Intially just for the Homeworks, but its possible to be filled with my personal projects as well. If you want to look for the Home Button, please click the name of this blog above.
Hello, sorry for returning with another Old Recorder. Something that has been on YouTube for months but I decided to put on the Blog now. I called this track Red Sparrow Windtunnel, named after the Red Sparrow YouTube Channel, specifically I got inspired from its video of attempting to take a plane through nine tunnels on the whole map. I connected all tunnels into one massive circuit.
I tested it on a run to go through all of this and it took me at least 20 minutes in the fastest supercars. It’s so long that I split it into several sections (separated by the yellow lines except for the one near Del Perro Tunnel (that one is the Pitstop) There are 16 possible variants of this track not including the main one, and these are separated by Major Sections; Fort Zancudo, Blaine County (the one extending through Sandy Shores and Vinewood Hills), North LS from Mirror Park to Del Perro, Pillbox Hill, Little Seoul, and Mount Chiliad.
Dark Red line is the main layout, Yellow is the major sections of the track and the backbone of the best of the variants, and Beige is for minor variants and also original sections and connectors in unique variants. My personal favorite among the variants had to be the Blaine County and also the North Los Santos (which I dubbed the Black Eagles Track). Yes, all variants have Avian theme naming… and also flying creatures. The starting line is on the Runway of Fort Zancudo.
Note: Beware of the lag, not fast loading time, as well as the framedrops because this is an old recording and I cannot rerecord AND reupload the footage. Surprisingly, I only crashed at minor spots, though the Paleto Forest Section is pretty bad. Oh, and also the weird coloring here. That one is intentional though to give a spooky feeling because I recorded this during the Area 51 Raid.
“Did you ever want to go under the bridge in less than 20 minutes without any aircraft, allowed? Well, welcome to the Windtunnel. Named after the famous Aerobatic Crew in GTA, Red Sparrows, this track allows you to go speed through all tunnels with the speed and flow of a Windtunnel through the Downforce of your car. There is the Zancudo Tunnel, Gallieo Tunnel, the SA Avenue Underpass, the Integrity Tunnel, One of the Rockford Plaza Twnins, the Seoul Parkade Corridor, the Del Perro Tunnel, the Chiliad Wild Darkness, and the Braddock Tunnel. You can also enjoy the tour of the entire county save for the outskirts and Tongva Valley as well. This track also contains 16 variants, most notably Zancudo Besra GP, Raptor Morning Glory 24h, Black Eagles GP and its extension Gargoyle Strikeforce, and also Chiliad Locusts. There’s also several pitstops at Route 68, top of Del Perro Tunnel, and also on Sandy Shores.”
“From the Red Arrows, came the Red Sparrows, and from the latter’s actions, came the Windtunnel. Behold, a circuit that traverse all sides of the country, diving through all perils through tunnels. All of that are basked in the scenery of freedom like a true sparrow but with the speed of an arrow. Only the best that can endure such track, but you’ll know this will be an exhilarating journey. Well, it’s time to fly. Also available in 4 alternative major portions with 16 variants. Pitstops are at Route 66 Gas Station, Del Perro Toll Exit, and also Southwest of Sandy Shores.”
This very long track is started at the usual beginnings for a Red Sparrow Run, the Fort Zancudo’s Runway. The first corner might be blind, it is no problem if the Minimap covers it, the third corner, the State Star, however, is as blind but also narrowing, which makes it difficult. After that, there is the Coloniy Strip upon the exist of the barracks, followed by the West Security and the Zancudo Hairpin to enter the first Tunnel. The exit of the first Tunnel also lead to another difficult corner, Fast Serve Gasoline, in which you will hit a wall and screwed if you mess up. After that, we have the classic All-Massacre from North Loop, only much faster this time. It’s then followed by a hairpin version of Zero Tolerance to enter the Barranca. The next difficult corner is the Lone Tree Chicane from Dominant Preservexrance, only be in reverse and a lot faster. After the complicated Baytree Descent, it’s the Baytree Drop to enter Power Street. The next difficult corner is the Abandoned Globe between Meteor and Clinton followed by Slipper Water to enter Elgin.
The Black Eagles section begins with the Vintage Bridge Corner between Elgin and Birdge. It’s usually be done from Mirror Park, but in this reverse approach, it’s harder to do. After that, there’s Echoes between Bridge and West Mirror. And then there’s also Bufties as an exit of Mirror Park from West Mirror to SA Avenue. It’s then followed by a deceivingly fast Legion Complex followed by Lower Maze Bank from SA to Alta. The next difficult corner is Muffler between Power and Innocence. Mission Row Parkade between Adam’s Apple and Little Bighorn might be careful at as well. The next corner right after Integrity Tunnel to Alta is also be careful of. It then followed later by the classic Perseus Snap from Rockford Royals. The next part however, is the AKAN Trapezoid, an uphill before snappy corner followed by sharp 90s. The next corner is Lohan Temple from Decker to Ginger, with some repercussions from the instability from the descent through Decker Street. After that, the Ginger Roll to enter the Ginger Street Tunnel is also very sharp, followed by the narrow Caesar’s Parkade sectionwhich has few rooms of errors not to mention the snapping ending into Vespucci. It then followed by the very fast Del Perro Tunnel which ends at the classic Radius Bluff which is harder here since you enter from the inside instead of the outside. It then followed by the Bay City Apartment (BCA) Chicane to enter Cougar, then followed by Grain of Truth Chicane to Dorset through Morningwood, instead of going by the Tennis Court shown in the old version. The fast Dorset Drive Straight is followed by the West Portola Chicane at Mad Wayne Thunder followed by Croqa Hoop between South BDP and Rockford. Afterwards, the next difficult corner is Flecca between Hawick and Meteor, and then there’s also the LS Freeway Entrance corner that needs some careful to it.
Afterwards, there’s a Granite Chicane before the Grand Senora Exit, and this long stretch of backstraight ends on Merryweather Derailed before following some parts of Bianco Fuori until it enters North Calafia. NC has its own complications, but the ending, Hidden Cliff is so narrow and blind that it needs to be careful of. The first chicane after the Wilderness Tunnel is also difficult, but the Inner Sawmill that goes inside of the Sawmill is also hard. Forest Traverse that cuts between GOH and Procopio Promenade is also quite blind for the unclear shade of the brown on the track. It then followed by Omnipotent Tree from Procopio to enter Paleto Boulevard. Then there’s another very long Paleto Straight through Braddock Tunnel to East Joshua Road, but the next hard corner is Last of the Endurance, the same corner as the first one on Blues Saraceno. But then the Twin Haipins of Mountain View and Niland are also difficult to brake if not outright blind. The Yellow lane also takes you to the Tree Stump and South Panorama between Panorama Drive, though the latter is just one corner instead of a chicane like BS. It then followed by two chicanes at Train and Church with the Rusty Radiator in between to enter Route 66. But unlike Grand Lady Chaparral, both are in reverse and the latter has different approach. The next difficult corner is the Inner Security in Fort Zancudo, which is right after an uphill, very sharp with heavy braking, and also very narrow. After that, there’s the Guided Angle, and finally we have the penultimate corners of the track, Firetruck Zig-zags also seals the end of all difficult corners in Red Sparrow Windtunnel by the virtue of a blind corner.
Also, this track has a lot of Alternative Configurations, the most of all tracks.
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
Hello… it’s that time of the year again, now that we’re on the first Friday of July. Thankfully though, thanks to my insight on starting (most of) my playthroughs early this week, like, around 7AM and even earlier, I DID manage to sort out all three episodes for this week on time.
Even the long-winded Ferrari-checking brainstorming session on Euro Truck or me getting a lucky break from someone doing a Territory Job for me in DW Empires, reducing my burden from 5 Territories to just 4, like how it should be. Too bad that I ended up starting DYOM later than I wished to after I got… distracted by a lot of stuff to download last Wednesday. But I push through at the end despite the shockingly long and painful DYOM Session.
But before starting to get to the meat here, even though typically DYOM Update Blogs were more concise and less detailed than the DW Empires or Euro Truck ones due to the much more varied topics around, I had some announcements to make. You see, I’m sure you’re expecting next week to be the next DW Empires Update Blog now that I had completely two playthroughs (Huangfu Mi and Guo Mingyuan)
However, while I ended up settling on 3 Bonus Trips for my Ferrari F430 in its Stint did perfectly fit my DW Empires Scheduling well… that’s only happened if everything went according to plan. This is because right before I completed my Playthrough, I got 3 new characters to be designed. 1, because NightOwl added him in his most recent Tournament Update. 2, Whom I got too interested in to not back down after realizing that it was NOT Li Ru who bribed Lu Bu with Red Hare in one Fanfiction I read.
And 3,… *sighs* Because I got peer-pressured into basically doing it just like Fu Xi and Nuwa again At least I got some sort of idea of what kind of role she had now (Think of Fire Emblem’s Anna, for example), but that’s the gist of what I could mention about her for now.
For that reason, next week won’t be the DW Empires Blog, and instead it trades places with my planned Tip-to-Tip one. And due to that, I used the now vacant DW Empires Episode space; I had to finish designing these three characters along with writing down said blog then instead.
After all, I can NOT write an Update Blog for DW Empires without having any backlog of characters to be made then. However, just like how it has been for the past two playthroughs, I’ll try to make them slowly at the pace of 1-2 characters a week whenever I have free time on Sunday and possibly Wednesday after a PVZ Fusion Playthrough. And any leftovers from there (Which ideally would have been 1 of 3 left in two weeks’ time) will be taken care of as I prepare for the blog.
Well, that was a shockingly long explanation on DW Empires on a DYOM Blog, so… let’s get to it now then, shall we? But not without the previous DYOM Blogs just as a reminder here 😉
Okay, first of all, we all know that Joshimuz had basically retired from DYOM, and therefore there won’t ever be any new missions in the line, supposedly. Second, while I had thought that the Ring Railway Mod was the culprit of my San Fierro Crashes… turns out I was wrong.
The real reason here is not Mod, but it was actually the Property Pack Mod, which also means that I had to remove some additional scenery, such as the fancy Mako Span Bridge. Obviously, that got me into a few months’ worth of Copium. From me thinking that getting my CLEO updated along with Cleo Redux would fix it (it didn’t). Me consulting this Detailed Crash Screen Mod which didn’t work anymore after my freaking Hard Drive died even after I put that mod in again *sighs* To me, still hoping that it was the Ring Railway Mod somehow.
Heck, I even tried having a newer version of that Property Mod and it didn’t work either. So eventually, I had to make peace with losing those very Property Mod. And predictably, the number of Crashes in the game went down SIGNIFICANTLY. It still happened in some missions, of course (Completely getting rid of game crashes is impossible), but it’s usually either a 1-time thing or the missions themselves screwed with me. Oh, and Parachute too, and I STILL DO NOT FUCKING KNOW WHY! Because me using Parachute in Single Player is COMPLETELY FINE!
So yeah, if anything, now my DYOM Troubles revolved around some stupid mission designs, such as the amount of unnecessary backtracking and completely unmarked objectives (LOOKING AT YOU, V FOR VINEGAR!). Or God Forbid, the infamous Glass Allies… And that I admit that I started to knowingly spam Minigun more, especially if I’m faced with a tedious amount of tanky unheadshootable enemies, solo or not.
Anyway, on the other hand, the schedule of DYOM for this year is definitely a lot more sporadic and inconsistent compared to last year. This is due to PVZ Fusion mostly, a playthrough I started just last August. PVZ Fusion is a really fun game, and I had a good time exploring everything NON-Odyssey this Fan Game had.
However, this game’s individual episodes are EXTREMELY long. And whenever I did this, it was almost guaranteed to be a two-day episode. And that combined whenever I was doing a Jet Lag Watch on Tuesday, which could only leave me with some tight margins. Especially when I had to design a Truck on a PVZ Fusion Week too, which could create more chaos (Thankfully, that Ferrari Bonus Drive might push the next truck just far enough to be after the Stateside Scramble Season of Jet Lag to possibly be before it. Although the gap before next season’s Japanorama could be REALLY short too.)
Because of that, a two-week gap between episodes is becoming increasingly normal as I typically pair up DYOM with DW Empires Episodes. Sometimes, I also wanted to take some time off from DYOM especially after some strenuous episodes (Looking at you again, V for Vinegar), causing some cases where there’s a three-week gap as well. As well as when there are curveballs that throw my schedule off, such as when I have a Job Interview. DYOM would almost always be the one that got on the chopping block to be delayed first.
However, speaking of DW Empires, the Dusk of my DW Empires Playthrough is closing in, with me only having 4 playthroughs left to do and nothing new behind in its queue to replace it. I could see myself retiring DW Empires from my Playthrough Tweets at last around next year and its DYOM Update Blog too. With me possibly only doing Character Creation from there.
Still, from there, when that time comes, I don’t know what to do next. Should I simply double down on my DYOM Schedule or decide to finally start my much-delayed NFS Underground Monte Carlo Mod Playthrough? One that got pushed back by PVZ Fusion which turned out to be a MUCH longer and ever-expanding journey than I thought (It nearly had 100 Episode on the list for God’s sake and I’ve only done about a quarter of them so far)
That question shall be left to the future me, but for now, I just want to put this news out there so that I don’t need to repeat things myself when I come to write that DW Empires Update Blog in two weeks’ time.
Well, here is the list of DYOM episodes I did for this 4th Year of DYOM, so… have fun with it.
And well, here is the List of the current Waiting Line on my future Mission List as of now. And as you can see, the Mission Series in the List can go from 3 to Hundreds (Marked by the Bracketed Numbers). Just a reminder that in a newer batch of Missions in a 16-Year Pack that I downloaded, I mentioned each individual Mission Series Names to make sure I don’t forget which Mission Series I’m doing instead of just using a single word to represent it. No matter how LONG, the actual Folder Names ended up.
And there are also my Notes consisting of my whole DYOM Catalog list, which I won’t share with you, the actual Mission Files because it is a HUGE Mess of Folders that got carefully sorted since, after all, I can only put 8 DYOM Missions at a time in the game, so each Sub-Folders can also consist of 8 Files at a time, hence the many, MANY Splits of Sub-Folders.
But still, I have a rough estimate of the Multiples of 8 Splits between a Batch of Episodes I do at a time to not get me confused when the future ones come. They are divided between lines of Bold and Regular Texts, so here they are down below.
However, before that, I would like to tell you what the next DYOM Series would be. And while technically it’s separate from the rest of the Queue List now, it is still something worth mentioning… because this, will be, an 128 Mission Marathon, in EIGHT EPISODES! D:
Next Episodes:
-Life in Los Santos (127)
Gangster for Life – Chapter 1 TO 2
Gangster for Life – Chapter 3 TO 5 Mission 3
Gangster for Life – Chapter 5 Mission 4 TO 7 Mission 3
Gangster for Life – Chapter 7 Mission 4 TO Mexican and Proud – Chapter 2 Mission 3
Mexican and Proud – Chapter 2 Mission 4 TO Chapter 4 Mission 3
Mexican and Proud – Chapter 4 Mission 4 TO Chapter 6 Mission 3
Crime Life – Chapter 1 TO 2
Crime Life – Chapter 3 TO 4
-Funny Movie and Grove Street (7)
-Grove Escape (9)
-Gangster 4 Life (29)
-God of War and iSniper (10)
-The Army and Biker Wars (6)
-The Thief (14)
-ARMY Fourteenth Team (48)
-GTA Las Venturas (15)
-Story of James, New Project, and FBI Man (16)
-CJ (9)
-Stunts, Aztecas, and Flats (9)
-Karate Frenzy, Getaway, Tiger, Parkour, and Vengeance (20)
-Mafia II and Modern Warfare 3 (22)
-Jones, Train, Tribe, and Silenced Bird (6)
-The Story (18)
-Siege, EEIYA, George, and SA Destiny (15)
-Alex Reed (25)
-Military Story (24)
-Name (8)
-Grove 4 Life (8)
-Ultimate Gang War (37)
-LuXury (12)
-The Invisible System (47)
-Jackson’s Life (30)
-Dillimore Curse (10)
-Power is Everything (30)
-Codename AGENT (20)
-The Zombotech Incident (21)
-World at War (5)
-Peter Evans (8)
-Born to Kill (9)
-Crisis of 2016; Rage of Task Force 141 (18)
-The Chain Game: The Second (8)
-The Fire Will Rise (8)
-Becoming a Rich Man and Haider (16)
-The Pitbull Mafia (25)
-EEIYA (9)
-Haiden (12)
-Chase, Deal, CLGW, and Kill CJ (5)
-San Andreas Mafia (20)
-The Life of Jimmy (11)
-Assassin and Ninja (7)
-The Revenge: Going Up (8)
-The Trip (5)
-S.W.A.T (12)
-San Andreas War (8)
-Ton Johnson (8)
-SFSD Police Job (18)
-Modern Warfar 4.2 (15)
-Men in Black (14)
-Rise of the Grove (11)
-Our 3 Brothers (6)
-Episodes from Los Santos (16)
-Martincho (15)
-Impossible Mission (16)
-Clan Wars (48)
-Los Santos Spy (11)
-Grove Streets’ Stories (12)
-The Cousins Torres (9)
-Men of Valiance (7)
-Space Galaxies and CJ (9)
-JGSE2 (9)
-War and JMS (8)
-CIA and Alone in the Dark (9)
-Urban Soldiers (23)
-Rock Band (4)
-Stinger (7)
-Project for Kill CJ (6)
-Police Chases (7)
-Claude (9)
-Dario Wars (11)
-Hitmans Life (4)
-Taste of Power (35)
-Life (37)
-GTA Los Santos (6)
-Liberation of Grove Street (4)
-Army and Leon (6)
-The Knight of Las Venturas (8)
-The Deal (48)
-The Killer (51)
-The Chronicle of Barney Williams (20)
-John Secronom (74)
-Land of the Dead (10)
-Day of Zombies and the Last Thing that I Will Do (6)
Hello, we’re back to the tracks. It’s been a long while indeed, and this track is quite a long one. Why? Well, to start off this Buckacherz Series of Tracks *checking list,* which would last for a LONG while, we have one themed around the hotels… and motels too.
If you’re wondering about the random Irish name, though… Well… in English, it’s translated as “Green Hell GP-Strecke.” In which I admittedly interpret this as an Endurance Upgrade of an older Endurance Track of mine, “Von Crastenburgring”… Although I realized that naming it after the Nürburgring GP Circuit and not the 24h one sounds dumb. But eh… too late for that, I guess. Here are the references of the videos and that old track to get more out of them.
Other than that, though, not much I need to talk about other than the usual warning about how long and complex this track is. So please excuse me if I made any mistake during the recording there. The Pit Lane, meanwhile, is located behind the Generic Hotel. And as for the next two tracks, well, it’s going to be the Bank-themed “Autoshop Banking” followed by the View-themed “Viewpoint Sightseer.”
As for the car? Well, I think I already had something to settle here. Which is a Surano, which I hadn’t used since Track #199. This is because this car (or rather, its successor, the Schlagen GT) is the one winning the 2026 Nürburgring 24H, which fits the theme of the track really well. And of course, due to that reference, the license plate will be adorned with “RAVENOL” for this blue and gold car.
(P.S.: UNFORTUNATELY, the game just randomly crashed mid-recording at 08:07. So, to spare myself the headache of recording all over AGAIN! I decided to splice the footage starting from where the game crashed (at Arcadius). My apologies for the inconvenience.)
“So… have you been lied to today? You expected a nice and short race truck to succeed the already dangerously long track from decades ago. But NOPE, what you get is something even longer and even more complicated than before. So… I hope you don’t have any mechanical issues anytime soon. Pit Lane is at Generic Hotel.”
Starting at the East Entrance of Dorset Von Crastenburg, we already experienced a looping section around the “Richman Hotel.” After which is a dash through the college before going on the “Mini Madrazo Section” at Ace Jones. We dive down Mad Wayne Thunder quickly after that to the twin of “Triangle and Square,” which you loop around Dorset Hotel at the end of it. That is followed by the “Korean Coffee” section at SA to Movie Star and then another loop around Dorset at “AKAN Obelisk” to Marathon.
Next, we’re faced with the “Behind Bahamas” section, which consists of a sharp turn from Bay City to Red Desert before entering a back alley and exiting onto a loop of “Italian Burger,” which is then followed by a rather complicated loop of “Von Vespucci” that ends on Sandcastle before going back to Bay City. And this is followed by a fast but tricky section of “Palomino Viceroy.”
After which, the “Terraced Stadium” followed, where you had to slowly drive your way down the parking lot onto Autopia, which led to the “Quadruple Dips” on Banner and Airport Von Crastenburg hotels, respectively. That is followed by the shortcut part of “Fugitive’s Survival” under the Airport Interchange straight to Alta.
A kink of “Not-So-BJ” goes to Innocent next, followed by the “Coroner’s Geometry” section around Capital and Davis before taking a sharp left-hander to MacDonald. And this is followed by a “Cheater’s Estate” section of multiple hairpins around a hotel before leaving the capital. And this part ends on an “AC Theft” righthander to Little Bighorn after taking a brief detour around Popular.
Entering downtown, we have a slalom section of the “Mule’s Gauntlet” through Strawberry, Fantastic, Elgin, and Power. Before getting on the “Peacock Parking” section behind the Pillbox Banner. The Integrity Tunnel followed before the “Ye Olde Parking Lot” looped section, where you need to navigate through the depths of a parking lot behind a hotel before you go uphill on Elgin.
The “No City Hall” section followed around several hotels in Hawick, at Power and Alta, before leaving on Spanish, which also led to the “Wavy Badger” chicane to Bridge, as well as the “Volga Drainage” double left-hander towards Vinewood. This is where we found another complex called “Hedges Parking,” which segmented a formerly simple S-section around Meteor, Power, and Alta.
And that got followed by the “Gentry Blossom” as you briefly climbed at Baytree to go down Las Lagunas before looping around Gentry Manor, which ends on a hairpin turn to Eclipse. This goes on two chicanes at “The Pegasus and the Generic” before you start climbing up Milton out of the city. But not without the “Takeoff” section on Normandy to go through first.
We go through West Galileo next before having the “Oil Launch” double hairpin of dirt turns before you go all in on the classic “Caida Libre” section, which is followed by a detour on “Harmonic Half-Moon” to Route 68. We take on another chicane at a “V8 Motel” before going on the “Broken Jacks” section behind the Inn to Panorama (which is NOT a hotel, by the way). “The Abandoned One” followed to navigate around before you leave around Zancudo and Mountain View to loop around your way out of Sandy Shores.
And we have some “Hiccups on the Desert,” which is a chicane where the Picador Random Event is; a trailer chicane; and a braking zone on the split to Stab City… which is shockingly considered a hotel, and therefore we face this “Lost Section.” This is followed by the “Not Safe for Trains” section before you start climbing onto the train tracks from Raton straight to Paleto Bay.
We then bailed at a series of hairpins on the “Chicken Motels,” which ends at Cascabel, where the bank is. And this is followed by the “Duluoz Dipper” section, which is a chicane followed by a sharp downhill to the Promenade. With that, we go straight back to GOH, but not before facing a “Left Hookie” double chicane at North Chumash.
Next is another two double chicanes section on Chumash itself called “Inconvenient Inseno.” However, it was then followed by a sharp hairpin at the end of the highway called “Seaside Clamshell” that led you to the “Jetty Crasternburg” section, a tricky route of sharp hairpins and a chicane after a tight loop to Bay City.
This is then followed by the “Cougar Rectangle” through a swimming pool hairpin on North Rockford. That got followed by the “Peacock Talons” complex of 3 hairpins at the Del Perro Banner too. That was followed by a sharp hairpin of “Morningwood Treetop,” followed by the tight “West Lobby Spruce” at Dorset Von Crastenburg, before finally, the complex lobby section at “The Northern Archipelago,” which ends at BDP before going back to Dorset.
