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implement the new and improved guide
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lelenium
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2 changed files with 105 additions and 71 deletions
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@ -11,91 +11,121 @@ const Guide = () => {
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<>
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<Header />
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<p className="guide-paragraph">
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<br /> A bit of a disclaimer - as stated on the main page, these are
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entirely my thoughts from observations while developing the game, some
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of the information may be innacurate. <br /> <br />
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First, let's get this out of the way - Serial Experiments Lain PSX isn't
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a "game" in a traditional sense, it's more like a visual novel which you
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piece together yourself. The story revolves around Lain and her
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interactions with her psychiatrist - Touko.
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<br /> <br />A common misconception about the game is that there's no
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specific order, and that you just randomly watch stuff and come up with
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an explanation yourself. From what I've noticed, this is not entirely
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true. Let me explain:
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Welcome to lainTSX: a web-based, open source, English recreation of the
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underappreciated 1998 PlayStation game <i>Serial Experiments Lain</i>.
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In an interview with character designer Yoshitoshi Abe, he said that the
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game started development before the far better known anime of the same
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name, which means that SEL was intended to be a mixed media project.
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Unfortunately, the game never took off as well as its television
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counterpart and ended up getting left in the dust. Although you could
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experience either the game or the anime first, the game will make more
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sense if you have seen the anime and not so much vise-versa.
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<br />
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<br />
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The blue orbs that you navigate through (we'll call those blue orbs
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"nodes" from now on) contain either:
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As for how to actually play lainTSX, that’s a bit trickier to explain.
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This isn’t really a video game and I’d even struggle to call it a visual
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novel (although it is closer to the latter). The “gameplay” revolves
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around selecting files in a menu and eventually getting to experience
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all of them.
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<br />
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<br />
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A. Media (audio/video)
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The file types are:
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<br />
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B. Collectibles
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Touko’s Diary (Tda) - Touko’s personal thoughts.
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<br />
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C. Upgrades
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Lain’s Diary (Lda) - Lain’s personal thoughts.
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<br />
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Counseling (Cou) - Interactions between Touko and Lain.
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<br />
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Diagnosis (Dia) - Touko’s diagnosis of Lain.
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<br />
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Digital Camera (Dc) - Video clips.
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<br />
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Polytan (P2) - parts of Lain’s bear, Polytan.
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<br />
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Saisei-kun (SSkn) - upgrades needed to access more nodes.
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<br />
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Gate Passes (GaTE) - upgrades needed to access Site B.
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<br />
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Talk (TaK) - Random quotes by Lain.
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<br />
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<br />
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There are also multiple "types" of nodes. You can tell them apart by
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their names and icons.
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<br />
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Here's a basic list of these nodes according to their names in their
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respective categories:
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<br />
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<br />A category (Media) - Tda, Lda, Dia, Cou, TaK, Dc
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<br />B category (Collectibles) - P2
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<br />C category (Upgrades) - SSkn, GaTE
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<br /> <br />
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Let's step through each of these one by one:
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At the beginning, you’ll see an odd and clunky hub with a bunch of blue
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orbs. This is the main menu, so you better get used to it. Those orbs
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are called nodes, and they each represent a specific file. Blue nodes
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haven’t been assessed yet and grey nodes have. If a node you already
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went through is still blue, that means you haven’t actually
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listened/watched all of it. There’s a progress bar on the top right of
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the screen which will show how far you are into the clip, so I recommend
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checking that before leaving the file.
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<br />
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<br />
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Category A - Media:
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<br /> Tda - Touko's diary - Touko's personal thoughts.
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<br />
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Lda - Lain's diary - Lain's personal thoughts.
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<br />
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Dia - Diagnosis - Lain's diagnosis after their interactions, provided by
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Touko.
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<br />
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Cou - Counseling - Lain and Touko's interactions.
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<br />
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TaK - Not sure what TaK stands for - Random quotes by Lain.
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<br />
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Dc - Videos.
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If you try to access a node by selecting it, there’s a good chance
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you’ll be greeted with an animation of Lain either knocking on the node
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with no result, knocking on the node and falling on her face, or getting
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shot at with lasers coming from the node. This is the only real puzzle
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that the game provides you with. What you need to do is access all the
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SSkn files in numerical order, meaning that you’re gonna have to search
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through four of these nodes starting from the very bottom of the map.
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There are also six P2 files, and after accessing them all you will
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unlock two more files. The GaTE files are the last collectable, and
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collecting all four will unlock Site B; Site B is another area that can
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be accessed by going to the menu and selecting “Change”, although I
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wouldn’t recommend doing this quite yet.
