownership of a Lump of Salt, to be used in a mercantile sidequest. As in, not the lump of salt itself, but a piece of paper that claims you own said lump. A few years ago I would've said that sounds like a stock certificate, but now it evokes NFTs too, and feels even scummier because of it.
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Mar 5, 2023 17:43
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Raitzeno posted:Hmmmm. Proof of Ownership of a Lump of Salt, to be used in a mercantile sidequest. As in, not the lump of salt itself, but a piece of paper that claims you own said lump. A few years ago I would've said that sounds like a stock certificate, but now it evokes NFTs too, and feels even scummier because of it.
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Mar 6, 2023 10:40
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Our boy is starting to make his way into the business world, even if not intentionally and only because he found some random certificates lying on the palace. Also could we push this to the next page before more updates? This page has so many images that I had to refresh it twice to get the last update to fully load.
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Mar 6, 2023 13:19
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There's always the "set to view LPer's posts only, set to 1 post per page" method. I guess it doesn't work if you're using the Awful app, but you can always tell the app not to load images from posts you've already read. Anyways, totally not posting this to help bump the next update to the next page, no sirree.
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Mar 6, 2023 13:23
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Like our lump of salt stonk, page numbers must also go UP UP UP
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Mar 6, 2023 14:33
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I'd wager a new party member will join Manjimaru's group this chapter, or by the end of it. (Or else the game is even longer than what it seems to be)
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Mar 6, 2023 14:53
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Come to think of it, we haven't seen those ninja girls in a while, I figured they were going to join the party. Or at least one of them was.
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Mar 6, 2023 14:58
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