Hello, we’re back to the blog after I took a break last week, and… there’s so much nonsense happening since then. I’m sure you read my addendum PSA on the previous blog regarding those STUPID blackouts, and thankfully, that was the worst of it. After that, things finally came back in peace, other than the usual Playthrough Tweet struggles and trying to mull over on how to write this blog… along with me realizing just the SHEER amount of Glossary for Jet Lag that I had backlogged already (Thanks, Amy, for your ridiculously long rambling for the Illinois Challenge 😦 )
As for what happened for the past two weeks? Well, it is a long story, so buckle up here. Although, due to those massive backlogs on Jet Lag, I had to announce that I will NOT make any progress on my Sengoku Basara blogs (both the story stage appearances one along with the new idea of me ranking down the characters’ R2 Supers) until I get caught up with those. At least I could get down to properly doing it quickly on the 4 Sumeragi sections once I could spare the time for it, as Synesthesia increased the pace of their upload to be daily, and therefore all episodes of those playthrough translations should be done before July happens.
First… upon the date that I expected it to be (June 18th, right on my birthday no less), I didn’t see any Downie at all week even as I watched Jet Lag’s first episode of its newest season (Seaside Scramble). So, desperately, I looked at the most recent Replies again on the Trailer Video and Downie said “July”… which is definitely NOT 4 Weeks after the Nebula Release -_- So, at this point I just gave up trying to anticipating anything at this point. If it came out, then it came out. If it doesn’t, whatever… That is sad considering that I’m really looking forward to see how Downie gets to experience my country, but I’m TIRED of waiting already… since MAY! *sighs*
And… because of that lack of Downie, that means a room is open for me to do a Track Blog today… It’s not exactly a guarantee, I admit, as I need to see whether the next PVZ Fusion’s translation mod update came out already or not, since sorting that out would take a while. That’s on top of writing down the Birthday Edition of the Meal Review on Saturday too, since they were quite long to write, indeed. But as you know, that blackout ruined all semblance of that possibility, with me finding the PVZ Fusion Updating happening being in the nail on the coffin
Then, some other mess happened before my birthday came up; I got a Job Interview Invitation at a Mall-bound Office Complex for that last week’s Wednesday, and while I did consider cancelling this week’s DYOM Episode because of it… Turns out, when I got to print its fancy interview call-up letter, I spotted the name of a different company, which apparently was a branch of the company that I thought I applied to.
Because of that, I started to get weird because I intend to apply for a real estate company, not finance. And while I won’t name names because I wanted to forget about it and just… move on, all I saw were comments about scams when I looked it up. And honestly… Pretty weird stuff as well, on top of not seeing much information on the company itself beyond it… other than TikTok (Which I do NOT Trust, AT ALL!)
So… Yeah, I decided to just wisely back off and forget about it existing, mostly because I felt strange, having a bad hunch. As such, I decided to celebrate nowhere near that one mall where that company is… at least for a LONG while. Honestly though, I do admit that I was already skeptical when I saw that the logo of the larger group I applied at isn’t exactly the same as I thought, so… Yeah, that whole stuff just crossed the line… Right after I wasted 10K to print my document for this damn thing… Darn. (Also, just to kick my ass, they just HAD to remind me of that existing when I browsed for more job applications today, HAIYA…)
Also, speaking of celebrating my birthday, because my mom refused to let me go to this Food Junction no matter how much I prodded otherwise, I had to say goodbye to redeem what happened when I had to deal with hemorrhoids the last time I went there 4 years ago… And somehow, that same routine shit returned for this week too. So… JUST MY LUCK! (At least it’s not actually too bad by the time I get to leave the house, though. So thank fuck for that… PHEW.)
Still, as you know, this blog today is pretty short, which honestly allows me to focus on this whole news either. Which is important as a breather since the next track blog is long and next week’s blog is a major one. The usual “First Week of July DYOM Update Blog.”
Also, in a perfect timing that happened next week. So many Playthrough Tweet-related stuff ends next week too. The Stint for my 8-Wheeler Actros would end on the Bologna-Bratislava drive on Monday, which would require me to set up the route for a possible filler bonus drive with the Ferrari F430 for one or two days.
Then on Tuesday, I should also be finishing my current DYOM Series, “Rise of the Scorpion” just in time before a Yearly DYOM Update Blog too. And finally, there’s also the finale of the current DW Empires Playthrough with (Empress Dowager) Guo Mingyuan, which also means that I need to make up the next DW Empires Update Video and Blog too.
However, that part shall be saved for the week after the DYOM Update Blog for obvious reasons, while I am also unsure on whether I should start the next playthrough right after that or took a break for a month instead. It might depend on how long that Ferrari Drive gonna be which would also determine my Week Off from Euro Truck that follows it before the next new Design and Stint after it.
And with that out of the way, let’s get to the blog here then, shall we?
Oh, and P.S.: If you see a random lack of blog or skipped Playthrough episodes during certain days without me announcing anything from now on, you can blame that on a random blackout that might pop up in the future. At least nothing happened since last Saturday, though, and this BETTER HAD to keep going like this. I’m looking at you, PLN *Glare*
So, it all started at last week’s DW Empires episode, where I get to experience more characters having buffs on several weapons, such as Zheng Jiang’s twin axes or Yang Song’s axe. As such, on a whim, I decided, out of sheer curiosity and for the purpose of note-taking, and immediately went off and started to check everyone’s weapons in the CAW screen to understand which character has buffs on their weapons and ESPECIALLY what kind of buffs they are.
Because this game is SO DAMN VAGUE about their buffs, which forces you to read the damn thing at the pause screen every time you want to know, which is extremely annoying to do! Like, using pickups buffs give a visual indicator (with orange glow being attack, green glow being defense, and afterimage being speed). Like, why didn’t they use those instead of just some random ANOTHER ORANGE GLOW for everything?!
Sighs… sighs… okay, the rant’s over, but now you get why I immediately did this now instead of waiting to do it later like the Basara Super R2 Rankings, which I chose to procrastinate on. Even if, at the end, it made what should be a quick recording session on that Playthrough Tweet Episode be extended by at least 30 minutes after that *sighs*
However, just to make things simple, there are some things to be established here. 1. I only base this on the description of what the weapon’s moves do, so there’s a good chance that I might have some stuff here. 2. I only count the buffs provided by EX attacks since they’re the ones who determine them on a uniquely assigned character instead of buffs that can be used by anybody else if I ask them to.
Weapon buffs such as Guan Dao’s Flame or Spiked Shield’s Shockwave are also much easier to notice. Except for those goddamn Buffs that annoyingly only spawn if you switch into said weapon, which IS temporary so nowhere near as useful on top of it feeling cheap for encouraging constantly spam Swap Weapon Button (LOOKING AT YOU, LU BU!) That, and Buff Musous are much harder to spot and also much more rarely used compared to the very spammable EX weapon buffs as well.
And lastly, there’s this category that I mention as “Unknown” here, mostly because I don’t know what the heck KOEI is talking about with these vague terms. Like, what is this… “Morale Boosts” to speak of? Yes, they had some good shockwave attacks along with it, but I see no clear indication of what kind of buff they received. Does it heal or buff your allies or what???
And now that I had explained the best that I could in this surprisingly long blog, here is the list of weapons that contain any buffs. Don’t worry, I also sorted them out in a short category for you to quickly search around too (I think Flute needs an Attack Buff instead of Speed one tho 😦 )
Also, if a weapon has multiple versions depending on whose EX it originally belonged to, I shall add in a bracket to notify you on which specific version it is.
Explosions: Axe
Speed: Twin Axes, Flute
Attack and Defense: Crescent Blade
Attack and Speed: Chain Whip, Talisman Cards
Unknown: Great Axe (Fighting Spirit), Crossed Pike (Encourage)
Hello… We’re back to the track. I already explained that happened the past week yesterday. But um… I got an update after that. I lost my phone stand at the repair shop, and it’s definitely too far for me to be bothered picking it back up. *Facepalm.* So this is going to be painful because finding one is SHOCKINGLY hard to come by, as cheap as it is! D:
[So uh… an important PSA here. You see, I initially wanted to do a track blog today despite me saying that I took a week off due to a reason I’ll properly elaborate on next week because it’s a long story. Unfortunately, after a LONG morning of downloading a bunch of stuff and replying to a PM (which isn’t fully finished, by the way), that choice got robbed from me anyway because PLN decided to drop a blackout on me… UNANNOUNCED, AFTER TWO DAYS, DESPITE ME STARTING TO ASSUME THAT IT HAPPENED WEEKLY!
So yeah, that’s another three hours (and more) of my life wasted, where my internet signal was also completely killed off. And I’m in a terrible mood and ran out of time to even do this considering that the blackout happened before I even start writing down the Blog. On top of me finally seeing that the new PVZ Fusion Update’s Translation Mod being dropped at last. So I probably need to spent the rest of my weekend sorting that out along with my usual file sorting to do. And therefore, as I originally planned, I’ll seeyou again for the next Friday blog, okay? Appreciate the attention here
But seriously, what the FUCK has my government come to, man? It’s not just the goddamn currency anymore; it’s now the fuel prices and ESPECIALLY THIS BLACKOUT SHIT?!
Anyway, my current state of despair aside, the track today is done at the previous GTA Online DLC, at “A Safehouse in the Hills”, fittingly happening considering that the final DLC should come in about a month’s time. Still, while the track’s focus is on the three new mansions indeed, the rest of the track basically involves me skirting around the rest of Vinewood Hills, including Michael’s Mansion. Admittedly, I should have included Franklin’s too, but that honestly might have ruined the skin-tight layout this track is going for. As such, while the onset is that the track should look quite simple, this is still certainly one you could easily get lost on.
Although, I had to say that the name is a pun on the Prix Luxury company where you bought these mansions as well as the concept of a Grand Prix. So, treat this as “Mansions Grand Prix” or something, okay? Now, after I take my week off next week, the next tracks shall be quite long. Which are starting the Buckacherz Series of Tracks, from the hotel-themed “Ciorcad GP” to the bank-themed “Autoshop Banking.”
Anyway, the pit lane is south of Michael’s mansion. But as for the car… well, let’s look at this DLC’s roster then. *Pause.* Shockingly, the only plausible options are the Bullet, which I hadn’t used since Track #26. And why would that be the case? This DLC only had two variants’ cars, and the other one is the Sentinel XS4… which is a four-door and should have been an Oracle instead. But most people would agree that the FMJ Mk5 is THE car of this DLC, so let’s keep it at that with the plate being “FMJ MK5,” okay? Oh, and we’re painting it in blue and white as well as red pearlescent, as a reference to the Ford GT in the Le Mans 24 Hours too.
“So, do you like the view of Marlower Drive, the crampedness in the college, or even the quietness of Devin Weston’s? What? You chose none? You wanted to steal a Beejay at Portola Drive instead? Sure, sure, have fun with it, as long as nobody pointed a gun behind you from the trunk. Pit Lane is at Spanish.”
“Michael’s Mansion” on its own is a looped section south of Eclipse. However, after the tight exit of the “Tequi Lala” lefthander, we’re forced to enter the precariously tight section of “Hillcrest Playground” through Hillcrest and North Sheldon before facing the “Concrete Summit” tight righthander as well as the “Slipup Dive,” a dangerously tight lefthander to Kimble Hill, followed by the “Damn Kinks” chicane to Lake Vinewood. This is followed by the “Ranger Drop” towards Marlowe, and after the “Snake S” curve, we faced a heavy braking zone of “Dirty Vista” towards the Vinewood Sign.
After which, we have the off-cambered “Behind the Hill” hairpin to Mt. Haan, followed by the “Bikeframe Forest” tight section, which ends on a tight hairpin towards the “Marianne Toilets” chicane back to Marlowe. Next is the classic “Lakeside Manors” tight section before exiting on the even sharper lefthander that leads to a brief detour on “Tree Generator” before going back to Marlowe for the much faster 2nd half.
The entire section to Tongva is quite simple at first, until you’re faced with the long and complex “Vineyard Touge,” starting from a hairpin to enter and leave toward Bueno Vino and taking on a slow double left-hander across a bridge to enter the 2nd half before starting to climb your way out. Afterward is a simple straightforward “Banham Canyon” section reversed from Broughy’s North Loop until you’re faced with the “Car Gas-Oussel” right-hander to North Rockford.
The next complex to take is the tight “Black Chars” to climb yourself up Ace Jones, followed by the chicane of “Lost-to-the-Mansion View,” before taking on the dangerously steep downhill of “The Way of Hardy,” which goes straight to Mini Madrazo’s backyard. We take on another awkward section of “College Backroad” at Richman, followed by the bumpy “Thesis Project” to Picture Perfect.
That led to a classically sharp corner of “Obstructed Paparazzi” to Mad Wayne Thunder before taking on the “Tennis Hideout” dirt path. And once you’ve gone past it, you’re faced with the section of “Greenlit Epsilon” to navigate before the double chicane of “Camera Flicker” to take you back to Michael’s with hopefully no Madrazo guys spawning.
Hello… we’re back to the Blog, and honestly, I’m not in a good mood for the week. A really long Monday Morning that forced me to do DYOM before Euro Truck. A Blackout that showed up unannounced on Wednesday Afternoon cost me THREE HOURS, and I had to spend the evening past dusk finishing my PVZ Fusion Episode before Thursday. Said Thursday also contains a long Playthrough Tweet Sorting session in the morning while also having to deal with designing Fu Xi and Nuwa for my DW8 Empires in the afternoon.
But then, the kicker happened today. First, my mom’s bedroom’s light died, and because Stairs is obviously too dangerous and the ceiling is too tall for hands and the bedroom is too cramped to bring in anything smaller than an Ottoman. I had to spend a few hours looking for a Bulb Changer… which did NOT work because the stupid construction worker who renovated our house years ago picked a hole TOO small for the damn Bulb Changer!
And worst of all, I had these very annoying “Disconnected Battery, instantly shut down my Phone” last January, as I mentioned in the blog. Well… I had that problem reoccur again since Eid Al-Adha, and now… my phone didn’t even last being booted up in SECONDS before that shit happened again. So I had to get it repaired at my usual place 10 km away. It took a bit while, about 45 minutes or so, and I had to leave briefly to get some Es Puter near my old Middle School, which tastes great.
Turns out, apparently after several drops my phone experienced in the past, the battery’s socket had broken off and had to be replaced. At least it only cost me about 75K ($4.21 Bucks) at the end of it, so I HOPE that this time, there’s no more of such STUPID problems anymore! *Pause.* Oh, and some rats torn apart my old phone’s charging cable TODAY, TWICE!
Oh, by the way, an update from Last Week… I think I got scammed with the whole Driver’s License thing. Like, I thought I got the fancy Siola Public Mall as it should be… But NOPE, I was told to go to a DIFFERENT much older building, walk all the way to a basement elevator, and be crammed in a tiny, suffocating mall. THAT DID NOT EVEN HAVE THE AC NOR A WORKING ESCALATOR ON EVEN AFTER IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE OPEN AT 10AM (In which by the time I actually came there for the Driver’s License, it was NOT EVEN OPEN YET)! Sighs… that place actually sucks… I should have gone to BG Junction even if it’s open 2 hours later, man. It’s only a 500-meter difference too. -_-
Anyway, the rant’s over, but I got some news to tell you: I would like to have a day off from writing Blog next week. I alluded to things earlier on my Shadow of the Apocalypse FanficRecs Blog Earlier, but yeah, the combination of both Jet Lag Season 18 starting AND DownieLive finally putting up his Bangkok to Bali Content on the same Thursday next week (After making me wait for a MONTH! D:) makes my entire weekend then cramped. And there are still 3 more DownieLive Episodes to go through after that, which is like… possibly around half of the Jet Lag Season.
That’s on top of me wanting to celebrate my birthday next weekend in peace… somewhere (Because it seems like Food Junction is out of the question more than likely 😦 ), leading to me just… wanting to take a break. At least the track tomorrow should be a short one, though, so that’s good news for me. Especially after this shockingly stressful week. Oh, and after waiting for more than a week already… it turns out NicoB’s next Playthrough is delayed until Next Week… UGH! THE AGONY! D:
Okay, that’s enough of all the update stuff; I’m sure you wanted to read the story, and I finally get to that. But buckle up, because this is a very good one.
You know, i stumbled upon a BullyXRWBY Crossover, and I found this fic, Probus. It puts RWBY Characters in the place of most (But not All) Bully Characters, with Jaune taking on the role as Jimmy. Of course, this story is a White Knight Pairing, between Jaune and Weiss. But for the record, Author, NO, I came to this fic for the plot, not for the Pair. I don’t care about which pair’s what, as long as they’re acceptable to me.
Anyway, however, despite me saying some people took different others’ roles (Especially when it comes to the Main Characters), most of the characters in Bully stayed as they are, especially the NPCs, which is a great thing to have because their NPCs are considerably unique compared to other GTAs (As I said, the only games that I remember that named most NPCs are typically JRPGs, such as Xenoblade Chronicles and especially Trails). And those Original Bully Faction Leaders were still present in the story, but some of them weren’t exactly the leader on top anymore.
Of course, just to keep the surprise up, I would NOT tell you who replaces who. All I would say here is that Team RWBY are entirely separate among the Factions, and yes, that includes Ruby and Yang. Some characters in RWBY are also Neutral when it comes to the Factions too, so there’s so much diversity to be had here.
Still, a major strong part of this fic is that the characterization is really strong, and you get multiple perspectives that aren’t just on Jaune here. That is on top of a lot of character; so far, having quite a deep depth inside them along with some intercharacter conflicts to have even outside School. However, expect some plot developments to actually change compared to the Regular RWBY or Bully due to plot divergences, so have fun figuring this out on your own. Because you had to expect some character dynamics to be changed, if not reversed, due to changes in their circumstances. And that came as well as some mysteries on how the hell the new Principal could get there or what the ‘Gary’ of this Story’s actual backstory is and how much of it is connected to the Principal as well.
If I had to speak about the flaws, though, it is that the Pace of this fic is VERY Slow. They have a LOT of events, but even a single day within them could take a LOT of Chapters. So that’s a disclaimer to keep in mind. Another thing is… unfortunately, this fic hadn’t been updated since December. But even at the part that you could read right now, it’s still very good. You could also look up my comments in several chapters and have fun with it. Either way, I always love Crossovers that fuse the two series together to be in one setting, rather than just your typical Isekai Plot and that’s it.
Well then, here is the Fic’s Link if you want to do it. It’s available on both Fanfiction AND AO3 Flavour, so have fun picking either of them! 😀
Hello… we’re back to the Blog. I initially planned to write this down tomorrow, but desperate times come with desperate measures. So, what is it all about? Well, first, NicoB just finished his Trails to Azure Playthrough and God knows how long it will be until he starts entering Cold Steel in Erebonia. Heck, he could even be doing LaD Gaiden instead. I don’t even know what the next playthrough is either until he’s probably done with his Summer Game Fest Trip. So that’s my Nighttime Watchtime getting whacked, even with me having Tip to Tip China by Ludwig and rewatching How to Not Travel Europe by GeoWizard to be rewatched here.
As for what is going on with me? Well… I had been anticipating my renewing my Driver’s License to happen somewhere next week. However, due to some… unforeseen circumstances, I’m forced to do it tomorrow, as I cannot do it today while needing to finish designing my new 8-Wheeler Mercedes Actros MP4 Truck (which you can see on Twitter).
So, while that means my next week’s schedule is back to normal, this week’s… it isn’t. I had to push the Friday Blog earlier to today, as well as write my weekly PM to be on Saturday since I can imagine that my Friday is entirely filled with dealing with this. Since I HAD to go deep downtown to deal with it (There is another one that was closer, but with its schedule between Opening and a Lunch Break being only 1.5 Hours, the Paranoia in me put an end to that idea, especially if the line waiting there is LONG).
As such, because my Saturday will be spent writing a PM and also a Meal Review to deal with, I had to tell you that there won’t be a Track Blog this week. Heck, I even considered delaying this Blog as well until I realized that I shouldn’t do my PM Writing too early and leaving you guys hanging until Saturday is a bad idea. So better off being early about notifying you guys instead.
Oh, other than that, the newest State of Play also brought news of Fu Xi and Nuwa returning to DW3 Remaster, and… that made me annoyed because I didn’t want to add them in for YEARS, mostly because they do NOT belong to the Three Kingdoms Characters like the rest of the Strikeforce Exclusive Characters (Even Chi You, who WAS in Godseekers), but rather I group them together with the other Mystic Characters in Warriors Orochi… except for Zuo Ci, because at least he DID appear in RoTK.
So yeah, I’m a bit salty about having to design them because I HAD to rather than because I wanted to, on top of me thinking that I’m about to be done with this batch of New DW8 Empires this Sunday with Xun Xu. So please excuse me that there won’t be much detail on their writing when I come around to do it, okay? Needing to research for their moveset is a bitch, though.
Okay, now that some inner rant is out of the way, let’s get to the main thing of this blog.
So, I thought of this on the spot out of curiosity while doing my most recent DYOM Epsiode (Which is nicely shorter than I thought). But ironically, my decision to cook that idea ended up costing me an hour after I finished the Episode because dragging in Pictures for a Tier List is annoying as hell! Still, the thing that sticks out to me is that a Premier, a bone-standard sedan, is somehow faster than a BMW-derived Sentinel
Yes, a friend told me that they basically have the same engine as a Cop Car, which IS supposed to be fast because of Wanted Levels and all, but that revelation astonished me. So because of that, I pulled up this List and began sorting them all in a nice Tier List format for reference on which car I should pick for a Mission. Especially if I’m stuck with a slow default car *cough* Sentinels*cough* and I have to do long drives with it.
Of course, using this list for Top Speed is by no means accurate at all, such as showing that All Motorcycles had the same top speed regardless of using the Lean Forward Trick or not. Even Faggio! Or that the Boats having that high of a top speed, ESPECIALLY Marquis, which is an insane thought if a Marquis can go as fast as say… Jetmax or Squalo, even with taking the Waves into account.
There are some surprising things, such as Hydra not being as fast as Turismo or Infernus, but… did you really need that VTOL to do that when it can cut through every obstacle below it and we ALREADY had troubles with clipping into trees, especially in the PS2 Version? Yeah. Still, while this explains the Top Speed, this won’t explain the Acceleration.
After all, there are better datas that could be used to do it, but even then, do not rely on this Tier List for the Top Speed either, especially if you start modding around with the Vehicles’ Handling Data *cough*Superspeed Moonbeam*cough* Either way, though, here’s that Acceleration Test I was speaking of; have fun reading on it. And I’ll let the GTA Forum Guys explain their own methods in detail.
Before you asked, though… no, I don’t think I saw anybody do a Broughy-styled test for San Andreas on a Track to get the best handling cars out there, so all you could do is drive them to get a feel for how good they drive. *cough*Super GT*cough*
Anyway, here is the Tier List I came up with, and I HAD to use ALL colors for this Tier List. Heck, I even split down the 160 and 150 Km Tier because they’re MUCH bigger without that. Also, if you’re wondering what the Black Space at the bottom is, it is meant to say “F. 100 Km/h or Less”. In which… does it even matter to gauge how SLOW they are if they’re already THAT slow? So blame TierListMaker for putting in a Black Color but not making the text inside it white or something… Trust me, I tried *sighs*
Either way, if you want to make more San Andreas Tier Lists yourself, not just about this thing, feel free to go to the Link down below
P.S.: Oh, also, if you’re wondering, the SA version of Sentinel is now F-Tier. It looks the WORST out of all Sentinels in the GTA Series; customizing it doesn’t even save it like the XSes in VC and III’s Leone’s. And I see them as if they’re EVERYWHERE in so many DYOM Missions I had experienced for the past five years… The Update Blog on that would come on July as promised!
Hello, we’re back to the Tracks, not much I needed to say since yesterday, but I would like to tell you that I already got some fun Sengoku Basara Spreadsheeting Project ideas in the works. I’ll get started working on it slowly next week, mostly because I wanted to hopefully finish the last two DW8 Empires Characters before the next Jet Lag Season, so… we’ll see how things go then.
