Board 8 > SaveEstelle & LeonhartFour in New Houses: 2020 is Hindsight Edition [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

And now for some more Cold Steel IV Act 2!

Unfortunately, I can't trigger the Phantom Thief B sidequest without Juna in my party for some reason, so I have to go back to the Merkabah, which moves the story forward. I feel like this has happened in every chapter this act where I've had to go back to the Merkabah on the second sidequest for whatever the reason. I want to be able to finish them both before going back, darn it! Anyway, this time, they've obtained info on Leeves and the branch campus. Sounds like G. Schmidt, the disciple of Professor C. Epstein (are we ever going to find out what their first names are), is at the branch campus, which suggests he's sided with Cedric and company. I imagine he's just siding with whomever will let him do his research or provides him interesting experiments to perform, so I don't think this is a moral evaluation here...! The rest of Class VII seems to be in agreement with my assessment! However, it appears that Elise and Tio are assisting Schmidt there at the branch campus. Naturally, all of New Class VII wants to be a part of the branch campus infiltration, so the party is pretty much set beforehand this time.

And with that, I knock out a couple of Trial Chests now that I can rearrange my party and then we proceed to tackle the other sidequest! The lady is from Crossbell and had three Rosenberg dolls stolen from her with a calling card left by Phantom Thief B. However, no one is convinced this is his work because it doesn't fit his M.O. Anyway, we have to run all over the place finding these dolls, but none of them have the same names as the old lady said, which is weird. The riddles and hiding places certainly don't seem as elaborate as Bleublanc's typical quests either. Once we find all three, they awaken and we have to fight them, but they go down without any trouble. Turns out that this old lady is, shocker, Mariabell, since we know from Trails From Zero that she's a big fan of Rosenberg dolls. She introduces herself and it makes me realize that no one in Class VII has actually met her yet because that was Estelle/Joshua/Lloyd/Elie.

Turns out Mariabell just wanted to troll Juna as a citizen of Crossbell, but Rean and Musse help her shake it off. Then Roselia and Bleublanc show up to exchange some words. Roselia says that Mariabell was the one who forced Vita out, and they talk about some alchemy technique. Bleublanc ain't even mad at the poor imitation and only wants a favor in return for the bad form. After sprouting black wing for some reason, Mariabell vanishes from the scene. Bleublanc says he will not be our ally or our enemy in this upcoming conflict, so I guess that means he's sitting the rest of the game out!

We'll tackle the main storyline next time!

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Rufus Albarea sucks

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He's no Rufus Shinra but he's a decent Rufus.

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Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Episode 46 complete!

That was one heck of a setup episode. Promised Day of Reckoning should be good.

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Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Episode 47 complete!

Nice save by Lan Fan at the end there.

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wow what has happened to the goty vote

allen totally phoning it in this year

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ff7 always wins!!!

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i am pretty sure what happened here was he knew he couldn't run it by system and keep up his long standing grudge against trails because even he couldn't think of a way to snub cold steel 4 for a ps4 poll if he ran it that way so he just skipped to the combined version to pull it off

will no one stop him?

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Yeah, this was such a lazy effort by him this year.

Not a great performance by FFVIIR here either unless Ghost of Tsushima is just surprisingly good.

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Welp, apparently my cousin has covid (thankfully just mild symptoms so far)

Really hope my uncle can avoid catching it from her

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Being a remake of just the beginning of a game, I could easily see FFVIIR not doing as well here as it would do in a contest match.

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How is the 1v1 tracking with the multi way poll? Was it mostly transitive?

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FFVII got 58% on Tsushima in the multiway, so it's not far off, but Remake is doing a little worse.

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pjbasis posted...

How is the 1v1 tracking with the multi way poll? Was it mostly transitive?

Pretty close.

If you isolate FFVIIR and Tsushima in the multi GOTY poll FFVIIR had 58.02%. Currently at 55.51% so not too far off that mark. Don't know what trends were like if we even still have them.

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I know Remake jumped out to a big lead today (close to 60%) which is unusual for VII in general, but most of the board probably hasn't played Tsushima yet and actually kinda likes Remake.

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welp 2021 is not off to a great start

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2020 pulling some "from hell's heart i stab at thee" shit here

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Whoops, wrong topic

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My wife's stepmom died of a heart attack on Monday and now this. I don't talk about my beliefs much because I'm a conservative Christian, and it just hasn't been worth it to represent this viewpoint on the board in the past. But I will say that I've never been a fan of Donald Trump personally, and it has bothered me greatly over the last four years to see evangelical Christians flock to him because they think he'll give them what they want.

It bothered me that they would never call out Trump for his clearly immoral behavior, but they handwaved it away with "Nobody's perfect," "He's the lesser of two evils," or "We're electing a president, not a pastor." Morality used to matter until Trump became president. They said morality mattered when it was Clinton (both of them, really).

