Lurker > andylt

LUNA IS A GAULEm?!

shane15 posted...

It's great but the item balance (like MK8) is off. Way too many mushrooms show up in the item boxes.

FYI (and others mentioning a lack of balance) there is now a custom item mode where you can choose which items show up (if any at all!). Probably can't control the frequency of each though.

...so which game is the best in terms of balance/skill, I wonder?

You can turn all items off! :O

I look forward to seeing clips of all bullet bill races

Whatever the GBA one is, I guess SNES. I didn't know there were multiple!

SaoriKobayashi posted...

new link for xenogears:

Would vote for this over either in match 1 tbh, this is great. What game is this really from?

Sayonara -Ame No Minaka Nushi-
Soul Sanctum
Flock Step

Much like yesterday, Sayonara has stuff I like and then some wubbing I don't, whereas Wings is alright throughout. Sayonara's highs are really good today though and the electronics are less frequent, so it gets the vote.
I liked the Mystic Warriors set but this one doesn't do much for me I'm afraid. Not that it would probs matter, I obviously really like Soul Sanctum.
Oh man, how did I miss somebody nominating Rhythm Heaven Fever! Unfortunately Flock Step's official track doesn't come with the squawks, and I am fond of sad pianos... Hm, this one is tough. I'll give it to the huebirds of happiness, it's such a fun track I'm always bopping along to.

CT won that gen 4 contest only a few months ago. I think B8's taste in 90s games is pretty unmoving at this point.

I find it odd that people are discussing lategame stuff and having extensive debates about other games in a first time HK playthrough topic.

RoseChevalier posted...

i should mention I'm not a pro gamer so like, I'm dying to regular enemies sometimes still. Every boss has killed me.

Don't worry this is very common, this board just has lots of progamers/speedrunners I guess! I'd definitely consider it a tough game. Congrats on getting Mantis Claw, that fight is really fun and now the world is your oyster!

As usual any 'of the year' list released before the end of said year is invalid! Though it is useful to get new games on my radar that I'd never heard of- in this case PlateUp!, Raft, Perfect Tides, Rollerdrome, and... Poinpy.

Paratroopa1 posted...

I actually do think that Polygon's GOTY lists are the closest to my own GOTY lists though it should be said

Polygon didn't mention New Snap in their whole top 50 last time!

Ending order: Tenmyouji, Clover, K, Dio. But I would've maybe gotten Clover before Ten without the board's assistance!

The 25 digit key reveals the codeword- COMPLETED COMPLETED COMPLETED. We've sure seen that word a lot when beating puzzles, but what could it mean in a grander context? No idea. But it leads us to discovering that Dio set up us the bomb. Gasp!! Dio is pretty easy to trick for being such a high ranking important member of Free the Soul, but to be fair to him we do have timeline shenanigans on our side (Sigma does seem to be getting more confident with his extra timeline knowledge each time he uses it now, but that may be my imagination).

Dio informs us that Brother's goal is to stop Zero's AB plan from succeeding, so I'm taking from that that the ultimate goal of Zero is likely a positive thing, probably to undo the pandemic. After getting tricked by the detonator and reaching Alice's ending (RIP everyone) we head down the bomb route and reach a rather similar conclusion, though not before Luna runs tests on Sigma. In one of the stranger twists so far, it seems Sigma is not a robot after all. Nice bait and switch, game! But it doesn't explain everything like Sigma's absurdly good memory or K sharing his face. Maybe he's still a clone (of Zero perhaps)? His cybernetic arms must be very important, but it seems not important enough to undo the bracelet's hold.

The most interesting part of this route is Luna. Sigma notes what I did earlier: Luna can be freaking terrifying with how calm she is in incredibly dangerous situations. I am so incredibly curious what her deal is. She passes a message on to Sig, much like K did earlier. So that's Tenmyouji, K, Luna and Dio who must've had prior knowledge of something before the game began, and I'd be surprised if it ends there. "I'll be waiting..." repeats Luna before the blast engulfs them both, and I'm not sure whether to be reassured or filled with dread.

I expect this to show up as Luna's ending but it's actually Sigma's, leaving us with 3 characters: Luna, Phi, and Quark. I'm now thinking that Phi is unlikely to be directly involved in the creation of the AB game and her extended knowledge is merely due to her ability to dimension-hop. I've already spoken on Luna, so that leaves Quark as an intriguing question mark. I suppose there must be more to him than we've learned from Tenmyouji's ending.

We now have the codes to all 4 bombs and the locations to all except bomb 0 (assuming their locations are static across timelines). And we have both gates to the lion password, so that's where I'm heading next time. We're running lower on routes left but there's still so much unknown!

Unrest - Their Own Brand of Justice
Vs. Nega-Wisp Armor (Phase 2)
Lego 1

I like Dinners much more than I remember, but EO3 seems to be full of bangers.

I just don't enjoy the driving in 64 as much as in some of the others. I'm one of those filthy people who liked the snaking in DS >_>

Koopa when he's available, otherwise Yoshi. Koopa+Diddy was my Double Dash team of choice.

Tag, terrific game

LightningStrikes posted...

Also, Mario Kart 64, really?

I figured nostalgia would take it a step further than other past MKs on this board >_> My fav personally is DS.

Snake5555555555 posted...

If Blur counts, does that mean Split/Second counts too?

TBF I didn't know what Blur was, I just looked up best kart racers to fill the poll out when I was making it. It seemed to fit the spirit of the genre, so sure why not Split/Second too.

And apologies for missing Snowboard Kids 2!

