NegativeZeroZ S Ranks Distorted Travesty

[NegativeZeroZ]

Hello everyone. If you happened to be watching raocow's feed or the DT blog about a month ago, you might vaguely remember me as that guy who validated raocow's Shroud Lord strategy by using it to beat him on the Distorted setting.

Not long after, I took a break from DT1 to play the DT3 demo, but then shortly sent Zephyr a message asking for the S Rank requirements, basically saying that as long as the damage requirements weren't zero, I was thinking about trying it for a good laugh. After complaining just a bit about the difficulty of the DT3 demo, he must have thought I was being crazy. He graciously offered them up to me though, and I was actually surprised by how doable it seemed, so I decided to go for it, and, well, here we are.

My final game time is around 8 hours, and the raw video files (including failures and other useless stuff) total up to about 50 GB, so this is going to take a while to piece together.

In lieu of a halfway decent speaking voice, I've decided to write up some thoughts on each segment, since I have nothing better to do while videos are processing anyway. It'll be an LP Archive style-type-dealio-bob-and-george. If that kind of thing doesn't fly here, feel free to move this to a different section.

Oh yeah, to give you guys an idea of what this will end up looking like, here are the S Rank goals:

Awesome > 75,000
Kills > 3,500
Item % = 100
Damage Dealt > 3,000,000
Hit Combo > 200
Kill Chain > 50
Killing Spree > 100
---
Play time < 15 hrs
Deaths < 10
Damage Taken < 100,000
Taken Damage < 500
Items Used < 25
Rave Mode Used < 20

To minimize my damage, I make full use of all 18 free Rave Modes (tutorial and final battle are forced). Try to guess where I use them. Also try to guess where my first hit will be taken, that'll be fun to see, especially if Zephyr takes a shot at it.

Minimizing my damage was the only goal that required significant planning for, since my previous run of Distorted Mode achieved all A Ranks in every other category. To do this, I avoid using Nature's Gift or Soothing Spring as much as feasibly possible. I still use them, but mostly only once as a means to keep my health above red since that complicates editing. If you're wondering how I heal, I use restore points and enemy drops only for the most part... minus a few exceptions which you'll see much later. Also, I'm not allowed to farm for health drops. I get what I get and I move on.

Each segment will typically be named after a boss, since I want one per segment to keep each video as purposeful and interesting as possible. I want to avoid things like "Shady Woods - The Farming Episode" (I didn't actually record the level grinding and I'll even throw Distortion Reckoning into that part just because).

Segment 1 - Displaced Cyborg

Integrated Electrical Factory

An atypical run of a typical tutorial stage. This is one of the few areas where I have the luxury of being able to plan around going through it quickly, rather than just avoiding damage. I do too well for too long and it actually causes the video to slowly desync just enough to be annoying up until I reach the boss. Rest assured that the rest of the game will forbid that from happening again. Even given a freebie for this stage, I still managed to screw up a few things, but you mostly won't notice them. Minutiae such as throwing rocks in the wrong direction or too low... oh wait, now you will notice.

By the way, I DO use the spells in this game! I know right? From the very start of things, I attempt to show off just how powerful your magic can be, demonstrating that even without crippling the enemies here, Rock Smash is an instant kill. You can probably already notice how Distorted Mode affects the game, with added traps and enemy spawns, and the enemies are also more durable than on Veteran. Speaking of added traps...

Displaced Cyborg

Yes, that is an electrical beam spanning the length of the room over your head. Distorted Mode adds traps to most of the game's boss fights, and this not-so-kind introduction to the concept restricts your ability to dodge the boulders to dashes only (lest you forget, you cannot yet double-dash), and cuts down on your opportunities to attack the boss. None of it matters, though, because the boss was too confused about my odd strategy here to actually do anything. Not sure what happened there.

Lest you viewers get clawed to death between the legs by a random cosplaying stranger with a vengeance against people who insult his favorite video game, allow me to explain what I was doing here. The idea was to save fire energy for strictly crippling with Fireball, and use the boss's secondary weakness (water) to attack him. Lack of spirit and elemental energy is a huge issue in the early game, and one that I attempt to remedy as soon as possible, since spells are quite insanely powerful once you get used to using them.

Donut Plains

Oh right, video games. There are some jumps you can just barely make with your new ability, Mental Insurrection, which might be used a few times during this run... you know, just maybe, if I feel like checking out some of the more underappreciated abilities this game has to offer. There are a few items that are actually impossible to get though, which will have to wait until I get Earth Shift. Unlike me, who CAN'T wait to get Earth Shift... you'll see what I mean.

Those spikes after the ping test are probably the closest things you'll see in this segment that demonstrate just how precise your skill with this game's control has to be on the Distorted Mode, and if you watched raocow's videos of Think and Act Fast... whoops, getting ahead of myself here. These spikes aren't bad at all, but worse things to come will follow in the basic concept of this bit, and amp up the difficulty tenfold.

Toad Town

Completely worthless. A game like this only needs one town--this game has two, and Abstracity is the better by far. The only interesting thing is the fake bush, which I show off twice because it's the only thing worth pointing out.

Oh wait no, I lied, that skill crystal on the left actually is. Getting that thing with just Mental Insurrection was way more difficult than it should have been. More recordings were tossed out because of that than Rumpy Mountains and Old Castle combined (sans boss fight).

We got stuff!

Fireball is our first fire ability, which I sadly underuse since it is rather quickly outclassed by Flame Pillar before you can even make much use out of the fire element, which I believe only Boos are weak to up to that point, and there's a far better strategy for fighting them. Wave of Awesome just makes the situation even more sad.

Water Blast requires you to get dangerously close to an enemy to use, but does respectable damage and can hit multiple times, often scoring a lethal combo on enemies weak to water with just one or two uses. That property in particular somewhat makes up for the fact that it looks like just a nerfed Mental Insurrection that happens to be water-elemental.

Wind Burst haunts the nightmares of anything without a collision box. This is made up for by splitting the damage evenly between the two gusts in DT2, but in this game they're both pretty strong and can each deal multiple hits, making it the closest thing you currently have to Rupture and Wildfire (this is foreshadowing for later).

Rock Smash is useful if only because a lot of enemies who are weak to earth tend to stay in one place long enough for you to get in the proper position to angle your shot correctly. It's also one of only two earth spells that deal damage, so it's got that going for it.

Jokes aside, Mental Insurrection is probably the first ability you'll fall in love with once you realize its usefulness in terms of mobility. It kills your vertical momentum for a moment and causes you to rise just slightly. Spamming it slows your descent, letting you aim your jumps with more precision, and get more distance. Spamming it with Stun Bead equipped can also give you time to think in a pinch, but that latter bit won't see much use during this run.

Segment 2 - Dark Mind

Rumpy Mountains

So much stuff to get here, including a pair of secret areas currently impossible to reach. Actually, the second one is possible to reach with only Mental Insurrection--fun fact. You can't get much of anything in there without at least Earth Shift, though, so this is another one of three areas that will require backtracking to get all the items: Donut Plains, Rumpy Mountains and Dark Depths. I take care of all that backtracking in Segment 7, since Fright Train on its own is fairly short and at that point I will have the air dash.

Oh yeah, stuff about the actual level the section is named after. I hate Bullet Bills quite a bit. If the cannons signal that they're going to fire, and you move up next to them to stop them from doing so, their attack cue will not be repeated when you move away, they will simply fire instantly. That will ruin a no-damage run more often than desired. Trying to kill them is also a laughably ineffective way to defend yourself, until you can destroy them with a single Mental Insurrection way later on. Other than Surprise Bills, this section poses no threat.

Old Castle

This place can be rough if you try to tank damage. What it will quickly teach you is that taking damage from enemies is always preferable to taking damage from traps, even with the recently de-bugged Trap Bead. Distorted Mode only amplifies the threat from the traps by adding more and boosting the damage they deal to you. One thing that surprised me about the flail trap in particular is that I've never seen any frequent Mario players ever try to spin jump on them by sheer instinct. Not even raocow, who not only plays SMW all the time, but as I understand it, plays with a SNES controller.

The Boos' scan data suggests that they're supposed to stay tangible for a short time even after turning to look at them. One of the Toads even tells you that they've been acting strange lately. I've never noticed a difference, though, so the only option left is to turn around and use a fire-fused full swing, or Mental Insurrection.

Dark Mind

Remember that foreshadowing about Wind Burst? This is where that comes into play. Dark Mind is absolutely destroyed by Wind Burst. The Fireball cripple requires some pretty tricky precision on the timing, but it helps even more. One thing you want to do when trying to pull a flawless victory on a boss is want instant gratification. You want that boss dead in the absolute fastest way possible. A long enough battle will make human error a statistical inevitability. The shorter the battle is, the better your chances of winning and the lower your frustration will rise with each failed attempt.

That said, this battle was somewhat exceptional since I currently lack Water Barrier, and trying to dodge everything that desperation attack throws at you on gut reaction alone is not a fun experience. Its position and pattern are inconsistent, but one thing you do want to hope for is for the portal to be on the far right, toward the spikes. It's not a bad enough disadvantage if it doesn't that you should feel the need to restart, but it helps. Unfortunately, you don't have much, if any control over it.

We got more stuff!

Flame Pillar is like a fire-elemental Water Blast with extended upward reach and it hits even more times. It stun-locks and obliterates enemies weak to fire a la Dracula in Simon's Quest, with one particularly grating exception that I'll make my intimate hate for known much later.

Whereas Soothing Spring unceremoniously dragged my kicking and screaming ass cheeks through Distorted Mode on my first run of it, Water Barrier will be doing pretty much the same thing for the S Rank run in later parts of the game by letting me kind of casually ignore projectiles. Water Barrier also boosts your defense against direct attacks by a surprising amount, and it even affects damage from traps. This shift in dependence from one spell to another conveniently has no effect on my decision of what skill trees to max out first. It is unquestionably water element, followed by spirit and skills, then cripple time extension. Everything else just kind of falls where I think it will be useful in the near future, so I take the opportunity before each boss to check out my skill allocation.

