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Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

this is the place where lps are being talked about. it's important to talk about games being played on the internet.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by raocow »

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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Alice »

Redesignated wrote:It isn't outright terrible, but it isn't very good, either. It's got ideas, but wasn't really sure on how to implement them in a way that was the most fun.
This is the exact problem in my opinion. It does have some neat stuff and clearly was a great idea on paper which makes the execution of it that much worse. All the bad design decisions and the mediocre music and graphics completely offset the good things about the game and make me consider it mediocre overall.

I mentioned Distorted Travesty once before but it's a good contrast with Soldexus in my opinion. DT was definitely more difficult but it went about it in a better way and on top of that it only had a few bad design decisions. The music selection was good, the graphics were nice even if Zephyr just used sprites from other game, the mechanics were solid, it had an interesting and entertaining story, and the difficulty was well balanced overall. (The color wheels might be the only real exception to the difficulty balance.)
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Re: Soldexus: Complete Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Redesignated »

Sebby19 wrote:WHAT! You're not playing Ava's story! You would have really liked her.



I'm really disappointed you're not continuing. Ava would have changed a lot of opinions. I do hope she get's LP'd in the future.

Well, I just lost all motivation to complete my guide, seeing how we won't be seeing everything.
You're honestly surprised? Like, Sebby, come on, man. rao's never really been one to go for the "bonus character" stuff. Maybe once or twice, but not for games that left such a bad taste in his mouth, let alone those of most of his viewers. This game had some of the harshest backlash I've seen in a while, even on the talkhaus thread. It was pretty obvious he just wanted it to be over and done with for several episodes now.

A bonus character won't change opinions about the game as a whole, especially if they're only unlocked after dredging through something that's less fun to play.
ano0maly wrote:I also think that the LP would have been more enjoyable to watch if there was more story involvement. The only story cutscenes I remember are at the beginning at the end. But maybe that was intentional so that the player could focus on the gameplay.
What little plot we got was pretty obviously an excuse to just have a game. A few episodes in and I forgot pretty much everything that had been said in the opening cutscene. It's entirely possible to have story elements that don't interrupt or detract from gameplay, but as a first game (and one clearly more focused on playing the game than having a deep storyline), I wasn't really expecting it.
stuff 'n' things this will get filled in eventually i swear
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by raekuul »

Soldexus. Finalized in 2006, still relevant nearly ten years later. It definitely looks and feels like it's from 2005-2006: All the difficulty and none of the fun.

I tried this game. I legit gave it a fair try. I ended up doing to this what I did to the Distorted Travesty games - shelving them and never playing them ever again. In this case, mostly because I've been spoiled by the somehow-more-forgiving I Wanna Be The Guy.

That's the part that confuses me the most. Somehow, I find I Wanna Be The Guy to be more forgiving than this behemoth. Probably because of its sheer number of checkpoints. I think if Save Rooms were even just a little more plentiful it would offset the bullshit early game enough for me to enjoy it.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by FusionWarrior »

I'll wait for the HD remake.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Rednaxela »

To be honest, in spite of this game's faults, I'm glad this LP was a thing that happened. Also thanks Sebby for doing your best.

It's a a good reference point in some ways I think, and I did find many of the ideas it had rather interesting even if not implemented in the most fun seeming way they could have been.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by aterraformer »

Before this thread dies, I just want to apologize to Sebby and all about the negativity I brought here.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Piter Lauchy »

Opinion containing nothing new probably: The game was totally fine. Nothing great, and nothing terrible. I have a feeling that what comes after the first playthrough is a lot better than what was in the first.
As an LP I rather liked it. The one-person-hype just kinda ruined it, but that's neither the fault of the game nor of the one person.

Sebby, I'll be eternally amazed at your dedication to this guide. So much effort went into it, and you should be proud of it.
Others have said it, but it bears repeating: We all know how it's like to love something when apparently no one else does. I hope you don't feel too bad. Keep on loving stuff.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

I love this game to. :(

It's really fun.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Sebby19 »

Piter_Lauchy wrote:Opinion containing nothing new probably: The game was totally fine. Nothing great, and nothing terrible. I have a feeling that what comes after the first playthrough is a lot better than what was in the first.
As an LP I rather liked it. The one-person-hype just kinda ruined it, but that's neither the fault of the game nor of the one person.

Sebby, I'll be eternally amazed at your dedication to this guide. So much effort went into it, and you should be proud of it.
Others have said it, but it bears repeating: We all know how it's like to love something when apparently no one else does. I hope you don't feel too bad. Keep on loving stuff.
Thanks. As for the one man hype, I don't think I really hyped it that much, until the LP was imminent. It was pretty easy to suggest something every once in a blue moon for 4 years.

