As Carol and Milla head into the inner depths of the Red Scarves' headquarters as the Trap Hideout stage, Lilac decides to take matters into her own hands and storms Thermal Base. You might have recalled a difficulty spike in Sky Battalion, which happens to be the first stage set in a place run by hostile forces. Thermal Base, the first stage in Lord Brevon's territory, wouldlogically represent another difficulty spike, and you can see it in how I was struggling here, even as the most beginner-friendly character.
Thermal Base is located in the Jade Creek region and is some sort of factory or power plant, most of which is located underwater. Our first region takes Lilac through a series of corridors, as well as ultra-hot machinery further below. Gimmicks combine with obstacles more than ever here as you have features that can both help and hurt. The most notable type is the platform that rises up and down, which move through jet propulsion--and unlike the long, thin platforms in Trap Hideout, the exhaust for this is harmful, making it quite tricky to get across. I'm actually pretty surprised this doesn't come up in more platformers, frankly. We also have pillars that pop out of the ground and ceiling and move leftward, again via fiery exhaust that can be harmful. I struggled with these a lot too. Other ones that fall clearly into "helpful" or "harmful" include piston-like platforms, lifts that take your character up or down, land mines on the floor, key cards you must find somewhere and take to a terminal to open doors (all except one are required to proceed, but more on that when I get to the next video and to this stage's Gallery Card Montage), burner flames, streams of molten metal that pour out of tubes at regular intervals, and large spinning wheels with four evenly spaced platforms on their outer rims.
Enemies here are the toughest bunch yet and are all clearly robotic. Shade Troopers, which you saw at the end boss in Jade Creek, return here as common enemies, and there are floating clam-like enemies that shoot lasers. Both of these have unlimited range as far as pursuing you go and will travel as far as they are physically able to (including up to the mid-boss). Other enemies include some abstract bracket-like flying enemies that dash left or right, fire a laser from the top, then one from the bottom, and dash elsewhere again, which can be MORE troublesome than the Shade Troopers as they're placed in low-ceiling passageways that require you dodge them both; and crouching enemies that shoot projectiles up and down that ignore waves of flames on the whole floor and ceiling alternatingly.
Thermal Base 2 will throw in even more gimmicks, obstacles, and enemies, but I'll explain those in the next video.
There are three MEANIE bosses here, all of them controlled by Syntax, who seems to be the primary defender of Thermal Base, though she directly takes on your character only at the end of this red half of Thermal Base. She also seems to be channeling GLaDOS by throwing cruel jokes at you (which she'll continue to do in the second purple half).
The first two are somewhat autonomous and guard key cards: The first is a centipede-like robot whose glowing lights on its back you must take out, and after that the head goes down in one hit. Its only means of damage is the taser at the tip of its tail, and it never directly goes after you, making it a pretty easy machine to destroy. The second is a squid-like robot that fires energy blasts from the fins on its head. Each time it shoots one, it's propelled in the opposite direction, which I discovered mid-fight means the Dragon Cyclone will only get Lilac hurt. It'll drop the key card inside it after enough hits, upon which it'll attack faster. You can leave, but you can also destroy it for a lot of blue crystals.
When Syntax fights directly, she'll take the form of a large robot bug. It has only one means of attack, but it can be tough due to the very short cues and the high damage it can inflict if you get caught in it, which is to control horizontal streams of molten metal from one of her pincers. She will crawl to a spiked floor on one side, suck in a stream of the glowing red stuff, and either shoot it back out immediately or crawl to the other side to shoot it out. Once the bug form has been destroyed, Syntax will tether herself to the walls, then travel to one side, pick up eight spikes, and shoot them at various angles. This form does not have a lot of hits but can be dangerous as she does not leave herself unguarded for long. Once she's damaged enough to retreat, though, she'll turn on the molten flow, flooding the corridor where this boss battle was set. Once your character runs away (or zooms off if it's Carol) and finds a safe spot, she can open a door with a key card and head to the purple sector of Thermal Base.
19 май 2017