[Cirno]

Almost missed Segment 2's thoughts. Thanks for posting these, I was always curious if S rank is really possible... turns out it is!

[ZephyrBurst]

I'll be following this and my guess on your first time being hit is the Hideout.

Red Paratroopas are weak to water. Super old versions of the game had them weak to wind though.

[NegativeZeroZ]

Almost missed Segment 2's thoughts. Thanks for posting these, I was always curious if S rank is really possible... turns out it is!

Thanks for posting, the awkward silence was killing me.

It's certainly possible to perfect everything that isn't a boss with some realm of consistency, provided you're persistent enough to practice it and play roulette with the Shrouds at times. There's one particular trap in Distortion Reckoning that baffles me, though. There's definitely a solution, but it's at the end of a room that's already pretty difficult in terms of precision, so I don't get much opportunity to analyze it, especially since the room is dark.

I'll be following this and my guess on your first time being hit is the Hideout.

Ah yes, the Aero Scanners in open rooms and Palette Swap Sentinels on conveyor belts... that place was painful, to put it in a fistful of words. That's a pretty generous estimate, though. I expected most people to guess Dusty Ruins.

Red Paratroopas are weak to water fire.

Obviously it was a demo. Obviously. ;]

Segment 3 - Distorted Torso

Dark Depths

To start things off, let's completely forget about Water Barrier's existence until we reach a brick wall that requires it, such as the next boss. That sounds like a fantastic idea. The Medusa Heads aren't bad if you move at a Castlevania-esque pace and kill everything with Rock Smash, but let's be honest, that's not what I like to do when I'm presented with a random factor and a dash mechanic that generally lets me skip everything I don't want to deal with.

I still don't know of any way to get that item at the entrance without at least air dash, so since I'll be back here later anyway, I opt to leave a few more particularly annoying things behind as well, namely the secret room with the disintegrating platforms. Those bats are possible to dodge without the air dash, but it's very tricky and there's no save point for that entire last stretch of Diluted Mansion.

Distorted Torso

Two things about this boss make him more annoying than he should be, the first being Water Barrier's ineffectiveness at protecting you from the lightning. Projectile attacks that spawn bullets directly into your shield are unaffected by it, so it won't protect you from lightning, lasers and the like. You can walk through them, but if they spawn on you directly, you're done. Another flaw with Water Barrier that can generously be described as "buggy" is that if you jump diagonally up toward a projectile at just the wrong angle, it will blatantly ignore the barrier and hit you. This happens three times during my battle with The Artist, courtesy of the Bacon Muffin, so you'll get to see what I mean.

The second is that the boss can only be crippled while he's "enraged," and you don't want him to use that "enraged" attack at all anyway. I failed every single time he bounced around the room, since he had a habit of spamming it after using it once. The one time he doesn't use it, I win. The Distorted Mode trap wasn't even a factor, ever, it's just there to intimidate you.

Yep... more stuff

I'd come up with an ironic "Zephyr sucks" joke, but it's the end of the week and I'm not feeling creative. It only serves two purposes, to move Earth Shift with you on it and to make Enflamed Blazing Robot a complete joke. I'll explain that when it comes to it.

Earth Shift? It's a rock. It sits in place and it does nothing. How is that helpful?

You poor naive soul.

Rock not only beats scissors, but realistically speaking, it frankly doesn't give a damn about your paper, either. Rock built your roads without lifting a finger. Rock supports your houses without a single complaint. Rock killed your ancestors and buried their dead, and yes, probably did it with their mothers too. Rock is the world's biggest badass. When the writers of religious texts gave God a nickname, they called him their Rock. It took the name of your planet, too, because what are you going to do about it, you puny mortal?

ZephyrBurst put me in a glass house, and has now given me a Rock. What happens next?

[ZephyrBurst]

Oh I see you know of the Rock's power. :3

I'd come up with an ironic "Zephyr sucks" joke, but

D:
Little did I know at the time of naming it that I'd be later changing my internet alias to match the name of one of the more useless abilities in the game.

Looking back at the first post, I'd say your DT3 demo complaints are better worded as feedback.

And for the rave uses; Probably any enemy trap from Black Rock and on, as well as the war room in Primary Memory, simply to cut your damage taken down.

[NegativeZeroZ]

I'd come up with an ironic "Zephyr sucks" joke, but

D:
Little did I know at the time of naming it that I'd be later changing my internet alias to match the name of one of the more useless abilities in the game.

It's kind of a bad wind joke at the same time, but given it's named Zephyr it could also be taken the other way. If it's any consolation, Wind Burst is pretty handy.

Looking back at the first post, I'd say your DT3 demo complaints are better worded as feedback.

Compared to what? Not sure what you mean.

Segment 4 - Meta-Knight

Vegetable Garden

This place is pretty easy, but the large amount of enemies and the sheer length of the first room give me pause since screwing up here would waste a lot of time. Not only do I not screw up, though, I continue not screwing up for so long that I get an UNSTOPPABLE!! killing spree, which is one of the S Rank goals. The only one after that is GOD LIKE!! which we'll see twice, actually, so that's pretty funny. Getting everything here without Blast Off requires some skill with Mental Insurrection and clever use of Earth Shift, but it's possible, and the less backtracking I have to do the better.

Watch out for the spikes here, they can really blend in with the over-saturation of colors. The turrets here are also impossible to fight by just bull-headedly clawing at them for an eternity. For now, they're an exception, but later in the game pretty much every enemy will be like this, forcing you to cripple them and fuse your claw with the element they're weak to... Rave Mode aside. Or if you're like me, just spam spells they're weak to once you max out the proper skill trees.

Meta-Knight

Standin' on the rock, doo-doo doo-doo! Standin' on the rock, roo-doo-doo!

Okay, so he can jump on you. Big deal, just dodge it and make another rock. This one's kind of funny, since he's about a pixel away from being able to hit you, and you're about a pixel away from not being able to hit him. This is pretty much the only approachable way to get a flawless victory against this guy, though, and he's not the only one of his kind in that regard. Nor is he the only boss who will be defeated pretty much single-handedly by Earth Shift.

A thing was gotten

Wave of Awesome. That's it, run's over. Roll credits. We're done here. Good show, guys.

Not exactly. There are plenty of bosses who won't really care much for Wave of Awesome, or that have an even better way of beating them, so it won't take the starring role from here on out, luckily for you. I mainly use it on bosses with really huge hitboxes, or to increase my DPS while I'm clawing at something and my spirit meter isn't currently being put to work doing anything else. It has plenty of purposes outside of boss fights, though. It's really four separate, uniquely useful abilities in one, and having multiple attacks mapped to one button is handy.

Segment 5 - Abyss Lord

Distortion

Distortion starts off with a pretty long stretch with no save points, but the obstacles here are so easy that it doesn't matter much. You're given the Mage Bead, which just boosts spell damage even more, so you know I've been looking forward to getting here. Things pick up in relatively short order after that, and Jeremy tells you about the defensive property of Water Barrier. He presents it as more of a fun fact, and adding pointless patches to Water Barrier seems to have been kind of a running gag back in the day, which is why I went quite a few playthroughs without taking it seriously until this one. How's 10% sound? Not much? How about when traps do 500-600 damage? Sounds a lot better now, doesn't it?

I lose a few runs to the exploding hallway mainly by forgetting to re-press the "dude, explosions, run now" button after the dialogue instead of holding it throughout. It's pretty ironic, because dashing into a cutscene flag before a boss usually results in me flying head-first into him and taking a hit. Even when I win, I lose.

Abyss Lord

This poor man's version of the Shroud Lord is actually pretty dangerous on a perfect run, mainly due to the fire that stays burning on the ground for a while. Water Barrier obviously won't protect you from that, or the explosions the hands generate. I tried spamming Wave of Awesome to get rid of the hand on the left to give me some breathing room, but that pretty much always resulted in him returning the favor by spamming fireballs in my face before I was ready for them. The best way I found to deal with the fireball spam was just to sit on one side of the spikes until he shot most of the fireballs, then dash through the onslaught. The fire will just cover the whole field if you run away as fast as you can.

This guy is weak to fire, which totally makes no sense. It's also really mean, since Inferno would be the perfect spell to use on this guy, and we don't have it yet. If you've ever wondered what's the point of the Shroud Lord being immune to fire, when he's only a bit resistant to earth, it's probably because getting rid of the hands on the fourth phase would actually be pretty easy if you could spam Inferno. Wave of Awesome is good enough to get the job done, but the angle isn't as good as it could be.

[ZephyrBurst]

I just meant I found your complaints helpful and it went along with what a lot of other people were saying, specifically Begonia Temple.

That fight with the Abyss Lord looked really good and that little bounce over the hand projectile near the end was impressive.

[NegativeZeroZ]

I just meant I found your complaints helpful and it went along with what a lot of other people were saying, specifically Begonia Temple.

Eh, still, I could have waited until I could word things in a somewhat less hostile way.

That fight with the Abyss Lord looked really good and that little bounce over the hand projectile near the end was impressive.

That part got my heart racing, I think I did something similar in the fight with Dark Mind that was quite obviously sheer luck. I do a couple of other "stunts" with some of the later bosses as well... not going to spoil those just yet.

Segment 6 - Flame Instigator

Dusty Ruins

Sometime I'd like to see some of the actual complaints about the difficulty here that supposedly exist, because I don't think this place is that bad. The difficulty is based around traps, and traps deal much more damage than enemies, yes, but traps are static obstacles that, for the most part, act the exact same way every time you get to them. All you have to do is find a pace that works and work with it. Trying to rush does no good.

This is something about myself that I cannot understand nor justify, and it's that I like areas like this that bluntly force me to play against my usual style, which is, like many others, rushing through as fast as possible. A game that allows me to play like that constantly doesn't feel challenging at all. An obstacle that forces me to adapt to its challenge makes it feel challenging, regardless of whether or not it actually is objectively hard, and it's more fun to overcome as a result. A lot of the perfect runs of these rooms were planned out, particularly the "plague room" as I like to call it, with the infinitely spawning smoke enemies that are hard to see and will quickly overwhelm you.

