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In honor of 25 years of Demon Summoning, GAF Plays: The (Shin) Megami Tensei series

Soulhouf

Member
what's the consensus on the PSX ports of SMT I, II and if...? best versions?
Definitely yes. They kept the charm and flavor of the original versions (graphics style, sprites) while improving all the rest.
I played all 3 on PS1 and 1 on SFC as well to compare and the difference is mainly on the interface and the 3D labyrinths as well as the music.
 

Aeana

Member
Strange Journey noob question: what is the purpose of registering a demon? Also, do I lose a demon by registering it?
You register it so you can summon it again for a cost. That lets you use a demon in fusion without having to go find it again.
No, you don't lose it.
 
You register it so you can summon it again for a cost. That lets you use a demon in fusion without having to go find it again.
No, you don't lose it.

Thanks. Is there a use to registering the same demon a second time. Like to "save" the levelling progress he's made or something? Because it's giving me the option to register ones I already did before.

(this is my first SMT game, sorry)
 

Aeana

Member
Thanks. Is there a use to registering the same demon a second time. Like to "save" the levelling progress he's made or something? Because it's giving me the option to register ones I already did before.

(this is my first SMT game, sorry)
Yes, it updates the demon's stats/exp.
 
Been grinding money by talking to demon types I already have in my party. That is how you play the game right? hehe

Digging the game so far. We'll see if it can hold my interest for 50 hours.
 

Kade

Member
It's beautiful. :')
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So playing P4A and reading Persona 4TW made me want to play P4 again. It helps that I'm a bit stuck in Symphonia right now, too.

I found my old save file from when I beat the game back when it first came out, so I was able to start a NG+ with all my stuff. Then I immediately remembered why I was resisting another playthrough so much, because god damn this game has such a long opening. I was kinda ambivalent on the soundtrack at first, but it's been steadily growing on me since I've been playing P4A.
 
10 hours into Strange Journey, still grinding in the red sky/wartorn basement of the first Shwarzwelt section. Levelling a few guys so I can fuse them into neutral-neutral demons.

Dungeons are pretty bland/copy-pastey but combat is fairly deep, story is compelling and demon dialogue is great.
 

7threst

Member
I mean as in having more exposure on different media. Never in my life did I hear about Persona until I started lurking GAF.

I thought Persona 3 got multiple awards too.

Also: I have to continue with my Nocturne playthrough and updates! Will do, as soon as possible! :)
 
I'm dying to finally play and finish Digital Devil Saga 2 but all I need to do before actually start a game is to
kill Hitoshura
and I don't think that'll ever happen.
 
It's surprising how many series are seen but not "noticed", even by fans of the genre they're in.

I remember P3 getting pretty favorable reviews, but I also remember the game and its fans getting slammed by fans of P2 and the mainline SMT games for being untrue to the series. By the time P4 rolled around, that had mostly subsided.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
I remember P3 getting pretty favorable reviews, but I also remember the game and its fans getting slammed by fans of P2 and the mainline SMT games for being untrue to the series. By the time P4 rolled around, that had mostly subsided.

Eh, haters gon' hate. I loved the game from announcement and took a week off work for it.
then it got pushed back
 

cj_iwakura

Member
So uh, strongly considering the very real possibility that Eternal Punishment is NOT coming out here, does anyone think a movement of any possible sort could change Atlus USA's mind?

Before it's too late, ideally.
 

Koroviev

Member
We'll probably never know. I hope not, but it wasn't like Atlus USA marketed it much.

I think that would have something do with whether or not they'd bother with Eternal Punishment. If Gungnir and Growlanser did poor numbers, then I imagine that Atlus would just focus on the 3DS at this point.
 
PSP was living on borrowed time, really. I know myself that the Gungnir thread was damn tiny with like 4 of us discussing the thing, and this is freakin' NeoGAF.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
PSP was living on borrowed time, really. I know myself that the Gungnir thread was damn tiny with like 4 of us discussing the thing, and this is freakin' NeoGAF.

At least give it a PSN only release, Vita compatible, I doubt anyone would object.


Also, playing Labrys' scenario in P4A with all these new designs, I echo the sentiment of high hopes for P5.
 

Jucksalbe

Banned
I would worry when it's not within the next batch of games they announce. After all EP didn't come out that long ago in Japan (though the gap is already bigger than it was with IS).
On the other hand if they have to skip one of the Atlus games (due to time constraints maybe) it should be EP, it's the only game that's in English already. I'm also still waiting for an English announcement of EO4.

