Lightchao42
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Posts posted by Lightchao42
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20 years ago today, Mario Tennis 64 was released in Japan and we were first graced with the presence of a certain man in purple. Happy birthday Waluigi! Maybe you'll get a starring role in a game someday.
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I can't believe Ryza has Alvis's key necklace. I suppose he didn't need it anymore once DE was released so Ryza ended up with it instead.
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Playing through Xenoblade 1 revived my interest in replaying Xenoblade 2, so with that on the mind I want to talk about Flesh Eaters.
SpoilerSince the Architect doesn't bring Flesh Eaters up during his endgame infodump, I assume it's unintentional behavior in the Blade system. Maybe the infusion of human cells confuses the core and makes it believe that the Blade is its own Driver? The unique powers could be from the core glitching and modifying the Blade's existing powers.
I presume that Minoth was injected with human cells to become a Flesh Eater, while Nia and probably Akhos and Patroka "ate" a human. Blades are capable of eating meat without becoming Flesh Eaters, so either it involves humans cells (since Blades were designed for them specifically, as Drivers of other species are uncommon) or cells of their current Driver's species. It seems that the infusion of human cells disables or hinders the Blade's natural regeneration, and eventually the core's ability to absorb ether will decline and the Blade will die. Minoth considers himself a failure, but he was well enough to fight alongside Vandham for a time so it seems his health didn't decline until recently. Presumably they don't return to being Core Crystals following their deaths, but Akhos and Patroka had their cores ripped out and Jin disintegrated so we don't know for certain.
Unlike the others, Jin's core is completely red rather than being blue and pink, which might be because Jin became a Flesh Eater through a unique method of replacing his heart with Lora's. It seems that the red core is an indication of a "perfect" Flesh Eater, but whether this is an always-successful method of developing special powers is unknown (it could be if the "core glitching" hypothesis is correct). Nia is usually assumed to have benefitted from becoming a Flesh Eater, but she lacks the red core and we don't know if her healing powers were amplified following her procedure. Jin and Nia are also the only Blades (aside from Pyra/Mythra) with multiple forms, which seems to be another side effect of them being Flesh Eaters; Jin got a "powered up" form while Nia got a "Driver form" that greatly resembles the "sister" whose cells she absorbed. Their transformation animation resembles how Pyra and Mythra switch between each other, but with the color of their respective elements.
While on the topic, let's discuss Blade Eaters too. While Flesh Eaters were "invented" by Judicium, Blade Eaters were first created by Indol. Amalthus and Zeke have shards of cores (from Haze and Pandoria), and Mikhail seems to have a whole Core Crystal implanted in him. Amalthus and Zeke got some of their Blade's powers (presumably in Zeke's case), while Mikhail got the weapon and the powers of the core he was implanted with. As an imperfect prototype, Gort transforms into a barely sane monster with a short lifespan ("Sooner or later, the binding will decay and he will die," says Stannif), and he dissolves into black ether following his death rather than elemental ether. It seems Amalthus wanted to solve this issue before he became a Blade Eater himself. Guldos are also essentially imperfect Blade Eaters, and Amalthus also has another form that is basically a controlled Guldo transformation that he gained by absorbing the cores (or just data? I'm not sure) of many Blades.
Becoming a Blade Eater extends one's lifespan, probably because Core Crystals were originally created as artificial brain cells. Mikhail has grown into an adult after 500 years, and Amalthus looks exactly the same. We don't know if Zeke will live that long, since he doesn't have a full core nor is he Indoline.
This ended up being longer than expected, but I wanted to make a writeup about what we know about Flesh Eaters. Before Xenoblade DE came out I left off my Xenoblade 2 replay in Uraya (which is coincidentally where I took a break on my first playthrough), but now I'm at chapter 4.