Grimlyn posted...

props to DS for having Mission Mode that I had a blast with

Yeah this. For all of MK8's content it doesn't have any kind of mission or adventure or campaign mode, right? Seems a shame.

Super Smash Bros. Melee

October Mermaid
The Scions Dance in Purgatory
Cuckoo

Match 1 is difficult. The strings in Overdose are great and remind me a lot of Sonic, but I don't love the electronics. Mermaid is more consistent and I'm often fond of this kind of melancholy reflection.

Huh, I remember MKWii feeling a bit too hectic sometimes with the increased number of racers and some wacky item additions. Has it kept going further since then? Lol.

And I wonder, does MK8's volume of content really eclipse all the rest? I know CTR at least has a campaign mode, and its remake adds a bunch of courses from other games.

How could you all betray Luna so easily?? Monsters. (Do not respond to this with spoiler bars even if she turns out to be the antagonist lol)

It does seem odd that you can theoretically get the Dio ending in your very first route, it gives you a fair amount of info off the bat. Though I guess I'm only inferring some things from additional context, and I suppose most people wouldn't betray Luna at the first opportunity... hopefully.

OK, I see that the flowchart updates when I can now solve a lock. The injection gun doesn't work on Sigma's 5 minutes left to live, so either it was already used in that timeline or nobody went into that room. It does however solve the lock of K and Phi needing to be saved, despite Clover explicitly stating that there's only a single dose of neostigmine. I play the scene anyway, Sigma figures out that K took his own key and killed Dio while pretending to be asleep. I'm... disappointed I missed that one. I think I even noted his key was missing from the safe lol. Props to Sigma for doing the calculations while on his deathbed.

K confirms he killed Dio in retaliation for Dio murdering the old woman, who was his motherly figure. Can't say that one is a shock. Though he does reveal that the woman came 'here' when he was 18, and Sigma takes off his mask to reveal his face. Not a robot face as I expected... well, not in the sense of G-OLM's, but Sigma's own face stares back at him. Are they both robots, or clones, or clone robots, or robot clones? Who knows. But K gives us a code and seems to be very aware of the multiple games being played, though he may have realised that only when his memory started to return.

K's ending done, we have no routes open to us that don't involve 'betray'. I head back to the top and pick the only option I hadn't yet, betraying Luna at Phi's word. Can't say this one feels good. After visiting the pantry (I think there's only one puzzle room left to us now), Alice and Luna die again and Quark disappears. Phi asks me to betray Clover so we can all get out of the building, and I consider it but ultimately decide to stay true to my word. Clover is grateful and Phi is understanding, but the game ends there. Of course I immediately head back and betray her then, which the game tries to make me feel bad about. Not gonna work game, there's no more ally paths for me to take!!

I have to admit, finally stepping through the #9 door is exhilarating. New surroundings, new music, all the wonder and potential of it all. Part of me expected us to be locked in the room outside, or immediately get put under to restart the game, but we do in fact manage to reach open air. We escaped! And we're on Earth! Under a Lunar eclipse at that. A different Phi seems to jump into current Phi's body from a different timeline (her words), so I guess timelines are back on the table and this isn't an endless repeated loop of clones and robots >_>

She demands the deactivation code for bomb #0. I guess there's one we haven't yet found! #3 is in Crew Quarters, #2 is in the Treatment Room, and #1 (which we have the code for) is in the B Garden, if I recall correctly. I'm surprised these bombs are being treated as a massive deal given all the global sci fi shenanigans we have to deal with, clearly there's more to discover here. Dio gives her the code, and we also get the 25 digit key for the memory card (woo!) and his backstory. Whew, this is some deranged cult shit. Guess there's no redeeming Dio, he's been indoctrinated into this death cult since birth. One thing I note during Dio's explanation is his mention of 'divorcing the soul from the body' to cleanse it- this is very reminiscent of Quark's words when he was ranting with Rad-6. Not sure how this could connect, but it can't be a coincidence.

The three of us head to the nearest shelter, and this route ends here, under the red moon. Well, we did it. We made it out of the Nonary Game, and some ideas have seemingly been taken off the table- we're not in space, this isn't an endless string of games in the same timeline, and Dio isn't secretly a great person. I suppose I could look up the IRL dates for total lunar eclipses and try to figure out the exact date in the future that we're talking about here, but that would probs be taking things a little too far. 4 character endings down :O

Dancing Snakes
Scarlet II
Wings of Yearning

Match 1 is difficult, I enjoy both a lot.

I haven't picked up a kart racer since MK Wii, curious if 8 is as good as its reputation. CTR was my fav as a kid. Apologies if I'm missing off your personal fav!

I did read the spoiler tag, but by then I was already committed to going into my next timeline after thinking about things- we can of course figure out where Alice is. She's in the Crew Quarters, and Sigma manages to halt her suicide attempt for the price of a nasty cut on his hand.

That cut winds up being an incredibly important plot point. Luna spots the wound, and Sigma sees he is leaking white liquid. Holy shit. I like how the game writes Sigma's response to this, he tries to rationalise and when that fails he goes for avoidance, naturally being unwilling to process the most likely outcome. You can tell this is serious business because Sigma (and the writers) restrains himself from making a semen joke. But the sense of dread can't be put to bed for long, and to her great credit Luna goes out of her way to make things as gentle as possible for the ensuing revelation.