They just released a few games, so I guess it won't take long until they announce their next games anyway.
 

Soulhouf

Member
I just fused Alice and, man this is a God tier demon.
So I will build her with the strongest movesets.

She looks like this right now:

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I think I will remove Die for me and Victory Cry and put Luster Candy and Invitation instead. This demon will be in my team against the NG+ ultimate boss.
 

Jucksalbe

Banned
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Forget about the terminator for now, we now know where to look for Kaya. But first there is someone else who wants our attention.

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Seems there is a whistleblower within the military and of course Tae's got the scoop. Well, we were heading there anyway, so why not help her?

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Not much else to do in Kasumidai, let's head straight for Tae. There were a bunch of Training Halls we could reach now, but they all told us we aren't strong enough. Thanks. Tae tells us her contact hasn't arrived yet, so let's take a look around to see if we can find him.

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So, he's supposed to be at the guard house, but they won't let us through. No worries we just use the cannon that seems to be standing around and also is used as a relief signal. Good thing we brought a Pyro demon, right?

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We got the wrong guy, so let's get back to Tae, she might be in danger. Of course, we come too late, she is gone. But she left her camera, so let's take a look at those pictures. But how do you use this camera thing? Let's see if we can find someone to develop the photos.

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3000 yen for some photos? You stupid old....argh....he sure likes to rip us off considering we just saved his business. This photos better be good.
So she's in the Dark Realm? Well, I never would have thought about that. Thanks again.

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Looks about the same here. We fused some demons before coming, so let's hope we won't need too many different demons here.

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Okay, so we finally found the guy, but now he is missing some files? Actually there are eight pages lying around all over the area, this is going to be annoying.

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At least someone's willing to help us, it seems. They are not really helpful, so we better ignore them from hereon out.
So here we go with all the pages:

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Okay, that's seven pages. The really annoying thing here is that you need several demon abilities to get all of them. Some of them ("Sneak") are only available to low level demons which you really should have dumped by now. So you have to run around and hope for an Alp (or go back to Frankenstein) and be very careful not to kill it by mistake. You also need "Fly", "Ignite" and "Inspect" (though the last one is optional). You can find all the demons you need in the area, but it's still more annoying than it should be. So for page 8 we have to go back to those zombies soldiers we wanted to ignore.

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Wait, what? They actually tell you about each and every page? I wish I noticed before I found the first seven pages. For the eighth page you have to "ignite" one of the soldiers for him to give you a hint. There's a group of enemies in the eastern part of the map that has it. So we went there and hoped for the best. All pages found!

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First he runs away, makes us do all his work and now he's mocking us? Oh well, at least he gives us some interesting information. We can find Kaya on some kind of old ship. But before we can get to any specifics....

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...it's time for a boss fight out of nowhere! He nulls sword attacks, so no brute-forcing this time. Just bring out a Wind demon and let him do all the work.

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Cannon Battery #4, we've seen that before. And write down that password.

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Because you need to put in the password manually. If you missed it, you have to go all the way back and ask moleface again (or just look at this screenshot). So, finally we can get on that ship and rescue Kaya.

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Well, maybe. Only if we really have the corresponding demons for all the walls that we encounter here. And...of course we just recently fused our Volt demon. This time you can't find all the demons you need in the area, so we have to go back to Gouma-Den. This game is so annoying.

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So we went back and paid a premium to get another Volt demon. Now we can finally go on. Or so we thought. Seems this is a special regenerating wall. We can't completely destroy it unless we find the one who built it.

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Luckily he's in front of the wall and not behind it. We need to negotiate again with some very interesting dialogue (yes, he's stupid). In the end he agrees to take down the wall.

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And just because it's fun (
it's not
) we need to remove another set of walls. Those are three Bullet Shikimi no Kages in a row...at least we don't need demons for them.

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But then we finally found her! She doesn't look very comfortable, but who cares? Let's have a chat first.

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Love the "Join me or die" Dragon Quest style scene here. Of course we decline, big boss is not impressed, we get to fight.

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But we don't fight him, we fight some of his subordinates. They're the typical "one's weak against fire, the other against ice" kind of couple. The real problem starts when they start their special attack.

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They fly all around the area and hit very hard when they hit. The first try didn't go so well, but since this is the first(?) Game Over so far, let's have a look at the nice scene we get.

