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New Update: Episode 9: The Feather I feel this is self explanatory. We also grab some other odds and ends, activate an easter egg somewhere, but now the game's going to be much easier to approach. I say this after starting a new batch of recordings and getting dunked super hard at some points. Nalesh posted:Do you die if you don't have an lp running, wang? I swear there's always one going by you
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Dec 22, 2018 20:17
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Zoroastrianism facts: Zoroaster is also known as Zarathustra, Angra Mainyu is also known as Ahriman, Freddie Mercury was Zoroastrian. I found out today that this game got an update in November. Adds loading screen graphics, changes certain boss arenas (Ixtab no longer has the far left and right platforms), certain walls in Valhalla have bloodstains now, more visual effects when you damage bosses, but most importantly: Monsters have bestiary art now. 
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Dec 22, 2018 22:10
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Procrastine posted:Zoroastrianism facts: Zoroaster is also known as Zarathustra, Angra Mainyu is also known as Ahriman, Freddie Mercury was Zoroastrian. Isn't Ahriman also a thing in Final Fantasy Tactics? Also yeah, new update with all that content but also be careful since the update UNBINDS YOUR loving DPAD FOR SOME REASON. Next two updates are going to be clumsy as hell, enjoy.
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Dec 23, 2018 03:28
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Highwang posted:Isn't Ahriman also a thing in Final Fantasy Tactics? Ahriman(s) have been a thing in Final Fantasy since at latest the third one (the NES third one, not the one with Terra). I can't speak for the PS1 FFT but they're reasonably common eye monsters in Advance and A2. (FFXIV actually gave it the Angra Mainyu name back when it was a midboss for a 24-man back in... it would have been patch 2.5 I think. And yes, fans have called it Angry Mango.)
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Dec 23, 2018 07:09
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It's classic JRPG mythology theft. In Zoroastrianism, Angra Mainju/Ahriman is one of the two forces whose struggle defines the world - the evil one. Its good counterpart is Ahura Mazda/Ormazd.
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Dec 23, 2018 09:48
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Another thing the new update does, that is a lot less pleasant, is remove the only door out of the eternal prison accessible from Hel's grail point. If, after getting to the end, you don't ask Hel to send you out of the underworld so you can then grail back in without losing your everything, then you are stuck in there forever.
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Dec 23, 2018 13:11
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Glalev posted:If, after getting to the end, you don't ask Hel to send you out of the underworld so you can then grail back in without losing your everything, then you are stuck in there forever.
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Dec 29, 2018 06:46
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New Update: Episode 10: Takamagara Shrine Lot of poo poo down here that I can't pronounce, this area's fairly straightforward. We won't be able to get to, I want to say, a quarter of the area for now but we can do a surprising amount here for what we have at the moment. This area seems to love both breakable walls and crusher traps, so always be aware of your surroundings lest you become a Resident Evil 1 meme. I do like the mix of shintoism and feung shui in the design elements of this area, though I often also wonder why the obvious cultural references in the sequel rather than in the main game. Either way, this is an area that's surprisingly simple for what we've dealt with in the game. The backside though, hoo boy. We'll see that next time.
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Dec 29, 2018 18:54
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GameTrekker posted:...Doesn't that just mean you're stuck until you do that? Like, yeah, you're stuck forever if you don't solve the puzzle, but all you have to do is solve the puzzle (or beat the boss without all your items, I guess, but you can just try the puzzle again if she kills you). This was an easily skippable puzzle before, so the change makes sense to me. No I mean, do the 7 doors puzzle, get the grail point, kill Hel, none of this matters. If, after doing the puzzle and getting to Hel, you don't ask her to boot you out of the eternal prison, you can -never- leave in the current patch. Also, regarding chaos, he's Greco-Roman I think, he's the only thing/god there was at the start and all other things sprang from him, directly or indirectly. Glalev fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 21:18
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Your attempts at pronouncing Takamagahara were pretty much correct. Very smooth. On the other hand, you left the "ha" out of your video link there. Ajisukitakahikone, meanwhile, is pronounced almost exactly as it looks - it's almost all two-letter syllables, but the lone U is nearly silent. Sometimes that happens in Japanese, as it also does to the first I in the name of the woman who mentioned them.