Luna is kind but also a bit terrifying here, leading Sigma calmly around and opening up with a slice of her backstory (but not all of it) before casually asking "Are you a robot? Have you always been here?". Sigma takes all of this like a champ, the poor guy admitting to himself that this doesn't sound as bonkers as it should, but the question that chills me is 'Have you always been here?'. This shows Luna knows far more than she has let on (along with her detailed knowledge of modern day robotics), and she seems to have her own theory about the nature of time in this place. I hope she doesn't turn out to be the central antagonist, but even when she's shady I can't help but really like Luna. "It's only when you're pursuing happiness that you're truly happy" is a pretty interesting philosophy to live by. This was a great scene, B Garden is full of them!

Now we don't know for sure that Sigma is a robot, but it's hard to think of another explanation for him bleeding white liquid. This of course brings up plenty of questions (are his memories real I wonder?), but then Phi finds the second bomb and Ace Attorney Sigma declares he has identified the culprit... to be continued. Huh, this is the first TBC that feels like a hard gated cliffhanger rather than a natural end while the character scrambles to think of a way forward.

After this I heed MSG's advice and ally with Tenmyouji. Things don't really change that much, the game ends and three people leave us behind instead of just the one, but Quark gives Sigma his own backstory so we can all reminisce about how great Tenmyouji is while we sit around in the facility he has left us to die in. For real this is another decent piece of backstory, not least because we can infer quite a few things about the apocalyptic future (or present I guess) that Quark grew up in. I suppose it's very unlikely that he's a robot now and that one time Tenmyouji let slip that he wasn't a schoolkid probably simply meant that schools aren't a thing anymore. Root beer floats are, though!

I'm a bit annoyed that to progress I now have to go back and pick betray on a route where I don't particularly find it a natural choice, but whatever we head back to the start and betray Tenmyouji. He is furious and claims he would never betray us (yeah right, pal!), but he does trust Clover. There's another sign that he is Junpei, or maybe one of the other kids from the first Nonary Game. I'm cooling on the prospect of him being Santa now, as he has apparently been searching for Akane for a long time and Santa and Akane escaped 999 together. I can't avoid the possibility that the old woman is Akane, too, that would be pretty brutal. If so then I wonder if Ace is the one who ordered Dio to kill her out of revenge. Ah, baseless speculation!

We finally enter the Treatment Center, and I appreciate the game's joke about the jellyfish being disappointed if I do that minigame wrong. Quark goes to sleep, and I think it's time for me to seriously think about which 3 people have been put in cryo-sleep. Tenmyouji and Quark are surely from the current time, as is the old woman and I think probably Luna. If Sigma and K are robots (still an if for both), Alice and Clover were probably two of the frozen, then there's Phi and Dio. Dio would seem to be from the present if he was ordered to sneak in here, but I'm not convinced Phi would be frozen as she seems to know too much. It still seems like only Phi and Sig keep some memories across timelines, and if Sig is a robot it would follow that she could be. Hm, that third cryo slot is a mystery.

Funnily enough, later on Clover and Sigma have a similar conversation, where they decide the two of them and Alice could've been frozen. Ha! I ally with Quark (though I am very curious what happens if Sigma gets to 9 points), and we head to the PEC room where it's time for Clover's backstory! Of course, between 999 and Alice we already know much of this, but it's nice to hear it from a different perspective. And I like the mentions of the rest of the 999 gang.

Right as Clover explains Neostigmine, my game crashes. Oops! Wow, the PEC room really is cursed. It doesn't take too long to catch back up, though I hadn't saved in a while, and I know now that my next run will be to head back to the timeline where Sigma is dying. Though I don't remember if the injection gun had already been used in that one.

Turn out that run will come sooner than I expect, as 5 minutes after the Clover conversation Sigma finds everybody dead in the infirmary. Jesus, Rad-6 works fast in this timeline. I wonder if the virus's spread is related to which rooms we went through, or if it's just chance. I should probably stop thinking in terms of timelines altogether, now that I think about it... Ah well, Sigma joins the rest of the gang in suicide (I will note that I did not see K in the group shot), and that's it for today.

Phew! Two endings down, finally (though even then I only got one of them because I was pointed there in this topic lol)

Aquarium
Temple of Rain (World of the Living)
Inside A Game

Aquarium is so fun!
Match 2 isn't easy, both are decent though not my fav from their OSTs.
Enemy is also good but Inside A Game is on another level! I'm sad Rabbit didn't make the main bracket.

Really good day!

Super Monkey Ball 2

good match!

Sweep! -Part 2-
Cat
Cooking Crystal Death (Crystal Caverns)

Not big on Lost City. Sweep and Cat are nice discoveries for me!

This topic has made me kind of want to play Iconoclasts just to see what the writing does that's apparently so very annoying lol

Final Fantasy X

Land of Blue Skies

I like the chill vibes of Skies better today. Both decent tracks though

I wish the game would give you some kind of blurb describing what has transpired in the timeline you're jumping into, when you swap around a lot it's easy to forget what happened in which one. Maybe that's the point, but I wish they'd at least tell you who's in your team and what everyone's BP is at the jumping point >_>

The IG Replicator works wonders, and Sigma manages to get out of any troublesome questions about how he knew of its existence. Though I feel like we should have made lots of copies of the cure, or at least leave one spare as backup. Sigma himself gets symptoms in another timeline and it couldn't hurt. Alas. I had another thought too- was Luna the one who mentioned Alexavir in the first place, or did it come from the machine or some textbook? I'll have to go back and check on that. The other bomb is here, and a memory card.