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5 minutes ago, Armagon said:
If you ever decide to check out the rest of the series, you'll have an easier time with sidequests since there are significantly less of them. To compare
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Xenoblade 1 has 130 timed quests, 25 pairs of mutually-exclusive quests (you have the option of doing Quest A or Quest B but you can't do both) and 12 suprise quests. There is some overlap here and if you were to include the story quests, you'd get 480 quests in total.
- Future Connected has 40.
- Xenoblade 2 has 111 sidequests+32 Blade quests+26 DLC quests. If you include the story quests, that brings the total up to 152.
- Torna has 52 sidequests. If you include the story quests, then you have 58 in total.
Xenoblade X is different here because there's a lot of sidequests here but it can be split up into normal sidequests and character sidequests but both types essentially have their own mini-stories. Xenoblade X differs from the rest of the series (not just the Blade games but Xeno overall) in that the side content is the main content and if you just play it for the main story, you'll be left disapointed (although Future Connected is like a micro-Xenoblade X in that sense).
However, at the end of the day, one thing is for sure: Xenoblade 1 is very bloated with it's side content and it's arguably the worst Xenoblade game to 100%, for those who are into that sort of thing.
Personally I didn't have many issues with there being too many quests, aside from the fact that by the endgame you get dozens of quests with enemies with levels in the 90s when your party is in their mid 70s, and you'll eventually run out of reasonably leveled quests so you'll have to grind for the later ones. Also, Xenoblade 2 has notably less quests because generic objectives like "find items" and "fight enemies" are instead tied to Blade skill trees, rather than being their own quests.
Anyway
Claude is my favorite Xenoblade protagonist.
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Xenoblade 1 has 130 timed quests, 25 pairs of mutually-exclusive quests (you have the option of doing Quest A or Quest B but you can't do both) and 12 suprise quests. There is some overlap here and if you were to include the story quests, you'd get 480 quests in total.
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I've been curious: for people who played Xenoblade Chronicles before DE, did playing it again change your opinions on anything? It could be the gameplay, story, characters, the gloriousness of Riki, or anything else.
47 minutes ago, Armagon said:To cheer up up the mood, imma post one of my favorite songs.
This reminds me, one of my hopes from before KotM released was that Mothra's Song would be included. Fortunately it was, which is good because Mothra vs. Godzilla was one of my first Godzilla movies (if not the first) so I'm very nostalgic for it.
Now beggars can't be choosers, but if only there was a vocal version... -
Before I forget to mention it again, I finished the main plot of Xenoblade and Colony 6's reconstruction. The dreaded Rainbow Slugs and Black Liver Beans weren't too hard to find, though the Ice Cabbages took longer. There are still plenty of quests to do and I haven't fully completed Future Connected yet, but I don't want to finish all of it at once so I can wait before I do all that.
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35 minutes ago, Armagon said:
In other news, @Lightchao42 dunno if you saw this but the director of Godzilla: King of the Monsters has revealed some storyboards for an after-credits scene that was never filmed
I've heard about it, but I haven't seen those storyboards before. The credits already indicate that Mothra had an egg offscreen, but how necessary this scene was depends on if she will be in GvK (though I would like her to be, maybe she can escort the humans through Hollow Earth which is apparently be explored). The King Ghidorah scene was probably included so he could potentially come back in a future film.
35 minutes ago, Armagon said:Actually avoid killing Unique Monsters until you have all seven party members. If it's part of a sidequest, then it's fine but since UMs only give an Affinity Coin the first time you kill them, certain party members can miss out on them. You need Affinity Coins for the Skill Links.
I think this is wrong. New party members will join with the affinity coins obtained from previously defeated UMs, so they can't lose out on affinity coins if you defeat them early.
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16 minutes ago, Karimlan said:
Is it just me, or does Summer Ingrid give off Riesz (Trials of Mana) vibes? Both have long, blond hair and lances as weapons, and although Ingrid looks like she has more of a tan than Riesz, the similarity is just uncanny.
