Progression:Finding all the dew I missed

Usually in these games the healing items upgrades are kinda hard to miss because you know,they are important. I instantly knew something is up when I am trying to clear the next location and my healing item(called life dew) heals me for a pathetic 40% of my health bar. So I went on a massive manhunt to find what the hell I am missing. As I find out I failed to explore one of the rooms, that contain a shortcut back to a checkpoint, and to its left the entrance is hidden under some crates. However I find a giant snail underneath, after beating the shit out of it I got my first dew. Due to standard video game rules, I suspect that each map has exactly one, and I was right. However they are not consistent, in map 1 it was the snail, in the next map it is some butterfly thing, while on map 3 it is some mini boss. I guess this does provide the incentive to fight everything at least once but I felt like at least the first one should be free so I actually know that this is how I upgrade my potion. Now to cover how did things go.

Hunter Squad Fight

The Area: Kinda boring, dead trees Death:23 So this occured at the forest, and it is essentially a gank fight. I am pretty sure there is no special AI since if I am doing too well against the brute both of them spawn and the three of them send me back to spawn. The fight didn’t really feel fun and I spend more time running in circles praying that I get my turn. In the end I find that the approach to simply focus down on the new guy that join the fight to be the most consistent, as the first boss is relatively slow, the second boss is a ranged enemy with relatively low healt while the third is an assassian type enemy that moves very fast. At least it will be a nom memorable fight if this is it.

Enter phase 2 which is an actual new boss that reminds me of the abyss watchers with the sheer amount of fire. I find that he has a completely new moveset and feel like two different fight tossed together for some inexplicit reason. The end result is that the first phase is a slog to get to the actually fun fight. For the second fight he is relatively fair, and his attack are readable. The phase 2 transition was pretty cool and some of the big fancy attack took some time to get used to. It is a relatively managable fight…if not for the gank squad I have to slog through first that drain my resources Fight Rating: Slog, followed by medicore

Cleansing Knight

The area: Meh Grey swamp Death: 6 The first challanging fight I feel, compared to the previous it is not predictable, and I neede some time to get the parry timing down. The boss does come with a big flashy instant kill attack, which is fair enough. Overall I found the fight to be quite fun as he provide a reasonable window to punish. I was surised to learn we can parry ranged attacks here as well. Its speed also keeps the tension up. Despite being relatively fast it is extremely predictable, it comes with huge wind ups, and I think due to its hitbox but the parry window seems very generous. Despite dying a few times it is a relatively fun fight Fight Rating: Will fight again

The Saint

The area: Meh grey streets Death: 0, first try This is the first mage boss where I spent more time chasing it than actually fighting it, I was able dodge almost all attacks, with one exception being the laser beams because I mistaken them for the floating ball. It is overall a pretty medicore fight, all the attacks are very predictable and can be dodged without much fuss. I did it first try. Fight Rating: Will bully again

Choirmaster the Inspector

The Area: Was cool, a change of pace, until I have to run through it again and again Death: 20 I think this is the first boss where the runback is annoying, not only is there no branch(so no upgrading, I have to teleport to the previous location, run 30 second to get to the branch then run back), the church robots will make captain america proud. I have lost track of how many times I ran pass a guy only for them to yeet the shield and shave off a good chunk of my health bar. There is about 4 of them to run past taking around 30 second or so to arrive at the boss room. Unless I am missing something there is no checkpoint.

So how about the boss? This boss is a summoner archtype, where he can summon the apparations of some of the knight to attack the player which was a cool concept. However, since I dont think attacking the apprations do anything, most of them essentially turn into me running as fast as possible to the boss. The boss itself uses a lot of magic attacks and uniquely does not open up for a fatal attack once parried. The main challange of the fight is to not dodge into a random lighting bolt that he spawn, many attacks have an aftereffect where storms strike the ground. The magic attacks are relatively easy to dodge so noting novel here, I was able to dodge the attack with lots of projectiles by running in a perfectly parallel line some distance away. Also the boss teleports, turning the fight into a game of tag.

I can see what they are going for but the boss is a little of a mess, the summons in phase 2 sometimes occur off screen and I only see it if I am already hit. To be honest I dont think this boss is that difficult, it is just that it is very punishing. There are a few times that I am simply hit by a residual lighting and combo to death. Also there are two attacks that does a truckload of damage, I am not sure if I am not investing enough in health but I get 1 shotted. The first is the phase transition nuke where I simply didnt realize what is going on, and the second is a ground slam that force you to run away. It doesn’t play well with parry heavy or quick attack playstyle when there is no opporuntiy to parry.

Fight Rating: Never again

Conclusion

All in all I think it is firmly in the all right category, all the fight so far. They aren’t exactly not fun, but I am not going to be defending them anytime in the future.