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Dec 29, 2018 23:33
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Glalev posted:No I mean, do the 7 doors puzzle, get the grail point, kill Hel, none of this matters. If, after doing the puzzle and getting to Hel, you don't ask her to boot you out of the eternal prison, you can -never- leave in the current patch.
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Dec 30, 2018 01:49
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I'm playing this game now that the controller problems have been patched. I found the beginning all a bit easy and obvious but now I'm in some of the mid areas and things are beginning to get tough. That one miniboss with the gallows in Annfwyn creeped me out, the sound of the rope...
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Dec 30, 2018 05:32
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New Update: Episode 11: Ancient Chaos Man, I like this level a lot. It sets up a fair bit of puzzles later on, but nothing is so plainly esoteric out here. This level is your videogame-rear end videogame level, with challenging platforming and strange puzzles forcing you to think on the fly as dozens of enemies just overwhelm you in the process. It also doesn't help that I haven't re-bound my Dpad yet, so a lot of the jumps are awkward and sloppy, but even then this area is actually quite manageable if you're aware of its dirty tricks and enemy patrols. The big key here is the Wind Mantra, one that we'll be using for many different ends, but ultimately I need it for my next prize. Aside from that, we meet a couple weirdo NPC's and get dunked in the iconic POISON LAVA. Hope you all enjoy. Next time, it's hell. No not that Hell, but its a hell.
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Jan 5, 2019 20:13
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https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kawarimi apparently the ninja-log thing is as old as ninja themselves. Or at least as old as stories about ninja. Probably relates to techniques as "mystical" as shoving a bundle of straw through the door to draw out an ambush. E: actually everything else googling that term is Naruto, so I may have been misled by anime BS presented as a normal word. Bruceski fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jan 5, 2019 |
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Jan 5, 2019 21:08
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Bruceski posted:E: actually everything else googling that term is Naruto, so I may have been misled by anime BS presented as a normal word.
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Jan 5, 2019 21:54
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About the Wall of Silence, which is also a fantastic name: The tablet referring to that room says "The nine eyes will tolerate standing before the object of your desires, and nothing more", or something to that effect.
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Jan 5, 2019 22:10
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New Update: Episode 12: The Vampire Killer It's actually the Flail Whip, but I saw Castlevania S2 recently and can't get it out of my head. The main attraction today is the underworld, the genuinely hardest level in the game that you will visit MULTIPLE times. The emphasis on verticality, slippery surfaces and cheap deaths really make it a memorable place of just mercilessly killing you if you don't memorize the ins and outs of the area. The big puzzle for this area is the gate system, which we won't be solving for a hot while since we'll be missing a critical element of the puzzle for a few episodes. Aside from that, it's really just a place where your mastery of the controls alongside your ability to process clues is tested in avoiding many cheap deaths. Doppleganger was the first midboss for this area, but it's more of a gimmick fight. I remember hearing way back on release that homing shot is necessary here, but I never had to use it. As mentioned in the video, the trick with this is simply to duck when using Mjolnir and the lightning will 100% guaranteed hit Doppleganger. I believe the residents of Takamagahara give you clues to use lightning against it, but its generally unreliable unless you use the mentioned technique. Finally, Chain Whip. I'm genuinely curious if we could've gotten this earlier. From what I can tell, we need to kill the bosses for the Djed Pillar, Behelit and Mjolnir, and from there we don't even need the double jump iirc. It feels pretty well placed though, getting the best weapon mid-way through the game emphasizes the thought of gear only getting you so far. But hey, we got the good poo poo, now I just have to figure out where I'm going next.
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Jan 14, 2019 01:56
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We have become the new Belmont.