Quark and Alice recover nicely. Too nicely, in fact. Alice hops out of bed just in time to kill Sigma. Now I know I said I learned my lesson when K betrayed us, but I really thought I was safe this time! She was unconscious! I don't feel bad about being tricked here, but this is a reminder that I should always betray when I'm on 1 BP. For her part, Alice doesn't appear to give a single damn (after I reset and betray her too), and I quickly sour on her. Though she brings up a good point- everybody this round picked betray. Dio, K, and Clover are all very fond of picking that option at any time, and Phi won't risk her life if she's at 1. Another note: Clover went into the far right room this time- is the old woman's corpse just not here somehow in this timeline, or was it stashed somewhere else? Or is Clover aware of it, hm.

As mad as I am with Alice in the moment, she completely breaks through my defences with an emotional setpiece in the garden, confessing her fear and selfishness. It's a very human, relatable impulse and a refreshingly honest admission on her part, maybe it's the music but I find this to be a really great scene. Then Alice goes into her backstory- Myrmidon, Left, Free the Soul, Ace, a scientist father whose field is cloning (oh great, as if robots weren't enough to make me jump onto conspiracy theories, now we have clones!), and her relationship with Clover. Lots of new names to remember, and I believe her story. But we're stuck on this route again as we need a string of numbers to unlock the code from the memory card. *shrug* Another day, another lock.

I go to the other lock that I figured the answer to- Alice's suicide due to Rad-6. We convince Clover of the truth and again manage to put off questions of how Sigma knew this very specific knowledge, and eventually enter the Director's Office with Tenmyouji and an uncharacteristically conscious Quark. It is here, in the middle of an escape segment, where we finally get to look at Tenmyouji's picture of the old wo-

...what.

What? AKANE?! What the fuck? He's not Junpei, is he? He insists that it's not about love, so is he Santa? They do have the same hariline. Thinking back, he did chuckle at the idea of getting Clover to trust him... and he was aware of All-Ice... No, I don't want to get ahead of myself, he could be Akane's father or one of the scientists from the original experiment or something like that, but this is a pretty major info drop to leave in an optional part of an escape room! As time goes on this game is revealing itself to be more and more a direct sequel to 999. Which is pretty obvious I guess, given the Nonary Game itself.

Some time after beating the room, Sigma heads back and encounters a hologram purportedly of Zero! He has things to tell us, mainly about termites. Obviously. Zero explains that he thinks humans are constructing something that only others on a higher dimension can appreciate, and mentions that Sigma may have seen glimpses of said dimension. Are we, the player, these higher beings made to understand the tapestry being weaved? He also mentions saving billions of lives, so we may well end up going back in time and undoing the pandemic somehow. Or not! Then he gives us a very specific code that will probably help me break through a lock later on.

Now this time at the AB room I pick betray without hesitating. I don't trust Tenmyouji not to run out with Quark at the first opportunity, and sure enough he betrays us right back. But it's all for nought, as Clover reaches 11 points and ditches us as K did before. Game over. Why did K not betray Clover right back?? He must really not want to risk killing Luna, but he's usually so keen to betray. Ah well, I don't go back and pick ally as I figure there's no point.

More questions, more conspiracies, more death, more game overs. Another successful day in Sigma's shoes!

Tachi
Mad Last World
Twilight

It's a VGMC16 day!
Twilight is a nice surprise, I really dig it. I liked the Twials set a lot but sadly not this particular track.

We've been through most of the rooms now, the endings should start coming before long!

I realised I missed out a path earlier, so today Alice and Sigma take K into the rec room and watch him have the time of his life riding Zero Jr. Bless him! There's nothing special in this safe, and after the puzzles are done we wander round until, right on cue, Alice dies again. She really can't catch a break. This time Luna dies alongside her to spice things up. This occurs shortly after Alice was looking into the corner of the warehouse, so it could be a similar trigger to the other time when she figured out about the moving container. Quark also disappears again.

K asks Sigma to vote ally, and I acquiesce. I knew that there was a good chance he'd pick betray (he has lied before and is just as fond of betraying as Dio is), but I tried to stay noble. As our reward, K abandons us all to our deaths and I reach my first end of path :( Lesson learned! I should not have put everybody's lives at risk just to maintain Sigma's honesty, I'm kinda annoyed at myself for doing that. I'll be more careful about picking ally in future, though there's not many ally paths I haven't gone down yet >_>

After a quick jump K and I betray each other, and the story goes on. In the infirmary we notice the old woman must've had a bracelet on (again I missed this, I am not looking closely enough at my surroundings!), and one of us was therefore not meant to ever be in the Nonary game. Sure enough, just as we saw Dio had blood on his bracelet in the other timeline, we get him to confess to the murder. This only muddles things further as far as I can see- How did the old woman's body get into Luna's container? Who moved the container and why? Why was Dio ordered to kill her? And why did Dio go out of his way to join this game when, since coming here, he's been working so hard to get out of it? Things still look shady for Luna, who may be in on things with Dio.

We also take a detour into an open Gaulem Bay. G-OLM isn't here and the safe has been emptied, meaning K's key has been taken. Did G-OLM wake up and somehow leave?

Quark is finally found in the treatment pods sans bracelet. Maybe the cryo-chambers can stop the heart briefly? Did he put himself in here? Who took his bracelet? More questions.

After locking Dio in another treatment pod, we search for Clover and Tenmyouji. I worry they're dead in the infirmary like last time but we don't ever visit there to find out. Instead, K remembers an awful lot about his childhood and we get a large info dump. His father was working on some seemingly important but deadly research apparently involving solving death itself, and a mysterious blurry woman (the old woman?) was willing to die for it. Poor K has lived a sheltered and very traumatic life, being created solely as a backup should his father die before his work is done. He's been acting remarkably well-adjusted considering he'd only met two people before this game! Of course several things are still unknown, it's possible he's still a robot, and his father could be... Tenymouji, I guess? He's the only one old enough. I did catch that cartoon baby-K was carrying a stuffed rabbit toy.

