Furi

[EllenHouraisan]

Squid sniper lady is best girl. And her theme is so good!

[Grounder]

sniper: go all out
stranger: *goes all out*
sniper: *surprised pikachu face*

[thatguyif]

I see raocow did not pull a Hidden Palace

[raocow]

had I not seen the cutscene yesterday, I would have considered it
or, like, if the cutscene played again

as it stand it would basically be 'half' the intended experience, at that point it's not worth it

[kitikami]

Seeing the rest of the cutscene makes me think Headon may not have actually killed the missing guardian. The way he was talking, it sounded like whoever was there might be someone close to him, and he may have gone ahead to hide them from the Stranger rather than to fight them.

[Grounder]

watch me whip whip

watch me nae nae

[kitikami]

Did the Oarsman fight change the reward for a perfect parry from a heavy counter to triggering the QTE?

The switch to a 2D fighting game aesthetic midway through the encounter was a nice twist on the game's formula.

[Zummorr]

I haven't been watching this series. But I know of the game.

I wonder if the Oarsman battle is a reference to Miyamoto Musashi's duel with Kojiro in 1612. Miyamoto Musashi famously carved out a wooden sword out of a boat oar before the duel.
He cruised up on a boat and charged Kojiro from the oceanside, before killing Kojiro by clubbing him in the head with the carved oar.

Although I have no idea how embellished or accurate the antics described in the Book of Five Rings (translated by Victor Harris) are. That's a question for someone else.

[Grounder]

VS the ARPG protagonist that forgot to level grind.

[EllenHouraisan]

Final jailer: "You are a monster."
Stranger: "Block me! Block me! Block me! Block me! Block me! Block me! Block me! Block me! Block me! Block me! Block me!"

[thatguyif]

So, some commentary on today's fight:

The fight with snow girl was the last official fight of the game, save The Star fight, before the DLC. Narratively speaking, it makes a lot of sense: It was a desperate last stand move for the people behind the Stranger's imprisonment to put someone like her in there, because they were running out of options. Moreover, it really is meant to drive home who your character is, since, while she may be overconfident and spoiled, she's still kind of an innocent in all this—especially given her inability to put up a fight after firing the giant beam—which makes it incredibly sad when you ruthlessly dispatch her. So in a way, her being the last fight was a sort of narrative closure to defining your character and their situation.

At the same time, despite what Man with A Bunny Hat says, she is a pushover. And in modern gaming, Gamers™ don't like it when The Final Boss turns out to be a relative joke. There were probably a lot of complaints about this fight in particular. In the Xbox One version of this game, which includes the DLC, this is partially addressed by adding the DLC fight after this fight in-game (supposedly you get ambushed when you enter the tower). However, in all other versions of the game that include this DLC, this doesn't happen, for the game locks it away in the DLC section of the menu.

[WestonSmith]

Now that I've finished my run through, my thoughts:

For a game famous for its difficulty, it's much easier then I thought. I never died on Bosses 1, 2, 4, or 9. And I wouldn't really call 6 or even 7 difficult, as you can learn them on the fly as well (other than maybe 7's final phase). Only 3, 5 and 8 (Line, Hand and Edge) felt like real threats that I had to master to beat. And even then, I suspect I'd cakewalk Edge now, because once I realized you can just aggro him, he stopped being a real challenge.

10 is an odd boss though, as it felt like the dash got nerfed and I felt sluggish. But even that was done pretty quickly (like, 30 minutes or so).

Mind you this as all on Medium, so I might feel differently on Hard.

Anyways, lots of fun, love the style, the music, and the bosses are memorable. It just wasn't the hair pulling challenge I was expecting. But the game deemed me a "D" rank (which is odd given I had a B and two C's for scores), so definitely have room to improve. I can see myself going back to it again.

[Grounder]

yeeeeah, the guy in the youtube comments isn't entirely wrong

rao 100% clung to the time loop theory long past the point of it making sense

[raocow]

I like time loop stories

[EllenHouraisan]

I do like raocow's interpretation that Stranger simply decided to fight the mothership because he's become a blood knight who wants nothing but to keep fighting strong opponents. Makes more sense than "he just found the good in his heart, aww!" Especially when everyone treated him like crap, other than the bunny.

