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I like a lot of the platforming in this game but yeah, some assist options for it would be great, and there are definitely platforming sequences that wear out their welcome. Particularly, as Purple pointed out in an early post, some of the ones where failed jumps don't end you up in lava so you can end up having to repeat a lot of easy jumps to get to the one you're struggling with.
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Nov 15, 2023 07:06
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Ultiville posted:I like a lot of the platforming in this game but yeah, some assist options for it would be great, and there are definitely platforming sequences that wear out their welcome. Particularly, as Purple pointed out in an early post, some of the ones where failed jumps don't end you up in lava so you can end up having to repeat a lot of easy jumps to get to the one you're struggling with. I think I can name a total of three jumping sections in the game that make me swear and curse. I'll be sure to point them out when we get there. So far everything's pretty easy. All of the really bad platforming sections are also, I will note, optional ones. They lead to some very good stuff, but nothing you need to complete the game.
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Nov 15, 2023 12:34
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I got super lost trying to find the Warlock crystal, so I was a bit over level by the time I got to Skumparadise. I figured out very quickly "here are a bunch of fights and some platforming stuff you can use to dodge them, but due to a combination of already being overlevel and having a natural inclination towards bloodlust, I chopped through all the encounters here anyway, because gently caress 'em. 
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Nov 15, 2023 13:03
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PurpleXVI posted:I think I can name a total of three jumping sections in the game that make me swear and curse. I'll be sure to point them out when we get there. So far everything's pretty easy. This is all true, but also, the point of playing a game like this is to do the side stuff for most folks, I’d imagine. So it’s still imo kind of weird that you can get assists for so many things and not for the platforming. I love the idea of disabling falls for example, because so many of the game’s jumps are about “get right to the edge before pressing but you have to be running” and for people who struggle with those not being able to be a hundredth of a second late and fall would be a big help. The game is great overall imo, I even wrote a long positive steam review which I think is the only one I’ve ever written, but it does kind of stand out that the platforming is less adjustable than the rest of the game.
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Nov 15, 2023 16:38
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I actually really like the platforming since interesting things are actually done with it. Also like purple said only a few spots actually really annoyed me. Exploration in this game is really fun!
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Nov 15, 2023 19:27
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Update 07: Capital Sequoia Welcome to the first real town location in the game.  https://soundcloud.com/schematist/mythril-steps      The music is upbeat and active, and there are a good number of NPC's that aren't just standing still but walking around on various cycles, giving an impression of a place with activity. Tau: An actual city! With shops! And people! Hamza: Ugh, there's not going to be anything to fight here. Tau: But there's going to be lore and dialogue.    A couple of kids are running circles around the central fountain, let's stop them and see if they have anything to say.   Tau: Okay, that was pretty predictable, I guess. Vanessa: No no, this is important lore.    The Capital has new merchants for every category we've seen so far. Better weapons, better armor, better accessories, better consumables and a few unique things.    Hamza: What does this guy sell? Charity: Oh my god, a penguin! Cute! Vanessa: There's no rules that says a penguin can't engage in capitalism.   Vanessa: ...what the hell did you just put in our inventory? Charity: Penguin. Vanessa: Well put it back! The inventory is an extradimensional space for valuable objects, not a petting zoo! Charity: Make me.    Some of the merchants here hint at the existence of classes we haven't seen yet... and some of their issues. But I'll complain about ninjas when we get access to ninjas.      Tau: Well, we're clearly not meant to go this way yet, we should go another way. Vanessa: I can already think of five ways to sequence break this. Tau: For once, please don't. I don't want to end up at a final boss at level 2 again. Vanessa: Not my fault they left that emote bug in the game, I was just using what they gave me.      There's about a dozen "lost penguins" scattered around the capital, which encourages experimenting with getting places, exploring, etc. a very diegetic way to get people to experiment without a tutorial popup.      Hamza: What's with these weird back alleys? Tau: Don't worry about it, probably somewhere we'll go for a quest later. Charity: I'll be happy to avoid back alleys and sewers for as long as possible.      We won't have much use for Exotic weapons for a while yet, until we acquire some relevant classes.    Spears have lower attack but defensive bonuses, scythes tend to be two-handers that ignore some amount of enemy defense and bows hit hard but have an accuracy penalty, which makes them somewhat riskier to use, a bit like battle axes with their Variance.      The Plug Lure is our first fishing lure, we could head back to the fishing camp in Delende, buy the fishing pole and have the Warlock there do some fishing for us. I don't recall there being anything interesting from it, though, but I might pop back later to double check. As mentioned, bizarrely, no one seems to have logged all the fishing rewards, so it's a bit unclear what's available there.        The Know-It-All Ducks are about the closest thing you come to an explicit tutorial, since they tell you about how a lot of mechanics work in detail. Not often stuff you need, but tidbits like how Always Dodge abilities trump Always Hit abilities or exactly what a given stat affects. It's a place you can completely ignore, but it's nice to have it there for the people who really want to understand how every mechanic works in detail or the people who want to play ultra giga hardcore mega punishment mode and need to be able to leverage every last percentage point of power.       Charity: God, now I feel old. Hamza: You're in your 20's. Charity: Oof ouch my brittle bones, bring me my cane.    The Sour Pop Candies are pretty great MP recovery items, being percentage-based means that especially in the late game they provide a lot of MP recovery.   Charity: The only ingredient in milk should be milk. There shouldn't be any plural! Hamza: What if it's a mix of milk and milk? That's two ingredients.    Tau: ...well it was nice while it lasted. Hamza: What? I just felt like standing on this sign.  Hamza: And this lamp.  Hamza. Aaaand this roof.     Charity: How'd the little fella get up here? Penguins are flightless.      Almost every rooftop has something hidden somewhere, and with the way the game handles the existence or non-existence of roofs, you usually can't tell until you poke your head in or are very close, so you're forced to actually do a bit of investigating, you can't always see them from afar.      Vanessa: Still want to hang around? Tau: ...not in this creepy house, no. Sam the Sadist has one or two niche uses in the game, but not many.     Above the Know It All Ducks, we also find our first Craftwork items. Most of the Craftwork items are pretty dire in terms of stats, but they're also all upgradeable if we find the right resources. First to Silver, then Gold and finally Diamond. They have absolutely no weird quirks(except for those inherent to their type of item, like Axes having Variance) but usually very good stats, and there's only one of each. All of the Craftwork basic items are located in Capital Sequoia, so it's another reason to explore around besides penguins and it ensures that for every class you will always have a weapon that's roughly appropriate for the current game tier... unless of course you have multiple classes that want to use the same thing, so I guess don't have that.          There are also a number of additional Class Masters in town, usually hanging out next to a chest with a Craftwork item in it. All of them are hidden in various isolated second story apartments.        