It was tricky pressing Alt+Printscreen for some attacks, especially Critical Strike, and getting enemies in certain places, so everything is uniform. I do hope to finish it if Rao does ever decide to LP Ava's side of the game. I had the weak versions of the Lab enemies ready, complete the Collectables, and a couple new sections: Area Summaries and JayScribble's Attack Combat Theory.

And since this guy is still somewhat relevant:

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Secret Boss
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Other: Can only hurt head, body can be safely passed through. Chin blocks Sword Wave.
Being underneath him is your worst option, and Ian can't attack from there anyway, so stay in the air as much as possible as you slash the side. You'll need all your movements skills to get over his head in order to avoid the Fire Ball Stream (or just Parry twice), and the watch out for those red Energy Spheres. Good luck!
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Alice »

Sebby19 wrote:It was tricky pressing Alt+Printscreen for some attacks
I know you prefer keyboard but this is a time that Joy2key and a controller would have come in really handy.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Sebby19 »

I don't have any good ones.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Sebby19 »

Eww, Xbox.

Kidding aside, if I really wanted a controller, I would have gotten one.
I am the keyboard enthusiast, afterall.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Hoeloe »

Horikawa Otane wrote:
Sebby19 wrote:I don't have any good ones.
I can personally recommend the XBox One controller. Works great on my PC.
I'll second this. These controllers are incredibly well designed for PC compatibility.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Nathan the Talkmaus »

This game just needed a generic personality-devoid prepubescent or mid-teenaged anime-style drawn female who screams in high pitch when killed as a protagonist and similar characters to replace all the enemies. Then the fans would have overlooked, like, half of its flaws.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by Leet »

understandably, of course
Well it is a decent hack but sometime its just too repetitif there no level that actually pop in your face and your like oh yeah that level they all ressemble themselves and just monster along the way.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by TiKi »

so can someone please send me a save file so i can play the game as the second protagonist? i only wanna do one playthrough so might as well be with her
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by PSI Ninja »

TiKi wrote: 1 year ago so can someone please send me a save file so i can play the game as the second protagonist? i only wanna do one playthrough so might as well be with her
Here's my save file from back when I played along with the LP: https://psininja.talkhaus.com/misc/soldexus_save.zip

Just press the right arrow at a new file to choose the second character (Ava). I never tried a playthrough with her.
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by TiKi »

PSI Ninja wrote: 1 year ago
TiKi wrote: 1 year ago so can someone please send me a save file so i can play the game as the second protagonist? i only wanna do one playthrough so might as well be with her
Here's my save file from back when I played along with the LP: https://psininja.talkhaus.com/misc/soldexus_save.zip

Just press the right arrow at a new file to choose the second character (Ava). I never tried a playthrough with her.
thank you :upfart:
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by TiKi »

whose idea was it to not make the attack up and defense up upgrades matter against bosses. well i KNOW whose, that was a rhetorical question. the whole entire reason that you'd want to save bosses for later. just hit an entire brick wall at the forgotten corridor boss after doing as far as i can tell, literally everything else in ava's story, including both other bosses, except the minigames. i could stomach the save point and teleporter distribution being eh. i could stomach the mutant enemies.

i really, really wish pneophen would make some sort of soldexus dx (soldxus? soldexus -e?) that
1. changes that
2. removes the stupid minigames for prizes
3. lets you pick between ian and ava at the beginning
4. lets you change difficulty mid-game, and have an even easier mode (oh no no, i didn't screw myself over by picking hard mode. this frustration was on the easiest settings possible)

it's got a really great vibe, with the spooky, roomy locations, scary monster designs, imposing enemies with lots of them targeting the player, quirky main character designs, painted backgrounds, and good metroidvania music (i've heard it described as "eh", but i think it's kind of suited well to play for long stretches of time due to its more subdued quality). and auto-collecting enemy drops is genius, and really helps make backtracking and hunting feel like you're earning a little something to go with it no matter what! i wish i could tell people to play this. i really, really do.

(you know... sorry to digress, but i feel that way about cave story sometimes.)
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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by TiKi »

is there only one antidote in the entire game or can you just CARRY one at a time and the shop's stock saying "1" means that, and you can buy another one once you've used up your current antidote? gonna need it to have a hope of beating the

ninja boss with ava

but if that means i can't use it on the final boss...

Also, if anyone has actually fought said boss that I'm stuck on, is there ANY strategy other than

whittling down her health with Mega Buster shots that she can just block with her dash or shuriken?