Anyway, the track for the day is quite short and simple since this is based on a quick EenGamer video, and the track’s span is quite narrow, being in the Vinewood Hills area, where a bulk of the Track is spent backtracking back to the Starting Line, which includes avoiding the Milton Intersection at Marlowe.
So, the idea for this video is the comparison between taking on the off-road or On-road Path through Mt. Vinewood, where the Observatory is. The On-Road path is through Baytree Canyon, while the Off-Road one is through the Caida Libre Path. However, I won’t spoil you on the result of that video itself on which one is faster, so you have to watch the original video itself to find out.
Other than that, not much I could say here other than it being a quick and simple track to go with, but the Pit Lane design itself didn’t deviate uniquely enough, so… yeah, we’re only doing a single lap on this track. Still, the Pit Lane is at the Finishing Line of Harmonic Multilinearity, while the next tracks shall be pretty decent in length, “A Mansion’s Grand Prixes” followed by “Ciorcad Grand Prix – Ifrinn Ghlas”… yeah, that was a mouthful.
As for the car, though… the On-Road version took on the Niobe, while the Off-Road version took on the Sultan RS Classic… Yeah, we’re taking the Sultan. But while it’s in the classic Blue and Yellow Paint, the License Plate shall be the “i8” for the funsies. Sorry, Zion Fans, being a fellow Matrix Etymology-ed car here.
“So, do you like being on Asphalt or being Off-road? You had to quickly pick between them because the split a third through Marlowe is coming soon! And if you did pick Off-Road, I hope your car CAN handle it. Pit Lane is at Harmonic Multilinearity.”
The first difficult corner is the “Understeered Sign” left-hander to Mt. Vinewood, and that got followed by the “Progen Ascension” to the Observatory, which has a pretty awkward entrance to it. That was followed by the classic “Caida Libre Section”, before we take on another classic, which is the “Truck Stop Loop.”
Next is the section of “Storebellious Hill,” which led to the long uphill version of “Baytree Canyon,” which can be quite a slog sometimes. This part, though, ends on the “Sisyphean Swerving” to the left side before a tight right-hander to Marlowe. The next section is the “Lakeside Drop” through the Lake before taking a dive to cut into Kimble Hill.
Then there’s the “Norman Twisties,” a double hairpin that is uphill combined with a chicane to North Sheldon. After that, we are followed by the heavy braking zone of “Sign Breaker,” followed by the two corners at Ace Jones called “Cambered Hill,” before finally having the final corners of “Minizo Drop” to North Rockford and followed by “Virtueceuticals” right-hander back to Marlowe.
P.S.: I briefly forgot to not take the pit lane over the actual section at Harmony, so please excuse me for finishing that pit lane, then teleport back and drive through the intended section, okay?
Hello… we’re back to the Blog. You may be wondering why I wrote this thing early. Well… that was basically Thursday… didn’t go as I hoped. You see, I really THOUGHT that I was going to be watching Downie’s Bangkok to Bali Series yesterday, assuming that it was released on YouTube a week after the Nebula release, just like Jet Lag did. But the morning never came, nothing by the Afternoon. No hints on Reddit whatsoever, so I scour through the YouTube comments on the Trailer Video for any information.
And… turns out, Downie said this in one of the replies:
“It’s up on Nebula now and will be on YouTube in a month.”
I checked Nebula then, and… Turns out, yes, there are only 4 episodes. But that also means that I literally can NOT watch it until the actual series is fully done on Nebula, which SUCKS… And the most ironic part is that I checked the Calendar and the date of when I can watch it on YouTube is June 18th. My Birthday.
It sucks to have your Birthday Gift to be something you felt like you should have gotten 3 weeks earlier, man. Especially if by the time of Downie’s release of his stuff on YouTube, the next Jet Lag Season is already up and I basically had to juggle around Tuesday and the rest of the Weekends on TWO Big Weekly Videos for me to watch instead of 1 (Even if the next NicoB Playthrough we had after Trails to Azure and JoJo Golden Wind isn’t something I’m interested in within the next week or so)
So, because of that… I’ve actually been clueless about what to do for a while. I admit I’m tempted to start working on that Basara Moveset for Older Characters project I’ve been putting off for a year now. But… I think it’s better for me to wait until the next Jet Lag Season is done, not when I still have like… several DW8 Empires Characters to design first.
Now speaking of that, because I drew a blank on what to do, I ended up doing two characters yesterday. Yang Yi for the morning, and Wang Can for the afternoon. However, you cannot see Wang Can yet because… my mom took me on a trip in the evening right before I finished Wang Can’s description… So because I still need to write the PM in the afternoon yet I cannot delay myself too much in writing that, I had to write that Description in the Morning.
And because writing this blog should be shorter to do compared to the whole PM business thing, I figure that it’s a better call to do this Blog early as well just to put them in a better time slot together. But… I’ll do the Blog first because writing this is harder than the DW8 Empires Explanation without any notes to go off on here.
Now, onto the story itself, the Randomizer is now out of 171 for the first FanficRecs Blog in a while, since I ran out of material for a bigger blog possibly until the DYOM Playthrough Report on July 3rd, so expect perhaps quite a few. Fanfic Recs in the coming weeks unless something comes up, other than me definitely taking a week off to celebrate my birthday later on.
Still, the randomizer lands on #5 on the queue, which is the Shadow of the Apocalypse, a fic that I surprisingly hadn’t made a blog of yet. And to be honest, I’m… a bit reluctant to write down this fic, because this is a pretty dark one.
The plot revolved around the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse heralding the End of the World, which caused Philemon to be desperate enough to bring back the Four Main Protagonist back together. And this fic is divided into several Arcs. The Arcless Chapters introduced the story, the Gathering Arc, which involved all four sides of the Persona casts going together. The Paradox Arc, which is a side part where Minato had to experience an entire year of P3 all over again, but this time with the FeMC being the wildcard. The P1-focused Conquest Arc, the P2-focused War Arc, the P4-focused Strife Arc (which is where the fic last progressed), and the future P3-focused Death Arc.
However, when I said that this fic could get dark, it would, all I can say is that people were in danger, some possible betrayals were happening, several Antagonists from prior games were returning from DEATH, and even Arcana Shadows past XIII/Death was showing up. This fic has it all, and it really perfectly did a good job portraying this kind of scenario, and I had to give credit despite how much I don’t enjoy reading Doomsday. Scenarios like that, it always gave me nightmares *shudders in MetaphorXPersona Crossover of “The Age of a New Trickster”*
So, for the sake of my sanity, I think it’s better for me to move on from a fic as bleak as this and let you explore this fic yourself, even though this is certainly never going to get completed (Since the last update was in 2022)… But hey, at least we get to see Maya and Tatsuya having a kid, and he did great on this story so far.
Also, No, there’s no Persona 5 in this fic, as this story started being written in 2014, about 2 years before P5 was released in Japan. Here’s the fic, by the way.
Hello… we’re back to the Tracks. Admittedly this is a long morning for me, but unfortunately, this track is both really long AND really complex. So… please excuse me if I made any mistake here. I’ll try to do my best. Anyway, the track here is based on a Rally Race Broughy did on a Project Homecoming Stream, but unfortunately… I don’t remember a video on that track ever being covered on YouTube… and Twitch is a dick because the original VOD of it is completely gone. While you could always join that server and drive it yourself… here’s the original link I used as a reference as sad memorabilia for you.
Other than that, well… I did mention that the track is really complicated, so this would be just as difficult to explain. However, I’ll still do my best in both explaining and demonstrating this, okay, so please bear with me here. And yet, there’s a chance that next week might not have a Track done there, depending on how quickly I could manage to do File Sorting within the next week, capiche? As for the Pit lane, it is located at the McKenzie Airfield. And for the next tracks, we have… “Vinewood Cross” and “A Mansion’s Grand Prixes.”
As for the vehicles… well, my notes said “A Benefactor,” but I don’t exactly remember what Benefactor was it originally on the Footage, so I’ll instead roll on the Benefactor that I hadn’t used the most. Definitely not Dubsta from the last track, but we didn’t with the 6×6 since Track #35. Feltzer is #244, Glendale is #229, and Panto is #230. Schafer is #182 before my External Hard Drive Replacement in 2024 :/, but I did NOT use Schwartzer since #33. Meanwhile, Serrano is #84, and Surano is #199. So… we shall paint it in Orange and White and put in the plate of “BC24” in reference to Broughy’s Endurance Track in this area.
“So, you drew a racetrack months ago for the sake of safekeeping for later. Unfortunately, when you came back to need it, because Game Preservation is worthless to the Avarice, it’s all gone. So, with the map being all that’s left, it’s time to enact some revenge. Pit Lane is at the McKenzie Airfield.”
The first corner here is the “Kerb-hill,” a hairpin followed by a dirt section to the Train Tracks, but that was followed by the already confusing “Beneath the Cablecar,” which ends on a jump across the Highway into the “Triangle Climber” toward South of the Paleto PD, before you went down to the Promenade. This is followed by a brief dive into the “Trestle Squeeze” on the Beach.
Then we face the “Burial Run” across the Northern Cape to another Beach, into the “Blue Weed Patrol,” a hairpin, then a dangerously bumpy crossing of the highway, then looping around the Barnyard into the Train Tracks. But that was followed by another left-hander drop of “Bulging Beach” into the “Truckstop Key” loop, which led underground into a camp before climbing back to the Train Tracks. And midway through the Braddock Tunnel, we swerve into the “Rerailed” dirt section before we go under the Train Tracks parallel to the end of the Northern Chiliad Trail back to the Highway.
“Matty Crossings,” a chicane before a right-hander starts Grapeseed, into the “O’Neil Curve,” and later on the “Lucky Jim’s Quarter” at Union. This is followed by a complicated “Barnyard Helix” Section, which includes some difficult fences to navigate at the end to a tight righthander to Joad. This was followed by the “Double Ribbons” series of East West Hairpins at the Airfield, ending on a tightening hairpin to leave it.
Next is the “Going Around the Ranch” hairpin, followed by the series of sharp turns with elbows in between at the “Chicken’s Beak” after going across Grapeseed. This ends on the “Cult’s Billboard” that ends on a difficult hairpin under the Train Tracks. Things were simple for a bit, until the horrifying “Generator Hill” loop, which is started by a TIGHTLY blind section under train track pillars, a sharp hairpin to the left uphill, before crossing yourself back to the highway with some difficulty.
That was followed by the “YouTool Box” section loop and then the “Dulled Claw” lefthander to Cat Claw. After that, we have the “Satellite Petals,” started by a sharp lefthander on the Prison Triangle, which also includes a double “Serrated Yellowjack” across Senora, followed by the “Blunt and Burnt” hairpin at the end of Nowhere back to a chicane into Smoke Tree.
Then we have a Double Hairpin of “Anti-Airfields” to cross into the Exiting Runway, as well as exit the South one towards Route 68. That features the classic “Fleeca Customs” Chicane, followed by the “Northern Butts” around the Redwood Track. That was followed by the classic “Rebel Hill” Section and “Inconvenient Blocks” double chicane and a loop on Harmony. That was followed by the “Multilinearity Pencil” Hairpin that led to the “Rallycross Curves” to leave Senora to start the uphill and downhill complex that is together called “Chaparral Pass” with Mt. Haan on the summit.
This ends on the “The Jackhammer” Section to lead across the Caida Libre Ravine, followed by “Strawberry Loop” on Baytree and the “Bike Bounty” downhill section where we take on the southmost side. The Original BECS section ends here with the hairpin and chicane of “Rammed Truckstop” to Joshua. While the backtracking part started with the infamous “River Jump” from Gfred.
That was followed by the “Cougar’s Fang” hairpin, which ends on an arduous climb to the Train Tracks. However, that ends on the “Canyon Slips” loop to get you back to Calafia, followed by “Down and Up” deviation to avoid the usual Tunnel Path, by instead climbing over the Wilderness before a tight chicane to leave it at the “Over the Drop.” Finally, we have the “Sawmill Deviation” section, which is a classic, along with the “Cut Log” that still avoids the original path. Before finally, we face “The Revver” Hairpin to leave into GOH back to the Starting Line at the Paleto PD.
Hello… we’re back to the Blog. It’s been a while since the last Jet Lag Review, and I kind of admit I’m dreading writing this review because this one is probably one of the most difficult seasons to rank. However, before we get to the nitty-gritty of it, let me tell you some updates for the week.
So, I just finished up both my Scania 113 Bicuda Stint for Euro Truck as well as John Morris Chronicles Series on DYOM. That led me to a more chilled out time next week. However… things were not as smooth sailing as I thought. I made a mistake in believing that the next DYOM Series would be 32 Missions, but it turns out some of those files were NOT of the missions themselves. And that led to the reality in which I only have 23 missions in total for that.
For that reason, I had to take advantage of the fact that next week would be a break between my Euro Truck Stints, and to keep my DYOM Schedules and Plans intact and not completely thrown off, I had to do a long DYOM Episode next week. That… admittedly complemented my next PVZ Fusion Episode next week well too, where the usual Fusion Showcase Episode shouldn’t take TOO long to be done in theory here.
This is especially true from the fact that Eid Al-Adha should fall around next Wednesday, which means that I cannot start a Playthrough Tweet that day because I will need some time to be spared for the Prayer that day in the early morning, but I can still finish it then. So if my estimations were right, even if I do DYOM before PVZ Fusion, I should have enough time to cover both.
However, there is another update to be mentioned here. You see, my sister visited yesterday, and while she said she would leave for Madiun this morning, she said that she would come back for Saturday. That means… my weekend is probably gone whacked. I have quite a few pictures needing review, so I hope I can start getting into that as soon as I finish writing down this review, which is probably going to be a long one.
Then, while on one hand, it means that I could do a Track Blog this Saturday even if it’s not a guarantee yet, there is no way that I could do a File Sorting this weekend unless I tried to squeeze in doing the particular Image Check part of it for the week on this Friday before finishing it fully on next Sunday.
This also means that there’s a good chance I might not even be able to make any DW8 Empires Characters on Sunday Afternoon depending on what happens then. So yeah, things were… pretty uncertain for the next week or so, but I shall keep you updated in a future blog if anything happens. Anyway, now let’s go to the actual Review now.
TAIWAN’S RAIL RUSH
Episode 1:
Sam Downie (122 Km): Zhongzheng (Taipei)-Da’an (Taipei)-Zhongzheng (Taipei)-Xizhi (New Taipei)-Ruifang (New Taipei)-Jiaoxi
Ben Adam (195 Km): Zhongzheng (Taipei)-Banqiao (New Taipei)-Xinzhuang (New Taipei)-Zhubei-Wuri (Taichung)-Changhua
Episode 2:
Sam Downie (255 Km): Jiaoxi-Zhongzheng (Taipei)-Wanhua (Taipei)-Banqiao (New Taipei)-Zhubei-Wuri (Taichung)-Central (Taichung)
Ben Adam (282 Km): Changhua-Shinshih (Tainan)-East (Tainan)-Xinying (Tainan)-Zuoying (Kaohsiung)-(Kaohsiung)
Episode 3:
Sam Downie (134 Km): Central (Taichung)-East (Hsinchu)-Yangmei (Taoyuan)-Zhongli (Taoyuan)
Ben Adam (46 Km): Gushan (Kaohsiung)-Nanzhou-Linbian
Episode 4:
Sam Downie (239 Km): Zhongli (Taoyuan)-Zhongzheng (Taipei)-Yilan-Xincheng
Ben Adam (205 Km): Linbian-Dawu-Taimali-Yuli
Episode 5:
Sam Downie (203 Km): Xincheng-Su’ao-Toucheng-Shuangxi (New Taipei)-Ruifang (New Taipei)-Nuannuan (Keelung)
Ben Adam (218 Km): Yuli-Hualien-Xincheng-Su’ao-Jiaoxi
Episode 6:
Sam Downie (142 Km): Nuannuan (Keelung)-Xizhi (New Taipei)-Zhongzheng (Taipei)-Shilin (Taipei)-Zhongzheng (Taipei)-East (Hsinchu)-Zhunan
Ben Adam (307 Km): Jiaoxi-Yilan-Xincheng-Hualien-Guangfu-Guanshan-Taitung
Episode 7:
Sam Downie (173 Km): Zhunan-Dadu (Taichung)-Nantung (Taichung)-Wuri (Taichung)-Central (Taichung)-Miaoli-Houlong
Ben Adam (176 Km): Taitung-Zhengyi (Kaohsiung)-Zuoying (Kaohsiung)
Episode 8:
Sam Downie (342 Km): Houlong-Zhongzheng (Taipei)-Ruifang (New Taipei)-Xincheng
Ben Adam (393 Km): Zuoying (Kaohsiung)-Nanggang (Taipei)-Xinyi (Taipei)
PLAYLIST:
Tonight, on Jet Lag! A lady wanted the Boys’ map. There is no Shortcut between these tofu crossings. And Sam plays Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
Tonight, on Jet Lag! Jeff’s sense of humor seems to be running on Downie fast, don’t enter a train last, and THERE IS A TRAIN MODEL VENDING MACHINE?!
Tonight, on Jet Lag! Badam had Flashbacks to Climbing, Animals Giveth its fellow Herons a little too much, and Ben and Adam are on the same Rainbow’s Wave.
Tonight, on Jet Lag! Sam ‘paid attention’ and got lost in Taoyuan, Ben blind-tested a Banana, and Yilan and Xincheng had the most horrifying Giraffe Duo in Taiwan.
Tonight, on Jet Lag! The Fate of this entire season rests on these Six Cans and Trivias, Downie found a Donut Burger in a Wok, and the Power of both Calculators and Spreadsheets are being used.
Tonight, on Jet Lag! Sam counts his own heartbeat instead of walking. Chiang Kai-shek is literally infallible. And Badam had the longest and most painful Snack Zone session ever.
Tonight, on Jet Lag! 7-Eleven has a Rainbow Mascot. The gummy is oxymoronic, and the scallop is terrible. And Sam uses his feet instead of the brick or the shadow.
Tonight, on Jet Lag! Sam comes to bargain, Ben ate some Villages, and turns out the Pagoda’s Tiger is a prophecy to curse a Pig-Dog all along
A silly Genshin Joke I made on this Season
So, Taiwan. The closest thing we have to a Jet Lag Season in China, which would never happen because of the CCP’s existence. Apparently, this Season is considered a fix to Snake in Korea mechanically, even though the more I watch it, the more the overall season goes, making me feel like New Zealand is a much better comparison to it, even compared to AU$.
And why do I say that? Because now only these two seasons explore every inch of a small country, with many Place-specific challenges along the way. These two seasons have the joint highest number of Episodes in Jet Lag at 8. However… the most important part of it is that despite how entertaining these two seasons were as well as how much of a great job they did in showcasing the country they were in… Both have some of the most imbalanced challenges this series has ever seen.
However, before we get to the nitty-gritty of this, let me… take back the positives here. First, the guest, Mike Downie from DownieLive, was the 2nd Guest that I had prior familiarity with in Jet Lag and the first since Joseph of RealLifeLore in Circumnavigation. He’s definitely a great guest to have, very entertaining, and really has a good spirit as a contestant. And it is only fitting that he get to have a Train-based Season considering how much he loves making videos on Trains.
Not to mention, the team he came up with this season is unique beyond just a Portmanteau of Names and instead is named after the Black Herons from the first Da’an Park Challenge in the Season. Although, sorry Mike, but I’ve always tended to call you Downie for a long time, so that’s what I’m sticking with. This even gets applied to what I put as the Portmanteau Name between him and Sam here. Which is Sawnie instead of Samike for example.
Still, I think the only genuine problem I had with him is that he didn’t exactly talk back to Sam’s schemes a lot. Even though I do like how he went along with the Boys’s shenanigans quite a bit too. Also, I won’t spoil the context just quite yet, but that grimacing face he made at the end of the game made me feel bad for how painful it felt.
But man… hanging out with Jeff in his recent European Series made me think that he got infected by his sense of Puns. The horror! D: Overall though, he’s 3rd on my Guest Ranking, since at the end of the season, I still like Brian’s wittiness a little more (That and because he at least tried convincing Sam out of the Tracker Usage in B4A, albeit unsuccessfully)
Then, of course, we have the major Showcase of Taiwan to be seen. We’ve pretty much seen every single corner of the Taiwanese Coast, from the bustle of Taipei 101, to a Mountain of Monkeys unexpectedly close to a city like Kaohsiung to the unexpected discovery of this country being on a literal Tectonic Plate Divide, with one challenge being done at one.
Unfortunately, however, we didn’t get to see much in the way of the Inland of the country, but that’s the con of having no inland train line, shockingly. And while we do have several challenges popping up at the most spur line-y lines this Season, we didn’t exactly get to see those either.
This is mostly due to the fact that while this Season did a great job in avoiding the pitfalls of Snake Korea (Challenges being typically close at Stations leading to bland sceneries. Though ironically, people believe that its loops could make a great Rail Rush Season too, in addition to the Benelux), some challenges in this season require you to take a local Metro Line (which isn’t counted for the Chip Claim), or a Bus (which… could take a long while to do, especially for that 110 Chip one inland). Like, not even the promise of that many coins entices anybody to actually go there, even when there’s a 2nd one. popping in nearby with just as many coins around.
Still, the fact that we get to see a Location-specific challenge takes me back to Schengen Showdown, especially with, I believe, Amy being responsible for writing them once again (Don’t know who would write the challenges this time with Amy actually being on Season 18 however). Unfortunately, while the challenges are indeed at least did a good job in at least trying to make it correlated to the Location it was in, some are… a bit of an eyebrow-raiser one (Like the Meditation one or having a McD Challenge in a small town instead of something Wax Apple-related unique for that town)
Unfortunately, that comparison, along with the very difficult first challenge involving Tofu Rocks, sets me up for a mistake of an expectation. I thought the challenges would be quite difficult to have. Especially considering that both the previous two seasons, Tag All-Stars and Hide+Seek UK having plenty of complaints of things being… way too easy. However, that expectation led to the discovery of this Season having possibly one of the worst challenge balancing since New Zealand.
And this is applied to not just the Award, but also the actual difficulty itself. Which also turns out to be Vindicating New Zealand out of the Bottom Tier of the Seasons. (Which I admit I started rewatching again just recently, and I realized that the Waterfall Swimming one should have the Dice Roll only be done after you at least swim there once). So yeah, we’re getting to the nitty-gritty of the Review here.
An unexpected sight of seeing an Indonesian Restaurant here at Kaohsiung
So, what was the issue here? Well, it turns out that the Tofu Rocks Challenges are an outlier in terms of a Brutal Difficulty, considering that you were only given TWO MINUTES to remember a complex pattern amidst a bunch of identical rocks. Compare that to the first Taipei Challenge at Da’an Park, which not only had infinite time to remember but also allowed a Retry.
I believe that the reward for the Tofu Rocks Challenge should have been at least 60 instead of 40, but even then, there are still more rewarding yet easier challenges than that, such as the 70-pointer Taste Testing in Dawu. Perhaps the worth of those Challenges are more based on the distance and time required to reach it, which would explain that North offshoot line having a 90 as well as the Inland Line having a lot of coins piled up there too (I forgot how much the 2nd Challenge at that line worth, but sorry.)
In fact, I shall lay out an idea on how to rebalance the difficulty of these challenges, because other than the outliers, there was Tofu Rocks as well as the Hot Spring Quiz; most of the challenges felt way too easy to have. Mostly because I’m raging at how ridiculously bad the Hsinchu Zoo one is (And Sam had the gall to make a joke about ‘Human are Animals’ which makes the challenge EVEN WORSE)
-Tofu Rocks: Allows for a ‘shortcut’ between two different safe rocks even if they’re not the next one in the sequence. And/or extend the time limit to remember it to 5 Minutes.
-Hot Springs: Make the Questions to be NOT as wordy as possible
-Hsinchu Zoo: Either find 5 different Animals Enclosures of Animals Eating or Sleeping, or find both of these actions in the exact same Enclosure.