Flame Instigator

In the video, I called this a "known exploit," by which I mean ZephyrBurst, myself and maybe a handful of others know about it. I saw it in a video posted by Jaimers91 along with a comment on the blog vaguely guessing that it had something to do with our good friend, Earth Shift. I jump cut because I expected it to take longer to figure out how it worked, but I may record another video later showing how to do it. Also, don't worry, this is the only boss that is outright "broken" by Earth Shift, despite my earlier comments. It just helps a ton on a few others as well. I should also note that not being hit by the smasher after the battle is intentionally programmed into the game so that you don't get screwed pretty much exactly like that. After beating a boss, you are impervious to damage until you leave the room. We'll be seeing that again in Distortion Reckoning.

If you've watched raocow's videos of West Side Jungle or played the level yourself, you may have noticed that if a certain enemy drops one of its bombs, which are supposed to explode on contact with the ground, onto a moving platform that is going down, the bomb will not explode until the platform stops and starts rising. I've essentially done the same thing to Flame Instigator, but cut it short. By jumping up and placing an Earth Shift underneath him as he's falling, then quickly removing it, I've basically put him in a state of perpetual falling, which lets me destroy him without resistance. So why doesn't he recover when he hits the floor? The game doesn't know what the hell, and neither do I. I also found that the best time to place the Earth Shift is when he's falling after jumping backwards into a wall and bouncing off of it. How does that help the odds? The game doesn't know what the hell, and neither do I. Sometime during the battle I try to get a 200 hit combo (another S Rank goal), but I mess that up.

Segment 7 - Quick Time Distorter

Abstracity

The music here is the best, and I prefer this over Toad Town by far. It doesn't serve much purpose other than plot and to give you stuff, but we like stuff, right? Sonic is the only character I talk to for the duration of the entire game, and he's the guy that has nothing to say. He's just there to be amusing. We'll be seeing him again later. Thankfully I didn't forget to show that off.

I'm just going to skip talking about the backtracking, other than maybe one detail. The spike shaft disables your abilities because an ability you get later, Grand Slam, could be used to cheese it. I don't know if you can use a jump attack instead, never tried it. It's not that hard anyway.

Fright Train

More Medusa heads prompts more casually skipping everything. The other half of this area is downright hilarious, though, with a sewer system and a damn elevator inside of a train, and the most pointless quick time events this side of Heavy Rain. It's all great stuff. One thing above the surface that bears mentioning is the first of two enemy gauntlets, which I beat by... doing nothing. Seriously, only one Water Barrier is necessary to block one bullet from the flying enemy from the right, then everything can be killed by waiting around and spamming Flame Pillar.

The inside uses enemies from around the rest of the game we've seen so far, which is to say that the combat in these rooms isn't much of a thing. Then there's the elevator. No save point, and a pretty long enemy gauntlet with pits on the sides and falling spikes. Dodging the bombs that appear right when I start Rave Mode are avoidable, but it's quite tricky. The Bullet Bills, lest you forget, can't be blocked with Water Barrier, and blocking them with Mental Insurrection leaves me with no spirit left for the final Sentinel. Since the best way to fight Sentinels is to not move at all, and this room kinda forces you to, I want him out of the way ASAP, and that's not exactly possible with no spirit. One Rave Mode is enough to carry me through the problematic part, and since I'd set one aside for this part kind of expecting it to be a thing, I have no problems using it.

Quick Time Distorter

If you're re-playing the game on Hardcore or Distorted, meet your wake-up call boss. Damaging the Quick Time Distorter without using the cripple point is bluntly impossible, leaving you with two options: learn to manage your elements, or get a high enough hit combo that you can break past his defense. Getting a high hit combo isn't exactly easy when you do no damage, since the bounce effect you get when hitting an enemy while falling is negated. This also makes the battle last much longer, making it more difficult to survive. Not enough? It all leads into the attack the battle revolves around: Flood. Your choices in avoiding it are to claw at the boss to stay aloft, or anticipate it and place an Earth Shift on the left side of the field--the floor on the right side is too low. Here's where Distorted very rudely spikes the difficulty again even above all of that. The vertical beam just complicates everything even more, so if the boss develops a habit of staying to the right side of the field, you might as well start over. Try pausing in the middle of a combo to place an Earth Shift, then keep that combo going... it's not easy. Now try doing it when you have to dash to the left side to place the Earth Shift, then use Wave of Awesome to continue the combo. Considering that, the cripple strategy is preferable by far.

For that, you not only have to manage keeping the boss crippled so you can damage him, but you also have to worry about making sure that you attack with an element that actually works, the cripple time doesn't run out at the wrong moment, or your Earth Shift doesn't disappear with you on it... all of this while also worrying about dodging his attacks. That's a lot to manage. The only thing you have going for you is that even Cyclone can be blocked by Water Barrier, even though it intuitively looks like it can't. Keep up a Water Barrier, and only Flood can hurt you. So keep earth on Earth Shift, keep water on Water Barrier, use fire for crippling the boss, and have wind on anything but Zephyr, since that can screw you up. Trying to cripple the boss with water or earth when you already need those spells for something else is probably too much, if the battle itself isn't already too much. So in this case, it's a matter of "do as I say, not as I do." This battle is difficult, but that's okay, because...

It's like Christmas... STUFF!!

Kudeku is an ability most people don't even talk about, and to be fair, I don't use it much either, although I probably could. It does have some interesting properties and a situational use. When you're stuck with the Mega Buster, Kudeku gives you a physical attack that can be fused with elements. I thought to use this against the robot masters, but it turns out that they oddly have no weakness. Kudeku also seems to build up power from combos faster than other attacks do. Know what racks up high combos pretty quickly? Mega Buster. Just think about it for a second.

Blast Off is a double jump and is therefore immediately more useful than any other fire spell, which causes most people just put fire on Blast Off and never take it off until the Necrobane fight. They will then proceed to die in a hole after the fact because they forgot to put Blast Off back on, and then when they do, they will never use any other fire spell again for the rest of the game. I will, though, so look forward to that.

Flood comes from off screen behind you and goes a little bit past the other edge of the screen. If you can predict at what point an enemy will spawn, and you know that Flood will kill them pretty much instantly, this spell becomes infinitely useful (SUBTLE FORESHADOWING). I pretty much never use this after getting Piercing Stream, though.

I've never seen anyone use Cyclone on purpose, which is a shame considering it's going to be my dear friend against one of the most difficult enemies in the game (I SPELL SUBTLETY LIKE THIS). Cyclone also has a deceptively big hitbox and hits multiple times if you manage to get really up close.

Rupture is the only other damaging earth spell, and it's the only damaging earth spell you need. Find an enemy that's weak to earth and go to town. Then destroy that town with Earthquake and Planet Breaker's lovechild. Combine this with another thing, and... well you'll see it on a boss soon enough.

Segment 8 - Dragonroot

West Side Jungle

This place wasn't difficult overall, but Rave Mode was going to see use one way or another, either in the enemy trap or the room after it with the Bullet Bills. I decided to go with the enemy trap, considering it's at the end of a room. Not being next to a save point prompted use of Rave Mode in a few other areas later in the game as well. Here, I show off a trick I'll be using on all the enemy traps with spawn timers, which is just to pause the game until they all appear, since the timers still count on the pause screen, the scan screen, and hilariously enough, even the Game Over screen. Otherwise, in some instances, Rave Mode won't be enough to carry me through the whole thing.

On my first playthrough, I left that secret room for later, until I got Hurricane. It... doesn't work very well, so I chain dash against a wall. Chain dashing normally often ends with me taking damage, and I'm never quite sure why, so if the enemies I'm chain dashing with don't die in one hit, I tend to just take the normal route, unless it looks completely nightmarish (Shady Woods).

Dragonroot

Stun Bead and Wave of Awesome pretty much freeze him, and he's done for.

Totally a non-issue, though Dragonroot is one of those weird cases that will nonchalantly continue their idle animation even when stunned, along with the next boss, the Dark Variant enemy, and maybe a few others.

Segment 9 - Metallicardian

This is going to sound hella suspicious now that Zephyr's placed his bets on me being hit here, but hot steaming damn this video is boring. Do yourselves a favor and skip to the good part. Read the summary, you're not missing anything. It's 23 minutes of me taking my sweet-ass time.

The Hideout

This place was easily the most time-consuming and painful area to perfect clear. See those flying enemies from Mega Man Zero? These are the Aero Scanners, but that doesn't matter because I came up with a more fitting nickname for them: Aimhax Bots. Every so often, a beam will be projected between you and them. If the beam is blue, you're safe. If it's red, that means there's a suspiciously phallus-shaped laser in dangerous proximity to your ass, and you need to hide your shameful plumber crack behind an obstacle of some sort, or you're going to take a hit, period. If you're lucky, there will be obstacles available for you to hide behind. If you aren't lucky, you can kill them before they attack you, or create an Earth Shift and hide behind that. Oh wait, the sadistic programmer has placed them in open areas around Podoboos and tiny-ass conveyor belts. You have to be clairvoyant with these bastards and Flood them to hell before they even have a chance to think.

Now wait a minute, it's not as "simple" as that. They're sometimes teamed up with another enemy, Palette Swap Sentinel, whose entire strategy revolves around not moving. On conveyor belts. This and everything else about this area can be summed up in that cacophony of cack you see me Rave Mode through at the end. Your movement is restricted by the Podoboos, and you are immediately assaulted front-and-ass-end in a crossfire of fireballs. You are then greeted to another crossfire from three turtle enemies, and Rupture will not reach all of them. Finally, two Aimhax Bots spawn on opposite ends of the room teamed up with a Sentinel in the center. This enemy trap is at the end of a room, not next to a save point, and insultingly enough, even though trying to perfect run this level was an overall miserable experience, the design isn't bad--my opposition is surprisingly competent compared to just about anywhere else in the game.

Metallicardian

Stun Bead. Rupture.

Sweet payback time.

[Cirno]

Haha, wow. When you don't get hit somewhere the creator expects you to get hit, that's pretty pro.

