Here we are in the fifth and final stage - Fortress. Like in this intro clip, the stage has relatively few enemies, and a lot of environmental hazards. Unlike the fall in the clip though, Lucia can be harmed by the hazards in the stage.
Right off the bat, the roof is spikes. Let's move forward:
Ouch! Actually, that's not a lot of damage.
Spikes appear in three locations, and I usually manage to get hit by the ones on the bottom row and the middle row (where I go to try to dodge the bottom row spikes).
The next screen has spikes dropping from the ceiling and rising from the floor. Lucia needs to be running to clear the floor ones.
I'm really pleased with how that gif turned out.
I'm less pleased with this, which more accurately represents my usual progress through this room.
Eventually it ends. Should I take the high road, over the collapsing floor, or the low, through the damage tiles? I think I'll go high:
The game has other ideas. I was hoping to make it into a run before the first gap, which would allow Lucia to skip over all these holes, but it didn't happen. Jumping over them would have led to damage from the roof spikes.
I put on my Shield and get running. The room isn't quite as long as this gif implies, but it's close.
At the end there's a full health and ESP refill. That's nice.
Through the door are some enemies, which I mostly deal with through explosions, and some breakable blocks which I need to clear before going to the next screen so they won't be in the way when I come back up the other side.
I clear the next room the old fashioned way. Say, did Lucia forget to do something here? I'm sure it's nothing important.
The next room requires some quick ducking and exploding to avoid damage. I quite like ducking and sliding under obstacles for some reason, though it's probably better on the ice floors in round 3.
I head up and kill this enemy. Let's move on:
Ah.
Nothing for it but to go back and clear the obstruction. I use Shield to avoid damage, and run against the arrows.
At the bottom I have to switch to Levitate to climb back up. Unfortunately this takes away Lucia's invulnerability and also her momentum. I have to walk in place until she starts running, but the damage adds up quickly and I lose my nerve.
I Excharge some HP back and try again, with the same result.
I try again, getting down to the last of my ESP reserves and focusing on switching powers as efficiently as possible, and pull it off. A triump!
Ah.
Levitation runs out too soon, I have no ESP left to restore it, and Lucia can't jump high enough to clear the blockage. What can I do?
This is not a course of action I recommend outside of a video game context.
On my next life I fall foul of the spikes.
After that, I make it back to where I was. I very nearly made the same mistake, before turning back and clearing the path.
Kaboom! I realise there are enough B blocks to take my point total over a 10,000 multiple and restore my ESP, so I Excharge first.
Much better!
My deadliest foe overcome, I spend some time clearing blocks in the next room. There's no need to clear any more than you need to reach the door, but I have the completionist disease and it must be satisfied.
There are very few enemy situations in this area that are not best dealt with through Explosions.
For whatever reason at this point I used Cooling Down (maybe I switched to it accidentally trying to activate Explosion?) and discovered I'd powered it up without noticing. I went back and had a look at my last update, and there were a few enemies that dropped upgrades for it that I didn't notice, mistaking them for other upgrades. Anyway, here it is at I think full power. Let's try it on an enemy:
As I thought it would, Cooling Down freezes an enemy and lets Lucia walk through it. Doesn't last long, though, and doesn't seem to do damage. I switch back to Ultra-sonic.
These arrow things are fun.
This little flying thing less so.
Mogri:
Hmm... If only you had a way to walk through enemies without suffering knockback or damage...
Yimothy:
In my defence, it had been at least 15 seconds since I realised I had that power at a useful level (2020 comment: Mogri might have been referring to Shield rather than Cooling Down, in retrospect).
Levitation helps, but it just doesn't last very long.
The flying thing respawns. I decide to just ignore it as best I can and move on.
The next room features a lot of damage tiles, and a full ESP refill on a pillar. I change most of my ESP to HP before turning on Levitation.
I'm sure I have gotten through this room before by elegantly swooping from pillar to pillar without taking damage. Not this time, though.
It goes on for a while. Lucia gets a small ESP refill every second pillar, so it's not too hard to stay topped up on ESP and keep flying.
You get some ESP and HP back at the end, at least.
Through the door is a midboss. I think you could actually fight this by running under it as it jumps, but why bother when you have Shield? It's worth 50,000 points, or five total ESP refills.
I'm leaving it there for today. Please look forward to the thrilling conclusion, next time on "Hang in there Sis. Let's Play Psychic World!"
Next time:
The maze.
Wear this ESP booster. It'll help you see this bonus material:
No concept art this time. Instead, a cheat:
At the title screen, hold Down and both buttons on controller 2. While holding them, hold Up on controller 1 and press both buttons at once. Do it right and you'll be brought to this screen. Press left and right to choose between music tracks and sound effects in the sound test, then scroll back to END to move on to the level select.
Enter the round number you want, and start that level in SPECIAL MODE ESP FULL. Note that Lucia has all the powers here at the start of round 3, even the ones that aren't available yet.
I wasn't able to pull this off in emulator for whatever reason, so these are photos of it running on real hardware on my TV. It's kind of pointless given this isn't a very hard game, but it was convenient when I wanted to get footage of the flicker in Round 2 without having to replay 1 over and over.
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