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Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
FAQ/Walkthrough by ASKO813DUECE
Version: 1.03 | Updated: 03/31/13 | Search Guide | Bookmark Guide
Star Ocean: The Last Hope -INTERNATIONAL- ============================================================= Author: ASKO813DUECE Playstation ID: ASKO813DUECE Started: 12/10/11 Completed: N/A Copyright 2011 ASKO813DUECE. Websites authorised to host or quote this walkthrough, whether in part or in full: www.gamefaqs.com www.yourgamercards.net www.ps3trophies.org www.nextgenupdate.com ============================================================= This walkthrough is for the Playstation 3 Version. - UPDATE HISTORY - 12/11/2011 - Written the guide upto the first farming location on Aeos. Will try to get as much done tonight as possible. Also filling in BT's and MD. Still very rough, no spell-check and drafted the lists. 21/11/2011 - Done alot of the reformatting so that gamefaqs can host it. Filling in lists and such while writing the story to Lemuris and Triom Village. As of now, I can confirm that using this will give you your 'perfect start' to the game. Nothing has been left out. 09/03/2012 - Oh wow, sorry to all of you guys who have been waiting on my guide. I havn't been playing much of Star Ocean with the recent release of FFXIII-2 but now I have platinum, I'm full steam again with this walkthrough. Thank you for all of your patience :). ------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents ------------------------------------------------------------- 1A. Introduction 1B. Before Starting 1C. Tips for Gameplay & Combat 1D. Preperation 2A. Walkthrough 2B. Finale 2C. New Game + (Discussion) 3A. Treasure Chests 3B. Quests 3C. Private Actions 3D. Skills 3E. Item Creation/Recipes/List 3F. Dictionary (As taken from game) 3G. Synopsis (As taken from game) 3H. Monster Data/Locations 3I. Battle Trophies 3J. Trophy List 4A. Legal Information 4B. Contact Information ------------------------------------------------------------- 1A. Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to my walkthrough, the only one for the Playstation 3 Version of Star Ocean: The Last Hope INTERNATIONAL. In this guide, I will help you achieve your 100% and Platinum Trophy for this formiddable, yet magnificent game, brought to us by Square-Enix and Tri-Ace. I have created this walkthrough to be totally time, trophy (PS3) and RPG Rookie friendly. So, as long as you follow every line in this walkthrough you will achieve platinum. It will be very in-depth at times, and very bare bones in others. I will give descriptions of where and what to do in each place and what my own game was like at this point. With this in mind, your second and third playthroughs should be solely speed-run based to achieve the trophy for beating each Difficulty. As such, this guide has been written while playing the Galaxy Difficulty. Some monster and boss hit-points and strategies will be affected depending on your difficulty setting. ALL Playstation 3 Exclusive Content has been added. There are multiple things that do not appear in the Xbox 360 Version of the game. All of these are accounted for so long as you follow the walkthrough thoroughly. Now, without further or do let us begin the long adventure through the 'Star Ocean'. Good Luck. ------------------------------------------------------------- 1B. Before Starting ------------------------------------------------------------- It is extremely important that you read all of the walkthrough. Do not skip anything unless you are sure you know what you're doing. Also, make sure to read all of the below steps, all the way down to the beginning of the actual Walkthrough. Learning these strategies beforehand will help you immensely and should become law as you play. -- Throughout the game there are ALOT of missable things you need to collect. They may be treasure chests, quests, private actions, data, and so on. I highly recommend you use a guide to record these things to make sure you have collected everything. * If you are going to use my walkthrough from beginning to end you will NOT need a guide for the following: - Treasure Chests - Private Actions - Quests - Battle Trophies - Monster Data & Locations - Spaceship Data - Skills/Manuals * The things that you WILL need to keep a record of are: - Items created through Item Creation - Weapon Data Any items you create through Item Creation will need to be written down. There is no way to tell what items you have already made and can make the process very confusing. If you're following this guide to the end of your game, don't worry too much as we'll cover these near all at once. Make sure to not use items! Even items created through IC will be used again in other recipes so make a note to ONLY ever use health-related items (Such as Blueberries HP +30%, Fresh Sage cures Poison etc) but never anything else. Accepted quests, Battle Trophies (BT's), Monster Data (MD), Spaceship Data (SD), Skills, Weapon Data (WD) and Skills are all listed through the in-game menu. However, only once you have it in your possession so the lists will not help in anyway, except as a referance for what you have already got. This walkthrough will state ANYTHING you need to be aware of, game and trophy related, as you approach the events or item. -- Make it a very strong habit to buy any new weapon you come across in shops and new towns. Whenever you find a weapon you do not have buy it immediately to obtain its Weapon Data. I would also recommend buying 1-5 of every Item you currently have 0. -- Complete all quests, open all treasure chests, and 100% Item Creation must be done in a Single Playthrough to unlock the trophies regarding them! Make sure you do these on your first playthrough. -- The max of any one item you can hold is 20. If you come across a treasure chest you cannot open, it is because you have too many in your inventory. Simply open your menu and find the item that was listed in the treasure chest. Press SELECT to 'drop' one of the items, until you dropped enough to now open the chest. The treasure chest will NOT count if you did not have enough space to collect the items. -- On the main menu, and very early in the game you are given the option to use a Battle Simulator. This is essential to learning the elements of fighting in Star Ocean, especially for those who are not familiar with the series. Read all tutorials and master the technique of Blindsiding. -- When you are in the field, press START to bring up a large map of your surrounding area. Once you reach Alanaire Citadel early in the game, you will find a Skill for Lymle called 'Treasure Sense'. Teach this to her immediately as it will show on your map/minimap the locations of ALL Treasure Chests, Harvesting and Mining Points, as well as interectable objects in the world. (At this point, treasure locations will not be written as descriptive in the walkthrough) -- Certain Treasure Chests in the world are covered in Elements. You cannot open these until you return later with a ring of the opposing element. I will explain these further as you find them, and recieve your first ring in Triom, Lemuris. -- In the very early hours of the game is a very nice spot to power-level. This step is totally up to you, however, this guide is based off being certain Level quota's and having met certain requirements before you progress. While it will be possible to continue, lets say, 10 Levels below what I was realise this will lengthen your platinum time significantly. My guide consists of following the farming and levelling locations where I did for awhile, at least. I'll cover all of these later on though, so you should be able to understand the format after the first couple of areas. -- An alert in the guide _-= GRIND =-_ means that this specific spot/enemy needs to be grinded for something that I will explain in-depth as it appears. Keep a heads up for these. -- Some things like Item Collection, Weapons, Monster Data, and Battle Trophies will carry over to your New Game+. Battle Trophy progress does NOT carry over to your new playthrough. Say Edge's BT for Killing 30,000 enemies needed 2,000 more. You finish the game and earn an additional 2,000... You would NOT get the Battle Trophy. Because of this (and the difficulty rising) we will aim for all BT's in Playthrough 1. ------------------------------------------------------------- 1C. Tips for Gameplay and Combat ------------------------------------------------------------- -- Blindsiding. When you are being targetted by an enemy hold O to charge a meter in the top left, as well as invisibly charging a Blindside. If you tilt the Left-Stick in any direction the character will Blindside the opponent, or perform a larger Dash compared to just prssing O. If you charge for too long you will become stunned for a short period. If you manage to get the players Rush Gauge to fill (100), press Square to enter Rush Mode. Basically you will be unable to be knocked down, and can perform Rapid Combo's to quickly kill your opponent. Once you learn Chain Combo's you can press Square quickly followed by the special attack (Either L2 or R2, depending on what you assigned) and enter Chain Combo Sequence. Press the button promts to execute a chain of special moves, resulting in massive damage. Mastering the Blindside is key to fighting in SO4. It will also grant a guaranteed critical hit and invincibility frames for the duration of the animations. -- At the start of the game and after Reimi joins you party, there is a Harvesting Point directly outside the Calnus. Reimi can harvest 'free' items from the ground here, and these places a reset by returning to your Spaceship. I recommend staying here farming these items until they are all max at 20. It certainly doesn't take long, just Harvest with the O button, run back into your ship, run back out and repeat until either you're satisfied or not getting any more items. All Harvest and Mining Points will be reset by returning to your ship, regardless of the Planet. -- On the right-hand side of the screen in battle you will notice the 'Bonus Board' (BB). This BB will boost certain aspects of winning for doing simple feats in battle; example: You obtain a Blue Bonus Tile for landing a critical hit. Each Blue Tile will grant 3% extra EXP. Now comes, the 'power-levelling' techniques. Say we fill the entire BB with Blue Tiles, by Blindsiding every enemy we come across. Now giving us a massive EXP Bonus after every battle, we begin the grind. -- When you fight enemies you will obtain their Monster Data once killed. These are listed in your Menu - Collections - Monster Data. There will be a % with each monster which raises for killing more of that type of enemy. Do note, you do NOT need 100% to obtain the trophies regarding 'Obtain X % of all Monster Data'. You only need to kill each enemy one-time for these trophies. If you do want to get 100% knowledge for every creature, Bosses will grant 33% each playthrough. -- You can pre-emptive any enemy by running into the back of them when initiating battle. This will net you an advantage for the first attack, and alot of your first BT's. -- There are alot of permanently missable things to do at the beginning of the game. To hefty to name, but keep it in mind as you play. I will give a very clear Warning for anything I deem missable or important. Keep an eye out! ------------------------------------------------------------- 1D. Preperation ------------------------------------------------------------- Star Ocean 4 is an extremely long game, and will no-doubt take you well over 500 hours to platinum. Whenever you are in the mind-set of grinding or doing something boring, I find playing music helps to lessen the burden. Especially after hearing the same Battle Music over and over and over and over... Remember it's supposed to be fun, and enjoy the great