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EclecticTastes posted:It's pretty bog-standard late nineties/early-2000s edgelord anime fare, woulda sold a fuckton of merch at Hot Topic if it had come stateside just a few years later. Biblical themes, "complex" morals that are just "what if, like, love was illegal and murder was okay?!", moody twinks with Issues, an intro with a desaturated collage style over a mottled background with overlapping text in a grainy font, a contemporary soundtrack regardless of setting or genre, and, of course, plenty of leather. Yeah, it’s kind of a shame it never made it to NA.
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Apr 11, 2024 19:25
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yeah, this feels like it'd hit the same crowds as Yami no Matsuei, Weiss Kreuz, and Saiyuki
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Apr 11, 2024 20:03
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Robindaybird posted:yeah, this feels like it'd hit the same crowds as Yami no Matsuei, Weiss Kreuz, and Saiyuki It's very interesting that you mention Weiss Kreuz, because the character portraits and sprites in the original Sega Saturn version were designed by none other than Kyoko Tsuchiya who was also the manga illustrator and character designer for the anime version of... Weiss Kreuz! Obviously, the Dreamcast remake doesn't use those portraits any more, but the sprites were kept as-is (hence the annoying discrepancy in look). The removal of Tsuchiya's portraits in Dreamcast version is the subject of some dissatisfaction by the fans of the game! Here are some of her original designs from the Saturn version:       (In order: Domina, Abel, Reprobus, Gaius, Philip and Prague) Note: The PS1 version restored the original character portrait art (Prague's portrait is the PS1 version, but it just has slightly better resolution/colours). ivantod fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Apr 11, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 20:35
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 Last time our characters successfully managed to escape from their prison cells (with a little help from Philip, one of the guards).  Let's see where we go from here!    And then, the high priest addresses us, this time without the hood!   The name John is meant to be taken in the biblical sense, since Japanese text uses the biblical spelling (ヨハネ) instead of a ordinary English transcription which would be more like ジョン. Anyway, just thought I should let you know that. Well, he's right, as I already explained the situation with BP (Blood Points) which are only gained from killed enemies.  And with this...  ...the game puts us into the "Free Time" mode. Here we're free to walk around and interact with people and stuff, until we're ready to continue the story. So let's have a look around. First of all, Reprobus is leaning against the wall right there, so let's see. There are also some random prisoners here, like that guy in the corridor behind. So this is a weird statement, especially since it actually uses a wrong kanji for the word "burn" (萌) but which is pronounced the same, instead of the right one. I'm sure this is supposed to be some kind of a pun, especially since the previous kanji is also used to write the word "moe", but if it is indeed a pun, it's not one I can explain, so we'll just have to move on.  Over here on the upper level is Gaius. As you can see, the standard rule of JRPGs is in effect, that once you reach about 35 years of age, you're considered "with one foot in the grave". John doesn't even look that old, but nonetheless, he's going to be "the old guy" from now on!  Still one more level up, we have another nameless prisoner there in the corner. Uh, sure, buddy. But more importantly, we can talk to Philip. Aaand, he offers us a whole bunch of topics to inform us about. So we'll obviously go through them in order! ABOUT SEVEN DEALDLY SINS: It's the ideas like freedom, justice, human rights, equality, friendship, love. None of them exist in this world, because they represent a hypocritical way of thinking. Among us Black Wings, it's forbidden to even talk about them. Also, in this world, where the weak people like me are just prey to the fittest, even their very existence is considered a crime. ABOUT SEVEN VIRTUES: It's the sentiments like wrath, pride, envy, sloth, gluttony, greed and lust. All of these are highly respected as natural animal behaviour. They say that in the world where survival of the fittest is the law, all of these are completely natural. ABOUT THIS JAIL: This Golgotha prison is built as 3-story building underground. On the first floor are the people who will receive light punishments, such as simply being killed. On the second floor there is a torture chamber where pain can be continuously inflicted upon the criminals. And the deepest floor where we are now, is where those who will become sacrifices to seal the great evil god are housed. It's a prison for big sinners where they can continue to suffer as long as they're alive. Unfortunately, I don't actually know where the sinners are taken from here... but at least I don't think that your master who you talked about is here. ABOUT THE LIFE OF THE BLACK WINGS: The basic life of us Black Wings still depends mostly on hunting in different places, so many of us lead a vagabond life. But those in power have farms with slaves, and they have built fortresses to protect their land. And so they amass troups to demonstrate their power. However, in reality, most of Black Wing mercenaries are honing their skills daily in hopes of eventually defeating their employers. So it's not uncommon for a lord of some part of the country to change before you even realise it. In that sense, murder is like a way of everyday life. However, it's strictly forbidden for you White Wing slaves to kill your masters or other Black Wing people. However, in case of Reb and Guy, it seems the problem was that they uttered the words "freedom" and "justice" when they were captured by the Inquisitors. ABOUT HIGH PRIESTS: We the Black Wings have won a battle called the War of Genesis; it is said that we're the descendants of Mephisto and Lilith, but most of our magical powers have been lost over the years. However, unlike most of us, there are a few people left who still have horns growing out of their heads. Those are our high priests. They say that the priests still carry over the mystical power of black magic. According to their sayings, "one day the great evil god who wants to take back the world will be resurrected and so the real god will also be resurrected to prevent it from happening". I've heard that this is a legend that people seriously believe in. ABOUT THIS PRISON'S WARDEN: Acording to the rumours, Prague, the warden of this prison, is supposed to be a really evil person. Since her arrival, the number of death penalty and torture cases has decreased dramatically. Although, as for me, she has never abused me, even though other guards always complain behind my back that I'm neglecting my duties. ABOUT ABEL'S MASTER'S WHEREABOUTS: Sorry... I can't even imagine where your master might have been taken to... Ok, wow, that was a lore dump and a half, seriously.  But now, all that's left is to talk to John, who is reading a book over here. He's right. We should. But as we try to do so...   ...we're interrupted by Prague, followed by some guards and even a couple of White Wing prisoners!  Oh. But if it's not her, who ever you choose as master initially will be her sister (or brother, if you chose Zero).   Please watch the following cutscene for the rest of this sentence!  That was kind of hilarious. By the way, the voice of John was sounding familiar to me, and I've just realised that it belongs to the veteran voice actor, the late Takeshi Aono. But the only reason I'm mentioning this is because in the last four games I did a LP of here, somehow one of the main characters always turns out be voiced by him. A weird coincidence, or he was just that prolific in 1990s games maybe. But either way, it's time for...  BATTLE 2-2: "PURGATORY, PURGATORY AND YET STILL PURGATORY" VICTORY CONDITIONS: ALL GUARDS DEFEATED Yes, it's time to fight our way through again! Actually, that victory condition contains a bit of subtlety in how it's phrased, but more on that shortly!  As usual, we're in the pre-battle menu. But this time we have a bit more to do here! First of all, we got that knife last time. It's a wepon which characters with "thrust" attack type can use (in our party, that's Gaius).  So, we'll go and equip it. It doesn't actually change any of his stats at all, compared to the wooden stick he used last time, but...  ...back over in the menu, there's actually a new option available to us, called "Ritual". As it turns out, it's time to perfom the ritual of blood ministration! Wait no, wrong game! But it's not really far off. We are now able to use our current Blood Points to add abilities to our weapons! And this is the real reason why I gave the knife to Gaius, because...  ...as it turns out, you can add abilities to this knife. In all honesty, he's not going to be using this knife for much longer, but just to make life a bit easier, we'll add this ability here called "Zaren". It costs 8 BP to "awaken it" and it still doesn't change the stats of the weapon. What it does do is, add an auto HP recovery of 3 HP recovered for every 6 Command Time passed! Again, this is not at all someting that you need for the upcoming battle, but it makes things a bit easier. As you have already guessed, this is a passive ability, so it will be there just by virtue of having this particular weapon equipped.  As it turns out, Philip's short bow also has some abilities that can be "awakened". In this case, we'll spend 5 BP to add an ability called "Havolum". As you can see, this ability adds +2 to the weapon's attack stat and in addition adds a stronger attack to it that can be executed in a battle at the cost of 8 BP. We won't be using it this time (BP is kind of limited and we need it for something else), but an attack increase in general is nice to have, I think. With this done...  ...we get to party selection screen, but once again, it's mandatory to include everyone, which this time means John too!  Finally, we get to one last screen which I skipped over last time. This screen lets you distribute BP to different characters as you see fit, for them to use in the upcoming battle. As you can see, the "MP" situation in this game is a bit different than usual as you have to actually defeat enemies in order to be able to gain BP to use it; but then you can just give it to whichever character you plan to use magic spells with (or more than one character if that's what you want)! In fact there are still more quirks about how magic spells work. But for now, we have 36 BP remaining after all the upgrades and so I am going to assign all of that to John. Nobody else can use any magic anyway, and 36 is a pretty good number for this battle, as we'll soon see! So let's get started.  Here is the initial set up that the game gives us.   