Hello! When we left off, Lucia had destroyed a giant robot. In the next room, she has four paths by which to proceed. She goes right.
Another robot! This one perhaps modelled on herself? I use Shield, though it could be done without it. The boss moves from side to side, jumping and firing projectiles towards the edges. Just run underneath to get behind and start shooting.
We go down and to the left.
Inside is this... thing. A demon? Dragon? Anyway, I try out all the ESP Attack Capabilities on it, and only Psy-cannon works. This one can be fought by ducking under its fire and getting out of the way when it reaches the edge of the room, or like me you can turn on Shield and lay into it.
We've seen what the left has to offer, let's check out the right. Also check out the creepy pulsing backdrop.
Another robot! Again I just Shield up and go to it. It's a bit harder to imagine how to take this fight on without Shield than the others.
Down and to the left again. I'm not sure if there's a correct way to navigate this section, or how to know it if there is.
This mech is probably the coolest of the minibosses in this area. Without Shield, you'd be looking to get behind it when it drops, and avoid its fire the rest of the time. If you're ambitious, maybe use Levitation to attack it on the ceiling.
I head right and re-encounter the robot swordswoman. Do these enemies respawn?
Doesn't look like it. I return to the mech's room and find nothing, so I head down and left again, to re-encounter the demon.
Once I remember to switch to Psy-cannon it doesn't take long. These enemies are all worth 5,000 points, meaning I get an ESP refill after every second one, meaning I can use Shield as much as I want.
I skip the right side this time and go down and left. I have an idea that when I've played the game before the exit appears on the left, so why bother with the right now that we've seen all the enemy types?
Another demon, but when I beat this one a door appears. Thank goodness!
Here's my path through this area. I tried going directly to the last room without fighting any other bosses on another run, and the mech enemy was in there. I have no idea what triggers the appearance of the door. Kill a set number of minibosses? See one of each (and then a few repeats)? Go right, then down/left, then down/left? Dunno.
Going through the door gets me another one of these.
Pew pew pew. The full HP/ESP refill afterwards is nice.
I'm in a big empty room.
The room is not as big as this gif implies, but it's close.
At the end of the corridor, a door. Lucia glances back over her shoulder before entering, perhaps suspicious of such a big room with no dangers.
Lucia! Look behind you!
This is perhaps not the reunion Lucia envisioned. Cecile says nothing, then attacks.
Lucia isn't above running up to her sister and shooting her in the face. Fortunately, Cecile is immune to Ultra-sonic.
Using Cooling Down, Lucia slips past her sister to take on the device controlling her.
Spoiler: The red bit using the background tiles from the maze is the boss.
But first, Lucia must navigate this obstacle course of I guess live wires? When they flash red, they'll damage Lucia.
(As an aside, I think this is the gif that took the longest to make for this LP. I didn't pause here very long when I was playing, so I was only able to get a full cycle of flashing that started with Lucia's Levitation still active. I wasn't happy with her clothing changing colour in what should have been a seamless gif, so I superimposed an image of her in normal clothes. This was probably not time well spent)
Yellow or no flashing is harmless, as seen here.
I need Levitation to navigate this room. There's no source of ESP restore, so you can't waste it. This would be a crummy place to have to start the level again.
It's probably possible to get through this without taking damage, but that's not really my style. As I mentioned, ESP gets tight here, so I don't want to waste it on Shield or Excharging if I can avoid it.
Speaking of style, you don't have to remove all this collapsing platform, but if you're me you do.
Alright, enough of this.
I switch on shield for this. Sure, there's a safe spot you can duck into at the bottom of the area while you figure things out, but I've played this game before and I know I'm about to get 50,000 points and a full ESP refill for Exploding the red stuff to reveal the enemy brain. Ultra-sonic doesn't seem to work on it, though.
Psy-cannon isn't harming it either, so I cycle Attack Capabilities until I find that Cooling Down does. I get another 50,000 points for my troubles.
From there it's just a matter of topping Shield up now and then and trying out the attacks until one works. After each successful hit it changes weakness, and once you've scored a hit with them all (Psy-cannon is the last) you've won.
Nothing happens for a while, then the lights go out and Lucia falls through the floor, allowing her to reach her sister again.
Lucia rouses Cecile.
Cecile reveals that Dr. Knavik, their terrible boss, was responsible for everything. Lucia is apparently stunned by the news.
Fortunately, Cecile knows what needs doing. Then:
Dr K appears!
He's looking a lot less friendly now.
Still incompetent, though. What was his plan if humans' ESP was powerful enough to interfere? Get destroyed by Lucia?
Knavik reveals his true form: a green alien dude. I guess the fortress is his ship? Maybe this explains all the tech in the ruins, too. Alien-built pyramids.
Lucia is so angry she catches fire. Bad news for Knavik.
The two of them leap into the air, and the final boss fight begins.
The screen scrolls upwards, and the combatants drift into view.
(Another behind-the-scenes: I tried making a gif of this whole sequence, but it came out at 46MB, so I went with smaller representative bits. Complicated backgrounds + scrolling is a killer for gif file size)
Knavik will swoop across the screen at Lucia, and she can do a flying kick to catch him in the act and do damage.
Eventually the screen stops scrolling upwards and starts going down.
At the lower end the combatants scroll offscreen again.
Knavik lands on his head and explodes. The sisters flee the scene.
Thank goodness!
That lab looks a lot closer than I'd have expected for how far Lucia has gone in this game. It should be across a pyramid and on the other side of a mountain.
Lucia is pretty happy - she's got her sister back, after all, and she doesn't have to deal with her bad boss anymore.
The sisters mistake Dr. Knavik's escape for something falling to Earth. Presumably they're wishing to never see him again, so maybe making a wish on his fleeing spaceship is appropriate.
Credits! It looks like Kou has been busy.
And that's the end of Psychic World for Sega Master System! I hope you've enjoyed a look at an obscure little game that, while certainly flawed, is a lot of fun to play and has some interesting ideas. Obviously it's pretty easy once you know how to exploit its systems (i.e., use Shield), but that didn't stop me from dying a few times. It also looks pretty nice and holds a few surprises. The final fight against Knavik is actually kind of lame - I tried not doing anything in it, and he can't hit Lucia so it just scrolls up, then down, then up again, until you get bored and start attacking. You also can't do anything other than the kick attack. That said, I didn't know any of that the first time I got to it, and it felt tense not knowing what would happen. Also the animation of Knavik landing on his head and exploding while the sisters run off is delightful.
Thanks for reading, and special thanks to Sensenic and Erilex for their translations.
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