-Jellyfish Tank: The Margin of Error is reduced to 15%
-Xincheng Giraffe: Reduce the Time Limit to 20 Minute
-Meditation: The Margin of Error should be 30 seconds instead of 1 Minute
-Hakka Diameter: Make the calculation be Circumference and/or Area instead of Diameter, then Reduce the Margin of Error to be 10%
-Taipei 101: Not allowing the Ground Level Observed to be within a certain radius from Taipei 101, most likely to be a block from it. (Though I think that rule might already exist even if it’s unsaid.)
There are some other Challenges I consider to make harder too, but then I changed my mind after seeing another challenge as an equivalent on the other side.
-Chiang Kai-shek Chrysanthemum Festival and the Dragon-Tiger Pagoda: Both are literally unavailable, but they’re both intended to be a time waster. On top of the Chiang Kai-shek one becomes increasingly harder the more you fail it. Which is horrible considering that Veto didn’t exist this season.
-Taichung Rainbow Village and Kaohsiung Street Art: I was thinking about the Taichung one, looking for the exact same location of an artwork upon realizing that there could be multiple of them in the whole complex, but I changed my mind upon realizing that the Scavanger Hunt only requires you to find 3 artworks instead of all five of them.
However, despite that, this season introduces a concept that is definitely a great idea in terms of difficulty as long as you could balance it right (Other than that damn Meditation one), the Call Your Shots Challenge. You could be safe and get little or risk it all and go big even if you could fail it and lose all the Challenges. And indeed, these are some of the most difficult or at least fallible challenges of the season.
The Hot Springs one is a prime example of this, but others of this caliber are no slouches either. The Boba one is almost certainly a disaster if not for Downie realizing that Sam could make a lobbed shot instead. The Monkey Mountain one would probably have failed had Badam not discovered that Monkey Bridge. And the Zodiac one became a lot harder the more animals you put in to guess, due to the 50 Rock cap you have.
However, those whacked balances of challenge in this Season is mere Icing on the Cake at the end of it. Considering that it happened in multiple seasons. The real issue we have is with the Bias of the Challenges. At first, people theorize that the challenge was spawned on the Opposite Side of the challenges that were completed prior. However, it was soon clear that the spawn of the challenges, or at least the placements of the challenges themselves, were extremely biased to the Northern Corner of the Map, from Taoyuan to Yilan County.
It gets to a point of ridiculousness that the South Side gets next to no challenge on the middle half of the game. Even though it gets better later on, there is still a clear, obvious look that a lot of challenges spawn in the northeastern corner of Taiwan. Granted that there might be fewer stations to put an interesting challenge with down south, but all this does is to give a HUGE advantage to anybody to just camp around Taiwan instead of the one who chose to venture outside first.
A good solution I can think of here is to limit the amount of Challenges on the board to be 1 per Administrative Division, or let the Random Generator have an Algorithm Recognize that if more than half of the challenges on the board spawn on the Northern or Southern part of the map, as well as Western or Eastern part of the map, then the Challenge won’t spawn on those sides.
Granted that it didn’t completely fix the problem when there are way more splits of administration in the West Side than the East, so perhaps in the Counties (Emphasis on Counties and not Cities which would exclude Keelung) that are not reached by the High Speed, which means Yilan, Hualien, Taitung, and Pingtung, they could have 2 challenges per County at a time instead.
Still, the completely Taipei-biased Challenge Spawns is really bad, if not unfair to look at. Something… is a lot worse than that. If anything, this is the root cause of so many problems I had with this Season. What ultimately ruined my enjoyment of this season. A What-If where this Season could be higher than TAG I and be one of my absolute favorite seasons if not for this. The classic… the least… the dreaded… Steal Challenges.
I would have THOUGHT that after the horrible Brisbane Sign Steal and how good the Steal Mechanics were in Schengen Showdown that this season had learned to make the Steal Challenges MUCH harder than any other ones… But nope! It’s arguably worse here because at least Brisbane is only 1 terrible steal (Even though a lot of my problems are in AUS$), while here… we get multiple of them!
And not only that, there are a lot of Steals, most of them are WAY TOO EASY for Steals, and it should habe been MUCH harder than regular challenges at least. The only one that I think feels fair difficulty-wise is the Taipei 101 one (Which seems to be a harder version of the Challenge Sam and Brian did in Virginia in B4A due to the lack of collusion). I already laid out the exact way to rebalance it to make it more sensible at an earlier part of the review.
But one thing for certain is that the Margin of Error and/or Time Limit for these steals are WAY too generous. As if it were a mere regular challenge’s difficulty, but among them all, some of them have the “Steal” tag slapped into it without even caring to buff the difficulty. While the brutal Tofu Rocks could have been an ideal Steal challenge if not for my proposed nerf.
Even worse, remember Brisbane Sign’s Steal of 40% to Adelaide Wine Tasting’s 30% despite the latter being MUCH harder? The Ratio of Steals here is even worse, 45%… which is inflated to 2/3 if you fail a Steal. While I love the idea that a Failed Challenge can be tried by the other team for a higher reward, a great idea taken from Schengen Showdown’s One-Try-or-Fail Challenge plot. The reward for Steals is FAR too much.
Despite Steals being a lot more recoverable compared to AU$ (or god forbid the Steal Flops), they should have been nerfed to at most 25% in terms of rewards. In fact, its non-Stealing counterpart, the 45% Multiplier is balanced around the fact that you need to have a lot of coins in the first place to make it worthwhile, but that was not applied to the Steals because even if you tried dumping a lot of chips into a station to lessen the Steal’s worth, it’s still a lose-lose from the Stolen one because having a low chip balance only brought nothing but trouble! And I think that if all Steals of the Season were 45%-er instead, this Season would be FAR better with the focus instead went to playing aggressively with the coin purchasing and stations flipping
And here is the biggest kicker of them all. Remember when I said that the Challenges are so biased up north? Well… five of them that spawned there are steals… FIVE! There are only two 45%-ers that spawned in comparison, and ALL FIVE OF THEM ARE IN THE NORTH! Yes, I may be biased in that I always felt that the Worst of Steal Mechanics benefitted Sam a lot more every single time (Other than Badam trying to intimidate Sam and Downie with the Taipei 101. But even then, that Steal end up not matterjng at all because of Sam and Downie’s baffling decision to go All ot Nothing on that Beipu Call Your Shot), but it still won’t deny that the Steals felt like you were PUNISHED for doing well in grinding in challenges!
Furthermore, I saw that people complained a lot about the train downtime on Episode 6 or the Stalemate on Episodes 7-8. And believe me, I understand why people had grievances about that. I saw a suggestion that the Coins Stolen is commenced at the time of the Theft is started, not when it was done, just like AU$ did. In fact, I believe that the Penalty of losing half of your chips should be applied for Failing a Steal just like AU$
However, while they are important changes to have to stop Stalemates like this (Or even Snake or Tag All-Stars from happening), Steals are STILL the root cause of that Stalemate happening in the first place. Let’s say if those Steals were replaced with a 45%er instead. Then Sawnie just does the Hakka Roundhouse and leaves, while Badam does the Dragon-Tiger Pagoda and leaves; no need to waste hours for that. In fact, why did the Hot Springs Stalemate happen too? Yep, because of that Taipei 101 Steal as we know.
I’m honestly typically someone who’s neutral in watching stuff, but the combination of all of the above is something else. The horrible challenge balances, the Taipei bias, and the Steals existing cause me to have, for the first time, a completely biased opinion on who to Root for. Yes, I always rooted for Ben and Adam to win, but I usually keep it to myself and just be happy with a game that is good.
But here? the horror of seeing those ridiculously easy challenges, such as the Hsinchu Zoo and the Two Steals with the Jellyfish and that damn Giraffe on a Cookie, made me crash out. I was so nervous when I saw Adam having to carry 6 cans across a continental rift; I despaired when Badam choked and did 6 questions instead of 5 at the Hot Springs. Because honestly, for how much disadvantages they went through and the challenges they grinded through, I believe that they deserved to win the Season more because if Sam and Downie are the one winning instead, I would know exactly WHY they did, and that left a bitter taste on my mouth (Enough for plunging it straight on top of the Unfair Category even)
So yeah, while I saw people were furious about how many baffling strats Sam did, like reinforcing the Two Hsinchu-Taichung Lines instead of pushing straight to Kaohsiung and snatching the two challenges there and practically winning the game while Badam was spending half a day backtracking instantly. Or them wasting hours on Stalemate despite being far behind on Stations and running out of stations. Or them just choosing to bankrupt themselves and go all-in on a Beipu Variable Reward Challenge instead of taking an easy 90, 65, and even a steal Up North.
Even if Sam picked those strange decisions for the sake of Contents. I admit I was enjoying seeing the hubris and the collapse that happened at the end, and I consider that the end result to be a Karma. So yeah, those last three episodes were not the worst episodes for me. To me, it is the 3rd and 4th that are the worst Episodes of the Season.
And something I realized from this season is that I tend to look away from Skill Issues and Chokes more compared to the actual Bad Game Design itself (Especially the Unfair ones. Hence why Hide+Seek Japan is my favorite season, despite having plenty of Hider Skill Issue Moments). On top of me being especially harsh if not cautious in the presence of any Steals existing in a Jet Lag Season. I already had this feeling since AU$, and this season only reinforced my belief in it.
Honestly, also, a big takeaway and epiphany that I had for this season is that the Best Steals are the ones that are of the very thing that decides the Season. Basically, a Steal of Results rather than the Resource. Battle Challenges in B4A are balanced around taking in 2 Neighboring States to be even able to do it (and even then, you could easily lost the team by the other team). Schengen Showdown’s steals are considered punishment for either failing a Challenge or neglecting to lock in a Country.
Heck, even New Zealand (which can also be applied to other Race Seasons like Arctic Escape) could have needed this, where instead of Roadblock, we can have a U-Turn that is a Power Up that can only be used by the Rear if they’re on the same road as the one in front. Instead of the Roadblock that solely benefits the front side, in comparison to the Curses that can be used on Both Sides.
Stealing of Resources, however, is horrible because it adds something that punishes you for doing well on Challenges, which scares people from having a lot of resources no matter how important it is. And that paradox ruins a lot of the competitiveness of a Season. And it shows that what was in theory stops someone from getting ahead coyld also makes the one ahead be even more ahead (Even if said Steal of Resources could only be jsed from the one behind, it still feels not fair at all). And once you lose those resources through NO Fault of your own, it’s a lot harder to bring yourself back up. Especially when people are already wrestling each other to STEAL what challenge would be theirs (Arctic Escape or Circumnavigation are prime example of this), as well as where Teams flipping States, Stations, or any future Territories left and right, which I think is the only way for a Steal to be completely fair.
So, about the final ranking now. Honestly… it’s really hard. The Season if you take it without context, is probably one of the most enjoyable ones, but it was a really difficult one to get through, especially in the Middle Stages, while I’m just considering the later part of the season to be more chill.
It’s like, because of those steals and many other imbalances that exist, I cannot rank it too high or too low. Putting it on a high tier means that I disregard how bad the Challenges were balanced; putting it too low means I disregard the fun I had with Taiwan itself. I know for sure that this Season is just below NZ, so because of that, I put Rail Rush at the top of the “Broken Tier” while moving NZ higher to the Bottom of the “Needs Work Tier.”
So yeah, here’s the Updated Ranking for you to know. But as you can see here, I changed a lot of rankings now that I base things on a Tier System as well. Connect 4 and Magic the Gathering are raised to Underrated Tier, because Connect 4 is such a good simple season with plenty of Smart Strats and also the Butte Coincidence. While my issue of Magic the Gathering solely lies on me not caring about that tabletop card game as well as it being a Spiderman Card Set (Or any of the Comic Stuff nowadays indeed)
I also put Capture the Flag higher than AU$, because as much as I loathe the whole Tokyo-centricness of that game and especially the Parking the Bus that happened Post-Yairo. I am having a lot less fun from the infamy that is Adelaide Challenges, the Brisbane Steal, or how RIDICULOUS the Australian Plane Booking System is (Aside from the Melbourne/Avalon Airports-related chokes that Badam experienced there)
Other than that, though, if you would like to rank the Seasons yourself, here is the Tier List linked down below just for you!
My guideline for these Tier Lists so far are:
S is Goated. A is Underrated. B is Needs Work/More. C is Broken. And D is Unfair/Meh.
Magic the Gathering Special: We Played Magic The Gathering in the Real World
Season 16: Hide+Seek in UK
Season 11: Tag Across Europe III (Alpine Barrier)
Season 13.5: Hide+Seek in NY
Season 5: Race to the End of the World in New Zealand
Season 17: Taiwan’s Rail Rush
Season 2: Circumnavigation
Season 15: Tag Across Europe IV (All-Stars)
Season 14: Snake in Korea
Season 6: Capture the Flag in Japan
Season 10: AU$-Tralia
Season 8: Arctic Escape
Tom Scott Special: I chased the Jet Lag team around London
???. Season 18 in US National Parks with Amy
Guest Rankings:
Tom Scott (Lateral Podcast)
Brian McManus (Real Engineering)
Michael Downie (DownieLive)
Amy Muller (Half as Interesting)
J.T. Chapman (Second Thought)
Toby Hendy (Tibees)
Matthew Krol (Extra Credits)
Michelle Khare (Challenge Accepted)
Joseph Pisenti (RealLifeLore)
Scotty Allen (Strange Parts)
Now, as usual, if you were interested in reading them, here is my raw reaction of the Season… So, enjoy it, as this was a lot of stuff to read. So, take your leisure pace on this, okay? For now, though, see you in the next season back in the United States for the first time since Arctic Escape. Apparently this would be a shorter season with probably just Downie’s Bangkok to Bali Series in between. I don’t know how long that would be, but I would enjoy watching that as much as possible because Downie is in Indonesia, baby! (Jet Lag in Indonesia when?! 😡 )
Also, this Review is also almost 5000 Words… yikes! D:
TEASER
Jet Lag Taiwan Teaser’s out now that the Finale had been out on Nebula :O So let’s see what I think
-What is Ben doing there on a Bridge. Also, what brought them here at all… is this a NZ-like Season?
-Also, are those… Ang Pao/Red Envelopes (I know, I said it because this is close to Chinese New Year xD)
-Still, if this Teaser stays this way for the actual Season, this must be THE weirdest intro ever, even worse than the same thing they did in Schengen Showdown too. It’s Off-Centered for God’s sake!
TRAILER
And here’s a surprise last part of the queues… 😮 oh hello there! Somehow, I completely missed that there’s a Tesser on the Taiwan Season already 😮 So let’s get to it then, shall we?
-Gotta be honest, that is one hell of a Sunset/rise transition to the Taiwan Map there 😮
-Really guys, you choked the Stations already? ^^ but hey, at least nobody exactly understood on how did Taiwan’s geography much. Not being ‘internationally recognized’ would do that to you, sadly 😦
-Some good number of variants in train, nice… but I agree with that Lady, MAPS AS MERCH PLEASE
-I thought Ben stood behind a TALL mountain. Also, Five Days, hm… Alright.
-243 Stations… Yeah, this feels to me like Au$tralia melded with B4A in terms of claiming. But the difference is that the route is far linear but there are far more things to wrestle over. So, I’m going to say that racing across the whole loop first would be an interesting advantage VS going slower and methodically spent moneys and stole stations along the way.
-I saw some numbers on the challenges. Are they representing “The number of coins gotten there” or “Each challenge are limited by each national road on this country”?
-Wut? Downie? Pitch a Painting… How did you ‘Pitch’??? 😐
-Hoo boy, luck again. But well, these challenges being location specific is a great return to seasons like NZ or Schengen Showdown, but I hope they don’t run out places to put challenges in tho.
-I wished I got Subtitles tho. I wonder if there’s a Trailer on Nebula already 😦
-Back-er is such a weird word to say, Sam *sighs*
-Man, Ben and Adam’s names are so tiny there, compared to Sam and Downie having the whole Pagoda for himself 😦
-Good Music, not sure if I like the name Rail Rush that much, felt… A little generic. But I appreciate that Tiger and Dragon Artwork there. Don’t know if they picked it simply because of the Pagoda or is it something else however.
-Sorry Downie, you’re ALREADY on the trailer. Either way, this seems quite promising of a season however. But of course, can’t do Taiwan stuff without the Boba, isn’t it? XD
-And March 18th on Nebula, right around Eid Al-Fitr there. Quite a timing for sure. And that makes it… March 26th for me… Man, I REALLY need to get going on that DW8 Empires Designing. So, damn you Old Hard Disk! 😡
-Oh, thank fuck the Trailer’s on the Nebula Site too!
-I guess the Whistles is Train Conductor departing there?
-Also, pretty sure this Season is shot around Winter, and this is NOWHERE near as desolate as Snake Korea. Must be the more temperate climate in Taiwan.
-Crayon Mastermind? Synesthesia? Definitely going to need to look those things up later
-Also, yes, I can’t bring myself to call Downie Michael unlike with previous guests. Because it’s not out of disrespect from the Surnames, but come on, I’ve been watching you for years already, and the channel is called DOWNIELive, not MichaelLive! D:
-I do hope that the acquisition is quite straightforward tho. No power ups that kept a team in front like Roadblocks and Skip Challenges, or Stealing Mechanics that are… Well… Unfairly easy. So, I hope that the challenges are the ONLY way to get coins, and based on the Trailer, it might be quite decently difficult too even if it’s not like One Try Only Painful like Schengen Showdown’s did.
B. And now for the gaming stuff, which there isn’t a lot of, FOR OBVIOUS REASONS -_-. So… yeah, I also reluctantly had to take breaks from Resculpted Project AND DW8 Empires Designing until I at least checked my whole gaming catalog back. I mean, I count myself lucky for somehow only needing to do 1 day each for Euro Truck and PVZ Fusion this week unlike the expected 2 for this Ramadan Period
EPISODE 1
Tonight, on Jet Lag! A lady wanted the Boy’s Map. No Shortcut between these Tofu Crossings. And Sam plays Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
-Taiwan, why is there a random dent at the south of the country here?
-Also, the Subtitle is at the corner, hm… And why is the camera randomly going to Adam, Sam? *sighs*
-That was a good montage tho, the scene changed every time we went by a pillar on the train 🙂 Also, Hi Monkey 😀 And that Beige Train IS really nice, Downie 🙂
-I wonder if they went on a different way or the same way around the country tho. But still, I won’t expect much in terms of diverging paths this season, but we’ll see how varied the locations this season going to be.
-Also, the challenges mentioned for the Montage here is different to the Trailer’s, hm… And indeed, it is a sick view there… that Pagoda man 😮
-Ah, the West populous part of the country had two rail roads, that’s a nice diversion to have there 🙂
-I wonder how much worth the Dead-End ones are, but… 50 starters out of 200… yeah, this will be a LOT of wrestling involved, isn’t it? Since the amount is so small, which is good actually.
-I still don’t get what those Numbers and now-Question Marks mean, Sam *sighs*
-I guess Mike is easier to hear than Michael, but I forgot when was the last time Downie got called as “Mike” in any of his videos
-Ah, the numbers refer to the Coin Reward, but I wonder if we get new challenges popped up per day because otherwise, the amount could get very limiting there.
-It’s a Village for Cat Café, Sam 😀 But honestly, I don’t know which one would be better between West or East here, since this game is completely new and not something known like Snake or a Race here. And I’m not familiar enough of Taiwan to know how much Stations there are between both side
-Still, I realized that the 2nd West Coast Lane is a High Speed, which means… well, FAR LESS STATIONS, which is a con of going there.
-Oh okay, they CAN generate more Challenges, but there’s only 10 at a time. Phew… I think this solve the biggest issue with Capture the Flag, where there’s so little flags to grab that you’d just be funneled on the Shinkansen otherwise getting ANYTHING else is horrible *cough*Kofu*cough*
-But what was the default number is… 5? And… they both wrestling the same Taipei Challenge xD
-That kind of Season? The Hubris? 😮 But I get why Ben would prefer to jut not do the same challenges as them as possible.
-Dude, why the Taipei number shrunk so much it looked like there was a SECOND challenge there -_-
-The heck is a B-Roll? But oh… there’s Stations that is NOT a part of the Point, that makes sense! But Downie, that is a HORRIBLE photo! WHY?! D: And that music makes that vibe worse man D:
-Also, Orange and Cyan, very rare that they went with such a different color that isn’t like… Red, Green, or Yellow 😮
-NINETY Minutes on High Speed?! Just how big is this country or how slow these Trains are?! D: And the Low Speed is just a bit slower at 2 hours… is there any point taking High Speed then? -_-
-MAKE THAT MAP A MERCH, BEN! PLEASE! D:
-I wonder what that Mountain on the Train Door tho? Is it Yu Shan? Still, if it’s possible to take the non-coin stations, I wonder how plausible it is to go Inland and have a shortcut. *pause* Nope, there is NO Such rails in Taiwan 😦
-Also, considering the details on these Stations in terms of the game, I think I might be on a Precise Distance Marking by the Stations rather than the City. We’ll see about that though. At least searching through Google Maps won’t be as horrendous as Korea though.
-Perhaps you’re looking for Flushing Meadows-Corona Park rather than Central Park, Downie
-Wait, Numbered? Random? How is that possible if the challenges’ location specific? Did you identify it by the number of numbers of Rewards?
-That was a nice music to open the letter tho 🙂 Also, Sam, it’s pronounced Da-An, not Daiyan *shakes head*
-Okay, Two Attempts for the Bird with no time limit. But ah yeah, remember that whole Bald Eagle in the wilderness of… Springfields MA? Or is it Hartford CT? *Pause* No… wait, it’s about the infamous Pigeon Parry back in UK xD but don’t worry, I hate memorizing things too, Sam 😦
-At least the Sign isn’t COMPLETELY in Chinese xD and yes Ben, Asian Countries are typically crowded 🙂 *pause* Well, Taiwan is as dense you can get in Jet Lag, 17th in the world in fact, without counting City States like Vatican or Singapore.
-Yeah, I guess putting down big number coins is better to be done late-game once you got a lot more saved up before. You can even be selective on which part got the injection or not.
-Oh… so they can only travel if they put down chips and claim a Territory… yeah, this is going to a be scary thing this season, isn’t it O_O But yeah, being the first to go through a Line is definitely an important thing here, since unlike AUS$, you can’t just go through places without any cost.
-And of course, the classic here, BLOCK THE CHOKEPOINTS. But right, so the balance is you cannot put down more than 5 Coins… but what happened if both sides had the same amount tho?
-Is it going to be prettier than Hide+Seek Japan or Switzerland tho? We’ll see 🙂
-Guess the strat is to pick the most distinct-looking birds then? Nice crown on that Heron tho 😮 *pause* BUT WHY IS THE BIRD’S DRAWING BLUE?! 😡
-Also, Sam REALLY love that Protect Our Winters Shirt, isn’t it? I seen it in a lot of seasons now 😮 Either way, screw doves, let’s go *sighs*
-So Variable Reward… is the challenge there random too, or…? And alright Ben, enjoy your beard there, I hate having beards tho 😦
-MAM is horrible, Sam. So even if it’s not a Portmanteau, Night Herons is GOOD 😮 I’d take Sawnie tho 🙂
-HUH! Why the random U-Turn before Xinzhuang???
-Yeah, I do agree that people don’t appreciate Taiwan as a Destination enough for not being a ‘Real Country’ so to speak.
-YES! They do NOT know the challenge, don’t know who write it. But as we learned from Schengen Showdown, not knowing the challenge means it will be harder to do.
-Convenient? Whose camera was that? *glare* Wait, why did Badam didn’t even put anything IN Taipei tho??? But you’re right that the East Side is basically one long choke point too.