At the top end of that staircase... there is Prague, waiting for us. There is also a bunch of other guys around, but if you look carefully, you will notice that some of them are prison guards, but others are actually just prisoners. Although you can pull up their info in game, you can also easily tell based on their clothes. So now the subtlety of the victory condition becomes clear. You do not need to defeat any prisoners in order finish this battle succesfully, only Prague and the rest of the guards! In fact, if you do kill any prisoners, then you lock yourself out of something that you can do after this battle permanently. You also need to be careful here as some prisoners have black wings too. Anyway, the defaut initial positioning seems to hint that you should take the regular stairs to get up to the top level, but we already did that last time, so it would be boring to repeat it again. So we'll take a different route that has some benefits.  So here's the actual setup we'll use. As it turns out, those crates just to the right of our group... you can climb over them to get to the top level! By doing it like that, the whole situation with those three prisoners at the bottom of the staircase is taken out of the equation as they will never make a single move during the battle and you can just forget about them. There's still a couple of them up top, but generally it just means that you need to properly manage the "standby mode" to not accidentally kill them. I've also positioned John to be the first right next to those crates, because I really need him to make it over to where Prague is relatively soon-ish and his movement speed up the stairs is not fantastic. Also, if you're wondering what all that nonsense in the top right corner of the screen is, well, you're about to find out very soon! Ok, we're finally ready to begin.  Before we start, though... An attempt at a bit of an in-universe tutorial here. It kind of doesn't entirely succeed, but I'll explain it all when the time comes to use magic. All right, now for real, let's get started!  Obviously, John will make it as far up as he can...  ...and then the others, again as far as possible. We essentially have to go single file here, so that will slow us down. Also there are two guards waiting for us at the top that we'll have to deal with.  This time, before acting, Prague has a few choice words!   Enemy turn is some light reshuffling over by the doorway, but nothing major, except the one prisoner coming up the stairs.  Next, we bring Gaius up here (note the number 3 above his head indicating the health regen!).  Obviously, we shank the first guard, but he's still alive.  And then the rest of our party just continues going up those crates to the upper level. I do remember to set Gaius to "counterattack" mode, since none of the prisoners can get to him at this point so it's safe. Same for Reprobus as he's probably going to get attacked soon by one of the guards. Next enemy turn again some idle reshuffling by the door and then of course...  ...the guards start attacking Gaius.  And even John too, but I left him in "defend" mode. In our next turn...  ...Abel comes up and finishes that first guard.  ...and then Gaius makes a start on the next one. It's a bit crowded there.  Philip joins in with a point blank shot at the second guard! I've moved John closer to those boxes as it's getting a bit hard to maneuver around here.  In the next enemy turn, the second guard bites the dust with a counterattack from Gaius.  Plus the usual reshuffling on the enemy side. Prague climbs up on those boxes.  All right, it's time to start moving a bit forward, Gaius first to free up the space for his teammates who have lower mobility stat.  And now John comes up here and it's time to do some magic. So the thing which looks like a chart in the top right corner is a so-called "biorhytm". It changes with time (as the Command Time passes) and your goal is of course to time the magic use at the point when the biorhytm is high. So you can already see that I was a bit careless here because I could have moved the other two guys forward first to have a few more CT pass so that the biorhytm is higher, but luckily in the end it didn't matter. Make note also of the symbol which looks like a circle with two lines under the biorhytm chart.  Checking out John's magic spells, he has two spells related to Zombie stuff (yes, "Zombie Explosion" is there, but costs a whole 31 BP to use!), but also another one called "Lumina Cross". It's kind of like a AOE spell that deals pretty good damage to enemies. Notice also that spells have those symbols also noted on them (on the left side).  The game does show you the squares which will be affected, but the effect is the strongest in the centre. Anyway, here goes!  So that deals 16 damage (Prague has 60 HP total), I guess it could have been more (probably in low 20s) if I had done it better, but this is fine too.  Note how after casting the spell, the symbol has now changed to be the same one that was attached to the spell name. This is because in this game there are three different biorhytm cycles, and here they are.  As you can see, these symbols serve the purpose of identifying the cycle which is currently in effect. Also, when you cast a spell, the cycle which is in effect will change to that one which matches the symbol on the spell itself. So if you want to use magic in this game, it does require some careful planning, not just for the immediate use, but any use of magic also affects when is the next time it will be feasible to use a magic spell again. Using magic when the biorhytm is low will also prevent you from getting the S rank. Anyway, you might have noticed that Lumina Cross had a cost of 18 BP. Hence with the 36 BP we assigned to John we have enough for one more cast later. But we'll wait until the biorhytm state is more favourable.  Now the last two guys move forward, but as mentioned, I should really have done this in reverse order so that John's spell cast is the last action in the turn.  Philip hasn't done any attacks in this turn, so I just make a start on the third guard.  The third guard comes forward, but is shanked by Gaius in a counterattack. Some more reshuffling there by the door again. At this point it's probably best to switch all of our party members back to "defend" as the prisoners are close and we don't want to risk it. You can, in fact, attack the prisoners. It's just important that you don't kill them, but still.  In this turn, the third guard is done and it nets us a potion.  Also some reshuffling on our side, preparing for a big assault on Prague. But, as it turns out, we now have a somewhat favourable biorhytm, so it's time for another cast of Lumina Cross!  We'll do it like this, so that the prisoner who is standing in front of Prague doesn't get caught in the blast. The guy by the wall is actually a guard, so he'll eat some damage too which is good.  As you can see, that's a little bit better than last time. John is out of BP, but he can still bonk people with his staff for a bit of damage. In the enemy turn, that guard on the boxes that just got caught in the blast comes down and starts trash talking us.  Sure buddy. You're lucky I'm going to be busy dealing with Prague now so you have still a couple of turns to live.  Other than that, enemies move around a bit and John suffers a couple of hits but nothing major.  Now it's time for a bit of an assault. Gaius comes from behind for an attack. Unfortunately, she's in "defend" mode so damage will be reduced, but what can you do.  John moves down to make space for Reprobus for a side attack. She's already at critical health!  Philip joins in with his bow, but in only does 1 damage due to "defend" mode. By the way, you can shoot "through" other characters, they don't get damaged. With this we hand the turn back to the enemy.  Again we suffer a few minor hits, but nothing major. Prague attacks Gaius, but with his regen, he's pretty much at full health still. I should mention that she currently uses a whip as a weapon (big surprise there) which is a mellee weapon but it can be used also from a couple of squares distance rather than having to be right next to the enemy!  In the next turn, Prague has switched to "evade" mode, but RNG is not on her side, so Gaius finishes her off!  Then, all that's left is this last guard...  ...and we're done. That last guard, by the way, gives us a Gladius, another new weapon.    And quite literally in the nick of time, since 98 Command Time is actually the limit for S rank. I'm also fairly sure that this S-rank streak will not last, but we'll see. In any case, the goal will be to not go below A. The bonus item this time is a "Power Drink", which as you can imagine, gives you a temporary +1 in STR when used in battle. Maybe you noticed that I wasn't really bothering much with "skeletonising" the enemies. They weren't really in the way for the most part so there was no need to use up the turns. In the original Sega Saturn version, you'd only get the Blood Points after you "skeletonise" an enemy, but this was changed in the Dreamcast remake so you get BP immediately when you incapacitate the enemy, so in that way, the game is a little bit easier. Also the layout of the battlefields was in some of the stages completely different in the original. Not to mention, with the blood ritual to add abilities to the weapons, you could just add a certain amount of BP, but you didn't know what you were going to get until you actually get it. This was also changed in the remake so that now you can choose specifically what you want to add to your weapon, again, making things a bit easier. Then we go into the usual level up/stat distribution screen.  Philip goes up two levels to level 4 but I also adjust the stats a bit for a couple more points in VIT and STR.  Reprobus goes up one level, to level 4 also and also with some small adjustments towards VIT and STR.  And finally, Gaius also goes up to level 4. Now let's see what happens after the fight!    Well, you do have a choice here, so you can either have her join the party or not. But of course, even to get this choice available to you, there's a secret condition behind it (like a lot of things in this game)! Only if you do not kill any prisoners in the previous battle will she be avialable here to join you as a party member. In addition to that, of course, if you picked her as the master, then she won't be here at all in the first place, and even the last fight will be against that other guy (but of course with him, no matter what he won't be joining your party). To make things even more complicated... if you say NO here and don't let her join the party, then the game has a small plot branch, in which you can have one of the other masters, Prica, join you instead! So before we continue, let's take a look at what that alternative option looks like quickly! quote:If you say NO to Prague joining, she still lets you escape the prison, but then as you keep going... So, uh, yeah. As you can imagine, I really don't want to subject myself to that for the rest of this game, so, uh, I think we'll just go with Prague instead. So, after you choose to let Prague join the party... Prague has joined the party! That went well, I think? In any case, with this, we continue our journey out of this prison.   CHAPTER 2: "THE GOLGOTHA PRISON" — THE END And with this we continue our way outside of this prison.  After some time, we reach a city.  And then the new chapter starts!  CHAPTER 3: "TEMPLE OF THE SUN"  Well. Looks like we have a whole new place to explore and I'm sure a few good fights to fight too. But more on that next time! Until then, take care.
