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Hwurmp posted:it always comes back to combat data somehow I think my favorite version of this is that I am currently playing Wolfstride*, a game about mechs, where since you can't just have a bunch of random encounters for your giant mech if you want to practice piloting/test a build, someone just goes "they make video games about this, what if we just run all your grinding on an SNES game to do test runs?" and so the in-universe explanation for how you test efficiency or do random battles is that you go over to a dinky little CRT and beat the poo poo out of randomly generated mechs and/or "data" based on prior bosses you input post-battle. * for a podcast
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Jul 25, 2023 04:00
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Anna's voice acting is credited to Mizuki Mizutani who was working with Falcom as a singer/violinist. Not sure if this means they really needed someone on short notice or she really wanted to be in one of the games. Also the credits are written in English and Mayor Bickson is called 'Mayor Vixen'.
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Jul 28, 2023 21:24
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Hi! Thanks again to everyone for your patience, I had a particularly rough patch recently and it's been hugely stressful to deal with. It's just about resolved now, so we're hitting chapter 2 running, back to more regularly weekly updates and there will be no further problems.   Z19. The Wolf Among Us (Ch.2 Start) We finally begin Rixia Mao and Ilya Platiere's touching storyline.
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Aug 13, 2023 06:04
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Dude, it's ok. Promise. Real life happens. Like, a lot. Especially in 2023 That said, this is my favorite chapter in the duology
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Aug 13, 2023 06:13
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- Ilya is not this game's "yandere." You'll know. - Probably the best quartz you can get at the start of Chapter 2 from Coppe is Ingenuity, but that requires a new rod and fishing up a Salmon. It's at least better to feed the cat now than accidentally forget about it. - Someone from the Cathedral goes to the downtown district to teach the kids. - Those pink-haired twins were not in the original release. You won't see anyone else with the same pink color hair... in this game. - Good catch by the way on the kind of truck which was in an accident on West Street. It probably was not a coincidence. - Re: Big Ol' Spoilers - Every game in the next few contains big ol' spoilers for the previous games. I don't know if Kuro does, since it's supposed to be a soft reset to new story arcs, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had a few big ol' spoilers in it. - Goodness yes, definitely get new weapons. Each chapter's new weapons are a substantial increase over the previous chapter's stuff, and spoiler alert, there are no new weapons you can just find in random chests outside of the final dungeon. - Exchanging that same amount of Sepith at the IBC would have given you an extra 429 mira, which would have been most of the mira cost for upgrading a weapon this chapter. - Tio for the upgrade is a little of an odd choice as this is about the time when her basic attack damage just falls off. It is true that right now she has little EP for casting. - Ether Buster is a magic S-Craft, you want ADF down. - Zeit the summon has two moves, the DEF Down debuff which does 0 damage and the Fang which is a guaranteed hit and damage to all enemies. - Noel is a debuffs expert in a pair of games where most late-game enemies are going to be immune to all debuffs. She does not use only one gun.
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Aug 14, 2023 02:16
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- Re: Big Ol' Spoilers - Every game in the next few contains big ol' spoilers for the previous games. I don't know if Kuro does, since it's supposed to be a soft reset to new story arcs, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had a few big ol' spoilers in it. Knowing some things about Kuro, there are absolutely spoilers.
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Aug 14, 2023 03:20
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When Ilya isn't being an HR nightmare, she's a pretty solid character. And, if nothing else, I appreciate how her being a lesbian is treated as just a fact. No one questions it or finds it unusual, which as A Gay is nice to see. Sky wasn't BAD about per se, but Olivier's finding Joshua attractive is treated as slightly odd. At least by Estelle. But then again Estelle was very anti-anyone finding Joshua attractive
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Aug 14, 2023 05:27
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:When Ilya isn't being an HR nightmare, she's a pretty solid character. And, if nothing else, I appreciate how her being a lesbian is treated as just a fact. No one questions it or finds it unusual, which as A Gay is nice to see. Sky wasn't BAD about per se, but Olivier's finding Joshua attractive is treated as slightly odd. At least by Estelle. But then again Estelle was very anti-anyone finding Joshua attractive In Olivier's case, it was less the fact he found Josh attractive and more the fact he immediately offered a hug and make-out session. Josh asked a tricky question and Olivier's extremely agressive come-on was his way of (successfully) changing the subject. Schera calls him on it later on.
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Aug 17, 2023 16:35
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 Z20. You Know, That One Art In retrospect, giving Randy invisibility may be setting a precedent we can't take back.