I fear K still has more trauma to process, but for now he rests. Maybe we can bring him back to the Rec Room to have some fun after all this is done. Phi and Sig hear a loud noise, and eventually discover Dio dead and his bracelet broken (it's uncharacteristic of Phi to not notice the broken bracelet or attempt to pick it up sooner, she's usually good at that stuff). Once again it appears the answer to progress may involve stopping Phi and K's hearts so their bracelets can come off, so whenever I get a clear-cut answer to that mystery I'll be golden!

The next new path will have to involve betrayal, but before that I scan all the 'locks' looking to see if we can solve one. I choose the double vial path, hoping that something will help me process the meaning of IG replicator so Sigma can forge on ahead. Sure enough, one of the first words I see is immunoglobulin!! How did I forget that!! I save right here for today, but I am optimistic that this path can now move forward.
Answers await :D

Wow, my very own link! :)

Mute City
Fires of Industry (Dustria)
A Light Illuminating the Depths

I like the recurring 6-note melody (?) in Geofront, but the rest isn't as strong. Mute City Brawl is a step-up from Melee.
Rough matchup for Nightscape. I really like both of these, though neither is my fav in its respective set. Would vote either of them over the other 4 today!
Organism grows on me as the track goes, but not enough for the vote.

Camden posted...

Shows how much I've paid attention to new shows this year, I thought Severance was a drama about someone being forced out of their family business and trying to keep control of it or something like that.

Maybe you're thinking of Succession? It's also a one word title beginning with S!

I've only seen Severance of these, enjoyed it a lot though. I've heard praise for Andor but I also heard a lot of good things about Mandalorian and I didn't 'get' that in the slightest. I'm still too sour on Thrones to give House of the Dragon a shot, 1899 looks cool though.

Yay, Sports Story!

I probs won't get any new game in December tbh as I'll likely get some for Xmas/my bday and I don't want to overload. Maybe I'll pick up Crisis Core in a deep sale a year from now but I've no rush to get to that one, unless it reviews much better than I'm expecting.

-
Halo: Combat Evolved

Ah good, thanks. Weird that they didn't block it out.

Well, everything I think I know about this game can turn on its head in a single gameplay session...

Clover finally opens up about her 999 experience (to an extent), and Sigma handles this pretty damn well considering how absurd and suspicious it all sounds. Clover and I head into the infamous PEC room with Tenmyouji, and patch or no there's no chance I'm saving in here!

The Zero Jr doll in here is really creepy, maybe that thing eats up your save data and it's not a glitch at all but part of the Nonary Game >_> There are nine adult suits here, so we're probably coming back later on. Our big haul is a memory card, which we listen to back in the infirmary to uncover some pretty massive revelations. A recording from NYE 2028 seems to describe the beginning of the Rad-6 outbreak, from a simulated Mars mission that Tenmyouji worked on. With what we're told here and what Tenmyouji says later on, it seems very likely now that we're decades into the future. Space travel also comes into the main story for the first time- there was the flashback Sigma had showing a bomb blowing up on what looked like the Moon, and the Moon and Sun have been recurring themes throughout, but now it's explicitly mentioned. We could very well be on the Moon or Mars right now, or like 999 it could be a simulated version of either.

We naturally select Ally in the next AB game, though Clover does some real weird shit again and tries to seduce Sigma into picking betray. Seriously what is up with her, sometimes she seems her regular self and others she seems completely different. Maybe she was always like this, I don't remember 999 well enough. Then Alice dies again (dang she's having a rough time), and Clover threatens to go murder girl as we reach another TBC. I will reach an ending in this game one of these days!!

I head back up to the first door choice and this time take Dio to the Laboratory. There's an IG replicator here which I guess can duplicate the Alexavir in the first timeline I did, but I don't remember/know what IG could stand for. Dio steals the cure and blackmails us into voting Ally. The one time I felt comfortable picking betray and he has to ruin it!

Before Sigma walks to his doom, he and Phi have a chat about the journal we found (in Latin for some reason). My robot theory starts spiralling down the drain as we learn that slow mental processing speed is an effect of Rad-6- earlier Sigma must have pulled that thought from another timeline rather than from his robo databanks. This scene is good, though I'm starting to feel pretty down about things.

Sigma enters True Hero mode and is committed to saving Quark at the expense of his own life, I can hardly make him back out at the last second. Sure enough, Dio remains a huge asshole (really why is he here!) and votes to kill Sigma and take himself to freedom. Notably K also backs out on his word and takes the chance to go to 9 himself, but there's no time to worry about that right now. Sigma is injected with Soporil Beta, and has only minutes to live. We must have to stop his heart somehow to get the bracelet off, but I don't know how. Regardless, this is a pretty emotional sequence for ol' Siggy and it seems a fitting way to end the day.

Man. I know this game's themes are dark from the offset but things are feeling really depressing right now. I'm not talking about Sigma in particular, but more... everything. All the intrigue seems inconsequential now. If Tenmyouji is telling the truth about the mission and the virus, and the glaring hints that we're in the future are accurate, then what could even await us outside the number 9 door? Humanity ravaged to near extinction by a pandemic, everyone these characters cared about long dead, we might not even be on Earth... it's hard to see how the game could reach a happy ending given what we've been told. How is there a direct sequel to this?! Of course there's every chance we've been lied to and things aren't as grim as they sound, and there's so many things that don't make sense (chief among them: why the heck are we in a Nonary Game if the world has ended), but it's hard to be optimistic here.