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Apr 16, 2024 22:47
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So, are you only allowed to take one of the potential alternate masters, or are Prague and Prica specifically mutually exclusive with one another? And does this mean that if you don't know the cheat code to unlock him as a master, Zero just never shows up anywhere in the game in the original Saturn version? I wonder if this was a way to avoid possible issues with bigotry from reviewers at the time. All three releases of the game predate CERO, so there was no ratings board they had to appease, so I'm not sure why else they'd include a homosexual option, but then hide it behind a simple button combo. By the way, for those who also found Takeshi Aono's voice familiar, his most prominent roles were those of King Piccolo and Kami in the Dragon Ball franchise, as well as being the original voice of Dracule Mihawk in One Piece. He passed in 2012, sadly. Interesting piece of trivia, the same episode in which his role of Mihawk was passed on to a successor, the voice of Emporio Ivankov was also replaced, as the original VA, Norio Imamura, was arrested for posting pics of his lower body tattoos on his personal private blog (presumably his dick was in the shots, but I reiterate that this was his own personal blog). Which circles back to being tangentially relevant to the game since Black/Matrix also involves people being put in jail for utterly insane and unjust reasons. As for the rest of our party: -Reprobus is voiced by Hideyuki Hori, a frequent supporting actor throughout the nineties, known best for Captain Ginyu from DBZ and Kyoji Kasshu/Schwarz Bruder from G Gundam. -Phillip is voiced by Hiro Yuuki, who voiced Dende in exactly two episodes of DBZ, and has done a number of supporting roles, including Tekkaman Dead from Tekkaman Blade II, Clotho from Gundam SEED, and Michel from Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team. His actual most prominent role for a Japanese audience would be as the dub voice of Stan from South Park. -Gaius' VA, Kaneto Shiozawa, passed away in 2000, making Black/Matrix one of his last roles. He was an accomplished voice actor, having played the lead role of Marin in Space Warrior Baldios, Blaster Kid in Galaxy Cyclone Braiger, Billy the Shot from Baxinger, Rock Anlock from Sasuraiger, Joliver in Space Runaway Ideon, M'Quve in Mobile Suit Gundam, Leonardo Medici Bundle in Goshogun, Ryo in Dancougar, Ru Kain in SPT Layzner, Saiga (pilot of Omzack of Thunder) from Hades Project Zeorymer, Emperor Neo from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Shadi from Yu-Gi-Oh, and Devimon from Digimon Adventure. To my knowledge, he holds the rather unfortunate record of most voice roles needing to be replaced in Super Robot Wars, in case anyone wants to know who the original VA for all those characters happened to be.
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Apr 16, 2024 23:56
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zombie suicide bombers are cool, need to find a way so spam that move as much as possible
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Apr 17, 2024 00:26
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So does the Ultimate Ancient Zombie Magic: Zombie Explosion come with the jet thrusters attached to the zombie, or is that a separate spell?
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Apr 17, 2024 00:44
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It feels weird to be able to spend BP on permanent unlocks (like weapon upgrades) but also just... to give spellcasters MP for one stage. If John didn't spend all of his BP on a map, would the leftovers be refunded to the bank? Can you take back BP from weapons when they become obsolete statistically?
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Apr 17, 2024 06:20
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Junpei posted:It feels weird to be able to spend BP on permanent unlocks (like weapon upgrades) but also just... to give spellcasters MP for one stage. I imagine once we get going into the proper missions we're gonna have so many dudes on the map BP will quickly stop being an issue.
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Apr 17, 2024 06:50
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RelentlessImp posted:So does the Ultimate Ancient Zombie Magic: Zombie Explosion come with the jet thrusters attached to the zombie, or is that a separate spell? It's the rocket punch principle. Any action becomes more ultimate the more it has rockets on it, so for Zombie Explosion to be the Ultimate Ancient Zombie Magic, it must include rockets.
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Apr 17, 2024 12:25
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Man, that's already a lot more convoluted then I assumed. Reminds me a little bit of SaGa, to be honest. Edit: Or Star Ocean 1+2, especially the first game has a lot of rules to determine how you can get certain characters, and trying to get them without a guide is a goddamn headache. If we had chosen Prica as our master, would that cell be empty? Would Prague still be prison leader? Could you power game this by taking Prica as`master and then defeating and taking Prague here, too?
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Apr 17, 2024 15:01
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Libluini posted:Man, that's already a lot more convoluted then I assumed. Reminds me a little bit of SaGa, to be honest. Edit: Or Star Ocean 1+2, especially the first game has a lot of rules to determine how you can get certain characters, and trying to get them without a guide is a goddamn headache. I guess it should have explained it a bit better, outside of the "free time" segments it's not possible to walk around and explore the world like in a regular RPG. Outside of "free time" segments (and fights of course), the game progresses on its own kind of like a VN. So if we take Prica at the beginning of the game, then that whole scene with freeing her from her cell just simply doesn't happen and is completely skipped, since the master you chose at the beginning of the game is captured and doesn't appear like this in the world to be recruited. So Prague will always be the warden except when she's the one you picked at the beginning of the game. Basically here you have the choice to recruit Prague, but if you don't then the Prica scene happens, and you have the choice to recruit Prica instead (except when you chose Prica at the start in which case she doesn't appear no matter what). So which one(s) of Prica, Prague will appear depends on your starting choice, and even if both of them can appear, you can only ever recruit one or the other but not both. Hope this makes things a little bit clearer. And to answer the other question, in Sega Saturn version, the other masters didn't appear in the game anyway, so yeah I guess that means that unless you chose Zero at the start he would not appear later. Also this: Junpei posted:If John didn't spend all of his BP on a map, would the leftovers be refunded to the bank? Can you take back BP from weapons when they become obsolete statistically?
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Apr 17, 2024 17:33
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John the Baptist Archmage Necromancer was good for a chuckle.
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Apr 19, 2024 23:26
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Is there ever any particular reason for the player to use the evasion standby mode? Obviously counterattack is the most generally useful, but in situations where you don't want to counter or want to reduce damage, defend seems like the most practical thing to do. Does evasion ever get to a point where you can rely on it more often than not, or does it mostly just exist for the enemy to occasionally annoy you?
