Video Game / Team Kirby Clash Deluxe

"This is a story of a faraway realm from long, long ago... A beautiful, peaceful land called the Dream Kingdom. Peace, though, can vanish in a flash... Can you defend the Dream Kingdom from a sudden onslaught of enemies? Set forth and do battle, Team Kirby!"

— Opening

Team Kirby Clash Deluxe is a spinoff game from the Kirby series for the Nintendo 3DS. As the name implies, it's the "deluxe" version of Team Kirby Clash, a Mini-Game mode included in Kirby: Planet Robobot. It was released in April 12, 2017 in North America, and April 13, 2017 in Japan and Europe. It is free to download, but it also features microtransactions that will help you with progress in the game.

As in the original Team Kirby Clash, players can assume one of four roles:

• Sword Hero: Based on the Sword ability. A quick-witted, blade-wielding Kirby that gets up close and personal with foes, using his Sword to inflict rapid damage. His shield can project a force field that defends himself and allies from enemy damage.
• Hammer Lord: Based on the Hammer ability. A Kirby that wields a hefty hammer, the Hammer Lord has the highest damage output of all the roles, especially with the power of his mighty Hammer Flip attack. However, the weight of his weapon hampers his mobility and ability to fly.
• Dr. Healmore: Based on the Doctor ability from Planet Robobot. A Kirby that carries a wide array of flasks with dubious contents, Dr. Healmore can utilize various elemental attacks that hit in a wide range. His Charged Attack can summon a field that heals allies, and he revives fallen Kirbies faster than other roles.
• Beam Mage: Based on the Beam ability. A Kirby that wields a staff imbued with the powers of electricity and time, Beam Mage is a long-ranged damage dealer that can pack on the pain using his collection of beam spells and electric attacks. His Charged Attack, Time Beam, has the ability to stop time if it hits its target enough times.

Just like in the original Team Kirby Clash, up to 4 players fight various bosses under a time limit and gain experience and Character Levels to increase their abilities. New to this game are "Equipments", alternate weapons and hats that you can purchase and use to strengthen the Kirbys, Fragments obtained from bosses that you can use to buy rarer equipment, as well as Gem Apples that you can gain from either completing achievements, harvesting them from the Gem Apple Tree, or purchasing them with real money. Battles now run on a stamina system called Vigor, which, if depleted, can regenerate by either waiting for a few minutes or eating a few Gem Apples. Leveling up will also replenish the Vigor to full. Players can also acquire other players' Kirbys and bring them into battle with the StreetPass feature, or search for Kirbys online with the "Wandering Adventurers" option, marking the first instance of online interactivity in the series. amiibo is also supported, granting Fragments for scanning various amiibo.

The story progression is expanded from the original: whereas the original game has six quests, now there are six areas, each hosting as many as 8 bosses, the tougher of which you have to unlock by spending Gem Apples and/or beating the harder "Ordeal" bosses; doing the latter also unlocks new areas and quests, and lets you purchase better gear.

A Nintendo Switch version of the game titled Super Kirby Clash was released on September 4, 2019, considered the "definitive" version of Team Kirby Clash Deluxe. Super introduces an overhauled Story Mode that puts the parallel counterpart of Kirby's original foe Nightmare in the spotlight, and adds a slew of new Quests, new bosses to challenge, new equipment, and new music. In addition, Super adds Party Quests which can be played solo or with up to three friends in local and online multiplayer modes.

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Examples:

