Valkyria Chronicles 4 coming to PlayStation 4/Xbox One/Switch in 2018

Holy shit I was not expecting that...

So I got Minerva gunned down by a sniper due to my carelessness, so I had Mabel try to rescue her.

Here comes our ever lovely Karen come to save the- SHE GOT SHOT WHAT THE FUCK `:eek:

Turns out there's an enemy sniper that's going to be shooting at medics in this mission so you can't rescue anyone until you kill him. I gladly obliged with some high explosive vengeance courtesy of Rebecca who had the AP to get to him. Nobody guns down Karen and gets away with it :mad:
 
Holy shit I was not expecting that...

So I got Minerva gunned down by a sniper due to my carelessness, so I had Mabel try to rescue her.

Here comes our ever lovely Karen come to save the- SHE GOT SHOT WHAT THE FUCK `:eek:

Turns out there's an enemy sniper that's going to be shooting at medics in this mission so you can't rescue anyone until you kill him. I gladly obliged with some high explosive vengeance courtesy of Rebecca who had the AP to get to him. Nobody guns down Karen and gets away with it :mad:

This was legit the only level so far that has given me any trouble on normal difficulty. And largely due to the shear number of imperial troops squirled away both in the back alleys and on the rooftops.

I also didn't even notice the hidden tank on my first play though. :p

Edit : Having played both V1 and V2 in the past. This entry in the series certainly seems to have brought more verticality into its level designs in general.
 
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Just brought VC4 on Steam, only 10% off but it's a good excuse as any I guess.

Coming into the beginning of the game as a veteran of the series (okay I only played VC1 but that's beside the point) reminds me that RNG on the sniper is painful as fuck and that apparently I'm taking more risks in pursuit of the vaunted A.
 
To be fair, when was the last time anything about that orange circle was anything but painful?

Plus of course one takes risks in pursuit of the A rank. We have no choice because the game expects nothing less than perfection regardless of how well the AI is doing against you.
 
Man, defense boost scouts are still needed to A-rank levels. Was kinda hoping I didn't have to pull out this cheesy tactic again.
 
Man, defense boost scouts are still needed to A-rank levels. Was kinda hoping I didn't have to pull out this cheesy tactic again.

They really aren't. I A-Rank most of my missions without so much as looking at the orders screen, if that's what you mean by Defense Boost.
 
Just going to copy and paste some stuff from SB so I can share my experiences with SV too . . .

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Just starting to play this and the opening narrative is already making me go, "Holy shit. How the fuck do you people expect to win?"

You have the main character wondering how the Federation is going to maintain the war effort with how much territory the Imps have already taken . . . The above mentioned narrative says this desperate counter-attack is being launched after the Imps have already taken seven-tenths of Europa.

Oh, and I hadn't really been keeping up on things in the lead up to the game being released. Forgot that you're Gallians again. Have to admit I was a little disappointed in this, even if they're Gallians serving in the Federation military.

============

Just wrapped up Chapter 2 after spending some time farming skirmishes for some quick, early exp and money . . . And getting my squaddies to Corporal.

Kind of confused about how the battle in that chapter ended.

How the fuck did Riley snipe those heavy tanks with the artillery? The stuff you do with the signal towers is just a reference to the date of a festival. They even tell you that the numbers aren't actually coordinates for the fire support to zero in on. At best the part where they make the bells ring would give them a message of "fire in this general area", but it sure as shit wouldn't allow for the pinpoint accuracy on display. But nope. The artillery is able to pop those tanks dead on without any collateral damage to the surrounding buildings.

Oh, and I kind of want to know sooner than later . . . Do they ever explain that nonsense with the wind? Or am I just going to have to treat it as straight up magical?

============

Well, I just cleared Chapter 4. I currently have all the soldier classes at Level 13 and all my soldiers are also at Corporal level.

I'm not going to lie, I was 100% expecting that chapter to be a shaggy dog story where despite your best efforts the Federation Army ultimately breaks against the Iron Wall and you're forced to retreat. Might have something to do with the lore of the game constantly bringing up how outmatched the Federation is in this conflict. Like, reading various weapon and glossary entries and the like . . . It's repeatedly said that the Empire has more manpower, more industry, and a more powerful military. That the only real advantage the Federation has over the Empire is that it has more money.

