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This is a cute game, but I'm very glad you're playing it instead of me. I would definitely not enjoy the training minigames.
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Jan 30, 2024 23:43
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Nice to see that when mind control fails, Pieberry is effective at the tried and true methods of violence and threats to keep her forced laborers in line.
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Jan 31, 2024 00:04
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Update at the bottom of the last page, for those who observe.Quackles posted:Wow, Pieberry is gleefully murderous. She’s not exactly great with social norms. Did you notice the dig at her weight largely went over her head?
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Jan 31, 2024 00:11
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Falconier111 posted:She’s not exactly great with social norms. Did you notice the dig at her weight largely went over her head? Given how cute she is, I can only assume she was raised by OwOlves.
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Jan 31, 2024 00:35
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Falconier111 posted:Also, I want to take a moment to talk about the voice acting. I’ve spent some time scouring the Internet and I can’t find a cast list, so I don’t have names for the seiyuu or information on what other roles they’ve taken. They're credited on the website (witchspringr.com (obviously, future characters listed within)), though Black Joe's Japanese voice actor doesn't even rate an English wikipedia page. Decent chance you haven't heard him (at least not as anyone you'd remember) in anything else given the limited number of bolded roles on his page on Japanese wikipedia. Pieberry is a better bet.
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Jan 31, 2024 21:41
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Update 6: I Can't Really Use It, But I Know Some Stuff Before we get to know our new  Running boosts your HP and gives a little bump your Agility. It’s an obstacle course; press the button at the right time to jump over the stone ridges. It’s actually harder than it looks; Pieberry jumps high but not long, so you have less of a window to press the button then you think.  It’s nowhere near as bad as hitting wood, which boosts your HP, Strength, and Agility in exchange for your tears. You press the button to give the combat dummy a solid kick and press a different one to dodge when the other end swings around. Problem is, it loses momentum over time and really slows down right as it’s about to hit your head, so fitting it in your frustratingly small dodge animation is a huge pain in the rear end. I managed to get it perfect this time. I never have before, and since I will never play this minigame again, I never will.  We also take the time to register a few things for auto-craft. Once you’ve made a healing item, the game very kindly lets you automate that item’s production whenever you get home, including limits on how many you make at a time and how many you want in your bag. Such a thoughtful gesture, I wish more games did this.   PIEBERRY: Onward, to Backhill Golem Cave! But enough stalling, we have plot ahead of us.  No, wait, I forgot, we need to stall a bit more. The seed spirit can be found in the pond behind our house. It’s the next pet we can pick up, and it’s well worth the time: its attacks restore your MP lightly, massively increasing your survivability; we’ll be making it a mainstay of our party well into the mid-game.  It’s also a loving piece of poo poo. The little bastard has awful similar stats to us, plus all of its attacks restore small amounts of its health. You know how I keep saying how swingy damages in this game? It can and frequently will heal itself out of the 30% range you need to mind control it. You can have your boar help you out, but remember, pets attack automatically, so there’s a very good chance it’ll just kill it by accident – and that’s if your failed mind control spells don’t kill it anyway. It took me four tries in my first playthrough to finally capture the seed spirit, and then only on my third casting in that flight.   This time, my first mind control spell in my first fight with it succeeded. I was genuinely speechless. I was expecting this thing that turn into my nemesis, I had a whole thing with the  emote lined up, but no. I don’t even have the items I need to boost its affinity yet. I’ll be breaking it out once I get it ready for primetime, but Jesus, I’m still breathing fast  .Anyway.  PIEBERRY: All right, this is Backhill Golem Cave. I can feel some good magic up on the hill. I've always wanted to go up there and investigate! There must be some top-quality magic ingredients!  BLACK JOE: Hmph. Forget magic ingredients. It'll just be full of great big monsters. PIEBERRY: Getting lazy already, huh? I'm going up there no matter what you say! BLACK JOE: We should focus on exploring down here instead. You know. Somewhere safe! PIEBERRY: Shut up and do as I say! The enemies here are, if anything, less intimidating that those frogs. They definitely don’t hit quite so hard. The really dangerous encounters have more advanced enemies sprinkled through them, but you can clearly see them from the map, so we avoid them for now.   In the upper left first area, we find a chest with a useful new item. At various points, you can pick up maybe half a dozen items that grant you temporary stat boosts in combat: the Shieldstone here, for instance, boosts your Defense. You won’t need them in your average encounter, but they make a small but noticeable difference in serious boss fights.  Just because some of the beasties here go down easy doesn’t mean you can’t wander into places you shouldn’t be yet. A hole in a central rock formation leads us to the Fox Den, full of monsters that drain all MP in one hit and chew you up like a dog bone. At least dying stupidly just rewinds you back a bit before the fight. But on the other side of the rock formation…   BLACK JOE: Kiyahoo! … We can catch a lift. PIEBERRY: Wow, that was fun! You're not so useless after all, Black Joe! BLACK JOE: Ugh... But can you hold on a little more gently next time? I don't want you to pull my foot off! PIEBERRY: Hehe, sorry. I must have got a little over-excited.  Right in front of us a couple boar golems block our path. Not the scariest thing in the world, but it does illustrate something important about any place: where enemies sit on the field strongly determines which spells can hit them and in what order. For instance, these two are spread far enough apart my AoE attack only hits one of them. As you boost your spells, you get all kinds of different zone options, but you can never count on just clearing the battlefield with one cast.  PIEBERRY: Urgh... Where's this hot wind coming from?   PIEBERRY: Is it coming from over there...? BLACK JOE: That's the entrance to Fire Cave. There are a lot of dangerous monsters. PIEBERRY: Aha! And where there are monsters, there are magic ingredients! You did well getting us up the hill. We'll have to explore there sometime too!  PIEBERRY: Fire Cave can wait for later. For now, we're going straight up.  These blocks made for another quick puzzle; they spin when you step on them, dumping you off the path and forcing back to the beginning. Fortunately, you can just right over them too fast for the spinning to catch you.   PIEBERRY: I found it! Enchanted grass!  BLACK JOE: Master!! Behind you!!  PIEBERRY: Ack! BLACK JOE: Wow, that's a big golem. Old too. PIEBERRY: I wonder if it can be mind-controlled? It looks like it could be useful. BLACK JOE: It's impossible. Golems have no emotions.  PIEBERRY: Eek. The little ones are coming too! And so we kick off the boss fight. But the fight with a new feature.  From now on, we can call upon Black Joe on our turn for assistance; he can toss one of those stat-boosting or other utility items, or he can use a feeling item on us in exchange for a turn of downtime. Activating him doesn’t consume our action, just his, so he ends up a vital part of battle strategy as you go forward: with him handling healing and support and your pets handling pure damage, you can focus on special abilities and staying alive. Speaking of which –  Look, look, the big guy’s pawing at the ground. That means he’s prepping up a charge attack – and as you can see from the initiative order, we can’t see when it’s going to land.  Time to break out our defense option! He won’t get through us now! (You also might notice you can clearly see I have another turn coming up later, presumably well before the attack goes off. Don’t mention how I wasted that turn and had to defend again, it’ll embarrass me  ) When the charge attack finally hits, it does 44 damage. Now, I don’t know the algorithm they use to calculate damage here, but I’m pretty sure doubling my defense doesn’t simply halve the amount of damage I take. If I guess right, without defense up that attack would have done around 100 damage – two thirds of my health bar, conceivably enough for the smaller boars to finish me off if I don’t get the chance to heal before their turn. While it smiled as such things go, this boss is probably the first ability check we face in the game.  Though once it goes down, we get a rare drop useful in more complicated crafting. You’ll find more of these on various bosses as we go forward, mostly optional fights on the edge of zones.  PIEBERRY: This grass seems to like this spot. The sunshine is really warm here. BLACK JOE: It looks like some very healthy Growth Grass. If you absorb the magic in this grass, it will make you even stronger. PIEBERRY: Nice! Shall we give it a try?  Growth Grass offers a one time stat boost to whatever the game decides your lowest current stats are. Because we’ve been focusing on physical training, our magical stats get most of the love here, but WitchSpring R isn’t the kind of game that benefits from extreme over specialization and growth grass always helps cover your gaps. PIEBERRY: Hehe! My body already feels a little lighter!  PIEBERRY: Oh? What's that magic stone? It looks pretty amazing. Black Joe! Go get it! BLACK JOE: Touching that will be doom for a little bird like me. PIEBERRY: Eh?  BLACK JOE: That thing is called Barrier Stone. It's covering the hole in the ceiling with a barrier. It's meant to protect something, so anything that touches it will suffer a fatal injury. PIEBERRY: Who do you think put it up there? BLACK JOE: Beats me… PIEBERRY: Maybe there's a terrifying monster up there? Well I guess this stone will be no use to us. Let's go home! BLACK JOE: Are you going to walk? PIEBERRY: Are you offering to carry me? Seems like you're becoming more considerate. BLACK JOE: Don't you know about teleportation magic? PIEBERRY: We can't reach home with a tiny teleportation altar like that. It might manage a pet, but that's about it. ...Ah, you're not asking me to teleport you home for your own convenience, are you? BLACK JOE: ...Do you ever actually read all of those magic books you have at home? There was a big teleportation magic circle drawn on the floor of your house. PIEBERRY: Huh? Do you mean that blue magic circle? Was that not just decorative? BLACK JOE: Come on... Don't tell me you've been walking back and forth this whole time... PIEBERRY: So what? No one taught me how to do that! BLACK JOE: Then I'll teach you. PIEBERRY: You know how to use magic? I guess I can smell a little bit of it from your body... BLACK JOE: I can't really use it, but I know some stuff. So, try to think of the pattern on your floor. PIEBERRY: I can't really remember it... BLACK JOE: Then try to think of a magic circle that can be used to teleport things. PIEBERRY: Oh, I use that all the time!  PIEBERRY: Okay, ready! BLACK JOE: Now inside that circle, add the magic circle you draw when you craft tools, and... PIEBERRY: Uh-huh… BLACK JOE: Finally, remember the sigil in the very center of the floor pattern. The center mark is unique to that location. It's the same as the sigil on your robe. PIEBERRY: Aha! Now I remember! 