-Still if both sides commit to stay on one side, I wonder how long and tenuous things would be once they started invaded ‘beyond their borders’ so to speak. And what the South Border going to be set up too…
-Sorry, Sam, but pretty sure you love Planes more than Trains. But Downie here, yeah, he’s a BIG Train Lover :3 But Ben you’re blocking the beautiful shot… please 😦
-Wait, you did Blimps already, Downie? 😮 And Sam is still annoyed to not see F1 during Jet Lag *cue Melbourne in AU$*
-Uh… not sure if I’m fine with those blinking lasers on the platform tho D: Still, it’s good that the Challenges are OFF the Train Stations, which means that you’re forced to leave the train and see the town in between.
-But well, you two are typically the On-the-Fly type while Sam is the Rigid Planner one. So… ^^
-That was a LOT of public housing tho, like DAMN! :O Also, Motorcycles! 😀 But I get why they called it Tofu Rocks, based on the shape 😉
-YIKES! Why is there a loop on that path, bro! D: Okay, this challenge is quite a bit horrible even if it worth more than the bIrds. And Hairpins too, they should have been allowed to jump in a shortcut if they’re both safe… really.
-But oh god, the flashback to Zug- NO OKAIHAU EXPRESS D: Still, guess there’s no snacks on that train or Station somehow them 😦
-Adam, pretty sure it’d take longer than Two Minutes to just put down those rocks in Numbers D:
-Uh… let me check. When was the last time Sam won? *pause* Not UK, not Tag All-Stars, Snake makes it Adam 3 in a Row, not Schengen Showdown, or Hide+Seek Japan… that makes it Tag III if we don’t include the NY one, right?
-So… what’s the forfeit if you lost then, Downie? ^^ And I mean, Hide+Seek for me is always about the Journey and not the Destination, right? 🙂
-Nice Visualization on the Route there, but NO! D: But well, I think Adam’s screwed anyway if Shortcuts were allowed, so… *shrugs*
-YIKES! So just like Schengen Showdown, you can only try out Challenges once, but now the 2nd Try HAS a 50% boost unlike NZ where they got jack shit for being 2nd, UGH! D: I’m up for actually difficult but fair stuff, but this is painful.
-But I guess just like Schengen, they have to tell the other team that they failed but not about WHAT is failed. And that’s the Trailer Shot, Sam’s pogging. Still, he had some very comfortable sitting position there 🙂
-McLaren DQ… so what Team Cyan is then? Willams? And no Downie, Red Bull is Dark Blue *sighs*
-So, there IS a merit for High Speed after all. If you’re short on coins and don’t want to hustle with too much coins to claim. Right… But yeah, blocking that down could have waited until later, right?
-But yeah Adam, 2 minutes for that is brutal compared to the 30 Birds That post didn’t work to open the door, Downie *shakes head* Second Try tho *shrugs* Also, yep, I think this is the lowest Latitude in Jet Lag outside of Circumnavigation (Cancun and Singapore) ever. Taipei is 25 to Brisbane’s 27.
-But those are some HORRIFYING Creatures you stumbled upon opening the card, Downie D: Also, Goddamnit pun xD
-Ah… Stray Cats. That’s why it’s a Cat Village 🙂 But does being on a balcony counts as ‘Above You’? *pause* 15 Feet is… 4,5 Meter. Decent amount of distance, I guess. Is deliberately feeding cats allowed though?
-Okay, maybe this challenge is a bit harder than I thought ^^ But I’m surprised there’s cats in captivity at all in this village 😮 And fuck you Copyright, let me hear that Cat Song 😦 Also, Abandoned Wagon, auw… :3
-AND they don’t touch! D: Maybe small kitties might be better here 😦 But I guess fights counts and
-Also, this season seems slowly paced so far wit short span trains and no planes around. So, I think we’ll be seeing a lot of Taiwan indeed 🙂 I almost raged at seeing that tiny blue train being a High Speed tho But sorry, Downie, but this might be a Cat-astrophe indeed :p
-I want that drinking dispenser though 😦 Wait, wait, shouldn’t you redo the Eating one again if it’s these two in the cage?
-I wonder how random the placements of these new challenges tho, or if there’s any limit on how far down things could go within a day.
-Hm… Blocking down Taipei, eh? Not sure if it’s makes sense when you had locked down the Stations further east, but… *shrugs* But Sawnie went West Coast next day? Interesting…
-But nice tower you got there though, Liujia 😮 Invalid Card again?! Come on! And that’s a 25 Minute Time Loss 😡 We’ll see if this turned out to be a False Sense of Security after all though 😦
-I wonder how popular were Boba back in Australia though. Also, Hsinchu? I thought we’re in Liujia
-Trying? Pretty sure you had Coolish in Hide+Seek Japan, don’t lie to me! 😡 But sure, if you wanted to have a 2nd Snack Zone for it… at least Snack Zone came early this time *shrugs*
-WUT?! I know you spoke French, but since when did you knew Mandarin, Sam?! D:
-No Steal on the Board? Like…. No Challenges that steal Coins or Places right… right?! Please no… PLEASE NO! D:
-Welp, better that than missing the Train AGAIN, Adam *sighs* Oh… so High Speed Stations are double names, alright! And please don’t jinx it and fail the challenge again BEN! D:
-Still, so far, I think this season seems to be around the Crime Spree-Tag II area, at least while I’m copium-ing with the lack of Steal Challenges. I HOPE it didn’t exist this season D:
-What the heck is that Canopy design around the Town’s Arch tho??? And nah, I don’t think the challenge would involve bathing of any kind there, sorry ^^
-Also, Adam, you don’t completely zip your bag! D: And loong walk, not a single station nearby, darn And I mean, if you DO completely run out coins without any means to reach a challenge, does that mean you’re automatically lose? 😦
-But UGHH that is Steep. This is the times where Motorcycles were Handy 😦 I mean, Taiwan is just as mountainous as Japan, right? *pause* No, it’s MORE! D:
-I mean, the East Side seems pretty easy so far. Maybe it’s to compensate how less flexible it is compared to the West, but… who knows. We’d find out after this Challenge at Changhua next *shrugs* But oh… this spring is a lot more public than I thought ^^
-Ah… so that’s how it goes. Basically, like the AU$ Wager but without the losses if you fail. Multiplier Challenge is nice, but oh fuck, so the Upside-Down S IS the Steal… I just PRAY that we did NOT get something STUPIDLY EASY like that damn Brisbane Sign, or else this Season’s might get knocked down to at most Circumnavigation/NZ Level. PLEASE, for the love of Allah! A Fair and DIFFICULT Steal for once!
-Ah… so this Challenge is basically Who Wants to be a Millionaire, right? But 60 Seconds and One Attempt per Question? Yikes. But if there’s no time limit before the 1st question, did you get more coins once you passed by the limit your set? I’m going to guess probably not or else it would be CHEESED to hell.
-Wait, how did you know what challenge is it, Adam? I thought you’re blind this Season Also, is that a Jet Lag-branded Water Canister? 😮
-Yeah, if they failed this, then the reward would be 12 per Questions right. So Conservative is a good thing to do for this stuff. Okay, the Questions doesn’t have to be in order too, interesting. And I hate pop culture too, Sam.
-Hm… Taiwan-specific Questions eh. And Jet Lag… yeah, it would be annoying if Downie unknowingly answered these.
-That Fighter Jet is smaller than I thought tho 😮 And this Walk is definitely worse Ben, since it’s Uphill *sighs*
-That is a weird-ass Snake Statue tho I guess the challenge is to guess which place you’re supposed to visit between the Buddha Statue and the Pagodas… not sure what this had to do… with a “Deal” tho And alright Bolanos, alright!
-Oh, so just pick one and follow the instructions? That doesn’t sound bad. There HAS to be a catch, right? Didn’t expect Buddha Statues to have an interior tho, considering that this is sacred xD but yeah, picking 50:50 is a bitch indeed D:
-But okay, at least Downie can just pick his questions while Sam is away so no peeking involved. Oh, you don’t need to CLIMB the Pagoda too, right ^^
-Okay, at least it’s not an instant failure, you just had to go within 5 minutes. That’s a bit better at least ._. Wait, you can’t run here? Is it because it’s too quaint or too touristy?
-Hoo boy, so there IS a hot part after all… poor censored legs 😦 But no Logo for “In the Hot Seat”? Auw… 😦
-Not surprised if Hide+Seek Japan won, it’s one of the best Seasons if not THE best one there. *pause* Oh… it’s Tag I, which is much older and also one of the most popular seasons too, shoot D:
-Poor RealLifeLore, always forgotten 😦 And Maryland (25K to MA’s 20K and CT’s 12K) eh?
-Welp, I had a feeling that it might be failed that, but not THIS badly And… there goes Sam’s Geography Knowledge D:
-Next Train to where? South or Taipei? Or what about that Drunken Mile back in Arctic Escape, Ben? But I guess that really spooked Sam out of Variable Challenges for the rest of the season then? But how many Challenges there are in Taipei tho? I feel like they might be a lot more spread out across the country to make it fair.
-SHIT… The Steal is on the East Side, and for some reason, the worst Steals had always benefitted Sam in some way. At least they might have regretted things now that they had just U-Turned to Taipei there *shrugs*
EPISODE 2
Tonight, on Jet Lag! Jeff’s sense of humor seems to be running inside Downie too much, don’t enter a Train last, and THERE IS A TRAIN MODEL VENDING MACHINE?!
-HMM… the Thumbnail says Sam and Downie went to the Tofu Rocks too… uh oh, I’m scared. How did they go through Reinforced 5 Stations tho
-I just realize, for how short the distance covered it, that meant we get a lot of dense experience and therefore possibly a lot of episodes too… This Season might turn out better than I thought… Steal Challenges standing, that is.
-And I am STILL praying that the Steals is HARD and not some stupid thing like the Brisbane Sign -_-
-Nice, hopefully the South Side getting some love there :3 Good luck going there too, Bois! 😀
-So, the Steal cannot be done today… hm… guess we’ll have to wait on that then, maybe tomorrow, maybe next episode *shrugs* And… of course, yeah, waiting on the Badam Budget too, can’t deny that *sighs*
-Mike, I think Jeff is rubbing off too much on the puns, man… D: And that, was a PAINFUL walk back O_O
-Yeah… the Bird one had no time limit, so… *sighs* Still, that damn Rocks might be one of the most BS Jet Lag Challenges out there, and we had some stiff competition *cough*Tag III Puzzle Box*cough*
-And thanks for the Nice Nod 😉 But shutting down High Speed IS quite bad for how easy it is to do from how little the stations there are.
-So, they reinforced the East Side even further? But I see, so you can NOT put coins on the Station you started with, that’s why nobody claimed Taipei until someone came back here 😮
-That is a nice Class Setup for Train Crossing, but where the hell is the chair, Sir?! D:
-Is Brightline THAT bad? Also, I pretty sure there’s lack of driving classes in the US, let alone on Rails *sighs*
-Also, the Toilet is 140 meter away? YIKES! D: And no Sam, it’s Choo Choo… you know the rest ;D But hm… so HSR in Taiwan is powered by Electric and not Diesel, eh…
-OH… so that’s how it is, the GAP is 5 Coins, NOT the Total you can deposit at a station is 5. That’s… explains it. Guess we’re getting a lot of wrestling with some stations worth more than others then So I guess reinforcing a bunch of stations in a row DOES have a merit after all… should have explained that last episode though *sighs*
-And well, Arms Race… let’s hope it won’t be a bunch of Trade Cards in B4A as much as I love that season, ehehehehhe… ^^
-It’s already evening for Badam here 😮 And Adam is in a Copium while Ben is being a realist xD
-Well… he was quite good back with the Birds, but we’ll see with these damn rocks 😦
-Sawnie shockingly didn’t spam 5 on that High Speed tho 😮 Gotta admit I was hoping for them to miss the station now xD
-29-45 and 45-28- DAMNIT! We were THIS close to have a symmetrical number of coins! 😡 And no, Sam, it’s Hsinchu County American School *sighs* Oh, there’s another “American School” by the terrace
-But oh… Irish… can we go back to that Debauchery Meme in Michigan again please? 😛
-Yeah, they basically went to the other side of Taiwan, so succeeded or not, they still wasted a LOT of time.
-Hm… need to look up if the Taiwanese are as good as the Japanese in Baseball tho. But oh great, it’s Touch Grass D:
-Ah, so you HAD to go from a specific corner of the place to start then. And well, Adam, to be fair, you didn’t know and you wanted to claim the Slow Line Stations first… right? And ah, even the Envelope had a +20 too 😮
-Wait, Sam… having someone else tells you where to go felt like Cheating -_- But hm… fake patterns as practice, interesting…
-Now WHERE are we, Adam! D: Wait, is the Statue Pear or Pearl? 😦 Ben, you’d be punished by having Impear from PVZ2 on you- wait, MCDONALDS?! WHY?! D:
-Okay, Taiwan-only menu is fine, but… I guess they don’t have any other idea for this town, and decided that… “We need to put a McD Challenge here somewhere, so… here it is *shrugs*”
-But yeah, the combination of me knowing Downie well and he did a great energy job with Sam without feeling too much like Toby or Michelle puts me at 2nd, VERY close behind Tom Scott whom I like the vibes more
-So, they eat BEFORE finding the menu. Interesting… But yeah, Adam is quite lucky with having plenty of Tasting Challenges out there 🙂
-Parmesan Chicken… that’s not too hard. Like, Chicken Meat is SO different to beef which is more common in McD, and Parmesan should be a distinctive type of cheese taste-wise, right?
-Yeah, the Diagonal Patterns are a bitch But that pattern doesn’t seem that complex with next to no near-miss intersections with others compared to the real deal. And I hope that’s not a Bald Eagle when I heard Downie yelled “Black Herons” xD
-Okay, so the Parmesan is more liquid than the usual McD Cheese, as long as Ben recognized that it’s cheese, we should be good.
-I don’t think Chicken Fillet is crispy, and I don’t think I even had these Chicken Non-Crispy Burgers either And if it IS spicy, Ben would have tasted it. And yeah, I don’t feel the Mushroom in Burger vibes, felt too fancy for McDonalds to me?
-True, I can see why they should put the Buddha to be 40 for the physical labor alone ^^
-NO! Another Steal, in TAIPEI?! D: Well… Sawnie’s definitely getting that, and I STILL pray! D: But hm… either that 70’s price is because it’s far, or because it’s REALLY hard… hm… But yeah, Badam still has that Question Mark Challenge down there too to reach the 70. So…
-But I can see this being the same mistake as Angry Birds on Finland, too much practice, strain you too much, then you’re screwed on the actual attempt.
-Oh god, Cloning Technology! This is what the comments were talking about! D:
-But both this AND the McD one, confirmed that it was Amy who wrote the challenges again. Good job! ^^ But come on! The camera is too zoomed out! SAM! 😦
-AND… Premature Turn, at least Adam went further here o_o And okay, so if both failed, then the Challenges just gone. Don’t know if we got reroll another one right now and maybe this challenge pops up again if we’re lucky enough, but we’ll see *shrugs*
-And Tainan… alright, not Taiwan, not Hainan xD but pfft, how did you see the Invisible Ink, Adam xD and ooh, 50 slightly up north. Hm… this is going to be awkward if Sawnie went for the steal after Badam went either Up or East of the Question Mark D:
-Oh, and Badam just chose not to go south then… okay, I thought they ARE at the Question Mark already ^^ Wait, a 2nd Challenge… huh, guess Failed by Both or Succeeded, two new ones always pop out regardless then *shrugs*
-But okay, going for the Question Mark before the Steal? Guess they had the High Speed on their hands, isn’t it? Also, Banana Tree! 😀
-And the Play Time were 7:30-18:30? 11 Hours, which is quite long for a Planeless Season, right? – Wait, 5:30?! It’s not even Sunset yet! 😦
-And I’m still praying to Amy that her Steal Challenges are MUCH harder than regular ones. Like, the Tofu Rocks level of Brutal Difficulty. And yay for spending Sam’s money in fancy hotels! 😀
-Yeah, wasting the Coins to minimize Steals sounds good as long as they weren’t trapped by the Low Balance, and I think they have enough stations if not even reinforce them just to do it.
-Hey… the Train is early! I hope they make it! 😀 But 15 of what? Still, we’re repeating Switzerland in Tag All-Stars, isn’t it? xD
-Hsinchu County? Call it Zhubei, you coward! 😡 And don’t worry, Downie, have fun walking back there 🙂 But nah… I doubt it will be THAT smooth, sir *shakes head*
-Ah… High Speed again, eh? Sam really loves to spam those 🙂 And oh… so Taipei was closed until 10 AM anyway. I wonder what is this there… but glad that Amy took out the biggest problem with Schengen Showdown, nobody knows that they need to visit LEGO or IKEA which are closed in the morning. Good job, good job!
-And… Adam’s really paying attention on the direction. Thanks, Editing Powers. And his fears were proven to be correct with guessing Sam’s Evil Plans here. The Bois learned from Australia, but probably they have no fear about conserving some budgets for a flight… I guess?
-But yeah, as long as they don’t fail a challenge, dumping coins shouldn’t be THAT much of a concern, right?
-Downie REALLY love to be the one filming, isn’t it? Too accustomed to his Train Videos ^^ Wait, is the train goes backwards or is there two Locomotives for front and back???
-Sure thing for the tips… but I would like to get my seats first :(- PFFT! That’s karma for you, if they missed the train because it’s full… AHAHAHAHA. Like, they’re STANDING on the train, as if this is a Commuter Line and not a High Speed *shakes head*
-Oh wait, Badam didn’t claim Hsinchu HSR because they started there… this whole “Starting Station Not Counted” is hell of weird on the OCD honestly 😦
-I mean, Sam LOVE his steals, so I’m sure that he WILL go after it sooner or later. And enjoy your Woljak Face, Ben 😀
-So… basically, the idea is to find somewhere REALLY empty like Rice Fields, right? Or maybe the Woods like that Path Sam went to the Tofu Rocks? And 1/8th Mile is… *pause* 200 Meters. That’s far o_o Too bad the Mountains in the Interior isn’t in this Season tho, that would have fit this challenge well ^^
-Yeah, it IS difficult, but as long as they CAN find the spot, they hopefully can do it, right? Probably something on par with the French Museum on Schengen Showdown.
-Also, a factory like that would be sure to bound someone’s walking in, right? But a Riverbed? Yeah… that should work.
-Wait, why is that Station marked as 1 and not 2? I thought it refers to the total coin not Coin Required by the other team to break through? 😦 *pause* Technically it’s pronounced Taizhong if we go by pure Pinyin, but… is it Chung or Cheung? *shrugs*
-Not that much of a fan of Croissant tho, too empty or… too messy to eat THEY HAVE A TRAIN MODEL VENDING MACHINE?! D: And Sam, just send it back to Colorado, PLEASE!
-To be fair, that challenge alone is a nightmare, so… *shrugs* But yeah, the train feels… very marine there 😮
-Yeah, the only ones seem worth being blocked off are High Speed or Choke Points. Definitely can’t go to that temple tho, it’s too crowded But yeah, unless SOMEHOW some rogue boat or kids wandering here, we should be good. Shoo them away, Ben! What’s up with the Cardboard Box tho And this place is horrible to traverse 😦
-Yes, this is Taichung, but WHICH Station is it! 😡 *pause* Oh, it’s just Taichung… ok ._. But 20 minutes’ walk man! D:
-Nah, Observation Deck implies someone goes there. Bad idea, Adam But that spot… the only reason it would fail is if some random Farms went crossing the river. Nice grass tho 😀
-Ooh… *Flashback to Counting Boba in AU$* Blowdarts… yeah, this might be hard o_o And don’t swallow them up! 😀
-But oh… the Other Team? Not just distance based? Yeah… I think this is easy I mean, 3 Chips per Boba too? D: But of course, Sam just wants to drink one xD This shop looks awesome with the conditioned air 🙂
-Adam! Just relax and sit down or something! 😦 But at least Sam succeeded! 😀 Yikes… 45% right where Sawnie are, and the other one is on the way to Taipei too?! D: Perhaps it’s time for Badam to turn the table and go east… 😦
-Still… Kaohsiung confirmed then. But… shouldn’t you lock down the High Speed too? And… have fun blowing them, Sam. Or… just get a small straw Sam *shakes head*
-Hm… so an Express and ignore Kaohsiung for now, or do Kaohsiung first… But I don’t think Sawnie would go THAT far south since they’re so preoccupied with challenges up north. *pause* oh… the ticket ran out And sorry Adam, but that Stand-By Trick only worked on Planes *sighs*
-Okay Downie! That’s enough Innuendos for the day! 😡 Also, should have get the Boba without Ice too *shrugs*
-8 instead of 10? That’s a weird number to go about And see guys! 10 is a good even number, don’t need to go weird like 8 or 12, okay?
-But hey, these Challenge Placements really give the two teams unexpected directions to go to. I was expecting Sawnie to stay East and Badam to stay West, but seems that the game had gone North South now.
-Okay, so there IS a distance. Thank FUCK that it means it’s hard! And too close! Thanks for showing the trajectory tho, Editors 😮 And UGH! The face! D; Nice Replay there! 😀 But damn, those blows were quick 😮
-But okay, so Badam decided to decide later… they CAN just take another Express straight from Kaohsiung, right???
-And sure sure, let’s go airborne on the shots then. But I guess they only got 30 at least *shrugs* Gotta give credit to Downie for figuring out how to do it tho 😮 But ahahahha… goddamnit you and your congratulations, Ben xD
-Oh my god, Taipei AGAIN?! How many of these challenges are biased Northside?! 😡 But at least the second one is 45% down south *shrugs* And hopefully Sawnie were distracted enough to get other challenges before the Steal while Badam can just waste coins on their way to that 70 Coins.
-So, Sam, you take the Hsinchu one since it gives you more stations while on an Express, then go back south for the 45% after that?
-But it’s weird that Express Trains need reservation… but not High Speed??? And sold out again?! Yikes, Taiwanese REALLY love their Expresses :O *pause* Oh… the next one IS for Standing Ticket… I guess I realized that it’s No Chair *facepalm*
-And uh… okay, so Taichung 55, then the Steal, and finally go back ALL THE WAY to the 45% Weird plan but ok ._.
-And why did you guys stand behind your backs, at least put yourself next to each other please 😦
-But Xinzuoying is a High Speed too… hm… Reinforce time? Wait, the Station IS the Museum??? D:
-And rip lockers too 😦 And… another Mountain Challenge? 😦 And oh look, it’s the Temple from the Trailer! 😀
-At least there’s no punishment to go under the number of monkeys, unlike the case with Adelaide Market… ANIMAL CHALLENGES, however, is a pain in the ass… D:
-40 Monkeys… that sounds too much. I hope this isn’t a Hubris 😦 And… that was a Cliffhanger! D:
-Still, while this Season had been very good so far, with so much places to see in great details since everyone are forced to walk off the Station for the Challenges… there hasn’t been quite… some very iconic moments yet. So I think while so far, it’s definitely more refined than Crime Spree’s funniness, it’s definitely not enough to dethrone my GOAT B4A yet… I need to watch Crime Spree again man
EPISODE 3
Tonight, on Jet Lag! Badam had Flashbacks to Climbing, Animals Giveth its fellow Herons a little too much, and Ben and Adam are on the same Wavelength.
-Hm… people saying that a piss-easy Zoo Challenge worth more than the Rocks in the comments? Hoo boy… this is not going to be good. We’ll see how this Episode went the.
-That depends if Badam actually gone all the way locking down East Coast and not just going back after the Southern Challenges tho
-At least the timer didn’t start when they call the shots tho. A Monkey a Minute is a nice phrase, but… UGH… STAIRS! We’re doing the Buddha Pagoda AGAIN! D:
-What is a Roundhouse tho, Sam? But nah Sam, that’s definitely Harvest instead of Grow on that Wind Farm *shrugs*
-Bye Bags… *waves* Okay, it IS Hsinchu Station… alright. And sorry Adam, I don’t think there’s a locker for a fucking mountain *sighs* And somehow, there’s STILL no monkeys here 😦
-Yep, Scooters. Welcome to Asia, Sam, America wouldn’t DARE to have Motorcycles like this! 😛 And that park had some nice gates indeed :3
-Yeah… a less traveled trail might mean more monkeys there- it was desolate -_- But huh, nice cut to Sam seeing Monkeys tho.