• Achievement System: Meeting certain objectives awards "Heroic Missions", a list of achievements that award Gem Apples and Rare Fragments. There are 255 Heroic Missions throughout the game.
• Allegedly Free Game: Team Kirby Clash Deluxe is free to download, but if you need a lot of Gem Apples quickly, you're gonna need some real money. Buying 3,000 total apples from Magolor (how much you can buy is limited) will also upgrade the tree in the town so that it will produce 450 Gem Apples when it's harvesting time (if you want to still play for free, you'll have to collect apples twice a day every day for just short of two years and ten months).
• Alternate Continuity: Team Kirby Clash Deluxe takes place outside of the main Kirby continuity in an Alternate Universe called the Dream Kingdom (as opposed to Dream Land). Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe links the two continuities through the ending of Magolor Epilogue, but the Dream Kingdom is still explicitly set in a parallel universe from the main series.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The Decisive Battlefield.
• An Adventurer Is You: Each of the four roles fill some of the categories as in the original sub-game:
  • Sword Hero - DPS/Tank hybrid (specifically the Scrapper subtype with his quick attacks, and with his special party shield)
  • Hammer Lord - DPS (specifically the Blademaster subtype, somewhat ironically)
  • Dr. Healmore - Healer (with a bit of Alchemist mixed in since he is able to create elemental attacks with his vials via Science Lab).
  • Beam Mage - Status Effect Guy (Time Stands Still, to be exact) mixed with Ranged DPS
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • When you're fighting flying enemies (e.g. Greater Doomer, Kracko, Telepathos), Beam Mage's Time Beam attack will become more effective and will stop the enemy in less amount of hits. It's to compensate the fact that, well, they're flying and thus the Time Beam cannot hit them most of the time.
  • The more Gem Apples you buy from Magolor, the bigger the Gem Apple tree in the hub grows, causing it to bear more Gem Apples and making it easier to obtain more without paying. Magolor also only sells a total of 3,000 Gem Apples, which is roughly $30 USD — after that, he's sold out, but the Gem Apple tree bears 450 apples per harvest, meaning you don't have any reason to buy more.
• Artificial Brilliance: Unlike the AI helpers in earlier Kirby games, the teammates in this game are fairly good at dodging and attacking, with only a few hiccups. Of note is that they won't pick up Team Meteor pieces while time is stopped because of a Beam Mage's Time Beam, as they know Team Meteor cancels out the timestop.
• Artificial Stupidity: Of course, even with how brilliant they can be, there are still some facepalm-worthy moments.
  • If a healing area is casted, and it unfortunately spawned below an enemy, which is about to fall, they'd run for the healing area. Same when it's on the ground and they're covering the area.
  • They don't seem to remember how to float sometimes, leading to repeated bumps into the enemy, which causes damage. And sometimes even a KO.
  • If needed food spawns and it's right next to an enemy, more often than not, they'll break their back to get it, oftentimes losing far more health than eating said food would give back.
  • When a boss gets furious or when a new Colossal boss enters in a battle with two or three, the AI Kirbys will charge up attacks, oftentimes to their max charge level, and let loose. However, since the enemy is invincible during the entire time they spawn or get furious, that means any attacks unleashed at that time won't deal any damage.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: It is very tempting to redirect all attention towards a Rare Fragment on the off chance the boss drops one, damage be damned. Ditto for a Power Tablet, although less so.
• Big Bad: Taranza, who is instigating the monster rampages throughout the Dream Kingdom. Defeating him at first fails to stop him, and it isn't until Team Kirby takes down King D-Mind that Taranza returns to normal.
• Bling of War:
  • The Rarity 6 gears are all golden. They're also described as gears that older heroes used to use.
  • Even better is the Platinum Gear - not only do they shine and gleam brightly, but they have phenomenal stats. They also require one Rare Fragment each (along with 99 of the other fragments and Gem Apples) to buy.
  • DX Gear also sparkles. Which turns said Platinum gear up a notch.
• Blocking Stops All Damage: As per the norm, Perfect Guarding (pressing Guard right before you get hit) prevents you from taking damage. Sword Hero's Guard can also summon a Deflector Shield that protects both the user and all allies within the barrier from taking any damage regardless of timing.