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Jan 31, 2024 22:56
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And so Pieberry was tricked into a telefrag. Rest in pieces 
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Feb 1, 2024 00:22
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Black Joe, between his ability to fly and knowledge of teleportation, is the master of fast travel.
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Feb 1, 2024 01:07
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I wonder if we'll ever meet a Pink Joe.
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Feb 1, 2024 01:13
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LLSix posted:I wonder if we'll ever meet a Pink Joe. 
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Feb 1, 2024 06:13
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Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that witch in your hands?
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Feb 1, 2024 18:25
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Feb 2, 2024 03:58
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Update 7: Just in Time to Test Out My New Magic!   PIEBERRY: Wow! It sent us home in an instant! BLACK JOE: Hooray! You did it in one! From now on, as long as we’re not in a fight or a cutscene, we can always teleport straight home through a button in the menu. PIEBERRY: Wow, Black Joe... I'm seeing a whole new you! How do you know magic? BLACK JOE: Well, when you live long enough, you pick up a few things. I may be small, but my knowledge and experience are gigantic! You wouldn't know since you're, what... barely ten years old? I may not look it, but I'm 352 years old. PIEBERRY: One little compliment and you let it go straight to your head... BLACK JOE: Now that you've seen what I'm capable of, feel free to ask me anything. PIEBERRY: Nothing comes to mind. BLACK JOE: Really? PIEBERRY: Really. BLACK JOE: You only use beginner's magic. Is that okay? PIEBERRY: Would you like to get some of that beginner's magic to the face? (Every time she delivers a threat to Black Joe, by the way, she does it with a cheerful tone and a bright smile  .)BLACK JOE: C-Calm down... Just look at this! I found it in your library!  BLACK JOE: How about learning some more special fire magic? PIEBERRY: Wait, I had 4-Orb Flame Circle this whole time? Woohoo! BLACK JOE: I can already tell how lazy you are by the number of unread books in this house. You can find the ingredients in Fire Cave. PIEBERRY: Backhill Golem Cave? You mean the place we saw from the hill, where the hot wind was blowing from? All right! Time to make a new magic circle! No, it’s time to blow off another training charge. The moment I show them all off, I’ll switch training to the background and the only mention when something interesting comes up.  Our last physical training, hitting rocks, is a hold-and-release deal that’s otherwise nearly identical to push-ups. It trains HP and Strength, but there’s not much else to recommend it. But you know what there is to recommend?  After a given amount of training charges in a category, you level the category itself up for a couple small bonuses. The bonuses help, but they’re not why you boost ranks.  … I loving forgot about this  . Okay, so, when you select your melee attack, you don’t just swing, you open a menu with access to various melee skills. You can always just hit someone, but you have other options, like delivering combos or trying to stun an enemy. They don’t take MP but they usually have several turn cooldowns, though killing someone with a melee attack drops all melee cooldowns by one. We’ve been able to do this since the first fight, I’ve been using these attacks this whole LP, I just forgot to explain it  . This matters because we just unlocked Triple Strike, which does about 3.5x damage as a normal melee attack, making it the most powerful single-target option we have in our arsenal. I used Triple Strike all the way through the endgame my first time around; pair it with the post-spell bonus and a crit and you can do bonkers damage.  But we have something else on our mind. On our way back to the cave, we go visit where the seed spirit was hanging out and find another Growth Grass; that boost to our magic is very appreciated.   The fire cave is full of the same enemies as the rest of the cave, only on fire. They have less health, but they seem to hit a little harder, and they resist your fire magic a little bit. Not much, though; I think they still take about 75% damage from fire magic, which means a good AoE cast still weakens them enough for a boar hit or melee skill to take them down. We clear out the cave easy, coming back with more than enough materials.  After we get back home, we open the crafting system to find a whole new spellbook, and with it a whole new branch of the crafting system.  You know how they keep mentioning slabs and magic circles? In this game, you cast spells off magic circles carved into slabs of rock. You can actually see Pieberry use them when you use your autocrit on a magic spell, I’ll show you the next time it comes up. Each slab is rated by how many orbs it has and does something a little different on top of the boosted damage and MP costs; the game firmly gates them behind crafting materials only available at the appropriate point in the plot, but once you have the materials you can just toss the spell together and use it.   You also get a quick menu you can install your most useful spells into for nice bonuses. You get three: major (increased damage and MP cost), basic (slightly increased damage), and minor (decreased mana cost). You can switch spells between them out of combat at will and later on craft boosters that go in those two side slots you see in this window (each slot has those). You can still use any magic you have if you, it’s just generally not worth it unless you’re trying to enslave a pet. PIEBERRY: Wow! A new magic circle has been carved into the slab! BLACK JOE: You need to be very capable to wield 4-Orb Flame Circle. It's quite advanced magic. PIEBERRY: Why? Can't I just throw a fire orb and be done with it? BLACK JOE: The thing with 4-Orb Flame Circle is that it requires you to control multiple fire orbs at once. The trick is to time the fire orb so that you can either hitting one enemy over and over, or multiple evenly. [sic]  Warriors: Ahh! A giant golem! Everyone get out the way! PIEBERRY: Just in time to test out my new magic!   The new gaggle of warriors. They’re all significantly stronger than the simple golems we’ve been facing, but this fight was never meant to be a challenge.    4-Orb Flame Circle is possibly the most flexible spell we ever get and a clear sign we’re creeping up on the mid-game (WitchSpring R isn’t terribly long, though don’t expect the LP to be anywhere near over in 14 updates). Each orb is independently targeted and does a very consistent amount of damage, making it consistent and controllable in an otherwise swingy game. For instance, right now, a Triple Strike with magic boost will do about 180 damage to a single opponent – useful against bosses but a huge waste against normal enemies. If concentrated on one target, 4-Orb Flame Circle will do something similar (~160 damage with ~10 per turn from the burn), but you can also use it against much larger groups (three orbs will kill all but the toughest fodder, or you can distribute damage with them strategically to exploit the melee attack turn skip effect). I should note this is the earliest we could have possibly gotten Triple Strike and our physical training put those stats so far ahead Growth Grass targets our magic stats, and yet the plot-unlocked spell does similar damage with significantly greater utility. Magic is just better in this game.  PIEBERRY: Looks like we're done here.  Mid-Rank Palace Warrior: Eek! A witch! PIEBERRY: Judging by the direction he was running away, he must have gotten into a fight with Balt! BLACK JOE: A mid-rank warrior... He'll be difficult to deal with. PIEBERRY: Please, look how tired he is!   Mid-Rank Palace Warrior: Hyah!   (Look closely at the center of the picture, you can see pieces of Pieberry’s weapon flying apart.)  PIEBERRY: Oh no! My staff is broken!  Mid-Rank Palace Warrior: You're dead, witch!!  Mid-Rank Palace Warrior: What?! It followed me this whole way?  PIEBERRY: Phew, he got away...! BLACK JOE: I told you he would be dangerous! And no wonder your staff broke. It's already pretty worn, but you've been swinging it around like a club. PIEBERRY: Let's find materials to make a new one! BLACK JOE: There's nothing in this forest to make a new staff with. PIEBERRY: There isn't?! Then what am I supposed to do? Just get killed by warriors?? BLACK JOE: Instead, you can evolve your staff will turn [sic] into a new, stronger one. PIEBERRY: Really? That's possible? BLACK JOE: Indeed. By filling it with nutrients and then imbuing it with your magic. Let's go home first!  PIEBERRY: Training, drawing magic circles, and now evolving weapons! I never get a moment's rest! BLACK JOE: You've been using magic and weapons that are too basic compared to your abilities. Now that you've made a new magic circle, you'll need to upgrade your staff.  Remember how a while back I said there were four ways to level up in this game? Here’s number two. Leveling your staff increases the damage it does significantly, but more importantly, it changes the kinds of special abilities you can use. Each level you gain goes into one of three specialties: Strength boosts your melee attacks in exchange for stunting your spells, Magic greatly increases magic damage while making you more fragile, and Life mildly boosts both while giving you health leech abilities. The game even tells going for Strength only benefits you in the early game and Magic is better later on, but I feel much, much prefer Life.  Just about every consumable inventory item gets assigned to one of those three categories, and by feeding items to your staff, you get it ready to level up AND boost your damage overall. This, by the way, is why I brought up Crisp Dry Leaves a while back: they make perfect Life feed for my staff, and it takes just four of the 89 I have in stock to max out the first rank.    Evolving your staff like this gets you a couple special abilities determined by your overall staff rank and which specialization you picked. Life gives you powerful area attacks that drain health from targets and even gives you little health boosts every time you melee a target. I may do a little show and tell where I experiment with the other routes later on, but Life just does more to keep you alive than anything else, and it’s what we’ll stick to for the rest of the LP.