It's funny you should say that, because Ingrid and Riesz are both voiced by Brittany Cox. Maybe there's a deeper conspiracy going on here...
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2 hours ago, Armagon said:
Neat. As an FYI, if you ever decide to read these books, the order is: Percy Jackson series -> Heroes of Olympus series. The Kane Chronicles, despite being in the same universe, is it's own thing and can be read at any point. There's also the Magnus Chase (protagonist of this one is the cousin of one of the main characters of PJ and HoO) and Apollo books but i don't know where these fall into the timeline. @Lightchao42 may know.
The Trials of Apollo series is a direct sequel to The Heroes of Olympus, and its final book will release later this year. Magnus Chase is its own thing but is set around the same time as Trials of Apollo. The three Greek series each consist of five books while KC and MC each have three books. There are also several spinoff books including a Percy Jackson/Kane Chronicles crossover, but these aren't required reading even if some stories in them are acknowledged in the main books.
In Xenoblade news, I didn't have as much trouble with everyone's favorite boss as I expected to, though I had to get my party up to level 75 after losing a few times. I didn't have any problems with the poison at any rate.
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46 minutes ago, Armagon said:
I don't think Alvis was neccisarily on Shulk's side. His original role was to be the neutral mediator between Logos and Pneuma. Alvis isn't trying to find a compromise in Xenoblade 1 but considering he helps Shulk while also being Zanza's disciple, it's likely that this was Alvis simply seeing who'd win in the end. His nature as Ontos prevents him from truly forging an alliance with someone.
I'm not sure this is the case.
SpoilerQuoth The Secret Files: "At the beginning of the new universe, [Alvis] became the supreme consciousness and basis of the world, calling himself "Monado." As the entity managing and granting the existence of gods such as Zanza and Meyneth, he uses the passage of fate to guide this doomed world towards a new existence. He is searching for a new god, one he can trust to liberate this stagnant world, and create a new world teeming with new forms of life." So it seems that Alvis does want Shulk to succeed against Zanza, even if he doesn't help him directly.
We also don't know if the names of the Trinity Processor correspond to their functions if we take the Architect's statement that their names "have no meaning" literally. The symbolism was probably intentional out-of-universe, but in-universe they were likely given names that sounded cool (hence "all it represents is the ego of those who named you").
They also have Biblical passages associated with them for no apparent reason, after all.Even if they do have meaning, it wasn't established when XC1 was written, so it wouldn't have any bearing on Alvis's nature. -
I'm on the final chapter of Xenoblade. Hooray! It's been a while since I've seen the lategame scenes so I'll muse about them for a bit.
SpoilerOnce the party reaches the Mechonis, Shulk stops having visions but can still tell the future, which seems to indicate that Shulk's powers are growing beyond what Zanza's Monado gives him. This previous visions were probably enabled by Zanza, but did Zanza pick and choose what future events Shulk saw? Later on the the Monado zaps him, which Shulk believes is unrelated to the Apocrypha. Since we get a flashback to Egil referring to Shulk as Zanza before he says this, this was probably Zanza's way of warning Shulk to not stray from the path he wants.
Anyway, after their battle Shulk uses talk no jutsu on Egil and he has a change of heart. On one hand, Egil rejects Meyneth for not siding with him and seems to brag about how many people he's killed (then again, controlling the Mechonis might've made him drunk with power, and he thinks he's talking to Zanza). On the other hand, he has no personal grievances against the people of Bionis and his vengeance is entirely focused on Zanza. Since he initially thinks that Shulk is Zanza, Shulk sparing him is so unlike Zanza that Egil is convinced that he and Shulk can work together to stop Zanza for good. I've been thinking about how Egil's redemption is handled but overall it isn't too jarring, since he concedes that his methods were wrong and sacrifices himself to aid the heroes.