• Boss Game: The game uses the core gameplay of the 3DS mainline Kirby games, but is centered entirely around fighting bosses and mini-bosses.
• Boss Remix: It's hard to tell at first, but "Save the Kingdom! Ordeal Quest" and "Save the World! Ordeal Quest" are actually arrangements of the Castle Village theme. It's made more obvious when the village music changes once enough Gem Apples are purchased with real money.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Magolor runs the Shoppe, and he's wearing green.
  • You can also find Rick, Coo and Kine and Sailor Waddle Dee in the background after defeating some Ordeal bosses.
  • The final boss is "King D-Mind," a being that resembles King Dedede and Dark Mind.
• The Cameo: As you make story progress, various Kirby characters will appear in the Dream Kingdom town. These include familiar faces such as Rick, Kine, Coo, and Taranza.
• Cap:
  • You can only have 20 heroes summoned between StreetPass and the internet; getting any more after that point will cause the oldest heroes to leave.
  • You can buy up to 3000 Gem Apples, after which the game stops taking your money and gives you 450 Gem Apples per harvest.
• Characterization Marches On: Through his mannerisms and expressions, we can see more of Taranza's personality than what we saw of him before in Kirby: Triple Deluxe, as he now gives vibes of Smug Snake and Giggling Villain, while also showing that he is very proficient at attacking directly with devastating magic spells, when he was mostly a hypnotic manipulator and monster enhancer on his debut game.
• Charged Attack: Each role possess one: Sword Hero's Spin Slash, Hammer Lord's Hammer Flip, Beam Mage's Time Beam and Doctor Healmore's Healing Area. The last one also has the Science Lab move where he creates a special concoction that explodes with different, random effects.
• Circling Birdies: Whenever a boss gets stunned by a Team Meteor, they'll have a halo of stars circling their head.
• Collision Damage: Most bosses use this, with some rare exceptions like Whispy Woods.
• Combat Resuscitation: If one of your team members lose all of their HP, they can be revived by having another member walk close to them and press Y to revive them with half health. Beware, however, that the more you revive, the longer it'll take to revive.
• Combination Attack: The "Team Meteor". By collecting 4 Power Tablets that the boss drops (after they Turn Red), your team then enters a "minigame" where you have to stop the moving circle right in the middle of an arc in order to strengthen your resulting meteor attack. The boss will be stunned after that, leaving them open for further attacks.
• Composite Character: The Greater Doomer has attacks of both Fire and Ice Sphere Doomers from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, but in a Non-Elemental flavor.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Like in the original Team Kirby Clash, the bosses all have high amounts of HP. As you get better gear, you might find the battles easier and easier, but usually, to get better results, you'd like to break up the damage-boosting potions as well before the fight, especially with the later bosses.
• Dark Reprise: "Decisive Battle with a Mighty Boss," the theme that plays against Landia EX and King D-Mind's first form, is a dark and depressing version of Castle Lololo.
• Death Mountain: The Empyrean.
• Defend Command: Like in previous Kirby games, all Kirbies can block incoming attacks; but Sword Hero has it better thanks to his Hero Shield that puts up a Deflector Shield in a certain radius around him, giving extra protection to his teammates and dispersing most projectiles.
• Diminishing Returns for Balance: The more times you manage to stop time during a battle, the more Time Beams it'll take for the next time stop to trigger.
• Disc-One Final Boss: It's revealed later in the Empyrean that Taranza was the one behind the monsters' attacks. But after you beat him, even tougher monsters appear; after you beat them all, the final area appears: the "Decisive Battlefield", where you fight Landia EX. The credits even roll upon clearing the battle for the first time. But then after it comes Parallel Susie and Parallel Landia, topped with "The Final Battle" with Dark Taranza and King D-Mind. And finally comes the True Final Boss.
• Easter Egg:
  • If Colossal Waddle Dee is allowed to live for an extended period of time, it may perform a rare animation where it turns to the camera and waves at the player.
  • If you talk to Magolor eight times in a row, he will eventually tell Kirby to get back to questing.
• Elemental Powers: Half of the classes in the game utilize elemental manipulation as the Sword Hero uses standard sword attacks while the Hammer Lord ignites his hammer on fire to attack.
  • Beam Mage: Time Manipulation
  • Doctor Healmore: A combination of fire, ice, and electricity manipulation that is randomized through Science Lab.