Some other things that I've been thinking about:

• The three cryo-pods that could have kept us in stasis for decades. Only three. If Tenmyouji came voluntarily and Quark is... whatever Quark is, that could still leave chance for a few others to be robots (or lying about being kidnapped).
• I wonder how it's decided which door is opened by the lever. Is it a meaningless mechanic to ensure the player gets a different puzzle room each timeline, or is it connected to who pulls it or who's in the room etc.
• I forgot to mention previously, but I'm sure at one point we traveled the wrong way through a one way lever in one of the many many moving montages. Maybe I'm mistaken.
• What's the deal with the start screen for the AB game? I read it closely today, and it says the door will lock once you enter your vote, but it locks as soon as you click 'start'. Maybe there's some shenanigans going on with the voting system.
• There's been no ingame discussion of timelines or multiverses. There's mentions of remembering other events but nothing like the explanations we usually get for major sci-fi ideas like this.
• New baseless theory: Tenmyouji is a character from 999 all grown up.
• I'm really liking the music.

We are still fumbling around in the dark. Hopefully things look a bit less apocalyptic next time around!

Farewell
SURVIVE
Brave Sword, Braver Soul

1's tracks are well-matched. They both have good buildups but Farewell's payoff is better imo.
SURVIVE gives me those good beeps 'n' boops I like. I like Credits quite a bit too.
3 is a difficult one, I always have a hard time comparing two songs that are going for very different things. I am weak for sad pianos, but Brave's progression is too fun to ignore.

Good day!

where results

Security is an interesting room, though I don't manage to get the extra files. The word mixing results in "I was you will be me." (with the removed words forming 'She knows everything'), an ominous sentence indeed. A connection between Zero and Sigma? More on that later. Sigma's mind pretty much breaks down for a few minutes after this, then we piece together more info on Luna's death. I name Clover as the killer, and Phi agrees. Dio is ridiculously shady but she has the motive and opportunity.

Unfortunately when we head up a floor we find Clover and Tenmyouji's corpses handcuffed to a pipe. Clover seems to have written '016' in blood (or 910 I suppose) on her leg. Quark's bracelet is here, and a flashback to Zero's earlier explanation makes me sure Quark is alive- the rabbit notably specifies that the bracelet comes off when the heart stops, not when the subject dies. Dio and K are also killed, leaving Quark as the prime suspect. Phi had the chance but I don't buy it. I made a note that Sigma mentions Radical-6 at some point, and I don't recall if that conversation came up in this timeline or if his memories are bleeding through.

We wind up in the Director's Office and I am unable to answer the password, putting a pause on this timeline for now. This isn't actually locked off so I may well have the info I need for this, but clearly my brain isn't there yet. There are lions and suns all over this facility, and I don't feel like getting a pen and paper out and wading through every possible anagram of that misspelled graffiti. Instead, I'm about to dive off a conspiracy cliff.

Sigma reflects on his earlier breakdown by referring to his 'mental processing speed' slowing down, before catching himself. I take this as a pretty giant indicator that he is a gaulem (or some kind of robot), and I think it's time to go down this hole. The earlier references to him having a great memory add to this, the little animation that closes out a scene could be more than window dressing, and his game over scenes ending in him waking up in nothingness are more supporting evidence. Honestly I should have nailed this sooner. But there's a lot that of questions that this opens up.

I have suspected Quark and/or K of being robots since the term was first mentioned, and I now believe both are. There's also Phi, who has lasting memories, more knowledge than she lets on, and maybe those super anime jumps are really due to robot legs. If half the cast is a robot, we may well wind up with everyone being one, as weird as that may seem. And if that's the case, we might not be dealing with timelines or dimensions at all. Maybe at the end of a 'game' everyone's consciousness get transferred to another body in another building, or put in rest mode until the bodies are fixed up and the game begins again. Maybe this has been going on for years.

But I don't know, that seems pretty outlandish. None of the others have shown signs of being automatons- we know Clover is human, and there's not yet a hint of human consciousnesses being transferred into robots. But then the three most likely robot candidates all have different experiences: K claims he has no memories, which I now believe is not down to amnesia but rather due to him being a newborn robot, possibly without skin tissue which is why he's in the suit. Sigma on the other hand has lots of memories, and him and K seem to believe they are human. Quark, if he is a gaulem, is probably aware of it, given the things he says when he's diagnosed with Rad-6. Tenmyouji is almost definitely aware of this too, and is quite possibly Quark's creator or something like that.

Then there's the matter of Zero, and going by G-OLM's earlier explanations Zero could be taking many forms. At any point Zero could decide to take control of one of its 'limbs' and carry out a murder or something like that without the host being aware. I'm thinking particularly of Sigma having a flashback alone in the warehouse, and what his body could be doing during that time. Maybe this is simply an AI gone rogue, using robots (Sigma, K etc) to get revenge on those it deems responsible for... something (Tenmyouji seems the most obvious target here given Quark and his likely wife). My mind goes back to ADAM, the machine that got its own little closeup and explanation from Luna which triggered alarm bells in my head at the time.

But enough empty conjecture. I think the game is definitely pointing me towards Sigma being a gaulem, and I'm pretty sure about Quark, but beyond that I have little basis for anything. As much as I'd like to brute force this lion password, I don't have it in me and it's time to head down another timeline. I'm avoiding all betrays for as long as I can, so we're back up to the first choice and taking the only remaining route.