[ZephyrBurst]

I watched anyway. (Well most of it.) I wanted to see how you tackled things. You handled things really well. That first trap room with the two Aimhax Bots on either side looked pretty neat.

Sooooooo... this is gonna be fun and awkward. The game doesn't tell you something and the level design of the Hideout is set up to trick you with its conveniently placed boxes that guard you from Aimhax Bots. But you can dash their laser and it only has a single frame when it deals damage. The only undashables in DT1 are the red rings. It wasn't until DT3 that undashable obstacles became a common thing. *runs*

That part got my heart racing, I think I did something similar in the fight with Dark Mind that was quite obviously sheer luck. I do a couple of other "stunts" with some of the later bosses as well... not going to spoil those just yet.

I've always liked those moments in games.

Your LP of the game is looking really awesome and I'm super happy that you found this much fun from it to actually get the S rank.

[RobinLSL]

Wow this is impressive! But I'm not going to watch it because I want to LP Distorted Mode one day :O
But wow. I'm still probably going to watch a few bosses :p

[Eriror]

Yeah, I have been watching the videos eagerly, and they are amazing. The sheer patience that you play the game with is astonishing, haha. I'm actually doing a Distorted run myself and have gotten to the Shroud Lord, so it's fun to see the actual difference in strategies. I know some of them, but in no way do I get through any of this unscathed, hahaha.

Looking forward to the next few parts, definitely. :)

[Leylite]

Hmm, looking at the Dragonroot fight, I wonder if, while the Dragonroot is using its wind attack, using Zephyr pointing rightwards would cancel it out and allow the player to avoid being pushed away?

[Cirno]

Zephyr is very weak (approximately 1/20 of regular running speed.) Dashing is much more useful for resisting the push.

[NegativeZeroZ]

Haha, wow. When you don't get hit somewhere the creator expects you to get hit, that's pretty pro.

To be fair, it was a really good guess. The Hideout took a solid afternoon by itself. The only other level to do that was Veiled Detritus, and that was sheer length, not struggling to eke out a no-damage run.

I watched anyway. (Well most of it.) I wanted to see how you tackled things. You handled things really well. That first trap room with the two Aimhax Bots on either side looked pretty neat.

Sooooooo... this is gonna be fun and awkward. The game doesn't tell you something and the level design of the Hideout is set up to trick you with its conveniently placed boxes that guard you from Aimhax Bots. But you can dash their laser and it only has a single frame when it deals damage. The only undashables in DT1 are the red rings. It wasn't until DT3 that undashable obstacles became a common thing. *runs*

I actually forgot about that room until the thumbnail showed up on my channel page... Maybe the video isn't THAT boring, then. Yeah, that room was pretty interesting to puzzle out a solution, though it didn't take too long. As for dashing through the beams, yeah, I remembered that later when I had to do it in the Spire.

Your LP of the game is looking really awesome and I'm super happy that you found this much fun from it to actually get the S rank.

Haha, well, it's a lot more fun when you aren't restarting every time you get hit once. =x As much as I like this series, I definitely won't be doing this particular challenge again.

Wow this is impressive! But I'm not going to watch it because I want to LP Distorted Mode one day :O
But wow. I'm still probably going to watch a few bosses :p

I remember reading about that in the help thread, and I'm super looking forward to it. Right now, there is no completed run of Distorted on YouTube as far as I know, let alone a no rave/item LP. Last I heard from WhattayaBrian he was stuck on the Shroud Lord, and that was 3 months ago or so. His was a no items run I think. As for me, I'll be using Starburst here and there when the difficulty starts picking up just a bit more.

Yeah, I have been watching the videos eagerly, and they are amazing. The sheer patience that you play the game with is astonishing, haha. I'm actually doing a Distorted run myself and have gotten to the Shroud Lord, so it's fun to see the actual difference in strategies. I know some of them, but in no way do I get through any of this unscathed, hahaha.

Looking forward to the next few parts, definitely. :)

Pretty much every major challenge I've done for my channel came down to patience, not being naturally godly at platformers. =x Good luck with the Shroud Lord. As much as I love my running joke about the Shroud Lord, he's quite a thing. I'm looking forward to getting Secured Data Segment up as soon as I can, that and Black Rock which will be coming up in a couple more levels.

Hmm, looking at the Dragonroot fight, I wonder if, while the Dragonroot is using its wind attack, using Zephyr pointing rightwards would cancel it out and allow the player to avoid being pushed away?

Zephyr is very weak (approximately 1/20 of regular running speed.) Dashing is much more useful for resisting the push.

It's not exactly hard to run against Zephyr, so no, it doesn't do much. HOWEVER, Dragonroot's version of it does not affect Earth Shift, so if you want to, just place one between you and the spikes.

Always Earth Shift. In every battle. For science.

Segment 10 - Demon Cursor

Distortion Windows

This is the most unique level in the game by a landslide, and one of my dearest favorites. Though I wonder if this run would be considered tool-assisted in the purest sense? Then again, the purest sense would include Joy2Key, so it's no use worrying about that. The cripple points on the various enemies here only work if certain directories exist on your computer, and they are:

IE Icon: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox

Clippy: C:\Program Files\OpenOffice

ROFL Copter: C:\Program Files\Messenger

No Pic Error: C:\Program Files\Adobe

They're case-sensitive and space-sensitive and all that. The folders just have to exist at the default installation directory, they don't even need to have files in them. Which is convenient, because that means you can just put them there yourself, and get a 40% damage boost on all the enemies here. To cripple the enemies, you just have to attack them. That's it. Use anything you want, as long as it's the proper element (or no element).

A lot of the time between the different rooms was spent experimenting in practice runs, taking breaks and making sure that I was actually getting everything recorded and that I didn't screw up. The biggest gaps are obviously the ones around the tilting room. I wanted to NOT abuse Earth Shift here for the full effect, but doing so actually caused the game window to go off-screen, so I decided against that. Also yes, my background is the background Zephyr was using on the blog when I recorded this. A lot of care was taken towards making my desktop look as not-desktop-like as I could, because I am actually that obsessive and just generally don't like it when random people on the internet know things about my personal computer. So there you have it.

Demon Cursor

The trick to flawless victory on this boss is to abuse the fact that if there are no text taunts on the screen, he's guaranteed to do that at least once, usually several times before attacking with anything else. Because the text taunts on their own are his most harmless ability, that's all you ever want him to use. Let him live too long, and he'll Create New/Copy/Paste you to death before you can spell check your own dying will. Also, Demon Cursor will never use M$ Spell Check. It's just there. It's an "even evil has standards" joke.

He's weak to fire, but especially water, and Flame Pillar hits more times than Water Blast, so use one then the other to tear through him. I hold back a bit on the spam due to underestimating my regeneration, since I usually don't have all my element and spirit skill trees maxed out by now. The icons he throws at you can be blocked with Water Barrier, so keep that in mind. The giant windows, though? Forget it. If he gets that far into his attack sequence, he won't hesitate to flood the screen with them in mere seconds, at which point you'll be pretty much helpless.

Segment 11 - Mystery Man?

Because this level is huge and the two bosses are all but waiting in the same room, I decided to add Mystery Man as a boss to split things up more. Otherwise the King Mech segment would be over 30 minutes.

Metropolis - Intro

Metropolis is probably the biggest offender in the "atrocious lack of save points" department, so it's only fitting that we open with four rooms in a row without a save point, the first three of which take nothing but time between attempts at the only difficult room at the end. You know this totally went well and I didn't get frustrated in the least. It also didn't take every ounce of my willpower not to use Rave Mode because I knew it would get worse. Everything after that is child's play, and my usage of Blast Off as an actual attack pretty much qualifies as a summary.

Metropolis - Gyro Man

In this stage, I substitute the lack of save point with an attempt to find the absolute quickest way to get to the second room. After getting all of the items in the first room, I just go back to the start and save again. The auto-scrolling room is a bitch and I consider using a Starburst, but ignoring Hot Dog somehow saved enough spirit to make it through without. I barely remember anything else that happened here. Distorted makes you do a bunch of those jumps on one-block tiles, but these are nothing new to me. Gyro Man eats Kudeku to the face until he dies laughing at the idea of someone actually using that ability.

Metropolis - Spiked-Wall Man

Black Rock Fortress will require copious use of chain dashing, so I get in some practice by all but skipping the first half of this level. That item I ignore requires mandatory backtracking, which is lame, but at least there are doors at the beginning now so you don't have to re-do the entire stage. Which is a good thing, since the second half of the stage is really slow and I don't want to do it again, let alone make people watch it again. At least this level is easy, courtesy of save points. The "fight" with Spiked-Wall Man is literally no different no matter what difficulty you're on, what kind of challenge you are going for or what you do or don't have going into it, so it takes an underwhelming single attempt to get through.

So I went to Junk Man's stage and I found some stuff

Blast Shield is only situationally useful when you need to conserve spirit and water energy for something else. Water Barrier is superior in every situation except when it will be taken out in a single wave of bullets, and even then, only if another wave of bullets will immediately follow, in which case just dashing might be a better option. I'm pretty sure I only ever use this on Enflamed Blazing Bat's fire spam and the Shroud Lord's second phase distortion.

Rock Drill is an outright insult to the player. Spiked-Wall Man is the most difficult boss (which isn't saying much) to beat when playing blind, and he gives you the most useless ability in the game. You're forced to use it here to progress, and you can use it in Distortion WTF if you want an item. This ability is not used anywhere else, and it doesn't do any damage to anything I've tried attacking with it. Also, this is the last earth ability you'll get. In Veiled Detritus, you get nothing. No replacement for this joke. What a waste.

[NegativeZeroZ]

Won't let me edit this into the previous post, so...