storyline. At times we'll be spending 20-30 hours before continuing to the next storyline cutscene, so if you're playing this solely for story this Walkthrough probably isn't your best bet. There is a Synopsis, in your Menu - Data - Synopsis, to remind yourself of whats been going on through the story. Also, the START button will give the option to 'skip scene'. Make sure you have a comfortable place to play, and preferrably with no interruptions. In some places throughout the game, you will need to play well over 2 hours before reaching another Save Point. Be prepared for these places I name, and don't play on if you're going to need to quit after 30 minutes. Check you have your guides all set and something to write down your Item Creations and Recipes from IC. Finally, one quick run-through of the walkthrough layout and let us begin. -- NOTE: As the walkthrough goes on, and you familiarize yourself with the gameplay, guide layout and obtain the 'Treasure Sense' skill I will write less and less, just listing the bare essentials. After 50+ hours there should be no need to give extreme detailed descriptions. I will expect you to open your Map constantly and check for Treasure Chests. At the top of each new section will be the following: [Triom] [3 Blueberries][454 Fol] [RM 22] [Triom] - The location in question. [3 Blueberries] [454 Fol] - Items in order of appearance. [*RM 22] - Abbreviated for Recipe Memo 22. * meaning Missable. (Insert Item) mean this is not found in a treasure chest. I will list all items at the top of the new area. I will NOT list Monsters but I will explain why as you read the walkthrough. Chests and such, that you cannot yet collect will NOT be listed but I WILL alert you to this. I will also alert you when to go back and collect it. * means the item is permanently/missable. ============================================================= 2A. Walkthrough ============================================================= All bearings are relative to your compass under the minimap. Check your settings on the Main Menu and make sure they're suitable for you. Play through the Battle Simulator (Advised) and then select NEW GAME. You can play on Earth Difficulty, however you will not earn a Playstation 3 trophy for beating the game on a certain difficulty. Choose Galaxy, and enjoy the opening Movie. [Calnus] [WD 122] Once you gain control of Edge you will be inside the Calnus. This is you spaceship and will serve as your 'Base of Operations' so to speak. Press R2 to change the walking speed of Edge and Square to perform a quick Dash. Get used to this Dash, you will use it alot. Triangle will open up your menu, do so and take a look at the different options. The object in the middle of the room will let you use the Battle Simulator. Exit the room. This hallway hosts your characters bedrooms, where Edge can save and rest to restore HP/MP. Save if you wish, Edge's room is the first on your left as you leave the Simulator Room. After looking around leave by running down either set of stairs at the end of the hallway. Another Save Point. Immediately turn and run in-between the sets of stairs you just walked down, through a door. This room serves as the Item Creation Room, and where you will create all of these items. However, that's irrelevant now, so run into the left doorway and search the shelves for [Weapon Data 122: SRF F98 Assualt Rifle]. After recieveing your first Weapon Data, leave the way you came. The room near the save point is the Flight Deck (Cockpit) so enter there and speak to Reimi. [There are no important things to note from here, except having WD 122.] Then initiate the launch and you're off toward the Planet... ----------------------------------------------------------/// [Aeos: Landing Point] [and Calnus] (*RM 05) (SD 01) (SD 04) [Snipers Bangle] [Broken Metal Cutting Blade] [3 Blueberries] [2 Balckberries] [Iron] [2 Insect Eggs] [Bigberries] [Wind Gem] [Iron x2] [103 Fol] [Warped Carapace & 1 Insect Leg] After the scenes you will be on the Planet Aeos. Speak to Reimi and you will end up outside the Calnus. Immediately run back inside the ship and talk to the man near the Item Creation Rooms door, Van. This man holds the first missable item of the game, (*Recipe Memo 05). Simply talk with him to obtain it. Now, run across from here into the Flight Deck. Check the front two monitors (Where Edge was sitting in the cutscenes) for [Spaceship Data 01: SRF-003 Calnus] and [Spaceship Data 04: SRF-001 Aquila]. Save your game and leave the ship. Talk to the man standing near the entrance of the ship a couple times for a [Sniper's Bangle]. If you don't get it after talking 3 or 4 times try the other man. Treasure Chests can be either pods with a green light shining on them, or actual chests. Run North a little to find your first chest, with a [Broken Metal Cutting Blade] inside. From here check your compass, then run Northeast for a chest with [3 Blueberries] inside. Now travel Northwest to find another chest holding [2 Blackberries]. To the North and inside a little alcove is yet another chest, this one holding a [Iron]. Run even further North from this chest until you find [2 Insect Eggs] near the cliffside. After collecting the 5 treasure chests here return to the base of the Calnus. Talk to Reimi when you are happy to continue on, she's standing near the save point. This also begins your first battle... ------------------------------------------------------------/ Your first real fight. Nothing of importance here. Just use the skills you learnt in the Battle Simulator, to kill the Adephaga. They are very weak and should go down with ease. If you are having trouble just constantly push X to do 3 consecutive attacks. No need to worry about BT's or anything yet as we'll be fighting a fair amount of these guys soon. ------------------------------------------------------------/ After the fight, you will recieve [Weapon Data 01] automatically, as it's now equipped to Edge. Run back inside the Calnus and proceed to the Flight Deck. Short scenes, and then before leaving to find your comrades ship, the Eremia, Reimi will join your party. Once you're outside, run across from the Calnus, to where a green light is shining out of the ground. This is called a Harvest Point. With Reimi now in your party you can harvest free items here, and this is the location of the first... _-= GRIND =-_ Required: Highly Advised though not necessary Location: Harvest Point/Outside the Calnus Description: At certain times in the game I will give grinding alerts like this one. Here, I would advise you to farm this Harvest Point since your ship is so close. All Harvest and Mining Points are reset by entering your ship, so collect the items with O, then run back into your ship. Now return outside, and Harvest again until your satisfied. I did mine until all possible items were max at 20, but this is totally up to you. When you are ready to continue Save your game. Run forward from the Harvest Point to where debris from your ship once blocked. As you approach the opening a short scene will begin with Reimi showing off her skills. After the scenes you will be near a three-way split in the path. Take the left path West to a dead-end with a [Bigberries] treasure chest at the end. Ignore the Mining Point and turn around, now running straight from where you were. As you run down the Eastern path you will see a new enemy, resembling a Bee. Near this guy, is a spider-web with a treasure chest underneath holding a [Wind Gem]. From here run as far North as possible to a small dead-end path running along the cliff-face. Remember to check your map with SELECT if you're getting lost, you should find a chest with [2 Irons] inside. Now run back to the T-intersection you just ran through, and turn left. You should be looking down a straight path, with another small pass on your left. First run straight forward and get the chest with [103 Fol] on the edge of the rocks. Now follow the edge of the rocks around back the other way and you'll find another Harvest Point. From here run back and straight, into the open space. Continue up the rise, and along the left side of the split. Now you should be running along a cliff-face, follow this to another spot for Reimi to harvest. Around the corner you should see a Cave Entrance coming into view. Beside the rock on the left here is a chest with a [Warped Carapace] and [Insect Leg] inside. Now you may enter the cave, or I suggest some other stuff... If you are going to skip these steps you will have to do them at a later date, this is simply to get the trophies as early as possible. Continue to Urd Falls Cave. ------------------------------------------------------------/ Battle Trophies: Disable Reimi's Battle Actions in your menu or in battle as 'Do Nothing'. Run back to the Calnus, and your save game outside the ship. We're going to get some of the very easy BT's with Edge and Reimi. We're heading back so we can rest whenever you need to heal. Another way to avoid this in Star Ocean 4 is fill the Bonus Board with Purple Tiles. These will give you a heal bonus after battle to restore HP & MP. After returning to your ship and saving, run back to the three-way split, ahead of you should be 1 solo Adephaga. Enter battle with him. By now you should have Blindsiding down. If not, just hold O until you see a yellow/red circle around you character, then mash the Left-Analog stick in any direction. This will perform a Blindside. Do this 5, 20, and if you're upto it 50 on the last Adephaga of the battle. Then win the battle, and you will recieve the following Battle Trophies: 007: Perform 5 Blinsides. 017: Perform 20 Blindsides. 039: Perform 50 Blindsides. 010: Deal exactly 55 damage. (If you're lucky) Depending on how strong Edge's level is he will learn different Skills. Find another enemy and use a 3-hit combo + Rising Blade, to deal over 100 damage. This will net you: 006: Deal 100 damage 004: Defeat a enemy using a special art. Now go into your menu and unequip Edge's equipment. As soon as the battle starts use a special move with R2. Then win the battle with Edge as the MC and you'll get the following BT's: 013: Win a battle with nothing equipped. 003: Attack first with a special art. Enter another battle and kill off all but 1 monster. Switch to Reimi with R1 or L1 and attack him with arrows until he is close to death. Switch back to Edge. Now, you need to tilt the Left-Analog stick at the same time you press X to attack. Edge should do a kick strike and get: 036: Defeat an enemy using only leg-based attacks. (If you're struggling and keep hitting his launch attack, you can try to time the 2nd hit of his 3-hit combo to kill him. Edge should spin on the spot with his leg out and kick him causing the death.) Enter a battle with a Adephaga, and wait until he does his stomping attack to knock you over. Kill him with the wake-up strike by tapping X as you get off the ground. It does need to be the killing blow, recieve your: 008: Defeat an enemy using a wake-up attack. Enter battle with an Adephaga, and knock him over with Edge's launch move. Once he's on the ground run close and tap X to stab him while he's on the ground. If it was the killing blow you'll get: 020: Defeat an enemy with a knock-down attack. After fighting 10 and 30 enemies by pre-emptive strike you will get: 005: Register 10 pre-emptive attacks. 015: Register 30 pre-emptive attacks. Also try to attack first in 5 and 10 battles to get: 002: Attack first 5 times in a row. 022: Attack first 10 times in a row. You need to land a hit before Reimi if she's fighting and the enemy for it to count. Save you game. Switch Edge's Battle Actions to 'Do Nothing' and select Reimi as the MC. Same tactic as Edge for this one, either off normal attacks or use a special-art to deal over 100 damage: 006: Deal over 100 damage. 