The Federation is goddamn lucky that this universe runs on anime logic and the Empire's enemies are the ones getting all the cliche anime protagonists.
 
Holy shit I was not expecting that...

So I got Minerva gunned down by a sniper due to my carelessness, so I had Mabel try to rescue her.

Here comes our ever lovely Karen come to save the- SHE GOT SHOT WHAT THE FUCK `:eek:

Turns out there's an enemy sniper that's going to be shooting at medics in this mission so you can't rescue anyone until you kill him. I gladly obliged with some high explosive vengeance courtesy of Rebecca who had the AP to get to him. Nobody guns down Karen and gets away with it :mad:

yeah as soon as that asshat showed up my mission became "kill the fuck out of this guy"
 
You have the main character wondering how the Federation is going to maintain the war effort with how much territory the Imps have already taken . . . The above mentioned narrative says this desperate counter-attack is being launched after the Imps have already taken seven-tenths of Europa.

Partly because they have their own North American continent in the form of the United States of Vinland who are also part of the Atlantic Federation. Which appears to be a cross between the EU and NATO.

Anyways, pretty close to the end right now and I've got to admit I'm mixed on this installment. Gameplay was almost exactly what I wanted from a VC game, including the cheaper movement cost for my tank.

Story was . . . Not terrible, only a bit more anime than the original's plot actually, but I feel like this was trying too hard to force its plot to follow a WWII track rather than letting it flow more naturally.

The Cygnus fleet is delivering ragnite powered A-Bombs to the Imperial Capital'
 
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Huh. Didn't know they were actually part of the Federation, but looking around it seems they're only providing weapons to the war effort rather than actually fighting in it.
 
So. Finished the game last night and overall . . . I liked it. With some caveats.

I feel like the game fell a little short of its potential. Especially after that glorious open field mission in the early quarter. Few of the later missions really lived up to quite that level of scale once more. I also felt like a few too many mechanics were single mission gimmicks

- The sub commander mechanic was super appreciated, especially the ability to appoint Scouts to this role. It offers yet another means, besides the APC, to move foot soldiers long distances in a single turn with minimal CP cost. This was invaluable on multiple occasions to get shorter legged units like Grenadiers and Lancers where they needed to be. Or set set up a couple of freshly rested shocktroopers for an assault.

In fact, my only complaint about the mechanic is that I feel like their should have been one more command token per turn. Especially for larger maps to give players more flexibility. That said, I could see how this might make the game as designed somewhat broken and may well be the reason the mechanic was implemented as is.

- On the down side, Squad Orders still feel like a vestigial feature which goes under utilized. With the exception of first aid, medical evacuation, and rapid deployment, I think the orders went almost totally unused. Likewise with Ship Orders being mostly relegated to vehicle redeployments.

- Story wise . . . It had some ups and downs. Overall I feel like the tone stayed consistent from scene to scene with a few egregious exceptions relating to . . . spoilers. Among them, though far from the most significant, Kai's arc, or rather specific details of how Kai became Kai, were totally unnecessary, they contributed nothing, and just created a sort of added plot holes for no reason.

Incidentally this game has the most intensely anime antagonist in the form of Belgar. Normally I don't have a problem with this type of villain, the crazy immoral mad scientist, even if it is by now an anime cliche. But given that the game's director stated that he wanted a return to a more serious plot after VC 2 and 3 on the handheld systems . . . Belgar kind of spoils that I think.

Like, he's pretty clearly a villain created to drive the plot. He's not actually loyal to the Empire, which frees him to ignore the ceasefire and thus set up the final battles, and in fact really he just wants to light off a nuclear bomb, because science, and his bro crush on his fellow researcher who he murdered for not wanting him to set off a nuclear bomb.

Compare this to Maximilian in the first game who didn't get a lot of screen time yet managed in very few scenes to be a competent antagonist with far more relatable motives. A man cynically serving the Empire to advance his own political career.
 
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It's not like the other major VC scientist is great either, given how she's dumb Fem!Mengele. The games seem to have a hard time writing scientist villains who aren't OTT ridiculously anime-evil.
 