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Apr 21, 2024 14:27
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ivantod posted:I guess it should have explained it a bit better, outside of the "free time" segments it's not possible to walk around and explore the world like in a regular RPG. Outside of "free time" segments (and fights of course), the game progresses on its own kind of like a VN. So if we take Prica at the beginning of the game, then that whole scene with freeing her from her cell just simply doesn't happen and is completely skipped, since the master you chose at the beginning of the game is captured and doesn't appear like this in the world to be recruited. So Prague will always be the warden except when she's the one you picked at the beginning of the game. Basically here you have the choice to recruit Prague, but if you don't then the Prica scene happens, and you have the choice to recruit Prica instead (except when you chose Prica at the start in which case she doesn't appear no matter what). So which one(s) of Prica, Prague will appear depends on your starting choice, and even if both of them can appear, you can only ever recruit one or the other but not both. Hope this makes things a little bit clearer. So, wait a minute, depending on the player's choices, can they end up with zero recruits then? If they choose Prica as the master for example, and then gently caress up recruiting Prague, do they just get nothing in this sequence? 
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Apr 21, 2024 14:37
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Libluini posted:So, wait a minute, depending on the player's choices, can they end up with zero recruits then? If they choose Prica as the master for example, and then gently caress up recruiting Prague, do they just get nothing in this sequence? CullenDaGaDee posted:Is there ever any particular reason for the player to use the evasion standby mode? Obviously counterattack is the most generally useful, but in situations where you don't want to counter or want to reduce damage, defend seems like the most practical thing to do. Does evasion ever get to a point where you can rely on it more often than not, or does it mostly just exist for the enemy to occasionally annoy you?
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Apr 21, 2024 19:42
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 PREVIOUSLY ON BLACK/MATRIX...  After successfully escaping from Golgotha prison, having now become fugitives, under the leadership of John the group headed towards the city of Ribeira and its Temple of the Sun. They had to believe John's word that here they might be able to find out more about the whereabouts of Abel's master. However, from the beginning, John had his own ulterior motive for his actions. It was for very personal reasons... but it will turn out to have far-reaching consequences. AND NOW, THE CONTINUATION!  CHAPTER 3: TEMPLE OF THE SUN    That is... somewhat disconcerting looking. But ok, if it helps us not get caught, I guess it's ok?  And welcome to our standard "Free Time" segment. As usual, we'll go around and talk to people to gather information. Let's start with the three people standing around here (well, one is sitting down I guess). Huh? But why? I guess we'll have to find out. Or maybe in this world that's actually good? Yes, it seems that having a Black Wing among us does help. In fact, two Black Wings, but it seems the dialogue doesn't really account for the possiblity of Prague (or Prica) being here.  Let's see here. The guy standing in front of the door is actually the shopkeeper. He has some nice... and expensive stuff. More on that soon, for now we will talk to the person sitting on the ground. Huh. Interesting. But to be clear, when Black Wings talk about demons, of course they refer to White Wing demons, i.e. those who were NOT followers of Satan.  A woman is standing on this side...  Is this guy praying or...? All right, that was a little bit of a lore refresher from Philip, especially for those players of this game who didn't take the time to read the books during the prologue.  For now, we have two more people on this side. Well, that should be good, right? I mean, the John part, not the Judas part. Anyway, that's everyone we can talk to right now...  ...except for this shady individual standing here in the corner. Talking to him...  FREE BATTLE: CITY OF RIBEIRA VICTORY CONDITIONS: DEFEAT ENEMY LEADER ...uh, we go straight into a battle? The game calls this a "free battle", but if you played e.g. Valkyria Chronicles, you might recall that it had a mode called "Skirmish Battles". So this is essentially the same thing, optional battles you can fight to gain a little bit more EXP, money and BP (and an item here and there). Of course, they don't really have any connection to the game's plot or anything like that, so I'm not going to be covering them in great detail, but rather just as a short summary. I will, however...  ...take this moment to equip Gladius (which we won last time) on Abel. This adds +3 to his STR which is nothing to be sneezed at! Apart from that, we'll take with us the entire party (although John will not have anything to actually do in this fight, and so we won't assign any BP to anyone).  It'a simple concept, with a bunch of enemies on some stairs. The game suggests to make two halves of our team and go from each side...  ...but we'll just group everyone on one side. By the way, unlike normal battles which almost always begin on Player Turn, the free battles usually being on Enemy Turn, just for some variety.  Mainly the idea is that our melee fighters make their way down the stairs...  ...and in the meantime, Philip stays on high ground and snipes the enemies as much as possible with his bow. Of course, the bow doesn't shoot diagonally in this game, so he may have to move back and forth a little bit, but still. Archers are actually incredibly useful in this game, and this might make you potentially chose Prica instad of Prague to join your party since Prica is also an archer, like Philip. And it goes more or less like that until the end. Defeating the leader gives you an item which I believe can vary, but in our case, we got a "Magdala Armour". This is not an extraordinarily useful piece of equipment mainly because it's cursed, so once it's equipped, it can never again be removed until the character dies. But it has an interesting ability that all magic which the character who is wearing it has learned, upon character's death, all the magic spells are transferred to the armour itself, so they can be "inherited" by the next character who wears the same armour. This is all much too complicated, and also I don't intend to have any characters die ever, so the only real "useful" part of this will never really come into effect. Therefore, we're not going to use it. Anyway, after a bunch of turns, the battle is done.    As you can see, the rewards are not fantastic (because you only actually get EXP for the enemy leader unit, the others don't give you any EXP). No bonus items, and also these "free battles" aren't even ranked. But still, we'll check them out as we go through the game.  Still, the received EXP does allow us to bump Abel to level 4, so it's better than nothing. I tweak it a bit to increase VIT for slightly higher HP value.  After this, we're back in town. Before we proceed with our attempt to infiltrate the temple...  ...let's quickly visit the shop as we have a little bit of money now.  Considering the prices, we can really only buy one thing and you probably want to take this Spear here for Gaius. As you can see, it gives an additional +3 in STR compared to his previous weapon, but that's not all.  We can immediately awaken the "Zaren" ability on the spear so that Gaius can continue to enjoy his gradual HP recovery. In fact, we can awaken this same ability on Prague's weapon so for now she can also benefit from HP regen. Before we continue...  ...I just wanted to mention that the Magdala Armour sells for just 2 G. So even the game agrees that it's mostly useless! Anyway, now let's head into the temple.    Inside the temple...     Or, you know, there might be something more going on here that you're not aware of. Reprobus is kind of on to something here, but then draws a wrong conclusion. And it's time for our next fight!  BATTLE 3-1: INFILTRATION VICTORY CONDITIONS: DEFEAT ALL ENEMIES  No special preparations this time, we'll just go straight into it.  Everyone except Prague is required, but since we have a slot for her, we'll include here anyway. Again, we're not going to be using any BP.  Here's the setup. As you can see, the battlefield is just a very large staircase leading into the inner parts of the temple and there are only 6 enemies total. Let's check out the enemies for a second. First off, we have a bunch of "Devotees" (and by a bunch I mean 5 of them):  As you can see, despite what John had said, these guys are still just ordinary grunts, not any better than the prison guards. The last guy, standing at the very top of the stairs, is a bit special, though:  Unfortunately, this enemy type is called the "Poisonist", so uh, yeah, like most RPGs, this one too has status effects. You can see there at the bottom he has a "Poison Cloud" spell which can inflict poison and lasts for 40 CT. Although enemies here have limited BP, same as the player, this guy's BP is 58 and the Poison Cloud spell costs only 8, so he can definitely cast it many times before running out. In addition to that, Poisonists also have a petrification spell, but they won't tend to use it just yet. Anyway, let's get started. By the way, sorry about some small graphical glitches in screenshots during this fight. My recording software decided to corrupt the video slightly, but luckily I was able to salvage most of it without having to play through the fight again!  To begin with, we'll move the people around a bit, because there's really no reason that Philip or John should be in the front row.  Gaius has enough mobility to reach and attack the first priest. One attack with the spear takes off about 2/3 of their HP.  Prague has a slightly ranged attack with her whip, so she can also make a start on the other one. Unfortunately her attack power is not as strong.  