009: Deal exactly 111 damage. (If you're lucky) Now land as many consecutive hits as you can from long distance to get: 008: Land 4 consective long-range attacks. 020: Land 9 consecutive long-range attacks. These BT's go from 4, 9, 15, 22, 30, 39, 49, 60, 72, 85 but don't expect to get them all. You're bound to miss or hit a short-range attack. 014: Win 20 battles without using MP. 007: Defeat an enemy using only jump attacks. Reimi's dash is actually a jump when you press O. Once in the air kill an enemy by attacking to get BT #7. Perform 7 consecutive Blindsides followed by 1 attack to get: 002: Land three critical hits in a row. 013: Land four critical hits in a row. 025: Land five critical hits in a row. 036: Land six critical hits in a row. 048: Land seven critical hits in a row. Enable Edge to 'Fight Freestyle' through the Tactics Menu. Enter a battle and as soon as it begins run away from the enemies (As Reimi) so that they target Edge. Win the battle to get: 001: Win without being targeted. Enter another battle and attack but do not move from the spot you start. Hopefully you won't be attacked and get: 076: Win without ever moving. Thats the majority for now, just focus on pre-emptives, blindsides and Monster Data from now until you have Faize. Save your game and return to the Cave Entrance from before we did the Battle Trophies. Enter the caves. ----------------------------------------------------------/// [Urd Falls Cave] [2 Irons] [203 Fol] (2 Blueberries) [2 Fresh Sages] (2 Blackberries) (Fresh Sage) [2 Blackberries] (Defense Seeds) [3 Blueberries] You will probably be ambushed as soon as you enter the caves. Fight if you have to, then run right from where you started to behind a small gap in the South. Here you'll find two chests with [2 Irons] and [203 Fol]. An option to inspect the crater is available. Run back toward where you entered and down the passage. You'll start encountering new enemies, the blue things called Gerels can reproduce once they are low on health. This isn't always a bad thing... Keep following the path, and inspect the hole in the wall for 2 Blueberries (Not treasure chest related). If you do it a second time you'll lose health and attract a Bee/Bat. Continue on, you'll pass a bunch of rocks which block another side passage which we come back for later. Continue to where the cliff-face opens up to show a waterfall and a chest with [2 Fresh Sages]. Another hole in the wall ahead with 2 Blackberries ahead. Then the path splits into two, go right. Follow to the end where there is a hole in the wall with a Fresh Sage and a Harvest Point. Backtrack to the three-way split and go straight, not left. Eventually the Cave will open up, here is a chest with [2 Blackberries] and a hole in the wall with Defense Seeds. Do not use these seeds even though they're very useful. Just follow the path and you'll come to the exit. The final chest listed above, with the 3 Blueberries, we'll get soon. ----------------------------------------------------------/// [Aeos: Northern Coast] [2 Natural Waters] [Attack Seeds] [Wind Gem] [81 Fol] [Warped Carapace & 1 Seaweed] [3 Iron] [Seaweed] [2 Fresh Sages] [Bigberries] [Protection Seeds] Run forward after exiting the caves and fight the new enemy. Here there is a chest with [2 Natural Waters]. Then save your game just outside the exit of the caves. _-= GRIND =-_ Required: Highly Advised Location: Ambush outside Urd Falls Cave exit Description: See below Here we will get a massive power boost. This really is square-enix at their best giving us perfect grinding spots. (If you're not interested skip this entire paragraph) First off, if you look on your map you'll see a white dot representing a 'healing point'. Exactly that, run there when you need to heal, its fairly close and you can avoid every enemy easily with dash. Now back at the save point run out and to the left. See those 2 Adephaga? We're going to draw them close together then initiate battle with them. After you kill the first set of enemies you will be ambushed and forced to fight another battle. This will grant you a Green Tile on your BB. Finish the battle and run back into Urd Falls, then repeat the Ambush. Fill the entire board with Green Tiles and then start fighting the 2 Adephaga seprerately as well as the big guy, before you enter the caves to make them respawn. Now you'll be earning huge SP bonuses after battle from the Bonus Board. SP stands for Skill Points and are used to strentghen all of your charcters Skills, plus some other stuff like Item Creation. If you go into your Menu - Skills - Skill Boost, you will see 2 amounts of SP: Party SP and Character SP. You can use either of them to power up abilities as nothing much matters right now except training, so use X for their personal SP or Square to use Party SP. I personally powered up everything possible to maximum but its upto you how much you can bare. Do your special attacks first like Rising Blade and Raging Strike. Reimi should be close to or have, Seraphic Thunder. If your characters BEAT Level gets to 20, change it to the opposite to start levelling up that because you'll need it for BT's but it shouldn't affect their performance in battle too much this early in the game. Keep levelling Skills until they're Max or you're happy to continue and remember the healing point is there when needed. From the save point outside the Urd Falls Cave exit. You should have collected the chest across from the save holding 2 Natural Waters, so run out and right. There should be two paths, go down the left side along the edge to find a [Attack Seeds] chest guarded by a Bee. Keep following the edge to a [Wind Gem] treasure chest, further on another with [81 Fol] that is close to a Harvest Point. In the valley leading to the Healing Point is 2 more Harvest Points, however just return to the Healing Point to continue. Once you jump down onto the beach you cannot return for awhile... so heal when ready and jump down using the X button when prompted to land on the beach front. To your left against the rocks is a treasure chest with [Warped Carapace] and [Seaweed] inside. Beside you a little will be a Harvest Point. Then return to the water and follow along the edge until you find a chest with [3 Iron]. It wont appear until your quite close. Keep following the beach until you see a man lying on the ground... Watch the cutscenes, then your first boss battle. ------------------------------------------------------------/ Armaros Recommended Level: 15+ Battle Details: No important things to note, except killing him with Faize to ease 2 BT's. Your first boss battle. Just let me say that this battle should not be hard unless you are very weak. You should be able to play around with him so to speak, and even attempt Battle Trophies. You'll have Faize in this fight, I actually got 4 or 5 BT's while using him, but if you're struggling stick to Edge and just use special attacks. Theres nothing important about this boss battle except one thing to note: Faize needs to kill at least 3 Missable or One-time enemies. He has BT's for killing 'X amount of different enemies'. If you kill at least 3 Bosses with Faize you will guaranteed be able to achieve this battle trophy. ------------------------------------------------------------/ * Trophy Unlocked * Abolished Armaros - Bronze Defeated Armaros on the Northern Beach of the Planet Aeos. Some cutscenes will play before recieveing a Meteor Fragment. Then an alert will show because 'Faize joined the party'. Now run forward from where you fought the boss, following the beach still. There will be a chest containing a [Seaweed] outside the Cave Entrance, and a chest containing [2 Fresh Sage] not far across from here. Then enter the Cave through the newly found entrance. ----------------------------------------------------------/// [Urd Falls Cave] [3 Blueberries] You will be back inside Urd Falls Cave. Follow the path to the top, and on your left is a chest with [3 Blueberries]. Then jump down near the edge of the rocks. Now, make your way all the way back toward the Calnus. Hopefully you remember the way to go. Just head left at the three-way split and you should find the Cave exit. When you finally get back you'll notice the Calnus is gone, and the Eldarians have set-up a base...? ---------------------------------------------------/// [Aeos: Exploration Base] [*2 Blueberries] [*193 Fol] [*3 Lemons] [*Skill Manual Scan Enemy] [*Uncooked pasta, Olive oil] [*Blackberries, Blueberries] First things first, save outside the Exploration Base. I've put the chests inside the Exploration Base as missable, because after certain events shortly in the story they will be gone for the rest of this playthrough. Run around the outside, North and over the new bridge that has been set-up. When you're in the next screen hug the left wall to find a [Bigberries] inside a chest. Keep going North a bit and find the [Protection Seeds] on the Eastern wall. There is another chest further North but you cannot collect it until you return with a Light-Element Ring. I'll remind you when to come back for it. There's also a way to jump down to Aeos: Northern Coast here, where we farmed SP and the Healing Point before Armaros. Head inside from the entrance by the Save Point, and run directly straight, into some shadows and find a chest with [*2 Blueberries]. Then run left around the corner and check the upper right hand corner for [*193 Fol] and a little up from here against the wall, is a [*3 Lemon]. Continue running forward along the path to where a man is standing, looking at the sky. Turn around here, in a dark alcove is a chest with [*Skill Manual 'Scan Enemy']. Notice the entrance to the Calnus is now here. Run inside the Base using one of the many doors. Go into the Southern Room of the Base and collect a chest holding [*Uncooked Pasta] and [*Olive Oil]. Then check the chest next to the door for [*Blackberries] and [*Blueberries]. In this room, the centre console has 3 Spaceship Data's you need to collect. Make sure you collect these Missable Items: * 006. SRF-006 Balena * 007. SRF-003 Dentdelion * 008. SRF-005 Eremia Now run back to the main hallway and save your game. Go into the ? room which should have a load of Sleeping Pods, where your party can sleep and heal. This is the living quarters, go through the monitors in here to find 3 more Spaceship Data which are also Missable Items: * 012: Zagzael (Eldarian Cruiser) * 015: Rednuht (Eldarian Battleship) * 016: Sol (Eldarian Shuttlecraft) Save your game again and go into the section of the Base with shops. By now you should have 30,000 to 60,000 Fol saved up, so buy at least 2 of every every item and weapon. Make a sure note to purchase 2 Eldarian Bows from the Weapon Shop. Above anything else assure you have 2, Eldarian Bows. Otherwise you will already void '100% of all Quests' trophy. You need them for on the next planet. While you're buying one of everything here, scroll down to Accept Orders and press X on each one. Now, you can view them via your Triangle Menu, so you can check what items you need while your out fighting enemies. After your finished in the shops, Save your game. Now for your first quests. Run into the Southwestern Room of the Base and speak to the second person on your right. She will ask you to collect and return 10 Insect Legs. If you already have 10 you can finish the quests immediately, otherwise you need to fight Adephaga until you have 10. Return these to her for some SP, EXP, and your first quest complete. Talk to her again, and she will now ask for 8 Insect Eggs. Again, fight Adephaga or turn in the quest if you have enough. Now go into the sickbay, the opposing room, and speak to Airi. She'll tell you one of here patients has gone wandering. Run outside of the Base to near the entrance of the Calnus, and speak with the man daydreaming, looking into the sky. Return to Airi after speaking with him to complete the thrid quest. * 001: The Leg Collector/ Reward: Blueberries * 002: The Egg Collector/ Reward: Aquaberries, Recipe Memo 20 * 003: The Missing Patient/ Reward: Nothing You will also recieve SP for completing quests. Now these 3 Missable Quests should be completed. Save your progress and enter the Main Room, to the North. Speak to the man on your left, Gaghan, and give him the control unit for the Sol. Then speak to The Captain when you're ready, who's standing in the centre of the room. Watch the cutscenes. Congratulations, you are now an official Captain of your own ship. Save your progress and return to where the Captain was. Search the monitors here to collect * Spaceship Data 002: Calnus-II (w/ Eldarian Upgrades) another Missable Item, then exit the Exploration Base. Now you will want to return to Urd Falls Cave. Remember the dead-end with all the Green Flowers glowing brightly, and a Harvest Point and Hole in the Wall? Head there, its the right path at the three-way split inside the Caves. Near the Green Flowers that glow brightly, press X to Inspect and view your first... Private Action 001: Beautiful Flowers. Location: Urd Falls Cave, between Edge and Reimi Description: Select 'You're really beautiful, Reimi' Private Actions will affect the bond between your characters. In order to obtain all 9 Endings in one playthrough you must pick these exact PA's in the same order, with the same response. After that leave the Caves and return to the Save Point outside the Exploration Base. If you are going to skip these steps you will have to do them at a later date, this is simply to get the trophies as early as possible. Continue to the Planet Lemuris. ---------------------------------------------------/ Battle Trophies: Disable Edge and Reimi's Battle Tactics in the menu. Now with Faize as the MC, find an Adephaga to fight. ---------------------------------------------------/ ---------------------------------------------------/// ---------------------------------------------------/// [Planet Lemuris] Once you are ready to leave the Planet Aeos, head into the Calnus via the Exploration Base. I advise you check the following things before you choose to launch to Lemuris: - Make sure that you have 9 Spaceship Data - 001, 002, 004, 006, 007, 008, 012, 015, and 016. - I would strongly adivse you collected the 6 treasure chests inside the Exploration Base if your aiming for Platinum. Both the Chests and Spaceship Data are Missable Items. Its best to get them now. - Go into your items and make sure that you have 2 Eldarian Bows, these are a weapon for Reimi and are bought from the Exploration Base weapon shop. - By now you should have the following Monster Data - 001 Adephaga, 002 Adephaga Drus, 003 Killer Wasp, 004 Giant Bat, 005 Gerel, 006 Polyphaga, 007 Killer Chelae, and 008 Armaros. - You could have anywhere between 10 and 55 BT's by this point. This will depend whether you have been following my steps in grinding, and farming or if you have just been doing story, with little time spent powering your characters. - I would advise to be at least Level 17 by this point. Your characters BEAT Level should be very close to 20. Remember once they reach BEAT Level 20 go into your menu and change it to the opposite from what it was. This will let them learn the new advantages for in combat. When you are happy that you have all of these things done, go to the centre console in the Flight Deck and choose Launch. While it loads talk to Faize for a Monster Jewel. Try to Launch again, and then a short scene will play. Now it is time for some Private Actions. Everytime you launch to a new planet your journey will be taken in 'parts' where you must talk to a certain character to advance the flight. Doing all of these correctly throughout the entire game will grant you 9 Character Endings and alot of trophies. Once you are in control of Edge, run forward to Reimi. Private Action 002: Flight to Lemuris, Part I Location: Calnus, on the voyage to Planet Lemuris, between Edge and Reimi Description: Speak to Reimi in her flight chair, this is the end of Private Action 2. Private Action 003: Flight to Lemuris, Part II Location: Calnus, on the voyage to Planet Lemuris, between the party Description: Exit the Flight Deck and into the Recreation Room (With the save point). Talk to Reimi and Faize in here, ending PA 003. Private Action 004: Flight to Lemuris, Part III Location: Calnus on the voyage to Planet Lemuris, between Edge and Reimi Description: Head into the hallway with everyones bedrooms. Reimi's is the first on your right as you come up the stairs, go inside and speak with her. Private Action 005: Flight to Lemuris, Part IV Location: Calnus, on voyage to Planet Lemuris, between the party. Description: Head into the Recreation Room, the large one with the Save Point and talk to your Crew. When your given the prompt choose, 'I'm sorry that happened Faize...'. Private Action 006: Flight to Lemuris, Part V Location: Calnus, on voyage to Planet Lemuris, between the party. Description: Head into the Recreation Room and back out. When you re-enter talk to the team to discuss swords, mostly Edge and Faize's. Its not known to affect affinity or character endings but I suggest telling Edges story to the party when given the option. After landing on Planet Lemuris exit the Calnus and then re-enter. Head to Faize's bedroom and speak with him. Private Action 007: Landed on Lemuris, Part I Location: Calnus, Faizes bedroom, between Edge and Faize. Description: Speak with Faize. Private Action 008: Landed on Lemuris, Part II Location: Calnus, Faizes bedroom, between Edge and Faize. Description: Speak with Faize a second time. Private Action 009: Landed on Lemuris, Part III Location: Calnus, Faizes bedroom, between Edge and Faize. Description: Speak with Faize a third time and choose 'There's nothing to apologize for.' After the 3 private actions with Faize exit the Calnus. ---------------------------------------------------/// [Lemuris: Thalia Plains West] [3 Aquaberries] [1 Aquaberries, 2 Blackberries] Every monster will add to your Monster Data, and they all drop new items needed for quests and IC on this planet. From the Calnus run in the West direction, to the Northwest corner of the screen. A chest will be sitting next to a tree, holding [3 Aquaberries]. Head South, until you see a fence and dirt path. Run past the entrance of the village and continue into the dead-end corner finding a chest with [1 Aquaberries] and [2 Blackberries]. When you are ready, enter the village. ----------------------------------------------------/// [Lemuris: Triom Village] [*Demon Amulet] [2 Blueberries] [RM02, 2 Earth Gems] (Basil) (Blueberries) (2 Basil) (Blackberries) Please note that all quests in this village are missable! They will expire after the events of the Celestial Ship so complete ALL of them before fighting the next Boss. When you enter the town watch the cutscenes, and eventually you gain another ally, 'Lymle has joined the party'. This also gives you [Weapon Data 50: Candy Wand]. Go back inside Ghimdo's house and grab the chest inside holding a [Demon Amulet]. Make a note that you got this chest because it will soon become missable! Head out into a small field in the middle of town and when the pop-up on the side indicates 'examine' press X. You will get (Blueberries) and (Basil) for finding both spots. Run South, and you will find a chest holding [2 Blueberries]. There is a Weapon Shop and Item Shop all with orders you need to complete. Accept them, and buy whatever new equipment and items you can afford. If you have the Fol, buy Bowstrings, and the new Weapons. Items are not as important right now. Head South and talk to the man near the exit of the village. He will give you (2 Basil). Run to the house North-West of here, to save your progress and restore health. If you run North of this house to yet another field you can find (Blackberries) on the ground. If you didn't do the PA's with Faize, they are still available now. When your finished buying equipment, talked to the villagers and got all the treasures, exit Triom via the Northeast exit. ---------------------------------------------------/// [Lemuris: Thalia Plains] [255 Fol] [Darkness Gem] [2 Blueberries] [2 Vile Goop] [2 Aquaberries] [2 Blackberries] [Monster Jewel] [Bizarre Fruit] [Accuracy Seeds] [401 Fol] [Skill Manual Hide] There are a lot of harvest points on this Planet and I recommend grabbing them whenever you are close. From Trioms exit, run East then around the mound to grab the [255 Fol] in the chest. Continue East and harvest, before heading South a little where you can reach a [Darkness Gem] in a chest by the cliff. Now head North until you reach a bridge. After crossing the Bridge turn East immediately and grab the [2 Blueberries] from the chest. Turn around and go west, and then up the hill to the south. Behind the big rock on the west side of the hill is a chest, which contains [2 Vile Goop]. Keep heading West and then grab the chest holding [2 Aquaberries] just past the bridge. If you cross this bridge you will change screen to the Van Elm Region. You can't get very far as the path is blocked but there is a harvest point you can use. Return to the first bridge you crosses, but take the Northern direction this time. The ground will soon be covered in snow, run along the West wall and you'll find a chest with [2 Blackberries]. Run Northeast along the frozen lake, checking the Northern wall. You should eventually find a [Monster Jewel]. Head East from this chest, and then through a passage between a rock and the wall. Follow the path and by the rock, is a chest containing [Bizzare Fruit]. If you check your map, take a quick detour to the close Harvest Point before heading back to the Lake. Run West across the Lake, and you'll reach some cliff-paths. There is a chest with [Accuracy Seeds] near the bottom, then head to the top. Before saving, grab the chests here, one with [401 Fol] and another with [Skill Manual Hide]. Save your progress and then head through the large stone doors. ---------------------------------------------------/// [Lemuris: Alanaire Citadel] [Anti-Poison Amulet] [1 Shining Stone] [Skill Manual "Treasure Sense"] [1 Shining Stone] [Guardian's Rapier] [1 Shining Stone] [Skill Manual "Focus"] [1 Shining Stone] [Guardian's Armour] [1 Shining Stone] [1 Dragon Scale, 1 Fire Gem] As you walk forward into the Citadel take a left, past the stairs and open the chest in front of the pillar to grab the [Aint-Poison Amulet]. Keep going to the next pillar which has another treasure hidden around the side, holding a Shining Stone. Return to the entrance after grabbing the chests, also fight the Skeleton enemies in this area and you will [WD137: Sword of Punishment. Head up the West stairs and examine the object blocking the path. Continue up the path, then enter the first door you come to. Take a right into the small room to find the [Skill Manual: Treasure Sense]. Immediately go into your inventory and teach the skill to Lymle. From now you need to be in the habit of pressing {SELECT} to check the map for treasures. This way, I don't need to explain specific locations of every treasure. Besides they're pretty obvious on the large map, I'll still give locations of the tricky ones or chests you need to go back and get, so don't stress too much lol. Anyways, head back to the hallway and run all the way South to the last room, theres a chest here holding [Shining Stone]. Exit and head up the next set of stairs with the object blocking the path. Examine it to move it, then take the first right path you can. In the Southern room is a [Guardians Rapier]. Return the way you came and head through the South entrance. Up the stairs you find another [Shining Stone] inside a treasure chest. Return to the entrance of the Citadel and examine the stones around the room. The ones that don't have blue stones in them are what the 'Shining Stones' have