• Equipment-Based Progression: It goes parallel with your quest progression; whenever you beat an "Ordeal" boss, you'll be able to buy higher rarity gear.
• Equipment Upgrade:
  • After beating Taranza, you can upgrade your gears to their "DX" versions in Magolor's Shoppe. All of them will require the "Rare Fragment" that the bosses drop rarely (or from completing harder achievements). DX items are shown as sparkling all over.
• Experience Booster: The purchasable EXP Orb doubles your EXP gain for 30 minutes.
• Fantasy Metals: The Susie-themed headgear is said to be made of a previously-unknown metal called "Haltonium".
• Freemium Timer: The game has a "Vigor" meter that will get used when the player goes into quests, with each quest requiring a certain amount of Vigor to be initiated or reset. If it's depleted, you'll have to either wait for the meter to replenish itself by waiting a few minutes, or eat some Gem Apples proportional to how much Vigor you need to begin the quest. Gem Apples, as you might expect, are purchasable using real money. The various Codices of Vigor, purchasable in the Shoppe, reduce the time it takes to regain one point of Vigor; the first cuts it down to five minutes, the second to four, the third to three, and the final to just one.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Whispy Woods will retreat to the background once he Turns Red. Pyribbit does it regularly, as do Telepathos and Taranza. Later, Parallel Susie and King D-Mind also will retreat to the background for some attacks. In a variant, there's also the high flying Landia. All of them make the objective of "defeating them under several seconds" harder.
• Giant Mook: In addition to Kibble Blade and King Doo returning from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, this game also introduces its own Giant Mooks. You'll fight a Colossal Waddle Dee as a Warmup Boss. It's just like a regular Waddle Dee, only larger and slower. Later you'll fight Colossal Double-Team and Triple-Team where Colossal Kabu (the spinning moai head mook) and Colossal Hothead (the "Fire" mook) join in the fun.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: There's nothing described for the mysterious "black mirror" in-game, beyond it being used as Taranza's "final weapon". It looks like the Dimension Mirror, but with black frames and sporting more spikes, and spawns Parallel Susie, Parallel Landia, Dark Taranza and King D-Mind. We don't know where it comes from either.
• Green Hill Zone: The Grasslands.
• High-Class Glass: All Doctor Healmore outfits come with either a monocle or glasses.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In the final battle, Dark Taranza uses the Black Mirror to summon the powerful warrior, King D-Mind. He smacks Dark Taranza with his hammer immediately afterward, causing him to shatter into glass.
• Improbable Weapon User: While the other classes use sensible weapons, Doctor Healmore uses flasks. Justified, though, in that he uses it to spray medicinal water above him, create concoctions of Fire, Ice, Lightning, and most importantly, for his special move Healing Area.
• Laser Blade: The Susian Bolt Blade is a Susie-themed sword that has a "blade" made of energy and electricity.
• Legacy Boss Battle: The fight against King D-Mind is, more or less, just a reuse of the Shadow Dedede fight from Kirby: Triple Deluxe... up until he Turns Red.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Volcano.
• Level Cap: Level 50.
• Mad Scientist: Doctor Healmore has this for its Rarity 7 equipment: its armor looks like a Brain in a Jar headgear combined with goggles and its weapon is a beaker. The description states the brain is just a toy, though.
• Microtransactions: You can buy Gem Apples from Magolor with real funds, which also causes your Gem Apple tree's harvest to increase at certain intervals. Interestingly enough, the amount of Gem Apples you can buy has a hard cap of 3000 total, after which point you can't buy any more (but you shouldn't need to at this point, as the tree is giving you 450 per harvest).
• Magical Girl: The Rarity 7 Beam Mage gear makes Kirby look like a Magical Girl.
• Mighty Glacier: Hammer Lord runs the slowest of all roles, but his hammer attacks deal the highest damage in the game (outside of Team Meteor) and he also has the highest stamina.
• Money for Nothing: Based on how you play the game, one of two things can happen.
  • If you never spend any money, equipment progression slows down significantly at endgame due to the rising Gem Apple cost of equipment. As a result, you will find yourself hoarding a ridiculous number of each Fragment with nothing to spend them on because you're waiting to get more Gem Apples to use them.