A lot of the "hidden" areas also chain into each other. You get a bit of height, that connects to another place, which lets you get to a place, and a place, and a place. There are still some bits of the Capital we won't be able to reach for a while, but for now we can still reach most of it.  It might also seem like there's no way out, but the chest we just opened provides a leg up needed to cross this fence and we can get back to checking out the main parts of town.      The last location in the lower Capital is a standard inn for recuperating everyone, I bring Hamza back to life while I'm here.       Vanessa: What the hell is a Quintar? Tau: Based on the name... I guess it has five legs? Vanessa: Or five eyes. Hamza: Or we could need to hit it five times. Charity: No, it's going to be nice, and friendly, and cute, and we're going to ride one.   Hamza: Thanks for bringing me back to life. After like two hours. Assholes.       More rooftops to explore before we head up to the next level, though.      More Craftwork stuff, also this might look like a dead end, but...          Using the game's excellent air control when jumping allows us to get around a corner and up on to the walls.    Charity: Oooooh, look at those rolling grasslands. Tau: City first, nature later.       In the middle city, the first building we come to is the library.         There's a very vital item here which might free Tau from having to be a Scholar for another 20 LP.       There are few important steals, but this guy will help you out if you've either got some OCD completionism going on or if you just want to make sure you didn't miss anything. He's a lot more important in randomized games, where quest items or crafting materials like diamond ingots or gold dust might end up being rare steals or drops, or good equipment.    I also buy every single map I can afford since it's vital for not getting lost in certain areas, even after multiple playthroughs.       Next door is the shop that'll let us turn Craftwork items into Silver items. We have some Craftwork items, but so far no Silver. Each crafting material is split into Dust, Ingots and Ore, which also sometimes forces making some choices since it takes a bit of effort and time to find enough for ALL the upgrades. In my original playthrough I never actually found enough Gold to complete all the upgrades, but it's possible.      Tau: ...wow, I can't believe we're not cool enough.        Charity: Astley really seems very concerned about everything, must be stressful. Tau: They're so concerned they're making me concerned.    The bulletin board is another reason to revisit the capital from time to time, as it will in fact see updates. At this point we now also have multiple reasons to hunt down more crystals: To get into the Luxury Store, to get a Quintar Pass and to get out of the western gate. Even if we didn't just like exploring, there are pressures pushing us out and about.            I'm not entirely sure why the town has two inns, the only difference is that this one doesn't have anyone staying there and we can collect a penguin in the room up top.       Growth Change is related to levelling. When you level as a class, it affects your base stats based on that class. Mages get better at magering, warriors get better at warrioring, and some classes are hybrid. If we later decided to take out all of Hamza's muscles and put them in his brain, we could go here, and go: "Hey, we wish he'd levelled up his PHD instead of his sword arm" and pay for it. That's it. Rarely necessary except when ultra min/maxing, but nice that it's an option.       Up top we can swap genders, it costs money, but after one gender swap, a given character can swap again for free. Gender has an extremely minor stat difference, nothing to worry about, but we can do it if we want to piss off nerds on the internet or just prefer one gendered set of sprites over the other. Hamza: Wait, you mean they'll want to do PvP if I become a girl? Vanessa: Only if they know you weren't always one. Hamza: Sheesh, some folks need to get a life.   More penguins.         The practice dummies... we'll come back to. They'll be more interesting later.   I considered this for a moment and then never really bothered with min/maxing my growth, I 100%'ed the game without it, I can do it again. Now, for more jumping.  So we can get to this chest up there.         These pole jumps used to be tough for me, but I aced it this time.        Some day someone will be a Monk for a while, probably Tau.              Hamza: All that jumping, just for a penguin? Charity: No bird left behind!   We can also slide down through the chimneys, a couple of which actually lead to otherwise-inaccessible locations.    Another Craftwork item, then off-screen I go back to the rooftops again for an alternate path.        Boom, more penguin. Now for the upper Capital.      All the shops are downstairs, but there are still some important things up here, firstly...     We will now never need to waste a home point to return here thanks to the Gaea Shrine.  All the chests behind her contain is Gaea Shards, i.e. one-use Stones, so let's try out the Stone.     No chests up here, but it's worth noting it lets us get on the wall to the west. Now we can access every part of the city walls except for the two southernmost sections of the west wall. This is more important than it sounds.    And there's another Deity for when we get a Summoner, that's the Deity of Fire, the Deity of Wind and the Deity of Earth(in Lake Delende) found.  Charity: Oh my God! A hedge maze! I love hedge mazes! Hamza: If you think about it a maze is like fighting your own sense of direction. Vanessa: You're really hungry for some combat, huh, buddy? Hamza: Sob, I need to kill something.         Hamza: Please, we have to, PLEASE. Tau: Only because it's a quest. Hamza: YES! KILL!    The flames in here run away from us, often revealing hidden gaps in the hedges we can use to slip deeper into the maze.   https://soundcloud.com/schematist/jrpg-battle-theme-concept-azure-wings Improper Imps are not a danger in any sense of the word.     They only ever show up solo and we're not affected by Threat mechanics like enemies are, so they're mostly just a way for Tau to learn a new Monster Magic skill. Sucks for them that murdering them all is a quest objective, all the flames in the hedge maze are Improper Imps.  They ARE somewhat hard to hit for their level, though. Rude.          There's another craftwork item and an accessory, andthen... there's not really anywhere else to go from this entrance into the maze. This requires a new approach, clearly.         Vanessa: Hmmm, no secret entrance from the gardener's shed.    Hamza: Oh poo poo. Charity: Hey, what's this? Vanessa: Uhhhhh... hey Charity how do you feel about crystal caves? Charity: Oooooh, well crystal caves are one of my favourite fantasy biomes, but it has a lot to do with the execution and the colour, now pinkish- Tau: Nice save, guys. Hamza: Yeah, we didn't want a repeat of the Stardew Valley Incident. The Gardener will plant seeds we can find, sometimes as drops, sometimes as chest objects. Each seed will take ??? ingame time to grow into a plant which, when harvested, will give us a battle with an enemy we can't find anywhere else. Some of these enemies have special drops that likewise are hard to find elsewhere.   Anyway, the secret to progressing in the maze is this little hidden "doorway" behind the suspicious outcropping.          The Craftwork Crown is notable for being the first Craftwork item that's an upgrade on our current gear without being upgraded to Silver.  This place is also a rude little place, because right next to the place where we came in, is another way out... which splits into two paths.        One leading to the central fountain and a ring.        And one leading through an annoyingly twisty path to the last 20% or so of the maze.      Charity: A spooky castle... Tau: I don't think we can jump that gap, though, maybe there's another way in. Hamza: Or we need some longjump boots or something.       And with that, the maze is tapped out.         Hamza: Boomer... like explosions? I'm in. Now we just need to find out where it is.        The Gardener's Key is also immediately useful, we may as well get those seeds planted right away.     I always felt like the gardener was kind of ominous.       The penguin pen is the last location in the upper capital we've yet to check out.        These two onlookers will change their commentary depending on how many penguins are in the pen, but, I must confess: I was too lazy to collect the penguins one by one to get all of their changed dialogues. So there you go, there's your reason to buy the game yourself after reading this LP, to get all those lines commenting on the density of penguins within the penguin pen.                 