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Feb 2, 2024 19:49
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Woah, slow down there game don't hit me with all these power spikes at once. At the same time, it's nice to see the character building and combat options get a lot more complex and flexible with each new area you reach.
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Feb 3, 2024 19:31
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Update 8: Happy Falling, Demon!  There’s nothing stopping us, by the way, from continuing to boost our staff. As you can see in the first screenshot, nourishing costs grow exponentially as you level up, but we still have enough to bump it up to level 2. We do not, however, have the special items we need to get to the next, but we don’t really need any more firepower right now.  Also, training charge! The magic trainings tend to be a little more visually interesting than the physical ones, and meditation (lots of MP, a little Magic) is no exception: press the indicated buttons to dismiss Pieberry’s thoughts of pies and berries. Don’t know if I see our little witch punching boulders and teaching herself martial arts, but I can totally picture her trying to meditate and getting distracted by thoughts of pie.   Before we go on, there’s one part of the forest we haven’t been to yet at the top of the screen. The Cool Glade is where all the pets you don’t have with you hang out. I’m not sure if the area’s useful for anything more than ego-stroking, I don’t think you can interact with your pets there (I certainly couldn’t do anything with the seed spirit), but I’ll come back periodically to double check.  Right, plot. PIEBERRY: Uh-oh, they've gathered some allies while we were away.  Mid-Rank Palace Warrior: The witch! She's back! PIEBERRY: Oh lord. How dare you come into my forest!  As we go on, we’ll pick up a small number of unique special attacks; most of them are dictated by the plot, but the first always comes from your staff.    Life Flower, stacked on top of our new staff, hits like a bus. Remember how the last time we fought 4-Orb Flame Circle dealt about 160 damage total? Life Flower hits an area with half again the power for no mana cost, just a couple turn cooldown. On top of the damage, it siphons a significant amount back into your HP bar and stores the overflow (often is much as 1/3 of your total health) as temporary HP. CullenDaGaDee posted:Woah, slow down there game don't hit me with all these power spikes at once. At the same time, it's nice to see the character building and combat options get a lot more complex and flexible with each new area you reach. WitchSpring R never really stops giving you new toys to play with. It may be simple and a little too easy, but Kiwiwalks knows how to structure mechanical progression (even if they go overboard at times).  PIEBERRY: Oh no, they're running away! We need to follow!  Mid-Rank Palace Warrior: L-Leave me alone! You filthy monster! Do you think I'm going to die here? I will capture this witch and escape the forest!  Mid-Rank Palace Warrior: Arggggghhhhh! PIEBERRY: This should be enough. Balt is taking care of the rest. … Huh?  PIEBERRY: What's with this shimmering wall...? Right! Warriors have come out of shimmering walls before. Does that mean this... Where might it lead?  PIEBERRY: ...Oh? Hehe, Balt... Are you going to...   PIEBERRY: Eek!  BLACK JOE: Master! Are you all right? PIEBERRY: Huh? We're home... Did you see that, Black Joe!? The wall behind Balt was shimmering! BLACK JOE: I don't think I saw that... PIEBERRY: Did you not feel any weird magic or anything? There's definitely something inside those walls that Balt is protecting! BLACK JOE: I'm sure you're just imagining things. PIEBERRY: Let's fly over Balt! There's nothing but endless forest behind Balt. BLACK JOE: Why waste our energy like that? PIEBERRY: No! I've seen warriors come out of those shimmering walls before. Maybe we can find out why they keep appearing in the forest! BLACK JOE: I can't fly higher than Balt's head while carrying you. PIEBERRY: You managed it with that boar. BLACK JOE: And I told you, that's because I was eating it to survive! PIEBERRY: Oh, I get it. So the need for survival makes you tougher?   PIEBERRY: Feeling more energy now? BLACK JOE: Yes! After a good night's sleep, and I'll be able to fly high above Balt! Why don't you recover your strength too? PIEBERRY: Hmm…! Fine, I guess I am pretty tired after fighting that warrior. We'll leave first thing tomorrow, got it? BLACK JOE: Yes, ma'am!  Note we no longer have our boar with us. Some cutscenes will unsummon pets. Sometimes, this doesn’t matter much; I can resummon it now for literally 2 MP. But with the more powerful pets, especially in plot-important (and therefore cutscene-heavy) areas, you can end up blowing hundreds of MP keeping your best backup available at the start of a fight. Anyway, we absolutely can just go straight to sleep now, but there’s something I want to investigate.  We can find these guys in the first area of the swamp. They drop the items we need to evolve our staff again, so we’re going to have to try and kill them off sooner or later. So why not get it out of the way?  That’s why. I wasn’t kidding when I said areas have encounters we can’t clear immediately. Even well after I unlocked the swamp, these guys are so powerful they instakill me before I can act. I couldn’t even use the give up option, since I couldn’t last long enough to get a turn no matter how lucky I got on the damage rolls. I had to reload my last autosave – which just so happened to be right after we beat that warrior, forcing me to sit through that whole cutscene again. I know I keep showing off how easy this game can be, but it’s worth remembering it doesn’t handle you everything on a silver platter.   Anyway, sleeping. As long as we have Black Joe with us, we can make him run errands at night and pick us up some of the harvestables dotted around the map. We just select which ones we want, conk out, and… BLACK JOE: Master, I'm baaaack! … He delivers them in the morning. On the one hand, as the game progresses and the accessible map gets bigger and bigger, nabbing the items you need for various items and slabs becomes a time sink, so periodic naps will fill your inventory up quite nicely. On the other hand, while I don’t know how often you pick up tools, it certainly won’t keep up with you if you sleep after every fight – especially since (counterintuitively) sleeping does not advance any respawns. I like the tool mechanic, it reminds you you have a free heal you can use any time while dangling a carrot in front of you to keep you from abusing it.  BLACK JOE: ...I've had enough! I'm going to set myself free! PIEBERRY: … He ran away?!  BLACK JOE: Time to escape!  BLACK JOE: Kyaha! PIEBERRY: Give up already!   Black Joe bolts, but Pieberry jumps and clings to him as he jukes and tries to shake her off. BLACK JOE: Get off me! PIEBERRY: You'll pay for this! BLACK JOE: Heh heh... PIEBERRY: …? BLACK JOE: You won't survive a fall like that. Say 'Black Joe is the greatest in the world!' three times and I'll consider letting you live! PIEBERRY: Huh? What's wrong with you...  BLACK JOE: Don't you get it? Your fate is now in my claws! Muahaha! Now speak up! PIEBERRY: You really wanna get in trouble, don't you? BLACK JOE: Well, if this is how you're going to act... Happy falling, demon! (Note: he does not say mazoku here, instead opting for akuma, a term for a powerful demon with strong religious overtones.)  PIEBERRY: Eek!   
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Feb 4, 2024 21:11
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Well, it was an oddly short game, but thanks for the LP!
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Feb 5, 2024 00:02
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I can't believe Pieberry is f—ing dead.
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Feb 5, 2024 00:14
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Maybe setting people on fire is not an optimal method of securing cooperation. Hopefully Pieberry 2 will be less pro-torture.
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Feb 5, 2024 00:29
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Who named pieberry, or did she just pick her two favorite foods for a name?
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Feb 5, 2024 01:00
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It'd certainly be in character for her to just derive her name from her two favorite things in the world.