  • On the other hand, maxing out the Gem Apple Tree produces the reverse effect, where the game constantly supplies you with a vast hoard of Gem Apples that you will eventually have too many of once you finish gearing your party and buying the Codexes.
• Money Multiplier:
  • If you buy Gem Apples with real money on Sundays, you can get more Gem Apples than normal. Buying Gem Apples with real money will also make the Gem Apple Tree grow and can produce more Gem Apples.
  • You can get more fragments (of either Fire, Water or Light) if you play at certain days, i.e Tuesday for Fire, Wednesday for Water, and Friday for Light. You can also purchase (Elemental) Fragment Codex items that permanently multiplies the amount of elemental fragments you gain, up to 3 times the amount.
  • Some equipment has a "Material Gain" bonus to add to how many items you get after winning a battle.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Like in the original, when your level is at a multiple of 5, in addition to your actual stat gains, you'll also get a message saying that a "stat" such as Puffiness or Eye Sparkle increased (not that it matters). A very similar message appeared after defeating Computer Virus in Kirby Super Star.
  • The Rarity 8 and 9 gears are based on several Kirby characters: Dark Matter Blade and Landia (for Sword Hero), Wham Bam Rock and Dark Mind (for Hammer Lord), Drawcia (complete with the Magical Paintbrush for your staff) and Magolor (for Beam Mage) and Chuchu and Taranza (for Doctor Healmore).
  • The penultimate boss Dark Taranza has Queen Sectonia's color scheme, complete with a stinger at the bottom of his body. It looks as if he's starting down a similar path, if her clone's Dying as Yourself in Kirby: Planet Robobot's Meta Knightmare Returns is any indication.
  • The final boss King D-Mind is (according to Word of God) based on how Masked Dedede's mask looks like a toned down version of Dark Mind's helmet; thus D-Mind could be seen as the "Masked" Shadow Dedede.
  • The game's epilogue states "But they remain on guard... After all, who knows when another evil might arise?" This line is pulled directly from Kirby & the Amazing Mirror's epilogue.
• Nerf:
  • As in Kirby Fighters Deluxe, floating is nerfed to prevent infinite camping/cheesing in upper corners of the map.
  • Hammer's mobility is vastly reduced in this game to give it a Mighty Glacier role. While it still boasts monstrous damage output, the inability to move any faster than a normal walk and practically nonexistent float ability makes it much harder to cheese with Hammer.
• Nerf Arm: The Rarity 7 gears are funny-looking gears: fish-themed equipment for Sword Hero, a set of "lucky equipment" for Hammer Lord (complete with fake mustache), Magical Girl hair and staff for Beam Mage, and Mad Scientist-themed gear for Doctor Healmore. And they're fairly powerful too.
• Oh, Crap!: Dark Taranza's reaction when King D-Mind turns against him.
• Old Save Bonus: If you have StreetPass data for Kirby: Planet Robobot on your 3DS, you can get special gears for your Sword Hero based on Susie. You have to buy them first with a large amount of fragments, however.
• Only I Can Kill Him: Any human-controlled player has to deal the finishing blow to any enemy fought. CPU teammates cannot; the sole exceptions are for when time is close to running out, using the Team Meteor for the final blow or when a human player is playing as Dr. Healmore.
• Our Dragons Are Different:
  • The Ice Dragon from Kirby's Dream Land 2 reappears here, in full.
  • There's also Landia from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, a 4-headed winged dragon that can split into 4 smaller one-headed dragons when he Turns Red. There's also a powered-up Landia EX and Parallel Landia, from Another Dimension.
• Palette Swap:
  • Magolor appears in a white and green coloration in this game. Once you collect everything from his shop, he goes back to his usual white and blue.
  • Taranza has a more purple coloration than his usual red. He goes back to normal after defeating King D-Mind in The True Final Battle.
  • Parallel Susie, Parallel Landia, Dark Taranza, and King D-Mind are all this to their otherworldly counterparts.
• Play Every Day: You can harvest the Gem Apple Tree twice a day, once every 12 hours. You can also call for Wandering Adventurers every 24 hours which also gives you Fragments.
• Power Equals Rarity: How the rarity tiers work in this game. The rarer the equipment, the better the stats.
• Practical Currency: Gem Apples, aside from being used to purchase things in the Shoppe, are also used for:
  • Unlocking most of the fights.
  • Recharging your vigor meter to full.
  • Extending the time limit during battle.
  • Reviving all of your team members should they die.
  • Hiring "Wandering Adventurers" past the normal 3 per day.
• Quad Damage: You can buy damage-boosting potions from Magolor's Shoppe that you can consume before a battle; you can consume up to five at a time.