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Aug 20, 2023 05:31
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I am Fartacus
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Aug 20, 2023 20:09
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- I don't really know what the deal is with "EXP 1" listed for some powerful enemies, but rest assured that if you beat them, you do get a healthy pile of XP. - The groups of 8 Fartacus are an early way to try and get the "kill 8 enemies at once achievement." It does require a little finagling, and then Randy's S-Craft after they're all moderately weakened equally. - If you use an S-Break to steal a CP Up turn, you get the CP before the S-Craft goes off, so if you're just shy it could be a way to get to 200. - The quartz in Zero aren't really easy to trade for, it's complicated in an annoying way. Trading for quartz becomes THE way to upgrade quartz in the last three Cold Steel games, though. - Arios actually has no problem with the SSS talking with Shizuku, he's so busy with work that he doesn't get to spend as much time with her as he wants. - Be sure to catch a Salmon to feed Coppe at the start of next Chapter, it's one of the better quartz rewards.
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Aug 21, 2023 21:56
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- I don't really know what the deal is with "EXP 1" listed for some powerful enemies, but rest assured that if you beat them, you do get a healthy pile of XP. e: I tried to verify this but I can't actually find anything, so I think I'm actually wrong here. In fact, every source I find says that these chest monsters always give 1 EXP regardless of when you do them. Admiral H. Curtiss fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Aug 22, 2023 |
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Aug 22, 2023 01:01
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Admiral H. Curtiss posted:e: I tried to verify this but I can't actually find anything, so I think I'm actually wrong here. In fact, every source I find says that these chest monsters always give 1 EXP regardless of when you do them. You tempted me to go loving around with this and so I took our latest saves out for an experiment. It taught me a lot of things!  First off: in-battle HP values are not the same in memory as out-of-battle HP values. When I finished the fight, everyone came back to life at 100%. In the middle of the fight, only a very quick memory search after Randy survived the first hit allowed this to even work. Look at how smug he is.   But it looks like those sources are correct. Even running around 5 levels beneath the enemies, two bigass murder-apes were only worth 1 XP each. The reward was the chest item. While I was poking under the hood, I decided to look at the fish fillets from last chapter we got out of RNG. Turns out there were 16 possible items we could have spawned and those were on the low side. We truly hosed up some amazing luck there.
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Aug 22, 2023 03:41
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Re: Those screenshots: That chest will likely be quite difficult without the weapons available to buy in Chapter 3. The damage increase from the weapons will matter more than the level. (Conversely, being 5 levels below the listed level won't be a big problem if you have the expected weapon tier equipped.
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Aug 22, 2023 05:28
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 Z21. SSS-Rank Gardening Later at the casino, Randy bragged to anyone who would listen about his takedown of the giant Nepenthes trio, but no matter how many times he insisted they exploded, nobody was that impressed.
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Aug 29, 2023 05:01
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- I don't know about video poker tactics, but I have figured out and shared tactics for poker in Zero/Azure. - In terms of costs, the analogy wouldn't really be "cable modems in the 1990's." It's actually closer to the 1960's or 1970's. Technology has evolved super-fast, which means it hasn't had time to spread very far. Costs haven't been driven down enough yet. - It looks like the hotel put windows looking out over the entertainment district on the other side. As to why there are no rooms, I'm not sure, but it could possibly have to do with the weight of the arch which goes over the street. EDIT: Yeah, any rooms on the other side of the arch would be supported only by the arch itself, which would probably be a lot of unwanted extra strain. The hotel is at least 30 years old, so it has missed out on any advancements in building technology since then. - Two entrances to the hotel, two check-in desks. - So you still think that the war hounds thing in last chapter was about a shakedown, even though the SSS explicitly spelled out what the mafia likely wanted the hounds for and the cutscene of the mafia at chapter start confirmed it? It seems pretty doubtful that the war hounds were used for the purposes of a shakedown because they didn't do the shakedown part for two of the three places hit. - The enemies at the Moon Temple are very high level for this chapter, which is why they're so tough. - Given what I know, Mark and the Witch of the Deep Forest does not seem to be based on a true story, so it cannot be asumed that its details are as accurate as, say, Carnelia. I also cannot confirm or deny anything about the veracity of Back-Alley Dr. Glenn, since it's set in a location the series has not visited yet. - I understand that doing a full screen clear of enemies doesn't make for a compelling video, so I'm not suggesting you do it, but if you want to catch fish, you'll need to kill some enemies on the roads at least offscreen to get bait. You're not going to get a lot of bait just fighting each unique enemy a single time only. Azure is at least kinder with making bait easier to acquire. - Retaliatory earthquakes from monsters have the "Always Hits" property, Blind and Evasion would have done nothing. - So, Randy said that he was fired for womanizing, but, strangely enough, no one at Bellguard seems to mention that. Hmmm. Curious.