Lastly, from what I can tell Alvis is on Shulk's side all along, but his nature as an AI means that he can't oppose Zanza directly, nor can he just remove his god powers without someone replacing him. Now obviously the Aegises didn't exist when XC1 was written, but I think they worked it into Alvis's true nature pretty well since Malos basically does the same thing by attaching himself to Jin's will as a way to break from Amalthus's influence. They needed a way to explain Alvis's existence when XC2 was tied to Klaus's experiment, and making him an Aegis was a neat way of doing that (assuming that Pneuma and Logos were intended to be involved in the experiment before Ontos was added to the equation).
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After hours of doing side content, I've reached Chapter 15 of XCDE. At this rate I should finish the game at around 70-75 hours, depending on how much side content I do before the final boss. My progress:
Spoiler- Chapter 1 (Colony 9): 2:16
- Chapter 2 (Mechon Attack): 2:58
- Chapter 3 (Tephra Cave): 3:48
- Chapter 4 (Bionis’ Leg): 6:39
- Chapter 5 (Ether Mine): 10:29
- Chapter 6 (Satorl Marsh): 13:12
- Chapter 7 (Makna Forest): 17:30
- Chapter 8 (Eryth Sea/Alcamoth): 22:51
- Chapter 9 (Prison Island): 26:21
- Chapter 10 (Valak Mountain): 30:04
- Chapter 11 (Sword Valley/Galahad Fortress): 35:46
- Chapter 12 (Fallen Arm): 36:54
- Chapter 13 (Mechonis Field): 50:51
- Chapter 14 (Central Factory/Agniratha): 63:13
I made sure to do everything in Mechonis Field and Agniratha before fighting Egil, and I've done mostly everything in Central Factory aside from fighting a few unique monsters. I've done every quest in Alcamoth too, which surprised me because I didn't expect to finish them all until later.
On another note, Okami HD is on sale so I might get it if the mood strikes. It feels like Capcom games go on sale every month, so if I don't get it now it shouldn't be too long before it goes on sale again.
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Even if Spring Man does get in, the only other Assist Trophy to have a chance at getting "promoted" is Waluigi, and it's not that I expect him to get in either.
That aside, I'm going to be boring and predict that Min Min will be the ARMS character. I hope the presentation will have Sakurai explain how they ended up deciding on the ARMS rep and why they picked that character in particular.
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"Oh, Shulk, you say that every day."
Since I wanted to take a break from Xenoblade today after getting to the Central Factory, I decided to replay Cubivore after being reminded of it from the "what is the most obscure game you have ever played" question. Chapter 13 took 14 hours to finish (mainly sidequesting to get the fourth skill trees for the remaining characters), and the entirety of Cubivore is much shorter than that. I also remembered that I still have save data for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, so I might replay that afterwards too.
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14 hours ago, Armagon said:
Ok so @Interdimensional Observer @Lightchao42 @lightcosmo i came up with a crackpot Xenoblade theory cause i was bored. SERIES SPOILERS
Everyone knows that yellow is the color of truth, haven't you played Persona 4?
I think you're reading too deeply into things, but I've been reminded of symbolism-that-doesn't-actually-matter that I don't think has been talked about here.
SpoilerOntos and Logos have Biblical quotes associated with them just as Pneuma does, but they're only on the Trinity Processor itself and never shown clearly so it isn't as obvious. Pneuma's is from Proverbs 4:18, and as for the others...
Logos's is from Proverbs 10:12: "Odium suscitat rixas et universa delicta operit caritas." ("Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs.")
Ontos's is from Proverbs 3:13: "Beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam et qui affluit prudentia." ("Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding.") This fits with Ontos being Alvis (Alvis means "all-wise" in Old Norse), but presumably the one who finds wisdom in this case is Shulk.
"Ye shall be as gods" is also a Bible quote, specifically from Genesis 3:5 ("For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.")
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The most obscure game I've played is probably Cubivore
a game where you play as a cube animal and eat other cube animals while trying to become the king of beasts. You also wax philosophical about the nature of your cube-eat-cube existence.
