Here's the intro to Round 2 - Volcanic Area. It's the same gif that ended the last update. In it, Cecile is carried into a cavern, Lucia sinks into a pool of lava (doesn't happen in gameplay), uses the teleport ability (sort of), then watches an enemy fall into the same trap (also doesn't happen in gameplay), and jumps for joy on the way into the cave.
Here we are at the start of the level. Unlike round one, this stage has verticality. No vertical scrolling, unfortunately.
On the other hand, this image was much easier to put together because of the screen transitions than it would have been with scrolling. The whole area on the left is skippable if you want.
At the base of the pit is a new hazard: collapsible floors. Luckily, lava damage is minimal if you get out quickly (it builds pretty fast if you don't).
Lucia faces a new enemy by foolishly charging in and taking a few hits. I should have stayed on the higher ledge, ducked, and shot at it for a safe kill. Afterwards, we pick up a new ESP ability. Let's give it a shot:
Kaboom! This is Explosion, and it's pretty self-explanatory. It's also pretty weak at this point, taking two hits to kill the mini-volcano and four for the armoured tortoise.
Climbing up I attempt use explosion to clear the enemies in this screen, but I run out of ESP. Fortunately I have enough left for a shot of Shield, allowing me to take out the volcanoes without taking damage.
Continuing up, this is how I should have dealt with the first enemy instead of charging in. There's another Teleport power-up on this screen. I don't think getting more than one makes any difference, but I get it anyway. It's no use with no ESP gauge, though.
What luck! I cross a 10,000 point multiple and get an ESP refill for my trouble.
I realise at this point that I haven't yet shown off Hydro-wave, my new attack. Here it is. All new attacks start at the weakest level, so Lucia's upgraded Psy-cannon tends to be a better choice until you get a few power-ups to charge them up.
Here it is in action. If you look back a few gifs, the Psy-cannon took one of these guys out in five hits. Hydro-wave is taking about double that at this level. Luckily, there's a power up for it here.
I collect the power up and spare myself the trip back down by using teleport again. There was also an upgrade for the Psy-cannon, but I think it's already as strong as it gets.
Here's the upgraded Hydro-wave. It's a little bigger.
I head back down. The power-ups have all respawned, so if I wanted to I could repeat the climb until Hydro-wave was all powered up, but I won't. I will get that Explosion block again, though.
Explosion level 2 is twice as powerful, taking out the volcano in one hit and the tortoise in two. There's no increase in ESP consumption.
I turned on Shield to get the B block dropped by the volcano, and it's a good thing that I did. The jump across floating blocks in the next screen shouldn't be too hard, but I make a mess of it. The mudman would've gone down quicker if I'd switched back to Psy-cannon, but I foolishly persisted with Hydro-wave through most of the stage.
The third area of the stage is a long corridor of floating platforms and enemies. I use Explosion on some, shoot at others, and eventually just turn on Shield and go for a jog in the lava.
At the end there are two lengths of collapsing platform. Making it to the end of the upper one, which I manage despite taking a hit, gets you a Shield upgrade. I'm not sure if those are still doing anything or if my Shield is fully upgraded already.
Through the door is this giant flying mudman thing. I wish this game had enemy and boss names in the manual. Anyway, I turn on Shield, because fighting it without is a recipe for misery, and go to it. It takes forever with my underpowered Hydro-wave. I eventually switch to Psy-cannon and it dies on the next hit. Probably just a coincidence.
The next screen gets me another Explosion upgrade and features a fairly simple jumping/dodging challenge. I take a few hits, but manage not to fall.
There's another mudman on the next screen. They go down a lot quicker using the Psy-cannon. I'm pretty sure it has a better range than the underleveled wave, which also helps.
I pause to gather myself before attempting this tricky jump. Not for long enough, apparently, and I miss out on a Hydro-wave upgrade.
This screen is uneventful thanks to my Shield usage.
As is the next.
Another Hydro-wave! This thing might become useful soon.
It's doubled, and the range is increased. Nice!
When I'm running in this game and not sure what's coming up, I tend to shoot, setting up a little buffer against enemies. It doesn't help this time, but once I know what's happening I do ok. There's just something satisfying about holding forwards and jumping at the right time, isn't there?
The penultimate screen of the level features a new hazard: these red things will harm Lucia if you walk through them. Psy-cannon just passes through, but Hydro-wave will take them out.
Or you can blow up the enemies with Explosion and blow through the hazards with Shield. There's another Hydro-wave upgrade hiding in there. Let's see how it's performing now:
It's bigger, and it looks like the range has increased. If I hadn't missed that upgrade earlier it'd probably have a low shot as well as the high and middle. Oh well.
Here's the boss! It shoots platforms at you and can only be harmed by shots to the belly.
It goes on for a while, since you can only land a shot when it's down low. Or, you can climb onto the platforms it shoots. You can see me failing to do that in the third of these shots, and succeeding futilely in the fourth.
On I think the seventh cycle I manage to get a boost up and can really lay into it, finishing the fight. It drops a new attack capability, Burning Bullet. I'm sure that will come in handy in the levels to come.
Next time:
Ice Field
...right after a side update.
Wear this ESP booster. It'll help you see this bonus material:
Here's concept art for the boss of level 2, from the same interview as before:
It looks a little different, there are attacks that aren't in the game, and the four patterns at the lower left aren't the same as the ones in game, but it's recognisably the same concept. Plus, it says "#STAGE 2 Boss" at the top. Again, I'd be grateful for a translation of the Japanese text, particularly its name.
Sensenic:
Behold, thou stand before the mighty Lava King (and it says "sidekick" in parenthesis next to its name?).
And the attacks it was going to have:
- "Flame wings"
- "Fireball"
- "Burning Bullet"
- Sth about "Advancing attack"? it's the Psycho Crusher one.
- ...and I'm afraid I can't read the platform beam name's kanjis u_u
Erilex:
I think the word in there is 凝固 (read as gyouko), which according to jisho.org means coagulation, freezing or solidification.
...sooo, solidification beam? It's supposed to be a beam of magma that cools down and solidifies, I guess.
The final design for the boss is a lot cuter than the concept art.
Comments
Post a Comment