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Aug 29, 2023 16:37
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Being able to dodge earthquakes in Cold Steel is always hilarious to me
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Aug 29, 2023 16:55
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I forget if it's come up before, but I just noticed the backwards CPD on Franz's hat Rabbi Raccoon posted:Being able to dodge earthquakes in Cold Steel is always hilarious to me "Just stay off the ground. Heh" - Arios, probably
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Aug 29, 2023 21:08
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Hwurmp posted:"Just stay off the ground. Heh" - Arios, probably  Ohhhh, there's your problem, someone put the character sprite together wrong. Here, I'll have that fixed for you in a jiffy. 
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Aug 29, 2023 21:27
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Re: Those high level chests. You've seen ~85% of the main locations in the duology. You will absolutely see most of those chests when you're at more appropriate levels
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Aug 30, 2023 01:28
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If it matters, the cat chest was telling you: "You are welcome, squishy pink thing. Goodbye."
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Aug 30, 2023 03:18
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 Z22. The Silver Case Their chores complete for the time being, the team meets the most famous person in Crossbell: the Prince of Arc en Ciel himself, Eugene. In this video and the next couple, I was a bit confused because the voice actors were clearly saying "Gin" while the name on the threat letter is "Yin," but I've realized what was going on: they're reading 銀, which means "silver" in both Japanese and Traditional Chinese. So they read it in Japanese and get corrected later by Grimwood to the Chinese pronunciation. Meanwhile, Gin and Yin are obviously not homonyms in the Latin alphabet so they just cut that part from the translation. Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Sep 10, 2023 |
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Sep 10, 2023 06:28
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Re: Memorable children: Actually, you pretty much have seen all the children and locations for Zero, although there is at least one more pair of memorable children. But you've seen most of the locations in both games already. - Re: The blocked off door in the St. Ursula inn. That seems to just lead to a couple of rooms for lodging at the inn, nothing exciting. Falcom never has anyone ever stay there, so they just don't let the player in. But those rooms "exist" if you want to use the "Rest" function at the hospital. - Please tell me that "90" refers to kilometers per hour. In mph that's probably edging into the range of "stunt driving" charges. - Amisa's grandpa is indeed the guy (Old Man Quint, I think) fishing at the harbour. - Wendy and Oscar never had portraits in the original games. Randy's not-girlfriend Mireille did get one in Azure, though. - Tio's first decoration takes a little longer to show up. - I think Rixia is in exercise shorts of some kind. - In the fandom, Rixia is notorious for how her bust size seems to increase in each successive game she appears in. Elie isn't that far behind either. I think Alisa also gets an asset upgrade, although for her it is not to excess, unlike the first two. - To be fair to Elie, Lloyd is the only one she can see, the other two are behind her. That also means that Rixia is more likely to be looking at Lloyd and would notice if his eyes are looking elsewhere. - You don't need to feel too bad for Randy. There's at least hope for him. Lloyd, due to Player Choice, is doomed to the purgatory of Relationship Ambiguity. - You can now usually enter Arc-en-Ciel whenever you want for the rest of the Crossbell games, although sometimes they're too busy and you'll get kicked out. The game usually only lets you explore the second floor of the theatre if there's actually something there to see. It helps the player to not waste time. - A couple years back, there was a person who was doing a deliberate failure run LP on the Steam forums - all answers wrong in the main quest, no bonus points. Sidequests could only be done if it was possible to fail them or screw them up. I think it was screenshot-based through Imgur. I didn't really read it, though. I know it covered the first two Sky games and Cold Steel games. It pre-dated the Crossbell releases, though. - After watching this video my tongue is sore from biting it so much. Which is not to say you got all your wild theories and guesses correct, you did get some things wrong. Level 1 Thief posted:In this video and the next couple, I was a bit confused because the voice actors were clearly saying "Gin" while the name on the threat letter is "Yin," but I've realized what was going on: they're reading 銀, which means "silver" in both Japanese and Traditional Chinese. So they read it in Japanese and get corrected later by Grimwood to the Chinese pronunciation. Meanwhile, Gin and Yin are obviously not homonyms in the Latin alphabet so they just cut that part from the translation. Yeah, I think the early Geofront or pre-Geofront releases carried that translation over. I know that the abandoned screenshot LP of Zero used a translation which switched from Gin to Yin. I think I found that confusing and do not mind cutting that out.
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Sep 10, 2023 18:04
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- Please tell me that "90" refers to kilometers per hour. In mph that's probably edging into the range of "stunt driving" charges. a) I would never use kilometers. b) That's the best part of shotgunning out anything that comes to mind is I'm guaranteed some hits with the spread!