It bothered me that many of them were more concerned about pushing Trump's agenda rather than promoting the gospel of Christ. They turned Donald Trump into a political messiah, and today is what happens when an idol is toppled. I'm not saying this is all Christians, of course. I've seen many of my Christian friends unequivocally condemn this and speak out against Trump's behavior and rhetoric over the past four years. But it's been too many of them. We've damaged our ability to be representatives of God's grace, and it saddens me.

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I'm so sorry about your wife's stepmom. My thoughts go out to you and your wife and your families. I'm also sorry about how this has affected some of your friends. I know it's caused some schisms in my family as well these past few years.

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I know a lot of people say that Trump is just a symptom (and to some extent he is a symptom), but I deeply believe that one of the worst things hes done over the past four years is actively make his supporters into worse people by slowly making them justify more and more ridiculous things and feeding their senses of persecution and resentment. If he had jumped straight from The Apprentice to telling people storming the Capitol that he loved them, Id think 95%+ of the country would be aghast.

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I've got something else I want to talk about that's relevant to this, but I'll save it for inauguration day because it's related to something I experienced on Trump's inauguration day.

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Anyway, feels weird to do this now, but let's play some Cold Steel IV Act 2.

Time to advance the main story. I've got Rean, Tita, and New Class VII automatically chosen for me this time around, which is fine with me. Thankfully, mira has become less of an issue as the game has gone along so I've been able to keep everyone properly equipped. We have to travel through Milsante to get to Leeves. They haven't let us come here in a while! This time, they hint pretty strongly that Diana is Elie's mom, which would make sense. At the inn, we find Sidney, Tatiana, Louise, and Josette. They tell us they got permission to remove the road barrier that was at Lake Gala earlier, so that makes things easier. There are rumors of a lake monster similar to the Loch Ness monster or Gourdy from Ace Attorney, appropriately (and lamely) named Gallie. I wonder if it'll turn out to be the real deal...!

I like how everyone takes shots at Rean's womanizing ways right in front of him, and he just has to eat it. When we get close to Leeves, Randy's waiting for us, naturally, since this involves rescuing Tio. It really does feel nice to be back in Leeves. It was like coming back to Trista in Cold Steel II.

More later.

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I really enjoyed the section you're about to enter.

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LeonhartFour posted...

There are rumors of a lake monster similar to the Loch Ness monster or Gourdy from Ace Attorney, appropriately (and lamely) named Gallie

They use the much funnier Gassie in Japanese
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Sitting on the Cold Steel 3 Title Screen. The music gives me good vibes.

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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

Sitting on the Cold Steel 3 Title Screen. The music gives me good vibes.

Title screen music is good

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CS3 has some good title screen images too.

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I love me a good evolving title screen

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LeonhartFour posted...

I don't talk about my beliefs much because I'm a conservative Christian, and it just hasn't been worth it to represent this viewpoint on the board in the past.

It's probably a viewpoint that actually needs to be heard more often.

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Maybe, but it feels like a public forum isn't really conducive to it. I'll talk with people privately about it, but it always finds a way to quickly derail in a place like this. I just don't have the patience to deal with it, I guess.

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Yeah I can definitely understand that

As xp knows well, I sometimes get very extreme pushback here for arguing about economic issues (admittedly unapologetically) from even a center-left perspective...!

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Yeah. I had finally decided to just abandon the containment topic because I finally just got completely sick and tired of people throwing out insults from self-proclaimed moral superiority but then marrying it with complete nihilism ("Well, then the country is doomed and people deserve what they get") when faced with even just asking, "Okay, but realistically how do you mean to accomplish this?"

I mean, hell, I'm pretty sure I actually agree on the policy/substance a lot of the time but the toxicity you sometimes face there is just out of this world. I've been disgusted with how LotM and some others have been treated there and have occasionally, though perhaps not often enough, spoken out against it - again, even when I may disagree with LotM's positions - because it just can get absolutely terrible.

but let's just say it's been a heck of a 24-36 hours so i've found myself back there for the time being because that's the one topic where i use it as a kind of release valve for myself and try to keep such thoughts way dialed back if not clamped down entirely outside it - it's "containment" after all.

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Yeah, I get there's frustration about this for more than just people like me. Maybe I'm just not as bold about it as I should be.

But I also feel like I don't know enough about politics and economics to contribute to a discussion in that regard. I can intelligently discuss religion, but I don't know how many people want an intelligent discussion of that. A lot of people don't want religion in their politics in particular.

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I'm a pretty outspoken person so I usually don't get too offended. The main times it wears me down is when I'm arguing like 7 on 1 and have to just stop pushing back on 2/3 of the things I normally would and only reply directly to the baseless accusations of bad faith (though recently I've been better about not poking the bear on issues I know will get that reaction... not sure there's been anything too bad since the primaries).

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Leonhart4 posted...

Yeah, I get there's frustration about this for more than just people like me. Maybe I'm just not as bold about it as I should be.