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Feb 5, 2024 01:12
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Well, she's on a one way trip to splat-town, so I guess we will never know
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Feb 5, 2024 01:44
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Feb 5, 2024 10:53
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Update 9: It's the Only Memory that Makes Me Happy. WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Sea  PIEBERRY: Ugh... Where am I...?   PIEBERRY: ...l need to find Black Joe! But what is this island? There doesn't seem to be anything on it, but it's filled with strange magic. Should I just use teleportation magic to go home? ...No, I can't just leave this mystery behind! Maybe I can find something cool here. I don't know if I can even come back again. I'm going to explore the island! Welcome to South Island! While regions of the overworld always have a few connections to their neighbors on the fringes, they tend to be rather self-contained visually, thematically, and mechanically. That doesn’t mean you go through them once and you’re done – we already saw that when those flowers ate us for breakfast – but events in a given area tend to share concepts and moods you may not pick up on if you’re not looking for them. It’ll be a while before we really see what this means for South Island, but I want you to keep that in the back of your head.   BLACK JOE: Kyahaha! This is the life for me, free from the ugly baby witch~♬ The fruit on this tree is so fresh and tasty. PIEBERRY: Is that so? I think they might taste better roasted. BLACK JOE: Oh yes, that should bring out a whole new flavor! Though it might burn my beak a little...   BLACK JOE: Kyaha! PIEBERRY: How is it? Should I grill some more? BLACK JOE: M-Master! You're alive! I've been looking all over for you! PIEBERRY: That's right! I'm not dead! BLACK JOE: You do tend to express your emotions in such a passionate way..! PIEBERRY: I'm dragging you back home with me! Don't try any more tricks! BLACK JOE: Yeah, yeah... I'll get you home safely!   BLACK JOE: Kyahak?! PIEBERRY: I just wanted to shoot another one. BLACK JOE: Eck... Are we going home now? PIEBERRY: Even if I go back home, I think I'll keep coming back to this island often. BLACK JOE: Why? What about flying over Balt? PIEBERRY: I'm more curious about this island than what's behind Balt. It's filled with some kind of strange magic... And look at that!  PIEBERRY: A giant tree house floating on the water. There's so much to see!  PIEBERRY: Maybe I should move my house here. Then I won't have to deal with those pesky warriors! BLACK JOE: Yeah, you'll be fighting off sea monsters every day instead. The forest is much safer. PIEBERRY: I'll judge that for myself after I investigate the island. Now that Black Joe’s back in action, we can start our exploring proper.  The enemies here are a little tougher than what we’ve been fighting but not enough to matter. The most interesting thing about them is their drops, absolutely vital crafting materials we’ll be back to once I run out.   We can also find tons of treasure chests scattered around, one of which contains our first piece of equipment. Since the various leveling systems handle so much of our stat growth and skill acquisition, WitchSpring R’s equipment system is a little rudimentary and rather low on the priority list. We’ll only rarely acquire new equipment and even more rarely change it out. That doesn’t mean equipment’s useless: keep in mind this ratty T-shirt boosted our Defense by over 15%. But when you realize I can get the same stat boost from a single training charge, well, you see what I mean.   The island also comes with its own complement of adorable wildlife to kill, though these puffer fish things spawn in smaller numbers and aren’t as useful for crafting (at least for now). I can’t tell whether their dead sprites look funny or tragic.  After a little bit, I realize I’ve done everything I want on this part of the map but I’m not ready to go forward. Fortunately, the game kindly reminded us we can just teleport home anytime we want, and with Black Joe and hand, we don’t have much reason not to restock and spend our training charge.  Reading boosts MP and Magic more or less evenly. It looks like the rhythm game, but there’s no new music; you just hit the buttons when the glyphs move through them. At least it’s not difficult. When we want to go back to the island, we can leave her house, go to the south end of the map where we confronted Black Joe last time…   BLACK JOE: Kiyahoo! … And hitch a ride back. We just spawn where we did when we look up here, though for whatever reason we can’t make him carry us home.   On the far side of the island we run into another minigame: hammer a button to swim past sharks. While the sharks move in relatively predictable patterns, they move faster than you, you don’t have many options to maneuver around them, and their hit boxes are slightly larger than you’d expect, so making it past them takes an irritating amount of time and effort. At least the puzzle doesn’t take too long to finish.   PIEBERRY: Look at that big lion! BLACK JOE: It looks really strong. PIEBERRY: I can tell that myself!  ASLAN: Grr… Are you... real? PIEBERRY: What's that supposed to mean? BLACK JOE: He's wondering whether you're a delicious piece of meat. He wants to know if he can eat you. ASLAN: If you're not real... I'll have to destroy this shell!  For all the talk, Aslan isn’t exactly the scariest thing ever. His health bar just shows ???, but I’d guess it at ~1000, nothing we can’t handle now that our 4-Orb with a boosted staff can do 300 damage a go. ASLAN: Ugh... PIEBERRY: Phew, I managed it somehow. That was unexpected. BLACK JOE: How can a lion be so weak? PIEBERRY: Hey! Were you hoping I'd get eaten?! BLACK JOE: Not that, it's just... That lion was this temple's guardian animal. I've heard that he gets weaker after the spring is closed off, but this weak...? PIEBERRY: Temple? Guardian animal? BLACK JOE: He's meant to guard the collapsed temple in front of us. I know you wanna go inside, but I'll warn you, if you do... PIEBERRY: Less talk, more temple exploring! BLACK JOE: Ugh, fine... Wait! PIEBERRY: Why? BLACK JOE: Legend has it that impure witches burn to death when they enter a temple. PIEBERRY: Now you care about my welfare, after you tried to drown me earlier?! BLACK JOE: Hmm... Sorry about that. But... PIEBERRY: You're scared, aren't you?  BLACK JOE: W-Wait for me! WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Temple     PIEBERRY: Well this isn't what I imagined. It's in pretty bad shape. BLACK JOE: It has been abandoned for a long time. Humans used to worship the gods here. But after the war the humans started, it was sealed off and left to fell into disrepair. PIEBERRY: War? That's when humans get in big groups and start fighting, right? I've read about it in books. So do you think that means if we get past Balt we'll enter the human world? BLACK JOE: Exactly. Passing through the barrier behind Balt will take you to the continent of Vavelia, ruled by humans. PIEBERRY: …Why didn't you tell me this earlier if you know?  BLACK JOE: I didn't want to get involved with humans. All they do is fight and argue... They're always at war. If you get past Balt and come face to face with them, it will be dangerous. Just look what they did to this temple... You should be satisfied just living in the forest. Like me. PIEBERRY: … BLACK JOE: Haha, cat got your tongue? Now who's the scared one!  PIEBERRY: Let's leave the forest! BLACK JOE: Huh?! PIEBERRY: I'm going to go get more of those pies that mustache merchant gave me! Our deal isn't complete! BLACK JOE: You're going to risk going to the human world just for pie? There's plenty of pie here! Just rummage through the warriors' pockets. PIEBERRY: This is no normal pie! It's just like the pie I ate as a child! BLACK JOE: Is it important enough to risk your life for? PIEBERRY: Yes. A hundred times over.  PIEBERRY: Every night in my dreams, I see that pie from my childhood. And even though it's a dream, I can still taste it! It's the only memory that makes me happy. And then that merchant showed up with my dream pie! I was so close to getting it... until Balt ruined everything!   PIEBERRY: So now I have no choice but to go to the human world! BLACK JOE: Really... Only for pie... PIEBERRY: Only?! How dare you disrespect pie! That's basically insulting my name too! BLACK JOE: Ah... So your name is a combination of Pie and... Strawberry... ? PIEBERRY: That's right~ I love pie and strawberries so much that I named myself after them! Bookthief posted:Who named pieberry, or did she just pick her two favorite foods for a name?  PIEBERRY: Now, let's go deeper into this temple. BLACK JOE: Why? It's falling apart. PIEBERRY: Of all the magic on the island, the magic is strongest here. And somehow familiar... I'm going to find out what this magic is, and maybe I'll discover something super cool! BLACK JOE: …
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Feb 5, 2024 18:48
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A boss monster with a name, a portrait, and dialogue that begs unanswered questions? I'm sure we'll never see Lion Jesus again.
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Feb 5, 2024 19:11
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The real question is, does it have a giant rolling ball trap? It's not a real temple without one of those
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Feb 5, 2024 19:25
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The giant rolling Balt trap is back in the forest.
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Feb 5, 2024 20:41
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So we've got incendiary attacks and slavery pretty well covered, and probably poison magic eventually, but when do we get into the more advanced warcrimes like attacking under a flag of truce?