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Sep 10, 2023 20:03
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I just realized the Cold Steel games never have a single sign of Revache or any other mafia-type operation in Erebonia
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Sep 11, 2023 17:14
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- In the fandom, Rixia is notorious for how her bust size seems to increase in each successive game she appears in. Elie isn't that far behind either. I think Alisa also gets an asset upgrade, although for her it is not to excess, unlike the first two. Since Rixia doesn't have a baby face, it's easy to forget that the owner of Zemuria's largest chest already had that title while she was still a minor. (I believe that at this point in time, she's the same age as Elliot) And forget the "seems". I believe later games actually comment on how she's still growing in that aspect.
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Sep 12, 2023 08:41
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 Z23. Large Man in a Suit The meeting with Rossi was going well until Randy offered him a banana, then all hell broke loose.
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Sep 20, 2023 08:09
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- Don't think I didn't catch that Gabriel Knight II reference. - The moment you headed towards Stargazer Tower, I knew you were gonna spend 10 minutes commenting on the bananas. - You do meet Vaan's alcoholic dad eventually, though not in this game. And when you meet him, I imagine your first reaction is gonna be "of course, THAT'S the name they gave him". - There's two people with the surname Crois. One male, one female. You'll meet both before long. - Remiferia is a principality, so the "Grand Prince" Arios is talking to is actually the head of state.
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Sep 20, 2023 19:21
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Erpy posted:- You do meet Vaan's alcoholic dad eventually, though not in this game. And when you meet him, I imagine your first reaction is gonna be "of course, THAT'S the name they gave him". Basch?
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Sep 20, 2023 19:39
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- I don't think anyone anywhere has said that one or both of the mafias in town have bought all the tickets. That seems to be another conclusion you've jumped to based on a scattering of three or so regular citizens who didn't get them. I believe the implication was merely that "Hey, this troupe is really, REALLY popular with the locals." - That IBC logo has a look like "The boss designed it himself, who was going to tell him no?" - Oh, I don't think I talked to Cecile after meeting Ilya, good find. - Those Banana Blades have Deathblow, so watch out. - That level 25 monster chest is a gear check, you need Chapter 3 equipment to stand a chance (probably armor as well as weapons). - Elie's Wild Swan is also good for Sepith Up turns. - Ouroboros is not actually up to Enforcer XIX yet. They officially will be in Reverie. Do not look it up. - "It's just going to be like Resident Evil in there."  - Here, I'll answer about Elie's "It's nothing" from the conversation after leaving Revache. It's not a big deal or notable spoiler or big surprise reveal: Elie didn't like being reminded that the mafia has connections in the diet. - There's no bonus BP tied to questioning people about the threat letter or Yin, I think that was just a reminder that dialogue has updated. - Yes, partial dialogue updates are pretty obnoxious, especially when the dialogue does NOT update but a hidden quest suddenly appears somewhere. - I don't think the Geofront has entrances beyond the edges of the city. The skirmishes over smuggling routes is actually referring to all the highway "accidents" which have been mentioned occasionally. Fishing - You can only get baits from enemy drops, so if you want to fish, there's no getting around the need to look at monster guides and target those enemies for some grinding off-screen. Azure offers bait packs as a prize in the Casino, pretty cheaply (in terms of tokens, not the 5x Mira cost), but that still requires a bit of grinding, it's just at poker instead. - With the rods you have available, you could catch up to 14 different types of fish. Here's what you're missing: (Earthworm OR Roe) -- Tiger Rockfish: Armorica Village, Mainz Stream -- Rockeater: Armorica Village, Mainz Stream (Red Flies) -- Azelfish: Harbour District, Ursula Road Beach (Roe) -- Rainbow Trout: Mainz Stream, Mainz Waterfall -- Salmon: Harbour District, East Crossbell Highway River, Mainz Waterfall, Ursula Road Beach - Your reward for turning in 12 types of fish will be something which will increase the chances of item drops, which includes bait. - The Back Alley's dialogue did update too. Before the update Imelda HAD been talking about the IBC and orbal banking, but her conversation is different after the update. - I think that Arc en Ciel still shows old productions while they're working on their new ones.
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Sep 20, 2023 19:55
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claw game handjob posted:Basch? Bacchus
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Sep 20, 2023 20:21
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A beautyfull bunch, of ripe BANANA (daylight come and me wan go home) Hide the deadly, dai-KATANA (daylight come and me wan go home)
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Sep 20, 2023 23:48
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"Where have they had more than 12 NPCs on screen at once?" I see you've forgotten the Grand Arena in FC.