Honestly, the whole crisis feels like an acessibility issue. They see this guy who's contaminating everything around him and their first instinct is to lock him up in a hell prison with some sadistic guy who shocks him day and night. Maybe try to find a way to remove the poison, and leave him stuck with angel lady in the meanwhile? Old man brings the boombox, squid brings some snacks, shonen girl brings her anime collection, and there we go, we've got a friend group! No need to go on a murderous rampage then. Oh well, prison system is what it is.

[BobisOnlyBob]

Honestly, the whole crisis feels like an acessibility issue. They see this guy who's contaminating everything around him and their first instinct is to lock him up in a hell prison with some sadistic guy who shocks him day and night. Maybe try to find a way to remove the poison, and leave him stuck with angel lady in the meanwhile? Old man brings the boombox, squid brings some snacks, shonen girl brings her anime collection, and there we go, we've got a friend group! No need to go on a murderous rampage then. Oh well, prison system is what it is.

I suspect the

Rider/

Stranger destroyed whatever they initially threw at him when they realized what his presence was doing to the world, and thus is seen as a hostile combatant who likely slew a lot of people before they eventually hit him with something or someone strong enough to interrupt his destructive scouting mission and imprison him. The shock-chamber was probably just a way of making sure he didn't get back up and start killing again, as well as a form of petty retributive "justice", and Space Hell Prison came later. But putting the offer of a peaceful sanctuary in the middle like that, under the assumption he'd already have killed so many jailors? thhh, that I can't explain or justify.

[strongbadman]

I think the kdea there is that The Song (I believe that's her) really did believe that shock toruture 10 layers deep in a prison was a misktake and was morallt opposed to it even knowing what the stanger was capable of. Obviously they can't release him, but the prison wasn't rotting rrom his mere presence. The Line said he couldn't kill Stranger, ths game over screen has you back in your cell, so The Song's idea is to offer an alternative to fighting his way out: indeed, you CAN take up her offer, and that counts as an ending.

[Donut]

Finally, a game with complicated moral choices that can challenge raocow.

>Destroy the world and everything within

or

>CANCEL INVASION. ATTACK MOTHERSHIP

[EllenHouraisan]

I really like how the final duel phase of the DLC guy mixes regular hits and area hits, so you have to be on top of your game to parry/dodge correctly. Super rad.

[Grounder]

ft. the baz from hit game shovel knight

and very much not hit indivisible

[Crow]

ft. the baz from hit game shovel knight

and very much not hit indivisible

oh indivisible. you tried so hard but a 5-year dev cycle post-crowdfunding killed any hype dead lmao

[11clock]

The Star is my favorite fight in the game. Really neat bullet patterns, and it also has no melee, so it played way more to my strengths (I really didn’t like melee in this game, hence my frustration with The Edge).

EDIT: I do admit that as a final boss, it doesn’t fit mechanically since it doesn’t test all of your skills. That said, after beating my head against The Edge for two hours it was a breath of fresh air for me to fight a boss that focused on bullet hell. With The Edge being my most hated boss fight and The Star being my favorite, it’s pretty obvious where my biases are.

EDIT 2: The reason why I hate melee has to do with the parry system. Parrying is easily the worst part of this game, with the timings feeling inconsistent. It never felt like I successfully timed my parries, but rather that I got lucky because the game just decided whether or not my parry attempts counted. It pretty much ruins the melee combat in this game. This is why I think that The Edge is a godawful boss fight. With all of the other bosses, I beat them because I got good. With The Edge, my eventual victory felt like a fluke. Furi excels at the ranged combat and bullet patterns, and my favorite bosses were the ranged focused ones as a result.

[EllenHouraisan]

It's interesting how The Strap is like, the most... Fundamental of the bosses, so to speak? Along with The Flame, that is. She doesn't have any gimmick and her fighting style is evenly split between danmaku and physical, which makes it so you need to have some mastery of both in order to fight her properly. Kinda wish there were more bosses like that.

[Grounder]

the role of "the stranger" today will be played by regigigas

[Grounder]

so like, does the kid just follow the stranger from a distance after this, or is he kind of stuck in superjail forever?