DT3 - raocow and the game that ended

[Lostsoldier20]

I forgot raocow is actually a decent player of bullet hells.

I am not. I intend to complete this entire thing without getting hit. I don't know how.

I don't have much else to say besides, this section is a lot better than it used to be. The last patch improved it in many ways. Screw that last boss still.

[TaviTurnip]

Drama Mistery 5

I have to agree, that looked really rough at the end... not too much for someone experienced, but that was a lot of focus if someone is a newcomer to scrolling shooters. I assume that it's easiest if you make it with power-ups and never lose them, like in Gradius, but <_< (Also Silius music yeesssss)

[Plutia]

It's been a long, long journey, everyone.


We're at the final area.

[NegativeZeroZ]

Well, here we are. This is the end.

The theme of this level is "I hate you." Good luck.

[SAJewers]

How many episodes would you guys say are left?

[Rednaxela]

2π episodes.

[Elephant Parade]

4 + 2x episodes, where x is the number of nightmarish bosses.

But I gave up at that Zelda headless armour thing, so I have no idea.

[NegativeZeroZ]

How many episodes would you guys say are left?

I can safely say that there's six and a half hours of unedited gameplay left. How many episodes that is depends on raocow's motivation.

[Stink Terios]

I love this shmup section. It's probably even better now that it's been revamped. Also I really dig using Sky Base's tileset for the Warship's exterior.

[jaxter0987]

How many episodes would you guys say are left?

10+ depending on how raocow handles the bosses.

[ZephyrBurst]

4 + 2x episodes, where x is the number of nightmarish bosses.

But I gave up at that Zelda headless armour thing, so I have no idea.

Considering you haven't played this part yourself, I'd say that's a really fair estimate. Maybe a bit more than 4, depending on how raocow handles the ship, which I'm sure is going to be roughly the same as most other LPs, so... (5 or 6) + 2x. Still very close to the end regardless.

[Dark Hunter]

Welp, Abomination caused an episode 0. And absolutely no one is surprised. This is definitely one of the hardest bosses in the game. You need to be really, REALLY good at dodging things.

I was wondering if raocow would remember that melee attacks existed in this episode. Fortunately he did. They are by far the best way of dealing with the flying mushroom things and the first couple of weak spots. Now if he remembers the morph ball exists too, dodging those blue energy blasts would be a lot simpler.

Actually raocow made it pretty far into the fight. Yeah, there's more to it, but he was definitely over halfway there.

Also, this video reminded me: @#&% the hit boxes/collision detection on those square platform blocks. Trying to jump up from below and hitting the "bottom" of the edge of the blocks resulted in at least a third of my deaths to this thing.

[RobinLSL]

Good on you that you did switch to melee at some points. Remember also that Link does more damage than Belmont overall. Try thinking even more about how to maximise your DPS: never spam the Spazer Beam unless you need its piercing property, use Link's bombs, press ALL THE BUTTONS when using Megaman.

[Lostsoldier20]

I appreciate this topic title change.

Anyway, Abomination! This is a marathon of a fight, and I think is my 3rd hardest boss. It is debatable of being 2nd hardest, a close race against... I was thinking about trying to avoid spoilers, but Zephyr himself mentioned it in enemy descriptions, the story has mentioned it, and it's obvious that Hex is going to be a really tough fight.

That aside, this is an unsettling fight with it morphing even more than it did in the Vault. The calming music of the instrument clashes with the Abomination theme so much. You get that one last moment of fear from this thing as you see just how difficult of a fight you're up against. Even as the fight starts, there's so much you have to juggle. There's the weak spots, the instruments, the parasite spawns, the things rising from the ground, and blue flames. Plus the spiky head things have hurt boxes! (and also the one on the right blocks weakspots really annoyingly)

Phase 1: I handled it by killing the right weak point first, because that's the harder one to hit. If I failed to kill it before the music ended, I'd just kill myself. It's really that bad. The one on the left is super easy.

Phase 2: Jerry is amazing here. Because both weakpoints are in the middle of the "face" he can super spam Megaman. You're just always in tons of danger because of the tentacle vines shooting, and the falling parasites.

Phase 3: This is where the falling parasites just get super crazy. Pretty sure I did the right weak point first, once again, to maximize safety.

On the off chance you haven't recorded tomorrow's episode yet (but you're probably still episodes ahead) take at least one more episode 0 if you start to feel angry again... You're gonna need a calm mind to get through this entire thing.

[Telamon]

I'm glad that we finally got Unreal Guy pitched down so that chipmunked he sounded normal.

[NegativeZeroZ]

Staying cool and collected in this fight is a big thing. It creates a false sense of urgency with the instruments and if you let it get to you it can easily lead to botched platforming, and much like the chase scenes from before, this often leads to multiple hits and possibly death.

Personally I found this boss pretty easy (nobody agrees with me) once you're finished learning the first phase, which is by far the most annoying (everybody agrees on this). If you can consistently whip that first awkward weak point to death before the instruments go out the first time, and find a strategy to reactivate the instruments pretty quickly so that they all go out around the same time, every other phase goes much more smoothly. I just camp a bit after the music changes the first time, so that the instruments are basically stopping on my cue.