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Sep 21, 2023 03:33
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Erpy posted:- Don't think I didn't catch that Gabriel Knight II reference.  Erpy posted:- There's two people with the surname Crois. One male, one female. You'll meet both before long. We have since established this in recordings, though we haven't met them yet. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- I don't think anyone anywhere has said that one or both of the mafias in town have bought all the tickets. That seems to be another conclusion you've jumped to based on a scattering of three or so regular citizens who didn't get them. I believe the implication was merely that "Hey, this troupe is really, REALLY popular with the locals." Wild speculation is fun, and tripling down on it is even more fun. I think at this point we've encountered two whole people who managed to net tickets, and they were both handed them by someone else. It's comically poor odds. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Fishing I did finally have to grind for some bait the other day -- at least with turbo mode on weak enemies it doesn't take very long at all. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- Yes, partial dialogue updates are pretty obnoxious, especially when the dialogue does NOT update but a hidden quest suddenly appears somewhere. So in this case, all of Crossbell City updated after the scene where Ilya shows you the note, and as near as I can tell, only Cecile, Estelle and Joshua updated outside of it. The IBC in this video was after that shift and we got a bit confused with the back alley, but w/e. I do have a list, without spoilers, of when it all changes but also I constantly forget to check it. Cyouni posted:"Where have they had more than 12 NPCs on screen at once?" I see you've forgotten the Grand Arena in FC. Good catch! I did forget about Kurt having a completely missable breakdown about mind control there, that was a wild scene.
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Sep 21, 2023 03:56
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- Ouroboros is not actually up to Enforcer XIX yet. Do not look it up. Erpy posted:[Vaan's father's name is] Bacchus Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- Those Banana Blades have Deathblow, so watch out.
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Sep 21, 2023 04:06
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claw game handjob posted:This definitely means someone at some point is going to turn on us, the players, and I am going to get stupid with my internal guesses as to the most sinister figures imaginable as a result. We never did get Punished Patrick. There's still time.
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Sep 21, 2023 04:10
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Level 1 Thief posted:Good catch! I did forget about Kurt having a completely missable breakdown about mind control there, that was a wild scene. I don't think that scene was missable. Joshua even refers to it in his conversation with the villain at the end.
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Sep 21, 2023 05:55
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Level 1 Thief posted:Wild speculation is fun, and tripling down on it is even more fun. I think at this point we've encountered two whole people who managed to net tickets, and they were both handed them by someone else. It's comically poor odds. I guess I couldn't really tell if that was kidding or not. I don't comment on much of the wild speculation, I just thought to nudge back on that one. Level 1 Thief posted:I did finally have to grind for some bait the other day -- at least with turbo mode on weak enemies it doesn't take very long at all. Be sure to save a Salmon for Coppe, the quartz you get back is probably one of the most useful ones. Falcom has some mercy (didn't want to do so much extra work) and usually the areas outside the city do not update.
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Sep 21, 2023 13:52
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 24. The Legendary Xiongshou As the case progresses, we meet the enigmatic Cao Lee, who's not very good at pretending he doesn't know about Calvard's favorite assassin. Not that he really needs to try. ---------------------- Alright, so this LP hasn't really been coming together as I'd wanted. We're still enjoying the game, and I'm happy with how the videos have turned out, but working on it has really been starting to drag over time and there's still so much left. I'd been expecting it to run shorter than the CS games, but now we're pushing 60 hours recorded with three full chapters still to go in Zero and unfortunately I'm gonna have to call it. We're very close to the end of chapter 2 in recording, so the current plan is to finish the chapter to end the LP and switch over to a podcast format instead (details still TBD, but if you listened to our horror movie podcast a couple years back, it'll probably be along those lines). There's still a bunch of fun stuff to go in this chapter, so stick around! Where we currently are: The latest recorded video is part 29, involving the trip to the Geofront water switch dungeon to meet Jona in person. When we emerged to find the whole city refreshed again, not even 3 in-game hours after finishing the last round, it kinda hit both of us like a truck. I don't really want to switch to critical-path-and-quests-only since that's no way to play these games, and moving the dialogue parts to bonus videos isn't really any less work, so ... that's where it's all at for now.
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Oct 23, 2023 03:09
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Level 1 Thief posted:Where we currently are: The latest recorded video is part 29, involving the trip to the Geofront water switch dungeon to meet Jona in person. When we emerged to find the whole city refreshed again, not even 3 in-game hours after finishing the last round, it kinda hit both of us like a truck. I don't blame you in the slightest; going all around Crossbell hit me hard even in Reverie where you only do it like, twice
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Oct 23, 2023 03:24
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