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That's not very nice. Let's try again.

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This time we return the current demon to its tube when that special attack starts and then flee as good as we can (and use a lot of items). And they go down...haha! Good thing they don't get a chance to retry.

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Yeah, yeah, he wanted us to kill all his soldiers. Right. At least we get to take Kaya with us, seems they don't need her anymore (or do they?).

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Why does he always have to drag us into his stupid schemes? Oh well, this means Kaya now works as our secretary (surely this is a safe place to be, since noone's ever around).

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And that concludes the fifth chapter. Tune in next time for the shortest episode ever.
 

Jucksalbe

Banned
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Here's a little bonus chapter where you don't have to worry.

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We have to visit the owner of the shop down the street again and pick up some kind of delivery for the boss. Where's that new secretary when you need her?

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So the delivery is a box of ammunition? That doesn't seem very optimistic.

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Supposedly while we were away (three houses down the road or so), half a day passed, Kaya was at the office, cut her hair and went out again.

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That new haircut makes her look a lot more unfriendly and she's behaving kind of suspicious.

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So, we're suddenly looking for a crystal ball we never heard of before. You just overheard them talking? Yeah, right. Well, whatever, let's look for it.

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Gotta love the cat. Okay, back to the item shop, our first stop for everything. I bet he will ask for money again.

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Well, actually he doesn't know anything. But he suggests to go downstairs and pay a visit to Dr. Frankenstein.

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At least he knows something. So we're looking for a statue. That still doesn't help much. So who do we ask when we don't know where to go? Right, the Yakuza!

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He doesn't know much, but he knows a guy. So, next is the "Amazing Science Lab" aka the garbage dump.

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So, Ginza-Cho? That's at least some lead. While we're at it, let's ask the reporter. She's probably drinking in the area anyway.

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The center of Ginza-Cho is the construction site we passed earlier, so let's take a look there.

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This episode took a quick turn in a crazy direction. So the current hypothesis is that Kaya must be a time-traveling space alien.

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And that's it, 18 minutes for the whole chapter, that's got to be a new record! Next time we learn nothing new about Kaya.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Raidou 2's story is good, but I enjoy Raidou 1's occult mysticism a lot more than the forced LvC drama in 2.

Just landed a copy of SMT: Devil Summoner for the Saturn.
Still deciding whether or not to chronicle my playthrough.

You could take over from where the other guy left off.
 

TWILT

Banned
Decided to replay Persona 3 FES. NG+ playthrough though, so I'm gonna mainly focus on maxing every social link and beating Elizabeth. =D

Yeeaaah, I was...3 ranks away from maxing everyone's social links (freaking Keisuke...).

I am slightly salty.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Yeeaaah, I was...3 ranks away from maxing everyone's social links (freaking Keisuke...).

I am slightly salty.

I meant to do that before P4A came out, but I'm insane and playing vanilla, which means she'll be MORE of a nightmare. Still doing it though.
 

Jucksalbe

Banned
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Okay, if this chapter is not about Kaya then what will happen?

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At first I thought they put makeup on him, but I guess that's supposed to be blood. So he got roughed up by the Navi and our new friend who we helped so much before. Okay, what does he want?

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A curse has been placed on the admiral and they need to get rid of it by placing it onto Raidou. Officially this is because this way we can find the demon who did this and break the curse. Not much of a choice here.

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We take on the curse and it takes us to...Fukagawa-Cho. Time for a rehashed dungeon! The curse has actual implications. While wandering around it drains HP from us from time to time. So we shouldn't take too long to find the demon and break the curse. But then we fall right into a trap. What will happen?

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Some stupid heads appear and teleport us right into the middle of nowhere. They will do that over and over again, everytime we go there, but...

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...everytime we fall into their trap they reveal a little bit more on how to break their seal. After we did it often enough we finally learn that the talisman needed to break it is hidden behind a post box.

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Here it is. We break the seal and then the stupid heads appear again. They fight us, but the fight is nothing special, no problem here. Now the path to the boss should finally be free.

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Or so we thought. A Wind wall is blocking the way and of course we just fused our Wind demon. After 15 minutes of running around we finally find a Feng Huang to use.

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There are also a Bullet wall and a Electric wall that block the path. But luckily those are no problem.
Behind them we finally find the big boss. It's a bunch of leaves.

