[fov]

i just read in the archived temp. forum that remixor FINALLY bought SoD. which means we have very little time left to torture him. of course, we can never recapture the massive thread-that-was... but there must be more to talk about!

i, for one, seem to have exhausted every cutscene there is. i've played through in chunks (most recently a few nights ago) to try to get 100% in all the chapters, but haven't been able to get 100% in any yet. i have even started stumbling onto inconsistencies in my attempts to find new scenes... for example, in chapter 6:

Spoiler:

save miriam. then in chapter 8, after talking to hugo in the square, seek out homunculus. H talks about taking the baby, and eike says something like "did you murder mr. eckert's wife, too?" but, of course, she has not been murdered...

i was actually a bit annoyed by this, because the game has been so careful to be consistent in other places.

i also found that in chapter 6

Spoiler:

it's possible to skip the miriam stuff altogether... just digipad back to the present after talking to franssen. however, this doesn't seem to make any difference... the conversation with eckert in chapter 7 is the same... and it seems if you return to the cold day, the miriam thing doesn't happen.

anyway, dunno if anyone else has anything more to say about this game, but after putting it aside for a few months i went back and still am not tired of it!

emily

ps yey! the smilies are back!

[Skinny Minnie]

Lol Em,

The SOD thread was the first one that popped into my head when I wondered what threads would be back in the "new" forum!

[Garyos]

You can always check the MASSIVe faq at gamefaq to get 100%.... I tried it out, but found out that I'd missed SOMETHING, and had no way to find out what...

I dunno if it was me or the faq, but be warned that you might find yourself tearing all your notes to shreds and jumping up and down on them out of rage, at least if you've you've gotten more than 90% total at the time....

[fov]

i've skimmed the FAQs, which is how i've found some of the stuff i missed, but haven't played through with them by my side... yet.

i am curious though -- anyone know what you need to do to get the % registered? i mean, if i play through a new cutscene, and then i die and have to start the chapter over, does the fact that i unlocked the cutscene get recorded? how about if i play thru a new scene, save the game mid-chapter, and then exit and never continue from that chapter? or if i play chapter 7 through, save, then start chapter 7 again to try something else and play to the end... is the stuff i did the first time i played ch7 recorded?

just curious if maybe i *have* seen it all, but the game doesn't know it...

-emily

[remixor]

Originally Posted by fov

i just read in the archived temp. forum that remixor FINALLY bought SoD. which means we have very little time left to torture him.

Oh man, did I miss those pans. And why the hell does the reply button quote everything? I almost spoiled months and months of avoiding spoilers in one fell swoop...

[fov]

Originally Posted by remixor

Oh man, did I miss those pans. And why the hell does the reply button quote everything? I almost spoiled months and months of avoiding spoilers in one fell swoop...

it only quotes everything if you hit "reply" in the bottom right corner of someone else's post. if you press "post reply" on the bottom left corner of the screen, it doesn't do that...

-emily

[remixor]

Ah, there we go. Thanks for the heads up

[Becky]

I happened to print up the thread right before the board went down. It's huge. I'm considering tying it up with string and using it as a doorstop.

[fov]

Originally Posted by Becky

I happened to print up the thread right before the board went down. It's huge. I'm considering tying it up with string and using it as a doorstop.

you did?!

gawd, i'd be willing to transcribe that thing... at least the highlights... we had a lot of deep thoughts in there!

emily

[remixor]

I sure wouldn't mind either... Now that I actually have the game, I'm really curious to see what on earth you guys could have been talking about for so long.

[Becky]

Emily -- It's 112 pages long. If you wanted to transcribe it, you would have to be a really fast typist to get even halfway through it before wishing you'd never even seen the thing.

Are you a really fast typist?

Do you think it's right to bring back such a lengthy thread to this brand new forum?

[fov]

Originally Posted by Becky

Are you a really fast typist?

well... yes...

i wasn't thinking of posting the *whole thing* here... but it might be nice to organize some of the philosophical / other world theory stuff.

(okay, i'll admit it... i only want to see it because if i ever (ha) go to grad school i can include SoD stuff in a thesis paper along with Pleasantville and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead...)

emily

ps 112 pages long?! :eek:

[Becky]

I'll see if I can get it copied. The places in which we used spoiler tags have print that is harder to read than the standard part of the posts.

I'll also look through it and see if I could post a summary of the thread with quotes from the most interesting parts (you know, the parts I still don't understand!).

Then we can take it from there. Including my new discovery that Homunculus has red eyes because

Spoiler:

the philosopher's stone is created using sulphur.

