Let's Play Psychic World (SMS) Round 3 - Ice Field

Here's the intro to round 3. It's a neat little animation.



Lucia is in a cave. Something green is dropping from the ceiling. Extremely attentive readers may notice my score has changed. I had some technical difficulties:



On my first attempt to record this level I forgot to set it to 50Hz, and switched after starting recording. That led to a completely useless video, which I didn't discover until I'd overwritten my pre-round 3 save state. As a result, I had to give up some gameplay I was pretty happy with, replay round 2, and redo round 3. Anyway, let's try out that new attack capability, Burning Bullet:



Like the hydro-wave, it starts out pretty dinky.



The green drop has landed and become a roper, a D&D term I know from Sega platformers. It takes ten hits from my underpowered Burning Bullet to take it out.



Like round 2, there are collapsing floors in this stage.



I move on, taking out another roper and crossing some more collapsing floors, and switch to Hydro-wave to try something out:



Yep. This cold attack has no power against these cold monsters.



I bust out trusty ol' Psy-cannon to take it out. At full power with two shots hitting each time, it takes six attacks to take this enemy out.



I backtrack a little on the upper level, but I'm blocked by this ice. Burning Bullet melts it.



I carry on and upgrade Burning Bullet to the second level (as well as getting a Hydro-wave upgrade from the enemy drop).



That's a bit better.



I head back to the right. But how can I proceed? I can't jump high enough to reach the upper level!



The bright animated background tiles are the key, along with Hydro-wave, which freezes them solid, allowing Lucia to jump on them and proceed. I switch back to Burning Bullet to take out the enemy. Again I need six hits to kill this enemy, but unlike with Psy-cannon each hit only has one shot in it. I did some checking when I replayed round two, and Hydro-wave does about twice as much damage to the enemies in that stage as Psy-cannon, so long as it's powered up to the same level.



I attempt to use Burning Bullet on this roper, but it's still got pathetic range. Easier to just use Psy-cannon.



This roper goes down after only a couple of hits. I guess they're weaker in drop form?



Here's this stage's other environmental gimmick: slippery floors. It is an ice stage, after all.



I backtrack for this B block, worth a whole 1,000 points. This is a waste of time, but as someone who struggles with completionism I have a pathology.



This roper doesn't go down nearly so easily in drop form as the last one. Hmm. Anyway, it drops an enemy-clearing item, so no complaints. There's a new power-up down there:



This is Cooling-Down. According to the manual it "lets Lucia freeze her enemies in their slimy tracks!"



There's another Burning Bullet power-up ahead, but there's also an enemy sitting on it. On the lost video of my first attempt at this stage, I tried to use Cooling-Down to freeze it, and it didn't work. I need to find a way to kill it before the collapsing floor drops me and I lose the chance to get the power-up.



Explosion is the way.



I attempt to use Cooling Down on this enemy, but am thwarted by its pitiful range.



Eventually I land a hit and... nothing happens.



I switch to Psy-cannon and move on. In the last shot you can see my Burning Bullet is doubled now.



I make my way across, skipping the ropers. But, the completionist in me must know: do they drop anything good?



Nope.



I've been trying to use less Shield this time, but I'm getting really into Explosion. Also in this sequence I realise I'm running on spikes and turn Shield on.



You can only make this jump from the top of the ice tower. If you accidentally melt the top right ice block, you can't climb the right side ladder. Once you're across, don't be tempted by the Hydro-wave power up. You've already got that at full strength.



Ah. This did not happen in my lost run at this level! I got careless with Shield up and didn't notice it was about to run out. You don't take a lot of damage per hit in this game, but you get basically no invincibility after a hit, so if you get pinned you can die very quickly. You're not supposed to climb to the top of this ladder - you can walk off at the level of the lowest platform, and from there attack the enemies. Let's continue:



We're back at the start of the level, with all powers at the level they were at when we started the level. Also my score is now zero. I'm pretty sure you can continue as often as you like, at least. To get the true experience, read this update from the start again. Otherwise, I'm skipping ahead to where we were:



Almost. This time I screw up melting a ladder into the ice tower and can't reach the right hand ladder. We'll have to take the left:



Those pesky ropers are out of reach from here, but their projectiles can still reach me. What to do?



What else but take revenge?