Segment 12 - King Mech

Metropolis - Napalm Man

This is the worst place to start, despite being positioned at the top left where most English-speakers are likely to start. Thankfully, I'm going Asian-style for this run. You need Rock Drill to get an item here, and this stage is also the hardest to perfect run. I had one measly Rave Mode set aside for Metropolis, and it gets used here, for a couple of reasons. You don't want to watch me wait around for my spirit and kill all the turrets after using all of my spirit on the chain-dashing segment, and I don't want to risk losing the perfect run in the Pukaperry trap when executing the chain-dashing here without taking a hit is such a rare occurrence. So everybody wins. The Napalm Men are pushovers as long as you stay in their crossfire, which seems like a horrible idea, but them's the breaks. You have to use Water Barrier on their first missile attack, but they'll never use it again as long as you stay in the center. If only one of them is left alive, just stay close to him and on the proper side, and he'll continue using bombs. Were this DT3, the survivor would probably do something different, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Metropolis - Dive Man

Like the Bright Man area, this level is a break between the frustration of the other stages. One big reason is the save points in every room, but it's also not too difficult on its own merits. I show off what Inferno can do when using Wave of Awesome on the walls fails you. It's pretty useful on enemies that are otherwise out of your reach. Dive Man himself is pathetic, even though he has no distinguishing cue between his attacks (in Mega Man 4, if he squats with his mouth closed, he's going to ram you, if his mouth's open, he's going to fire a missile). Keep up a Water Barrier, and use the boost to get through his barrel rolls.

Metropolis - Mr. X Stage 1

Actually, I do prefer dealing with tons of spikes, since it generally means less enemy AI to manage and more static obstacles to move around. I grew up with Crash Bandicoot, which was tough as nails for my 6-year-old brain (the first game kinda is still hard) but the enemies were just as predictable as the obstacles, so that might explain my preference for less complex enemies in more complex platforming sections, which is why I'm infinitely grateful that Think and Act Fast didn't get a sentry-riddled sequel. Actually, I grew up with mostly platformers, some of which were pretty difficult, including Super Mario: The Lost Levels... that probably explains a lot. ...Oh right, Distorted Travesty. The Met room and the room before it (no save point) were a big contender for a use of Rave Mode, but I decided to be ballsy and attempt it vanilla. That... was probably a poor decision. I should have sped this up, it's boring to watch, too much time spent doing the same thing over and over.

King Mech

The problem with this battle, as you already probably know, is those bombs that Water Barrier can't block. They will pretty much corner you into taking a hit at times, and since the battle lasts so long, the chances of that happening approach frustratingly high percentages, and each failed attempt is punished harshly--about four minutes apiece. The only way to dodge that scenario appears to be to quickly switch to Blast Off, double-jump and dash into the left wall. You must also manage keeping up a Water Barrier to block his waves of bullets, and Zephyr to blow away the scatter bombs.

The solution... is so beautifully simple, yet utterly brilliant. I can't do it justice. Just go watch it.

STUFF was transferred to JEREMY'S PC!

Inferno is useful for attacking enemies that are out of reach of all your other attacks. Combine this with Flood, and almost nothing is out of reach. Combine this with Wildfire, and literally nothing is out of reach. My biggest use of this comes from farming off the Sludge Creatures in Shady Woods/Caves. Those enemies always track your horizontal position, so just get above or below them (doesn't matter) and unleash hell.

Soothing Spring is a gradual healing spell with a large area of effect. The latest upgrade to Soothing Spring makes it invaluable, because in the time it takes to disappear, your spirit and water energies will have also regenerated, so you can find a safe place and use it infinitely. It's not that you couldn't do that before, or that you couldn't already do that with Nature's Gift, but because it's a gradual effect and you never need to wait around to use it, it does a pretty good job of pretending not to waste your time. Honestly though, if you're going to use this strategy, just use Skittles jeez. Somehow I imagined the Soothing Spring object being re-used in a later DT game as a save/healing spot, and DT3 kinda did that but with a different graphic, and it was only for ammo.

Segment 13 - Copy X

Metropolis - Mr. X Stage 2

This one's short and to the point, it forces you to use Rock Drill a lot and likes to spread hatred through the power of cornering you into kill spikes. There just isn't a reliable way to deal with the enemies without losing focus on the instant death hazard, so I'm left with using Flood to take them out before they can think. Trying to memorize those enemy spawns with terrain that never looks the same at any given moment was an exercise in unadulterated insanity, but I somehow do it, even with an improvised finish.

Copy X

Copy X attempts to copy the X battle from MMX5, and for the most part, he succeeds. He has a ton of different attacks which he will switch between with absolute abandon, but unlike a lot of battles that try to do this well and fail horribly due to being completely unfair, Copy X will helpfully change color to indicate what attack he'll use. He conveniently has five kinds of attacks, and so do you. I don't know if there are elemental weaknesses tied to what mode he's in, but adding that in there just gives the player way too much to deal with, so it's irrelevant. Distorted Mode lines the walls with kill spikes, but those are just there to intimidate you, and are rarely ever a problem.

This is going to sound like I'm complaining about the battle, but this probably has nothing to do with the design and everything to do with me. I swear, I absolutely cannot tell the difference between Copy X's color palettes when he switches to Speed Burner or Spinning Blade. This wouldn't be a problem, except that Spinning Blade is the only attack Copy X has that isn't blocked by Water Barrier (sans contact damage, but Earth Shift quickly nullifies that too). I can never, ever predict this attack in time to dodge its first pass, and believe me, I tried... for several hours. Look how rehearsed even my entrance into the room is. I already have a Water Barrier up and I've switched to Earth Shift. I explored the possibility of repeating the Flame Instigator exploit, but it simply doesn't work here. I know that there's an icon over by Copy X's health bar that also indicates what attack he'll use, but that's like telling me that I have a third eye on the back of my head and I can read my enemy's thoughts if I turn my back to him. The only thing I'll be able to glean from that is "wow, what an idiot," prior to being stabbed in the back by the very thing I was trying to predict. I feel like the icon should have appeared over Copy X's head every time he switched, but the color change is probably enough for everyone else, because I just fail. By leaving it unacceptable to get hit by anything else other than Spinning Blade, and focusing exclusively on keeping Water Barrier and Earth Shift up, I manage to get through with "only" 3 hits, though getting hit by the same thing each time probably makes me look like an idiot who never passed grade-school-level pattern recognition. Argh.

Segment 14 - Neo Guardian

Black Rock Fortress

For the "disc one final dungeon" that's supposed to be the harbinger of one mountain of a difficulty curve, I like this level a lot. The chain dash, one of my favorite mechanics in the game, is exploited to its full potential here. The assortment of enemies and traps orchestrate a complex arrangement of tasks to be done to get through without damage, but nothing ever quite crosses the line into head-scratching territory. It never leaves the realm of feasibility. Top that off with an intro to build suspense, a kick-ass music track and a climactic boss, and we've got one hell of a rite of passage.

The enemies here... well, let's hear what they have to say:



The bird-walker is one of the most dangerous enemies in the game, because if you attack it at the wrong time, its beam attack will get larger and more powerful until it basically floods the screen with an instant kill. Not cool. The pain in the ass dragon has an irritatingly high spirit defense. It's weak to fire, but spamming Flame Pillar won't kill it, even though it seems like a good idea when it teleports above you. Also, the dark bloom never made it into the game. That about sums it all up.

Hmm? No, I don't think I'm forgetting the introduction of another new enemy.

Neo Guardian

This guy is downright pathetic, even on Distorted. I wanted another Ultra Combo on this boss as an awesome send-off to what was already a pretty damn good video, but the spikes falling from the ceiling broke it up. At least I didn't take damage, though it took way too long to get that. Playing roulette to get Neo Guardian to choose earth at the start of the battle was not a fun experience, since he was being stubborn with it this time.

Normally I have two paragraphs to a boss, but I don't... oh right, the Shrouds! Shortly after using my Rave Mode, the next room introduces the Shrouds. Surely you didn't expect me to farm off-screen for another one, did you? Fighting them isn't too difficult, it's trying to deal with them wherever you end up running into them later that's a problem, and it's a major reason why I didn't plan on doing any perfect runs after Black Rock. As easy as they are to deal with on a level playing field like this, they can be quite adept at ruining your mojo when they teleport right on your face in mid-jump. If you think that means I'm done abusing them, though, think again.

And another thing

Grand Slam is an underappreciated ability due to its usefulness as an actual attack being very situational. It does, however, aid tremendously in falling invincibly through traps and enemies, and it kills your horizontal momentum, helping you aim your descent onto those annoying one-block platforms. Grand Slam and Mental Insurrection go together like Inferno and Flood, and make a good support team in terms of platforming.

Segment 15 - Necrobane

Dark Stone Castle - The Reboot of the Interquel

Some more stuff, not much to speak of. There's another enemy trap that I do without Rave Mode, I use my first item--a Starburst--on the vertical room, since I don't feel like dancing around spiked walls while waiting for my spirit meter...

Also, that Spirit Aura? Never failed that chain dashing segment during any of my attempts at that room. The sequence of button presses you have to do to get that item is one of the most complex and involved things you'll have to do in this game, and once you pull it off, oh, once or twice... you've got it memorized. It never goes away. It never leaves your brain... never. o_o

Necrobane

Ahem. This is quite a boss we've got here, but he's not much in terms of complexity compared to some other bosses in this game. There's a strict pattern to follow, a Water Barrier to keep up and torches to keep lit, but besides that, not much in terms of stuff to manage. It's enough to be difficult, but it's not overwhelming.

Crippling him is another thing entirely. His cripple point has actually been changed so it's less "buggy," but it's still not easy to pull off. I allow myself 2 hits per time I need to cripple him... which I waste in completely unrelated ways, but since things were going my way, I decide to take it before I regret it, because I probably wasn't going to cripple him without being hit anytime soon, and not crippling him isn't an option. Things will get completely overwhelming if you don't take down his second phase quickly... never mind the scenario where you run out of water energy.

[Cirno]

I'm totally loving this Earth Shift abuse. It's obviously one of the most versatile spells for navigation, but I had no idea it was so useful in boss fights too.

[NegativeZeroZ]

I'm totally loving this Earth Shift abuse. It's obviously one of the most versatile spells for navigation, but I had no idea it was so useful in boss fights too.