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Jan 14, 2019 05:27
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Aaand this is the part that I said earlier I was gonna talk about. So, this entrance into the Underworld... I love the lore behind why it exists. I won't explain it fully here because of spoilers, but basically the Corridor of Blood is an alien invention that connects the ruins in ways it's not supposed to be connected. This means that Lumisa is effectively using a cheating device to get to places in an unintended way (which relatedly explains why the main puzzle of the Underworld, the gates, cannot be solved from that entrance). Fun fact: The Underworld can actually be accessed from any Corridor of Blood entrance; the required orientation of the corridor is just different in each area. As I mentioned in a previous post, I can't say I truly solved this puzzle myself. I did find the solution, but it was kind of dumb how I did. Basically I just figured that the blockade that can appear at the end of the Corridor of Blood MUST be important, so I went through all of the dialogues and tablets that I had recorded, found every instance of instructions for mantra use, and tried each one until one combination worked. I felt like a dummy once I found myself in the Eternal Prison and realized why it had worked. GameTrekker fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Jan 18, 2019 |
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Jan 18, 2019 08:21
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New Update: Episode 13: Dark Star Lord's Mausoleum For how confounding this level is, there's not a lot to unpack here. The big gimmick here is learning about the two not-Egypt factions' story and learning about it as you go. This can only work if you had talked to, I believe, just Horus in the Gate of the Dead. Once that happens, Ra goes on his rampage of eating all the big players in the Gate of the Dead, then fuses with the Sun Disc Aten to become effectively a hyper-weapon. Essentially, this makes this one of the easiest anks to unlock next to Annwfn, however if you blitz through the game like me you kinda forget that after 4-5 deaths. The rest of the level though is a simple run-through. We're still technically not done yet since we have to do the path above where the Corridor of Blood is, alongside the Dark Star Lord's pyramid, but we've kinda done everything else of import here just through happenstance. I do like the use of the Thor Hammer here though, makes the level feel like it opens up when you casually go through, then go through again with the hammer and everything else. That being said, that's our 5th boss beaten. We're not going to do the 5-soul gates quite yet though, since we have a new area to check out next time!
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Jan 20, 2019 03:07
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Aten-Ra is definitely one of the better bosses in this game, and one of the least rehash-feeling ones. What was that orange glowing pattern you edited into the summoning sequence? e: v Ohhhh that's cool. Thanks! AweStriker fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Jan 20, 2019 |
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Jan 20, 2019 20:41
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AweStriker posted:Aten-Ra is definitely one of the better bosses in this game, and one of the least rehash-feeling ones. It was added in a patch, it's a picture of Aten-Ra, all the ankh bosses have one now but the previous ones were fought before the patch.
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Jan 20, 2019 21:51
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New Update- Episode 14: Heaven's Labyrinth So after reviewing the footage and spotting a few spoken errors: Greek Mythology mostly. I'm not sure about Gysala-Labolas and Scylla. Heaven's Labyrinth is neat but also a bit brief imo. The main gimmick of the area is the Heaven's Disc, which is used to change 4 specific room configurations in order to access parts of the level. This sounds miserable, but each room is easily accessed from the Holy Grail tablet so it never feels like a chore to get to places. This area also has a vague sense of the Dimensional Corridor in that you have to beat four bosses to progress, however the actual D. Corridor allegory comes soon after this level. Aside from that, there's really not much else here. Technically our "last" Health upgrade is here, but it's nowhere near as bad as the first game and I feel like you can get it super early as well. The axe here, but man that's a disappointment. You also get the MSX3+ here, which is actually substantial, so routing to this area can be super pivotal in some circumstances. I dunno, this area felt a little lacking compared to the other areas. The unfortunate bit is that we're going to require the fairies right soon, and I don't have the money at all to grab them. That's the current elephant in the room I'll have to grind down. In the meantime, I was recently introduced to this video and now I kinda wish it was canon in the La-Mulana verse also lies the Mystery Machine.
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Feb 3, 2019 23:47
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... Were those giant number sigils always there on the walls of Heaven's Labyrinth? Because I don't remember them being there at all.
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Feb 4, 2019 03:10
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Both of the 3rd Children's areas have good music, really. I prefer the first Hall of Malice theme to the second, though; Moonlight Daze is a pretty chill track.
