La-Mulana 2 - fish. it is a fish. it's true.

[Duker]

Would people be mad if I just told him that the clay doll suit has more verbs than 'punch'? I'm gonna wait at minimum one episode either way, just wondering the public opinion on this optional not-really-important feature he's (extremely most likely) gonna miss otherwise.
Edit: Won't happen, ignore it.

[Voltgloss]

Would people be mad if I just told him that the clay doll suit has more verbs than 'punch'? I'm gonna wait at minimum one episode either way, just wondering the public opinion on this optional not-really-important feature he's (extremely most likely) gonna miss otherwise.

my personal, two-part thoughts

1. I suspect he will discover it when he reaches Nibiru, if he hasn't before then tried "hey can I use subweapons while in this suit," which I do think is a reasonable thing to try and is how I stumbled on this feature myself

2. I personally prefer to give raocow the opportunity to have the surprise and enjoyment of discovering things for himself, especially since he's explicitly said he is not asking for help from people who aren't blind to the game

[Duker]

Would people be mad if I just told him that the clay doll suit has more verbs than 'punch'? I'm gonna wait at minimum one episode either way, just wondering the public opinion on this optional not-really-important feature he's (extremely most likely) gonna miss otherwise.

my personal, two-part thoughts

1. I suspect he will discover it when he reaches Nibiru, if he hasn't before then tried "hey can I use subweapons while in this suit," which I do think is a reasonable thing to try and is how I stumbled on this feature myself

2. I personally prefer to give raocow the opportunity to have the surprise and enjoyment of discovering things for himself, especially since he's explicitly said he is not asking for help from people who aren't blind to the game

Right, forgot its prevalent role in Nibiru. I'm gonna shut up about the bonus verb.

That said, I still want to present a counterpoint to part 2: Telling him might lessen a spike of joy but also potentially replace it with a higher amount of base joy throughout the rest of the game. I would not have told him more than "maybe try more buttons in the suit" or somesuch, he'd still have an element of "surprise and enjoyment" as to what more there could possibly be to the suit.

[PSI Ninja]

I love that double jump technique you're using with the axe - it looks really cool.

Also, it's absolutely insane to see the black Valkyries popping up this early in the game. I only played the game in normal mode, so I didn't expect that.

[Draexzhan]

I just worry that he'll piece together just what "Spiral Hell" is before he actually gets there.

[Bluster Kerfuffle]

I love the white pedestals and the prayers to Anu puzzles so so much.

Also yeah why does pressing that weight make that sound?

[Donut]

Also yeah why does pressing that weight make that sound?

I've never been sure myself but I think it may be because he may or may not have inadvertently blocked himself off from the ankh room until he can defeat Anzu.

Also,

Kind of sad that raocow will need to have the next step of the Gate of the Dead puzzle explained to him after the fact because he didn't talk to Amen again before solving the white pedestal puzzle. I think at this point he'll just have to randomly stumble into it with no context for why it happens.

[Draexzhan]

I seem to recall hearing that that trap sound is a bug. Though, I don't even remember what that pedestal does, so I'm not the authority on this subject..

The pepper puzzle is a highlight of this game for me. I've really been looking forward to the day that raocow solved that puzzle and I was not disappointed.

[Voltgloss]

Even days that don't feel like progress are, nevertheless, important progress. I laughed out loud with raocow when he learned the proper use for Pepper, and again when he accomplished his first prayer to Anu.

Regarding the pedestal that makes the "trap sound" in Ancient Chaos:

What that pedestal does is activate Anzu. Before you press it, Anzu is in that room above but won't interact with you; and you could (at least in earlier builds) move through its room to places beyond even without fighting it. Now, it needs to be defeated first before those can happen. But, that all said, activating Anzu remains necessary, so I still think the "trap sound" on that pedestal is in fact a bug.

Regarding

the ramifications of opening the sealed gate between Gate of the Dead and Dark Star Lord's Labyrinth

:

I personally have never understood the intended sequencing with the subsequent events involving the various NPCs. I stumbled into that sequence "mid-way" just like raocow will eventually do. And yes, I think this particular bit of the game is poorly constructed given that it allows this - indeed, kind of forces it upon you if you plow ahead with getting the white pedestals completed, which I think is the natural thing to do.