Even though Nintendo made it, Atlus published it in the US instead. It apparently goes for hundreds of dollars nowadays, which compelled me to check if I still have it (I do). It has a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee and a Spirit in Ultimate, but otherwise you've probably never heard of it. (And Doshin the Giant doesn't have a Spirit, so I suppose Cubivore could've been even more ignored.)
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With a new Pokémon Snap game on the horizon, this is now relevant:
I'm at Mechonis Field now but before moving on I want to sort out my plans.
SpoilerI have every fourth skill tree aside from Riki's, Sharla's, and Seven's. I also have Monado Eater but not Armor, but getting the Hidden Village's affinity up shouldn't be too hard. Riki's fourth skill tree requires only 3.5 affinity, so I should be able to start the quest once I complete the prerequisite quests. I just need to decide whether to help Yusa or Medi... The prerequisite quests for Sharla's fourth skill tree should be done already, so that shouldn't be difficult either.
I'm pretty sure I've done everything in Sword Valley and Galahad Fortress aside from fighting the dreaded Mischievious Naberius. I don't know where Jade Face shows up in Mechonis Field, but hopefully I can beat Naberius before accidentally locking myself out of fighting it.
I should also get everything in Colony 6 to level 3 at some point, which I might do soon. There are likely plenty of Heart-to-Hearts available that I haven't seen yet, so I should hunt for those as well. And lastly I should do more quests in Alcamoth so I won't have to do a ton at once before Mechonis Core.
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10 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:
In fact, I tried to make a similar call out to everyone a minute ago
but I forgot two people, sorryin the LtPW topic- bad idea.Ah, so that's what that mention was about. It was deleted before I saw it so I thought what you said would be lost to the tides of time.
1 hour ago, Armagon said:So can we talk about the absolutely prententious reviews The Last of Us 2 is getting?
I was wondering what satire this reminded me of until I remembered that this is just like RedLetterMedia's "real feelings" on Boyhood, but unironic.
35 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:Hmm, I'm torn. I'd like to keep narrating my DQV playthrough, but I don't want to start doing it in another thread. Specially if the problem with LtPW will be fixed eventually. Hmm...
You can continue your playthrough here and then make a compilation post on LtPW if it ever gets fixed.
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1 hour ago, Armagon said:
@Lightchao42 so you may or may not have heard by now but Godzilla vs Kong has been delayed until May 2021
On the bright side, that means less competition (it's previous November release date had it going up against Black Widow, Soul and a new James Bond appearently. Probably trying to avoid the mistake they made when they released King of the Monsters so close to Avengers Endgame).
Unsurprising, nothing good can happen this year after all (outside of Xenoblade and announcing a potentially good Percy Jackson adaptation). But if it does better for it then good, and I've already waited this long so...
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12 hours ago, lightcosmo said:
There is something about Xenosaga Episode III's story that I don't understand. Margulis' death. Why does he want to die? Is it because he simply loses faith since the divine being he believed in was using him? I am actually very curious about this, since they don't go into detail very much.
Well it turned out that returning to Lost Jerusalem, Margulis's goal for decades, was actually a sham and Heinlein was exploiting Margulis's faith to manipulate him. Most of his life was based on a lie and by that point he has nothing left to live for outside of fighting Jin.
More Xenoblade progress:
- Chapter 1 (Colony 9): 2:16
- Chapter 2 (Mechon Attack): 2:58
- Chapter 3 (Tephra Cave): 3:48
- Chapter 4 (Bionis’ Leg): 6:39
- Chapter 5 (Ether Mine): 10:29
- Chapter 6 (Satorl Marsh): 13:12
- Chapter 7 (Makna Forest): 17:30
- Chapter 8 (Eryth Sea/Alcamoth): 22:51
- Chapter 9 (Prison Island): 26:21
- Chapter 10 (Valak Mountain): 30:04
I am roughly at the point I reached in the 3DS version, but in that case it took around 40 hours for me to reach Sword Valley. The difference is probably because, with the quest tracker, I spend less time wandering around looking for quest objectives and where to go for the plot. I also got Melia's fourth skill tree and level 2 for everything in Colony 6, which is more progress than I probably made in the 3DS version.
