Paprium: The Official Thread Mk 2

[otobo]

Just to let everyone know, I'm currently aiming to launch my review on January 12th... assuming anyone would be interested that is lol

Can't wait for it, after the documentary, it would be like the climax of the story... "The end?"

[Devil N]

Regarding the discussion on how to get the "best" ending... I was grinding a little earlier today to collect some lives and Blu pills, so I went through the Mid Levels a couple of times through to the Police HQ, where I have Alex throned. Every time I arrived there, she gave me a different mission to complete.

Now when I load up my save I notice there are three green flags and a checkmark on Alex's throne:



Meanwhile the throne that Dice is on just has grey flags, as I haven't played through the Low Levels again yet.

Wouldn't it make sense if you had to a) throne all three lower levels and b) complete all the extra missions for those paths in order to qualify for the "real" ending? It seems more logical to me and feels more like properly "clearing the game" rather than some arbitrary requirement for difficulty level and/or Blu pill usage.

On a sidenote, has anyone noticed this?



It briefly pops up every now and then in-between stages. I wonder if it literally means there's a heat problem, or if it's just waiting for the VDP to clear up some internal state or something.

[crazyteknohed]

Hallelujah! Mine has made it to UK shores... update on the GLS tracking website a couple of hours ago. Buzzing!!

[SEGA-Jorge]

Regarding the discussion on how to get the "best" ending... I was grinding a little earlier today to collect some lives and Blu pills, so I went through the Mid Levels a couple of times through to the Police HQ, where I have Alex throned. Every time I arrived there, she gave me a different mission to complete.

Now when I load up my save I notice there are three green flags and a checkmark on Alex's throne:



Meanwhile the throne that Dice is on just has grey flags, as I haven't played through the Low Levels again yet.

Wouldn't it make sense if you had to a) throne all three lower levels and b) complete all the extra missions for those paths in order to qualify for the "real" ending? It seems more logical to me and feels more like properly "clearing the game" rather than some arbitrary requirement for difficulty level and/or Blu pill usage.

On a sidenote, has anyone noticed this?



It briefly pops up every now and then in-between stages. I wonder if it literally means there's a heat problem, or if it's just waiting for the VDP to clear up some internal state or something.

I think you got this right. I was noticing this on my playthrough's as well. I have 2 thrones, and when I revisit those I can do 'missions' for that character. I also got a 'KTV Card' from another boss, (That fat monster that is on the ship) when you beat him you can thrown, and he gives you the KTV Card, which I assume you have to use to access the highest level, but I imagine you have to throne the other areas. I assume beating the missions will help with that. But I think that the "true" ending more than likely requires you unlock the hardest difficulty, and beat original on that.

That being said, The little paprium crosses, I think are like saving people in Golden Axe III. You can gain up to 4, then they reset. The fourth guy says thank you. I swear I got a free life on the fourth.

Also, I might be just seeing things, but I swear my characters are getting stronger. I can beat the first level boss REALLY fast.

[nihilblack]

I was playing this afternoon trying to understand those little crosses, and they definitely give you an entra life when you rescue the fifth guy (that's four croses on screen, and another one to get the extra life and reset the crosses).

[SEGA-Jorge]

I was playing this afternoon trying to understand those little crosses, and they definitely give you an entra life when you rescue the fifth guy (that's four croses on screen, and another one to get the extra life and reset the crosses).

that's exactly how it works in Golden Axe 3... lulz

[Gadispalembang]

I'm not convinced because looking through some different schematics, I will see that 100pF capacitor
in different locations, such as the VA3 Model 2 Genesis. That and the value of the capacitor may very well
be important in this case, as every schematic I've seen which does include the component is rated 100pF.


There are a few other pins I'd consider looking at, but that one pin being directly connected to the cartridge
port (And I did check, Paprium does connect to that pin. Only a few pins are left unused) is what immediately
caught my interest, considering Paprium utilizes the Sega CD and it appears to function when there is one
attached, to some extent.

[Devil N]

That being said, The little paprium crosses, I think are like saving people in Golden Axe III. You can gain up to 4, then they reset. The fourth guy says thank you. I swear I got a free life on the fourth.

I was playing this afternoon trying to understand those little crosses, and they definitely give you an entra life when you rescue the fifth guy (that's four croses on screen, and another one to get the extra life and reset the crosses).

Yeah I noticed that too. Freeing the tied up guys adds one cross above your life bar, and freeing a fifth will give you an extra life. The crosses carry over between playthroughs as well. That seems to be the only purpose for those tied up enemies.

So the ways to gain extra lives appear to be: points (though your score is only visible on the stage cleared screen so it's a little hard to gauge exactly when you get them), freeing five tied up enemies, and the bonus life powerup at the start of each final stage.

Also there's a cheeky bonus life hidden right in the very first room of Block 888, in the lower left corner behind the bed.

I also got a 'KTV Card' from another boss, (That fat monster that is on the ship) when you beat him you can thrown, and he gives you the KTV Card, which I assume you have to use to access the highest level, but I imagine you have to throne the other areas.

Yeah you need the KTV Card to get past the Glori KTV stage and into the final stages. You also need to defeat Murdock and claim the Police HQ throne to be able to travel from MTS to Sky Spa. I'm not sure if the Bhopal B2 throne unlocks anything significant; I unthroned that one so I could play with Tug again and it doesn't seem to have restricted my movement in any way.