[Crow]

Instadeath trap count: 40 (+1 today)

mysteries, everywhere

[Donut]

Regarding

the ramifications of opening the sealed gate between Gate of the Dead and Dark Star Lord's Labyrinth

:

There are two pieces of foreshadowing. The first, as raocow experienced, was Horus saying Ra was trying to break the seal and enter their land. It is very unlikely a thorough player would miss at least this. However, the bigger hint, and the one that led me to figure this out, is what Aten says the second time you enter his room:

"We 5th Children wanted for too much; power over death, a pyramid that would reach the heavens, and a pyramid that would fall down to Earth for the purpose of entering into a contract with demons. It would not be a surprise should people with such ambition seek to attain power greater than even that of the Mother. It was the Amarna, led by Ra, who sought such power. Nothing happened, as if time itself had stopped here in Eg-Lana. Then, several years ago, various wars began to stir. This was also when Ra began to act. Like him, I, too, control the sun. It may be I whom Ra seeks to turn into a chimera..."

This is all he missed. It is unfortunate you can solve the puzzle without seeing this text, I agree, but if you've been paying attention to the NPCs you can at least take a good guess at why opening that door was important.

[Voltgloss]

So I've reloaded one of my much earlier ratchet saves and discovered something regarding the below - which leads to a question I'd be interested to hear folks' opinions on (in the last spoiler block).

Regarding

the ramifications of opening the sealed gate between Gate of the Dead and Dark Star Lord's Labyrinth

:

There are two pieces of foreshadowing. The first, as raocow experienced, was Horus saying Ra was trying to break the seal and enter their land. It is very unlikely a thorough player would miss at least this. However, the bigger hint, and the one that led me to figure this out, is what Aten says the second time you enter his room:

"We 5th Children wanted for too much; power over death, a pyramid that would reach the heavens, and a pyramid that would fall down to Earth for the purpose of entering into a contract with demons. It would not be a surprise should people with such ambition seek to attain power greater than even that of the Mother. It was the Amarna, led by Ra, who sought such power. Nothing happened, as if time itself had stopped here in Eg-Lana. Then, several years ago, various wars began to stir. This was also when Ra began to act. Like him, I, too, control the sun. It may be I whom Ra seeks to turn into a chimera..."

This is all he missed. It is unfortunate you can solve the puzzle without seeing this text, I agree, but if you've been paying attention to the NPCs you can at least take a good guess at why opening that door was important.

Turns out that full text of Amen's is available the FIRST time you visit him, even if you haven't visited any of the other Ennead NPCs yet. Thing is, the text is over two screens. I rewatched raocow's first Gate of the Dead video, and confirmed that he SHOULD have seen the second screen of text (beginning at "Nothing happened..."), except he pressed the "exit" button midway through the speech instead of the "keep talking" button. (This was before he realized this was a thing he was inadvertently doing.) That appears to be the only reason he missed the entirety of Aten's speech.

The question is: given the above, should I put the entirety of Amen's speech in the notes?

[FPzero]

I think you should because we're already giving raocow a full encyclopedia of knowledge including text that is one-time only. If he missed something important because of a button press it's partially the game's fault for letting him back out of something so important and visible only for a limited time.

Of course the bigger question is do you call attention to it and potentially spoil the fact that something you're adding to the notes is important right about now? I think you should, because it's relevant information he *should* have that he missed through slight fault of his own, that he can use to potentially figure out where he's going at a time where he's feeling pretty unsure of his progress and options.

also raocow, if the Ancient Chaos and that tower are so difficult to manage, why not try to find the grail point first before trying to decide if you can fight Anzu? It's like how once you found the grail point in Gate of the Dead that area became much more manageable.

[Zummorr]

.

[warpio]

Turns out that full text of Amen's is available the FIRST time you visit him, even if you haven't visited any of the other Ennead NPCs yet. Thing is, the text is over two screens. I rewatched raocow's first Gate of the Dead video, and confirmed that he SHOULD have seen the second screen of text (beginning at "Nothing happened..."), except he pressed the "exit" button midway through the speech instead of the "keep talking" button. (This was before he realized this was a thing he was inadvertently doing.) That appears to be the only reason he missed the entirety of Aten's speech.

The question is: given the above, should I put the entirety of Amen's speech in the notes?

Seems like a good idea to put the full text in, considering it was not raocow's intention to have skipped out on text that he encountered in the game and only did so due to a misunderstanding with the game's controls. If it were me, I would want my Voltglossary to have me covered for that sort of mistake. Especially since you don't know if he might've actually read the full text during an edited out part where he needed to redo stuff after dying.

[Awoo]

Zhaunxu reminds me alot of an ultimate musician from Danganronpa...

Although her lazy eye really bothers me.