-EATING?! AN Animal?! Not even specific ones like that Cat Village, IN AN ENTIRE ZOO?! Okay, now I get people said this is WAY too easy! I might actually consider pulling this Season down to be at least below Tag 2, okay…
-And Sam, don’t just record Humans eating too, don’t make it worse than it already is. Didn’t we talk about this in Tag I? *sighs* Are there even sheep in a Zoo tho? They’re too domesticated for that, pretty sure
-That path with the rocks looks really nice tho 😮 I appreciate the music pausing every time there’s monkey counted too… Pretty sure Hippos don’t graze tho And they found it within Seconds… SECONDS, AMY! 😡
-Yay, more South Challenge! 😀 But I guess they just ignore that % Challenge completely, and… I guess now there’s 10 Challenges on the map now, that’s why no 2nd one spawn?
-That looks like a good observation spot, but… that feels… Dangerous to walk on D: But either way, oh… that’s a Bridge for Monkeys… POG! 😀 At least the walk back down won’t be as bad… right? 😦
-110?! Yikes… but I don’t know if it’s just “The Later it is to spawn, the more coins it is” thing, but I guess that’s one way to entice you to the deepest part of the rails in this Season.
-But yeah, a Multiplier with that number of coins right now is good, as long as they QUICKLY wasted it after that before the Steal happened.
-I thought that Station says Linblan instead of Linbian, which made me think of Arvid Lindblad ^^
-But indeed, completely blocking off Kaohsiung could stop them from really going East and then South, right? But yeah. Bad Vibes with the Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, and even CCP’s History with this island *shrugs*
-But Double on All instead of 5 on Some… okay, sure thing then. But they are DEFINITELY going to Taipei… unless they missed the Express in which I don’t know where did they go next… the High Speed?
-Wait, they ordered tickets on a Locker??? Also, 3 Transfers down south… ouw 😦 *pause* You didn’t learn to get the Reservation after the last time you tried, Adam?! *facepalm* And inb4 Sam did an Arakawa xD
-Fast Local Train? How fast would that be? But nice Accent Mam 😀 But somehow, Badam got the one despite the massive constraints, must be because there’s much fewer people going south than to Taipei ^^. But yeah, I don’t think Taiwan is too far off Japan when it comes to… “Living in the Future”, so to speak 😉 And alright, Sawnie being delayed by 20 minutes is not bad tho *shrugs*
-But yeah… 20 Minute Time Loss for a bunch of Station Steals is good for them! Definitely a better call. But why is the advert blurry though 😦 And ugh… that Train Car Connection looks scary D:
-I mean… how much dollar that one chip going to be, Ben? ^^ But yeah, five between here and the Percent is good since it made Steals less worthy too.
-And I hope you ARE right that the Steals are difficult, Adam… And hoo boy, Line Issue *Flashbacks to Kassel in Tag All-Stars* Actually, maybe it’s Shertegembosch from Tag II *shrugs* But that’s the Lag in Jet Lag, Delayed Trains :p
-25? Why am I have a feeling that this challenge would take a while o_o And perhaps their legs gotten better in Day 3 😦
-Sorry Downie, but Jinxing and Hubris are pretty common in Jet Lag ^^ And hm… I thought the challenge were at the old station 😮
-Okay, each part of the color symbolizes Shades. Don’t know how did they get 5/7 Guesses here, but I guess this is about the color that fits their partner the best? Alright.
-Dijon is a Mustard? Also, I guess this is just down to describing colors rather than the character. And sorry Ben, it was the Mint Flavor, not the Tree… what about Pandan tho, which green is it?
-Wait, why is there only 2 Reds here and not 3? Wait, Light Green AGAIN??? Did we randomly pick the colors that we ended up with repeats here? 😡 But yeah, Lemons are just… bright yellow.
-Zhongli? Now what are we doing on the Genshin Station? XD ANOTHER STEAL?! AMY! WHY IS ALL THE STEALS SO FAR IS IN THE NORTH?! Goddamnit Genshin! 😡 Didn’t think there’s a Challenge on a High Speed tho 😮 You need to learn how to say “That’s how the Jet Slag” sometimes, Downie *shakes head*
-No, I think you lost more if you don’t do the Multiplier, Ben. Because it’s probably even worse if they stole it when you had lower budget. And no Ben, I am NOT having fun *sighs*
-Hey, a Chill Experience is nice, as long as it wasn’t “Nothing Happen between Either Side” Kind of thing in Snake or Tag All-Stars
-This Line should have been brown for the Zhongli Spirit tho ._. Not sure what do you need the Smelling Salt tho, like… a Challenge in Future Season???
-Hm… a Challenge IN the Station, eh? Peculiar… wait, was that thing in Changhua counts as Pears? But what is… Spin-Top? The Beyblade stuff? Guess you can’t just make one that stood on its own even before spinning it since this is meant to be a Makeshift… Yeah, this is actually hard.
-I don’t think Yo-Yo can spin like that tho But yeah, doing this near children most likely would ruin the challenge from interruption ._.
-Ouw, poor cramped Locker 😦 Okay, counting Jellyfish is hard, but it’s not like “Boba Hard” like AUS$ since you CAN separate them at least… I get why people says the Margin of Error should be LOWER, especially if it’s between them and not the actual numbers, and ESPECIALLY for a Steal!
-Yeah, I think this is bad enough, to pull this lower than Tag 2. I just I hope future steals won’t be EVEN WORSE than this to put it below like Hide+Seek UK which is so unfortunate considering this Season started STRONG.
-I guess to stop the Collusions, they counted in turns here? But no, I think that Pear is too small. I think a floor or bench is better, but I guess it IS flat *shrugs* But the plastic had a cap???
-Wait, what challenge in Capture the Flag involved Aquarium again? But… maybe giving this one-time limit is actually a good idea to make this MUCH harder, even if it’s 10 Minutes per person, it’s still stressful amount to tally numbers. Having Steals be Variable Challenge also interesting too.
-Okay, 15… sure? I think the Margin of Error should be MUCH Higher for Steal, especially when you just need to count on like, two shapes of tanks, One Cylinder, or Spherical. This is hard, but not like. TOFU ROCKS HARD.
-Alright, Badam chose the wait since they end up with the same coins anyway if the Steal succeeded… or when the Train Departs, dammit 😦 How did Jellyfish Reproduce itself again?
-Yeah, 800-1300 is WAY too wide. 10-15% makes the range of 1100 to be in the 900-1200s which is quite a bit narrower… is Downie an actual dad tho?
-So, Sam guessed 100 per tank, which is… fair, but I still agree that 25% is WAY too big of a margin. But at least you DID expect that, Adam *sighs*
-Also, ALL Pears refers to this Season, is actually Wax Apples (Or Jambu as Indonesians called it)
EPISODE 4
Tonight, on Jet Lag! Sam ‘paid attention’ and got lost in Taoyuan, Ben blind-test a Banana, and Yilan and Xincheng had the most horrifying Giraffe Duo in Taiwan.
-*Seeing the Giraffe* Well that was a scary giraffe there D:
-*Reading Comments* The Steals are WAY too Easy… GODDAMNIT! Ugh… this is annoying, I might actually HAD to knock this down pretty low now, like the bottom of the Unbalanced Season, or worse, around the Circumnavigation/NZ Area, UGH! Which SUCKS because this Season started SO WELL! *sighs* Alright… let’s get to it then.
-Yeah… Chips had been changing a lot already Especially on a 45% Swing, it’s FIXED, unlike AU$ which had a much more fatal penalty for losing (Loss of Coins instead of Bigger Bonus for the other Team)… That method should have been back for the Steals this season.
-Wait, could they reach Dawu before Day 2 is over even? Also, 4 Episodes and it’s not even Day 3 yet… This Season is quite a slow-paced but dense one, which is quite nice.
-But man… that mascot is SO cute I wished I know what it is called 😦 But this is scary… damnit phone, if only you could see the Counter while being on air! Didn’t expect Penguins in an Aquarium tho 😮
-At least that Spin Top worked out in the end tho. And 1:34… nice job! 😮 And we have… 50 up north? Sure. And 20- oh come on! Back in Genshin again?! Why is SO much challenges up north, what is this???
-No, no, Please Foreshadow the Jinx, Downie! There’s a reason why I root for Ben and Adam even after THIS many Seasons man! Hide+Seek UK aside. And I KNOW right, Adam! I’m as annoyed as you are! Like, Every Time, steals in these games always benefitted Sam, like WHY?! 😡
-Yeah, getting the East Coast down while it’s empty sounds better before you could freely wrestle around over Taipei there.
-I realized that that this whole “Dumping Coins to lessen the Steal” wouldn’t have had to happen if not for these Steals existing at all, which sucks, because I wished this Season to be a simple matter of Territory Grabs and nothing else. With the actual steals being a lot of territory trading on Day 5 for example.
-Dumping 5 again to Dawu… man that sucks And Xincheng Taroko… guess that’s the Japanese Influence, isn’t it?
-11 AM eh? That’s going to be a while o_o And Same Train eh… nah, this is NOT the same coincidence as the Butte one, right? ^^
-Ah… those are Salt Farms, Ben, we have them in my hometown- Oh right, those are FISHES with these propeller And uh… those for air circulation, Ben, pretty sure about that ^^
-And running eh… doing a Steffisburg then 🙂 Still… are we renaming this to Run Lag now? :D- PFFT! Wrong Station I see xD Welp, that’s DEFINITELY Paying an Attention there *shakes head*
-Five Minutes back to the High Speed… haiya… That’s a big gap on the southernmost stations tho. I wonder if they ever get to see Yushan though
-If anybody knew, they’d rush to get that Taipei Steal instead, Adam… 😦 And… what mountain is that, Adam? But yeah, this place is definitely quite randomly rural there ^^ It even had a Wind Sock on a bridge 😮
-Hm… that’s two Rainbow Challenges for the bois 😮 But okay, Blind Test again, but this time, no leeway unlike with the stairs. But I feel like at this point, Ben’s been in more Blind Taste Challenges than a Drunk one, right? ^^
-And that is a LOT of bikes O_O But ah yes, good ol “No Reservation” for HSR in Taiwan. Been happening a lot already *shakes head* And uh… Downie, that Escalator is empty, it doesn’t matter
-And… what happened if there’s no Standing Room despite you having the tickets already??? GODDAMNIT! The recording lagged! >:(… oh, okay, they made it. Guess we ARE in the Great Wall of Taoyuan HSR then ^^
-Candies… I can see that, but how did you get Blue and Indigo?- oh no, Adam picked Apple for Red o_o And no, Doritos isn’t always orange to me
-Oh hey, Flashback of the same season 😀 Blue being Water makes sense, but what Indigo then??? But I feel like 3 liquids might dilute the taste a bit. That River reminded me of that Rugby River Challenge in NZ tho
-And Downie, it’s Taipei, not Taiwan *sighs* And hoo boy, Express Reservations yet again o_o But… of course figured that the Strats had now devolved into “Get the Steal and Ignore Everything Else”… of course it is.
-Smart for Adam to do Green first to remove the Apple Ambiguity tho. But there’s no Violet in Rainbow tho.
-Ahahah… couldn’t be more obvious that it’s a Banana, isn’t it XD It’s still so weird to see Indigo being ignored… TWICE. And somehow, both sides have the same Coin Counts again.
-Would be nice if the Bois can sleep at one of these Rainbow Houses tho 🙂 Didn’t even realize that the Line West of Changhua-I MEAN Taichung, is still entirely unclaimed tho 😮
-I have a feeling that Badam wanted to do the Variable Challenge first, but… we’ll see I guess *shrugs* And no, they weren’t, Downie.
-HMM… 55 right between the Variable and the Steal eh… peculiar. And 75%?! As if these Steals is NOT Ridiculous enough! That a nice gold train tho on the Diorama 😮
-So Bigger Deposits after… what was it again? The Hot Springs? Getting to the Steals first is important, but I just HATE that the idea seems to boil down to “Get the Steal, Ignore Everything Else”, which is not fun, because Steals is TOO Ridiculously OP. It really should have been cut down to 25% AT MOST. Since Steals is a Double Swing, which means Steals is a 100% Coin Differences flipped.
-I think you could do the Steal first then go south to the other two challenges to gather coins before having a breakthrough… Unfortunately, there’s STILL that stupid Steal in Taipei which would ruin all of that either *facepalm*
-I think that zoom out trick exactly worked out, Adam *shakes head* IS THAT A MOSQUE?! :O Welp, rip the Chips then 😛
-I mean, with THAT RIDICULOUS number of challenges up north, Badam is just cornered, like they had cleaned up ALL challenges they got on the West too, other than that 100 Points in the Heights and the 45% in Taichung one.
-Yeah… no choice but to bail out and do challenges if they lost to the Steal anyway. And 21 Minutes for the next time? Damn, that’s a big time for connection, might be enough for a challenge- OH… that Giraffe is a Station and not a Zoo 😮
-Man… I want to know what those boiled things now :(- Oh… Tea Eggs… I see. Well, that was a big brain on the condiment packages there 😮
-And… figures they put 25, right before this Xincheng too What was that random dead-end station right past the 50 Coins tho
-Auw… nice mascot for a cow there :3 Wait, is that another train past Yuli??? I don’t know why this town had Crayola Statue in the middle of nowhere tho o_o Pfft, bad pun again *shakes head* Xincheng means “New Castle” tho.
-I don’t know, Switzerland as a Tropical Island sounds like a cursed idea D:
-REALLY? That looks VERY distinctive, sticks out like a sore thumb, and clearly looked to be on the side of the road… 1 hours is too generous for a steal. Should be AT MOST 30. Also, it’s a bloody giraffe again! D:
-And no, Downie, caterpillar doesn’t have just 4 legs But I tell you, this thing would be a lot more fitting if it’s in one of the major cities instead of some random town in east Taiwan because it’s much more urban.
-I’m surprised they didn’t censor the Calf Shots for Nebula too 😛 And oh, I see that Bridge from the trailer!
-Huh? This is a Continental Plate??? But Balancing Cans eh… this sounds hard. 20 per can though, makes sense considering how hard this sounds. But *pause* 60 meters still sound pretty daunting tho But ah, back to the Water Park in NZ, eh?
-I hope that 7/11 isn’t that far away tho. I wonder why the station is so far away from downtown though 😦 And I’m sure Sam LOVE his Bricks tho.
-That looks… pretty residential, Downie And Hi Kitty, back from Houtong XD and I KNEW 20-30 Minutes is a much better deadline with how ridiculous Steals had been. It should be REALLY not worth it, or REALLY hard! This has been neither! And of course we got THAT cursed number too -_-
-I feel like the Variable Challenges felt a lot harder than the Steals too, like Hot Springs definitely really hard with the Quizzes, the Bobba could completely fail had Downie didn’t figure out the Arches, Monkeys might fail if not for that Bridge (Because Animals are bastard in Jet Lag as usual), and we don’t even talk about balancing Cans… for SIXTY Meters!
-AND ANOTHER STEAL, UP NORTH?! MASYAALLAH! And I don’t know Ben, 4 cans, unless each were VERY short, I doubt is possible. And I don’t think you can find short cans in a Convenience Store unless you count Sardine ones.
-Oh… they can’t just pick short and wide cans… darn. But five??? I’m pretty scared now, Adam D: And did you put the 55 Coin challenge into calculations too? And 35 Stations? That’s a yike… I don’t think Badam could do the Hot Springs one either.
-Yeah… going south where basically there’s NOTHING is such a problem, that unless there’s some massive steal back there, it’s a complete waste of everything. I won’t blame them for just commit on a Hail Mary straight through the Blockade no matter the cost.
-Six is still ambitious though But yeah, Empty cans are lighter, but they’re much wobblier and more prone to turbulence. Weight brings stability after all.
-But I do agree that doing this Format in Korea would be much better than Snake since the lane isn’t completely circular, there’s a lot of smaller loops to go through, and the Challenges also forced you into towns, which alleviates the complains that scenery in Korean Stations looks bland.
-I saw the theory that the challenges spawn the opposite way from where the completed challenge earlier. And it’s honestly pretty sound, but it’d be fucked up if it’s true because it didn’t prevent the challenges from just piling into one side of the he map. Or worse, if the challenge is already weighted towards Taipei instead of the opposite where you’re basically not forced to go too far-flung areas.
-Because so far, I’ve been pretty generous to help myself back from plunging this straight into the Unfair Tier because honestly, this season DESERVED Better if not for all of these easy steal challenges ruining it. So please, Badam, turn this around, get those Cans across, and break through the barrier and save this season!
EPISODE 5
Tonight, on Jet Lag! The Fate of this entire season rests on these Six Cans and Trivias, Downie found a Donut Burger in a Wok, and the Power of both Calculators and Spreadsheets are being used.
-243 Stations is a pretty arbitrary number, I admit ^^ Wait wut? The Inland Challenge is 110??? I thought that’s 100
-40 minutes on the next train? Welp… they going to rush this down, isn’t it? 😦 But well, Adam, 7-11 is Indoors so obviously there’s no wind there I kept forgetting how big the Philippines Sea tho
-Are the main rocky parts the 60-meter length of this challenge? And oh no, that looks wobbly, THAT LOOKS WOBBLY! D:
-Well, that was an interesting looking beach for sure ._. Putting Fives anywhere between Xincheng and Yili sounds just… evil though. And no, that high five is not the one from the Trailer.
-Oh, okay, they could just start from whatever. And I had to be honest, I am very nervous watching this thing, I can’t look! D: And oh, screw you, Whiplash Donuts! 😡 Wut? Since when you fried Donuts in a wok???
-Yeah… for a town this small, that station is one hell of a modern one 😮 Wait wut? Donut Burgers? I do admit that this Season definitely one of the best in terms of the sceneries. But uh… is that a Mushroom? An Alien?
-4th Biker or is it 4th Bike, Ben? What Biker, you mean? 😦 Oh, the signs on the side of the railings. OH GOD! Oh… I was SO worried that they failed this challenge, UGHH… Balance Restored, THANK FUCK!
-And please, Sam Luck, fail him if he starts going big on these Variable challenges! Wait, you just left that can there?! 😡 And FINALLY, we get a challenge down south too.
-I mean, it’s less “Securing their Stations” and more “Dumping Coins to diminish those stupid Steals”, but still! *grumbles* But still, I think with the coins they have plus that 50-coin challenge, they would try to go at least up to the Hot Springs.
-I may hate the sideways seating, but you do have a point to appreciate the Metro-Style Eating even in this rural Taiwan.
-17? Is the walk THAT long? But well, what happened if they DID miss the train tho :/- THIRTY-ONE?! D: Okay, maybe this challenge needs a buff considering how much backtracking it took *sighs* If that Kaohsiung Challenge is 100 Points, Ben, maybe?
-A Comment says “Bust Mechanic in Next Episode”… somehow, I’m scared at hearing that word. It could destroy someone or breaking through some kind cornering. But I bet that it would be very VERY expensive to do.
-But yeah… could they actually do 55 then push to the Hot Spring BEFORE Sawnie able to do that Taipei steal though, that’s a problem. And why would anybody intentionally MISS a Train, Sam?! Some wacky Tag Hiding Route??? 😡 Oh, they realized that Badam could possibly fortify the middle too. Hm… let’s see what they do.
-Okay, so they choose to fortify… still feel bad for that one lonely station before the 50 Chips though 😦 But 15 minute too late… yeah that sucks 😦 But I think Ben’s done with beer after that whole Can earlier, Adam
-But yeah, I can see the argument to do the Variable FAST, then as they possibly retreat south, they fortify fives on Stations back while they pick up Challenges along the way and go all the way to Kaohsiung and possibly even that 110 Pointer.
-But honestly, Taipei felt unrealistic since Stations are a lot denser on that side. Wait, No Snack Zone? 😦 *pause* Oh here it is! 😀 Wut… Buckskin??? I don’t like the sound of that! Distilled Deer Skin D: Wait, if both of you don’t like beer, then what did you drunk on those Challenges on earlier seasons???
-But are Sawnie going to that 50 which I presume to be the Crayola one, or… But hey, at least with this Episode, they had basically explored all parts of the lines other than some fringe’s slow lines in the West. So that’s good.
-Yeah, you can’t just take chips dropped on the Stations, but not the one held by other players -_- What was that booklet tho Sam?
-Coal? I thought these are Concrete and Cement, Sam 😦 But ah… back to Express Reservations… this is an obscene amount of those compared to Snake Korea by the way o_o
-Hm… rushing to reach Taipei first would definitely flip this whole dynamic here, but… CAN Adam reach it tho? But I agree that even if the Time is possible, the coins don’t. And while Calculators are good and all, but where’s the Excel? 😀
-But I like Coloring Pencils more than Crayons, Downie 😦 I… don’t know what Mastermind is tho ._. But okay, so you guess 7 but only one shot… that sounds quite hard, which is good.
-Oh… so basically like Password. A Puzzle of Four but then there’s also the “Correct Color, but Wrong Place” kind of thing. But yeah, not very good at puzzles *FLASHBACK TO TAG III*
-Fair that they won’t record in there, but… wait, so THAT’S JUST A CRAYON SHOP AND NOTHING ELSE?! 😡
-So, if they used EVERYTHING, they go to Nanggang then probably take the costless Metro in Taipei to get the Steal. That’s… VERY risky. If they failed to do that Steal then either, they HAD to retreat to that Variable Challenge to the east or they were completely fucked
-But the question is, did Badam even reached the Hot Springs BEFORE Sawnie took that Train to Taipei? I have a feeling that they might reach Su’aoxin first, but… who knows. And Adam, you know Sam likes his airtight scheduled plan, so I’m sure he knows that too well.
-Wut? Why did you worried about Adam making it to Taipei if he STOPPED? What is the Logic, Sam??? *Shakes head*
-But okay, Reservation before the Challenge… fair enough there *shrugs* I admit I might mix up Mastermind and Taskmaster in my head tho xD
-Right right, so it’s not “1 Attempt of 7 Combinations”, it’s actually “7 Attempt of 4 Combination”… that makes a bit more sense. The former is honestly WAY too brutal xD But okay, so you can put multiples of the same colors too.
-I thought we talked about Polar Express here, but okay. And wrong Ghibli Movie, Ben *Ran over by Morgana*
-Four different colors, alright. Still looking for that pink, Downie. I think you need to drop one color to find one- oh wait, that is NOT Helpful. And 7 Minutes for the last 3 attempts.
-Right… finding the one final color now… HOO BOY. Let’s see- OH, GG for guessing pink right away. Could have been red or… I don’t know what else *shrugs* And ah, that train just shows up right on time too *shakes head*
-TAIPEI AGAIN?! Okay, that logic of “Challenges spawned on the other side of the map is DEFINITELY false, and the challenges is DEFINITELY biased on Taipei… what the fuck?! But yeah, they could simply reinforce the lines from Su’aoxin all the way to Taipei too now, ugh…
-But don’t worry Adam, pronouncing Mandarin is quite hard ^^ Oh wait, the one as the challenge is done is NOT the train Sawnie are getting into.
-Still, people had some very good point that the questions were extremely wordy too, which could explain why it was so difficult to have big points even if you answer them well
-Well at least Sawnie did get their seats here too *shrugs* But so… you just dumped EVERYTHING to Taipei now? Ok… yeah, this definitely mean that the “Steal in Taipei” plan is more impossible than it already is *sighs*
-Still… yeah, we definitely have the Great Wall of Taiwan right now But 60 coins, 5 Questions… now I get why the comments think that going for 6 Questions is too greedy. Planning to get rid of the North Variable? I can see that… Doing challenges not because you need the coins but to stop the other side from doing it. This is basically Wrestling for Flops in Arctic Escape which is fair… UNLIKE THE STEALS!