Phi and Sig go into the infirmary with Tenmyouji, and one of the first things I notice is the defibrilator which kickstarts a heart again after it's stopped. Oh yeah, Quark 100% got resuscitated with this in that other timeline. Later on Quark goes slow like Sigma did earlier, furthering my theory here. We find the dead woman again, so it seems something happens in the rightmost path that stops the culprit from moving the container. But IIRC Alice was the other person with us at that point, and it really seems unlikely to be her seeing as she gets killed for figuring it out >_> Again I'm thinking as if these are discrete timelines, and we know they're not, so it might not mean anything.

Any more ramblings and hungry lions will have to wait another day.

swordz9 posted...

I mean somebody paid for all those voiced promo videos like the ones with the VTuber leader. They werent done for free. Why bother paying for that even if they dont care or dont want to make extra expenses?

They spare no expense when it comes to marketing

Archange
Mothership Probe (Scenery)
The Moon & the Prince

I always considered Undersea one of my CT favs, but listening now I'm not as big on it! The game's soundfont is pretty unpleasant when put against something that sounds nice lol. Archange is a pleasant surprise after a slow start, I'm pretty hit and miss on Ace Combat music.
I really like the Octopath set as a whole, but the main theme is the weak link for me. PSO2's music does little for me in general, but this one is pretty nice! Overstays its welcome though. What a weird contest format, I would rather see Octopath move ahead but I like Mothership more so that's the way it goes!
Moon & Prince has some catchy riffs (though I'm not too big on the vocals). I feel like I'm the only person that preferred Ragnarok Online 1's set to 2. Also those anime faces scare me D:

Mewtwo59 posted...

Bruxish is one of those that absolutely should've made it in because it hadn't been available on the Switch yet. Unfortunately, after 5 Switch games, we still have Pokemon that haven't had a Switch appearance yet.

Who else is still locked away from the Switch?

Arti posted...

You haven't played Punch Line yet

And after briefly scanning its wikipedia article I have no plans on doing so!

Whew, it's heating up today. Gaulem Bay has robots! Wearing boxer shorts! I should probably start thinking about what connects all these rooms to each other, this is an odd building. After another pretty long puzzle sequence we are introduced to our new bri'ish robot pal, G-OLM. This friendly chap pretty much confirms that someone will later be revealed to be a gaulem (Quark? K? All 9 of us?), describes himself as an autonomous arm/leg of the mainframe, and tells us a Chinese Room story that will surely come up again but could be interpreted in so many ways that I don't know what to take from it right now (I like that Alice and Luna call out the needless horny mentions in said story though lol).

G-OLM mentions that we probably wouldn't be able to tell a gaulem with artificial skin tissue from a person, then says: "See, right in the middle of-" before being killed for breaking the rules. Argh, this half-line could refer to so many things! My first thought was him pointing to whoever was literally stood in the middle of us 3 and identifying us as a gaulem, but then I thought he was describing a part of the body that would give away someone being one (Dio and Quark both have hats, and we haven't seen K's body at all). He could have been using 'middle' in some other sense, but it seems that word in particular probably triggered his death so it must be crucial.

Phi later makes a big strain to connect this 'middle' to China, wondering if the Nonary games as a whole are some kind of Chinese Room. I've no idea what this would mean if true, are us 9 the girl sending messages we don't understand to a confused outside world, or are we the men outside receiving messages that the sender (Zero?) never understood? What are we misinterpreting? I suppose this game could all be some automated system at this point set long after whoever made it died (if we're all gaulems).

Skipping ahead a bit after the next AB game (I pick ally of course), Alice dies again. But there's no connection to the virus this time, she is presumably killed for noticing something that Clover then notices. K feels a connection with Phi, Quark is missing, and Tenmyouji has opened up to Clover but not to the rest of us. He later tells us he struck some kind of deal with Zero Sr before entering this place, a pretty massive piece of information that he won't elaborate on. We really need to get info on the deal with him/Quark/deadlady soon, it's been teased so much.

The biggest scene today is the reveal that one of the AB boxes had been moved! I am frustrated at myself for not noticing this earlier, I hadn't thought to pay attention to the background visuals like that! But this is massive, it immediately points the finger straight at Luna as a killer... though Sigma quickly brings up several points to the contrary. Someone found the time to shift the container while the rest of us were off somewhere. Siggy, Phi and Luna were together until the corpse was discovered so it can't have been them, I'd have to go back to figure out where everyone else was. Then there's the conspicuously placed bloody handkerchief which had been exposed by the move. Maybe multiple containers were moved to frame Luna, and the one with the corpse belonged to one of the others? But that'd take an awfully long time to do. Maybe Luna did kill the old lady, but someone else moved the container for... some reason. To expose her?

Whatever the case, Clover likely believes Luna to have killed Alice, and sure enough we soon find Luna dead by injection gun. Alice's murder weapon (presumed to be a knife but notably not confirmed) is gone. Both Ten and Clover have motive for this one if either came to the conclusion about Luna, and I wonder if we're headed for another psycho killer Clover ending. We chat with K, Dio remains a one note selfish character for now (I look forward to eventually unpacking his deal), and K forces Phi and Sig into the security room.

I've been checking the flowchart for a while, waiting for the ending to show up, but we get taken into a puzzle room and suddenly the chart has expanded! Yay! I didn't expect this at all, and I'm glad there's so much more of the game than I previously thought. It's exciting that this particular line continues even with half the cast gone (Alice and Luna dead, Quark missing, Ten and Clover possibly killed by penalty). I leave it here for today (I saved just before heading into puzzle mode) as there is a lot to process. There's been some really interesting developments here. I'm growing fond of most of these characters now, I really like Phi and Sig as a detective duo.