Charity: Nooooo, my penguins... Tau: They'll be happier in their natural habitat: a temperate grasslands pen where people gawk at them.    I believe there are 12 or 13 penguins in total, so we're almost there.         Charity: Oh no, I knew this was coming. Tau: Maybe it won't be as bad as you expect, relax.   The Lost & Found sells all boss steals we miss and occasionally a few other items I'm not entirely sure how are defined, but anything that would otherwise be permanently missable will be in here. I feel like it's a nice feature. Many of the missed steals will be quite expensive, so stealing them is still preferable, but you cannot lock yourself out.        The sewers are come up under the city in three locations, and have two layers, the latter of which can be a bit confusing at first, since not all of the routes down connect to the same layer. The sewers have no music, only drippy cave ambience.        The waterways being four tiles wide also prevent us from just jumping across them, meaning we're somewhat locked in, in our options.       There are also these large spillage pipes in four different locations below the walls. They also serve as entrance points! The first time I got here, in my first playthrough, before I found the stairs down inside the city, I found the walls, dropped off the walls on to these, and curved my jump in through the pipes.     There are also a few NPC's down here. This guy's one to keep in mind.      These stairs lead to one of the lower city entrances.         On the way across the rooftops to the second, I collect our 11th penguin. I think that means just one more to go.        From here we can drop down to the last one.      Hamza: ... Vanessa: ... Tau: ... Charity: I think it's actually sweet to know that love can bloom anywhere. Vanessa: Oh I don't think that's love blooming out of his trousers.      Let's just leave them alone and get back into the sewers...     And face our first sewer enemy! Hobos are not particulaly threatening, but they do have an interesting skill selection!     By which I mean they have one really interesting skill. Lucky Dice can do anything from 0 damage to twice the listed damage, and they completely ignore armor. If you stack Luck boosters(which increase both the base damage and help Variance land higher) and some of the boosters that improve Variance, it can be one of the most damaging skills in the game, especially since nothing reduces it. I never used it much but I'm sure there's some sort of wild speedrun strat that abuses it right to hell.       Hamza: You know, this city's really big, I don't even know where to go next. Vanessa: Well I have some ideas- Tau: No! We're staying on the path like we're supposed to! Charity: ...honestly this sewer wasn't as gross as I expected, I wonder what's down here... Hamza: What I know is it's late and I have class tomorrow. Let's figure it out next time. END SESSION VOTE Once again we have multiple options! A: Listen to Vanessa and break out of the city to the West. Probably brutally overlevelled for us. B: Listen to Tau and follow the plot which seems to want us to head East into the Rolling Quintar Fields. C: Listen to Charity and see what sort of things we can find in the Jojo Sewers undearneath Capital Sequoia.
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Nov 15, 2023 20:34
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U gief soj!
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Nov 15, 2023 22:09
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C This penguin keeper needs to be fired. He's lost so many poor penguins 😞
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Nov 15, 2023 22:53
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B, Quintar Fields. The capital is supposedly where the demo ends, but I played the demo for like an hour and then bought the full game, so I have no idea what the exact cut-off is. The capital's a great area, and given how good Silver/Gold/Diamond are when they first become available, you're really rewarded for investigating. I like the pacing of it, in that you go through a big dungeon with a fairly tough boss and then you exit out into a big area you can explore for strong rewards... But if you don't want to, you don't have to yet. It'll eventually get easier to explore, and since you need both the Craftwork and the metals to actually upgrade the weapons, there's no immediate punishment for wanting to move on and check out another area instead of digging into the capital. It's good design! But if you want to put in the work, it's a good little training area for developing your skill at Crystal Project map traversal.
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Nov 15, 2023 23:32
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C, because I missed a bunch of stuff in the sewers until way later in my own playthrough and I'm curious how much of it is actually accessible this early. IMO Lucky Dice is most useful if you're subbing Scholar on a physical class for the utility skills, since it's a direct damage spell that doesn't scale off of mind. Not the sort of thing you'll be casting all the time, but if you really need that party member to do magical damage for some reason it's probably going to be your best option. Also, now that we can get the map for Skumparadise, something interesting to note is that it's the first area that exists on the "dungeon" layer of the world map. There's not much in this layer, and the difference between it and the "caves" layer is mostly pretty arbitrary, but one thing that I think all dungeons have in common is that they feel a lot more actively hostile to the player, at least in terms of vibes if not necessarily mechanics. There's some more cool environmental storytelling related to Skumparadise, but it'd be big spoilers to talk about now. Einander posted:The capital is supposedly where the demo ends, but I played the demo for like an hour and then bought the full game, so I have no idea what the exact cut-off is. You'd think that, wouldn't you? Beating the Trials seems like it'd make a great stopping point. But no, it's still going. It's genuinely kind of insane how generous the demo is.
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Nov 16, 2023 00:30
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I vote go West because seeing how you handle the stuff that's way above your weight class will be interesting, and if you can hack it, then you should be able to easily handle the places you're "supposed" to be at this stage. Also, apologies for the thunder-theft earlier when obliquely talking about the Lost & Found, but I thought "nothing is permanently missable, so you aren't required to have a thief all the time" was important enough to bring up early.
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Nov 16, 2023 02:30
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C, sewers, might as well wrap that up as much as possible while we're here!
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Nov 16, 2023 03:29
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Voting for C Also thanks for this LP! I've started this game a couple times and lost steam even though it seems extremely my poo poo, but this has encouraged me to start it up again and I've gotten further than I have before. I can feel it starting to click now 
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Nov 16, 2023 03:44
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C, let's muck about in the sewers a little longer.
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Nov 16, 2023 04:07
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One of the big things about the L&F is anything you sell to a shop can be bought back there (at an inflated price). So even if you accidentally sell something cool (or something that looked dumb but turns out to be a gimmick combo) you can pick it back up. C.
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Nov 16, 2023 06:04
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C, explore the sewer area!
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Nov 16, 2023 06:30
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C Into the sewers!
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Nov 17, 2023 01:04
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C. Sewer time!
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Nov 18, 2023 09:12
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If you drop down from that final shot, does it go anywhere cool? I think sewer level is inevitable, so I will not vote this time. 
