The Lost Vikings - Lost

[strongbadman]

That hidden ladder is really mean. I mean yeah there clearly has to be a way up for your friends but having to try to puzzle that out under the pressure of the clown hand that can combo you to death is not fun.

[Grounder]

That hidden ladder is really mean. I mean yeah there clearly has to be a way up for your friends but having to try to puzzle that out under the pressure of the clown hand that can combo you to death is not fun.

on the one hand yeah but on the other you also had to climb a hidden ladder to get to there in the first place

[Dragon Fogel]

There's also a smart bomb which can get rid of the clown hand, but guess what, that's hidden too.

(Destroy the wall next to the red key in the third section.)

I think you can see the bottom of that ladder from the start of the section, but obviously that requires you to realize that you should be paying attention to that part of the screen and not where your characters actually are.

[KobaBeach]

i completely forgot tomator wore a fucking gladiator outfit

[pholtos]

This level is obviously called Hamster.

[KobaBeach]

This level is obviously called Hamster.

fart buttoned

[Dragon Fogel]

You may have guessed this, but the flame arrows also take down the shield and stun Tomator during Baleog's part of the fight, making it easier to hit the switches. Although, I guess your "just go in" method is faster, and this level is definitely a pain to redo.

Thankfully most of it is consistent once you understand it - for instance, I noticed on the chipmunk run that you had Olaf hide in the upper-right during his phase, and I found that to be effective too. Similarly, Tomator follows a consistent pattern of two bombs and then two laser shots during Erik's phase, and if you stand close the bombs will just go over your head. Never found a fully consistent way to do Baleog's phase, though; Tomator still follows a pattern (four shots, then bombs) but I never quite got the hang of sneaking in to shoot an arrow.

And I agree with your overall assessment of the game. Some of the levels were just way too long. The actual stage design mostly isn't bad, with most obstacles either being consistent in behavior or having a way to approach them which makes the inconsistencies irrelevant, but it can take a few attempts to learn those consistent methods. And that's a problem when an obstacle is right at the end of the stage and you have to do the whole thing over if someone dies.

[pholtos]

I will say quite a number of problems get fixed in Lost Vikings 2, when ya play that.

Plus there's a neato easter egg set of extra powers if you do a thing at the beginning. :P

[Grounder]

[Dragon Fogel]

I think your main problem was that the tomb guards are just harder to deal with than most enemies in the game. Nothing else jumps around like that - the hands only bounce slightly, and the bomber machines fly in a weird arc but there's usually a safe spot to attack them from. The electric enemies from the final area bounce around in their enclosed space, but that's more predictable than the way the tomb guards move.

I'm honestly not sure what the best way to fight them in general is.

[KobaBeach]

everyone in the comments talking about how worse the soundchip is and i blame that entirely on the deluge of shitty western shovelware on the megadrive with fart music

[Grounder]

i once was lost

but now i'm found

was blind

but now i see

~fin~

[Dragon Fogel]

That last level feels so out of place with the difficulty curve. It would make more sense to swap it with NFL8. Then again, I guess it doesn't hurt to have a breather level at that point.