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<br />
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<br />
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This is where the no-real-order issue comes into play - each of these
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separate types are put in chronological order, meaning After Lda001
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comes Lda002, then Lda003, etc. This is identical for every other node
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type I mentioned. <br /> <br />
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What might lead some people to believe that there is no real order is
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that the way you UNLOCK them may not be entirely chronological, for
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example, the first node you'll most likely interact with from Tda is
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Tda028, since that's the closest to where you start from at the
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beginning of the game.
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<br /> <br />
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There's also another issue - despite these separate types being put in a
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specific order, it is unclear how they interact with each other. For
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example, there is no way (to my knowledge) to tell which Cou comes after
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which Lda judging by their names alone. What might help here are the
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"words" you select while you play them (on the right hand side there are
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3 floating things on each audio node which you can select).
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<br /> <br />
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Category B - Collectibles: <br />
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P2 - Polytan - You collect parts of Lain's bear, after you collect all
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the pieces, 2 extra idle media files become available.
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<br /> <br />
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Category C - Upgrades:
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Now that you have all these files at your disposal, you’re probably
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extremely overwhelmed. “Oh no,” you might be saying to yourself. “How
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will I be able to experience this story in a streamlined, linear order?”
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Try as much as you want to go in a straightforward path, but the game
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will constantly discourage you. There is no direct order to experience
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everything in, even with the individual files being numbered and each
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level being a direct progression from the last. Even having gone through
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all the collectibles and upgrades, there’s still a ton of stuff you
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haven’t yet unlocked. As you chug through the game, more and more files
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will pile up. On top of this, each audio file contains three key words
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of literal or thematic importance, and each word brings you to a file
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that will most likely be on a completely different level. I strongly
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believe that part of the artistic vision behind this game was to have
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players jump around the map and experience it in their own unique order
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through whichever key words or plot elements they find themselves most
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interested in. Take this however you want and go through the files in
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whatever way you find the most engaging. Personally, I took full
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advantage of this unique system and found myself loving the game even
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more for it. It becomes a bit tedious when you only have a few nodes
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left since you’re booted so often to files you’ve already gone through,
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so at that point I just directly exited out of files after listening to
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them and selected the blue node closest to me.
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<br />
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SSkn - Saisei-kun (roughly translates to Mr. Recovery) - The main
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upgrade inside the game. Some nodes have an "upgrade requirement" that
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you need to meet to be able to view them, the way you do that is by
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collecting these. So, the next time you see Lain try to knock on a node
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and fall over, know that you need to collect more SSkn nodes.
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<br />
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GaTE - Gate (I guess) - A "gate pass" as the game calls it - after
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collecting all of them, you unlock Site B, which contains more nodes and
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is the place where you continue the story.
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<br /> <br />
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Once every single node on all twenty-two levels has become gray, it’s
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time for you to go to Site B! This is a direct continuation of the story
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in Site A, and there are only thirteen levels this time around. There
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are no P2 or GaTE files in Site B, but you will have to find three more
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SSkn files before you can freely access everything you see. There’s also
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a one-shot manga called Serial Experiments Lain: The Nightmare of
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Fabrication that takes place sometime during the events of Site B, so
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you’re gonna want to read that.
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<br />
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<br />
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<br />
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Everything below this line is post-game, so you should have watched the
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ending before reading this final paragraph.
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<hr />
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After watching the final cutscene and pressing continue, you will be
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booted back to Site A. This time, there are a ton of added blue nodes!
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While some of these are useful or add to the story, there’s a new file
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type labeled TaK which is pretty much just a five-second quote from
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Lain. A majority of these new nodes are TaK files, making the post-game
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an absolutely tedious grind. If you want to unlock even more stuff, you
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will have to go through each and every one of these; there are
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one-hundred and twenty-one in total, counting those on both sites. After
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all your nodes are gray once again, watch the ending and you’ll get the
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remaining nodes—sixty-one of which are more TaK files. You get very,
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very few important files. If you grind your way through all of these and
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watch the ending once again, you’ll get… nothing. This is it. You’re
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done. Yeah, the post-game isn’t great to say the least, so you decide if
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you’re Lain enough to complete it.
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</p>
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</>
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);
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@ -94,6 +94,10 @@ const MainPage = () => {
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name={"Magikarp"}
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credit={"Provided initial models for the rings."}
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/>
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<Credit
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name={"The God of Kino"}
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credit={"Writing the guide."}
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/>
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<Credit
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name={
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"mutronics, lelenium, Lorenzo, elliotcraft79, Nichts, Mikix, shemishtameshel, espilya, Yokuba, oo, Shuji, Bunbuns, claire, Eternofímero, Cal, Cena"
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