If I had one problem with the plot was that Kai/Forsetti never gets called out on his hypocritical treatment of Crymaria when compared to Angelica. that is all.
 
It's not like the other major VC scientist is great either, given how she's dumb Fem!Mengele. The games seem to have a hard time writing scientist villains who aren't OTT ridiculously anime-evil.

In defense, Foerstner comes from the PSP games which have somewhat more cartoonish plots. But at least she wasn't yandere Openheimer pining for Einstein . . . Who he also murdered.

If I had one problem with the plot was that Kai/Forsetti never gets called out on his hypocritical treatment of Crymaria when compared to Angelica. that is all.

That's actually one point that I found pretty brilliant, though I'm unsure if it was intentional, if Forsetti had extended the same concern to Crymaria he reserved for Angie, rather than writing her off as 'ruined' she probably would have pretty easily detained Angie when she came ashore and the entire situation could have been resolved to Forsetti's credit and benefit to the Empire.

His own obsession and mono-focus screwed him over.

Worst Kai's performance was pretty alright overall. I had more problem with Best Kai's whole Mulan routine. It didn't actually serve any purpose in the plot. Or at least not a purpose that couldn't have been served by something less contrived.

Which makes more sense . . .

Worst Kai comes up with some convoluted plan for his sister to trade places with him. With all the convoluted shenanigans of trying to hide the fact that she is very obviously a woman from anyone outside of Squad E. All so that nobody will notice Worst Kai is missing. Despite being explicitly noted as an outstanding soldier who the military has their eye on.

Then the whole plot point basically gets dropped.

Or . . .

Best and Worst Kai join Squad E at the same time as siblings, and Worst Kai then pulls his disappearing act out of the blue, without the same need for a deception so shoddily constructed it's liable to fall over any second.

I get the feeling it was supposed to illustrated Best Kai's initially childish obedience to her elder brother, going along with any ridiculous plan he came up with, but that could have been illustrated in so many other less silly ways.
 
Have played through Chapter 12.

It was interesting seeing just how quickly things went catastrophically wrong for Northern Cross. I mean, I was expecting Not-Barbarossa to fail eventually since they had to end up on those ice ships eventually, but I had originally assumed that multi-part battle with all the bunkers was going to be it. Them bouncing off the Iron Wall. But it fully embraced Barbarossa and had winter fuck them over. Or rather the lack of winter gear and tenuous supply lines.

Though I couldn't help but feel the sequence of events leading up to Squad E essentially being the only survivors was just a little contrived. Like, they just happen to stumble on a major supply depot. And not just any depot, but one feeding the Empire's invasion of Gallia, the homeland for most of the members of Squad E. And it just so happens that a blizzard rolls in at just the right time to give them the opportunity to raid it, given that they would have been forced to move on otherwise . . . And naturally hitting this depot delays them just long enough to not get massacred at the rendezvous point like the other squads did, arriving just in time to save the only two survivors of Squad F be saved in turn by the arrival of the ice ships.

Several things from then on make me wonder what the fuck these people think they're going to do.

As I understood it, Northern Cross was mostly a diversion. While the Empire was busy dealing with that offensive, the ice ships were going to sneak up on the Imperial capital. But the early winter fucked over Northern Cross and the ships diverted to pick up survivors to try to gather up enough forces for what is now a desperate Hail Mary . . . But almost everyone they were meant to pick up was killed, with however many squads they expected to pick up being reduced to one squad + two survivors of another.

Then they run into Crymaria and her holy shit levels of power, and she just fucking obliterates one of the ice ships and comes damn close to permanently crippling another with her magic missile barrage. The Feddies basically lose a third of the forces they were putting into this sneak attack on the Imperial capital. As far as they know, Crymaria could show up to do another barrage at basically any moment. Even before they discover who the spy is, they realize the enemy knows they're coming and what their ultimate objective is so they don't even have the element of surprise anymore. And despite all this, they're still like, "Yeah! We're going to take the Imperial capital! Because motherfucking friendship!"

And I'm just sitting there dumbfounded . . . Because they were shitting their pants over the idea of taking a fucking sea fort before that super convenient fog rolled in. And they think they're going to capture the CAPITAL CITY of the Not-Soviets?