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We should all celebrate Xenoblade's 10th anniversary by hugging Riki.
I am now up to Chapter 9, and fighting the four Defensive Kromar is clearly the most difficult battle in the game (or at least up until this point). Fighting Tyrea and the Sodium Telethia was easy after that.
Also, I want to get the fourth skill trees in a timely manner but I'm not sure when I'm expected to get them. Getting 4.5 stars of affinity with Colony 9 for Shulk's seeming like a lot, especially since the quest can theoretically be unlocked upon reaching Satorl Marsh. If I don't get them before getting the last party member, I'll devote some time to fulfilling the requirements then.
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1 hour ago, Armagon said:
Not sure if any of you have seen this already (I did but I forgot to post it) but there's some new stuff here. Some of it we did already know but the biggest revelation ended up disproving a long-held theory in the series: the Bionis Shoulder was never intended to be in the original version of the game. The whole time, it was just a test map that they eventually worked into some cutscenes. And given nothing in the game is pre-rendered, that led people to think that the Shoulder was a cut area. But that was never the case.
When I saw that I was mentioned in this topic, I assumed you wanted to talk about this article (translated from this Spanish article) in which Takahashi says that he would like to make a smaller scale project, but for now would rather focus on increasing the value of the Xenoblade brand. This probably indicates that the new game that was worked on alongside XCDE is another Xenoblade game.
As for what you said, I was thinking earlier that if the Shoulder was meant to be a visitable location, it must have been cut early since it didn't seem that its absence affected the story in any way. It's unusual that the developers put so much work into an area that they never planned to include in the final game (compared to, say, Super Mario Sunshine's test level), but I'm not a developer so what do I know? I think people assumed that the Shoulder was meant to be visited between Makna Forest and Eryth Sea, since in the final game they're connected by a teleporter and not a direct path.
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10 hours ago, lightcosmo said:
That's not bad at all! And congrats on making that far!
Curious, what's you guy's favorite parts about the game? Whether its graphic updates, the story, etc.
Thank you, and since you asked:
- Cosmetic gear! I'm glad that I can give my characters useful equipment without making them look silly.
- Quest tracking! It kind of makes quests too easy, but it's better than spending hours looking for where you're supposed to go. I'm glad I don't need to look up where NPCs are at any given time... And there's now a shortcut to the quest list, which is convenient.
- The graphics are great! Besides the main characters, the Faced Mechon got the biggest glow-up.
- An event theater! Now I can rewatch cutscenes without looking them up online.
- There's probably other stuff I'm forgetting to mention, but these are the main improvements.
There's another thing, but this one is a spoiler:
SpoilerAlvis is Ontos! I don't think they changed anything else that would connect the game to XC2, but giving Alvis an Aegis core is enough of a confirmation since some people were oddly unconvinced before. If only we could get an Aegis family reunion...
I put 40 hours into the 3DS version despite just reaching Sword Valley, so I wonder how long it will take me to finish this version.
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I have just arrived at Makna Forest, so here is my updated playtime at the end of each chapter:
- Chapter 1 (Colony 9): 2:16
- Chapter 2 (Mechon Attack): 2:58
- Chapter 3 (Tephra Cave): 3:48
- Chapter 4 (Bionis' Leg): 6:39
- Chapter 5 (Ether Mine): 10:29
- Chapter 6 (Satorl Marsh): 13:12
I wonder what I did that made Chapter 5 last almost four hours. I remember doing sidequests in Colony 9 and the Refugee Camp, and I had some trouble going through the Ether Mine but I didn't think I took that long.
Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread
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Happy birthday Armagon!