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Nov 18, 2023 18:01
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Tylana posted:If you drop down from that final shot, does it go anywhere cool? Well, depednding on the drop, just into the moat and a respawn... or you could end up with a fun encounter that will, at this stage, also result in a respawn after getting our asses beat. We'll be back.
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Nov 18, 2023 20:49
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Let's C what's underneath the city.
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Nov 19, 2023 05:09
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Voting B because I dislike sewers. Both irl and in vídeo games.
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Nov 19, 2023 18:06
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C! Let's go to the sewers!
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Nov 20, 2023 02:28
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Update 08: The Sewer Level Tau: Let's get this over with. Hamza: Sewer levels aren't all bad, just... Tau: Most of them? Hamza: I mean, sure, but there's, uh. Um. Tau: No no go on, what's the legendary good sewer level? Hamza: Yeah I got nothin'. But maybe this'll be the first!       So the sewers have... nine entrances, six of which we have access to currently, and which are mostly paired so each entrance also connects to one other one.       The first one is a bust, which just leads back to one of the others and has no other benefits.  Charity: Okay, so the first one didn't work, but we're not done yet!        We've also got a few new enemies to run into down here. I loving hate these rats.    The reason I hate them isn't because they're powerful, but because of that goddamn Reckless Assault skill. One of them will always start with it, and it means you can't guide them anywhere with Threat, so all you can do is kill them fast before they get lucky and blow up a caster.      Charity: There! That's something interesting! The Quintar Nest we're... not heading into quite yet. There are a couple of ways in, and this is clearly the unintended but optional way.           There are even two connections into the Quintar Nest. It's actually an interesting thing because the Jojo Sewers -> Quintar Nest entrance is less demanding of pathfinding and platforming, so this is one place where the game kind of lets you choose for yourself. There's very little to miss by doing it this way, in terms of power and equipment, and you can go back and refind what little you miss later when it's a bit easier to do.    In terms of sewer exploration, though, this is another dead end... except for this door. Which is a different kind of dead end.     Because this guy is going to kill us. Hamza: Well, could be worse, at least it's a blob of blood. Vanessa: How could it be worse than fighting a giant angry blood clot? Hamza: At least it's not like a pile of garbage or poop. Vanessa: Ah, thanks, yes. Thank you for that mental image.      The Blood Slop is a tough fight because, once again, it's a boss with all untyped skills, meaning that we can't improve our own defense or worsen its attack power. Between that, and it often hitting us with Weep and Bleed status effects, it can be hard to keep up with its damage output.  It beats my rear end, though I do get close to winning, so this seems like a good reason to come back later. Now, for the third entrance. This time we're coming down from the town above.        As usual there are a lot of dead ends.         Vanessa: ...it isn't aggro yet. Be very quiet, maybe we can snatch the loot without getting attacked...    Vanessa: Okay, I didn't expect that to work.  Hamza: ...Is this a bug?   Hamza: I'm gonna poke it, ready up!      Narco Beasts are always avoidable because, well, they're asleep. You also get some turns to buff up and ready to bonk them if you wanna smack them without getting injured, letting your AP charge up, for instance. Of course, you can also just start swinging like a maniac, wake it up and bonk away and eat the hits, but it's kinda fun. Hamza: Aw, he just wanted to nap. I feel bad about this now. Oh well, at least we're getting XP.      Another Narco Beast, we can literally jump across it.    Tau: The what. Vanessa: Oh boy, I can't wait for them to yell at me over avocado toast.      The questions are all answered by stuff that the kids in town tell us. You can just brute force it because there aren't TOO many options, but it's a little reward for paying attention and chatting with everyone!     Vanessa: This is about the last club I wanted to be a member of. Ugh, let's get this over with.      This flame is another Narco Beast. You can actually sneak around it if you're super careful.         Tau: Wading around in sewer water, what a joy. Charity: Unless you've got some mods on that I don't, I don't think this setting has bathrooms, so it's not that gross. Tau: It's the principle of it.         The climb up to the Boomer Society has no enemies except that one Narco Beast, nor any really tough jumps. It's a quiet and peaceful little climb.                Hamza: I love a good bit of jumping. It's been a while since we did any nice climbing. There is, of course, something hidden here.        In the foreground is this very questionable piece of gear. I can see the usecase for more or less all other equipment in the game, but this one I've never figured out.         Vanessa: This is a ridiculously tall climb, I'm pretty sure we're higher than street level in the Upper Capital. Where the hell are we going?       Welcome to the Boomer Society. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmKm6j5maME  It's a small, completely safe zone where everyone's nice to us.   It also has the renaming NPC. Like with gender change, once it's been done once, the character is malleable for free afterwards.   There's also our first lore duck. Tau: Lore?! Where?! GIMME!   The reason I picked a group of gamer buddies as the framing device for the characters is related to this.     If you don't go to the Boomer Society, you don't really get it seriously hinted at for a while, but...    ...the world of Crystal Project is very obviously intended to be an MMO, with the GM as the reigning admin and "banishes" being bannings. Imagine if killing Lord British in UO made you the new owner of the game world. That would've been a trip. Tau: Tasty, crunchy lore... Vanessa: C'mon, Hannibal Lecter, stop trying to gnaw on the duck. There are more people to chat with here.    New book in the corner, I hand it off to Tau because they finally learned Lucky Dice and now have a handful of offensive spells, so keeping them on bonky stick duty felt like a waste.     A bit of free money that I think is occasionally accessible again? I'm not sure if it's level scaled or progress scaled or anything, because after this early bit where the Boomer Society home point is a nice base to have bookmarked, I don't think I ever came back here later.  Vanessa: Okay, now to find out where the hell we are.    We're on the lower slopes of the peaks to the northwest of Capital Sequioa. This means that we can easily hop past the western gate if we wanted to enter the foggy grasslands out there, or on to the walls if we wanted a slightly less acrobatic way up there, or just drop right into town if that was the plan.     Charity: Awww, some nice cute sheeps.      Charity: ...it's weird when they talk.   Another good reason to Home Point the Boomer Society is that they have a free rest point. Not that the ones in the Capital are super expensive, but it's nice.       