[RKS Freudenstachel] „Gelb schmerzt.“

[BobisOnlyBob]

behold, the power of trigonometric waves

how sinful

[Voltgloss]

My approach to fighting Death was:

• assume he'd be weak to Grollschwert, which is true, and chase the scythe around with it;
• die miserably to his second form because he kept blocking my attacks (which yes, he will do);
• observe that my Grollschwert was suddenly hitting for more damage and a wider area mid-battle but not connecting that to my health loss until after research much later; and
• ultimately throwing Beat at his second form and cowering away from his attacks until she did the job.

Probably not the intended solution.

[ano0maly]

Haven't seen the whole thing but confirmed that you saw the middle-of-marathon password. Reminder that

you can stop after three Iris stages

if you want.

[Grounder]

What is a RosenkreuzStilette? A miserable little pile of plagiarism!

[Chirei]

it's a lesus tank!

The solution to the secret Bomberman room is dumber than it appears. I believe all you do is stand on the top right block and use the charged Zornesbombe, then slide through everything. Also, if the timer runs out in this room, you actually DO die.

I didn't know Geisterwand stopped Mike's heatman flames. Nor did I know that Lustatem is as good as a charge shot on him.

You have to be really precise with Mike Dracula. You can't wait too long, nor can you jump early. It has to be right in the middle of the flame trail, when a safe spot opens. It's a similar kind of hard that Raimund is in terms of spacing.

In regards to this being a more cruel version of reality TV, to be fair, we haven't seen a single TV in this world, and therefore that means this is a world where reality shows don't exist, leading super powerful child prodigies to go insane because they can't watch TV and kill everyone in the most emotionally painful and strung-out way possible. This revelation would not have been made possible had you not tried to appreciate the text, so that is appreciated.

[Joseph Staleknight]

So, if Count Zeppelin was Magneto, then Iris must be Mojo. Speaking of the former:

Count Michael Zeppelin (/[...] mi-HHA-el [...]/)

The commander of the RKS and a major figure in magic research, who led a rebellion against the Empire for the safety of the Magi within, especially his daughter by blood Iris. To that end, he made an infernal pact for the necessary power, including being able to resurrect the dead and obtain a more ferocious Nightwalker form. That is all notwithstanding his own major ability, the Fire Wave/Höllenfeuer (/HŒL-len-FOY-er/). Sadly, it is all for naught as said daughter was actually a classic enfant terrible, killing her own father and regarding everything as mere entertainment. So far, his death is the first major one to occur during the events of the game.

"Show me your power!"

GOOD POINT: Honorable
BAD POINT: Can get desperate sometimes
LIKES: Peace for all Magi
DISLIKES: Those who oppose him

Trivia:

• While aesthetically he is reminiscent of Dracula (especially his Rondo of Blood incarnation), his first form bears a bigger passing to Heat Man, weakness to water included.
• Interestingly, being a vampire was part of the infernal package deal he made for the RKS's sake. Before then, he was just a normal Magus.
• Also, that bit about there not actually being a proper Emperor for the Holy Empire is pretty much almost the opposite of what the actual Holy Roman Empire was like--there was a succession of Emperors after Charlemagne and his proto-HRE (though with varying levels of power and prestige), but the "Empire" itself functioned more like a confederacy of multitudes of kingdoms, city-states, and whatever. (I'm not an expert on medieval history, mind, but that's the gist of things as I read them while writing this post.)

[moogy]

I've played a LOT of Distorted Travesty in recent years, so hearing the Black Rock Fortress music start playing at the end of this video was kind of shocking...

Also hi Kilga I actually already posted in the thread once before that but that's okay.

Regarding a potential all the Castlevanias, I think people forget just how many non-Metroidvania games there are in the series. Personally I think it'd be cool to see raocow go through, say, the Gameboy games, since I rarely see anyone discuss or play them. Castlevania 2 on the other hand...

[Stink Terios]

Ok this twist is super great.