Of the stuff I feel like commenting on . . . I guess I'll talk about the Kai stuff.

Kind of rubbed me the wrong way that "Good" Kai is forgiven so easily. "You got a bunch of people killed and put our mission at risk, but we're friends so fuck the consequences. Yay! Friendship!"

Everything about why "Good" Kai is pretending to be Evil Kai is silly. As was pointed out, the Federation military was paying special attention to Evil Kai. They tapped him for a top secret mission. And I'm pretty sure he got shot in the leg by Federation soldiers in the middle of going AWOL after learning what the power source for the ice ships were. So you'd think they'd still be paying close enough attention to spot that someone was trying to use their sister as a body double. Turns out, nope. The Federation military is just super dumb like that.

Oh, and I haven't really been feeling the Claude x Riley ship. And I actively deny the Raz x Kai ship.
 
Have played through Chapter 12.

It was interesting seeing just how quickly things went catastrophically wrong for Northern Cross. I mean, I was expecting Not-Barbarossa to fail eventually since they had to end up on those ice ships eventually, but I had originally assumed that multi-part battle with all the bunkers was going to be it. Them bouncing off the Iron Wall. But it fully embraced Barbarossa and had winter fuck them over. Or rather the lack of winter gear and tenuous supply lines.

Though I couldn't help but feel the sequence of events leading up to Squad E essentially being the only survivors was just a little contrived. Like, they just happen to stumble on a major supply depot. And not just any depot, but one feeding the Empire's invasion of Gallia, the homeland for most of the members of Squad E. And it just so happens that a blizzard rolls in at just the right time to give them the opportunity to raid it, given that they would have been forced to move on otherwise . . . And naturally hitting this depot delays them just long enough to not get massacred at the rendezvous point like the other squads did, arriving just in time to save the only two survivors of Squad F be saved in turn by the arrival of the ice ships.

Several things from then on make me wonder what the fuck these people think they're going to do.

As I understood it, Northern Cross was mostly a diversion. While the Empire was busy dealing with that offensive, the ice ships were going to sneak up on the Imperial capital. But the early winter fucked over Northern Cross and the ships diverted to pick up survivors to try to gather up enough forces for what is now a desperate Hail Mary . . . But almost everyone they were meant to pick up was killed, with however many squads they expected to pick up being reduced to one squad + two survivors of another.

Then they run into Crymaria and her holy shit levels of power, and she just fucking obliterates one of the ice ships and comes damn close to permanently crippling another with her magic missile barrage. The Feddies basically lose a third of the forces they were putting into this sneak attack on the Imperial capital. As far as they know, Crymaria could show up to do another barrage at basically any moment. Even before they discover who the spy is, they realize the enemy knows they're coming and what their ultimate objective is so they don't even have the element of surprise anymore. And despite all this, they're still like, "Yeah! We're going to take the Imperial capital! Because motherfucking friendship!"

And I'm just sitting there dumbfounded . . . Because they were shitting their pants over the idea of taking a fucking sea fort before that super convenient fog rolled in. And they think they're going to capture the CAPITAL CITY of the Not-Soviets?

Of the stuff I feel like commenting on . . . I guess I'll talk about the Kai stuff.

Kind of rubbed me the wrong way that "Good" Kai is forgiven so easily. "You got a bunch of people killed and put our mission at risk, but we're friends so fuck the consequences. Yay! Friendship!"

Everything about why "Good" Kai is pretending to be Evil Kai is silly. As was pointed out, the Federation military was paying special attention to Evil Kai. They tapped him for a top secret mission. And I'm pretty sure he got shot in the leg by Federation soldiers in the middle of going AWOL after learning what the power source for the ice ships were. So you'd think they'd still be paying close enough attention to spot that someone was trying to use their sister as a body double. Turns out, nope. The Federation military is just super dumb like that.

Oh, and I haven't really been feeling the Claude x Riley ship. And I actively deny the Raz x Kai ship.
The Claude x Riley ship is better expanded with the extra material you get in the post game and the Beach DLC which is kind of annoying from a certain point of view same with the Kai x Raz ship
 
As I understood it, Northern Cross was mostly a diversion. While the Empire was busy dealing with that offensive, the ice ships were going to sneak up on the Imperial capital. But the early winter fucked over Northern Cross and the ships diverted to pick up survivors to try to gather up enough forces for what is now a desperate Hail Mary . . .
[/SPOILER]

As mentioned ingame, Operation Cygnus was the Plan B should Operation Northern Cross fail for whatever reason, and in the event that Operation Cygnus did become the main plan Northern Cross would become the diversion op instead.
 