been for. So put them in, and after moving all of the stones, head up the West stairs. Check you map, there should be two chests here. There is a [Shining Stone] on the inner most ring, and [Skill Manual: Focus] is inside a chest at the Northern tip of the map. After grabbing the two treasures head back into the Citadel, down to the beginning. Head across to the East set of stairs, moving the stones in the way, go into the passage halfway. Enter the last room on the left and grab the [Guardians Armour]. Leave and continue up the stairs. Keep following the path and cross screens. On the second floor head left, one room has a refresh point and the other, a chest you cannot open yet. Run in toward the middle ring, toward the North to find the chest holding a [Shining Stone]. Continue to the South of the map, until you reach three stones needed to be moved. Move the blocks then examine the platform to reach the final level. Save your game, then enter the door. ------------------------------------------------------------/ Dragon Newt (Sub-boss) Recommended Level: 35+ Battle Details: No important things to note, except killing him with Faize to ease 2 BT's. This guy is just a sub-boss, and you'll fight him regularly soon enough. Still, he deserves a write up so basically, attack him head on. Use Edge the majority of the battle, and avoid blindsides as he tends to counter them if double-blindside hasn't been unlocked. ------------------------------------------------------------/ Exit through the door and examine the long cloth hanging down the Citadel wall. ---------------------------------------------------/// [Lemuris: Van Elm Region] [Skill Manual: Chain Combos] [3 Blueberries] [Bigberries, 2 Blueberries] [2 Vile Goop] [3 Aquaberries] [51 Fol] Head towards the East to find a chest with [Skill Manual: Chain Combos] and check your map for the harvest point near the trees by the village. Run toward the Southern edge of the map and you'll find a small ledge with a chest holding [3 Blueberries]. Go West past the village for now, and in the North is a treasure chest with a [Bigberries] and [2 Blueberries]. Remember, check the large map to scan quickly the general direction of chests, harvest points, and the brown locations are mining points, which you'll be using soon enough. ---------------------------------------------------/ NOTES: Check the direstcions for rooms inside the Exploration Base. Verify SD is correct for Expl' Base. [2 Fresh Sage] on Beach. ADD TREASURE CHEST UNDER LOCATION NAMES Add * to missables Add BT's for faize before leaving aeos --------------------------------------------------/ -------------------------------------------------- 3A. 100% Tresure Chests (In order of appearance) -------------------------------------------------- Aeos: Landing Point [] Broken Metal Cutting Blade [] Blueberries x 3 [] Blackberries x2 [] Iron [] Insect Eggs x2 [] Bigberries [] Wind Gem [] Iron x2 [] 103 Fol [] Insect Egg x1, Warped Carapace x1 Urd Falls Cave [] Iron x2 [] 203 Fol [] Fresh Sage x2 [] Blackberries x2 [] Blueberries x3 Aeos: Northern Coast [] Natural Water x2 [] Attack Seeds x1 [] Wind Gem x1 [] 81 Fol [] Seaweed x1, Warped Carapace x1 [] Iron x3 [] Fresh Sage x2 [] Seaweed x1 Aeos: Exploration Base [] Lemon x3 [] Blueberries x2 [] 193 Fol [] Skill Manual "Scan Enemy" [] Blueberries x1, Blackberries x1 [] Uncooked Pasta x1, Olive Oil x1 Aeos: Northern Coast [] Bigberries x1 [] Protection Seeds x1 Lemuris: Thalia Plains [] Aquaberries x3 [] Aquaberries x1, Blackberries x2 Lemuris: Triom Village [] Demon Amulet x1 [] Blueberries x2 [] Recipe Memo 02 x1 & Earth Gem x2 Lemuris: Thalia Plains [] 255 Fol [] Ice Gem x1 [] Blueberries x2 [] Vile Goop x2 [] Aquaberries x2 [] Blackberries x2 [] 401 Fol [] Accuracy Seeds [] Monster Jewel x1 (Near here found Fire Gem x1)??? [] Bizarre Fruit x1 [] Skill Manual "Hide" x1 Lemuris: Alainaire Citadel [] Anti-Poison Amulet x1 [] Shining Stone x1 [] Skill Manual "Treasure Sense" x1 [] Shining Stone x1 [] Guardian's Rapier x1 [] Shining Stone x1 [] Skill Manual "Focus" x1 [] Shining Stone x1 [] Guardian's Armor x1 [] Shining Stone x1 NOTE!!! PS3 Exclusive Ice Chest Dragon Scale x1 Fire Gem x1 Lemuris: Woodley Village [] Blackberries x2 [] Curing Sheet x1 [] Fresh Sage x2 [] Anti-Stun Amulet x1 Lemuris: Van Elm Region [] Skill Manual "Chain Combos" x1 [] Blueberries x3 [] Bigberries x1, Blueberries x2 [] Vile Goop x2 [] Aquaberries x3 [] 51 Fol [] Health Seeds x1 Lemuris: Wind Swallow Valley [] Aqua Robes [] Blackberries x2 Lemuris: Celestial Ship [] Blueberries x4, Bigberries x1 [] Skill Manual "HP Boost" x1 [] Fainting Potion x2 [] Cardianon Sword x1 [] Bigberries x2 [] Skill Manual "Critical Hit" x1 [] Blackberries x4 [] Power Bracelet x1 []Fresh Sage x2 Cardianon Mothership [] Defense Seeds x1 [] Bigberries x2 [] Basil x5 [] Defense Breaker x2 [] Thunder Ring x1 [] Fortitude Potion x2 [] Blackberries x3 [] Skill Manual "Taunt" x1 [] Wisdom Bracelet x1 [] Monster Jewel x1 [] 1020 Fol [] Skill Manual "Auto Healing" x1 [] Skill Manual "Chain Combos" x1 [] Crystal x1 [] Thunder Amulet x1 [] Compact Freezing Bomb x1 [] Silver x1 [] Universal Device x1, Gunpowder x1 [] Laser Osciliator x1 [] Lil' Vending Machine No. 1 x1 Subterranean City [] Attack Bracelet x1 [] Comet Robe x1 [] Alchemist's Water x2 [] Fresh Sage x3 [] Cardianon Bow x1 [] Skill Manual "Rage" x1 [] Dragonscale Armor x1 [] EM Bomb x4 [] Icicle Rapier x1 Control Tower [] Streaked Chainmail x1 [] Compact Stun Bomb x8 [] Skill Manual "Energy Shield" x1 [] Sturdy Bracelet x1 [] Poison Cider x3 [] Element Breaker x3 [] Skill Manual "Stun" x1 [] Booster Wand x1 [] Compact Poison Bomb x4 [] Skill Manual "Mindflare" x1 [] Silvance x1 [] Power Bracelet x1 [] Skill Manual "Fury Boost" x1 [] Bronto Armor x1 [] Riot Potion x1, Anti-Paralysis Amulet x1 Alternate Earth: Abandoned Town [] Thornberries x3 [] Red Herb x2 [] Silver Amulet x1 [] Blueberries x4 [] Aquaberries x2 [] Bigberries x3 [] Fresh Sage x2 [] Protection Seeds x1 Alternate Earth: Military Facility [] Aquaberries x2 [] Skill Manual "Scan Enemy" x1 [] Compact Freezing Bomb x3 [] Earth Ring x1 [] Thornberries x1, Blueberries x1, Aquaberries x1 [] Skill Manual "No Guard" x1 [] Alien Arc x1 [] Dragon Scale x1, Taffeta Ribbon x1 [] Alien's Robe x1 [] Foal Snaps x1 [] Plasma Cannon x1 [] Compact Stun Bomb x2 [] Fresh Sage x2 [] Compact Freezing Bomb x3 Roak: Northeast Astralian Continent [] Holy Water x2 [] Blueberries x3 [] Basil x2 [] 2986 Fol [] Riot Potion x5 Roak: Tatroi Area [] Barrier Spiritwater x1 [] Bunny Feed x3 [] DANGER! DO NOT DRINK! x3 Roak: Tatroi [] Blackberries x2 [] Anti-Curse Amulet x1 [] Bigberries x2 [] Girl's Gift Box [] Ripe Berries x1 [] Aquaberries x4 [] Recipe Memo 16 x1 [] 12000 Fol Roak: Astral [] Monster Jewel x1 [] Swept Hilt x1 [] Basil x4 [] 8 Fol [] Riot Potion x2 [] Health Seeds x1 [] Famed Sword "Veinslay" x1 Roak: Astral Desert [] Silver Chalice x1 [] Fainting Potion x2 [] Attack Seeds x1 [] Defense Seeds x1 [] Bandit's Gloves x1 [] 9856 Fol Roak: Tropp Area [] Magic Capacitator x1 [] Bigberries x3 [] Holy Water x1 [] 4445 Fol [] Resurrection Elixir x1 [] Barrier Spiritwater x1 Roak: Cave to the Purgatorium [] Health Seeds x1 [] Basil x2 [] Riot Potion x3 Roak: Purgatorium Area [] Fresh Sage x2 [] Recipe Memo 09 x1 [] Resurrection Elixir x1 Roak: Tropp [] Bizarre Fruit x1 [] Stamina Pie x2 Roak: The Purgatorium [] Skill Manual "Trap Evasion" x1 [] Skill Manual "Steal" x1 [] Wide-Range EM Bomb x3 [] Flare Robe x1 [] Poison Relief Unit x2 [] Holy Water x3 [] Bow of Wisdom x1 [] Runic Metal x3, Bracteate x1, Quantum Processor x1, Fire Gem x4 [] 8000 Fol [] Recipe Memo 14 x1 [] Majestic Armor x1 [] Intelligence Seeds x1 [] Ripe Berries x1, Fresh Sage x2 [] Ash x1 (TROPHY: 50% of all Treasure Chests) [] Skill Manual "Focus" x1 [] Ancient Cannon x1 [] Micro Hadron Collider x1, Wind Gem x1 Roak: Tatroi - The Colosseum [] Saber-Toothed Tiger Fang x1 [] Skill Manual "Berserk" x1 [] Bunny Feed x2 Roak: Astral Caves [] Holy Water x3, Resurrection Elixir [] Health Seeds x1 [] Skill Manual "Mindflare" x1 [] Barrier Spiritwater x1 [] Crystal x1 [] 7200 Fol [] Fresh Sage x2 [] Ripe Berries x1, Blueberries x2 [] Fainting Potion x1 [] Basil x3 [] Attack Seeds x1, Braceteate x1 [] Riot Potion x1 [] Blackberries x3, Basil x3 [] Bracteate [] 10008 Fol [] Physical Stimulant x2, DANGER! DO NOT DRINK! x3 Aeos: Underground Tunnel [] Defense Seeds x1 Aeos: Southern Reaches [] Aquaberries x7 [] Biocloth x2 (Behind a rock) [] Monster Jewel x1 [] Cursed Cider x3, Vile Goop x2 [] Recipe Memo 29 x1 [] 35003 Fol [] Glowstick x4 [] Bigberries x3, Blackberries x1 [] Regeneration Symbol x1 [] Steel x2 Aeos: Miga Insect Warren [] Blackberries x4, Basil x2 [] Potent Accuracy Seeds x1 [] Aluminum x2 [] Nature Wand x1 [] Skill Manual "Charge" x1 [] Steel x2 [] Recipe Memo 11 x1 [] Vile Goop x3 [] Hurricane Claws x1 [] Monster Jewel x2 [] Glowstick x3 [] Natural Water x2, Basil x1, Vile Goop x1 [] Borken Metal Cutting Blade x1 En II: Central Control Room [] Void Recovery Unit x2, Potent Intelligence Seeds x1 [] Health Seeds x1, Bunny Feed x1, Ripe Berries x2 [] Recipe Memo 18 x1 [] Physical Stimulant x2, Skill Manual "Emergency Repairs" x1 En II: Centropolis [] Health Seeds x1, Magic Seeds x1 [] Bizarre Fruit x1 [] 19000 Fol [] Perfect Berries x2 [] Holy Water x4 [] Recipe Memo 23 x1 En II: Old Road to the Sanctuary [] Poison Relief Unit x3 [] Skill Manual "Focus" x1 [] Recipe Memo 15 x1 [] Disintegration Stone x1 [] 30003 Fol [] Skill Manual "Haggling" x1 [] Raven Staff x1 [] Bracteate x1 En II: Sanctuary [] Recipe Memo 28 x1 [] Holy Chainmail x1 [] Biocloth x2 [] Memorial Plate x1 Nox Obscurus: Ravine of Extinction [] Void Recovery Unit x3, Fresh Sage x1 [] Hot Chocolate x2 [] Manacloth x1 [] 68000 Fol [] Mana Ribbon x2 (Next to screen change) [] Recipe Memo 12 x1 [] Insect Egg x2 [] Ripe Berries x2 [] Vile Goop x1 Nox Obscurus: Pulsating Bog [] Disintegration Stone x2 [] Monster Jewel x2 [] Nightmare Wand x1 [] Ripe Berries x2 [] Blueberries x19 [] Magic Seeds x1, Fresh Sage x2 Nox Obscurus: Halls of Termination [] Bizarre Fruit x1 [] 53 Fol [] Mental Stimulant x3 [] Manacloth x2 [] Health Seeds x1 [] Disintegration Stone x2 [] Dragon Scale x1 Nox Obscurus: Palace of Creation Area 1 [] Physical Stimulant x4 [] Aquaberries x4, Tent x1 [] 81000 Fol [] Dragon Scale x2 Area 2 [] Sea Serpent Harpoon x1 [] Scrmabling Unit x3 [] Attack Seeds x1, Health Seeds x1 [] 15 Fol [] Frozen Cider x2, Poison Cider x1, Silent Cider x2, Pumpkin Cider x1, [] DANGER! DO NOT DRINK! x1 [] Bizarre Fruit x2 Thornberries x1 [] Vile Goop x3 [] Monster Jewel x1, Fresh Sage x4 [] Fresh Sage x3 Area 3 [] Magic Seeds x1 [] Mental Stimulant x3, Ripe Berries x1 [] Mercury x1 [] Mithril x1 [] 108000 Fol [] Disintegration Stone x2 [] Parchment x9 [] Meteorite x1 [] Thunderbolt Gear x1 Area 4 [] Vulcan Discharger x1 [] Darkness Gem x2 [] Monster Jewel x1, Tent x1 [] Star Sapphire in Earth Chest Area 5 [] Bracteate x2 [] Shadestone x1 [] Skill Manual "ATK Boost" x1 Area 6 [] Intelligence Seeds x1 [] Holy Sword "Farewell" x1 [] Pumpkin Extract x3, Resurrection Elixir x2 [] Rivet x1 [] Red Dragon Scale x2 [] Recipe Memo 10 x1 [] Mithril x1 [] Dullahan's Armor x1 Area 7 [] Fresh Sage x4, Blackberries x16 [] Manacloth x1 [] Dragonblood Crystal x1 -------------------------------------------------- 3H. Monster Data & Locations -------------------------------------------------- 001/
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AMD's Radeon HD 6970 & Radeon HD 6950: Paving The Future For AMDby Ryan Smith on December 15, 2010 12:01 AM EST
VLIW4: Finding the Balance Between TLP, ILP, and Everything Else
To properly frame why AMD went with a VLIW4 design we'd have to first explain why AMD went with a VLIW5 design. And to do that we'd have to go back even further to the days of DirectX 9, and thus that is where we will start.