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Feb 5, 2019 21:59
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>Last post: February 3rd. poo poo, really? New Update: Episode 15: Wang-Luck Fairy Today we do an assorted bag of random puzzles, but the end goal for me today was unlocking Alirune, the fairy that manipulates probabi-It's the loving Item Find fairy. Since La-Mulana 2 has more memory and puzzles, naturally we're going to need a lot more money. Alirune's good for that, since you will get at least 5 gold roughly 90% of the time from basically anything you open or break. I've yet to read up on the cash money box strats for this game, but I'd imagine they're way better with Alirune as well. She is by and far the most important fairy in the game in terms of funding this operation. Plus, she's super cute. The first thing we endeavor toward is the Golden Rock puzzle, which is step one of three for unlocking a boss. This puzzle is infamous for being in the Kickstarter demo, since it was just a trap with no prize at the end, and it looked hella weird and suspicious. Now it's a puzzle that holds the Pyramid Crystal. I don't know how to feel about this one, mainly because it feels like a loving boulder that drops to the ground should have some form of permanence, and using the holy grail to warp out is a great way to teach new players how to get out of danger without dealing with a game over. Either way, just outrun it with the rapier or knife to break the wall and you'll be good. I don't know personally if the earth mantra is required or not, because I beat this on the 1.0 patch where the holy grail WAS the correct answer, and this time I didn't need it at all. The second endeavor we worked toward was fighting Ammit, a sneaky midboss and apparently some kinda Egyptian deity that a League of Legends character was based off? Either way, the midboss is simple but he unlocks two things: Killing him gets you the Vessel, which is necessary to beat the game but also has a 2nd purpose now which is entirely rad, but also he unlocks the Scales room back at the mantra wall in Dark Star Lord's Mausoleum. The Scales puzzle is easy once you realize what they want, but it's worded in a way that's a little misleading. Simply put, an innocent soul has no weight, and Anubis will judge you against Maat's Feather, which you get for solving the puzzle. The next puzzle we solve is a blind jumping puzzle. I hate this. It's especially unfun since you technically can recover and attempt the puzzle again without leaving the Underworld, but you have to fight against both the swimming physics of lava and the extra weight of the clay suit if you have it. The puzzle is also obfuscated by a false wall, and your only hint would be an upgrade way later in the game that shows you where the crystal skulls on the map are. Finally, and this is the loving kicker, they key to opening the prize after your jump maze is hidden behind ANOTHER HIDDEN WALL in the well of a dead-drop you use to enter the room. It all sucks, I hate it, and I don't blame you for looking up a guide for this. Finally, we have Anubis' puzzles that guard Osiris. These are the equivalent of the three puzzles from Gate of Confusion back in the day, and I personally find them super fun. It requires a little bit of weird logic and some sharp eyes, but each tablet clearly spells out the clues needed to open the gate, and all the puzzles take place within about 4 rooms of Anubis' hut so it's all done relatively quickly. After being mondo rude to Osiris after all this, he gives you the Light Scythe, which I believe we were asked about in episode 6 by Surtr's Wife? This is the key to fighting Surtr, that's it really. Least the puzzles were fun. Also, plot. I really wish they did something like this more, cause it's a great break in the pace of the game. It's also nice to see how the past characters, namely all the philosophers (yes her too), have evolved since the events of the first game. Maybe if this game get's a third game, we'll see a little bit more of these scenes. Next time, episode's kinda long because I do a LOT of shopping and a lot of guardian killing.