Have played up through Chapter 17 and am about to start a battle in Chapter 18 . . .

Honestly, I kind of already knew what the Federation was really planning to do with those ice breaker ships. Partially because of the spoilers mentioning the nuclear option, and partially because anyone that has played the first game knows about the Final Flame a Valkyria has access to. I mean, sure, the Federation managed to enhance it to create a bigger boom . . . But the simple fact that the ships use Valkyria as reactors kind of gives up the ghost. Especially because I've kind of been violently rejecting the idea that these chucklefucks had enough firepower to capture the Empire's goddamn capital. And I get the feeling that right up until he was told the truth about the operation, that idiot Claude seriously thought they were going to somehow capture the capital even after they were reduced to a single ship. This despite the fact that he shuts down the idea of liberating that one other city because the Empire would just gather up a big army and retake it within days.

Which is really the biggest weakness of the story. It's dogged insistence that hitting the Empire's capital will be some magical "I Win" button. That it's some load-bearing city, the loss of which will "destroy" the Empire. As though all their armies will just poof away in a puff of smoke instead of the Empire casually taking it back with the forces they had ready because they knew where you were fucking going. (Before the reveal, when the story was trying to sell the idea of capturing the city instead of destroying it.)

And yeah, the real plan wouldn't have been fun for the Empire. They'd definitely hate getting nuked. But the idea that even that would be enough to just insta-kill the Empire is fucking ridiculous. They knew you were coming and they knew that getting nuked was an option because that other ship self-destructed. You seriously think their leadership would still be there by the time Centurion got to blow itself up? The story even tells us they're scrambling to evacuate the city.

Like, the Empire's situation isn't the least bit comparable to Japan's own situation when it got nuked. The story flat out confirms that the Empire was winning the war. That the only reason it hadn't already ended in the Empire's favor is because the Empire refused to accept anything less than unconditional surrender. Instead the war ends with a ceasefire where millions of people died for nothing because everything goes back to the status quo.

I do admit, I'm curious what started this war. I know it's said that the first war was started because someone assassinated an Imperial prince, but I just can't recall the cause of the second war.

Other than that, the game has frankly hilarious levels of moral myopia. Like, some of the stuff the protagonists have bitched and moaned about invokes some giggle fits in the face of their willingness to sacrifice a little girl and kill millions with nuclear fire. But no worries. I'm not just ragging on them. Forseti is a whole other can of worms. Though seeing the truth of how he found out about those girls and got injured makes everything about the body double plan even more ridiculous.

The above stuff aside . . . I guess I have to ask the expected question.

Who did you pick for Chapter 16?

I picked Viola because pretty much everything I knew about her confirmed her as a piece of shit I wouldn't have to feel guilty about throwing under the bus. Maybe her "Where Is She Now?" epilogue would have revealed literally anything that might have changed my mind had I only known, but I'm feeling pretty doubtful.
 
Have played up through Chapter 17 and am about to start a battle in Chapter 18 . . .

Honestly, I kind of already knew what the Federation was really planning to do with those ice breaker ships. Partially because of the spoilers mentioning the nuclear option, and partially because anyone that has played the first game knows about the Final Flame a Valkyria has access to. I mean, sure, the Federation managed to enhance it to create a bigger boom . . . But the simple fact that the ships use Valkyria as reactors kind of gives up the ghost. Especially because I've kind of been violently rejecting the idea that these chucklefucks had enough firepower to capture the Empire's goddamn capital. And I get the feeling that right up until he was told the truth about the operation, that idiot Claude seriously thought they were going to somehow capture the capital even after they were reduced to a single ship. This despite the fact that he shuts down the idea of liberating that one other city because the Empire would just gather up a big army and retake it within days.