There's also the "Boomer Treasury" guy who will lend you either their big two-hander or their special shield, but only one of them at a time, so you have to trade in the one you currently have to pick the other up. If you come here as early as you can, it's more or less a guaranteed upgrade in terms of pure stats, but more interestingly, the "Rend" status effect is NOT the same as the armor break status effect from the Warrior's skills, so you can stack them both to make a target extra vulnerable to physical damage.  Time for the fourth entrance, another one that's "outside" the capital.      Start by dropping on to the northwest wall and heading south, this is also possible to do after using the Gaea Stone to get on top of the shrine.      Another sewer outlet and... a creature.   Charity: This is a quintar. Vanessa: Observant of you. Charity: A gaudily coloured velociraptor- Tau: Wasn't that actually Deinonychus and Velociraptors just look like that in Jurassic Park because someone got their research wrong? Charity: A gaudily coloured dinosaur with a single cyclopic eye in the middle of its forehead, that says "kwei." Hamza: I can't argue with your analysis. Charity: Well, at least it doesn't have five legs. I'll take my victories where I can get them.       This leads to the last sewer section. There's also an entrance to this part in the southwest wall, but we can't access that one yet.       This room always makes me expect an ambush.     But it's just a couple of hidden passages leading to a piece of heavy armor.      There are also a few formations here that mix Hobos and Sewer Rats, Reckless Assault is bad enough on the rats, but on the Hobos its even more dangerous. I do not like this.  To the east there's a jump you can only make one-way, leading over to the blood slime boss, and behind this door...    Tau: Oh this is the good kind of spooky.    Vanessa: drat, how deep does this go? You think we're gonna come out on the other side of the gameworld?     Charity: Honestly all the deep places so far have been kind of busts. Just mushrooms and spiders and stuff. Where are my drat crystals and other cool cave poo poo?    Welcome to the Capital Jail. https://soundcloud.com/schematist/guilt Tau: Oh yes, yes, this place rules. Hamza: There better be something to fight here.   The main gimmick is that there are four "wings," we start out with access to the South one and need to access the other three, with the eventual conclusion being behind the northern one. Which means key hunting.     Tau: A deep underground prison... Hamza: Imagine being locked up down here, barely any place to move...       Vanessa: I think you two are being overly dramatic, I've lived in smaller apartments. Hamza: By choice? Vanessa: Sure. I don't need a lot of space.       Charity: Right, but your neighbours probably weren't the ravenous undead. Vanessa: I'm pretty sure a zombie wouldn't have been keeping me up till 4am with loud music, so I'm still rating this as an improvement.    Zombies are a bit odd. Their special trait is that they poison themselves at battle start, so they slowly melt, and aside from that they're just a chunk of HP that does decent damage, and they'll poison you if they hit you. Not exceptionally scary.   We also start getting some Silver down here. It'll be three of any given kind to get an upgrade, so we'll have to harvest a few to get anything, but it's worth keeping an eye out for.     There are also ghosts, not just zombies.     If Spit Fire hits a target already Burning from Sear, it can ABSOLUTELY gently caress them up. Individually you can probably blitz them down easy, but if they're part of bigger formations, they're trouble.    This break in the corridor can't be crossed since it's too deep to jump up the other end, but thankfully we can loop around.        You can also barely see that the door on the right has a "lock" in the middle of its texture. Doors with that on them need expendable Cell Keys to open which are... a slightly odd mechanic here. I'll explain why once we get our hands on one.          Get the East and West Wing keys, fight a slightly larger ghost formation... and remember the locked door.  Vanessa: Stupid chest, out of reach... Hamza: Maybe if I stomped you flat we could shove you under the rocks so you could reach it. Vanessa: Shush, I'm coming back for that chest.          The East Wing starts off with a couple of locked doors, so you're sure to remember them once you get your hands on a Cell Key.       The enemies down here are very slow moving blue flames that don't pursue you, giving you a chance to try to dodge them.      Of course I always manage to bungle into one anyway, and I gotta show off the enemies for y'all.     They're unremarkable, just being bigger versions of the jellies we fought way back at the Seaside Cliffs. The main thing of note about them is that they drop Ethers, which are still pretty expensive to actually buy, so grinding up a stock of them here isn't a completely unreasonable thing to do, though also not a very necessary thing to do.           Vanessa: Finally! Time to see what's in those locked cells!     So the reason cell keys are weird is that you have a limited amount... but never really have to choose. You don't need to choose a way onwards, you don't need to chose any rewards or access, every cell you open has a cell key in it, except I think for one, but you also start with two so... there's no real thought required. They could've just given you ONE Cell Key. It may have been an engine issue, because I believe keys are exhausted when used(with one exception), so I think that rather than programming a way around that, the dev just made sure you constantly got refills. But then again, I know the game also supports doors unlocking when you activate triggers, so there could've just've been a "get key, all cell doors unlock"-trigger... I digress.           The East and West wings don't have a lot to talk about.               Though they do both have their own flavour, one flooded, the other overgrown.                  Formations like this are where the Capital Jail starts getting a bit tricky. I don't take any losses to it, but coming here a bit lower level you could get dunked on.   And now we have the key for the Dark Wing, the northern part of the Jail.          Vanessa: Okay now these cells are worse than my old apartment. At least I had a bed.         Jail Breakers are probably one of the first overworld enemies that can potentially trounce you. Between having an attack that can probably one-shot any party member and having innate lifesteal, you need a certain rate of damage output to take them down before they take you down.  And yes, like the giants back in the Seaside Cliffs, their steal is still Milk.              Welcome to a jump it took me like ten minutes to do. The doorway is very low which means that any time you start your jump just a split-second too late, you bump your head off the lintel and plop into the lava.     All for a mediocre piece of light armor. Bah.        With the corridor collapsed into magma, we have to take a detour, but it's more scenery than challenge.      Hamza: My boss fight sense is tingling.       Welcome to the Warden, he will ruin your day if you don't bring a rogue.       Five different multi-attacks, MP-damage, three different damage-over-time conditions. My first run against him does not go very well.      I get him into the deep reds, but I just can't heal fast enough to keep up with his damage output, he strips the MP I need for healing and I can't use Hamza to tank.  So for take two, I get Vanessa to save the day.    It's just a matter of having her avoid anything that draws aggro and making sure he's constantly Eye Gouged so he can't do any of his bullshit successfully.   The panic button when AP recharge doesn't hit fast enough is Sleep Bomb. You can only Sleep a given enemy once per battle, but it's a wonderful panic button from either your Rogue or your Shaman if you need a quick breather.     