Unregistered user “fmb fan” posted:
Which runes have you found - we can then tell you which ones you are missing.
You can’t get to the rocky beach in map one without by-passing the vermis kill, unless you use a ‘soft-cheat’ of some kind. I don’t think that was accounted for.
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Map01 seemed okay, but the other 2? No way.
Has this even been playtested for NM difficulty?
You loose all your guns from the previous level and how are you supposed to kill Deathknight after Deathknight?
Anyways, I’ll talk about Map01. Visually it is very appealing. The bigger cave area, which appears to be the connector to everything, is very cool. There is also enough ammo around and ofcourse tons of secrets.
But there’s just so many problems with it. You get the Grenade Launcher pretty early, which enables you to sequence break the entire thing pretty much. You won’t have enough ammo to defeat the map boss though.
Played normally I was missing the Nailgun. There was ammo for it everywhere but not the gun. You get a Super Nailgun a bit later.
There is some kind of arena encounter, but the enemies can’t get to you. They are stuck on that upper platform and start infighting pretty soon. Was the idea that they should jump down?
So you continue on and get to the boss. I guess the idea is to just back away and kill it from a distance, because theres no way to dodge around it. Or if you were lucky you found the Pent Powerup and can do some close range damaging until it runs out.
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Cool, I didn’t expect a warp zone to bypass the second map … but in the end I wouldn’t want to skip it. I found a shortcut as well in map 2 that let me exit the map pretty early (with 37/85 kills), but I just went back for more exploration. This was great anyway, I was able to take completely different paths from the first time I played it.
Just completed this again in Nightmare and it gave me a run for my money. I’m now exploring the last map to find the missing secret and I suspect possibly whole secret areas. Without reading Tronyn’s review I would not have noticed that the last map was visible from the first map (too busy trying to survive!). That was a great idea.
Fans of this ought to try “Something Wicked This Way Comes”.
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Nice fourth-wall breaking with the music switches. I missed one rune but was able to finish the level without cheats (!). Awesome pack. The last level has about everything in the right dose, including some creative, intricate progression that manages to feel different from most maps without being annoying.
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I’m replaying this yet again with secret hunting in mind, but unfortunately I’ve discovered the same shortcut as Lane Powell and have now locked myself out of the first part of the map (behind a door that needs two buttons to be opened, close to the gold key). As a result, I can still finish the map (I’ve already cleared the last room and every visible enemy in what I can still access), but I find myself taking completely different (and sometimes backwards) routes, including those that lead to secrets. I’ll have to replay this again because I probably won’t be able to complete more than 7/12, so let this be a warning to other secret hunters. Speedrunners could have fun with these numerous shortcuts (and probably already have), I’ve found a few and there are probably many others.
On a side note, I noted that some angles in the first map allow the player to get rid of even the toughest enemies without any reaction from them (I’m not saying which ones to avoid spoilers, those who’ve played the map will be able to guess).
I can’t get enough of this episode. Would be great to see an extension (map jam or otherwise), although it’s hard to imagine how to top the final level or how to keep going from there.
fmb fan: (spoiler)
… Vasya shkolnik is right, if you find the RL secret Mike Woodham alludes to, you can bypass the gold key door and then access another secret which will enable you to swim in lava to the rocky beach, allowing you to exit the map without fighting the Vermis.