But Philip does better. After gaining a couple of levels, he's definitely proving to be a useful party member!  Abel and Reprobus will just move forward as much as they can, and everybody switches to counterattack mode, of course. John is there, but again this is one of the situations where he won't need to do much. And now it's time for the enemy's first turn!  As you can see, it goes about as well as expected. Thanks to all the counterattacks, two of the priests are already dead and two are in critical HP. Poisonist has moved a bit closer to us, so that's something to keep an eye on.  Then Philip will finish this guy...  ...and Abel will finish the other. This also nets us a set of Leather Clothes which will be a nice upgrade for someone after the battle.  Gaius moves around this way, in hopes of approaching the poisonist from behind...  And with not having anyone to attack, Reprobus just steps a bit forward.  In the next turn, my plan with Gaius doesn't work out, when both remaining enemies step down the other side! Poisonist manages to succeed in poisoning Prague, but she has regen which can largely counteract it and also we're close to done here so it's not going to make a difference anyway. But do note that the biorhytm type will/may also change when the enemy is using magic spells (depending on the spell, as usual), so this may muck up your plans sometimes by resetting it to low value. Even in case when the biorhytm does not actually change, it will still reset to the beginning of the cycle after a magic spell is used.  I know you're rearing to go John, but it truly would be a collosal waste of BP in this battle! Like I said, we're almost done here!  In the next turn, Gaius heads back across to help out.  Philip and Abel sort out the last remaining "ordinary" enemy.  Reprobus makes a start on the Poisonist...  In the next enemy turn, poisonist retreats back and tries to poison Reprobus, but it misses!  Reprobus can actually reach to that location so we continue to chip away at poisonist's health.  And then Philip finishes him off from behind there!  And that's all! This is a pretty quick and easy one, actually.    There we go. As you can see, the number of used turns is quite a bit lower than in previous fights. The item reward this time is a Dagger, a weapon. Unfortunately, the only one who can equip it right now is Gaius, and he already has something better! As for the character levels...  Abel goes to level 5.  Reprobus goes also to level 5.  And so does Philip. But it turns out, we're not done here! A new challenger appears!   Huh. That's... interesting. I wonder who is inside that armour.  I'm sure you know where this is going!  BATTLE 3-2: WHO ARE WE FIGHTING FOR? VICTORY CONDITIONS: DEFEAT THE HERETIC KNIGHT As for the preparations...  ...Gaius will take those leather clothes we won previously for a increase of +4 in VIT.  Again, we take everyone into the fight, because there's really no downside to doing so.  John is given 18 BP to use in this battle, and you know what that means (BP assignment is so spoilery!).  The fight "arena" is similar to last time, except with more enemies and on a slighty different part of the staircase. This is really just "part 2" of the previous fight.  As usual, there's a bunch of grunts with not much to distinguish them.  One of them is a bit different though. He's wearing an accessory called "Great Heavenly Certificate". This accessory makes it so that you become level 30 while wearing it. It doesn't, however, actually change your stats much. The only stat upgrade you get when wearing it is STR+2 (as you can also see it on the screenshot). Despite the grand name and all, it's in the end just a piece of paper that you can also eventually buy in an equipment shop for 10 G. He's still going to hit a little harder than the others, but not actually what it would be like at a real level 30!  Unfortunately, we do have again a poisonist here... and this one will be a bit of a pain.  Also, two crusader soldiers. They're both archers, but thankfully not super strong, although they do have longbows as opposed to Philip who still only uses a shortbow. But they do have the Havolum ability which we gave to Philip a while ago (but haven't used yet), so they can make us a bit miserable (based on their BP, each of them can use it twice before running out). And finally...  ...our friend, the Heretic Knight. This knight is equipped with a cutlass. The armour they're wearing actually hasn't got any special functions during the battle (but it does have some other benefits which I will mention later). They also have an accessory called "Proof of Covenant". When wearing it, you're protected against, uh, "weapon exchange". We'll talk about it soon in more details, but I guess I should mention that you can put the ability on some weapons that allow you to... exchange your weapon for that of an enemy (and vice versa). Of course, enemies can also use it, so starting soon(ish), we'll need to be careful on this topic. But for this battle, it's not a danger. In addition to all that, the knight also has some healing magic--this is the first battle where enemy is actually able to heal, which means that in theory they could revive their fallen soldiers unless we turn them into skeletons. In this fight, the knight will mostly hang back so it won't be a pressing concern, but still, it's something to be aware of.  Looking at the knight's abilities, we can see here an ability called "Lilim". It's a HP recovery ability (using HP recovery on fallen soldiers simply revives them), but it costs 26 BP, so the knight will only be able to use it a maximum of 2 times during the battle. I guess a bit of silver lining there. But it is an AOE heal, so let's keep that in mind. That was a lot of talk, so let's move on to the actual fight.  Here's our starting situation.  We'll adjust it in the similar way like last time!  To mix things up a bit, Prague will make a start on this guy here. Nice thing about this kind of attack with a whip is that you can't get counterattacked when the enemy only has a normal melee weapon (a morningstar actually in this case).  Gaius will then step in front of her and attack with his spear. But check out how it works:  Yes, if you point at the second enemy in the back, the spear attack will pierce both enemies! That's pretty neat.  Philip makes a start on the other side. We really need to clear out the space a little bit.  And then in a similar strategy, Abel comes in front of Philip and finishes the first guy.  Reprobus and John can't really reach any of the enemies, so they'll just move forward. Setting the "front row" to counterattack now should do nicely during the enemy's turn.  This guy attacks Gaius from the side, but is finished in a counterattack.  Grunt on the left side gets counterattacked by Abel, too.  And another one by Gaius. Unfortunately because he was targeting the closest enemy, poisonist doesn't get hit this time.  Poisonist retreats back and tries it on Reprobus, but fails.  One of the archers uses his special attack on Reprobus, but as I've told you, they're not super strong.  Regular bow attack from the other side is successfully defended by Prague. Then the knight comes into action and decides to cast Lilim heal spell:  As I've explained, due to its AOE nature this does revive one of the fallen grunts, but what can you do. At least we'll only have to deal with this spell a maximum of one more time, so that's ok.  In our next turn, Prague puts this revived guy back down again...  ...and Gaius makes another start at the just healed guy in front of him.  We really need to get rid of the poisonist, so Reprobus goes forward and does good damage. By the way, yes, I could have focused everybody on the knight and ignored the others, but this is not Valkyria Chronicles so you get EXP and BP for each individual enemy you defeat, so as long as you're under the maximum time for S rank, it's beneficial to defeat as many enemies as possible. No need to rush the scout to the end of the map in one turn. (Don't get me wrong, Valkyria Chronicles is one of my favourite games, and back in the day I actually bought a PS3 just so I could play it, but the whole idea of battle rank being so strictly based on the number of turns with no breathing room at all is one of its worst qualities. It was relaxed somewhat in Valkyria Chronicles 4, at least.)  Abel will just bonk this guy again, which does finish him off.  Philip finishes the other guy off with his bow. Potentially a better play here would have been to deal further damage to one of the archers, but oh well. This is all going to almost go pear shaped soon enough either way.  In the next turn, the poisonist succeeds on Philip. Again, this battle too will not last long enough for this to be a problem, but it's a bit annoying.  This archer likes to use his special ability (this time on Abel), but he's now out of BP, so this is the last time! Speaking of BP, I should mention that the BP you earn during the battle, you can actually add it to your character's pool for immediate use if you're in a tough spot. However, you can only add as much as that particular character has earned from enemies they personally defeated, and also doing this will disqualify you from getting the S rank.  The other archer hits Prague, but again with minimal effect.  The knight decides to cast Lilim again (for the second and last time at least). This does revive two grunts, but with only 9 HP each, so while annoying, it won't cause us much hardship. In fact it causes no hardship at all, since both of them, after revival, decide to immediately attack Gaius and are both promptly put back down, never to rise again. As you can see, we'll definitely have to be more careful with this from now on.  In the next player turn, Reprobus moves back down and attacks the remaining grunt. Gaius will go over to where Reprobus previously was and try it on with his spear against the poisonist and the knight (since they're nicely lined up).  It's ineffective, since the poisonist dodges (the first of several) and the knight is (expectedly) in defend mode.  Abel makes a start on the first archer (finally)...  ...and Philip finishes him off. Finally the enemy forces are starting to dwindle.  