-Can’t blame Badam from going minimum required to just flip things around tho. And hey! That’s the Excel! 😀 Either way, Thanks the Edit Team! 😀 And huh, that’s a surprisingly small gap on the trains now 😮
-Oh, never mind, the Graphic Fast Forwarded again And somehow, they still had more coins than Badam D: Still, nice to see each station being named here.
-I mean, what part of Taiwan doesn’t look beautiful this season is…? Damn that mountain tho 😮
-True, you had more stations, but a lot of this Yilu-Jiaoxi corridor isn’t fortified and you had FAR LESS coin making opportunities to worked with. Adam, I’m so worried about you still, even though I might actually plunge this Season straight into the Circumnavigation Tier if not for you doing those cans.
-Still… alright, be positive, okay? But yeah, that’s a pretty crowded road indeed ^^ But alright, Nuannuan, or as someone said it, “Warm Warm” 🙂 But very forested station indeed… how did the Stations south of here isn’t as humid tho?
-So… you wait whether Adam failed the Springs or not? Why not just… do this challenge anyway since you’re literally here? I’m confused! :/… what about the Feet Censor tho xD but hey, Ben time to relax your legs… FINALLY!
-AHahahha… that scribble on #12 on the Envelope, ahahahha xD But yeah, the theme of the question could be anything… including NO THEME at all. That’s a problem with this challenge.
-But so… Not Spawning Challenges down south, or leaving it and risk Adam taking it… I still think that this North-Bias Challenge Spawns are bullshit. But I get the strategy on this one.
-Also, I guess like Schengen Showdown, once they open a Challenge, they can’t do it later if they left the town (Since not doing them immediately did happen with that Reservation)
-Okay, so the pool of questions is 13… okay. But I guess Ben isn’t allowed to open the actual question mid-discussion.
-Nice counting Adam, but you do NOT need to do that for a color of Rainbow… ESPECIALLY AFTER TWO RAINBOW CHALLENGES! D: Also, fuck you, Mosquitos! And Four Knees? Euwgh… D:
-6 in 40 question sounds pretty bad though, Adam. But uh… waiting for Sawnie to do that challenge? Please don’t make this the repeat of Snake, Adam D:
-But it is true that Sam is on higher time constraints to go to Taipei ASAP, so… But I’d say that if they fail, then there’s literally no chance for Badam to anything but to retreat all the way to Kaohsiung, maybe with reinforcing the Yuli-Xincheng corridor along the way, at least.
-Okay, now I get that they need a fucking Timer on this stuff. Come on! 😡 But that’s the issue, if 5 and 6 isn’t making much difference, then perhaps they should be safer. It’s not like the Cans when the difference of those cans was TWENTY, not Twelve. D: But yeah, I guess they can’t look at the question before they made the call too.
-AAH! MY LEGS! HOT! D: But HUH?! I thought we’re doing Jet Lag questions again, why is the question now some random Taiwan facts! D: also, where is the Multiple Questions… surprise you knew about Life of Pi tho.
-Yeah, I don’t know about that anagram, but at least the Questions ARE Jet Lag now D: *pause* Oh Hospental, yeah, that is a PLACE so way harder to figure out than a simple word D:
-I think this “People on Jet Lag” Question is so long to answer you’d basically fucked if you see this thing. But UGH! That was a choke! If it was Five Adam would win that… also, did he even know when Taiwan got expelled from the UN tho. Hm… *pause* 1971, I see.
-At least they don’t put a Cliffhanger in this episode though, but yeah… this smells like a Choke of the Season if not the whole Series if I see one. If Badam lost the season because of this, fair enough, it’s still their fault, but I’m still too angry with the Steals to fully love this season yet… especially when we have two more of them up north, UGH…
-Also, I saw that Episode 7 is not marked as Finale, which means that this is the first time a Jet Lag Season had at least match NZ’s count of 8.
-Honestly, these Variable Challenges are such a good addition to Jet Lag as a whole. And I think it’s a great fix to AUS$ Wager System. Where here, you can decide how risky you are with the challenges instead of things being determined by some arbitary number, and when you lost, it could be argued to be a choke as much as being unlucky. And you simply didn’t have any loss or penalty for losing the challenge even if you’re extremely cocky about it.
-That said, STEAL CHALLENGES should have a fatal penalty from being lost, and therefore they should LOSE coins for failing one… Of course, that idea would only work if the steals are ACTUALLY HARD, but I still stand by my opinion here -_-
EPISODE 6
Tonight, on Jet Lag! Sam counts his own heartbeat instead of walking. Chiang Kai Sek is literally Infaillable. And Badam had the longest and most painful Snack Zone Session ever.
-*checking the Wiki* We got 8 Episodes that is NOT marked as Finale by now. So, this Season has officially surpassed NZ in terms of length, which shouldn’t be surprising considering that we somehow have 5 days spent in a game with so much actions in the meantime in a compact country like Taiwan, compared to say Hide+Seek or Tag which has a lot of Train-based downtimes.
-Also, *checking the Comments* An absurdly easy Photo Challenge and Challenges being spawned up north again… RRRGHH… *hovering to move the Ranking Lower again* Okay, I think this starts to enter an Unfair Territory.
-Or at least, the Broken because of how catastrophic the consequences of failing the Hot Springs one. If not for that, this season might even be EVEN LOWER. Like, not even NZ was this ridiculous on the Balances and I feel like… I started to be too harsh about it.
-Especially considering how many challenges Ben and Adam has cleared up in comparison to Sawnie who just… can just pick and choose to make things even worse since no new challenge would ever spawn!
-Really? It’s already the end of the day or is it because there’s no train left to take already? Well… they didn’t even bet five, they would have done it if it WAS five *sobs*
-I barely even see that the Feet got censored at all, Nebula Plug o_o AND COME ON! NINETY, UP NORTH TOO?! That’s bullshit!
-But well… even IF Badam could theoretically get there with the coins, Sawnie is still much closer and can just snatch it anyway!
-And oh, so you just do the Variable one here anyway. I get why people saying that Sam had the flaws of being too territorial instead of aggressively expanding so far, but… like, as if this Season isn’t badly stacked enough already!
-I get why there should be a Reroll for these Challenges. Maybe like, once a day or even every time there’s a Completed Challenge when there’s 10 on the Map already. To completely turn the season on its head and stop these kinds of Lopsided Locations around.
-So… what river is this? And I see, so basically Passage of Time matching but with Meditating instead? This might be hard, considering that what we see in AUS$ and also Schengen Showdown, they solved it by walking. But you can’t here. Especially at 5 chips per minute, which is quite small amount.
-But… they could just do 1 minute and get rid of it anyway, so… does that even matter? *sighs* But 3 minutes for 15? Sure… But okay, maybe a 2-minute range is a bit too generous when I think about it. Should have been 30 seconds of leeway perhaps.
-Does Mosquito Interference counts as failing the Meditation tho? But yeah, this is arguably the worst choke in Jet Lag History, and we had some big contenders like Disguises in Paris or the Tracker in B4A.
-So… you count your heartbeat then? Interesting method, Sam. And 150? I thought… oh wait, NONO, I miscalculated xD At least you didn’t go even lower and went 1 minute though *sighs*
-Does… that even considered as Meditating and not just… sitting and thinking? If you talk and count? Wait, I thought we’re doing this TWICE?! 😡 Never mind, this is not hard compared to the matching like the Jellyfish thing like I thought, sighs…
-Oh, FINALLY we get another one south. But do we even consider the 45% and 110 ones South still???
-HUH??? Why Sam wanted to go to Taipei first instead of just straight to the 90 tho? That’s a weird call! But let me guess, the delay is because they want to do that stupid steal first, isn’t it? -_- Still, I think Sam and Ben’s only hope is to go straight to the Jugular at the West Side’s Slow Side on Day 5, but… I don’t know how well would that work.
-That’s a nice dance, but what is it called? Wait, so even if you can go north, you still HAD to be at Yilan anyway?! That sucks…
-Yeah, being stuck in a train for hours give an ample of time to talk indeed. And I guess the Train’s packed because it’s technically a Taipei suburb then? And it’s “Shi-keh”, not “Shik” *shakes head* And… keep fortifying I guess, even though there’s NO reason Badam to even go here. Like, if they would attack, they would go WEST, right?!
-5:30 and it’s dark already. I check the Dusk Hours in Yilan. *pause* 18:22 Taiwan Time in April, but it’s around January for the recording, right? And the Timezone is 1 hour later than in my house, so… ok, cool.
-Yeah, nah, nah, I don’t trust the current score at all. Like, AS SOON as Sawnie chose to push West, we are FUCKED! So… my best hope here is that Badam could quickly go west and either break through or fortify that part as much as possible. Especially with so much challenges biased up north, AND TWO STEALS!
-At least Ben and Adam have all the time on the Train to think about either of those… right. But yeah, Taipei is literally impossible, even if that Hot Springs succeed, I don’t think it’s realistic either. And Sawnie STILL went to Taipei instead of waiting at Xike??? Also, you’d think a commuter train for a city this big is LONG *shrugs* This isn’t that 0-Minute Train in Tag All-Stars tho.
-Intentionally Go Bust, eh? That sounds… very risky. It’s not like they did not NEED to through that right now… right??? ESPECIALLY if the Penalty is a literal Negative Coins, PAID TO THE OTHER TEAM which makes the current situation EVEN WORSE considering that they’re stuck in danger of LOSING COINS ALL SEASON!
-Yeah, I still believe in quickly reinforcing the West and kept your fort is the best option here. But true… there is that High Speed on the West Side, but… will they take it instead of loitering around on that 90 Challenge tho?
-Is that 60 Coin in Taipei that much of a detour, like 2 hours, really? That is a nice train indeed.
-But yeah, that Guangfu Challenge is a conundrum and risk Sawnie going after Kaohsiung further. But it did give them further funds too. So, UGH! And yeah, if they failed the challenge, leaving it alone would also make it worse. D:
-Yeah, if that damn Reservations ran out, I don’t know what to do with this season anymore man! D: Wait, 6? So, we’re not stopping at Guangfu after all?
-Yeah, saving Chips is good. IF we need fortifying, do it on the West when it’s much riskier to lose with High Speed and such. That’s a good looking tiny purple triangle tho. And ooh, Chrysanthemum Festival, interesting.
-Really, Downie’s mom love Chrysanthemum? Your Friend sounds like a terrible pun tho *sighs* But what is that Flower Pot Creature D: Wait, this is Chiang Kai Sek’s Residence???
-So… this is basically Choose a Photo between Four. I feel like there’s a Challenge comparing Jet Lag Competitors to images before, but I FORGOT which Season was it… still, wait, if you fail, you try again, but NO ATTEMPT LIMITS?! THIS IS LITERALLY UNFAILLABLE, YOU JUST WASTING TIME HERE, FOR SIXTY COINS, WHICH IS NO CONCERN THIS SEASON FOR HOW SLOW-PACED IT IS! UGH! IT’S NOT LIKE THERE’S A LIMIT ON HOW MANY SPECIFIC ARTWORK YOU CAN PICK EITHER!
-Also, Autumn Festival in January??? Still, I’m pretty sure that Flower Pot would come around to haunt us, isn’t it?
-Hahah, is that Bald Eagle tho? But a Big Long Snack Zone… did you even have a 6-hours’ worth of food tho, Ben? But at this point, is it a Snack Zone instead of a Snack Country?
-Garlic is underrated as a flavor, but… Prawn mixed with it? Peculiar stuff, Doritos. But wut! Eating in train is perfectly normal! Otherwise, there won’t be a goddamn Dinner Car. WHO THE HELL SAID THAT?! GET HIM!
-I mean, Garlic Flavor is usually pretty normal looking. I ate a lot of those classic YES! *pause* Peanuts, wasn’t sure what kind of nuts is it first xD And Doritos is like… 13K in Indonesia… sure? No Garlic seems to be around tho 😦
-That is impossible. First, three in a row is a ridiculously odds, Ben. Second, THAT ONE WITH THE ARTWORK IS AT LEAST THEORITICALLY UNFAILABLE!
-But yeah, let’s PRAY that we get another Challenge down south. That’s all we can do right now.
-Don’t know what that Black Bear’s sign says, but that’s definitely Ben right? But what the heck is a Grindr D:
-I think the Rockets is Sam, but I’m not so sure about it. But I thought Wendover is more about Planes 😦 Also, Sam probably should have taken just one artwork instead of wasting all three on it *shrugs*
-This is a weird one. Like… I don’t think either of them have a vibe of… whatever the hell this ball is Wait, that’s a Globe??? Definitely Downie then, he did a lot of Travel Series stuff. And that does NOT look like Hong Kong, Sam. That looks like a poodle!
-And… that goofy thing is definitely Adm. I thought it was Ben before I saw the Bear tho… But yeah, literally pointing out the mistakes makes a 2nd attempt MUCH easier. And Downie *facepalm* How did you not figure out that the goofy guy is NOT you. You’re IN THE WAY of the photo!
-But yeah, let’s hope that these fails kept going because there’s no like Veto on this Season, so they could be literally STUCK.
-Another Bear for Ben. The one next to it looks pretty posh tho 😮 And ah, back to Ben being drunk in Providence 😀 What does Romeo and Juliet had to do with Poison tho And Downie, you did a lot of Gondola, so come on! But yeah… Colorado is a BIG issue to conflict with too, hm…
-NOPE! The Train is definitely Downie because he’s a BIG Train Fan. And NO… BEN is the one who wear a Ghillie Suit in Hide+Seek Japan, Sam, what are you thinking??? But Adam DID have a knack for Disguises, so I guess there’s that? *shrugs*
-But Star for Adam having the most season is a stretch, Sam. It wasn’t obvious that it’s a star especially when the Bush is so blended in *shakes head*
-*counting* (64+162)-(133+38) Nope, it’s still a gap of 55, Sam. Still, so they DID go south after all. But I’m going to guess that they go to the 45%, then loop around to the only unclaimed line left on this Season (High Speed Stations aside)
-Variable Challenge at… ooh… right ON Badam? Hm… they didn’t miss the Station, right? *pause* THEY JUST MISSED IT, NOO! D:
-Also, I realized that Snake could have worked much better in a dense network with multiple branches, such as London… or God Forbid, GERMANY.
-Ironically, had Downie completed that challenge First Try, Badam could have done Beipu, goddamnit! 😡 But oh, I guess walking from Hualien to Beipu is too far, right?
-TEN for the Train to Beipu?! What time is it right now???
-Pretty sure you could do a full loop of Taiwan in about 18 hours even without High Speed, right? *pause* 4 just from Taipei to Kaohsiung… HAIYA…
-Well, if you do Guangfu, then indeed might as well go back too, right? I guess the choice felt like it’s Both or Neither… or is it?
-I think breaking through again is a Mistake. I’d say it should be do Beipu then go back south and reinforce the East as you go to Kaohsiung. And yeah, if Badam SOMEHOW got the Taipei Steal first, Sawnie had the other Steal ready on the west just to fuck them over.
-But right, Too Slow, you’re right that going to Kaohsiung ASAP, then maybe get the 110 Point if Sawnie didn’t go after it first, before Locking Down the West. Since Badam had fortified the Southwest well enough for that Risk Steal back at… oh yeah, that stupid Giraffe on a Cookie!
-Only doing the Guangfu one quite worked well, it’s still on the way, but hopefully they had the time to reach back to Kaohsiung. But wait, 1 hour late, and the same number of coins? Is it Steal-related again? RRGh… I HATE THIS THING! It ruins this Season if not already is with the lopsided challenges!
-Welp, guess straight to Kaohsiung and start reinforcing the West and ESPECIALLY High Speed is the way to go! And I think us viewers NEEDS a break all the way since that stupid Zoo and Jellyfish in Episode 3, ugh…
-Yep, I called it that they went to the West all the way to the 45% most likely. And Afternoon 1 PM? THAT LONG?! Okay, this is not right, let me check Google again. *pause* 7 to Dawu, 2 and a half after that to Kaohsiung. I think they had the time to finish the day in Kaohsiung.
-Yeah, blocking everything north of Kaohsiung is quite possible still, but only if they don’t take that Hsinchu Train, UGHH! But alright, Sam chose to Fortify their West Section around… Changhua, I think? I think that’s a relief for me, because I don’t think that Empty West Line is enough for get more than Adam. Am I’m biased? Yes, but I’m TOO Salty to care after how unfairly lopsided this Season had been. I want Badam to win this season against all odds because they deserve it despite that Hot Springs Choke.
-I mean, the only way to counter that Western Breakthrough (Which IS easier than the east side) I to block off the High Speed with 5s too, but… eh *Shrugs*
-Screw you, Sam! Choo Choo Chew is illegal, even in Japan! 😡 But Waxberries? I know Wax Apples now, but Wax Berries??? And a fruit is crunchy???
-Not sure how good a Barbeque Sauce in a Steamed Bun is, but sure Downie, sure… And no, Hijacking would never work! Not with your Steals! *Middle finger*
-But those kinds of bread with meat inserted in it? Auw… I miss those, Sam 😦 Oh wait, it was round, and not like that Banana and Chocolate one I know… Auw 😦
-Eating Express tho? That’s a good name. Should steal that the next time you’re on a Train Series after Jet Lag, Downie xD
-Wait, is the marathon actually finally over? 😮 Either way, this is the first time we got THIS much downtime without much in the way of Challenges, isn’t it? Previously things had been so packed.
-Oh no… not Deutsche Bahn Curse again even here! D: But oh great, this train had Transfer before Kaohsiung, not a straight one-shot one! D: It’s pronounced “Shin-Chu”- I MEAN “Shin-Zhu”, by the way.
-Okay, the train move- Oh… Adam said we’re still screwed! *Sobs* And that announcement sounds very concerning even though I don’t even speak Mandarin. Can they STILL make it to Kaohsiung before Day 5 tho?
-Reinforcing that West Line? Hm… how many Stations are there tho? I starting to get scared But yeah, Badam just got screwed, is it bringing question that we should go back do the East Challenges? Nah, at this point it’s too late.
-12:35, that’s… at least an hour stuck at Taitung for sure… goddamnit! And don’t jinx it, Ben! D:
-And some good position, Sam? When you literally had a 45% at the end of your line, AND a Steal on the way back to Taipei… TWICE!
-I hope that’s a good Gua Bao Burger tho 😮 But Bao Zi? Ooh… that sounds delicious :O But eh??? Potato Chips???
-Why is that windmill not moving tho But yeah, that line is inconvenient to take for BOTH sides, since there’s the East Line which had an Express, and ESPECIALLY the High Speed.
EPISODE 7
Tonight, on Jet Lag! 7-Eleven has a Rainbow Mascot. The Gummy is Oxymoronic and the Scallop is terrible. And Sam uses his feet instead of the Brick or the Shadow
-Hm… Sam making what sounded to be the fumble of the history. Honestly, I think he deserve that after the BS amount of North Bias and Steals Usage. But hm… let me check the Wiki for a bit. *pause* NOPE! It was only 8, which means. NZ’s Record is not broken. Welp, time to put down my Blog Writing then.
-Also, Rip Closed Caption for this Episode 😦 And while the Photo is Tricky, yes, it is LITERALLY Unfailable. It should be like 1 Try for it, or at most two! Let’s just pray that Badam could reach Kaohsiung before Day 5 tho.
-Huh, I thought the Japanese is the only one with Mascot Culture here. But… Alien? Okay ._. And I agree with Adam, he looks more like a Rainbow Hair, and I thought it’s a part of the walls behind him.
-Uh… those lights on the train just glitched out there. o_o But you know, 50 Chips at the 45% sounds decent alright? ^^
-Bus… that did remind me on how few Jet Lag took any buses, isn’t it? But well, at least they’re discouraged from using Steal right now, thank fuck. Though I think if Badam would take it, it would purely be to just get rid of it.
-And weirdly enough, Sam didn’t think to go south to take that 110??? Even though he could use High Speed to skip like, half the Stations to get there?
-FREE BUS?! :O America would NEVER do that, isn’t it? That bus had an interesting grille design I admit, though. And I didn’t know that they skipped a station on the way there too.
-23?! Okay, I guess that’s way fewer than I thought. Oops ^^ But yeah, it is a weird play indeed. But well, that’s a quick walk to the park there 😮
-The project is STILL running since the 50s?! :O But okay, find five paintings on two attempts. Seems alright, but I still think that this limit is how the Chiang Kai-sek one should be. *pause* Oh, just one? Okay, maybe the difficulty is a bit weird on this one now
-And oh… Sam’s still the one looking for the paintings ._. Is there any limit on how many descriptions you can put in tho? And it’s obviously a Sword, Downie. Jesters don’t have tails But this feels very Medieval Europe, strange for a Taiwan place.
-I wonder where did Amy get these pictures tho? Google Maps? No way she came to Taiwan herself for this, right?
-Yeah, White Wall seems rare on this place, which ironically worked in Sam’s favor. Nice for you censoring that guy behind’s face there tho 🙂
-Wait, if you restarted Snack Zone, where did you dump the poor Marathon logo?! 😡 And Scallop-flavored Lays, eh? Peculiar. You should recognize that it’s Lays tho But hey, us Asians did indeed love a good seafood flavor 🙂 *pause* But auw… it’s Horrible? 😦
-Yeah, 2/3 a Day to do as they please, Two Steals, A bunch challenges up north and we don’t even think about the Easy ones. I agree that they squandered it harder than the Hot Springs.
-Yeah, that’s the Jester, but the outline doesn’t seem blue to me. Though those art style did feel more… Traditionally Chinese indeed. And Sam, I thought you said Nipples D:
-Uh… the background felt really off tho, like what is that red cross. Unless there’s just… multiple of those Jesters on the whole lot, which is a bit annoying that not all of them were unique 😦
-For the other ones… that looks like a cow to me. But hm… 90 and 65, I think I had enough ranting about the North Bias here, but can they really do those back-to-back quickly though.
-Well, right now, reinforcing didn’t seem nice when they could have gone south, especially with High Speed being the most vulnerable and also powerful to break through. Besides, Badam still had that 110 as a back up in case of Steal, right?
-Besides, Badam would CERTAINLY wait and do two challenges at Kaohsiung, so how LONG would they wait at… I think Hsinchu for that Steal, Slow Express Train or not? Didn’t know they paid for the bus right upon embarking with a card tho 😮
-Crispy Gummy sounds like Oxymoron, but that mascot on the front looks cute :3 And SEE! Ben thinks it’s an Oxymoron too! But Disappointed is better than horrible at least.
-And we are hungry for a Badam comeback too! And nono, we don’t do a Downie and eat the Rail Rush Chips too 😛
-I hope it wasn’t a Hubris Zone like the Dune Zone of Northern Territories tho o_o How many fighter jets did Taiwan have though.
-So going East, but that would also mean ceding the West to Badam to just flip stations there too even with a bunch of 6s around. Especially if they ironically go after the Taipei Steal too. Besides, how many stations even between Jiaoxi and Hualien here, I’m not sure if it’s even in the 20s. Especially with that big 110 Pointer that Badam could easily take and fuel enough to flip 18 Station
-Another Scavanger Hunt eh? 15 Minutes seems a little tight compared to that stupid Giraffe though. And for 40!
-*checking* I counted and Jiaoxi and Hualien is around 21 Stations apart, don’t remember where did Badam stopped reinforcing their stations, but it is quite tight… But that’s not taking account of Badam flipping stations too, or even reaching Taipei.
-I don’t know what the heck is that Radish-thing supposed to be tho And this one is the EXACT same one unlike the Rainbow Village, what the hell? *pause* Oh, they only need to find 3 out of 5, fair enough then.
-And back to the Reservation Grind! And no Ben, the Owl is black and, on the ground, 😦 And 16:35 OH HEY, AN INDONESIAN RESTAURANT! 😀
-ON COME ON! A FIFTH STEAL, AND IT’S NORTH TOO?! THIS IS RIGGED! But yeah, Badam would definitely go breakthrough to Taipei first to get rid of it.