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Mar 19, 2019 00:54
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Episode 16: Anu & Surtr Episode 17: The Brahma Puzzle Forgot to update the thread last time due to VEGAS giving me hell again. We got a menagerie of puzzles and boss solutions that are explained thoroughly, barring one. The Brahma puzzle is something I'm not 100% on, mainly due to the circumstances of how I first solved it. All the information, when compiled, has the puzzle make sense for the most part until you have to start combining colors. When I first played this game in 1.0 hard mode, the colors didn't match at all with the notes, and thus I had to basically rely on others to contextualize the puzzle for me. I honestly can't say for sure if that's changed, but going through this again the colors still don't exactly match what's provided on all the tablets for me. Either way, this puzzle is loving nuts with how much you need for it. The beauty of this all though is that once you finally solve the puzzle and get your prize, its absolutely not needed to beat the game. All you get is information for one puzzle, so on all subsequent playthroughs you can freely skip this puzzle and just do what's necessary. I do like how the game conveys all the clues necessary however, namely "Where is this?"
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Apr 9, 2019 00:04
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FWIW, the bottomless pit at Surtr wasn't a hardmode thing: it was originally present in Normal as well but they replaced it with lava in a patch. No idea if it's still there on Hard now, but it looks like the change helped a lot towards having the fight not entirely based on RNG.
anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Apr 9, 2019 |
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Apr 9, 2019 09:55
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The brahma puzzle does have logic to it that doesn't require color theory and isn't that bad, but the sheer amount of information and how hard it is to figure out what is and isn't a part of that pool of lore you need to figure it all out makes it difficult to figure out without someone explaining, or having done it before when you read all the lore with new eyes. I could make a write up explaining how every step of the process is meant to be figured out if anyone cares but, otherwise, I'm just going to save myself and everyone else the wall of text. -Edit- Also, I love the 'where is this?' tablet so much. If you have the race scanner on, you can see it was written by an Olympian (the people in the divine labyrinth). So, to me, it feels like an Olympian flew up the hole in the twins room, ended up Takamagahara, was spectacularly confused and left a 'where is this!?' note. Glalev fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Apr 9, 2019 |
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Apr 9, 2019 13:55
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Episode 18: Hall of Malice Hey, its Dimensional Corridor! Again. Luckily you can't get locked out of the Angel Shield like you can in the first game, however some of the bosses here are just a plain chore. Greek historians will love this level though, since its straight up a love letter to the old mythos. Miracle Witch is hidden here, though I often wonder how useful it is now since you can easily figure out when you're going to get a fairy, and the payoff for faerie software combos isn't as impactful here. The big unlock however is the Nemean Fur, and oh boy if you never liked the Chain Whip puzzle in the first game you'll hate this because it's WAY worse imo. Outside of that, its just a standard boss rush that we effectively breeze through since the Flail Whip is disgusting now. The Echidna boss fight left me wanting, mainly because when I first played this on hard mode it had that sweet 4th phase that looked visually interesting and had a variance in gameplay. Normal mode feels a bit wanting, with her hitbox hovering just out of range a bunch of times and her guns easily plinking away at you just to shove you out of the way. It's really an uninspired boss fight, right down to the introduction. Next time though, a cooler zone!
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Apr 15, 2019 23:52
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IIRC someone in the other LP theorized that the form you start fighting Echidna in is not determined by difficulty but the amount of time you spent in the game; I kinda believe that because I only ever played at Normal and never seen the baby form before LPs got there. But maybe there was another patch change. Agree on the boss being boring. Most of this game's bosses thematically try to copy La-Mulana 1's but this is the only one that really feels like a ripoff.
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Apr 16, 2019 08:04
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The Nemean Fur challenge is probably easier if you use the Lamp of Time. As for the 9-star door... A Tablet posted:The way into a child's heart is a mother's heart. Offhand I'm pretty sure that shaft is towards the center of the Hall of Malice - and like Heaven's Labyrinth is the "infernal beast" and Takamagahara Shrine is the "dragon", the Hall of Malice's map image is supposed to be Echidna, a sort of Mother clone. The other end of that door is, as I don't remember whether it's been on screen, is the center of a much bigger child: Eg-Lana itself.
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Apr 16, 2019 09:34
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AweStriker posted:The Nemean Fur challenge is probably easier if you use the Lamp of Time. Wow, I'm hella stupid. This seems more prone to violent death-restarts though.
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Apr 16, 2019 23:58
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You could try stopping time sooner and jumping up to it, for comfort. Of course that's what the spikes are for...