[Sebby19]

I agree, NOW I'm interested in the game. Killing you're own dad is always a big deal.
Also some good writing, really sells Iris's declaration as an Agent of Chaos,

[Ashan]

I forgot we were even looking for Iris

Or that Iris was a character that existed at all

[Negative]

A funny coincidence regarding this being played at the same time as Zero 4: Zeppelin actually has another voice clip he could have said when entering his second phase that's a straight up quote from Dr. Weil

from when he enters his second phase

.

[Truhan]

I forgot we were even looking for Iris

Or that Iris was a character that existed at all

[Awoo]

I honestly didn't see that coming. I, too, forgot that was a character.
So, this means that there's going to be a capsule refight room somehow/somewhere, right? It really wouldn't be a complete Megamen game without one

[ano0maly]

Count Zeppelin is indeed hard. I don't think I beat him once without using tanks, even with his weakness Klageharnisch. (Note that the first time you hit a boss with a weakness, if the boss can speak, the character will react with a particular voice line. Triggering desperation mode overrides this voice line, though.) One thing I didn't realize until watching the video today is that during the second phase, the whirlpools can hit his Nightwalker form multiple times while passing through him.

About the split paths, the lower path also has an extra life, but not a cross tank. I read in the RKS wiki that co-designer WOMI thought that the lower path should have a cross tank too, but it got left out for some reason.

That's a problem for Grolla who can't get most of the items in the Bomberman room.

The original pre-Steam version of the game did have a password between Michael and Iris stages, but the password for it was different; I think there was a revamp to the password system at some point. I found out this when I somehow softlocked the game in Iris stage 1 because I managed to fall into a pit in a certain way and got stuck floating midair in an empty room. I had to redo the Michael castle because of that

The solution to the secret Bomberman room is dumber than it appears. I believe all you do is stand on the top right block and use the charged Zornesbombe, then slide through everything. Also, if the timer runs out in this room, you actually DO die.

You could also place an initial bomb to make a tunnel through the top blocks and then kick bombs into it with the slide.

Castlevania 2 on the other hand...

If he ever does a Castlevania marathon I think he should play Redaction version of Castlevania 2 (the version that's remotely playable).

[Kilgamayan]

The actual solution to the Bomberman room is to take advantage of what the Balloon item in Mega Man 4 taught you and to go back to the previous room, fall down to the base of the wall, place an Item-1 platform right next to the wall, jump on it, and mash jump while holding down to repeatedly try to slide into the wall. Eventually you'll slide back into the Bomberman room and straight into the 1-Up and Cross Tank. See here for this solution in action.

Mikey 3's Game Over Screen is not from Uninvited, though that was a good guess. It was actually a reference to Shadowgate! Doing a Google Image Search for "shadowgate game over" will pull up plenty of copies of that famous game over screen. We saw Mikey 4 and Iris 1 today, so I'll just throw them both down in the thread. Mikey 4 is a pretty well-known game, but Iris 1 is so obscure I won't even have a Wikipedia page to link to.

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[Shard1697]

if these guys just hadn't set that forest on fire during the intro stage for not really much reason there would be no moral dilemma here, huh

[Voltgloss]

I'll guess that the Zeppelin 4 death screen is Ninja Gaiden (or maybe one of its sequels). No idea about Iris 1.

if these guys just hadn't set that forest on fire during the intro stage for not really much reason there would be no moral dilemma here, huh

Iris is literally one of those villains who just wants to see the world burn.

I last night completed

the alternate character's playthrough.

That was an endeavour and a half. I'll have more to say on that front after raocow's finished with the Iris stages, but for now I'll note that

the alternate character can't get the Cross Tanks in either Zeppelin 3 or Zeppelin 4; and as I'd used up my tanks in the preceding two stages, I really had to learn the Death and Dracula fights as I couldn't literally tank through them.

EDIT: turns out I am misremembering Zeppelin 3, guess the battle with the Iris stages messed with my memory

[ano0maly]

Eh? The tank in Zeppelin 3 is easy to get. You just

wall jump

from where the ladder is.

[Paragraph]

Most people compare Zeppelin to Heat Man probably due to his bat-form charge, but his flame pillars are classic, well, Flame Man.