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Feb 5, 2024 20:49
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Update 10: The Nightmare... Felt Familiar...  Now that we can actually explore the temple, we immediately find our first accessory. Instead of boosting stats like regular equipment, accessories usually give you some unique bonus. The Genesis Blessing, for instance, basically triggers a Defense action moment the battle starts, which would go a long way towards making fights like those flowers that pasted us last update survivable. We’ll gradually unlock more accessory slots as we go forward. We find something else of interest just past that first chest.  PIEBERRY: Oh, doesn't that look like the teleportation magic circle at home? Maybe I can connect it to my home! BLACK JOE: You’re a fast learner. PIEBERRY: Great, now I can teleport right back here from home!  I hinted at this a couple updates back, but we just activated our fast travel system. Every overworld region has at least one major teleportation circle. Technically these only connect to your house, but you can just pick which place to go from your back and the game will handle the transfer automatically. Most of the larger dungeons have minor teleportation circle systems, all of which have at least one within walking distance of a major circle. Overworld areas usually don’t, so sometimes when you’re out completing quest objectives it’s faster to teleport home, teleport to a major circle, and make your way back to the quest giver from there than just walking straight back.  The enemies here would have absolutely flattened us before we got our new staff, but we’re rocking enough power boosts to cut through them with relative ease. But don’t be deceived; the Arua Temple is where the game starts getting serious, and if we’d just done the mandatory evolution instead of evolving it twice and nourishing it further for a performance bonus, we’d have to stop every fight or two to top ourselves up.  PIEBERRY: …… BLACK JOE: Wait, don’t! If someone touches a temple's magic stone without permission, they die! PIEBERRY: Stop shouting. It's not dangerous. I can definitely feel something good.  PIEBERRY: I don't know why, but... this seal. I think I can do something about it.  The screen rumbles and rocks rise from the water, forming a bridge. BLACK JOE: ……!! PIEBERRY: See? Told you! I think we can move forward now! Let's go!     Walking forward onto the little platform ahead of us detaches it from its docking and moves us to the other side of the structure. Note the circle effect in the second image, that’s the game unsummoning our pet; usually if your pet gets stuck somewhere and can’t reach you, the game will teleport it to your side. But not this time.  PIEBERRY: What is this...? BLACK JOE: A giant door. A giant broken door. Well, ain't that a shame, huh? Guess we just need to turn back. PIEBERRY: There must be a way through! The puzzle is relatively simple: those two upraised squares each connect to some of those pillars on either side of the door, and the only way to get it out of the way is by pressing both down at once.  You can’t do that without summoning your pet, pushing them onto one of the platforms, and carefully navigating on to the other without letting it follow you. I got lucky and when I resummoned my boar it spawned on the other platform, so the door fell into the water and we can now just jump over the gap. The next area does update does an odd bit of visual trickery to hide a chest off-screen.  BLACK JOE: Lightning Magic Spellbook...? This should be useful. PIEBERRY: Not just fire, but now lightning too... BLACK JOE: Lightning magic is more powerful than fire magic of the same level. However, it requires a lot of mental energy, so it's not something you'd want to use often. PIEBERRY: Hmm... Should I just stick with fire magic then? BLACK JOE: Lightning magic overrides some of the defense provided by steel, so you'd better learn it well. PIEBERRY: That'll come in handy when you're up against those armored warriors. Then later... BLACK JOE: Aha, there was a slab at the bottom of the box.  PIEBERRY: Phew~ I really couldn't be bothered to make a new one, but now I can use this ready-made lightning magic circle! He’s not wrong, lightning magic is very powerful and can be very useful, but I don’t feel like going all the way home to rejigger my slab layout right now, so we’ll make do with fire spells for now.  When you come up onto this platform, the camera obscures the chest; all you see is that very obvious boss waiting for you ahead. However, it also clearly shows the gap in the railing before the path leading to the chest. It’s theoretically possible to miss lightning magic entirely. I’m not sure who would except the terminally oblivious, but this game usually makes more of an effort to put every tool available directly in your hands, so I’m not sure why they broke from that design philosophy here. Either way, let’s go poke the bear.  BLACK JOE: No wonder the door was broken, they left a great big golem here unattended. PIEBERRY: No way... That thing... won't move, will it? BLACK JOE: Of course not, it's been sitting there since the war ended.     PIEBERRY: Huhhh...!! Wh-what...? BLACK JOE: Kyek! How does it still have any magic left? PIEBERRY: How am I supposed to defeat that...?  The Giant Palace Golem is a major roadblock, another test to make sure you know how to spam Defense and handle crowd control. Even defending, a full round of actions tears off nearly 1/3 of my HP.   It even shoots big scary lasers at you. But as you can probably tell from the meager 17 damage it does with Defense up, the giant golem itself doesn’t put out that much damage. The real threat lies with its four minions running around, who all look far less intimidating and all do nearly as much damage. The fight serves as a gentle reminder of just how important picking off the fodder first in can be. As long as you know what you’re doing, you shouldn’t have much trouble.     Also, I managed to capture an autocrit with my 4-Orb Flame Circle. It plays the same animation for any magic autocrit with the appropriate slab, which is a nice touch.  PIEBERRY: Ha! You need more than a big body to beat me! BLACK JOE: You're great too, master. Even though it's ruined, it used to be the humans' main weapon. Speaking of which, it occurs to me it’s been like nine updates since I last followed through on the thread again. I swear, we actually talk to other people and see more of their society eventually, but the first act has us wander around in the woods first. So with this giant robot lying defeated in front of us, I want to quick touch on something: fascism and technology. Fascists have a strong association with technology; people point at the autobahns, the wunderwaffen, maybe Zeros when they remember to talk about anything that isn’t Nazis. But it’s worth remembering that of the various states where fascists managed to come to pass, only Germany really developed a reputation for scientific brilliance, and even then it probably had more to do with Germany’s scientific establishment and tradition than anything specifically Nazi; this is the same country that never switched over from bolt action rifles and moved most of its supplies by horse and cart. Part of this perception comes from the shakeout of V2s in Cold War nuclear programs, part of it from German engineering’s prewar reputation, and part of it from comic books at the time giving all their Nazis jetpacks, but a lot of it comes from how fascist regimes work. Fascists tend to be fascinated by technology, but not by scientific research or the nuts and bolts of practical engineering. They think of technology as a reflection of their own superiority. If the group you belong to is stronger, more diligent, and smarter than anyone else, doesn’t it make sense that the things you make are tougher, more reliable, and more advanced? But fascist regimes, even if they bill themselves as the way of the future, usually change course and double down on tradition eventually. If one tries too hard to cultivate scientific advancement, it runs the risk of gathering a bunch of intelligent, capable thinkers with just a little too much leverage together. That’s an ingredient for disloyalty, and no dictatorship, fascist or not, can allow that to happen. Plus, the logic of fascism dictates innate superiority, which – well, making better machines is great and all, but what if it disrupts our innately superior social order? Early fascist interest in technology always ends up discarded because technological development threatens the darkly idealized static societies fascist movements want to create. So the violently nationalist Italian Futurists helped form the first fascist movement in the world only to be sidelined for not revering the past; the same government scientific tradition that led to ballistic missiles in Germany fueled the atomic weapons they would later carry in America through refugees like Hans Benthe and James Franck; Zeros terrorized Allied pilots in the Pacific until new American planes rolled out and started tearing them to shreds. There’s more going on here, of course, but the way fascists idolize technology but end up disposing of its inventors will come up again later.   BLACK JOE: Kek!!!  PIEBERRY: Black Joe!!! Still images them capture it well, but gusting winds are blowing Pieberry’s robes back. BLACK JOE: Eh...lt's still moving...  PIEBERRY: Black Joe! Get up! Let's get out of here! BLACK JOE: This is why... I told you not to come... I can't hold on anymore... just let me be... Kyek! Kyek! PIEBERRY: Black Joe!!   The winds stop. PIEBERRY: Huh?  ASLAN: You are still here. BLACK JOE: Hehe, Aslan. You arrived at the right time. PIEBERRY: The lightning just now... was that your doing? ASLAN: This is the final warning. Get out of here.  PIEBERRY: Aslan saved us. How come...? BLACK JOE: I don't think saving us was the goal... the evil Golem was going mad and Aslan intervened. Told you. Aslan is the guardian animal of this temple. PIEBERRY: Is Aslan this strong? BLACK JOE: Yeah, right. Should've been like this right from the beginning... what a fool. PIEBERRY: Sounds like you wanted that lightning to hit me? BLACK JOE: Ah...nope! PIEBERRY: Now, let's go. Time to get moving! BLACK JOE: What?? We just had one foot in the grave! PIEBERRY: There're no more giant golems now. Cut the nonsense, and just follow me!   PIEBERRY: Here we go again!!    PIEBERRY: This door... There's something very intimidating about it. BLACK JOE: Wait. Even a girl as reckless as you knows better than to open this door, right? PIEBERRY: Of course! I just want to get a closer look at it~  PIEBERRY: Oh…?   We hear static, rushing winds, and faint, angry voices as the screen pulses. PIEBERRY: Argh...! Th-This is... BLACK JOE: Master!!  PIEBERRY: Hah… BLACK JOE: Phew... I managed to pull you away from the door... PIEBERRY: I feel like I just had some kind of terrible nightmare... But it's weird. BLACK JOE: What is? PIEBERRY: The nightmare... felt familiar... BLACK JOE: Well, forget it! You just almost got sucked into the door! PIEBERRY: Heh, I'll be careful. Now one last part of the temple to explore.
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Feb 7, 2024 03:14
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I have to say, having a character based off and named after the Christ allegory from The Chronicles of Narnia is a fairly out of pocket reference given the rest of the game so far.
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Feb 7, 2024 04:28
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Generally when I see Christian imagery in anime and JRPGs, I just kind of nod and think, "I know about as much of actual Japanese religion/tradition as this writer probably knows about Christianity, so I shouldn't overthink it," but yeah, that's a very specific reference.
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Feb 7, 2024 12:49
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I'm enjoying this LP. No real commentary for now, just that it's a good read and your presentation of game and fascist info is solid.