Did you folks notice that the AB container moved before the reveal?

I'll leave today with the most important line of dialogue that I should probably take heed of, from Phi:

Just forget any conclusions you might have come up with. Save that brain space for something more useful

I will try, Phi. I will try.

-
Cheer Up, Pure Queen
-

Weak day personally, Cheer Up is the only track I particularly enjoy listening to.

Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings: 6/10

I don't remember what else I've already rated or not but there's probs others I could do. Thanks for running this series LS! It certainly doesn't feel like it's been 500 days.

Duke Nukem Forever - 2.17 (6 votes)
Shenmue III - 2.13 (4 votes)
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World - 2.05 (11 votes)
Paper Mario: Sticker Star - 1.91 (6 votes)
Metroid: Other M - 1.87 (20 votes)
Perfect Dark Zero - 1.63 (4 votes)
Pokmon Sword & Shield - 1.57 (7 votes)
Super Princess Peach - 1.5 (7 votes)
Plumbers Dont Wear Ties - 1.27 (15 votes)
Devil May Cry 2 - 1.07 (7 votes)

Is this really the worst that VG stories have to offer :O

-
Silent Hill 2

Play Somnium Files and you will see that it is in fact possible to be too horny.

This time we take the green door with Luna into the Lounge. I am unable to find one of the hemi-hemispheres for the longest time here and end up solving both puzzles without its aid >_> But I do find it before we leave. We go through the motions afterwards, with everything the same until Sigma enters the AB room and finds... a porno mag lying on the floor :O Wait, wrong game, there's actually a dead woman lying on the floor. Wait, what? What?? Sigma mirrors my own reaction here, I wasn't expecting to simply stumble across a corpse like this.

And so we have our first human outside of the 9, an old woman who seems very likely to be Tenmyouji's wife. She was stabbed, and all signs point to K as the culprit. I am failing to remember who went through the far left AB door for round 1 in the other timeline, I don't think it was me and Phi though. Maybe I should go back, whoever takes the far left door that time would immediately become the prime suspect. Or maybe not, with how this game is handling timelines. K insists it wasn't him (Clover was also notably in the same room but unconscious), and before investigating further we have to go back and play the game. Sidenote: Luna explaining ADAM again with a closeup makes me suspicious of this machine, and I think it must wind up playing a role here. Something to pay attention to when I eventually do the Infirmary puzzles.

We get a speedrun tutorial of the AB game, and I of course defy Phi and choose to ally with Luna. For the first time in the game I experience a win/win situation, as good old Luna comes through. I'm liking her now, so of course she will probably turn out to be the Ace of this game. Phi mentions hoping things will be different 'this time', so I wonder if Luna does betray us in some other timeline. It seems unlikely, she's consistently voted ally in every instance so far, so maybe Phi was referring to something else.

There's plenty of drama in the other groups. Dio constructs an elaborate blatant lie about Quark betraying Tenmyouji. This obvious lie defies reason, Dio loves to betray people and there'd be no reason for Quark to share his devious plans with him, and fictional Quark refers to Tenmyouji in the same derogatory terms Dio does. It's so obviously false that I wrap around into thinking there must be some truth to it, because why else is it here. Man, I'm too suspicious after 999 >_>

More interesting still is K and Clover betraying Alice. That pair has betrayed in the other timeline too, but Clover in particular betraying Alice here is very odd. Later on Tenmyouji accuses K of betraying Clover, I'm not sure if that's just a translation error or if he's implying K took control of the voting and betrayed Alice himself, therefore betraying Clover's trust. Either way it seems odd, on paper K's actions are incredibly suspicious but in his manners he seems quite the opposite. And Clover remains a bizarre question mark. I have to hand it to Alice, she takes being betrayed like a champ. There's no hypocrisy on her end!

Our further explorations provide more new info (nobody asks Zero about the dead woman post-AB game for some reason). Clover and Tenmyouji both clam up and refuse to share their secrets out of a lack of trust for us (maybe we should return to this timeline after gaining their trust), though Clover does admit she works for the same organisation as Alice. Suspicious indeed. In the infirmary we finally get some K time, he claims he feels natural in his metal suit and there's a Sontaran style 'pop me open here' target on the back of his head. Is he a robot with someone's consciousness uploaded into it? Mayhaps. He later absolutely refuses to let us take the red door, even after Ten relents. When this guy says no he means no.

Talking with Alice and Dio my earlier suspicions are confirmed that these people were kidnapped on different days. Alice was on the 22nd, and Dio thinks it was on the 20th. There were only three beds in that treatment room, so it could just be us three (or Alice and Dio) who were in there, but the dialogue is trending more towards the idea that everybody was captured at a different time, perhaps a long time before the outbreak.

We head towards our next puzzles (no bomb this time), but not before Quark starts showing his Radical-6 symptoms early. Interesting, Sigma is paired with Alice so I wonder if she will start playing up in our next room. I decide to take Luna into the green door- she's been so nice and trustworthy, and won't betray us unlike Clover and K. Or will she??? I've gotta start trusting these characters more >_> Or do I???

I leave it here today, Gaulem Bay will have to wait.

Human Theme
LONELY ROLLING STAR
Nomads

I can't believe Pokemon still gets away with selling one game for the price of two, I wonder how many of these 10 mil were the same people buying both versions. Probs not a massive amount but it may be enough to make a dent on its 'all time record' standings.