[fov]

Including my new discovery that Homunculus has red eyes because

Spoiler:

the philosopher's stone is created using sulphur.

really? neat! (i thought it was

Spoiler:

because he's the devil...)

-emily

[Becky]

Emily -- It COULD be both reasons, couldn't it? A win-win situation?

I'm curious -- there wasn't any point in the game where we saw Homunculus eat, was there? No food at his Crossroads hangout, right? I wonder what sustains his energy, other than

Spoiler:

the possible consumption of souls. Sulphur for breakfast. Quicksilver for lunch. Eike for dinner.

As per the old thread -- how about I post a summary here, print the summary off this site for my own sentimental ponderings, then send you the gargantuan original manuscript.

[fov]

becky, that's cool if you want to do that! or, i can send back the original when i'm done with it.

do you still have my address?

-emily

ps we never see H eat, but we don't see much of him either so it could be he's eating when we're not around. however... if he has trouble lifting a baby, i'd think spending an hour on his feet in the kitchen would leave him pretty winded! i wonder, though, if he gets weaker

Spoiler:

the longer he is away from the stone. he does seem pretty strong in the ending where we see wagner summon him (D? E? i can't remember), and i always associated that to his just coming out of the stone. then he's so weak when we see him in chapter 8 after the long day... he says it's from lifting the babies... he doesn't seem weak like this in any of the other endings. could it be because in the other endings, he's made a trip back to wagner's time to get some energy, but in the A ending he's still so winded from the baby switch that he hasn't had the chance when we see him? when he pops into the present later on, he's not nearly so winded...

eike's eyes are green... so are his energy balls. in the same way, could

Spoiler:

the philosopher's stone be like H's energy ball?

if that's the case, could it also be that

Spoiler:

the confused H we see just after the alchemist's house explodes -- the one who stumbles on the stairs and says "who are you?" -- is actually a weakened H from some other world (a world that has nothing to do with eike) who's just made his way to the workshop so he can recharge?

[MysterD]

FOV wrote:

if that's the case, could it also be that

Spoiler:

the confused H we see just after the alchemist's house explodes -- the one who stumbles on the stairs and says "who are you?" -- is actually a weakened H from some other world (a world that has nothing to do with eike) who's just made his way to the workshop so he can recharge?

H In A Weakened State:

Spoiler:

If you remember, the alchemist's house explodes b/c this is caused by Dr. Wagner actually bringing H out by using The Stone.

I don't think he has met Eike yet, since he probably just met Dr. Wagner. If you don't go go with the multiple worlds theory, then you can believe that the reason H is sitting on the steps upstairs b/c he was just brought back by Dr. Wagner out of his shell byWagner using the stone.

[MysterD]

Originally Posted by Becky

I happened to print up the thread right before the board went down. It's huge. I'm considering tying it up with string and using it as a doorstop.

That thread was HUGE.
I loved my SOD Theory thread

[Becky]

Emily -- I'll need your address again, but first let me get most of the original thread summary done. Even as a summary it's going to take awhile!

In regards to what has been said above:

Spoiler:

I've always thought that Homunculus became weaker the longer he stayed out of his Crossroads "home". He recharges there. He doesn't seem weak when we first see him at the Crossroads waiting for Eike, and Eike has apparently had the stone well out of reach for centuries.

A related question would be -- when we see Homunculus exhausted from the baby switch, why doesn't he just shimmer-disappear back to the Crossroads? In the incident on the stairs, he seems to disappear against his will, as if he can't hold himself in time and space long enough to figure out who this new player (Eike) is.

This confused Homunculus has to be from a different world than the world of the shattered lab/stairs. The Homunculus of the shattered lab/stairs has been put back in the stone and Wagner has wandered off him/it in his pocket. As I recall, in the world in which Homunculus is freed, the lab does NOT explode.

The million dollar question is: why does Homunculus from one world risk his neck by trying to locate the stone in another world? If we can figure out his true motivation everything else should (mostly) fall into place.

There is a place in the original thread where Emily points out that in Chapter 8, if Eike has already given Wagner the stone, Homunculus ceases to bring Eike back to life if he later dies. If this holds, it would seem that Homunculus's goal really IS to get the stone back to Wagner at the right moment in time. We just need to figure out if that action is motivated by Homunculus's stated purpose -- to see that the Homunculus in THIS world is created/freed from the stone -- or if there's a lot more than that going on.

[Becky]

As to the powerballs, aren't they

Spoiler:

what fuels the digipad? Aren't they a lot more closely related to Homunculus than to Eike? Little bits of Hom-power distributed through the town? (Maybe locations where he's enjoyed tormenting other alchemists in the past?) They really should be red.