If you give Jerry enough power he can beat the second and third phases in one round. I gave him the big swords and Energy Gem, and gave Claire the small sword just to make that awkward weak point go down more consistently. Gravity Well is also great on those spawns.

[Sebby19]

press ALL THE BUTTONS when using Megaman.

Quoting for importance. This has been said since you got Megaman.

Also, a reminder, you leveled up when Pete died. You have unspent AP!

[jaxter0987]

raocow, if you're going to melee something, check to see if you can do it with the Link set first.
Master Sword > Hair Whip in melee dps
You needed to use the Samus set on the right weak spot because you needed piercing properties and you had the Plasma Canister equipped which provided you piercing properties without the charge time.
Speaking of equips, raocow PLEASE remember to try out different equips and change equips to fit the situation.
And as always, remember to use your ENTIRE arsenal of weapons and to switch characters to fit the situation. It's good that you eventually caught on to switch to Jerry and use his Master Sword on those flying enemies. But don't forget that Claire and Jerry have different dashes too.

To make the Megaman weapon spam more straight forward, shoot out 2 Gravity Wells, 2 Shotgun Ice and then spam X Buster until either the 2 Gravity Wells or the 2 Shotgun Ice shots reach their target, then rinse and repeat.

You also need to pay attention to the curvature of the Abomination affecting your dashes... it felt like you were blaming the game when the dashes always behaved this way up slopes and such...

[Lostsoldier20]

Personally I found this boss pretty easy (nobody agrees with me) once you're finished learning the first phase, which is by far the most annoying (everybody agrees on this).

I'd say 3rd phase is the most annoying. The most dangerous of all the phases. High positioning for the weakpoints, and the most annoying of the falling parasite sets.

[Stink Terios]

I'm surprised at how much trouble raocow had.
This boss isn't even very hard? Just really long, but once you figure out how to optimally destroy each weak point it's just a matter of execution.

[raocow]

I just get annoyed becausse failure can get pretty costly. Like regardless of what you have to do, when that enters the equation it starts to affect me more than I'd care to admit.

[jaxter0987]

Thats... not a good sign. But one thing at a time and slowly but surely, we'll get there.

As NZZ and Stink Terios suggest, I also believe a big portion of the fight is learning how to effectively attack the weak points. Once you got that figured out, its just a matter of staying calm and execution. You've got the first 4 weak points mostly figured out, just gotta add the small comment that it probably better to start with the right side weak point, so you don't have to deal with the hassle getting into position. For the third set of weak points, the left side is straightforward but the right side is quite tricky. Don't forget all your different means of attack here, this particular weak point might even warrant a run or two dedicated to figuring out how you want to attack it.

Why are people using Hair Whip to deal with the first weak point on the right side? Spazer Beam + Plasma Canister is by far the safer method of handling that weak point. Hair Whip forces you to focus on staying at a specific point too much, causing the floating...coffin-like things to consistently be in the way. Those things are actually targeted spawns based on where the player is, so sticking to the same x-axis location for too long is a bad idea.

With the Spazer Beam combo, you only need to make small adjustments while maintaining your ability to damage the weak spot. This is also the only spot in the game where I've ever run into the issue of overheating with the Spazer Beam + Plasma Canister.

If its not obvious yet, the Plasma Canister is also a tremendous help in reactivating the instruments as if done properly, raocow can reactivate the top 3 instruments on both sides with just 3 shots and dashing to follow the shots to the other side.

[Alice]

Welp, Abomination caused an episode 0.

I disagree. An episode 0 would be no progress at all. He may not have beaten it but he did indeed make progress. He reached the second phase. If he'd stopped recording before that point then sure, but he didn't.

[Stink Terios]

Thats... not a good sign. But one thing at a time and slowly but surely, we'll get there.
Why are people using Hair Whip to deal with the first weak point on the right side? Spazer Beam + Plasma Canister is by far the safer method of handling that weak point. Hair Whip forces you to focus on staying at a specific point too much, causing the floating...coffin-like things to consistently be in the way. Those things are actually targeted spawns based on where the player is, so sticking to the same x-axis location for too long is a bad idea.

Because you'll kill the weak point before anything can hit you. You might have to dodge A Thing. Maybe.

[Lostsoldier20]

Yeah after yesterday's video, I saw this coming. I foresee the next boss possibly going worse than this, if this is angering him. Though that fight got really rebalanced, so maybe not. We'll see in time.

The instruments, as said, don't focus so much on them. And start from the right, especially during phase 3. Since the right side is more dangerous, kill that one BEFORE all the many attacks start going out. And you can get down there before the head thing spawns.

I'll give good news though, you've seen the final phase! Focus on making a circle to dodge all the things going out at once. I found it safer to jump > airdash to lead the circle of parasites, then move back to the right and dash again if I had bad timing, or the falling ones get in the way.

Edit: Oh, and Holy Water the Parasite core. Like you don't even have to aim or put yourself in any danger. Leaves you to focus on dodging