Even so, it's about as close as it can possibly get.   Reward is a nice scythe, which is handy because...     We also unlock the Reaper class! Reapers are scythe wielders whose main gimmick is damage they do temporarily raises their max HP, and they have a bunch of lifedrains besides. Now... before we forget...  Tau: I need to know what spooky stuff is behind this door.      Decent bonker for this stage, maybe a monk weapon.     Hamza: Sweet, new duds! Tau: I guess that's alright but, hey... in the corner...    Vanessa: Okay I think we may actually end up on the other side of the world if we go deeper.            Charity: I officially have no idea where we are, but I'm intrigued. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HyFUFuTJ_A   Hamza: No way through here. Blocked.     Hamza: ...this is a long tunnel.    Vanessa: This had better lead to a treasure vault or something.    Charity: Better yet! It leads to COOL. VIEWS. OMG.    Charity: WE'RE UNDER THE SEA. SO RAD.     Charity: ...I wish to no longer be under the sea. Why is the floor meat.    The tunnel has a single, slow-moving, deep red flame.    It has a long patrol pattern, so I can hide here, wait for it to go away, and loot everything.       Hamza: drat, the jump's too high and it looks like the other side is all meaty, too... wanna go die gloriously? Vanessa: Beats walking back.     https://soundcloud.com/aaron-anderson-11/91-peaches-8-bit This is the theme that accompanies the party getting blasted so hard and fast they don't even get a turn before they hit the ground. It's trimmed a bit for Crystal Project, starting at about the 12-second point. We're clearly not meant to be here yet. This just about taps out the sewers... except for a rematch.    After respawning, I went back to the capital and turned the Craftwork Rapier into the Silver Rapier for Vanessa. Fencer has better damage output in this case, which I may as well pick since I can't blind my way out of damage from the Blood Slop. In addition to that extra damage, clearing out the Capital Jail resulted in some extra levels, and with the Boomer Sword for Hamza, plus the Gospel for Tau, there's more damage output and more healing potential.    Since the Blood Slop's damage is untyped, I can also swap on Berserker Stance for Hamza without actually suffering the disadvantage.  Of course it's annoyingly dodge-y, and Hamza has a bunch of whiffs on 85+% attacks, which make me seethe.  This may also be the playthrough where Lucky Dice wins me over. Get rolled on, nerds.  Vanessa and Charity's primary jobs are keeping the Blood Slop constantly burning and poisoned, which adds up to about 200-ish damage per turn it takes. Over a fight that easily ends up as several thousand additional damage.  I've also gotten to the point where both Charity and Tau can revive their teammates, and since Charity is still wielding the Torch, she can cause Burn even when she's out of MP, so I can afford to let her run dry.   The main danger is when the Blood Slop decides to bust out Hemoplague near the end. Oddly enough it only casts it once, I swear I could remember it spamming it more, I'm unsure whether there's a hidden "only cast at low HP"-script or whether it's a random roll I got lucky on.   I always forget the Aegis has inherent Cover until Hamza suddenly decides to save the day by tanking some spell or ability with his face.  I manage to scrape up a win just as the MP pools start running dry. First time I played the Blood Slop stopped me for a bit longer than that.   It's an optional boss that drops a suuuuuuuuuuuper useful accessory. On any tank this lets them do a lot more work without needing to be backed up by a healer.   Charity: Why is this place meaty, too? Like the tunnel? Tau: Maybe it's a secret side plot! Vanessa: Maybe someone just thought meat was spooky. Horror for vegans. Charity: Let's just get out of here.      Vanessa: Well, that wasn't half bad, we got some sweet loot and got a new class. Hamza: Two boss fights! Two! Tau: And we found out what a quintar is. Charity: Still not happy about that one. END SESSION VOTE A: Going to the Rolling Quintar Fields. B: Entering the Quintar Nest without going through the Rolling Quintar Fields. C: Getting ourselves mangled a bit to the West and other unintended adventures.
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Nov 22, 2023 18:04
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I am curious about these Fields. And these bipedal lizards. A is my vote.
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Nov 22, 2023 19:59
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Enough indoors, let’s go to Rolling Quinta’s Fields!
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Nov 22, 2023 21:11
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C. Always take the road less travelled. also a missed opportunity to put a duck in the Dark Wing.
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Nov 22, 2023 21:31
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It's funny how Crystal Project usually puts at least a little bit of effort into not ripping off any one specific game too blatantly... and then the Boomer Society is just super obviously a Majora's Mask reference. Uhhh B I guess.
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Nov 22, 2023 23:02
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Cattail Prophet posted:It's funny how Crystal Project usually puts at least a little bit of effort into not ripping off any one specific game too blatantly... and then the Boomer Society is just super obviously a Majora's Mask reference. Having not played Majora's Mask, I never even knew. Black Robe posted:also a missed opportunity to put a duck in the Dark Wing. I wish I could five-star your post for this.
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Nov 22, 2023 23:07
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Black Robe posted:C. Always take the road less travelled. This.
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Nov 23, 2023 00:28
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I will vote for go to the Rolling Quintar Fields. For reasons. As for the Smelly Gi, I think the point of that is that it's pretty good armor for this point in the game, it just has the really big downside of "you start the fight with Poison." But there's stuff that negates Poison, so put that on, and there you go.
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Nov 23, 2023 01:25
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A. Let's keep the ball rolling by going to the Rolling Quintar Fields!
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Nov 23, 2023 01:50
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Go ride some of them in the fields. A
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Nov 23, 2023 02:26
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Everyone get out in the floor, it's time to Bawk the dinosaur
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Nov 23, 2023 03:18
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Huh, I forgot you could visit the Pipeline this early. Anyway let's go with A.
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Nov 23, 2023 05:50
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Jade Rider posted:Huh, I forgot you could visit the Pipeline this early. The very first time I played, all of the different entrances to the sewers confused me and made me convinced there wasn’t much down there or that it was for the later game, so on that run I ended up going to the prison for the first time via the Pipeline much, much later in the game. I think that kind of varied experience is cool, though I would have liked to have Reaper earlier, heh.
