WHO'S THAT POKEMON?
Next up, Dominique wants to take pictures of Miriam.
...Sexy pictures.
I'll be in my bunk.
This photo allows ::checks notes:: "OD" to make a fake ID for Miriam so she can vote / buy guns/cigarettes/alcohol. Who knew OD specialized in forging?
This gets me into the train station I couldn't get into before.
What follows is a pretty sweet train battle where Zangetsu helps out.
You can use his whip-chain as a stair, as well. I should probably do a playthrough of the game as him, but I think I played the hell out of this game already going for the Platinum and 100%.
Enemies here drop a rare costume-changing item that...WHERE IS MIRIAM'S HEAD
...er, that gives Miriam a bunny-girl costume.
::sigh::
::goes back to bunk::
For the next boss, I forged up a purple lightsaber.
That guy gives up a very unique special ability: The power to travel along lasers. This lets you zip through areas that you previously couldn't.
These green pixies are noteworthy because they sometimes drop Healing shards. It's advantageous to farm 9 of these here, because...
...the more you have, the more potent this regen spell is. It burns through MP, but with 9 shards (and a few ranks from upgrading it) it's a substantial dose of healing.
MP regens over time, HP doesn't, so with this ability you can always regen to full everything if you don't mind waiting a couple minutes.
What's behind this curtain?
...some naked lady who thirsts for blood. Some sort of Countess Bathory thing going on here.
She gets up and an outfit gets painted onto her body for the fight.
Gotta go, I'll be in my-
Bunk: "NO! ENOUGH! FINISH THE POST, DICK!"
Good fight here with the umbrella lady, but I've encountered one major annoyance about this game: Every time you cast a spell, buy anything, or forge anything, there's a dialogue line. So you hear these dialogue lines spammed constantly, especially during fights where I'm trying to keep the painting shield up. I wish they weren't so constant.
Large dragons start appearing towards the end of the game. These guys drop Void Ray shards, which is IMO the best range attack in the game. Just blast away with it and rack up damage.
Wait, is that Tony Khan? TK is a backer for this game??
Somehow I'm not surprised.
Gebel is the "final boss", but in actuality there's like 40% more of the game to go at this point. Have to defeat him with the right weapon and do a few things to make the game continue, or you can just slay him and "win".
The next phase of the game has you traveling through this blood pool to reach a bunch of new areas. Wonder how many people defeated Gebel and thought they were done, totally missing the last 40%. Hopefully not too many.
This underground desert is one of my favorite lategame areas.
There's also an underwater zone, with Gravity Suit esque powerups.
At this point, Miriam finds herself face to face with an exact clone of her. Despite the potentially endless three-way possibilities, she quickly dispatches the clone.
New power. Not that great, basically the shadow power from Ninja Gaiden 2. Except it drains MP while in use.
Lava zone! Yeah, the lategame areas look AWESOME. It really steps outside of its "SOTN Castle" comfort zone.
Beware of lava though. Miriam can get decimated in seconds by lava damage if enemies start knocking you in.
Found this thing. What a bizarre item. Gain like, one quarter more attack and lose ALL YOUR DEFENSE.
Next is this boss that walks on the ceiling. Defeat him and you get the power to...
...invert the entire game at will. That's right, you can turn the entire game map upside down. This lets you reach all kinds of out-of-reach things.
I find the Valkyrie Dress, one of the rare things that changes appearance. It's a white dress with higher-than-normal boots. It also makes Miriam's tattoos disappear, though you can't really see the results anyway due to the high boots.
However...
...equip the Kung-Fu Shoes (aka the weakest weapon in the game) and you get Miriam's legs in all their scrumptious glory. Too bad these shoes aren't that viable as a weapon at this point. Having a way to keep this as the default appearance would have been ideal.
Next up is a Japan-themed area with a Zangetsu rematch and lots of ninjas.