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Feb 7, 2024 16:27
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StrixNebulosa posted:I'm enjoying this LP. No real commentary for now, just that it's a good read and your presentation of game and fascist info is solid. Remember to vote 5 Eh, it's too early for that. But I do appreciate the vote of confidence. We're actually butting right up against the end of the early game right now; within a couple updates we'll start really interacting with the plot.
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Feb 8, 2024 18:35
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Update 11: Every Path You Take Will Lead You to Greater Dreams As always, we have a training charge to spend – three quarters of the way through the training list now. Potion crafting practice, on top of having the longest name on the list, gives you the largest stat spread increase of any magic training: not just Magic and MP, but HP and Strength too. It’s very Cooking Mama, spin your joystick (even on PC you need a controller to play the game), press the relevant button to toss ingredients in, repeat. One of the more annoying many games because the window for ingredient tossing is a lot shorter than you’d assume, but it goes by quick.  Anyway, back to work.  After training, I took a moment to slot in our new 3-Fork Lightning Circle. It’s slightly situational, but very potent: it hops between adjacent enemies based on who you target, sometimes chaining up as many as six hits. Unfortunately, it’s never really clear how the game measures those paths, so you usually end up getting as many targets as the fire AoE spell would anyway. Fortunately, it does probably double the damage to each target, so we won’t be seeing 3-Orb Fire Circle much anymore.   ASLAN: I warned you to turn back. PIEBERRY: Uh-oh, Aslan's magic is stronger than before. BLACK JOE: Probably because of that spring in front of us. PIEBERRY: The pool? BLACK JOE: The pool where a god's magic is collected is called spring [sic]. The power of guardian animals like Aslan is influenced by this spring. PIEBERRY: So he was weak outside the temple before because he was farther away from the spring! BLACK JOE: I think it's more like he was being gentle on you because you're young. You there! Aslan! The temple's sealing stones reacted to my master's magic! ASLAN: I know. BLACK JOE: Aha! Now you're suddenly willing to talk! This temple accepts her, so there's no need for you to be wary of us! PIEBERRY: Black Joe is right. We just want to have a look around the temple. ASLAN: The sealing stones only allow those who are authorized to pass through... PIEBERRY: Which means... ASLAN: How did you trick the stones? PIEBERRY: Eh…? ASLAN: If you were a normal person, the sealing stones would not have reacted. You can fool the temple's other protections, but you cannot fool me, its Guardian Animal! Okay, let’s hit pause for a second. Aslan here is very clearly a komainu, the Japanese version of the lion-dog shrine guardians common across East Asia. But that’s not what they call him here. Now, I have some issues with auditory processing, meaning while I technically have above average hearing, if I’m not familiar with the words being used, I tend to hear them wrong – makes ordering drive-through a mess, let me tell you. So when I very clearly hear shigodo where the subtitles read “Guardian Animal”, I’m probably mishearing something. I went real deep researching this, it drove me up the wall. This might be the first Guardian Animal we’ve run into, but it won’t be the last and not all of them qualify as animals, so I’m reasonably certain that’s a flawed translation of some other concept. But I can’t tell what concept that is! On the one hand, I couldn’t find the word in any Japanese-to-English dictionaries, even factoring in different spellings and pronunciations. Closest I could get was shikoto, meaning something like handiwork, but if your translation implies you can make your lightning-shooting lion demigod out of clay or maybe macramé, your translation probably has some issues. On the other hand, while komainu aren’t the only temple guardians that show up in Japanese culture, I couldn’t find if Japanese had a generic word for them. I TRIED. Did you know Google no longer properly encodes minus signs in searches so you have to use advanced search to exclude results now? I had to find that out for myself  . Nothing, nada, zilch. If you held a gun to my head and forced me to guess what shigodo means, I’d hazard it’s probably related to the words shin (pure or true, shows up in religious contexts a lot) and koto (literally “thing” but with connotations of animacy); slur those together a bit and you get a phrase that might mean something like “spiritual being”, which would make sense. But I’m probably just completely off base, I’d love to know what it is I’m missing and/or mishearing.WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Battle (Serious)  But we have business to attend to. Aslan, like the other bosses in this part of the game, exists to teach you about something – this time, enemies buffing each other.  Aslan’s normal attacks hit reasonably hard, but every couple turns, Aslan smacks you with a powerful lightning bolt. Those two pillars at his side exist to make that lightning bolt make it worse; they don’t do anything on their own (they just skip their turns when they come up), but as long as they are active, they boost his Magic and make that lightning bolt hurt even more.  Even with both pillars down, an unguarded lightning bolt does 60 damage to us, nearly half our health. If you just ignore the pillars and go all in on offense, you run the small but real risk of going from full health to dead before you can do anything, especially since Aslan is faster than you and can sometimes squeeze an extra melee attack in. As long as you use guard and prioritize your targets appropriately, Aslan shouldn’t pose much of a threat. But if you get complacent you run the risk of him obliterating your health bar without you noticing, a pattern a lot of later bosses will follow.  PIEBERRY: Phew... It's over. But why is he so hostile to me? BLACK JOE: That's its duty as Guardian Animal... It must have been angry that it failed to protect the temple in the past. For some reason, the Guardian Animals could not use their powers during the war.  PIEBERRY: It's open! BLACK JOE: Phew. So now we just check out that spring and then leave? Hmm... Well, the Guardian Animal has been defeated, so we should be okay. []ancient   PIEBERRY: Look at the size of that magic stone!  PIEBERRY: It's glowing! BLACK JOE: Wait... No way... The spring is reacting... Is this really possible? ASLAN: My master's will is materializing.  PIEBERRY: I thought I beat you?! BLACK JOE: The guardian animal's strength was instantly restored when the spring opened. PIEBERRY: Ugh... But my body is so sore... I need to fight again? ASLAN: No need. You've already proven yourself. You actually got something.  ASLAN: Stand closer to the spring. BLACK JOE: You wily little...! You plan to use her to nourish the spring! In your grief over the loss of your master, you've been luring youngsters to fill the spring with their magic, haven't you?  BLACK JOE: Stop! Don't go anywhere near that spring! PIEBERRY: Hello!   ARUA: I always believed that one day someone would come here who could hear my voice. My name is Arua, and I am the master of this spring.  PIEBERRY: Nice to meet you! I’m Pieberry! I followed the familiar energy, and it brought me here. You're so filled with magic! You must be a god! ARUA: Hmm... You're an enthusiastic little girl. What is it that makes your heart beat so fast?  PIEBERRY: I have a new dream! To find my dream pie in the world of humans! But there's someone blocking the way... So I'm exploring this island for now instead. But when I'm strong enough, I'm going to get out of the forest! ARUA: What a cute dream.   Arua’s first blessing lets us choose one stat to receive a massive bonus – and I mean massive, most of these will increase the stat in question by half again – or nearly double, and the case of Defense. I picked Magic because we’re moving into the part of the game where melee attacks fall by the wayside and I don’t really need that massive Defense boost, but if your build looks a little lopsided or you want to make it more lopsided, here’s your chance to fix that. PIEBERRY: Wow... Such wonderful power. It's warm... And strong. I can't believe magic like this exists... ARUA: I have bestowed upon you my blessing. It will be of use to you someday. PIEBERRY: R-Really! Thank you so much, Arua! Hehe, can I come visit you often? ARUA: I must return to my slumber. The blessing I gave you was all of my remaining magic. PIEBERRY: What? Then why did you give it to me...? ARUA: Every path you take will lead you to greater dreams. Just like how you accidentally washed up on this island and awakened me. I will watch closely the faith and indomitable spirit you develop... and how you will grow.  PIEBERRY: Ahl Arua! ASLAN: My master is sleeping. He will not wake for a while.  PIEBERRY: Oh, he was so nice...! What are you going to do now? ASLAN: The same as always. Follow my master's will. PIEBERRY: Why don't you become my pet? It will be fun! BLACK JOE: I wouldn't recommend it. ASLAN: My duty now is to protect the spring. I cannot leave the temple. PIEBERRY: Oh, that's too bad. I was excited to get a cute lion! BLACK JOE: We should go home now, Master. You need lots of rest. You're not planning to explore more, are you? PIEBERRY: Okay~ Let's go home!  BLACK JOE: So... do you feel blessed? PIEBERRY: Uhh... I don't really feel much different from usual. Right after receiving the blessing, I felt so powerful... What happened...? BLACK JOE: It seems like your body wasn't able to fully absorb all of the enormous amounts of magic. PIEBERRY: You think?! Then does that mean the blessing is just... gone now? BLACK JOE: I don't think so. I can still feel it floating around you. PIEBERRY: Hmm… Hmmmmmm... BLACK JOE: You can sense it too, can't you? PIEBERRY: I sense some kind of faint energy. It's hard to detect. It's not that the blessing's power is weak... It's just beyond my ability to sense. BLACK JOE: Divine blessings are special. Perhaps one day when you're all grown up you will be able to wield it properly. PIEBERRY: But why did Arua give me this power? I was so excited to receive it, I didn't think to ask for the reason. BLACK JOE: Perhaps he wanted to make sure his fading magic wasn't lost forever. And you just happened to come along at the right time. Giving his magic to a witch is better than giving it to a human. PIEBERRY: So I was just lucky? BLACK JOE: Hmm… PIEBERRY: Why? BLACK JOE: So... Are we really going to Balt now? PIEBERRY: Of course! I need to get that pie! And maybe in the human world...! BLACK JOE: In the human world what? PIEBERRY: ...Nothing. I'll tell you some other time. BLACK JOE: Whatever it is, I'm sure it's something childish again. But do you think you can defeat Balt? PIEBERRY: I can now since I have this blessing! BLACK JOE: Pfft, you don't even know how to use it.   