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Nov 23, 2023 07:13
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Black Robe posted:also a missed opportunity to put a duck in the Dark Wing. Sounds a bit dangerous
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Nov 24, 2023 05:26
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Update 09: Rolling Quintar Fields This update was delayed by a head cold that absolutely kicked my rear end up and down the street. Bleh.  Vanessa: New skin, Hamza? Hamza: Please... call me Bloody Darkedge 666.     Tau: You know, it'd be nice to get somewhere those other guys haven't already been for once. Vanessa: If that's a subtle hint to stop loving around and exploring every other side path, I don't think it's gonna happen.    Charity: Quintar fans exist? I hate this.       Vanessa: Come on, Charity, let people enjoy things. Charity: But they're enjoying the wrong things! They're enjoying things that are gross!     Charity: That lone eye is boring into my soul.  Tau: Well, no Quintar until we've found more crystals... so I guess we're finding more crystals.     Scavengers are completely un-noteworthy enemies. They have a physical attack and that's it.      Charity: Well, at least there's a nice view out here. You can hop on a section of the walls from here, but since they're walls we can get on to easily enough otherwise, it's just an alternate path.    Charity: Wow, look at these cute little guys! Hamza: One of my aunts has dolls that look like these, always used to scare me as a kid.    Reginalds have no special attributes and pure Reginald formations are unremarkable.    Vanessa: What the hell are these things? Is this anime? Tau? Tau: Not everything with a giant head is anime.     Charmions are another "are you paying attention?"-check. You can easily get your rear end kicked if your physical attackers just wade in blindly. Magic and Rogue skills that don't provoke counters are your friends here. Between Skewer and Poison Kiss, this formation can also make characters lose 30% of their max health every action they take.      Hamza: Get back here and let me fight you! There's a looping dirt road around this area, and a couple of flames will constantly run along it, they'll only aggro if you get EXTREMELY close.   Hamza: I'll stop you with my face if I have to!        Aero is our first Wind type spell and... I hate the Wind spells. I dislike that they have a chance to miss, though if you're already going for a Luck/Variance build to leverage Lucky Dice, the Variance and crit chance(which I don't think any other spells have) gives them a chance to punch above their weight.  Charity: ...do we have to? Vanessa: Look, it just... popped out, at least I didn't steal it this time. Charity: ... Vanessa: If I left it lying around, that would be littering! I'm doing the right thing!         Hamza: If only we could cross gaps of exactly 4 blocks. Vanessa: If only... Charity: Shame, really. Tau: Yes, it'd be a shame if a bunch of lazybones got their move on and unlocked our Quintar pass.        Also of interest are these little hollows.   Charity: Wait... are those... two eyes? And that's a Quintar egg? What????? Vanessa: Maybe they're like plaice. Charity: The fish? Vanessa: Yeah, their eyes migrate as they age. Maybe adult Quintar just have their second eye somewhere else. Charity: There's no answer to the where that would make me happy.    Unremarkable except for another Scholar skill. Roost is a nice enough self-heal, since it removes conditions AND provides healing over time.      There's a well-hidden item down here guarded by an adult Quintar.       Also a couple of familiar faces hanging around.          Delivered comically, but serpentining is actually pretty effective at avoiding fights since most flames rush at you with a good bit of inertia. More effective is if you can get them to fling themselves off ledges, but it's not always an option.     There's a nicely hidden chest up here, which gives me a chance to show off a mechanic I never use, which is that you can...  ...lean the camera a little. It occasionally makes a thing a bit more visible, but generally I never make any kind of use of it.   Hamza: Hey, how'd he get up there? Tau: Probably with a Quintar, like the one we could have by now.   Tau: ...this is an ambush, isn't it? Hamza: It had better be, it's enough that there's one party running around ahead of us and acting like they're smarter than we are.   https://soundcloud.com/aaron-anderson-11/a-5-character-theme   Time for our first PvP battle! There are a few of these in the game and they don't work entirely like other battles.  https://soundcloud.com/aaron-anderson-11/295-b-insidia-action-loop-ogg         With one very notable exception I'll talk about when we get there, PvP enemies always use player skills, so they theoretically have access to every skill we have, though there are certain classes we won't meet. We also can't see what they're about to do, which makes countering them more tricky.   Vanessa: Hey, these guys are chumps!   Hamza: Hah! Who're the noobs now, huh? HUH?!    I leave Kuroi Darkness alone rather than geeking the caster first just so she can do her little speech.     Vanessa: ...alright, I feel slightly bad now. The Lunch Money is a useless item that exists purely to keep score of how many times you beat up this pack of dorks. Also if you can get up to them without triggering the ambush, which I don't THINK is possible without either a randomized run or going west out of the capital and acquiring some new mobility options earlier than intended through an exploit, they do in fact have some dialogue if you come up to them from behind and talk to them outside of their "aggro" zone.    Anyway, another Quintar nest pit.    The entrance here is super hidden.       And the reward is a weapon for the Hunter class which we don't have yet, the same as Doist from the party that just ambushed us.     Tau: Lots of Quintars around here, at least these aren't trying to claw our eyes out.       Charity: Anyone willingly living in the middle of a bunch of Quintars has to be a grade-A weirdo. Tau: You never know, maybe the Quintars are attracted to them, and not vice versa. Charity: If that was my fate, the front yard would be full of Quintar heads on pikes.  Charity: I told you, grade-A weirdo.       I haven't actually been able to find this theme anywhere, but just imagine it as slightly chill and quirky.                   Tau: Okay, you were right. Vanessa: This is like someone calling themselves a fan of horses and collecting severed horse heads. What the hell.       Charity: We're not actually going to bring him more rare eyeballs, are we? Tau: Well... it seems to be the intended route of progression... Vanessa: And it's the only way we're getting them out of the inventory, just think of that.         Green Legs are unscary as long as you convince them to just attack your tank with a Taunt and have him put on the Defender stance first. But if you don't manage aggro properly and don't output enough damage, their managing to paralyze multiple people and get in hits on casters can be bad news.         The jumps here are all pretty trivial, though you can fat-finger yourself down to the ground below, but looping back to the Quintar Enthusiast's House isn't a big time loss and you probably cleared out most of the enemies on the way when you were arriving.            Hamza: Dead end except for the giant obvious pit. Charity: This better lead to a cool cave.   https://soundcloud.com/aaron-anderson-11/304-insecurity Charity: It IS a cool cave! I love cave lakes!      Charity: They're always so mysterious, you never know what's down there... could be treasure, or krakens, or treasure krakens...      If allowed to metamorphose, these guys turn into somewhat tougher insectoid enemies that have a paralyzing attack. They're scarier when they show up already transformed, since then you might face up to THREE enemies that can paralyze. Once again, good aggro management is key.      There's another pond down here, isolated from the rest of the lake, with a couple of flames racing around it. Those flames are Brutish Quintar.     They lose the self-heal of Sun Bath and the strong single-target Pecking Flurry attack in exchange for Whirlwind, which is a target-all Aero. It has the same weaknesses as Aero, but hits harder if it lands.  It is NOT to be hosed with, but now we have it, too!   Charity: I... I think I'm hardened to it by now. I think I just don't care. At least it can't get any grosser than eyeballs and partially digested skulls.       Hamza: Hey, check it out, there's a tunnel down here. Tau: But the crystal is in the other direction! Hamza: Yeah but... mysterious tunnel. Vanessa: I wanna check out the mysterious tunnel, too. Charity: Me three!        