Speaking of rematches, after clearing way more game, you go back and rematch Gebel. This time with Zangetsu's sword.
This allows Miriam to SLASH THE MOON.
As good as that weapon is, the ultimate weapon that I'm going for is this bad boy. Requires some farming, but it's worth it. Basically the equivalent of Symphony of the Night's Crissaegrim.
Swings SUPER fast and can dish out many attacks per second. Can also be swung while in motion, making it ideal for clearing out rooms of enemies while beelining on through.
Lastly, we get this ice cave before a few final bosses.
The very last boss...is this monstrosity. Heard it was the toughest fight in the game, found it simple with the Crissaegrim equivalent.
Beating the game unlocks TONS OF STUFF. The boss rush is particularly fun, but unfortunately it's missing a bunch of fights. They went above and beyond to make sure this game had tons of replay value.
At this point I decide to go for the Platinum because this game is just too good to put down. This entails doing all the quests that I largely didn't bother with during the game. Funny thing is, this whole list takes like 15 minutes total now in the endgame.
I visit OD to get a book that speeds up the process of getting 100% on the map. It really fortifies the legs.
...not that they need it
While going for map completion, I stumble upon a secret area that is apparently a crossover with Journey. There's a secret boss here.
Winning gets you a scarf that looks like the ones from Journey, and you can see the mountain in the background. I did not expect to see something like this in this game. Been a long time since I played a game where it felt like anything was possible and I had no idea what I'd find next. Well, besides Elden Ring.
Right about now, though, I'm inclined to say this is my second-favorite game out of what I played this year, right behind that one.
Koji Igarashi himself, creator of Castlevania, is a secret uberboss if you go back to Gebel's room. He's debatably the hardest fight in the game, with a huge 9999 HP.
UNLEASH CRISSAEGRIM.
Defeating him gets you a whip that actually functions more like the whips of olde, with a long stabby motion instead of a curved slash.
One of the locked rooms isn't a secret boss or anything, it's this Cat Room where you can just sort of sit there and play with the music boxes in the room. Each one releases a different layer of a song, so opening all of them means the full song is playing.
So basically it's just a room of relaxation. That's a pretty novel concept in a way.
I find a completely optional Speed Booster type powerup that lets me zip all around the map. Amazing that this is completely missable. Most games would have this be a crucial component of the main quest. To just stumble upon it in the postgame is like...this game just heaps reward after reward on you.
I take the time to grind up to Level 99 fighting this one dragon over and over again. It's a pretty tedious process, and I only needed Level 50 for the platinum, but why not?
Level 99, 100% map completion...finishing the plat would take like another 8 hours though, due to the item collection trophy. That one is a whale.
I said that Igarashi is debatably the hardest fight, because there's one other that might be worse: OD.
Miriam never returned her library books, and he's pissed.
Jesus Christ dude!
This fight is nasty because he has a time stop power. Defeat him and you get it. It's situationally useful, like against one enemy that can insta-gib you. Overall, this was a pretty cheap uberboss, not as fun as IGA.
"Or perhaps you'd rather torture me? Go on, have your way with my body!"
Defeating him means you can now check out ALL of the library books at once, which is a huge stat boost.
I grind out fixing all of the meals, forging all the equipment...
...and finally get the Platinum after doing enough quests to get the last ring I needed.
Man, this game was incredibly enjoyable. I just wish it were twice as long, and I almost never wish that about any games. 35 hours altogether to get the plat.
Video time!
KOJI IGARASHI - The big bad uberboss himself.
BOSS RUSH - This was a lot of fun because you can largely steamroll the bosses with endgame weapons/abilities. It does adjust your level way down, however (from 99 to 30, in my case) and take away your healing items. The only tricky part is the last fight, Gremory.
THE PLAT - These videos are usually fun to put together. This game was SO GOOD that now I want to pull together all the recent-years Metroidvanias that I missed out on and see what other gems are out there.
Do Hollow Knight
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