The golem in question is right where we left him at the edge of the forest, but instead of just throwing us back home, we can now challenge him to a fight. Though I guess all the “unmeasurable”s where his stats should be is a little foreboding. PIEBERRY: Well, then, shall we get going?! BLACK JOE: I guess getting beaten up might knock some sense into her... PIEBERRY: Here we go! BLACK JOE: (Surely it can't go too badly, right...?)   In the olden days, Balt would’ve marked the end of Disc 1; he’s the final boss of the early game, and like the last early game boss in any good RPG, he exists to make sure you got all the fundamentals that. He doesn’t have any particular gimmicks, but that means he has no weaknesses to exploit.   He and his two random buddies punch and/or shoot lasers at you regularly, but unlike Aslan, there isn’t enough of a gap between their normal and special attacks you can strategically Defend most of the damage away. Their individual attacks aren’t terribly intimidating, but they attack often enough you can’t just outspeed them and they do enough damage you can’t go all in on offense. His assistants aren’t soft enough to easily pick off or proportionally dangerous enough you can neuter the other team’s damage output by getting rid of them, but they deal just enough damage you can’t afford to ignore them and concentrate on Balt. Even when you take them down, Balt has enough HP that without healing up he can just outlast you.  Fortunately, we have an ace up our sleeve.     Arua’s Arrow, his second blessing, is the first of a few plot-reward special attacks we’ll pick up. It takes long enough to charge most simple battles won’t last long enough to see it, it can only target one enemy, and you can only use it once a battle. But it takes no MP, doesn’t use up your turn, and does absolutely bananas damage – at least half again as much as our next most powerful option. Still. Even accounting for the literal wrath of God, there’s no way to win this fight aside from strategic crowd control, having Black Joe heal you regularly, and balancing damage input and output. If you paid attention to your fights up until this point, Balt shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.   This victory finally moves us up to combat level 2, introducing us to the WitchSpring R’s third leveling system. Combat levels are absolutely fantastic, significantly boosting your stats and stat increases, and that’s on top of letting you summon more pets, wear more items, and crit increasingly harder. Trouble is, combat levels are very rare. We’re closing in on the end of 11 updates and chapter 1 right now and just got our first level up; I got up to chapter 7 in my last playthrough and in that time I’d just barely managed level 5. Combat levels matter, but they’re mostly something you just ignore until you beat enough enemies to trigger them. BLACK JOE: Oh wow... Did Balt just let her win? PIEBERRY: See what your master is capable of, Black Joe!  PIEBERRY: Eek! He's getting back up! Do I need to fight him again? BLACK JOE: Hmm…  PIEBERRY: Oh! He ran away!  PIEBERRY: All right! Let's go find some nice tasty pie and fresh strawberries! BLACK JOE: How did we get to this point... well, forget it.
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Feb 9, 2024 02:20
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Can you switch subtitle language to Japanese and check the Kanji? Seem like the only real way to find words there. Also, did Pieberry kill the forest's protector thereby causing her home
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Feb 10, 2024 00:14
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VictualSquid posted:Can you switch subtitle language to Japanese and check the Kanji? Seem like the only real way to find words there. Yeah, I've misheard enough things that I'll look at the words if at all possible (I'm just looking at some Japanese person's let's play in this case) Falconier111 posted:Okay, let’s hit pause for a second. Aslan here is very clearly a komainu, the Japanese version of the lion-dog shrine guardians common across East Asia. But that’s not what they call him here. Now, I have some issues with auditory processing, meaning while I technically have above average hearing, if I’m not familiar with the words being used, I tend to hear them wrong – makes ordering drive-through a mess, let me tell you. So when I very clearly hear shigodo where the subtitles read “Guardian Animal”, I’m probably mishearing something. You're not entirely off though you stopped too early, it's shugodoubutsu (守護動物) - it is literally Guardian Animal though this isn't a common enough phrase to make it into your average dictionary (though you will likely find guardian deity, which is formulated the same except it has 'god' instead of 'animal'). (it's true that it's increasingly hard to make google actually search for what you actually asked for, though) Wasn't expecting them to let you through Balt yet but I guess the Arua powerups are a good excuse for you to be strong enough to do it. Polsy fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Feb 10, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 13:41
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Polsy posted:Yeah, I've misheard enough things that I'll look at the words if at all possible (I'm just looking at some Japanese person's let's play in this case) I’m really not that great at Japanese Can I toss it in the update?
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Feb 10, 2024 16:13
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Falconier111 posted:Can I toss it in the update? Yes, go ahead
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Feb 10, 2024 18:13
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Update 12: I'm Asking If You're Going to Let Us Capture You or Not Before we begin, quick note: I didn’t know this until this update, but I was working off an incomplete version of the OST. From now on, the music links will look little different. The only complete version I could find (with (almost) all the songs and the original titles) sits in one big video, so fair warning if you click the link, wait for it to load, and hear the last notes of the last song as the one in question kicks in. I’ll be updating previous updates… Someday.  35.Where Gods Slumber  PIEBERRY: Ah! This forest feels very different... Is this the outside world...? BLACK JOE: Calzvero Forest. The boundary between your forest and the outside world. This forest is the reason you've been safe this whole time. PIEBERRY: Hehe! I sure was lucky, huh? So if we carry on straight ahead, we'll reach the outside world? BLACK JOE: Yeah… Calzvero Forest doesn’t have much going on; it’s a short path with no detours and some very nice lighting effects. What really matters lies beyond. 18.Brisk Walk   PIEBERRY: Finally... the outside world!! BLACK JOE: Kyahak! We really left... PIEBERRY: Look at that open sky! Right, now to hunt down that mustachioed merchant!   First things first, we deactivate the teleportation circle just to the left of where we came in. The Merchant’s Road is centrally located and we’ll be popping in and out for a few chapters just to get to the next area. But that’s not the area’s main attraction. 24.Pathetic  PIEBERRY: Huh? Aha! I found you, thief!   RALPH: Thief? That's uncalled for. I had no other choice! Anyway, now we've met again... My name is Ralph. I'm a merchant form [sic] Vavelia. PIEBERRY: You offered me a deal! Pie in return for pretty stones! RALPH: Alas, I have neither. I've sold the stone and eaten the pie. PIEBERRY: What?! RALPH: But don't be too disappointed. I'm the most reliable merchant in all of Vavelia.  RALPH: Here, in return for the gem. PIEBERRY: Some shiny golden metal...? It's pretty, but it's so small! Are you trying to make fun of me? BLACK JOE: Master. This is gold. Humans use it to exchange goods. PIEBERRY: Gold? BLACK JOE: Yes. We can use it to trade for the tools we need. PIEBERRY: All right then. I'll give you this, so give me a pie. Strawberry pie! RALPH: I'm afraid I don't have any at the moment, but I'll make sure to stock up for next time. PIEBERRY: What!? Then what's the point of this gold!? RALPH: But... Are you sure this will be okay? PIEBERRY: Why? RALPH: Ah, this must be your first time outside the forest, right? ...Forget it, then. It would be best for you to just experience it for yourself. Look at that over there.   LIVYA: When are you guys gonna leave me alone? Are you going to follow me all the way to the Pope's Castle? Warrior 1: Haha, does that mean we can leave then? Thank you so much for always looking out for the village, Livya! Warrior 2: I learned a lot this time too! LIVYA: Then how about you make use of everything you learned for once, so I don't have to come and do it all for you!  RALPH: (Watch out, that must be a royal palace warrior, you can tell by the red clothes. Judging by the uniform, she must be a commander.) LIVYA: How many more times do I have to keep coming back to the borderlands to save the Warrior School's skin? Lalaque Village is too far away! Warrior 1: Haha! If you wait a little longer, we'll all be grown up enough to take charge of the school ourselves! PIEBERRY: Commander? What's that mean? Warrior 2: W-W-Wait! Isn't that... a witch?! RAL You've been seen. I'll go get some pies and strawberries. Good luck. Warrior 1: A witch! Protect the civilian! RALPH: Help!    LIVYA: Don't try to resist! You're surrounded! Warrior 2: Witches shall never be forgiven! BLACK JOE: We got surrounded as soon as we left the forest... Now what do we do? PIEBERRY: There are so many warriors...! LIVYA: Good job! Just Like your lessons! Now, what's next? Warrior 2: U-Uhh...  LIVYA: You still don't know how to actually fight a witch? Your swordplay is sloppy... You're failing even the basics... Listen, here's the deal with witches.  