Back in the days of yore, when shading was new and pixel and vertex shaders were still separate entities, AMD (née ATI) settled on a VLIW5 design for their vertex shaders. Based on their data this was deemed the ideal configuration for a vertex shader block, as it allowed them to process a 4 component dot product (e.g. w, x, y, z) and a scalar component (e.g. lighting) at the same time.
Fast forward to 2007 and the introduction of AMD's Radeon HD 2000 series (R600), where AMD introduced their first unified architecture for the PC. AMD went with a VLIW5 design once more, as even though the product was their first DX10 product it still made sense to build something that could optimally handle DX9 vertex shaders. This was also well before GPGPU had a significant impact on the market, as AMD had at best toyed around with the idea late in the X1K series' lifetime (and well after R600 was started).
Now let us jump to 2008, when Cayman's predecessors were being drawn up. GPGPU computing is still fairly new – NVIDIA is at the forefront of a market that only amounts to a few million dollars at best – and DX10 games are still relatively rare. With 2+ years to bring up a GPU, AMD has to be looking forward at where things will be in 2010. Their predictions are that GPGPU computing will finally become important, and that DX9 games will fade in importance to DX10/11 games. It's time to reevaluate VLIW5.
This brings us to the present day and the launch of Cayman. GPGPU computing is taking off, and DX10 & DX11 alongside Windows 7 are gaining momentum while DX9 is well past its peak. AMD's own internal database of games tells them an interesting story: the average slot utilization is 3.4 – on average a 5th streaming processor is going unused in games. VLIW5, which made so much sense for DX9 vertex shaders is now becoming too wide, while scalar and narrow workloads are increasing in number. The stage is set for a narrower Streaming Processor Unit; enter VLIW4.
As you may recall from a number of our discussions on AMD's core architecture, AMD's architecture is heavily invested in Instruction Level Parallelism, that is having instructions in a single thread that have no dependencies on each other that can be executed in parallel. With VLIW5 the best case scenario is that 5 instructions can be scheduled together on every SPU every clock, a scenario that rarely happens. We've already touched on how in games AMD is seeing an average of 3.4, which is actually pretty good but still is under 80% efficient. Ultimately extracting ILP from a workload is hard, leading to a wide delta between the best and worst case scenarios.
Meanwhile all of this is in stark contrast to Thread Level Parallelism (TLP), which looks for threads that can be run at the same time without having any interdependencies. This is where NVIDIA has focused their energies at the high-end, as GF100/GF100 are both scalar architectures that rely on TLP to achieve efficient operation.
Ultimately the realization is that AMD's VLIW5 architecture is not the best architecture going forward. Up until now it has made sense at a high efficiency gaming-oriented design, and even today in a gaming part like the 6800 series it's still a reasonable choice. But AMD needs a new architecture for the future, not only as something that's going to better fit their 3.4 shader average, but something that is better designed for compute workloads. AMD's choice is an overhauled version of their existing architecture. Overall it's built on a solid foundation, but VLIW5 is too wide to meet their future goals.
The solution is to shrink their VLIW5 SPU to a VLIW4 SPU. Specifically, the solution is to remove the t-unit, the architecture's 5th SP and largest SP that's capable of both regular INT/FP operations as well as being responsible for transcendental operations. In the case of regular INT/FP operations this means an SPU is reduced from being able to process 5 operations at once to 4. While in the case of transcendentals an SPU now ties together 3 SPs to process 1 transcendental in the same period of time, representing a much more severe reduction in theoretical performance as an SPU can only process 1 transcendental + 1 INT/FP per clock as opposed to 1 transcendental + 4 INT/FP operations (or any variations).
There are a number of advantages to this change. As far as compute is concerned, the biggest advantage is that much of the space previously allocated to the t-unit can now be scrounged up to build more SIMDs. Cypress had 20 SIMDs while Cayman has 24; on average Cayman's shader block is 10% more efficient per mm2 than Cypress's , taking in to account the fact that Cayman's SPs are a bit larger than Cypress' to pick up the workload the t-unit would handle. The SIMDs are further tied to a number of attributes: the number of texture units, the number of threads that can be in flight at once, and the number of FP64 operations that can be completed per clock. The latter is particularly important for AMD's compute efforts, as they can now retire FP64 FMA/MUL operations at 1/4th their FP32 rate, in the case of a full Cayman up to 384/clock. Technically speaking they're no faster per SPU, but with this layout change they have more SPUs to work with, improving their performance.
Fewer SPs per SIMD = More Space For More SIMDs
There are even ancillary benefits within the individual SPUs. While the SP count changed the register file did not, leading to less pressure on each SPU's registers as now only 4 SPs vie for register space. Even scheduling is easier as there are fewer SPs to schedule and the fact that they're all alike means the scheduler no longer has to take into consideration the difference between the w/x/y/z units and the t-unit.
Meanwhile in terms of gaming the benefits are similar. Games that were already failing to fully utilize the VLIW5 design now have additional SIMDs to take advantage of, and as rendering is still an embarrassingly parallel operation as far as threading is concerned, it's very easy to further divide the rendering workload in to more threads to take advantage of this change. The extra SIMDs mean that Cayman has additional texturing horsepower over Cypress, and the overall compute:texture ratio has been reduced, a beneficial situation for any games that are texture/filtering bound more than they're compute bound.
Of course any architectural change involves tradeoffs, so it's not a pure improvement. For gaming the tradeoff is that Cayman isn't going to be well suited to VLIW5-style vertex shaders; generally speaking games using such shaders already run incredibly fast, but if they're even GPU-bound in the first place they're not going to gain much from Cayman. The other big tradeoff is when transcendental operations are paired with vector operations, as Cypress could handle both in one clock while Cayman will take two. It's AMD's belief that these operations are rare enough that the loss of performance in this one situation is worth it for the gain in performance everywhere else.
It's worth noting that AMD still considers VLIW4 to be a risky/experimental design, or at least this is their rationale for going with it first on Cayman while sticking to VLIW5 elsewhere. At this point we'd imagine the real experiment to already be over, as AMD would already be well in the middle of designing Cayman's 28nm successor, so they undoubtedly know if they'll be using VLIW4 in the future.
Finally, the switch to a new VLIW architecture means the AMD driver team has to do some relearning. While VLIW4 is quite similar to VLIW5 it's not by any means identical, which is both good and bad for performance purposes. The bad news is that it means many of AMD's VLIW5-centric shader compiler tricks are no longer valid; at the start shader compiler performance is going to be worse while AMD learns how to better program a VLIW4 design. The good news is that in time they're going to learn how to better program a VLIW4 design, meaning there's the potential for sizable performance increases throughout the lifetime of the 6900 series. That doesn't mean they're guaranteed, but we certainly expect at least some improvement in shader performance as the months wear on.
On that note these VLIW changes do mean that some code is going to have to be rewritten to better deal with the reduction of VLIW width. AMD's shader compiler goes through a number of steps to try to optimize code, but if kernels were written specifically to organize instructions to go through AMD's shaders in a 5-wide fashion, then there's only so much AMD's compiler can do. Of course code doesn't have to be written that way, but it is the best way to maximize ILP and hence shader performance.
- 4 32-bit FP MAD
- Or 2 64-bit FP MUL or ADD
- Or 1 64-bit FP MAD
- Or 4 24-bit Int MUL or ADD
- Plus 1 transcendental or 1 32-bit FP MAD
- 4 32-bit FP MAD/MUL/ADD
- Or 2 64-bit FP ADD
- Or 1 64-bit FP MAD/FMA/MUL
- Or 4 24-bit INT MAD/MUL/ADD
- Or 4 32-bit INT ADD/Bitwise
- Or 1 32-bit MAD/MUL
- Or 1 64-bit ADD
- Or 1 transcendental plus 1 32-bit FP MAD
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Remon - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkSeriously, are you using 10.10? It's not like the 10.11 have been out for a while. Oh, wait...
They've been out for almost a month now. I'm not expecting you to use the 10.12, as these were released just 2 days ago, but you can't have an excuse about not using a month old drivers. Testing overclocked Nvidia cards against newly released cards, and now using older drivers. This site get's more biased with each release. Reply
cyrusfox - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkI could be wrong, but 10.11 didn't work with the 6800 series, so I would imagine 10.11 wasn't meant for the 6900 either. If that is the case, it makes total sense why they used 10.10(cause it was the most updated driver available when they reviewed.)
I am still using 10.10e, thinking about updating to 10.12, but why bother, things are working great at the moment. I'll probably wait for 11. or 11.2. Reply
Remon - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkNevermind, that's what you get when you read reviews early in the morning. The 10.10e was for the older AMD cards. Still, I can't understand the difference between this review and HardOCP's. Reply
flyck - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkit doesn't. Anand has the same result for 25.. resolutions with max details AA and FSAA.