It's unfortunate, but that about concludes the Earth Shift abuse. I have one more use for it against Enflamed Blazing Bat, but that's about it. That's far from the end of my abuse of earth as an element, though.

Segment 16 - Enflamed Blazing Robot

Windy Slopes

Three reasons why this marks the end of my rigorous attempts at no-damage runs. The first is one I've already hinted at, which is that the Shrouds can seriously ruin you, and playing roulette with them isn't fun. The second is that this entire section of the game, all the way up to the next MagMuffin, is not exactly my favorite. Not in terms of difficulty, I just don't care for it too much, and I kinda want it to end as soon as possible, not gonna lie. The third reason is specific to this level, and it's those annoying bomber planes. Keeping up a Water Barrier is very helpful, but by no means does it let you waltz through the level without worrying about the bombs at all, since the Abyss Lord has his last laugh with the lingering explosions they leave behind, and the planes themselves can run right into you, and it's sometimes blatantly unavoidable, as you'll see when I go for the Oh Snap item.

So the rest of the run turns into an incoherent mess of attrition, right? Haha, no. We'll be saving that for Primary Memory. Instead, what I've decided to do is heal only at the restore points set throughout the game, and by collecting enemy drops (hence boosting the drop rate before the Necrobane fight). Basically, I'm going DT2-style with the rest of this. It gives me just a few hits per level, assuming I don't farm for life energy (I don't). I make full use of this on one really nasty ambush from one of those bomber planes, the electricity in the secret room (because I'm lazy) and another trap I'm still not sure how to dodge entirely, since the needles from the ceiling come down on you so quickly. On the whole, though, I approve of the temple bit, mostly since the only bomber in there actually spawns from a set location instead of a generator. I'm cool with that. The music is also nice, though it's out of place in the Sky Base levels.

Enflamed Blazing Bat

The Blazing Fire Spam is the star player in this fight. If you can survive that, you've pretty much won already, assuming you don't fall in the lava. To help make some of the fireballs less likely to hit me, I drop an Earth Shift in the lava right next to the edge of a platform, so that the platform blocks some of the fireballs. Blast Shield will do the rest. The original plan was to do this on the other side of the room, crouch down behind the platform and hopefully dodge the whole thing, but that doesn't work since the lava level is too high.

Enflamed Blazing Robot

Once you've survived the first phase, this boss is a pushover. All you need to do is use Zephyr, and the momentum of the fireballs coming from the lava will send them soaring harmlessly over your head. If your health is still a problem in the wake of the first phase, spam Soothing Spring and don't get hit more than once per round of attacks. Even on Distorted, this boss can't out-attrition you.

A long time ago, in a game full, full of stuff

Once upon a time, there was a summon ability in this game, and using the ability performed a different summon depending on what your current element was [citation needed]. Blazing was the first one you got, and it's the only one left in the game. He appears automatically from now on, whenever the Shrouds do, and it's totally possible (I mean, I just did it) to get to him before the Shrouds ever get to you. Even more badass, if you wait for your Shroud warn level to reach "Followed," and nail the positioning, it's totally possible for Blazing to completely destroy both Shrouds all on his own. That's just one of a few ways to trivialize the Shrouds, and during the course of this challenge, I take full advantage of all the ones I know.

Segment 17 - Break In?

Distortion WTF

I don't like this level. I don't have a concrete grasp of why I don't like this level, but I suspect it's the sum of its parts, by which I mean a laundry list of little things that add up to an overall experience I just never look forward to. There's something about the aesthetics--besides being retro, because I'm by no means a graphics whore--that displeases me. I'd say that it clashes with the other graphics used in the overall game, and that it could have been fixed by making everything monochrome (as Kingdom Hearts 2 removed or at least diluted the colors with Timeless River), but Jerry's sprite is already mostly black and white and that still doesn't look right. I'd say that the enormous amounts of damage dealt by the tiny enemies bugs me, but that's because the enemies mostly die in one hit. I'd say that I'd wish the Shroud Lord would just leave me alone instead of making this level last longer, but I'm not afraid of him, and I'd rather be fighting him than doing this level. I'd say that the re-use of the Rock Drill rocks is completely arbitrary and detracts from the overall purpose of this level, but then again, not using them would make Rock Drill even more of a waste, and besides that, what IS the purpose of this level, besides outright filler? I guess I just don't know WTF.

Everybody saw it coming, Rave Mode is used in the spike wall room because Rave Mode is always used in the spike wall room and the spike wall room is the reason Rave Mode was added to this game. I've never done the spike wall room without Rave Mode and I don't want to know how much of a pain in the Rave Mode the spike wall room is without Rave Mode. I also want this spike wall room to end, and the fewer spike wall rooms stand in the Rave Mode, the Rave Mode the spike wall room... also, I die, because I'm lazy and don't want to do that secret room backwards, or take any damage trying it. Even triggering the dialogue in the room with the warp doesn't unblock the teleport function, and I'm not coming back here when I do have it because I'd have to re-do the entire level, and screw that noise.

Shroud Lord

He appears three times in this segment. For the first appearance, it's just a timed encounter, so avoid him until he flies away. I like to flit between the two pipes whenever he attacks, ducking next to the cannon of course. The second time the Shroud Lord appears, you have to actually deal damage. The fire from the sky won't fall until you do. After that, I'm not sure if it's timed or if you have to actually continue attacking, but he flies off eventually. On Distorted, this encounter actually lasts quite a while, but again there's a pretty simple loop you can do since his more complex behaviors are reserved for the battle in Secured Data Segment.

The third encounter is back at the small final stretch of Windy Slopes, and this time he's accompanied by hordes of those accursed bomber planes. Again, I think you have to deal damage in this one. Hopefully you went back and saved... you did, right? WhattayaBrian did this funny thing where he spammed thrust attacks on the Shroud Lord and got some seriously sweet air time, which I tried to replicate once or twice but ended up not doing so well. Here there is plenty of room to move, though, so I abuse the fact that the Wave of Awesome boomerangs can hit an infinite number of times until they come back to you.

Break In?

This is programmed as an actual boss, despite being left out of the boss room since you don't really fight it so much as try to survive. Items and Rave Mode are disabled as with all other duels, though. I tried to abuse Earth Shift again, by shoving it into a wall and attempting to climb on top of the Breakout blocks, which would have been downright hilarious if it worked, but sadly it doesn't. Zephyr also affects the acid as with the battle with Copy X, but I find that it's best to just keep a Water Barrier up and dodge around everything.

I like to think that Hexor is actually the one playing Breakout here, but since he's busy extending the length of this level, I know it's pretty much impossible. It's fun to think, though. Why would the game be playing itself, if this is how you hack into this particular system? If Jeremy is playing, why is he constantly screwing you over, when the game is otherwise impossible to lose? The first part of this sequence, when there is only one ball in play, generally plays out the exact same way every time. The introduction of more of them is when things get slightly more random, and you kinda have to play by ear. When Jeremy hacks the remaining blocks, using Inferno twice while the platform is moving is enough to guarantee victory.

Segment 18 - Pew pew!

Sky Base - Windy Mountains

Unrelated genre change! Thankfully, nothing I do here affects the actual S Rank run, which is a good thing, since it's been so long since I've played Touhou that I kinda suck at it now. Rampant abuse of bombs to graze for points guarantees that I beat the target score in spite of that, though. One thing you'll notice is that these sections of the game actually do have sound effects. The Windy Slopes theme simply drowns them out normally. The other thing you'll notice is that the music I edited in is completely different, and props to the first person to recognize the source.

So now, I suppose, is as good a time as any to mention this, since the stage itself isn't that noteworthy. Way back at the beginning of the run, I disabled the in-game music and edited it back in, since constant jump-cuts and restarting music really bother me, especially when making videos of something that's supposed to look good. It's no secret that I edited out failed runs, but doing this also lets me do a few other things, such as changing the unfitting music here. I'll change the music a few other times, but I've mostly left the original music intact. I wonder how many people, if anyone, actually realized that I've been playing the game without music this entire time?

Segment 19 - Dark Gear

This is by far the longest level in the game, and with hours of footage to sift through during editing, the music here, which is already pretty repetitive while just playing through the level, has ingrained itself so painfully into my brain that I just can't stand it anymore. I'll use the Veiled Detritus theme at Stalagmite Ruins, but here, I'm going to change it to something else, because seriously, this level always gives me a headache.

Veiled Detritus

My somewhat nonsensical-looking route through the level was pre-planned by looking at the map and (seriously) doing some math. I basically abuse the teleport function to minimize backtracking as much as possible. I take into account a few things, such as the vertical rooms that take no effort to backtrack through (Grand Slam), but I mostly take the path of fewest screen transitions. I know, I'm such a nerd.

There are a few problems to worry about here, mainly the increased rate of appearance of the Shrouds. Here, I abuse their tendency to teleport in strange and frankly buggy ways, leaving them completely vulnerable. The soul men are also kinda noteworthy, since their resistance to physical attacks brings back irritating memories of the enemy from Black Rock that was equally resistant to magic. Just to the opposite here. Another huge issue is the prominence of Spirit Drain. The Shrouds can do it, the Sand Ghouls can do it, and I swear getting hit by the Wisps outright takes spirit from you. If I get landed with Spirit Drain without an exit to the room within sight, I just restart, because really.

Dark Gear

This is a pretty good danmaku boss. His attacks are all executed with consistent timing and there's always a way to avoid them with dashes and your other tools. Memorizing the pattern lets you pull through without damage every time, with enough practice.

Oh wait. The second phase completely ruins this by adding an attack that uses your current position to position itself, and scatters bullets literally everywhere with complete disregard to everything else that's going on. This phase gave me hell until I found a hilariously easy way to deal with it. Wait a bit until he comes back down to ground level, before triggering the second phase. Then, cripple him, and attack him until he dies. Trying to dodge the bullets only gives him enough time to teleport back to the upper level, which will make the battle last too long, and you'll die. The solution to that problem was to simply stop trying to play like a competent person, and just sheer-attrition the second phase. Yeah.