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This fight is actually pretty hard. He has four different forms and every form has a different weakness: The first form is weak against Fire, the second is weak against Volt, the third form is weak against Frost and the final form is weak against Death attacks. He can hit you pretty hard, so bring some healing items along.

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When he dies, the curse is finally broken.

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Thank you, seems they can also ask nicely. Good boy.

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Okay, so our next destination is this tower. Sounds like a big dungeon is ahead.

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And that concludes another short chapter. We learned the Navy are assholes and got a new destination. Overall, I guess it was worth the trouble.
 

Link1110

Member
Soul Hackers came in the mail today. Haven't watched the trailer yet, but here are some impressions

- I can't use the analog controller rather than the d-pad for everything? :(
- This game's volume seems very low
- All NPCs have voice acting, too which is pretty good. Also, they change the voice script a bit when the character name is on screen which is so much better than some games (Tales of Phantasia PS1)
- Having the whole automap from the beginning is awkward
- Game shows analyze on the bottom screen when you target an enemy.
- Battles are nice and fast

I'm annoyed a bit becsause I'm addicted to Phantasy Star at the moment, and now I'm gonna be addicted to this too :(
Why did this have to come out right after school started?
 

leroidys

Member
I bought a vita two weeks ago, and one of the first things I did was buy and download P3P. I avoided it forever because, honestly, it sounded like a horrible idea for a game. Shounen dating sim with a single grindy dungeon? This game is the best example of what great pacing can do for a game. The only other SMT game I have played is Devil Summoner 2, and while it was pretty fun and I loved the setting, I would get so bored during missions with their interminable recapitulations of non-information. The side quests were just as bad.

I am REALLY glad that I decided to get P3P over FES on PSN though. I know it's missing a couple things, but the ease of [ ] to move and the cursor rather than walking everywhere really helps to alleviate the old school RPG tedium.
 

Jucksalbe

Banned
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Okay, time to check out that tower.

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You can get there through the exit in Harumi-Cho or I guess you could get there on the water. At least people in Harumi now talk about the tower, so you get some new information.

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Seems we can't get into the tower that way. So we decide to take the long way through the Dark Realm. You actually get a choice, but I guess if you say to take them head on, Gotou will just complain and you'd still go to the Dark Realm.

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On our way back we decide to grind a bit for loyalty. Then a somewhat strange demon turns up. You can't really fight it, it just runs away after a short while, but it gives a prophecy that doesn't sound nice at all. We can't escape our fate so it's probably just a later chapter.

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Because we grinded in Harumi we also get a new rank at the shrine and another two tubes. Those should be the last ones, there isn't any space left. Okay, let's go to Dark Sakuradayama.

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So this is how the radio tower looks in the Dark Realm. It's completely covered in Hirukos, but there is no other way.

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We can't sneak in this way either. Well, the important part was that we don't have to kill humans. So, let's get to it. The fight consists of three soldiers, two have a gun and one has a sword. No real strategy needed, just kill them as fast as possible.

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What? Well, it really doesn't seem to be important.

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Along the way we come across a wall of Hirukos. There's no way around so we have to fight. The worst thing about them is that they can cause confusion. It's not so bad on Raidou, but confused demons sometimes just return to their tube. It can get really annoying.

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So now that rambling from earlier on makes sense. Some of the platforms go different ways depending on if you step on them with Raidou or with your demon. This means we have to go "Solo" with our demons. Which again means single demon fights. I hate those.

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Another wall of Hirukos.

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We have to solve another platform puzzle before we reach the final save point. There's bound to be a boss hidden in that slimy cocoon.

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The big boss starts with his speeches again. Of course, he's the good guy, they always think that. At least we learn about our next target, a satellite. Wait, what time period is this again?

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We are not so different, you and I.

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And we get another chance to join the bad guy. No idea if this has any consequence.

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Oh, come on! Really?

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The most important thing to look out for: This guy can charm! So watch out for the cursed attacks. He is weak against ice attacks, so use a Frost demon. I guess the fight can get pretty hard if you don't have one, I already had to use a couple of items with a Frost demon.

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We win, but right when we do, something and more importanly someone hits us from behind.

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It's the terminator! Well, he said he'll be back, but does it have to be now? Let's hope it's not another boss fight.

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He sure loves to talk.

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This can't be good! What will happen to us?

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We are thrown back in time? Were there dinosaurs in Japan?

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Where in time will we come out? Find out in the next chapter (I played that one already, so it shouldn't take too long)!
 
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