Presentation on anand however is more focussed on 16x..10.. resolutions. (last graph) if you look in the first graph you'll notice the 6970/6950 performs like HardOcp. e.g. the higher the quality the smaller the gap becomes between 6950 and 570 and 6970 and 580. the lower the more 580 is running away and 6970/6950 are trailing the 570. Reply
Gonemad - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkOookay, new card from the red competitor. Welcome aboard.
But, all of this time, I had to ask: why is Crysis is so punitive on the graphics cards? I mean, it was released eons ago, and still can't be run with everything cranked up in a single card, if you want 60fps...
Is it sloppy coding? Does the game *really* looks better with all the eye candy? Or they built a "FPS bug" on purpose, some method of coding that was sure to torture any hardware that would be built in the next 18 months after release?
I will get slammed for this, but for instance, the water effects on Half Life 2 look great even on lower spec cards, once you turn all the eye-candy on, and the FPS doesn't drop that much. The same for some subtle HDR effects.
I guess I should see this game by myself and shut up about things I don't know. Yes, I enjoy some smooth gaming, but I wouldn't like to wait 2 years after release to run a game smoothly with everything cranked up.
Another one is Dirt 2, I played it with all the eye candy to the top, my 5870 dropped to 50-ish FPS (as per benchmarks),it could be noticed eventually. I turned one or two things off, checked if they were not missing after another run, and the in game FPS meter jumped to 70. Yay. Reply
BrightCandle - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkCrysis really does have some fabulous graphics. The amount of foliage in the forests is very high. Crysis kills cards because it really does push current hardware.
I've got Dirt 2 and its not close in the level of detail. Its a decent looking game at times but its not a scratch on Crysis for the amount of stuff on screen. Half life 2 is also not bad looking but it still doesn't have the same amount of detail. The water might look good but its not as good as a PC game can look.
You should buy Crysis, its £9.99 on steam. Its not a good game IMO but it sure is pretty. Reply
fausto412 - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkyes...it's not much of a fun game but damn it is pretty Reply
AnnihilatorX - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkWell original Crysis did push things too far and optimization could be used. Crysis Warhead is much better optimized while giving pretty identical visuals. Reply
fausto412 - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link"I guess I should see this game by myself and shut up about things I don't know. Yes, I enjoy some smooth gaming, but I wouldn't like to wait 2 years after release to run a game smoothly with everything cranked up."
that's probably a good idea. Crysis was made with future hardware in mind. It's like a freaking tech demo. Ahead of it's time and beaaaaaautiful. check it out on max settings,...then come back tell us what you think. Reply
TimoKyyro - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkThank you for the SmallLuxGPU test. That really made me decide to get this card. I make 3D animations with Blender in Ubuntu so the only thing holding me back is the driver support. Do these cards work in Ubuntu? Is it possible for you to test if the Linux drivers work at the time? Reply

subset: commoncrawl


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Shelby County Sheriff is keeping deputies in schools
After the Connecticut shooting.. deputies were placed in all Shelby County Schools to give parents peace of mind. But Sheriff Chris Curry wants their presence permanent at all 11 schools.. he's responsible for in the unincorporated areas of the county.
"I think it would be great for a deputy to be in every school." Responses like that from parents, made Shelby County Sheriff Chris Curry decide this. "We're going to continue to cover those 11 schools in the unincorporated areas Shelby County has law enforcement contracts to cover."
There are already two school resource officers, but Curry says keeping deputies at 9 other schools is essential. "We don't have the money in our budget. We don't have enough personnel. If we can't get some overtime funding then we're gonna cover schools anyway and continue to cut back other services." But when he asked commissioners to extend additional funding in the overtime budget, Commission Chairman Lindsey Allison said, "I don't think we can go it alone to make for overtime at this time, knowing our budget, but I would like to sit at the table and know what other resources are available."
She also suggested where funding could be found. "There's also an item in his budget for overtime which currently has amount of $450,000." But Curry says more money is needed, so in the meantime nine deputies will remain in schools and off patrol to help ease the mind of parents like Bonnie Britt. "School should be one of the safest places for kids to be."
Sheriff Curry says "When you have someone that comes with that evil intent, that's when it takes a person who is trained, qualified and capable and has made the commitment they're not going to let this happen."
He is meeting with school leaders next month and Commission Chairman Lindsey Allison would like a board member to be there. Curry says a plan was presented in 2003 to put a deputy in all 11 schools, but it was not accepted.


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Zest for Life Value Tapestries are smaller, thinner, and a lighter-weight 100% cotton, packaged in a polybag. At half the price of our regular tapestries, they are a real bargain for the margin-conscious shopper. Some designs are classic and traditional; some are original Zest for Life designs.
All of these designs are great sellers at festivals, musical events, college towns, flea markets, and online. The prices can't be beat.


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Chevrolet Repair Questions? Ask a Chevy Mechanic for Answers ASAP
is the bearing hub one piece (inner and outer bearing)? if so shouldn't I be able to put it in a press and push the hub thru the rotor?
Yes we have the caliper off and have removed the hub with the rotor still in place.
will the hub press out from the back of the rotor?
If so I have a press and will try that while shocking with a hammer.
the press did the trick. I just learned that folks that work in buses, pull the axle and use it as a ram to drive out the studs. Problem is it ruins the studs.
Once the studs are out the hub falls out!


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Butter London 3 free Lacquer - Jaffa 11ml
Jaffa Nail Lacquer from Butter London does not contain the chemicals toluene, formaldehyde or DBP. 3 Free Nail Lacquer provides your nails with a luxurious, vivid colour that does not fade over time. The jaffa nail lacquer is s juicy orange colour, seedless, but potent as Hell.


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This week we've been featuring African Americans in the world of Ballet. Today's feature is a beautiful, graceful young woman whose journey is both heartbreaking and filled with wonderful promise.
Michaela DePrince
Against all odds, Michaela DePrince, once an orphan in war-torn Sierra Leone, is now a ballerina. The 17-year-old has appeared on Dancing With The Stars and is featured in First Position, a documentary that follows the pressures faced by six talented dancers as they compete for a spot in an elite dance company or school. DePrince is completing her last year at American Ballet Theatre's prestigious Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in New York City and wants to bring more diversity to the ballet world.
Michaela competed against 5,000 young dancers two years ago in the prestigious Youth America Grand Prix, where the most talented young dancers in the world are chosen to compete for the ultimate prize, a spot in a top ballet school.
Michaela had a tougher journey than most to get there. Born in the war-torn African country of Sierra Leone, she was orphaned after her parents were killed in the civil war. Michaela was placed in an orphanage where she developed a big dream.
"In the orphanage, I found a magazine that had a ballet dancer on point with a pink tutu. I saved it, and I thought to myself if I ever got adopted, I wanted to become just like this," she said.
But the dream seemed almost too big to come true. She was the little girl no one wanted, called "Devil Child" and rejected over and over again because she has a skin condition called vitalago, which caused irregular white splotches on her dark skin. Then one day Elaine DePrince and her husband Charles of Cherry Hill, Pa., arrived and changed then-4-year-old Michaela's life.
"So I was in the process of adopting one child, and I heard that there was another child they couldn't find placement for because she was spotted. So we decided to take her, too," Elaine DePrince said.
Michaela quickly enrolled in ballet class and by the time she was 5 years old she was a dedicated dancer willing to put her body through incredible pain. During the shooting of the documentary, which was directed by Bess Kargman, Michaela suffered a possible career ending injury. Advised not to dance, she went through with her Grand Prix performance, despite the pain and the risks.
Following this dream hasn't been easy. Along the way, Michaela has had to battle racism within the ballet world. "When I was eight, I was cast to play Marie in The Nutcracker, and I prepared hard for it. But right before the show, I was told that someone else would be dancing the part because 'people aren't ready for a black Marie,' " she recalls. She seriously considered quitting ballet until she got the chance to see black dancer Heidi Cruz perform with The Pennsylvania Ballet. "I was like, Wow, she's amazing! She inspired me to keep dancing," Michaela says.
At five feet four and a half inches, Michaela is shorter and more muscular than the "typical" ballerina, and a teacher once told her she didn't have the body to be a professional dancer—a common bias against black ballerinas. "Many people believe that black women shouldn't be ballet dancers, because they think we don't have classic ballet bodies," Michaela says. "I was once told black dancers don't have good feet, so I worked hard to make my feet have a classical line. Now people don't say that to me anymore."
In addition, the lack of diversity in the ballet world is all too clear whenever she gets new costumes or shoes. While pink and white are the standard colors for balletwear (designed to blend with fair skin), they clash with Michaela's ebony complexion, so her mom often hand-dyes her pointe shoes and costume straps a deep brown. Despite these challenges, Michaela's determined to press on, saying, "I want to inspire other girls who wish to pursue ballet." She also credits her parents' support for giving her the courage to go after her goal. For her performance at YAGP in 2007, her mom created a tutu from an old wedding gown (just one of the many costumes she's made), and it remains Michaela's favorite piece. "She hand-stitched 1,000 tiny crystals onto it! I felt like a princess," she says.
It has all paid off. Michaela said she remains determined to be a prima ballerina. One day, she said, she will dance as the White Swan.
Taken from Teen Vogue, ABC News, and The Grio.
Here are two videos via CNN profiling Michaela:


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Bruin Blue Team Tied for Second Entering Final Round
Feb. 28, 2005
The UCLA Blue Team was tied for second place entering the final round at the 6th Annual Cougar Invitational, hosted by Cal State San Marcos at San Luis Rey Downs Golf Course in Bonsall, CA.
The Bruins posted a team score of 580 (+12) and were tied with Holy Names University for second place. Host Cal State San Marcos led the field at 565 (-3). Point Loma Nazarene was fourth at 585.
Individually, UCLA sophomore Chris Heintz was tied for eighth place at 144 (+2) after posting rounds of 73-71. Freshmen Brandon Christianson and Craig Leslie were tied for 13th at 145 (+3) after rounds of 74-71. Freshman Mike Marshall was tied for 15th at 146 (+4) after carding a pair of 73s.
Garrett Dagg of CS San Marcos was the leader in the clubhouse at 139 (-3) after rounds of 69-70.
The final round continues Tuesday.
Football: Nevada at Washington StateTODAY | 1:00pm PTLive
Football: Football Pre-Game ShowTODAY | 2:00pm PTLive
Football: Oregon at Arizona StateTODAY | 3:00pm PTLive
Airing on:


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New to the Forum + a Question
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Friday, July 20, 2012 at 04:34PM
: New to the Forum + a Question
Hi Everyone,
I am new to the forum (but not to the site!) and had a question... I'm a Grad student working on a project for a marketing (new product marketing) class and needed to find women with naturally curly hair to fill out an
survey about their hair-care habits and needs.