Penultimate stuff

Wildfire just doesn't care. It goes everywhere, does everything, and uses up spirit like it's going out of style. Its worth lies in its similarity to Rupture in terms of being spammable against big bosses, but Rupture is actually superior in every way if you look at their stats. It makes up for this by scattering across the entire screen, a property I'll make use of near the end of the game.

Piercing Stream, besides being worth a lifetime supply of innuendos, is actually really good, it covers a pretty large horizontal area, hits multiple times and does respectable damage, and it actually sticks around for quite a while. You might say that Piercing Steam is [The rest of this part of the LP was redacted for being disgusting and unfunny. The user was also banned at the request of everyone involved.]

Segment 20 - Arrghus

Failed Impetus - The Sequel that Somehow Managed to Suck More than the Original

It's actually possible to backtrack out of that downward shaft to Lock 4, I'm just lazy. Also, I miss an opportunity to show another way to deal with the Shrouds. On my way to Lock 3, I should have stopped by the final exit. If you go way off screen and leave Blazing and the Shrouds behind, Blazing will keep attacking them until they die, thereby giving you a freebie for... being really good at running away, I guess. It doesn't matter, because there's another forced battle with the Shrouds in a really cramped room. This time Flame Instigator will help you though.

Rave Mode is great for Lock 3, which disables your dash. If you don't have enough rave energy, just go halfway down the elevator and farm off the Wolf Heads. They can't shoot through walls. All the Internetz they drop will also float up to the top, so get those too. I get GOD LIKE!! in an enemy trap in the Great Palace section, since I was using Rave Mode in that room too and the killing spree counter doesn't reset if you die by falling in a hole.

Arrghus

This boss is hilariously easy in the boss room, since something about the lightning attack bugs out and the fireballs they're supposed to scatter get stuck in the ground and disintegrate. In a normal run of the game, though, those scattering fireballs and the lightning make Arrghus's desperation attack laughably unapproachable. Recall that Water Barrier doesn't block those rocks.

Arrghus also has another annoying trait. When connected to the ruins, he heals gradually. You know what? No. If the boss can heal, I can heal too. I can make an exception to my rule if an exception presents itself. Only two bosses can heal: Arrghus and the Shroud Lord. Conveniently enough, the only two bosses where I could conceivably need to heal. This totally isn't an excuse to make this section of the game end as soon as possible, what are you talking about?

One more thing... oh yeah, remember that other thing?

Hurricane has a huge area of effect, but what does it do? It completely blows away gravity-based projectiles in an instant, and dashing through it gives you an extended dash. An extended dash with collision damage. LOTS of collision damage, that hits multiple times very rapidly. This definitely won't be abused later.

No new earth ability? What gives? Well, we had an extra one all along. Nature's Gift is a healing spell that costs way too much spirit to be useful outside of healing in save rooms, and heals you for 10%, which on Distorted is maybe half a hit, if you're in the early game and have collected all of the health powerups. Despite that, I will be using it at one point in the next video, and one more time off-screen before Think and Act Fast.

Segment 21 - Fourth Wall Crusher

Shady Woods

As luck would have it, this level starts off with two rooms in a row without a save point, right around the time that the enemies cease to be worth fighting. It doesn't help that if you're going for a no-death run, you're pretty much under-leveled by default, since the game is designed around the player keeping experience points all while falling into holes and such. The awesome points somewhat counteract this by giving a good player an EXP multiplier, but a bad player will always be a higher level than a good one, which I think is one of the biggest problems I have with this game. The series is otherwise pretty good at rewarding good play.

The first two rooms are the most painful, especially since the lack of save point doubles my odds of running into the Shrouds, and they ruined more runs of this than I care to admit. The biggest problems other than them are the Sludge Creatures. I found that trying to fight them resulted in nothing but an empty spirit meter and getting hit at least once, with poison because these enemies needed just one more stereotypical "annoying enemy" trait. Oh, and they multiply if you stick around too long. My strategy for them ended up being "run like hell," when the rest of Shady Woods punishes you for not taking your time. The other enemies are not nearly as annoying as the Sludge Creatures, but when trying to skip the Sludge Creatures results in having ten of them on screen at once, they also aren't worth it anymore. While grinding to max level, I pick up the Internetz drops and especially the health drops because I'd be stupid not to.

Ultimate Phalanx

REMEMBER THAT TIME YOU WON?

NEITHER DO I

Distortion Reckoning

Can I finally say something positive about the game again? This is one of the hardest levels, but also one of my favorites, which seems to be a pattern from here to the end, so the doom and gloom is over. Running out of motivation to continue was not a concern to me anymore at this point, since I'm pretty fond of all the remaining levels. Distortion Reckoning in particular is a pretty good contender for the #1 spot, and you don't need a doctoral degree in pattern recognition to guess that if I like it a lot, it's probably complex static obstacles with very simplistic enemies, and you'd be absolutely right. The enemies here are old friends and are more just there to occupy empty space and give you health drops than to actually augment the challenge. The music also kicks tons of ass.

In trying to navigate some of the more complex arrangements of traps, rather than tank hits when a solution didn't present itself within five seconds, I hope to do this level justice. I even get through one of the rooms without taking damage. The only thing I outright tank is the last trap in the dark room, because I still have no idea what you're expected to do in the dark. Apparently what you're expected to do was too easy, though, because Distorted Mode adds those roto-disc traps. The next room is a collect-a-thon since hiding things in the dark room would be a dick move. In the room after the boss, I finally take care of the Shrouds, who had mysteriously left me alone for pretty much the whole level and then decided to be a major pain in my ass right at the end. I get hit, but I want them to go away so badly at that point that I take it with a grain of whatever, don't care. It'll make the rest of the game go smoothly.

Fourth Wall Crusher

This guy's pissed, 'cause he's out of a job at this point, and he wants to kill the ones responsible, those being Jerry and Jeremy. His repertoire of attacks is pretty simple, and his desperation attack, which he uses twice, is pretty much "static obstacles: now available in boss battle flavor." The battle goes predictably well for me, with only one hit that I'm pretty sure there was naught to be done about. I take the screenshot over the red ring of death, since I'm pretty sure it does less damage.

This guy can be a pretty big headache if your strategy thus far has been "attrition, attrition, attrition," since turning traps into a boss attack gives said boss the highest damage output of the entire game by default. Yes, the red rings of death deal more damage than anything the Shroud Lord can throw at you, and the damage is still comparable even if you equip the Trap Bead. Crippling the boss and using the Hurricane Dash on the lower difficulties will pretty much let you skip the red rings, though. Take full advantage of Jeremy's full restore of spirit and keep in mind that the second phase of red rings is just slightly different from the first.

Segment 22 - Ultimate Phalanx

Shady Caves

A short video for a short level. The music here is amazing, and although it re-uses the enemies you loved so much in Shady Woods, they're not too bad here, mostly due to the lack of thorns everywhere, and no mysteriously absent save point. This place also gives the easiest MagMuffin of them all. You have to survive through a gauntlet of danmaku, which I deal with using the default "I don't want to deal with this" strategy for dealing with danmaku. I'm not even kidding, that actually works.

The Potoboo section can't be skipped with Earth Shift and Zephyr, I already tried that. There comes a point where a game has to stop rewarding a player for being clever and calmly say "dude, you have to do SOMETHING the way the designer intended, or you're not playing his game." I resign myself to my fate and somehow manage to hit the lava on the ceiling and never even notice, because I'm a intelli-gent hurr durr.

Ultimate Phalanx

That's okay, I'll just break this boss. I went in thinking "Piercing Stream," but the boss thought "I have huge-ass arms." So instead of going with the default "all Darkness bosses are weak to Water" heuristic I decided to actually try testing out the elements, and what do you know, he's weak to earth.

The way this ends should surprise no one.

Segment 23 - Wild Skull Machine

It's all the Extras in one video!

Extra - Bullet Bill Fort

You may remember from ages ago that I hate Bullet Bills, but now that Mental Insurrection takes them out in one shot, they're not a big problem. This is one Extra that I'd recommend doing as soon as it unlocks, particularly to beginning players since the reward, the Sword Bead, is very helpful, and you'll probably be using physical attacks and skills the most. Wave of Awesome is a physical attack, so this would have helped me ages ago if I were doing an off-camera run, but I wanted this convenience for anyone trying to sift through the whole playlist to find where I did what Extra. This playthrough is several hours long.

Extra - Cheese Garden

Wha..? Well again, I'd recommend coming here as soon as possible, because the reward is actually worth it now that the Trap Bead actually does what it says it does. Cheese Garden is actually little more than a trap gauntlet with no time to waste sitting around healing, so if you can make it through this, you probably don't need the Trap Bead, except maybe in the Spire. S Rank means 100% completion, though, so I do need it.

Extra - Dirty Ruins

Traps, traps and more traps. The boulder traps can be cheesed with Earth Shift and dashing backwards into the wall. Because of the way the needle traps work around the moving platforms, it's probably in your interest to haul ass during the second part of this level, and the design seems to point in that direction as well. The Revenge Bead reward is bluntly useless to me other than 100% completion. I've never used it anyway, since the non-fatal bit makes it kind of useless.

Extra - Maverick Factory

Spikes, spikes and more spikes. If the lights go out, there's no way to turn them back on, so that's pretty much an instant death sentence. The boss is easy to beat, though he took a few attempts to perfect clear. The Poison Bead is the reward for this one, and since I found an even more broken way to deal with Ultimate Phalanx, I don't really need it for anything. For all but the first two of these Extras, I'd recommend leaving them for later.

Wild Skull Machine

Danmaku and lots of it. Being max level certainly helped in quickly taking out his last health bar, when things get really crazy. Like Dragonroot, the Wave of Awesome gears continue to hit the boss as they climb the wall, but they also hit the boss so quickly that your regular Mega Buster shots pretty much go through him harmlessly if you try to attack him with that too.

After this tease, if there isn't a battle with either Zero or Omega in DT3, I'll be disappoint.