On the next screen I pause to get a shot of the background animation. I had to crop the HUD so its animated elements wouldn't mess up the smooth loop of the gif.



If I'd made it up the right hand side I'd have an easy climb to the top on a couple of shots of Hydro-wave. Instead, I have to make a bridge all the way across. This also means switching to Burning Bullet and back a couple times to get rid of ice blocks that're in the way. I wonder if this is possible if you don't have Hydro-wave at full power, allowing you to duck and make ice blocks at ground level? You might have to make a bridge part way, then jump to the screen below and hope you can make it to the ladders at the right. Anyways, let's see what's through that door!



It's a mid-boss! Not sure what it's supposed to be. Pretty mean how the game drops you right on top of it. Anyway, I tank a few hits and finish it off pretty quickly, just as it uses its second type of attack. In my lost run, I took a lot longer on this fight, and got to see it disappear into the ground and show up across the screen. Oh well.



I make a brief effort to kill these guys with Attack Capabilities, then bust out Explosion. There's more ice to make and climb for another power-up and the ladder on the left.



The next two screens are simple climbs.



I consider using Explosion here, then remember that the first enemy on this screen will drop one for me. At this point I can go up, right, or down.



I choose down for another Burning Bullet power-up and a long hike back up. I suspect I was already at full power, making this a waste of effort. Next I go up.



In my lost run I couldn't pull off the jump to the left, and was planning to use it to demonstrate how you can jump from the middle of a ladder, which makes the jump easier. I intended to replicate that in this run, but instead I made the jump first try. Oh well. I'm not sure if these Explosion and Burning Bullet upgrades are doing anything at this point.



I get another one anyway. It looks pretty much the same before and after that power-up, doesn't it?



I head back down and take the right side exit.



Whee!



I slip and slide some more and meet a new enemy. This floating jellyfish thing takes quite a few hits to kill, which will be relevant soon.



Lucia explodes a room full of enemies, but nothing they drop is worth the bother. She moves on.



I mentioned that it takes forever to kill these jellyfish guys? In my lost run, this room was a disaster (until I got Shield up). This time, I'm forewarned, and use a wall to stop sliding and Explosion to clear a path. Possibly this would be a good place for Cooling Down, if the jellies are susceptible to it.



More unnecessary power-ups. I mean, maybe these are still making the shots stronger and there's just no more shot sprites to show it.



Again, in my lost run I forgot to clear a path here and had to build ice blocks up to let me clear the upper row. In this run I was more aware. Through that door, we have:



The boss! I'm gonna go ahead and guess it's called the Ice Dragon. What you want to do is build up a path to its face using Hydro-wave, then switch to Burning Bullet for damage. It shoots out fire that melts your blocks and deals damage if Lucia touches it. If I'd switched to Burning Bullet and started blasting I might have won the fight on this first cycle, but instead I moved forward and fell down. In my lost run I did even worse: on my first attempt to switch to Hydro-wave I accidentally used Teleport instead, taking me back to the start of the stage and meaning I had to play through it again. On the plus side, that allowed me to get Cooling Down to level 2.



Anyway, no biggie, I eat some fire and struggle to get blocks into useful positions.



A few times over.



This looks promising, until it all gets melted.



Getting close now...



Ha ha! Got it, and just in time: I'm very low on HP. Might have to do some excharging at the start of the next level. Anyway, it drops the last Attack Capability: Ultra-sonic, which is "especially strong against metal and other barriers".



Here's the whole fight in one go. I really struggle with using the ESP selection thing in action. If the game paused when you brought it up it'd be a lot easier to do.

Next time:



Ruins



Wear this ESP booster. It'll help you see this bonus material:

Here's the concept art for the level 3 boss:



I love that the scan shows these were done in a spiral-bound sketchbook.

Yimothy:
I'm gonna go ahead and guess it's called the Ice Dragon.

Sensenic:
Close, but no cigar.

It's called Glacier and it's a White Dragon.
Also its breath is acid, not fire, according to the document.
It was also going to have an Ice Breath (maybe it would rebuild all ice blocks in its path blocking your ascent somehow? can't read the description, it's too small), it would drop icicles from the ceiling (which would sometimes drop powerups when destroyed) and throw ice spikes horizontally as well.