Which is really the biggest weakness of the story. It's dogged insistence that hitting the Empire's capital will be some magical "I Win" button. That it's some load-bearing city, the loss of which will "destroy" the Empire. As though all their armies will just poof away in a puff of smoke instead of the Empire casually taking it back with the forces they had ready because they knew where you were fucking going. (Before the reveal, when the story was trying to sell the idea of capturing the city instead of destroying it.)

And yeah, the real plan wouldn't have been fun for the Empire. They'd definitely hate getting nuked. But the idea that even that would be enough to just insta-kill the Empire is fucking ridiculous. They knew you were coming and they knew that getting nuked was an option because that other ship self-destructed. You seriously think their leadership would still be there by the time Centurion got to blow itself up? The story even tells us they're scrambling to evacuate the city.

Like, the Empire's situation isn't the least bit comparable to Japan's own situation when it got nuked. The story flat out confirms that the Empire was winning the war. That the only reason it hadn't already ended in the Empire's favor is because the Empire refused to accept anything less than unconditional surrender. Instead the war ends with a ceasefire where millions of people died for nothing because everything goes back to the status quo.

I do admit, I'm curious what started this war. I know it's said that the first war was started because someone assassinated an Imperial prince, but I just can't recall the cause of the second war.

Other than that, the game has frankly hilarious levels of moral myopia. Like, some of the stuff the protagonists have bitched and moaned about invokes some giggle fits in the face of their willingness to sacrifice a little girl and kill millions with nuclear fire. But no worries. I'm not just ragging on them. Forseti is a whole other can of worms. Though seeing the truth of how he found out about those girls and got injured makes everything about the body double plan even more ridiculous.

The above stuff aside . . . I guess I have to ask the expected question.

Who did you pick for Chapter 16?

I picked Viola because pretty much everything I knew about her confirmed her as a piece of shit I wouldn't have to feel guilty about throwing under the bus. Maybe her "Where Is She Now?" epilogue would have revealed literally anything that might have changed my mind had I only known, but I'm feeling pretty doubtful.
The hitting the Empire's Capital while it wouldn't have stopped all of there forces this is true but since the political powers would have been destroyed and the sheer moral loss at losing the capital would have weakened there forces to the point that the Federation could have more easily stopped the Empire.
Forseti yeah I have already said my piece about him so meh. As for dead characters well once you hit the post game you can revive all the dead characters for a fee.....except for Raz but he can be revived if you go through some hoops
 
Oh, I already know about that mechanic. I was just curious who people picked and why.

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Beat the game. Doing post-game stuff now. Happy to see Renown is retroactively rewarded. Had 99999 Renown. Now need to gather basically another 99999 to finish getting the stuff you use Renown to unlock.

Also had enough Exp that when I raised the level cap from 20 to 30 I was able to get all the classes to level 25. And enough money to get a decent chunk of the post-game R&D upgrades.
 
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My only story complaint was
The final thing with Worst Kai seemed contrived. By the time they meet him, he's basically already lost. Plus, he's a cripple. Just have Best Kai punch him in the face a few times, no need to shoot him. The Belgar's a failure thing was deliciously ironic though.
 
Finally got to play this game after fixing a graphics driver issue.

The ending was decently bittersweet first time around but they apparently locked the true ending behind hard mode. The cover of minstrel boy was pretty good.

Went with Zaiga as Raz's teammate since he's Raz's follower/right hand first and foremost but it was a harder choice than expected thanks to the squad stories.

Walz was a lot of fun as a rival but I can't say I'm too much of a fan of the romance angle with Crymaria since combined with her dependence issues it ain't great to say the least.

Nikola and Chiara were complete bullshit, especially the bit where one of them stood around for a solid 15 seconds getting shot in the face with a machine gun with zero ill effects.

Though I do have to say that it was kind of funny how by the end the whole "Kai could have got his way with way less drama for everybody involved if he didn't go about it in pretty much the stupidest way possible" thing was barely subtext.

On the gameplay side of things grenadiers were a great addition (even if they are just the worst thing outside of a super unit once put under AI control thanks to AI accuracy boosts) but the game still boiled down to cheesing with order stacking to counter super units in the final missions if you wanted to finish things quickly. Some things never change (god player lancers need a boost, they can't hit the broad side of a barn for most of the game or move fast enough to keep pace).

Now for the post-game content.
 
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