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Apr 17, 2019 07:37
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Episode 19: Hel Cutting room floor note: This all was one take. No editing period. Eternal Prison's pretty sinister. Even if you know all the puzzles and poo poo, you still have to go here like 4-5 times for other puzzles, and first time players will more than likely get hung up on trying to "solve the area" first and be here for hours. And even when you know absolutely everything, the platforming is the absolute worst with stuff like pixel-thin landings to avoid spikes, hidden ceiling spikes, and so many long climbs blocked by the Lucifers. The main gimmick of this level is the gates puzzle. The moment you leave, you have a thing taken from you. An NPC early on gives you the password necessary by merit of telling you what you'll lose with each gate you take. An absolute necessity here is the Bronze Mirror, which will tell you which gates are real, which are exits out (which are needed), and which will take you to [DOPPLEGANGER] for the Death Rune. What the game intends you to do is find the icons of the Caretakers across various areas of the game, record those icons for use here, and identify the route. That sounds like a lot of homework. I personally find it easier to figure out what you can't do as you lose each item in hand, then route out the path left. It feels more like a programming puzzle then, and I feel its a lot faster and without prepwork. The worst part though is that even if you solve the puzzle, you can't complete it without beating Hraesvelger, which as alluded to clues found across the game, is both disguised as Ratatoskr and is holding a gate hostage. We're technically cheating here since we haven't shown off the password for sealing Ratatoskr away, but the moon rune seals wherever he's been at in Eg-Lana, restricting him to his Hraesvelger form. Shame his boss fight sucks. Once you solve the gate puzzles, unlock the grail point, and warp out to get your stuff, THEN you can finally fight Hel. Her boss fight rules, from a mechanical and a presentation stand point. You really have to experience it yourself to understand how dope it is after the misery of Eternal Prison. I do like how she also can be talked to beforehand, and that there's a gag death for it. Now all I have to do is start Ragnarok. Which is...tricky given how liberal I've been with pathing this game. We're still missing 3 mantras and various other perks. I'll figure something out though.
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Apr 23, 2019 00:33
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I hit the wall super hard playing this on release so I am super glad to have found this excellent LP so I can see the rest of the game. There's a couple of neat things I haven't seen mentioned yet, but I'm not all the way caught up to the lastest episode so I'll at least wait until then to post about them - but notably, I remember getting to Balor through the reverse path because there's a second method to pass through the instakill laser. I didn't even realise my path wasn't the intended path until seeing you do it right. e: I caught up and I love the tidbits of historical context, this game runs so thick with it. Even though Roots is so linear, afterwards is really open-ended like LM1 and there are some alternate clues to some of the more confusing puzzles in the game ("Where is this?" is helped by a software you skipped in the early game). One minor thing I'm confused about, and my save is long gone so I can't check - I swear I never read the Hard Mode tablet twice, but does reading it just once do something? I don't think I activated hard mode, but I remember Anu being way more of a nailbiter of a fight. Maybe I was just bad? Sorry if I'm rambling, but this game makes my brain tick in ways that nothing else quite does. I love it so much, even if 2 ended up being too much for me. pray for my aunt fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Apr 24, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 15:20
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... Because of this LP, I found out my playthrough of this game was somehow on hard mode despite me never reading the relevant tablet. 
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Apr 29, 2019 09:16
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Thanks for the great LP, and I'm looking forward to it! Going through your first La Mulana LP right now so I have a bit of a buffer (plus I might get all the references to the previous game in this one).
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Apr 30, 2019 13:44
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I realised my earlier rambling post wasn't going to cure me, so I started fresh and beat La Mulana 2, so shout outs for inspiring me to do that and for your Hel video for being easy to scrub through for the gate order. It's weird how they keep flip-flopping on boss difficulty and area design between patches. I think right now you can't get the katana before Jorgunmand (sigils don't seem to exist in flipped rooms) and Sekhmet without the ladders is very close to being a straight up gear check.
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May 7, 2019 06:15
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