I'm NOT advertising, NOT selling anything or promoting anything.
It is just a 15 min questionnaire about what products we use on our hair, how we use them, and what we think of a new product concept (there is one concept board). Do you know if it is ok to post the survey link on the forum? I couldn't tell from the guidelines if that is permitted and didn't want to get kicked out
Thanks, either way!


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With twin-stitched main seams and interior Kevlar® reinforcement, the Ablaze Tech Denim is a hard-wearing and durable technical jean incorporating a versatile knee protection system to enable customization for differing leg lengths. Cut for comfort, on and off the bike, these jeans feature an anatomically optimized pre-shaped leg construction.
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JERUSALEM (Oct. 19)
Israeli officials expressed great satisfaction today with a statement issued yesterday by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France condemning the Soviet education head tax demanded of Jews seeking to emigrate. The officials noted that the statement, by a forum of major significance, came at a time when the Soviet Union is interested in fostering closer ties with Europe.
The statement expressed "grave concern at the intended practice of the (Soviet) government to demand reimbursement by Soviet citizens taking up permanent residence abroad of State expenses in their education." The statement pointed out that the Soviet measure was "all the more regrettable in view of the forthcoming conference on European security and cooperation which is to deal, among other things, with the free movement of ideas, information and persons between East and West." The Council statement urged all member governments to "make fresh representations" to Moscow to abolish the visa head tax
A hand grenade was thrown at an Israeli civilian vehicle in Raffah this morning. No casualties were reported. Security forces are investigating the incident.


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NBA Street Vol. 2
Review by EliteMan
"The Undisputed Sports Multiplayer Champion."
Hardcore fans will remember the first roll of Street, take one look at the sequel, then kiss its predecessor goodbye. Anything and everything that wasn't acceptable in the first Street has been perfected and polished. For example, trick moves in the first were unstoppable and too lame to not be ridiculous; now there's plenty of flashy tricks that can now be countered resulting in a steal. I know I've said that NBA Live 2003 was the best basketball simulator, and I remain with that statement that it IS the best SIMULATOR. Street Vol. 2 is hands down the best non-sim basketball out there.
There basically isn't any real storyline in Vol. 2, but a pleasing Be a Legend mode takes care of that. The player gains a reputation while they make progress through each of some major streetball cities. Reputation can grow so high from progress that it gains its own levels and grants the player a new ranking such as Superstar. I also suppose that just beating the game would make a terrific story for your grandkids...
The menus have a retro classy look that truly brings the essence of old school basketball. Usually the better tunes occupy your speakers while selecting what to do, and vibrant colors highlight every word you see. Some Create a Player and Team sections are a bit difficult to coordinate for the beginner, but still well organized for someone who knows what they're doing. All in all, nothing looks ''normal'' and every part, every menu, every word, every letter has its own originality.
Unrivaled by any other sports style out there, Vol. 2's streetball can even take the first Street veterans by surprise. The so many different things to do while playing always keeps the mind and focus busy. The extremely swift play along with tracking the ball with your eye holds any realism pasted to the game. Ballers jump high enough for any people that have ever dreamed of flying before. There are much more trick moves and some so incredible that you probably never would have imagined. Shooting is fair by the stats, but some block parties that come your way can be very frustrating to a novice player. Dunking is what everybody orders, and the amount of gourmet slams to do is almost endless. Blocking is more fair in Vol. 2 because of the requirement for the hands to be in the exact same spot as the ball. Stealing is a very fun addition to the game and never enough or too much of it goes down. Alley-oops stamp the streetball logo on this game with numerous passing available for the ultimate oops. Along with many different dunks in the game, ways to shoot have been excelled since Street. Hella far hookshots, power thrust shots, and silk smooth layups are always in your arsenal.
I'm sure many wish that a PS version would unashamedly come out with four controllers and at least claim they didn't copy Nintendo products. Even though only two players without a Multitap can ball at a time, there's still equally skilled CPU opponents/teammates to play by your side. Now in Vol. 2, team oops (alley oops) can be called for so you can be the one ooped now. Solid team factors are a major part of Street's foundation of excellence, which is why moving the ball around never looked so good. The options that both players can roll on the same team or go head to head retains the rugged rivalry that the first Street gave birth to that hasn't been seen this well stood since early Mortal Kombat arcade games.
The gigantic load of modes to play and extras to unlock boosts many more hours of gaming. Just viewing a part of the mammoth sized menu of items to be unlocked can leave the rookie speechless. Just about every thing imaginable to get to use is able to unlock. The only problem I have here is that a lot of the same stuff costs very similar, taunting you to just buy one and maybe the others are just like it. Hundreds of thousands of possible Create a Player and Create a Team configurations can be made, making your jaw drop even lower.
Though Vol. 2 has taken a much needed step in graphical modifications, another stair or two wouldn't have hurt. The faces, bodies, limbs, and animation physics are more detailed, but maybe not quite enough to satisfy most picky gamers today. (like me) Shots landing and dunks rockin' the rim needn't any more improvement except a more realistic effect and not the same up and down bounce that would only be seen on a rubber hoop.
Yes, there's another pesky commentator in this Street chapter. Although a completely different person and voice, the new Bobbita Garcia is just as annoying and idiotic as Joe the Show, if not then worse. About half the tracks are creamy to ears, but the other half will make you want to quit. FAST. You either have to learn the names of each one you like/dislike, or you could lose patience and just turn all those puppies off. This section was given a high rating by me only because the music and sound in Vol. 2 is very clear, even though occasionally irritating. More sounds for each effect like dribbling could vary once and a while, not to mention the usual exact same swishing sound. Where's the one of a kind chain net clink sound?
The energy built up to defeat the NBA's best teams or the hunger to gain more Reward, Development, and Progress Points to unlock dozens of extras, will bring you back like a magnet. Most people will only stop playing if they begin to lose or actually complete everything in the game. Personally, I think if this game went online, it would set a record for time played.
With minor scratches in its gold plating, Vol. 2 brings a new level of gaming entertainment that hasn't been this great since NFL Blitz titles. Even with the seriousness of streetball, any person that isn't a sports fan can easily be addicted for life. This one is for everyone and anyone who's willing to have fun.
Reviewer's Rating: 5.0 - Flawless
Originally Posted: 07/08/03, Updated 07/08/03
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DURHAM — NC State broke the scoring open in its second game of the ACC Baseball Championship, despite not hitting a ball out of the infield in the top of the second inning.
The four-run frame paved the way for a 7-1 victory over Miami, setting up a rivalry contest with North Carolina at 7 p.m. Saturday, where the winner will advance to the ACC Championship game.
"I thought for the second game in a row, we played extremely well, but I guess I could have said that for the last 30 games," coach Elliott Avent said. "We've played really good baseball; at times, better than others. The last 30 games, we've played good, and then these last two games, I thought we played really well."
After a walk and pair of bunts, the Wolfpack pushed across their first run with two outs in the second, thanks to an infield single from designated hitter Jake Armstrong. The Pack then made it 2-0 on a fielding error by Miami before All-American shortstop Trea Turner knocked in two more on a hit that never left the infield.
"You get lucky sometimes," Turner admitted. "Sometimes, hits fall your way and you end up with a lot of infield singles, I know I had one or two today. I think our speed puts a lot of pressure on the other team and I'd say we got lucky, but we do get some credit because of our speed."
The four runs were all that State would need, thanks to five shutout innings from its bullpen.
The Hurricanes got on the board with their only run of the game in the bottom of the third inning, thanks to a bases loaded walk that scored second baseman Alex Hernandez, who also made some stellar plays on defense. It was the only time that Pack starting pitcher Logan Jernigan was touched up - he threw more than four innings and allowed just four hits.
NC State extended their lead with a run in both the top of the fifth and sixth innings. A pair of walks led to an RBI single from Adametz and then Logan Ratledge scored the following inning on a sacrifice fly from catcher Brett Autin.
The Pack tacked on their final run in the top of the ninth inning with an RBI double from Adametz that scored center fielder Brett Williams.
After Jernigan gave way to the bullpen, Andrew Woeck, who was credited with the victory, pitched three shutout innings while allowing just one baserunner via a walk. Ryan Wilkins and Chris Overman both pitched an inning without allowing any runs to cross the plate.
Adametz and Turner led the way for NC State on offense with three hits and two RBI apiece, and Adametz extended the ACC's longest active hitting streak to 14 games. Ratledge reached base at every plate appearance and scored twice, while third baseman Grant Clyde also crossed the plate twice.
The winner of NC State vs. UNC will advance to the ACC Championship contest, which will be played at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Durham Bulls' Athletic Park.
"It will be a great game tomorrow night," Avent said. "Two great ball clubs, it will be a packed house. We're just trying to keep going and get better every day."


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COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Nov. 1, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ANNOUNCEMENT NO 10 - 2010 1 November 2010 Sale of two dry bulk newbuildings TORM has entered into an agreement to sell the two Kamsarmax dry bulk newbuildings TORM Karen and TORM Kate. Both vessels are planned to be delivered to TORM in Q1 2011. The newbuildings have been sold for a total consideration of USD 90 million with a total net loss of USD 16 million. The newbuildings are expected to be delivered to the new owner in the first quarter of 2011, where the effect of the transaction will be recognised in the financial statements. "We consider timing of the sale to be attractive given the large number of new vessel deliveries in the coming years. Going forward we expect that the continued volatile dry bulk market will offer many interesting opportunities which we are ready to exploit," says CEO Jacob Meldgaard. Following the sale of the vessels, TORM's owned fleet consists of 68 product tankers and two dry bulk vessels. In addition, TORM has seven product tankers and two dry bulk vessels on order. About TORM TORM is one of the world's leading carriers of refined oil products as well as a significant player in the dry bulk market. The Company runs a fleet of approximately 140 modern vessels in cooperation with other respected shipping companies sharing TORM's commitment to safety, environmental responsibility and customer service. TORM was founded in 1889. The Company conducts business worldwide and is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. TORM's shares are listed on NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen (Copenhagen:TORM) and on NASDAQ in New York (Nasdaq:TRMD). For further information, please visit www.torm.com. Safe Harbor Forward Looking Statements Matters discussed in this release may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements reflect our current views with respect to future events and financial performance and may include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions, including without limitation, Management's examination of historical operating trends, data contained in our records and other data available from third parties. Although TORM believes that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond our control, TORM cannot assure you that it will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections.
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Did You Get What You Wished For This Holiday?
Whether you celebrated Hanukkah earlier this month or are enjoying Christmas today, I bet you had a present or two to unwrap. Did you receive whatever you wanted most? Or did you get more happiness from fulfilling someone else's biggest wish?