• Rank Inflation: Team Kirby Clash brings back the Bronze-Silver-Gold-Platinum ranking system from Return to Dream Land's Ability Challenges. Scoring for these ranks is determined by how long it took to beat the boss and if the boss was beaten. Defeating all bosses in a stage with Platinum rank will net you a good amount of Gem Apples.
• Recurring Extra: As bosses are beaten, background characters from other Kirby games are seen.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Taranza's garb is colored red and black (along with purple) in this game. He's also seemingly antagonistic. When you beat the True Final Boss, Taranza is freed from the "influence" of the black mirror and goes to his original color scheme. Parallel Susie also has this color scheme instead of her usual pink and white, and she's definitely more vicious than before.
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake: The Ruins.
• Shifting Sand Land: The Dunes.
• Shows Damage: Unlike many Kirby games, bosses here lack a Life Meter; instead you'll only get indicators such as them turning then flashing red, increasingly rapidly, along with the message "You've almost defeated it!"
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Doctor Healmore's garb always come with a pair of glasses (or a monocle). He's also pitched as a scholarly doctor.
• Starting Equipment: You'll start the game wearing dull-looking basic equipments for each class.
• Stealth Pun: The Gem Apple Tree is a subtle reference to the saying "money doesn't grow on trees". The irony being that the Gem Apples are the game's currency.
• Suddenly Voiced: This is the first time since Revenge of the King that Bandanna Waddle Dee can talk.
• Swordfish Sabre: Sword Hero's rarity 7 weapon is a literal swordfish.
• Time-Limit Boss: All of the fights are timed. Clearing one with enough time left grants a special bonus that's pretty much required for the highest rank. If you exceed the time limit without defeating the boss, you may choose to extend the timer with Gem Apples. Time Beam can also stop the timer once enough blasts hit the enemy.
• Time Stands Still: When used enough, Beam Mage's "Time Beam" will briefly stop the boss (and timer) in its tracks.
• Trapped in Another World: In the July 2017 issue of the Japanese magazine Nintendo DREAM, the developers revealed that Shopkeeper Magolor is actually the same Magolor from the main Kirby canon, and not a parallel counterpart. This is later confirmed directly in Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe, which welds the two games together through the Magolor Epilogue mode, and reveals how Magolor ended up in the Dream Kingdom.
• Trick Boss: The final boss appears to be Dark Taranza. After he's defeated in only one phase, he summons the Black Mirror, which summons King D-Mind. Afterwards, King D-Mind immediately turns against Dark Taranza and kills him, replacing him for the rest of the battle.
• True Final Boss: The "True Final Battle" is a rematch against a stronger King D-Mind.
• Turns Red: "[Boss Name] is furious!" After which the bosses will whip up stronger attacks and tactics. This happens to every single boss in the entire game. In the event of a group fight with two to three bosses in sequence, the last one is the only one to do this.
• The Unfought: Taranza was one in his original appearance, but it's finally averted here. He's rather powerful as a boss, too. This is because he is corrupted by the Black Mirror's magic.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Decisive Battlefield, the 6th and final area in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe. It is home to all of the game's strongest and final bosses, including the Superboss.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Whispy Woods, of all bosses, becomes this, like in Team Kirby Clash. He's the second Ordeal boss; the first was Kracko, who was actually easy as he lacks his fearsome speed and the upgraded attacks he had in Triple Deluxe. Whispy Woods starts like what you'd expect, a stationary boss that shoots weak apples and air shots. But after he Turns Red, he'll imitate Flowery Woods and jump towards the background for long-ranged attacks, and then come back down to the foreground for heavy stomping attacks, something that prior bosses cannot do. He will push you to get better gear and/or use a lot of damage-boosting potions and playing better. Defeating him also unlocks "Tough" versions of bosses.
• Warmup Boss: The first boss is Colossal Waddle Dee. It does nothing but slowly walk around and occasionally jump.
• Wham Shot: Dark Taranza, upon defeat, summons the Black Mirror. Out of it comes a being that resembles Shadow Dedede, but with the mask of Dark Mind.
  "King D-Mind has appeared!"

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