-They now only have 21 coins-OH WAITS, the stupid Steal -_- But yeah, dumping coins before Zuoying might be smart, especially since that 50 could easily fund a run straight to Taipei on its own.
-But yeah, rushing up north and disrupt any challenges they do, whether it’s the Steal or the regular Challenges there to be the answer here. Why there are some chairs on that train that are red tho And oh hi Guan Yu.
-But Sam, they already knew about your Eastern Plot, while you didn’t know of their Disruptive plot. But huh, another transfer from Miaoli, just ONE Station away? Weird Still, put the heavy stuff at the bottom while packing, that’s an interesting strat to have here. Okay, this train took a WHILE to depart
-Welp, back to the Game of Chicken, but this time, I’ll let it slide because there’s WAY too much at stake here. If anything, the more time Sam is wasted on that Steal, the less likely they can go east.
-But can you even stop a challenge midway through a Rest Period or can’t you do that at all? And huh, so even the High-Speed side got fortified on the map even when they went here from the other slower side eh?
-Yeah… High Speed did SO MUCH Clearance compared to regular rails, basically a bunch of Highway Overpasses pretty much. Also, first time I see a Stop Sign in Hanzi xD
-That Drum Building from the Trailer, eh?
-Diameter? Which isn’t too hard with math and if you made your steps right. OR, you just walk ACROSS instead of around this thing. 20% is too generous indeed! You can use the brick on the ground to count too. Like if you get how long that brick is, you’re golden, you don’t even NEED to use the Shadow!
-And that’s the Dragon and the Tiger from the logo. *pause* So this is literally unfailable too, just a time waste if a failure cost a bunch of stairs climbing and 30 minutes. You know what, Chiang Kai-sek, I forgive you. Though you still worth more coins.
-But then again, going to Taipei didn’t take too long compared to the agony of that Jiaoxi-Kaohsiung trip, so…
-Oh, FINALLY Sam actually used the brick. I thought you LOVE bricks. But yeah, circumference is Pi times Diameter. So… *shrugs* And well… the challenge did use Feet instead of Meter, so sorry Downie 😦
-And no, Badam… regular tea is better 🙂 AND THE BRICK MARKED THE HALFWAY TOO?! *Facepalm* 20% is TOO much! Not when these Bricks are SYMMETRICAL!
-Indeed, it will probably take longer for Sam to get to Hualien than it is for Badam to go to Taipei and start making ruckus, so you better be quick… :3
-Oh, Ayam PokPok is SO Good, glad that you take one, Adam! :O
-But uh… Houlong? Ok then ._. Still, I wonder which challenge Badam going to do upon reaching Taipei though. I mean, how far was Miaoli to Hualien though. *pause* 5… that’s a decently tight amount to spare for that.
-But I do agree somewhat with the argument of putting in time cap for challenges. HOWEVER, this kind of BS would NOT happen if the Steal didn’t exist. Because if this challenge is a 45% percentage instead, Sam would just take the coin and go straight north, and Badam wouldn’t even do this Stalemate at all. So, I am STILL blaming the Steals for this!
-I think the only way they might agree with your negotiations is to never do any Steals, which… let’s be real, they don’t believe you, Sam.
-Ah, Swans, back from Milton Keynes 🙂 But uh… I’m scared about that cigarette man 😦 But I won’t deny that Badam is having a crash-out right now
-Also, isn’t it strangely suspicious that we only rolled two 45% Challenges, while having FIVE STEALS APPEARING ON THE BOARD?!
EPISODE 8
Tonight, on Jet Lag! Sam comes to bargain, Ben ate some Villages, and turns out the Pagoda’s Tiger is a prophecy to curse a Pig-Dog all along
-To be honest, I was really, really scared after Hamfrags mentioned a footage of Sawnie high five-ing at a beach, based on the trailer and possibly the traffic cameras too. However, seeing the YouTube comments briefly here give me some hope. So, let’s get to it then, shall we?
-However, putting the ranking down of this season is really REALLY hard. The guest, the shenanigans, and the showcase of Taiwan are really, really great. But while the entertainment aspect is really strong, the game aside is just… Very unfair. Like, this season is like, Bottom of Underrated on every aspect but also Top of Unfair in terms of the Game Design itself.
-For example, Badam did win Capture the Flag, but that entire Post-Yairo Third Round experience annoys me to no end. While here, it wasn’t as completely BS, the sheer number of challenges that got biased up north, ESPECIALLY THE STEALs very much ruined this Season in so many levels even if their impact as a whole is not as obscene at the end of the Season.
-For that reason, for somehow outdoing how whacked the Challenge Balancing was in NZ, I cannot put this season in “Needs Work”, I’m putting it at the top of “Broken” Tier. Right above Circumnavigation.
-Because to me, anything below Circumnavigation is only for real stinker of a Season and Rail Rush deserved better than this. Even though if Sam won, I would plunge this straight to the top of Unfair because WE ALL knew why he won this season if he did.
-But let’s be real here. If those stupid Steals were replaced with 45% challenges, then I would NOT complain about the Challenge Spawn Bias or the Broken Difficulty of Challenges as much. Like, those latter two are pretty bad too, but they just accentuate what is already a HORRIBLE problem on top. I mean, FIVE Steals Spawn yet only 2 45% Challenges… Like, what the fuck?! These stupid steals are the very reason why this damn Stalemate at the end even happened at all!
-Also, on a side note. I discovered that the Liechtenstein Challenge of Schengen Showdown is basically to spell out the other Doubly Landlocked Country, which is Uzbekistan. Which is… SO underwhelming on its own. I think it would be more interesting if you HAD to find any mention of it IRL, such as going searching for an Atlas that shows it on a Library or something. Just like the American Flag Challenge on Tag II or the Book Index one in AU$
-Still, I think while Downie has been a pretty entertaining guest so far, I feel like he’s a bit too spineless to not follow everything Sam says. Like, at least Brian tried to dissuade Sam from using that damn Tracker back to B4A. So… Sorry Downie, but I had to put your Guest Ranking below Brian, or possibly Amy too depending on how next season goes.
-Anyway, onto the episode itself… *Pause* TWO Chips for Sawnie? Yeah… NO Reason for Badam to take any bait. But well, WHAT IS this shit?! SIX challenges piled up by Taipei?!
-But remember, no matter what happened, Sam IS the one who needs to move sooner or later. Badam could just… wait for the rest of Day 5 for all they care.
-And… he’s already bargaining while behaving as if he committed to wait for hours anyway *shakes head* And Key word, “HOURS”, not “ALL DAY” Welp, time to consult the map! 😉
-I mean, they would FUCKING KNOW that you’ll leave as soon as you do the Steal and move away from that Roundhouse, so… *shrugs*
-Yeah, those horrifying 90, 65, a STEAL, and another Variable. And okay, Math Time! And yeah, Adam, sit on a chair instead of trying to grovel, please 😦
-And Sam not even spend this LONG-ass Stalemate not planning his escape… again. Had he not learned from Hide+Seek Japan???
-Which one is the Bus again, the 90 or 65? Also, even if you ignore those for ‘not worth the effort’, there’s STILL a Steal there
-And I’m pretty sure that Kaohsiung-Taipei is faster than Miaoli-Hualien though. *pause* The Former is 2 hours and I remembered that the latter is 5 *shakes head*
-Did Sam not count it right? Since the math should be around 20 stations flipped at least. And Badam could simply go west of Taipei and flip the whole lane to Hsinchu back too.
-WHY would Badam be the one to flip the coin either, YOU DO IT, SAM! 😡 And Downie, you’re with someone who lost Circumnavigation from his Amsterdam Grinding and Singaporean Gambling habits *sighs* And WHY would they spoil their own strategy either?! Even I had no idea other than Taipei!
-Yeah, it is freaky to see this ridiculous amount of confidence, I tell you
-So, Badam wanted to do as little challenges now? Hm… interesting, but that would keep challenges from popping out on that stupid Northeastern corner again!
-I mean, yeah, I would be more confident in them doing a lot more Steals if they done that Roundhouse yesterday, but… NOPE. And no, like, if they want to go to Taitung, isn’t it FASTER to go west and flip stations to Kaohsiung???
-Yeah, I fucking told you this steal is WAY too easy if they correctly guessed 150 feet. I mean, I KNEW it’s going to be the case as soon as I saw those bricks being completely uniform. So, got to give credit for guessing it head-on… perhaps it should have been buffed to be the Circumference if not Area after all…
-20 Extra? Oh yeah, the steal was 45, not 50 *shrugs* But well, Adam DID get a crash out from that, but thankfully he didn’t get actually baited 🙂
-Hm… 50, good news, good karma to see one on Kaohsiung. Bad news… that’s not on High Speed and therefore might delay Badam for a bit if they do that. And I feel like with that 50, they have enough to just left Taipei and steal Stations to the right though, regardless if they do Steal on Taipei or not.
-I mean, they only have 22 right now, so putting down before Taipei is dumb xD and okay then, I thought they opened the challenge Twice, which is STRANGE! XD
-It’s still a 1/3 chance for Adam to win regardless of what Ben picked though, so… this is a bit sucky, unless Draw just means ‘Try again immediately’? ._.
-Honestly, the inside of those mounts looks scary D: But well, let’s hope that Ben thinks Rock is the way to win there too ._.
-But uh… not the top floor? What IS the top floor for then? But ARGH! Ben thinks Adam picks Scissors! D: That was a nice background, but I think the best way to do it to both silently agree to have only ONE of them change their stuff. So, either Adam switch to Scissor or Ben switch to Scissor. Can you have breakfast in 18 minutes tho?
-At least now the Taipei steal backfires on them there… should have go to the Steal in the east instead of the 90 or 65, but… eh *shrugs*
-If you do the Taipei steal, then they would probably just stalemate it again and screw you over 😛 But they still have that 20 though, which could be a game-changer on that Western Line.
-YAY! It’s a quick breakfast fetching :p but HUH?! What is ‘Village’ in this context then, Ben???
-But oh yeah, the position switched. My bad. So, the best idea… is to just DO THE SAME THING. Okay, this is not as much of a timewaster as I thought, as long as they think smart on the 2nd attempt.
-Oh no… Ben thinks it’s the Dragon doing the same thing, not the Players did D: And NO! Adam thinks what I thought, dammit! D; This is painful to watch D:
-But I do agree with the thought of how hilarious it is if the cause of the Stalemate on Badam’s side is them fumbling on rock paper scissors twice 😦
-I mean, why would Sawnie took a Slow Line to Taipei? But 45 minute is not that bad of a loss for the Taipei Steal though *shrugs*
-I don’t know how did that 15 Flip math came from, like is it based on the limit of the Stations Sawnie can do from Jiaoxi to Taitung?
-So, they going to do the 90, but are they going to do the East Steal tho? I pretty sure they won’t do that 65 at all.
-Speaking of Eating, I thought they finished that thing already 😮 And… rip some of them falling 😦
-FINALLY, Ben! The Badam Synchronization failed us today 😦 And 100 in that inland corner again… I think it’s a bit too late to do that, man Oh… so that 110 one is for a bus ^^. But yeah, going there might incentivize Steals even if it means they can flip the Western Lines here. HMM…
-But 2:30, yeah, that’s too late, not worth it. Guess back to Taipei it is! 😀 And 8 hours indeed! 😉 Still, yeah, Adam could do a lot of stuff, go to Taipei and snatch a Steal, go East and get that 90 then trap Sawnie from behind, go west to the undefended line. Go to the Mountain and then flip the Two Western Lines.
-Oh great, the boys got lost. Why did they put the old Zuoying Station as NOT just “JIUCHENG” instead?! 😦 And… great, we missed the High Speed and should have gone to the Old Station first after all 😦
-Could have discussed which train they could get to in between those 30-Minute Pagoda wait, but… oh well D:
-I mean, it’s only ¼ chance that Badam even go East of Taipei at all, so… but yeah, that 50 up north is awkwardly not on High Speed, so it’s definitely better to go to Taipei first then decide from there.
-Oof, 140 to Taitung… damn boi 😮 And hm… time the Steal past Jiaoxi instead of right after the 90? Interesting… Also, Sam, Adam, why both of you misspoke about the WEST of Taipei *shakes head* But I guess if the Steal failed, that 20 might not be enough for a Fallback, right?
-3 PM Hsinchu, and even if they still do the Line past it to Taipei, it’s too long right? And hello bike! 😀
-Going BANKRUPT?! Okay, I can see them stopping at the East Steal instead of the 90, but… wut?! Okay, this is even more of a fumble than I thought *shakes head*
-Still. 1:30 at Beipu? That’s… quite fast honestly 😮 5:30 at Yuli… they’re not even making it to Taitung *shakes head*
-Is Badam being overthinking it or is Sawnie being overconfident. We’ll see. And well, they literally CAN’T go to Taipei. And even if they succeeded the Hot Spring back then, I doubt that they could either
-I completely forgot there’s another tiny line west of the 90 tho o_o But yeah, that STUPID Taipei Steal had been a boogeyman for so long, that… welp. Did I endorse this kind of Karma? Probably not. Still think that it’s nicer to have it be a simple 45% instead especially with Sawnie’s decision to just gone bankrupt which might screw them over regardless of the Steal here *shrugs*
-Guess Train Cleanup were a thing because this is right at the end of a High Speed, isn’t it? Oh math, the bane of this season’s stratagem 😦
-Yeah, flexibility, when Variables are typically… pretty fallible this season. Meanwhile, actual fixed amount of challenge GAVE one, heck, even THAT Steal on the East too! When did they depart to Hualien by the way?
-But okay, that station is nice 😮 Wonder how did that cactus grew there tho. But yeah, Downie, this season had been one of the best in terms of scenery so far, arguably better than NZ even, since you don’t get to see much of the urban areas back there. And welp, Moment of No Return, a JRPG Classic.
-Pretty sure that this means Sawnie has less stations to flip, leading to A. Badam gets the Steal and cause the Bankrupt to happen EARLIER, or B, gave them time to just go through the West without the need to do a Steal.
-Yeah, Sam did either his trademark complicated move, or Ben’s “Vibe Only” Plan. *shrugs* And I knew that 50 is too awkwardly placed between two HSR Stations *sighs* And ooh, nice ravine in the rain by the river there 😮
-Actually, yeah, the Bust means that Badam got free coins, with NO need to Steal, they can just go West, or East for that 90 *shrugs* And that’s ASSUMING they even succeed the Variable too!
-Uh… which station is it where you’re in Red now. And oh, so the Bust thing is just pay the amount that station held… ok then ._. And oh, Badam had just gone past Central Taipei already. Alright.
-By the way, why did we stop for the steal at Nanggang and not Zhongzheng? I’m curious Also, damn, 278 Km/h :O And NO! you don’t pronounce the “Gang” in Nangang as if it’s a Gangster! 😡
-Wait, why are we doing a Steal still? It didn’t do shit here. Like, did Badam wait IF Sawnie even succeeded that Variable at all??? But yeah, they’re just basically screwed in the end pretty much.
-Hm… ahahaahahha… Taipei 101, of course we HAVE to go there eventually xD I feel like this is a slow way to get there though 😦 At least the challenge is not on the Top Floor tho.
-I know I got spoiled that Sawnie failed at Beipu, so… this Steal does NOT even matter at all! Also, why is the envelope red now? 😮
-5 Minutes to photograph someone. Five minutes is quite hard, but the most obvious idea is for someone to STAY where they started the Challenge. But even then, aiming a camera THAT far down for 89 Floors is a challenge on its own. I think this is a decently challenging Steal I can speak of, like, I don’t know how I can make it harder other than the Hider were not allowed to be in a certain radius of the Taipei 101.
-Also, the clue photo is straight down and not any other angle… that’s a bit annoying if not unhelpful 😦
-But Ben doing the spotting from top, alright. Why is Taipei 101 looked tilted on that Satelite View? *Checking Google* Huh… it does 😮
-Yeah, that shape did look very distinctive. At least Adam and Ben have ample of time researching things to check it out. Either way, they don’t just point straight down to the bottom of tower, so that loophole I assumed to exist seemed might not be after all.
-Okay, minus 8 is quite a bit lower than I thought, but… eh? They just lost basically 8 Stations they could have flipped for nothing honestly *sighs* Since I think the Stations are more important than the Chips at this point.
-DAMN, this place is SO foggy Aahahhahah, even the card reader said “Beep Boop” xD and those stones made these stations looks more rural than it already is man o_o
-Okay, we’re back to the Churchill Challenge of Tag 2! 😀 But true, them being at the Steal alone kind of have to force them to Go Big or Go Home since they might inevitably lost half of it if they succeeded. So… is this a Reverse Stalemate with Reverse Psychology, anyone? 😀
-Yes, Sawnie have that 55 Challenge at Yuli, but with the Steal Threat, they might have to go for like… 110 Points, which IS a disastrous hubris incoming.
-Is this still the fastest elevator in the world though? Also, auw… the Elevator has its own attendant :3- 300 KM/H?! D:
-Oh no… the Fog isn’t just at Beipu D: But still, I think this Steal is quite hard even without the Fog. But oh, so you can’t just look around the views before commencing the research from top 😦 But yeah, this Steal is legit hard. WHICH IS HOW IT SHOULD BE!
-Hm… Pebbles in the shape of Chinese Zodiacs. This is theoretically infallible as long as you have a lot of pebbles. Also, 13 per Zodiac though… to get 110, you need like… *pause* 8-9 Zodiacs right, so that’s a bit of a tall order o_o *pause* Oh, never mind, a 50-pebble limit, okay, this is actually hard xD Fair that Letters and Numbers are banned since that’s obvious
-This is the first time I seen this Challenge had an exact cap tho, since like… there’s only 12 Zodiacs out there. The most you can have is 156. So Sanmin is 30, which is quite few, but Yuli is… 60. That means… (100/55)*60 is… 109. Yeah, my estimates were nearly correct.
-Also, this is Eastern Zodiac, so they can’t just cheese it by putting in the pebbles in a Constellation format like the Western ones did.
-Yeah… only Snake and Chicken isn’t a Quadrupedal, unless you don’t count Monkey either xD
-Either way, 6 is still a lot, assuming the 101 Steal fails. They still need to flip like… 18 Stations from here though, I did underestimate how much they took from the High-Speed lint to Nangang for sure. Also, I also didn’t think about that -8, which IS a big difference between 1 and 2 Animal *cough*Hot Springs*cough* Even then, that means… this Taipei Steal did NOT matter at the end.
-Last Challenge? You don’t do Yuli even if you succeed? Wait, how did you make a Rat distinctive? Nice animal sounds tho *thumbs up*
-I mean… does the size of the rocks even matter for this? *shrugs* And oh hey, someone else had a yellow outfit like Ben did! 😀
-Is it allowed to stand in the middle for that long tho? I like this idea tho, doing the challenge for B4A but harder with no collusion allowed here.
-Yeah, the Top Down is just a Selfie and not a Satelite View is hard indeed. You need to make sure that you face Taipei 101 to reduce as much rotation as possible tho. And is that another Boba, Ben? They sell those at the observation deck? ;o Hope you get some chips to celebrate tho 🙂
-And no, Sam, that’s not Lockheed Martin xD and ooh… tiger striped rock, can’t get that anywhere 😮 HOW did you find that, Downie?! D: Also, that’s the Pendulum! But WHICH Air Base is that called, SAM?! 😡
-How long Downie’s been looking for these 50 rocks, I wonder And oh, so Downie’s already lying it down, not waiting on the Assembly too ^^
-Yeah, Bunnies are quite distinctive there. But PFFT! Orange?! Since when did I see Pigs being ORANGE?! I thought pigs are PINK! 😛 That is a SHORT snake tho, Downie, looks like a Tadpole
-Uh… that’s definitely a sheep. Pigs aren’t that round to me. And Pig Ears are sharper than a complete round. That’s a good chicken though! 🙂
-Yeah, it is quite abstract for a dragon, but that’s a good try since you can’t exactly put out the antlers and the legs without making it look too similar to a Snake. And Downie’s already grimacing on the Pig Assumption D:
-Okay, so what I thought is a Sheep IS a pig, but… then again, there is no Sheep here either. Only Goats *shrugs* But hm… I think the snout is too much round to be a dog’s, but… *shrugs* It is a bit of a pitfall yeah.
-I mean, stripes aside, what other animals are orange at all?! D: It is an interesting challenge, not exactly seeing what this beach had to do with the Zodiacs in particular *shrugs*
-I mean, that Taipei challenge is like 5 minutes, so… does that MATTER either? *Shrugs* But oh… so Badam’s still have the time limit to get to the Metro and probably to the West Line, fair enough ._. But oh great, back to the dreaded Reservations D: Why Taiwan Express trains are like this man, I lost count already 😦
-Wait, 78/6 Animals? *checking* I thought you just need 5 to go to Yuli And that’s the Handshake from the Trailer, actually to concede that they lost. Ahahahhahaha… great job deceiving me, Trailer ^^
-But yeah, this is a nice beach at least. And well Adam is quick to walk back here tho 😮
-That’s… ONE HELL of a Graph there, wow! :O Also, notice that Sawnie never went past the station count even early game either 😮
-This Season has been a great experience in terms of entertainment for sure, but would have one of the best if not for those damn steals ruining most of it (Like, if not for it existing, this Season is possible to be better than Hide+Seek Japan, which is an achievement). So glad that Badam managed to preserve at the end, like Sam just… completely fumbled. Like, he could have simply pushed west to Kaohsiung and Badam would be fucked, but… nope! *shrugs*
-Ahahaha… I thought we had a Copper Statue of Taipei 101 for well; Orange is a Copper while Teal is the Oxidized one. But a GPU?! In this Economy?! 😛
-Is it more powerful than the Jets from back there? 😀 And… rip playing Minecraft with that 😦
-13 Time zones east or west to get to Taiwan tho? Should have called it “Fighter Jet Lagged tho!” 😡
-Ooh… short off-season, that means we’re getting close to the 1st US Season since Arctic Escape.
-Auw… Sam is jealous he’s not taken with Downie to Indonesia (Jet Lag on Indonesia WHEN, please?!)
-While you could point on an argument that Sam got the Instant Claim Card in Montana is unfair. I feel like that case is just an icing on the cake where things wouldn’t change much even if Sam got a regular card. Like, Badam are just screwed as soon as their car broke down. And a Butte-Helena trip is a long one after all.
-I saw a lot of people complained about Episode 6 and 7 being a bunch of Filler or Sam’s catastrophic fumble on Episode 7 and 8, but I’m a lot more annoyed with the Steals of Episode 3 and 4 which made me feel that the ones after that to be a Cathartic moment of Hubris. And I typically don’t consider Skill Issue to be a bad thing in a season (hence Hide+Seek Japan being mu favorite season) at least compared to some terrible luck and even more so on bad game design and unfair mechanics.
-To be honest, I’m blaming the Steals existing for causing those Stalemate in the first place. But… I can see why people were really upset about that because it brought a lot of bad flashback to Snake and Tag All-Stars. But it is an interesting idea from someone that doing the steal count like AUS$ did, in which the amount is decided when the challenge is started instead ending.
-Look, I like it when teams were playing naturally aggressive and my most favorite seasons tends to be like that. Meanwhile, Steals are like the antithesis of that. As if you were being punished for doing too well resource-wise for doing more challenge work. But while power ups that solely benefitted the front were horrible as well, Steals felt like it just being able to be used make the rich richer. Especially when Flipping Stations CAN be considered as a Steal too. Hence why the best steals in the series are Counterable (B4A) or seen as punishment for failure and negligence (Schengen Showdown). Actually, only if the steal were of an actual progress made rather than the resources to do it is actually good. For example, if we had U-Turns or Roadblocking Curse in Race Seasons, or just what we already known well such as wrestling over territories and regular challenges.
At least I got some sort of idea of what kind of role she had now (Think of Fire Emblem’s Anna, for example), but that’s the gist of what I could mention about her for now.
So I guess reinforcing a bunch of stations in a row DOES have a merit after all… should have explained that last episode though *sighs*
The Autumn Bamboo Translator 