I've played a LOT of Distorted Travesty in recent years, so hearing the Black Rock Fortress music start playing at the end of this video was kind of shocking...

Also hi Kilga I actually already posted in the thread once before that but that's okay.

Regarding a potential all the Castlevanias, I think people forget just how many non-Metroidvania games there are in the series. Personally I think it'd be cool to see raocow go through, say, the Gameboy games, since I rarely see anyone discuss or play them. Castlevania 2 on the other hand...

I recently did an LP of the three Gameboy CVs and even though I obviously thought it was a good idea (the latter two I even did blind, which is unusual for me), I don't know if I can recommend them for raocow.
Castlevania: The Adventure is a very, very janky almost-launch title for the Game Boy, with only four smallish but very unforgiving and downright unfair stages, a terrible powerup system and some of the worst controls I ever had the misfortune of having to handle. Christopher, the main character, is painfully slow, unresponsive and it feels like you have to forcefully push him through honey. It's really, really not fun to play at all and gets frustrating extremely quickly.
Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge is a massive improvement and a neat little package, with a Mega Man-style stage select (which doesn't REALLY matter as you don't get weapons, but hey it's there), vastly more workable controls and some pretty cool boss fights. The presentation is a tremendous step up, and the music is also awesome (though the first also has a surprisingly rocking soundtrack, for how little there is). The biggest issue with CVII: BR is that the penultimate and final bosses are a ridiculous difficulty brick wall, that was not very fun to find out.
Castlevania: Legends is awful. It came out years later (after Symphony of the Night!), made by a different team, and somehow manages to look and sound worse than even the first game. The stages have barely any design to them, they are extremely long, boring stretches of single enemies placed in corridors like it's baby's first SMW rom hack. Their length is the only thing making the game even EXIST, as it spans only six stages, with one of them a hidden bonus one, a pathetic amount of content for a game that came out after Pokemon. I didn't have fun playing it at all, and would argue that despite my best efforts, the resulting LP was also quite mediocre because there's nothing there. I tried my best adding jokey subtitles, but raocow understandably doesn't go that extra mile and it would just be him reacting to Bat #3468123 placed in a nonthreatening way over and over and over again. Hard no for this game especially.

[Voltgloss]

Eh? The tank in Zeppelin 3 is easy to get. You just

wall jump

from where the ladder is.

Oops. Not sure what I was misremembering there. Thanks for the correction.

[Shard1697]

Iris is literally one of those villains who just wants to see the world burn.

Her reveal certainly changes things, but I was just thinking about how prior to that if they just hadn't lit the forest on fire our protag would seemingly be totally fine with the military coup zeppelin was doing, because all her issues with them just revolve around that

like in an AU where they didn't do that her conversation with zeppelin would kinda just end with "huh, guess you're right that is fucked up" and then probably join them I guess

[Paragraph]

Iris is literally one of those villains who just wants to see the world burn.

Her reveal certainly changes things, but I was just thinking about how prior to that if they just hadn't lit the forest on fire our protag would seemingly be totally fine with the military coup zeppelin was doing, because all her issues with them just revolve around that

like in an AU where they didn't do that her conversation with zeppelin would kinda just end with "huh, guess you're right that is fucked up" and then probably join them I guess

Well, all the other members of RKS are super fine with it apparently and Spiritia is the ONLY one voicing concerns, so maybe he just assumed that ALL of them were utter sociopaths instead of ALMOST all.

[ano0maly]

why did you switch out of ice

[Chirei]

the whitehousevatican stage 1 sets a really good pace for the end endgame

Everything dies in a reasonable amount of damage, and the boss isn't too too tough. I think a charged shot does as much damage as Freudenstachel, so the difference isn't too huge using either.

The jesus tank in this level is really mean. If you don't immediately slide to the left, a wall of blocks appear and DON'T disappear, blocking off your only chance to get it. Then there are more blocks on the bottom that will push you into the spikes if you don't keep moving. Thankfully, this is all put into the optional parts of the level, so it's good design.

[Grounder]