And in that vein, Prague finishes the last remaining Grunt. This nets us a potion which we're not going to need. Prague's poison finally wears off.  In the next turn, the poisonist moves again further back and... poisons Prague again! Sure, buddy, you do you.  She is also again attacked by that last archer, but he seems not to get that it's not going to lead to anything. This Prague poison situation would have been a lot worse had we not awakened the auto regen on her weapon.  The knight is starting to attack, and they're definitely strong. I also forgot to put Gaius in defend mode. But hey, at least we get a few HP damage from the counterattack.  In the next turn, Reprobus attacks the poisonist again. The poisonist dodges.  Gaius is chipping away at the knight.  In the meantime Prague is working on the last archer.  In the enemy turn, the poisonist decides to go all the way back there, because why not. He's not being enough of a pain already.  And then he of course poisons Reprobus.  It's getting a bit dangerous for Gaius although he does have his regen still and is not poisoned.  In the next turn, still chipping away.  Reprobus chases after the poisonist...  ...but the poisonist dodges his attack. Come on, seriously? This poisonist has been at critical HP for like last 5 turns!  Prague finishes the archer. Now it's just the poisonist and the knight.  Philip makes a further bit of a dent in knight's armour! Knight still has about 37 HP left after this, considering that the initial hp was 76! Don't worry, we'll speed this up.  Abel moves near the knight for a possible concentrated attack.  In the next turn, poisonist decides to bonk Reprobus for... 2 HP? I guess he's out of BP...  ...and a counterattack finally, finally, does it.  In the next turn, Reprobus is free to take a good chunk of HP off the knight. Oh. It seems John might know who is the person inside that armour?  Philip joins in. And then finally...  ...John comes over and does his Lumina Cross thing, which is at long last enough to finish off the knight!  Let's see how we did.    Were it not for the ridiculous situation with the poisonist dodging three times in a row, probably we could have ended with 9 turns instead of 11, but still an S rank is an S rank (you can still get an S rank with 12 turns, but since turn no. 12 is enemy turn, it would mean that the last blow is dealt from a counterattack). This is what I was talking about before. Despite in this game too S rank being primarily based on how many turns you take, the game actually gives you enough room to play it normally instead of having to rush it. Anyway, the item reward is Hard Leather Clothes this time. Even though the last two battles have introduced a few new concepts, they're still not overly hard. Anyway, we got some decent EXP this time, so let's do the leveling up as usual!  Abel goes to level 6.  And so does Reprobus.  And so does Philip.  Gaius goes to level 5. I guess we'll probably want to catch him up a bit next time. And then...   ...the person in the armour suddenly stands up again! The rest is in the cutscene!   And then it's time...   ...for the armour finally to come off! Well, the headpiece anyway.  By the way, she's referring to him as "teacher", but more in the sense of "mentor" or something like that.  Rupi Rupi has joined the party! Moar party members! This is good news as it means we now have in our party someone who has healing magic! As you might remember, usage of healing items counts against you when S rank is concerned, but usage of healing magic is perfectly allowed! So this should be very helpful as the fights are getting harder! In any case, this little reunion is interrupted by a guy showing up... I guess he's looking for our friend Rupi Rupi?    Yes, well. We'll see about that. But next time. In the meantime, I should clarify that Rupi Rupi is definitely one of main characters in this game, alongside Abel, Philip, John, Gaius and Reprobus and as such will be actively participating in our story, unlike most of the side characters. Anyway, I'll see you next time, for more fights inside the Temple of the Sun. Not going to lie to you, it's going to get a little weird. But until then, take care!
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Apr 23, 2024 22:28
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Rupi Rupi is definitely increasing the anime level a bit here. Also does she not have wings? Are they inside the armour?
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Apr 24, 2024 00:53
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 Whow, it will probably be hard to convince the knight willing to fight us to the death to join up! Nope, she wasn't that much into serving evil.
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Apr 24, 2024 10:21
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Blaze Dragon posted:Also does she not have wings? Are they inside the armour? Err... Can I have, uh, an easier question please?
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Apr 24, 2024 18:52
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Man getting people to join your revolutionary front is real easy in this world.
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Apr 24, 2024 21:36
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Seraphic Neoman posted:Man getting people to join your revolutionary front is real easy in this world. Makes sense. Violent overthrow of the ruling powers is probably just an everyday occurrence in Black/Matrix's world. "Hey, Bill, wanna murder the boss and annex the accounting department after lunch?" "Sure thing! Speaking of, you got time this weekend? Me and the missus are planning to pay a little visit to the HOA on Saturday, could use an extra sword arm."
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Apr 24, 2024 22:01
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EclecticTastes posted:Makes sense. Violent overthrow of the ruling powers is probably just an everyday occurrence in Black/Matrix's world. Yes, indeed. In fact it was mentioned by some character in the game that this is actually how things are in this world (or maybe we read it in a book, can't remember, but it was definitely mentioned).
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Apr 24, 2024 22:31
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a new pal in  armor, Nice!!but man, philip and abel look wayyyy too similar from just their headshots
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Apr 25, 2024 07:26
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ivantod posted:Err... Allow me to field that for you. Ahem... NANOMACHINES, SON! 
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Apr 25, 2024 08:01
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Gilgamesh255 posted:Allow me to field that for you. Yeah, that works. Let's go with that. But seriosuly, we will have something on this topic coming up soon.
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Apr 25, 2024 19:17
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Maybe it's just been too long since I watched older anime but I certainly wasn't expecting the person in the ominous black armor to be a moe girl that immediately joins up to pull a Judas on Judas. Every update makes me a little sadder this didn't get a proper western release, I'd have been one of this game's biggest fans as a kid.
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Apr 25, 2024 21:53
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 Last time, we gained a new party member, who John seems to already know from before. But then we got rudely interrupted by one of Judas's goons who was looking for her. As you can imagine, this leads to...  BATTLE 3-3: THE ANGELUS CHURCH VICTORY CONDITIONS: DEFEAT ALL ENEMIES To make this go a bit smoother, we'll change around the eqipment loadout for a bit.  As for starting equipment, Rupi Rupi comes with a ring accessory that gives +4 in INT and DEX and a cutlass. We'll unequip these from her for now.  Instead we'll give her the dagger we won as reward last time. It's a little weaker but this is just temporary anyway.  The ring will go to John to use for the time being since we mostly rely on his Lumina Cross spell.  Reprobus will get the cutlass and also hard leather clothes we won last time too. Finally, nobody is still wearing the prisoner clothes! As for BP allocation, we are starting to be less constrained, so I'll just fill up John, Philip and Rupi Rupi (the latter one in case we need a heal, and Philip so we can use his bow special attack if we feel like it). In any case, BP is becoming a bit less constrained, so we don't have to worry as much (as long as we don't waste it needlessly). All right, let's see what we're working with here.   Nice stained glass window you have there! Anyway, the hooded guy at the very top there is the main goon:  He is surprisinly not the strong, actually.  There are definitely a couple of poisonists here, although this time they will be more interested in trying to cast petrification on us!  More importantly, there are also two healers here. Healing enemies is kind of neither here not there, but as we know, healing also revivies dead enemies who have not been turned into skeletons, so that part is a bit more of an issue. So we'll sort of make these two guys a bit of a priority early on. Finally, up there on the left hand wall...  ...we have again two of those Crusader archers with some special attacks on their bows.  They have actually a surprising amount of HP, so that will take a bit of work to get rid of them.  Anyway, here's our starting setup that the game gives us...  ...but we'll change it around a bit as usual. We'll put Gaius and Prague on the right side and the rest will stay on the left, since there's a lot more going on on that end. All right, let's start.   To start with, Reprobus will get up on that wall. His duty during this fight will be to deal with the archers while the others can focus on pushing forward towards the main goon. Obviously he's going to get constantly pounded by ranged attacks, so he will be sticking to "defend" mode this time. In this first turn, unfortunately, he can't reach far enough to be able to attack anybody.  Next, Abel, Rupi Rupi and Gaius move forward. Gaius there is actually in the range of one of the grunts...  ...so he can start attacking.  Prague and Philip also move forward. Prague can't attack anybody yet...  ...but Philip can make a start on one of the archers on the wall. Archers are set to counterattack (it's possible even with a bow!).  Finally, John also moves forward, but he can't really do anything at the moment. In th enemy turn...  ...of course, archers start to harass Reprobus, but we expected that anyway.  This guy tries it on Gaius but is counterattacked into oblivion.  And so does this guy, but he's not quite dead yet.  Poisoning attempt of Abel fails, thankfully!  And some more reshuffling of enemy forces as usual.  John moves over here. Although the biorhytm is not at its highest, it's still pretty decent, so we'll go ahead and cast Lumina Cross.  It deals some good damage to a poisonist and a healer over there!  Rupi Rupi takes advatage of the fact that a dagger can attack in all 8 directions around the character and finished off the first healer!  Abel moves forward and skeletonises him, just to be on the safe side. The last thing we want is for one healer to revive the other!  Philip executes his Havolum ability with his bow and deals nice damage to the first archer. These abilities do consume BP, but are NOT affected by the biorhytm!  Reprobus continues Philip's work. This guy is now close to death.  Gaius makes a start on the last ordinary grunt. I know we left that one guy behind, but he only has a couple of HP so someone will deal with it via a counterattack in the next turn.  Finally, Prague moves forward again.  In the enemy turn, this guy also tries it on Gaius, but as you can see the counterattack is quite effective in putting him down. We get a potion for this, but we're not allowed to use it so... not that we'll actually need it.  The injured archer moves back and continues plonking Reprobus. This is a bit annoying as now we can't reach him to attack him any more because of the other guy in between. But by the same token, having Repropus here also has an additional benefit of making it impossible for these two guys to come down to the ground floor and start mucking things up. I mean they could take the long way around sure, but enemy AI knows that that takes way too long so it will not even try it.  With that almost dead guy things don't work out as planned as he decides to go all the way over there and attack John from behind. Oh well. We'll sort him out eventually.  A petrification attempt is made on Rupi Rupi by the poisonist there... but it misses.  The guy that Gaius just killed is revived by the remaining healer. But (a) the revived guy only now as 1 HP and (b) nice of the healer to come down to us so we don't have to chase him.  So Gaius will now make a start on the second healer.  And Prague will finish him off. Nice. No more revivals.  Abel finishes off the first poisonist with a nice attack from high ground here.  Philip continues working on the archers...  ...and Reprobus can finally finish off one of them!  Rupi Rupi moves over this way in preparation form making our way up the stairs.  That revived enemy is stupid enough to attack Gaius, but it results in their demise after a counterattack.  Funnily enough, one of the archers on the wall moves one square back. This leaves a nice spot for Reprobus to be able to stand on in the next tun and finish him off!  And that's both archers finally gone! This also gives us a more powerful bow for Philip!  For now, though, Philip will finish off the last grunt. This leaves just one poisonist and the main guy up on the top level.  Gaius, Abel, Rupi Rupi and Prague start making their way up to the top. In the enemy turn the two guys just move around a bit but nothing of note happens.  Then Gaius starts on the second poisonist.  Abel and Rupi Rupi move up, but can't get closer than this.  I move Philip closer to the action just in case he has a chance to snipe someone from down there.  Prague moves up and does some damage to the main guy.  In the next turn, poisonist moves over and this time succeeds in petrifying Rupi Rupi. But we're basically done here so it won't make a difference.  The main guy uses a special ability and does some good damage to Abel...  ...but Abel is no slouch in counterattack!  Philip is in a good spot to finish off the main guy with his bow...  ...and Gaius does the same with the poisonist!  And we're done. Let's see the battle report.    All right! Our reward is another cutlass (so we can give it back to Rupi Rupi!) and another power drink! And now let's see about leveling up!  John goes to level 6 (he started higher than the others so we didn't need to level him up as much so far).  Philip to level 7.  Reprobus also to level 7.  And Abel too.  Gaius to level 6 as he's still one level behind. All right. Let's see what happens now!    As often seems to happen in this game, the sentence is finished in a cutscene!    Again the explanation continues in a cutscene! In addition, this video shows off John's Gunpla collection.  I'm sorry, could you repeat that last name you said? Anyway, nice Gundams. But John continues with the explanation.  But then Rupi Rupi distracts the whole conversation!  All right. John clearly has his own agenda here and it's also clear on whose side Rupi Rupi would fall if it came to that. But for now, the game lets us return back to the city. It means we can go and talk to the people again, and also, more importantly, we can finally visit the equipment shop again! We have a reasonable amount of money now, so it's time to improve our equipment a little bit before the next fight.  Actually the person standing there on the street has some new stuff to say! Hm, ok. We'll see about that. Also, as I mentioned, let's visit the equipment shop again for some upgrades.  First, we'll get an axe for Abel! This increases his STR with +3.  Then we'll buy another hard leather clothes for Gaius for a +3 in VIT which will improve his physical defence.  A morningstar for John, for +5 in STR. He doesn't generally do physical attack, but at least for a bit more oomph for a counterattack or something like that.  A rose whip for Prague for +2 in STR. If you're wondering about the name, it's because it's a whip spiked with thorns (according to the description).  And then we'll equip the bow we got in the last fight (Koruru's bow) on Philip. It has increased STR and VIT, but slightly lower range than his previous weapon (short bow).  Rupi Rupi gets her cutlass back. The INT ring will stay with John for now.  Abel gets the leather clothes which were freed up by Gaius. Ok, that's it for the equipment upgrades. Now...  ...talking to this guy here, as before, gets you into a "free batttle".  FREE BATTLE: CITY OF RIBEIRA VICTORY CONDITIONS: DEFEAT ENEMY LEADER  As mentioned, I won't spend a lot of time on these, but as you can see it's the same layout as before, except the enemies are a bit stronger and will actively attack you. But otherwise it's pretty much the same and you can employ a similar strategy.  Defeating the enemy leader gets us another spear, which we have nobody to use it at the moment. One quirk of these free battles that item is slightly random, but if you get a weapon it will be of the same type that you used to defeat the leader. So that's why we get a spear here.  Anyway, in the end, we get some money and BP, but also 300 EXP, which is not enough to use right now, but will be a good addition to let us have Gaius catch up with the levels after the next battle! Speaking of which, let's get back into the Temple of the Sun and continue with our mission! Or, John's mission, more accurately.    But either way, Gaius and Rupi Rupi go off on their own to take an alternate route while doing some scouting. Meanwhile, the rest of our party...    But inside, behind that doorway...  The glowy thing on the balcony is the armour we're here to get! But before we can do that, we're met by...  Who even are you now?  Ok, let's press pause for a second here. I'm going to tread a bit carefully here, but please know I mean no offence--just trying to navigate an unusual situation in a 25 year old game. So, here's the deal. As you probably may have already noticed, there's some, uh, ambiguity regarding this character's gender. While the body looks obviusly female, Judas's face is kind of a bit masculine looking (at least to me). But, what you can't hear is the voice acting, and as it turns out, this character has a very definitely male voice. Unfortunately, Japanese is not a gendered language in a grammatical sense, so it's impossible to tell from that what would be the right way to refer to this character. In the Japanese text, Judas does use a feminine way of speaking (e.g. "atashi" and so on), therefore I will refer to her with female pronouns. It may be wrong, but this is the best I can do based on available information, so I hope this will be ok for everyone, as I don't like to misgender anyone, even if it's just a game character. With that out of the way, let's continue.    But just then...  ...Rupi Rupi and Gaius show up from the other side!   And with that...  BATTLE 3-4: LOVERS' RONDO VICTORY CONDITIONS: DEFEAT JUDAS ...it's time for a fight! Of course, even though we only need to defeat Judas to win, we will be as usual defeating everyone for that sweet sweet EXP and BP! And also as usual, the required number of turns for S rank is balanced exactly so that you can do this and still get the S rank.  Again we take everyone into the fight. We don't need any preparations since we already took care of everyone's equipment just before.  As for BP, since we have a good chunk in the bank now, I'm just going to press the X button on the controller which will allocate a maximum possible amount of BP to everyone to use as we need it. As explained before, unused BP is just returned to us so it doesn't go to waste, so this is safe to do. And now, let's get started!  So the fight happens just around that big balcony where this whole conversation played out.  We have a bit of an interesting situation here: Gaius and Rupi Rupi came from the other side so they're up on the balcony and the rest of the people are down by the stairs. The position of Gaius and Rupi Rupi is fixed and can't be changed, but as for the others...  ...we'll group Reprobus, Prague and John there by the stairs and they will slowly make their way up.  But we also have a couple of spots where we can put our characters down in the corner, where there are 3 more enemies! So we'll put Philip and Abel there. Their only duty will be to clear out those three enemies, as sadly by the time it's done it will take too long for them to make it upstairs and the others are more than capable of dealing with the situation on the balcony. As for the enemies, here's the situation.  In the centre of the balcony is Judas and as you can see, she has a decent chunk of HP and a few spells. She does have also the petrification spell we saw earlier, but doesn't seem to use it much (or at all). All the other enemies here are of type "Lover". There are a couple of different kinds of them:    There are two pink haired ones and they will stay near Judas, the others mostly have swords, but there are a couple of archers too. But as you can see, not too high of a level. Due to the same reasons as before, especially since there are a few groups of several enemies together, for the most part all of our characters will stay in "defend" mode for the duration of this fight. It would be a bit too risky otherwise. So, ok, let's start.  We start in the bottom corner where Abel hits quite hard one of the Lovers. This is actually enough to defeat him--looks like buying that axe paid off!  Philip will make a start on the next one.  The three people on the other side start making their way up the stairs.  Up on the balcony, Gaius moves over to this one lone Lover and hits them... thanks to the extended range of the spear.  Rupi Rupi finishes the job--that's two down already. Upon defeat of this enemy, we receive a foil. Foil is a mid length pointy straight sword, today usually used in fencing competitions. Here is a picture of a foil:   On enemy turn, this guy down here uses a special ability but still only 6 damage to Abel somehow!  The two pink haired guys on the balcony move to flank Judas. That's ok, we're not ready yet to attack her.  Over here another attempt at a special ability but it doesn't do much because of defend mode and these guys are actually lower level than we are.  And a bonk with a sword on Reprobus, but also nice position for us to attack him in the next turn. Oh, shut up. Anyway, next turn!  Abel finishes off the second of the three enemies down here.  Philip moves over a bit, but this is like a mini-fight of its own, so there's no rush. I guess if you wanted to speed run, you could completely ignore these three enemies.  Over on the other side, revenge comes from Reprobus who's also moved to attack this guy from the side.  And so does Prague.  Rupi Rupi and Gaius move back...  ...and Gaius makes a start on the first Pink haired guy. Unfortunately they're in defend mode so this will take a little while.  In the enemy turn, some moving around to try to block attacks against Judas.   On the left side, standard stuff again.  Down in the corner, the remaining enemy is making a valiant effort, but...  But then suddenly, Judas decides to step out and...  Oh, right. Forgot about that.  He has a spell that can hit multiple people. Luckily, the biorhytm was quite low, otherwise this would not have been so good.  Gaius is being pummeled on there... Ok, our turn again.  Let's finish one of the guys on the stairs!  Reprobus approaches and attacks the second one.  John moves up. Hopefully we can get a favourable biorhytm soon!  Down in the corner, we start on the last one.  And then Philip finishes the job. We won't be hearing from Philip and Abel any more until the end of this fight.  Upstairs, Gaius does his trademark "double piercing" attack with the spear! One of the pink haired guys is finally at critical HP!  Just in time for Rupi Rupi to move over and finish him off! The next enemy turn...  ...same as the last one!  Although the third guy from the stairs finally joins in.  Judas attacks Rupi Rupi, but it's not too bad.  And then they reshuffle. Judas moves over to the top of the stairs, which is actually good for us.  On the staircase, we continue to chip away at the enemies' health.  Prague does try it on the other guy, but he dodges. Oh, well.  Rupi Rupi finally starts working on Judas, but she is of course in defend mode. Of course.  Gaius in the meantime works on the last pink haired guy.  John moves still a bit further up. We're going to try and find a convenient opportunity to cast lumina cross on Judas soon, if we can. But for the moment, we hand over the turn to the enemy.  The pink guy is trying to run away.  Over on the stairs a couple of attacks, but nothing of consequence really.  Judas keeps attacking Rupi Rupi, but she's holding on for now.  Gaius helps out with Judas. I know we left that guy over by the fence, but we'll clean up in a moment.  Rupi Rupi is getting a bit lower on health, so she moves away from Judas and prepares to deal with this last guy here in the next turn.  On the stairs, the second of the three enemies is finished. That leaves one last one.  John moves further up the stairs, and oh hey check out the biorhytm! It's pretty much at the peak right now! You know what that means!  One cast of Lummina Cross later... and Judas is 29 HP shorter! This will speed things up for sure.  Oh, and Prague finishes the last guy on the stairs. Not a lot left to do now!  In the next enemy turn, the pink guy moves still further away. Spoiler: it will not help him.  Judas attacks Gaius. Sure, I mean. But we'll be done with Judas in the next turn, so...  She tries to run, too. But the only people she can run into is the rest of our squad!  Rupi Rupi finishes the business over here.  Anyway, Gaius moves and deals some good damage to Judas from the back!  Reprobus moves over to the side of Judas and finishes her off! This also nets us a falchion.  Let's check out the results, as usual.    There we go. The item reward is this time another axe. We got a fair bit of EXP, so let's go and level up again!  John to level 7.  Prague to level 7.  Philip to level 8.  Reprobus to level 8.  And Gaius takes two levels also up to level 8! But what happens now?  The armour seems to be sitting there for the taking?  Uh, good luck for whom do you mean?    It's time for a cutscene... in which a thing happens to Abel! You probably don't want to skip this one.    I see. Well, all right. I guess we'll have a lot to talk about next time. Take care and see you soon!
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Apr 30, 2024 22:37
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Are we Jesus now?
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Apr 30, 2024 23:15
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Well, that looked horribly painful and the screaming definitely helped sell it. It does answer my previous question of why Ruri Ruri seemingly had no wings though!
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Apr 30, 2024 23:59
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...OH. Well that explains something! Also, OW.
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May 1, 2024 01:58
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Metatron, obviously.
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May 1, 2024 02:48
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Demons and angels (as well as plenty of non-Abrahamic mythical beings) are frequently depicted with, let's say, complicated genders in fiction (or in some cases, even the official beliefs of the religion, such as the Hindu deity Ardhanarishvara), sometimes depicted as genderless, or hermaphroditic, so I imagine Judas is intended in similar fashion, though in a way that's clearly trying to be edgy and shocking to a late nineties audience (though I don't think anyone would have actually gotten that worked up, even back then).
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May 1, 2024 03:16
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So much edge and yet completely dull...
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May 1, 2024 05:32
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It is absolutely hysterical how popular this edgelord silliness would have been if it had been brought stateside 
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May 1, 2024 06:15
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I like the music  Thinking about it, does it mean all those "evil" angles mutilated themselves to use their armor...? Like, seven people did it and still lost the war? I don't think that armor is as powerful as John hyped it up.
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May 1, 2024 19:35
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SITB posted:I like the music Well, we'll find out more of course about the whole thing over the course of the game, but at least for now, having the armour is not really going to change much of anything. It does allow us an additional option in fights, but we'll talk about it when we come to it. Yes, I like the music too, that's why I'm posting the links! By the way, is everyone ok with the amount of detail about the flow of battle that I've been providing? I know that the screenshots are a bit crowded looking sometimes, but as mentioned, unfortunately, in this game it's not possible to turn the camera around to another angle, so as far as that goes, we're stuck with what we've got. But do lot me know about the rest.
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May 2, 2024 21:20
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I'm following the battles just fine like this.
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May 2, 2024 22:08
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This game is like directly aimed at edgy teenagers
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May 2, 2024 23:12
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Blaze Dragon posted:I'm following the battles just fine like this. Ok that's good. I was worried a bit also because due to the nature of the maps, things get a bit crowded sometimes. Let me repeat myself... oh how I wish it were possible to rotate the camera in this game. But no.
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May 4, 2024 22:39
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