I haven't bought Parry yet but I'm not really sure that that would make a difference given that I'm not exactly predicting the attacks that well anyway, as you guys can clearly see.

How does Parry work anyways, do you have to Parry in anticipation of a hit a la Paper Mario or do you get a few frames AFTER getting hit where you can parry to negate the damage?

Also, do the stupid minigames count for Ominous Temple 100% Bar? Because if so, sorry Sebby but this game is getting cracked faster than... uh... an egg. I don't actually crack a lot of things very fast, it turns out.

EDIT:

Used slaix223's walkthrough to find out you're supposed to punch her to death with the range of EX-Punch. Using the down-forward attack after she does the big laser move at half health is also effective, if risky. And you can also combo her dead body for free money!

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Re: Soldexus: Partial Guide, with video walkthrough!

Post by TiKi »

Aight, got the rest of the stuff I missed except presumably the stupid minigames (I got 9960/10000 points on Shoot Stuff. Fuck that.)

Phobos' Lawyer/Deimos

was an engaging final boss once I realized that like the last one, you're supposed to use melee even though Ava has a projectile. Given that Ava has a jetpack at this point, it's actually a fairly even battle.

He does get a new move where he charges up and dashes at you, and you get decapitated in a cutscene if you get hit by it. The cutscene is funny enough and the battle is short enough that I didn't even mind.



Oh, and Ava's final boss' theme's name?

Objection



Because I backtracked and had more exposure to it, I'd like to reiterate my earlier comment that the music is actually pretty good and "metroidvaniay". I'd say there's a full 20 tracks of it too (the sound test lists 30 but it includes the fanfares and some unused ones), which is 20 more than most Game Maker games in 2006 cared to make.

While I also stand by my earlier statement that the game could have used some more time in the oven or more testers, it does seem that some complaints are, for better or worse, down to the game's fundamental design (though I still stand by the comments that more save points and no minigames would be relatively easy tweaks). The swordplay is intended, taking 5 hits before you die is intended, and I'm not really sure where, as funny as they were, more cutscenes would belong.

Again, I wish Pneophen had made a second game, even if it had to go to being paid for him to feel like it would be worth his while. I guess it's respectable and all to not want to repeat yourself - given the pains that this game goes through to feel "complete" (a second character? a boss rush? a sound test?) but it's hard not to think that if the music were more melodious, the graphics (especially the bigger sprites) were more detailed, there were a few more areas and bosses, etc. that people wouldn't have thought his next game was a classic on the level of Cave Story or at least Iji and An Untitled Story. I've seen people criticize the game in this thread for "Pneophen making a game only for himself", but then you have Maddy Thorson basically bringing back Jumper's and An Untitled Story's (a game which, itself, despite ALREADY having those "0-hit challenge" doors, had a Jumper minigame) platforming for Celeste, so I dunno, guys!

This would be a pretty good game had it released five years later or frankly now. None of Talkhaus' collabs, even now, have fully-original graphics or music, and this guy was doing it in 2006. I understand Sebby treating it as the next coming of Cave Story for four years kind of tarnished it (and yeah, looking back in this thread he seems way too eager to play host, treat criticisms as "well you just don't get it", and acts like it's not complete unless raocow plays as Ava - she does change up the gameplay and game structure significantly, but a lot of the difficulty/save point issues that make it hard to LP are still there), but if you consider it was made by one person, in 2006, look at the price tag and don't treat it as a competitor to games that aren't free, it's still pretty up there and I don't regret playing it. I get that it being made by one person doesn't make its design decisions magically fun - I'd still recommend that, if raocow ever plays Ava's story, to not have the pressure of doing it on video. I understand that it being made in 2006 doesn't mean that raocow or anyone HAS to play it with that as an excuse for all frustrating parts. I understand that it being free doesn't mean that it doesn't still "cost" you time with annoying repeats of the exact same level and mind-numbing minigames for 100%.

I'm just saying that, divorced from any frustration that raocow had with LPing it or that the Talkhaus had with Sebby's myopia, this game is an accomplishment and, if Pneophen not making another game implies anything, is as much of a "success story" - both on a personal level and on an indie game development level - as any of the games I've previously mentioned in this thread. There were no compromises in the plot, gameplay, or story, no concessions in any of the previous to what other people may have wanted or what may have made his game more popular but less satisfying to make, no "I'll do it in the next game/I can't make what I REALLY want to make yet, so I'll make this as practice", no placeholder graphics or music; this guy had a vision, executed that vision 100%, and was 100% happy with it.
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