Extra - Stalagmite Ruins

Suitably sick of the Veiled Detritus theme yet? Hopefully not... The major reward for this, the Vamp Bead, isn't even at the end, so if that's all you wanted, you can just leave. The more persistent of us have to reach the end, where we're greeted with one whale of a surprise (boooo). This part is fun to think about when trying to guess what's up with the plot for DT3.

[TheVulpineHero1]

Just saying: I'm really enjoying these writeups, and I think what you're doing is really impressive. Keep up the good work!

[NegativeZeroZ]

Just saying: I'm really enjoying these writeups, and I think what you're doing is really impressive. Keep up the good work!

Thanks! Good luck with the next boss in DT3. :3

Segment 24 - Spire Guardian

Spire of Forgotten Souls

Equip all defensive beads here, this place is all traps. It goes without saying that this level didn't take me very long to complete. On the fourth section, I got a perfect clear on my first attempt, which was pretty great. Getting through the no-dash mace party and the section with the invisible damage zones without healing was also incredibly satisfying.

The rest of this is, well, probably not so great. I heal a few times for a trap I can't be arsed to dodge, lest I fall and die. I also play pretty badly in a few other sections since I'm more worried about the whole "beat this quickly or die" thing. This is foreshadowing for how spectacular the finale to this run will be, during the Metroid escape sequence. I dread the people who will inevitably skip to the last video to go to the ranking screen to make sure what they're about to watch is legit, and will immediately come to the conclusion that I suck and must have hacked my save. Not to mention the number of times I'll have to explain other little nuances about this game those people who never played it themselves will simply never understand until they stop being those people who never played it themselves.

Spire Guardian

I've once said in the past that Spire Guardian is an effortless boss to beat, even on Distorted.

The time came to beat this boss on Distorted, and not a single effort was given that day.

Tomorrow, Secured Data Segment!

[TheVulpineHero1]

Thanks! Good luck with the next boss in DT3. :3

Wow that kittyfayce is totally not ominous and I'm not terrified at all of what the future holds what are you talking about

Seriously, though, that sort've makes me think you think it's a thing, and if someone who's actually capable of S-ranking DT1 thinks it's a thing, then it probably is a most verifiable thing. Also, feels weird to know that somebody other than ZephyrBurst is actually bothering to read all that stuff. Whenever I read it back, it just feels like I'm being a big crybaby and doing way too much complaining. x3 Oh well. I'm also going to echo Cirno's comments about the Earth Shift use. It must've taken a lot of ingenuity to find so many great uses for an ostensibly non-combat spell in boss fights!

[NegativeZeroZ]

Soooo... I went to edit together the next segment so I could let it process over dinner. That short danmaku level right before Secured Data Segment, and I can't find the footage anywhere on my computer. It's not on the desktop, in the raw video folder or even the recycle bin, and looking at the names of the video files that were recorded before and after where it should have been, I don't think it ever got recorded. Either I somehow forgot to record it, mis-clicked in a hurry to restart or maybe the file size got too big and it got tossed out during compression.

This... just plain sucks. I really hate myself right now. Of all the things to not get recorded, THAT... okay, not gonna lie. I sheer-lucked my way through the boss of that danmaku stage, like... he is freakin' hard on Distorted, way harder than any of the other danmaku tangents this series throws at you, hell, compared to how he is even on Hardcore Mode, and honestly? I don't think I can luck my way through that again, never mind do it quickly to not hold up the rest of the run. I just don't have the, well, whatever to go through that again. If the file size got too big, that should say something about how long that took.

...If there's a huge outcry about it, I guess this will just be a placeholder video for a bit, but, I'm going to mess with some settings and try to re-record this, but it's going to be tool-assisted. I could just not show it, since nothing you do in the danmaku levels is counted against your overall game ranking, but it just... wouldn't feel right. At least this way you can see the terrible-ass score I got on my legit run, and know that I at least got the skill crystal the first time. Still... AUGH.

...video game...

[ZephyrBurst]

Fragments GO!

Oh man, lots of videos. I skipped a lot of the Windy Slopes video cause even I don't like that level at this point. I like Veiled Detritus, but I skipped around in that to certain parts where I wanted to see how you tackled an obstacle.

I don't know what either of those 2 themes were that you used for the shooter stage, but they were better than what was there obviously. I like how you say you're bad at shooters, but in the bullet hell + platforming segments, you do really well. Then again, Water Barrier.
Then the theme you edited in for Veiled Detritus made me double take since that was one of the contenders for that level originally.

It's kinda weird, even this many videos in, to see you get hit. You went so long without that. For the record, letting a spinning blade go through your face is a very noob way to play. <3 Though seeing you go face first into later obstacles is kinda humorous.

I like how you have an easy way of dealing with nearly every boss and it was nifty to see the Rupture method on Ultimate Phalanx, I didn't know about that one. I was surprised you didn't try to keep a combo going for Wild Skull Machine though.

One of my favorite parts were you discovering the Distorted (and Normal) mode only safe corner for the 6th Muffin.

Edit: Oh man, that sucks about the original footage.

[NegativeZeroZ]

Wow that kittyfayce is totally not ominous and I'm not terrified at all of what the future holds what are you talking about

Seriously, though, that sort've makes me think you think it's a thing, and if someone who's actually capable of S-ranking DT1 thinks it's a thing, then it probably is a most verifiable thing.

:3 :3 :3

The thingiest of the things with that fight is that it's going to take practice to beat no matter how good or bad you are at the other games prior in the series, which is what sets him apart as a difficult boss. Without spoiling anything, he's the hardest boss currently in the demo by a pretty respectable margin, so don't get too discouraged about continuing.

I like how you say you're bad at shooters, but in the bullet hell + platforming segments, you do really well. Then again, Water Barrier.

Then again, if I could dash in the Touhou games...

Then the theme you edited in for Veiled Detritus made me double take since that was one of the contenders for that level originally.

That's me messing with you. I heard it in a video of VD on your channel and figured approximately a 120% chance I'd find it on Newgrounds. :3 "Chill out style" was a fitting description, since it's less grating on my ears. That's probably just an opinion though.

It's kinda weird, even this many videos in, to see you get hit. You went so long without that. For the record, letting a spinning blade go through your face is a very noob way to play. <3 Though seeing you go face first into later obstacles is kinda humorous.

Just goes to show that I'm not a gaming god so much as a monkey at a typewriter trying to produce Shakespeare. The map quote for Black Rock pretty much sums up how I'm able to do most of this.

Tanking hits really is the worst, but when trying to look competent ends with me taking more damage than if I'd just done it the noob way, the game doesn't really know the difference nor give a crap, damage is damage and less of it is better. Sad but true.

I like how you have an easy way of dealing with nearly every boss and it was nifty to see the Rupture method on Ultimate Phalanx, I didn't know about that one. I was surprised you didn't try to keep a combo going for Wild Skull Machine though.

Making a boss after Quick Time Distorter weak to earth is pretty much a death sentence, even if using Rupture looks awkward as hell like that one. I might joke about way too many bosses being weak to water, but it's pretty much the least broken element in terms of blitzing large enemies at this point. For Wild Skull Machine though, my priority was not getting hit. I wanted to see if I could do it, since his last phase attacks nonstop. =x

One of my favorite parts were you discovering the Distorted (and Normal) mode only safe corner for the 6th Muffin.

Man, I was kinda hoping you wouldn't know about that, I was looking forward to the reaction. So is it possible to perfect clear without that, or is that secretly the intended solution for Distorted?

Oh man, that sucks about the original footage. :x

Yeah. ( ; A ;) After looking through my raws folder though, that seems to be the only bit missing.

[ZephyrBurst]

Without spoiling anything, he's the hardest boss currently in the demo by a pretty respectable margin, so don't get too discouraged about continuing.

And without spoiling anything else, all the testers have said that the Gate 3 end boss is still the hardest in the game so far. (Up to chapter 10 content.)
He technically did have a post-demo nerf, but all it is, are those scythes spawning 1 frame slower.

That's me messing with you. I heard it in a video of VD on your channel and figured approximately a 120% chance I'd find it on Newgrounds. :3 "Chill out style" was a fitting description, since it's less grating on my ears. That's probably just an opinion though.

That makes a lot of sense.

Tanking hits really is the worst, but when trying to look competent ends with me taking more damage than if I'd just done it the noob way, the game doesn't really know the difference nor give a crap, damage is damage and less of it is better. Sad but true.

In response to your comment about the game keeping things like Exp after death and how it will cause a bad player to have more exp than a good one who gets Awesome points.
Death being a very very common thing in the game, I wanted something to give back to the player if they were constantly losing. I knew the player, during their deaths, would be getting a few kills here and there. If I didn't have the penalty for losing so high, it wouldn't be quite as bad, at least I thought. It does take the money you gained away, same with DT3 as you've seen.

For Wild Skull Machine though, my priority was not getting hit. I wanted to see if I could do it, since his last phase attacks nonstop. =x

Oh yeah, for Hard and Distorted, he has 0 downtime during that final life bar.

Man, I was kinda hoping you wouldn't know about that, I was looking forward to the reaction. So is it possible to perfect clear without that, or is that secretly the intended solution for Distorted?

It was put there as a thing for Normal at first, then the numbers were tweaked just enough for Distorted to make it possible to hide there.
As for perfect clearing it 'legit', one of the requirements I have for releasing anything is beating it without taking damage. That said, back then there were... rules I didn't follow. If it was Distorted, I sorta skipped on by if I was touched once or twice. Terrible idea. But everything for Hard and below I've cleared perfectly... aside from the Shroud Lord on Hard.

So to answer that, it is technically possible to clear that room perfectly with a nice combination of dashing, barriers, and shields, I just haven't done it myself. Something I like doing over Water Barrier is dashing with a Blast Shield going.
If you'd like to attempt again without having to run through the game, since you have debug mode for S ranking, set the game progress state to... I don't know anymore, set it to anything below 200.

Going back to 2 paragraphs ago, having to beat Death without taking damage was... we'll not go there. I could consistently beat him, but I'd always take 1 or 2 hits due to fumbling or misjudging his telegraph. I've jumped into that upward swing more times than I can count.

I suck at my own game...