Also technically you don't need to have the Police HQ throned to get to the Skyline levels because unlocking Ba Ba and activating the NX Terminals allows you to warp directly to the Juvenium stage.

Also, I might be just seeing things, but I swear my characters are getting stronger. I can beat the first level boss REALLY fast.

I don't think that's the case. It's just experience, knowing the bosses' patterns and how to cheese the enemy AI. Some bosses are really easy if you just push them in a corner and keep hammering at them.

[Iced Snowman]

My Paprium pre-order was completed on March 20, 2012. Since that time, 3 out of my 4 children have been born. On Dec 13, 2020, I received 2 emails from WM's MAGICAL GAME FACTORY - PY INVESTOR & the PAPRIUM one. I logged back into the Magical Game Factory and noticed my gems were NOT converted into the pre-order. I thought I did that nonsense years ago. Anyway, it allowed me to convert the 500 gems into the Investor USA edition. I've submitted two help questions, but the response time keeps getting bumped up. Now its at 79 hours. I have no idea if WM still has my shipping address from when I ordered Pier Solar, but I've moved since then. Has anyone else run into the gem conversion issue? Did you eventually get an email or your question(s) answered?

[Iced Snowman]

I didn't ask for a refund. However, I did get an email from WM Game Factory, but it talked more about them opening a new Paypal account, how the game was still coming (it was referred to as project Y in the email), and the need to convert GEMS if you haven't done so already.

So it sounds like at least two different emails are going out.

Text of email:

PY investor, you are grandmaster of patience!
You should receive a couple of emails in the next few hours.

The game ... is ... there! Surely it's not perfect but it's still couple of steps ahead of anything made before.
I understand it was a long and scary wait but we decided to put all our effort into making the game happen.

As you may know, we have been scammed by PayPal and had to shut down everything down to our email server for the last three years. For the details, PayPal operate many branches under the same name so we opened a new Paypal Account in USA/IOWA and hopefully this will help.

Unfortunately the MGF concept, while ahead of its time, had too few resources to be properly implemented, most of the other projects we had outsourced/backed or planned didn't come to fruition and the concept is way too complicated when you look at the flatness of websites like kickstarter. I did now cut off all the features and pages related to the factory to avoid further spam, confusion and stupidity. I don't have any regret about making the pages back then and deleting them now.

More details is enclosed in each copy of the game, for you to read.
PS: For the (very few) of you who did rage-quit, you're still in the game and thanks anyway.

If you didn't do that before, you MAY still need to convert your invested GEMS into Pre-Orders, if not already, please sign-in, go to your profile, projects section and click the PAPRIUM project link. If you still have GEMS to convert, it will open a small window about it. I'll get back to you later and ensure your generated preorders gets shipped as well.

Thanks again,
Fonz
WATERMELON TEAM


Edit: Another thing. The WM MGF site let me go in and update my address (which was very needed).
Looks like it'd be a good idea (assuming you still care) to go in and re-verify your pre-order.

Where were your able to update your address?

[Joe Redifer]

I just wanna know how to unlock the jukebox (aka sound test). It says it unlocks once your score is over (hex) 160000. But he gives the number in real numbers instead of that hex shit. So I'm not sure what I need to do. My score is 19DF4C and I have no clue what that even means. To me that looks waaaaaaaaaay higher than 160000. So what other bullshit must I do and where is the sound test? Also why does it take 40 hours to unlock? By then I won't wanna listen to the game any more.

[chilled]

when you punch someone in real life it's not particularly loud heh...

note to self: do not argue with AggroSky regarding anything retrogaming.

Also if Fonzie wanted to mimic the 90s experience the most (I see even Mr. Redifer -would make for a great mid-level boss name on amb96 by the way- got fonzie-fied regarding dithering), he should have explained in the manual all that is being talked in the last pages, with just a spoiler warning. I mean all those are huge game mechanics which are not even mentioned in the slightest neither in the manual nor anywhere else. I do recall reading manuals BITD where they explained all the moves, gameplay features in such detail you felt they were just adding filler text at some point, ie yeah I got it, button B punches in different ways depending on your position in the screen, got it, don't write it like it was 5 different moves I can pull of

[matteus]

Reported via twitter:

Mega Drive Model 1 HAA-2510 (Japan) - doesn't work even with 32X attached (hangs on first screen)

[Devil N]

Obscurity and opaqueness is about what I'd expect from a game designed by Fonzie. Granted, I do have various games from the era in my collection that fail to explain key gameplay mechanics in their manuals, so it's not entirely unprecedented or unauthentic. But it also just seems to me like a very deliberate design choice on Fonzie's part; he *wants* people to be confused at first, to explore and observe, and to gradually discover how the game works by themselves. Rather than just explaining everything up front and having everyone rush straight for the main prize.

The only problem I have with this philosophy in this game in particular is that you kinda *need* to unlock the secret characters to get the full experience. If you claim all three thrones you don't have anyone left to play with, so you need the extra characters in order to get everything done while also keeping hold of the thrones. And by virtue of being secret characters, they're hidden and easy to miss, so you will likely need a guide to figure out how to get them. IMHO hidden characters should always be optional and not a requirement to get the true ending.

[Ryoandr]

HAA-2510 is the Model 1 as a whole. It goes from VA0 to VA7, it's not really helpful...