MARREND'S PROFILE

Last time, the party delved into MOMO's subconscious domain, and ended up diving into Sakura's subconscious domain as part of the training regimen for the UTRVs. Did everybody get that? Good.

The training done for today, the phantoms of the younger URTVs lead to, wait for it, another cutscene! Who knew! So, here, Rubdeo confronts Albedo as to the damage he inflicted on the one unit he was beating up last training session, the injuries possibly leading to death if he wasn't stopped earlier. Albedo shrugs this off, saying, you know, this isn't a big deal, the unit could just regenerate. Being of sound mind and of the belief he's doing nothing out of the ordinary, Albdeo proceeds to make an example of what he's talking about by destroying his own head and have it regenerate back a moment like it's nothing. This isn't necessarily the first time we've seen him do something like this in the context of the series, but is certainly the first time he does this in this game.

There's just one tiny.



Isty-bitsy.



Rather minuscule problem with this solution.



He's the only URTV capible of regenerating in any way, shape, or form.



Rubedo, in a combination of terrified and angered, punches Albedo in the face, causing him to fall over. We have this exchange as well.

Rubdeo: You idiot! Don't you ever pull anything like that ever again! If you die, you can't come back to life!
Albedo: You mean... Are you saying you can't regenerate?
Rubdeo: Of course not!
Nigredo: That's a special ability only you possess.
Albedo: Only me? You're both gonna die and leave me behind?

There is definitely a look of shock written on Albedo's face when he learns that Rubdeo can't regenerate. It literally never occurred to him that this ability he has might be another reason he's considered a variant, among whatever other traits a variant might have. His hair being not blonde is probably the more obvious trait, and Rubdeo mentioned in a previous scene that variants have a higher capacity to counter U-DO than standard units.

The scene done, the phantom of young Albedo moves into a garden, where we watch him dig a hole? The game waxes philosophically a bit about the nature of death through Ziggy.

Ziggy: Death is rest for the soul. Who was it that said that? If the body did not die, the fears borne in the mind continue to pile up, the world would be nothing more than an eternal prison.

Which is interesting in it's own right, as Ziggy, himself, has been around longer than most other characters we know of. He's been replacing his organic parts with cybernetic parts slowly, but surely, over the years, and while he's been offered life extension by both Jr and Juli, he's so far refused them. He's not looking to extend his life, but, I wouldn't exactly say he's been specifically looking for ways to end it either? We also learn that Jr and Albedo were once conjoined twins. Which, certainly, is it's own variation on how URTVs are... born? Made? Not sure what the proper term is here.

Anyway, back into Sakura's subconscious domain. The target area is the same, and the dungeon layout is mostly the same as before. The climate has certainly changed into a wintery landscape, with...


...this semi-appropriate-to-the-climate song running in the background. The blue orbs have turned to green, probably for visibility, but, again, how relevant it is that you can see them is mostly moot. At the end of this mess is none other than Albdeo. The grown-up version. Yep, he laid an additional trap inside MOMO for when Jr delved into her. I can't say for sure if there was any guarantee for Jr to be personally involved, so it might have been a bit of a gambit on his part. Naturally, Albedo faces off against the party as a boss. His hit zone was BCCB, and he was able to counter boost against any attack I would make as long as his arms were intact. So, the basic strategy I used was to attack without boosting until his arms were destroyed, then go out as much as possible until he regenerated them. Repeat until he went down.

Unfortunately for us, Albedo's gambit worked. MOMO responds to Jr and Albedo duel, and wakes up juuuuuust enough for Albedo...



...to take advantage of the situation. A column of light appears around MOMO in the encephalon, a gate opening above her. The yellow light becomes purple as MOMO's body twitches, as the Y-Data is extracted from her forcibly. The others are powerless, and can only watch in abject shock at this development. The dive ends abruptly, but, it's too late.

Shion: MOMO, you're awake! What about the Y-Data?
Juli: It's gone. The thing we feared the most these last fourteen years. The key. The wheels have been set in motion. They can't be stopped.

Cut to Albedo. Red letters surround the cockpit of his Gear, and even appear on it's surface as well. With the "key to the abyss" in hand, both pilot and Gear dissipates from normal space, presumably to visit Old Mitia, and link with U-DO again. A small cut to Jr, as pain flares in the right side of his chest before the end of chapter save, followed closely by...


...the prompt to switch disks. Well! No doubt there will be fallout to deal with in regards to the leakage of the Y-Data to somebody like Albedo. As for the kind, and how bad things are, find out next time on the Xenosaga Episode 2 LP!

I never had MV, but, I had a good enough experience with MZ during it's welcoming event that I went ahead and bought it. I've since made a few games with it since.

The games I've made in MZ haven't needed any of Visustella's MZ suite of plugins, but, I also tend to make shorter games recently. At the very least, games made in the context of an event, and those tend to want to have short development cycles, and therefore, more compact experiences.

Vagrant Story - Completed!
I find it both incredibly satisfying and incredibly frustrated by finishing this game. Satisfying because, well, I still got a clear game save. Frustrated because there isn't a Vagrant Story 2, and I've a funny feeling there might not ever be one. Not that the game saying "And so began the story of the wanderer, the vagrant" after the last cutscene and before rolling the credits would necessarily lead to a follow-up, but, exploring these mechanics with maybe a few QOL tweaks, or something, might be sweet.

Alas.

I can agree with the sentiment that maybe there could have been more of a public discourse about this issue, given how many comments this thread has in response to the ruling. Though, I can't say I could compare the amount of discourse this topic had over, say, allowing commercial games on this site. Though, it would help if I could remember how long ago that was!

I dunno if I would join this event proper, but, if anybody needs a scripter that works with Ace or MZ, I may be able to do things. Maybe even frightening things!

At least explosive things.