She reminds me of someone I used to date. Dose crazy eyes @_@

[Ditocoaf]

The question is: given the above, should I put the entirety of Amen's speech in the notes?

I think as long as you're keeping notes for him, that he's rereading at his discretion in case he didn't notice a detail the first time through, this qualifies. As far as the game is concerned, he did encounter that text, he just skipped past it.

You won't even be drawing his attention to it, it'll be mixed in with all the other text he might look through for clues. He'd still effectively be finding the clue himself. If someone said to him "hey, look at this text you didn't see the first time, it'll help you", I might feel differently.

[Count Mohawk]

So, as someone who has never played La-Mulana 2 and therefore DOES NOT know the solution to the puzzle I am about to discuss, I ask the following question:
In the Dark Star Lord's Mausoleum,

there is a room with 32 tablets arranged in a 4x8 grid. I believe raocow reached this room today. (referencing voltgloss's map suggests this is room "

C7

")[/ispoiler]
I have also seen

a couple of rooms elsewhere in Eg-Lana, no idea where, which have a handful of lights lit up in a 4x8 array

.
Is it possible that those two phenomena are related?

(i.e., you would want to do something with the tablets corresponding to the lit-up panels, or recite only those mantras in order, or something?)

[FPzero]

If you're just theorizing and haven't played before, you don't need to spoiler those theories!

[PSI Ninja]

Turns out that full text of Amen's is available the FIRST time you visit him, even if you haven't visited any of the other Ennead NPCs yet. Thing is, the text is over two screens. I rewatched raocow's first Gate of the Dead video, and confirmed that he SHOULD have seen the second screen of text (beginning at "Nothing happened..."), except he pressed the "exit" button midway through the speech instead of the "keep talking" button. (This was before he realized this was a thing he was inadvertently doing.) That appears to be the only reason he missed the entirety of Aten's speech.

The question is: given the above, should I put the entirety of Amen's speech in the notes?

My understanding is that you are only keeping track of what raocow has read or observed on camera. With this in mind, I personally don't think that you should put the missing part of Amen's text in the notes. If raocow shares my understanding, then I feel that it would be dishonest to add to the notes what he hasn't seen yet, even if he had the misfortune of skipping out on vital, missable information. Although, I have no idea if you've been adding missable dialogue to the notes this whole time. In any case, I think it would be better to get raocow's opinion on the general issue of missable information first.

Seems like a good idea to put the full text in, considering it was not raocow's intention to have skipped out on text that he encountered in the game and only did so due to a misunderstanding with the game's controls. If it were me, I would want my Voltglossary to have me covered for that sort of mistake. Especially since you don't know if he might've actually read the full text during an edited out part where he needed to redo stuff after dying.

I rewatched the relevant parts of his first trip through Gate of the Dead (video 15, 18:20-21:00). He actually doesn't die between talking to Amen and warping out to heal at Village of Departure when he got hit by Unicorn, thus getting the auto-save. After that, he didn't return to Gate of the Dead until just a few days ago.

[Alice]

Even days that don't feel like progress are, nevertheless, important progress.

It's a rather large design flaw when significant portions of the game feel like that though. I personally spent about 90% of the game feeling like I'd barely accomplished anything in my 2-4 hour play sessions. And that's even when I did accomplish quite a bit because navigating just felt so tedious, such as that really infuriating room in Ancient Chaos.

Zhaunxu reminds me alot of an ultimate musician from Danganronpa...

Oh, so I'm not the only one who was thinking that, lol. Though I've been planning on replaying the Danganronpa's recently anyways and Ibuki is one of my favorite characters in the series.

[Ditocoaf]

I'm always afraid to brute-force puzzles in games, in case I'm supposed to be learning the "how" to use again in a later puzzle.

Here's hoping raocow didn't cheat himself out of an important tutorial!

(to be clear, I'm as blind as raocow is)

[warpio]

The Dark Star Lord's room is one of my favorite puzzles in the game. If you're disappointed, it's still totally possible that you could figure out how it was meant to be solved even though you've solved it already. Here's a general hint if you want at least a direction of where to look for that solution:

Pay attention to the names of rooms on the map. You've definitely been to the room/s which contain the answer to the mantra puzzle that you bruteforced. Fobos even directly told you this once.

[Crow]

Instadeath trap count: 41 (+1 today)

"i don't want to brute force it" *proceeds to brute force it anyways*
"this feels so bad what i'm doing here" *keeps doing it*

[repairmanman]

I don't mind that he brute forced it

especially because he'll have to actually solve it to figure out the other solution