But I also feel like I don't know enough about politics and economics to contribute to a discussion in that regard. I can intelligently discuss religion, but I don't know how many people want an intelligent discussion of that. A lot of people don't want religion in their politics in particular.

Well my opinions probably still overlap like 75% with most people here, so I don't doubt it's worse for you...!

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The politics topic is funny for me because I always lurk it just to stay up-to-date on things but also have taken to glossing over posts by at least half the regulars there because I can't stand how they discuss things (not either of you obviously).

But yeah I would imagine being a religious conservative who dislikes Trump is sort of doubly uncomfortable, which is funny considering a lot of left-leaning people have no problem admitting they disliked their last two candidates (sorry LotM).

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I honestly haven't been a fan of any presidential candidate since W (which is an unpopular opinion in and of itself!).

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The politics topic is fine if you have 75% of the people who post there on ignore !!

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Sounds like a recipe for enjoying the board in general

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It certainly doesnt hurt

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Looking at the upcoming 2021 releases in this POTD I'm having a hard time caring about any of these except BotW2 and we barely know anything about it!

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Ys 9 and Persona 5 Strikers

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I'm actually interested in a bunch of 2021 games, though most of them aren't on the poll. BotW2 and BD2 are the only ones on there I'm excited for.

Wish Ys 9 was getting a simultaneous PC release, probably won't play it until then.
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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

Ys 9 and Persona 5 Strikers

See, I'd probably have voted for Strikers.

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I'll be taking BotW2 and God of War Ragnarok. Though with the latter, I'm not sure I'll get a PS5 when it comes, depends on my financial situation then, and I don't think they've said if it's coming to PS4.

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Flying out to Houston tomorrow for my wife's stepmom's funeral on Saturday. First time visiting Texas and first time meeting her dad since he didn't attend the wedding.

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It's always weird traveling for somber reasons.

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Yeah, because you know you're not really going to have time to enjoy being there.

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Let's get back to Cold Steel IV Act 2!

Time to investigate the seemingly abandoned Leeves. We go to the dormitory first and it's weird to me that their rooms are all largely untouched, whether it's their stuff or the name plates outside the room. These guys are supposed to be enemies of the state, so why wouldn't you purge all traces of them? Ash feels the same way and notes how strange that is. However, Musse notes that Maya's belongings are missing. Rean says Elise stayed in his room for a few days, and Shirley has taken up residence in Randy's room. It also looks like Michael's room is still in use, and they converted the principal's room to Cedric's room.

Turns out the shops aren't empty, so that's good! All the townsfolk are happy to see Rean and New Class VII again, of course, but they don't really fill us in on the details of what's been happening here. We do learn that there are divisions among the main campus about the situation here though. We also learn that there was a male and female instructor here asking about Rean directly as a teacher. I wonder if it's Makarov (that's Mint's uncle's name, right?) and Mary. We find Jessica and Wayne at Neinvalli, so that's the last of the branch campus students. They inform us that Cedric and Shirley set out by themselves yesterday, which feels like suspicious timing. All the other students are holing up at the actual campus.

Right on cue, we get a phone call from Cedric's two pals, Major Irving, and Schmidt. They assure us that Elise and Tio are unharmed, which is something, I guess. Naturally, they don't intend to just hand them over, so we'll have to beat them first. Schmidt is treating all of this as training exercise data to the surprise of no one. A bit more surprising is that he's listed under the Allies tab in the notebook, so I guess he'll be joining us once all this is over!

We get some great music once we begin the campus infiltration. The rest of the branch campus students intend to meet us here to back us up at some point, so this should be good. We have to fight main campus students with archaisms all over the place, so it's similar to Dreknor Fortress. In the storehouse, Mary is waiting for us...to challenge us with a Zauber Soldat?! Didn't see this coming. And she's using a new model that can control others nearby remotely, whoa. She says she's not very skilled at this stuff, and she proves to be correct! After the battle, we learn that the curse is somehow built into the Zauber Soldats themselves, and so they eat away at the minds of whoever pilots them, but Mary managed to resist.

Naturally, if Mary is here, that means Makarov isn't far behind. This time, he's piloting heavy Zauber Soldats that are called Hannibals. He doesn't prove to be much of a challenge either. Afterwards, he gives us the keycard to get inside the keep where the main resistance is waiting for us. Altina comes to the conclusion that the time she lost control in CS3, it was an experiment to test the effectiveness of this mechanism that allows the curse to get a hold of people. This had to be the work of Black Alberich. Apparently, the main campus students aren't too keen on continuing to use these Zauber Soldats, so they were the ones who leaked the info to our group once Cedric and Shirley were gone. When we get to the keep, Schmidt is waiting for us to tackle the final keep trial...on Level X! Dun dun dunnnnnnn. In a rare moment of kindness, he's going to allow us to have support from Elise and Tio to lower the difficulty a tad for us.

But that will have to wait until I get back from Texas.

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