Hamza: Odd place, just a ledge... with the sea down below.     Hamza: ...and we're not getting back up, so we may as well look around.    Hamza: Oooh, there's something to fight here! Vanessa: ...isn't that the "very dangerous"-colour?   Yes, the Crag Demon is not an enemy we're meant to fight at this stage. And we're also a bit early in actually getting to this area, but even when we're meant to go here, we're not meant to fight the Crag Demon. It attacked so quickly that I didn't even have a chance to look at its skills. Vanessa: Well. Guess we might as well hand him that eyeball while we're here.                 And with that, we now have a Quintar Pass! This lets us acquire Quintar from the shack next to the east gate out of Sequoia, but if we dismiss a Quintar we're riding from the shack, we have to go all the way back to get a new one, and while Quintar can jump farther than we can, they can't jump as high, so our exploration radius with a Quintar would still be rather limited.  First, though, this crystal.          If you actually head straight for the crystal, reaching it is pretty effortless.             Hunters are... a bit odd. They have a decent number of skills and can output solid damage, but they can't really deliver any conditions or do tricks(like interrupting enemies), and they suffer from very few other classes having any Bow skills, meaning they're rather limited in crossover potential. Additionally, all their skills, and bows, suffer from reduced Accuracy, so they're a bit RNG heavy unless you add on +Accuracy items to compensate. Before we go enjoy our Quintar Pass, I also pop back to the Capital since there are a few small changes.       Hamza: So can we... Tau: No!    Also these dorks are hanging around now.      Tau: I'm sure they've learned their lesson and won't cause us any trouble again in the future.       Hamza: Well this is kind of neat. Charity: It is not. Let's just hurry up and get to a less horrifying mount.        The quintar is probably my least favourite mobility option in the game, because it always takes me a while to adjust to the way it moves and I keep stumbling off of edges rather than nailing the jumps. The lowered jump height also gives you less room for error.          You might also think we could now loop back and get access to a bunch of new stuff with the Quintar, but surprisingly there's relatively little of that. When you arrive in an area, the local mobility options are enough for just about everything there, though later options can certainly make stuff easier.         Personally I think I prefer that to enforced backtracking.               I like that these dorks have their own party mechanics.       The Quintar Sanctum has the same music as the Quintar Nest. Charity: Now this is what I'm talking about!!! Giant mushrooms! Cool cave poo poo!       The enemies here are a bit nastier than in the Nest, though.        Mosses are like the Skumparadise shrooms, but with self-heals and resurrects. This will also provide our first Scholar resurrection option.          Wispettes loving suck, if no one's immune to Sleep, they'll take their chance to Dream Eater your dudes, or otherwise Firen them for massive damage. Another useful Scholar skill, at least.  Hamza: Hmmm, not much else this way.        Hamza: Or this way... am I missing something? Vanessa: I think we can use that giant mushroom as a platform. Try it?    Tau: Whoah! Charity: Whee! Vanessa: Argh! The mushrooms are bounce pads, and our way of making progress upwards. They'll also bounce flames, which can be modestly funny at times.   Crystal Project doesn't have many palette swap enemies, but it has a few. This one is just a Green Legs from above but with bigger numbers.         Here a flame rushes at me as I jump up past the ledge...    ...flies out into the darkness, hits the mushroom and gets bounced into the drink somewhere.          More platforming ensues. None of it is difficult, the main challenge of the Quintar Sanctum is making sure you've actually got the loot, since it's all over the place.   Vanessa: Did a quintar write this? Tau: Kind of weird if someone else did, it'd be like making a sign that reads "woof" outside of a dog kennel. Vanessa: But if quintar are literate, that makes keeping them in pens and riding them weird.            And thus we get my least favourite class in the game, the Chemist. I can kind of see their gimmick in regards to very specific setups, but overall just about any other class can do anything they do better. Their thing is using items in-combat to have various effects, including ones the items do not inherently have, like invisibility or Float.   Before I continue, I'll also just grab two easily missable items in here.           These two mushrooms will pass you a pair of pretty decent defensive caster items.    This path is the way out, if you follow it, an NPC at the end will ask you if you fought the boss in here. I figure it was a response to a lot of players managing to miss it.         Hamza: Sneaky! Trying to hide a boss battle from me!    Because you can't walk up here, only bounce, and the boss flame doesn't chase you, actually getting the fight can be a bit finicky.       The Fancy Quintar is a simple boy, a big damage race.   His Whirlwind hurts, but nothing you shouldn't be able to out-heal.    What's more dangerous is when he pops Quick and then does two Attacks in a row which can really hurt if your aggro management is bad and he ends up hitting a caster with it.   It gets a bit pinchy, he drops Vanessa, but I manage to eke out a win.   And with it, another new kind of Quintar Eyeball! We should bring that to the local creepy weirdo who lives in a backwoods shack.            Tau: Back in the Overpass again... There's another Overpass Scrap up here.     Charity: And some nice views of the Quintar Fields!             I don't believe you need the Quintar Flute, and can in fact get everywhere you need to go without it, but it will absolutely make your life easier.     When used, there's a little smoke puff and then we get our Quintar... which has a new colour scheme, too! Charity: I'll admit, it looks a bit less horrifying this way.     Another advantage to the Quintar is that it can outrun most flames unless they manage to corner you, so it's also great if you really can't be hosed with enemies in a given area.  It also has a use back in the capital if you've struggled a bit with the platforming.      Getting on to the walls is trivial with a Gaea Stone, which you can just buy, and the four-square jump is enough to cross over the gaps in the walls, letting you get just about everywhere.         Vanessa: There's just something wrong with her. If you miss any of these encounters where Astley's gang gives you stuff by advancing the plot too fast, they'll leave the item behind on the ground for you to pick up later.     Also the moat has another secret boss that's currently way out of my power range.        Imagine eating 2600 damage from a Hydro Spike after Enami leads with a Curse of the Moat. Kneurotoxin is also brutal, unless you use a self-heal or lifesteal action of some sort, it WILL kill the target. Anyone know if the name "Enami" means something in this context? It's one of the few that aren't in some way descriptive.  Lastly, after getting flattened by Enami, I also remembered where the last penguin was.                Vanessa: Ooooh, stylish. Charity: Try it on! Vanessa: Alright, give me a moment and... there! How do I look?     Hamza: lmao Charity: Absolutely not what I was expecting, Kinda cute, though! Vanessa: Y'all can take a flying leap.    This also makes Billy and Milly have their final bits of dialogue on the penguin situation.   Tau: Well, this is obviously the only path left to us, and clearly the way we should go. Vanessa: Obviously, there's no other direction we could go in. Hamza: I'm glad our next choice of destination is so obvious! Charity: Yes, no interesting and unique-looking area we could choose to explore otherwise. Tau: Thank God we know exactly where we're going next time. END SESSION VOTE A: Go in the obvious direction, Greenshire Reprise. B: Greenshire Reprise is the only way we could possibly go. C: You're not missing anything, the only option is Greenshire Reprise. D: Really, this vote is just a formality on the way to Greenshire Reprise. E: Find a way past the Crag Demon of Cobblestone Crag.
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Dec 4, 2023 14:21
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gosh I wonder how this vote will go?  also I think you should rock the penguin suit as often as possible
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Dec 4, 2023 14:47
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Voting A
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Dec 4, 2023 17:24
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