LIVYA: When you encounter a witch, you report the discovery, capture her, and then transport her to the dungeons of the Pope's Castle. If not possible to capture her alive, you execute her immediately. Now what did you do? You just surrounded her straight away and didn't even report properly. Warrior 2: Thanks for teaching us again! LIVYA: Next time, I won't teach, I'll just discipline you until you remember. If you come along obediently, I'll try not to be too rough on you. So, what will it be? PIEBERRY: Huh? LIVYA: I'm asking if you're going to let us capture you or not. PIEBERRY: Capture me? Why?! LIVYA: I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything else. You there, give me a sword. You call this a sword? I'd struggle to chop carrots with this! Well, what should I expect from kids like you?      LIVYA: l, Royal Palace Warrior Livya, will fulfill the Pope's decree and slay this witch!  The low-level warriors are at par with the human enemies we were fighting a few updates back, but Livya’s significantly tougher and packing several combo attacks. If we’d run into these guys before we went to the island, this would have been a moderately challenging fight. But we didn’t. After obtaining the blessings of a God and defeating the guardian of the forest?   They fall like dominoes.  RALPH: I see you survived.  PIEBERRY: Didn't you run away? RALPH: The only one who should be running away is you. There'll be more warriors coming soon. But don't worry, I'll deal with them. PIEBERRY: Why are you helping me? RALPH: Think of it as an investment for the future. Witches have many uses. BLACK JOE: Let's just do as he says and get out of here for now. 23.Pieberry’s Exciting House  PIEBERRY: Whoa! I didn't see that coming! BLACK JOE: I told you the outside world is dangerous! That female warrior works directly under the Pope! PIEBERRY: What's a "pope"? BLACK JOE: Remember when humans went to war and destroyed Arua Temple? At the center of that war was the Pope. The king of those who serve the gods. PIEBERRY: But if the Pope serves the gods, why destroy the temple? BLACK JOE: The Pope's name is Celvis. But he didn't become Pope through worshiping the gods.  BLACK JOE: He became Pope because he took the power of the gods through war. PIEBERRY: Took the powers of the gods? How is that even possible? BLACK JOE: Don't ask me how, because I have no idea either. Either way, it happened. And so Celvis founded a new religion he called Neurima and made himself Pope. He claims the religion is about worshipping the ancient god Rahmuel, but in truth it's really about worshipping Celvis. PIEBERRY: What does that have to do with witch hunts? BLACK JOE: Celvis wants to eliminate anyone who might be a threat to him, and that includes witches. PIEBERRY: B-But I'm just a little kid... BLACK JOE: That's why you're so scary. You're just a kid, but you still defeated a warrior. PIEBERRY: I'm only here to get my pie back... BLACK JOE: In his eyes, just being born a witch is sin enough. PIEBERRY: What!? That's not fair! BLACK JOE: That's humans for you. If they say it's a sin, it's a sin. Fair or not. PIEBERRY: Hmph, these humans think they're gods... Then, doesn't that mean there are more witches other than me? BLACK JOE: Yes, it often happens that a witch is born among humans, just like you. But most of them are killed. Even if they are lucky enough to survive, they end up abandoned in the forest... Again, just like you. Do you see the reality of the outside world now? Do you understand why I warned you to steer clear of humans? PIEBERRY: There's no point in hiding. BLACK JOE: Hmm? PIEBERRY: More and more warriors are intruding on my forest. Eventually, they'll take it all over, and I'll end up getting killed anyway. Not everyone can fly away free like you. I'll be trapped and forced to fight them for the rest of my life. BLACK JOE: ...l guess you have a point. PIEBERRY: I'd rather go out into the human world and find the pie of my dreams! I've been looking for it for a long time, but I gave up because I couldn't find it in the forest! BLACK JOE: Urgh, I didn't want to get involved with humans... But fine. You're new to the human world, so you'll have to listen to me carefully. PIEBERRY: You're the best, Black Joe~ But I'm tired from all that fighting. Let's get some sleep and go back to Ralph. Then he can tell me where he got that pie! Okay, there’s a bunch of things we could tackle here – “in his eyes, just being born a witch is sin enough” will probably show up in a later update. But we’re still in the early game and we still have some foundations to lay down, so I ought to hit up something a little drier: why the Pope is in charge of Vavelia despite how it’s technically a kingdom. Ultranationalism and fascism are closely related and the line between them gets blurry, but it’s worth remembering there is a line. If you go digging for definitions, you’ll find nationalism described as a faith in the value of your people or culture (or a belief in your superiority, depending on who you ask), ultranationalism as the belief your people or culture gets to dominate others by right of that superiority, and fascism as  , but usually it ends up working out sounding kind of like ultranationalism with extra elements. They aren’t the same thing, though, even though they often act similar. An ultranationalist thinks in terms of nations, which can be defined by any mix of ethnicity, history, culture, and language; they see the superiority of their nation not in any one element, but all of them taken together. But if you remember, fascists don’t think in terms of history, culture, or language. They don’t even think in terms of ethnicity, with its potentially fuzzy, self-defined boundaries. They think in biology, in static racial hierarchies that (in their eyes) are completely unrelated to anything as ephemeral as how you talk to your neighbors or what church you go to. In the eyes of a fascist, while their traditions may be good, they’re good because they emerged from the people involved, not because they have any inherent value themselves. It then follows that no tradition, institution, or moral stricture is inherently necessary for a people to have a coherent identity, and in fact you should probably jettison any that come from elsewhere and/or don’t serve the body politic. That last bit is what they call palingenetic ultranationalism, the idea that a nation is best served by a constant roiling social revolution, and it’s one of fascism’s defining features. It means that while fascists tend to work with social conservatives and agree with them on the surface, as they gain power, they often end up destroying or parasitizing the institutions conservatives care so much about because on a fundamental level they don’t give a poo poo.When fascists seize power, they rarely remove the old system, but they almost always push it to the side. Sometimes this happens at the highest levels: lots of people with casual knowledge of World War II have no idea fascist Italy was technically a monarchy and in fact Mussolini and Victor Emmanuele III worked together early on before he gradually eroded royal power. Sometimes it happens at the lowest: Imperial Japan restructured huge chunks of traditional Shinto practice into an Imperial personality cult. Sometimes it happens in the middle: the Nazis wrenched administrative duties from the last remnants of pre-unification Germany political divisions and handed them over to the local party hierarchies. Other times it doesn’t come with a conscious plan, but evolves naturally out of fascist ideology; Nazi ideological influence on German churches led to a schism that eventually got some dissenting church leaders killed. I’d’ve linked Wikipedia on that last one, but the page was too slanted for me to recommend in good conscience: there’s a lot of examples I had to skip over because fans of people or institutions that collaborated with fascists spend a lot of time covering their asses. My point is fascist regimes love to subvert and alter or quietly dump any part of their national culture, no matter how important, that won’t get with the program. We don’t know enough about Vavelia to tell what looked like before the Pope came to power. We learn later that it’s technically a kingdom, but I’m not clear on whether there actually was a king or Black Joe’s “the king of those who serve the gods” line was supposed to be taken literally. But for our purposes, it doesn’t really matter. All we ever see of whatever remains of the Vavelian government are the Pope’s direct influence and the warriors – an ideologically-driven paramilitary organization dedicated to the person of the Pope. And that’s about as fascist as you can get. If Vavelia was a kingdom, it’s telling we don’t see any sign of the king. And if it was a theocracy, the way Celvis kept the forms of the previous government but killed off threats to his power and replaced them with a self-serving version still sounds awfully familiar. It’s characteristically fascist, in ways we’ll see reflected later on. Not speaking of which, it’s time for Pieberry to go to bed and hallucinate. 13.Dream Pie  Warm Voice: A moment, please. I'll get the pie for you. “Warm voice” barely describes it; the speaker has the most pitch-perfect indulgent mother voice I’ve ever heard. PIEBERRY: Pie... My happiness... And strawberries too... But this voice... Warm Voice: I kept you waiting a long time, didn't l? It's ready! PIEBERRY: Warm pie... strawberries.... Delicious... Warm Voice: You're really enjoying it, aren't you, my dear child? Would you like some more? PIEBERRY: Yes…  PIEBERRY: ….. Hehe, I'll never get tired of that dream! I'm just sad it had to end so soon... Now let's go visit Ralph! Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Feb 11, 2024 |
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Feb 11, 2024 16:51
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I believe it is mentioned late in the game that there is a King, but whether there is or not at this point he's been more or less totally sidelined by Pope Evil if he's still alive. I should probably finish this game, I don't think I'm too far from the end at this point.
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Feb 11, 2024 18:51
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Ah, I see the plan for the game coming together: 1. Attack and Dethrone God 2. ???? 3. Excellent strawberry pie, mmmmm!
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Feb 12, 2024 00:59
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