Transcript

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the Gaming Backlog Book club. We are here to chat about Prince of Persia, the lost crown up through acquiring all of the Guardians and just a little bit past that so that we have a way to move up more easily.

Reminder, we do go into spoilers here and there, so if you want to avoid that, start at a previous episode, play along and come back to this one once you’re caught up.

Okay, so the Pit of Eternal Sands.

[00:00:28] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:00:28] Speaker A: What a unique way to add something new to Traversal. Combining both the sand pillars with the time shifting.

[00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:00:36] Speaker A: And you know, the sand pillars are funny because the animation doesn’t show Sargon getting a foothold or anything. He kind of just shrugs and swims up and air boosts. It’s a little odd, but very much appreciate something more than just standard. Climbing up vines and jumping on platforms.

Spices things up a little bit.

[00:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it does.

It makes it. Yeah. And it gets a little tricky.

[00:01:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So there’s some points where you gotta really watch where you’re going. There’s spikes in the way and all that.

I did like the Sand Warrior enemies early on in this area. I feel like it’s such a cool implementation and character design how they move in reverse and they can throw their spears backwards, basically hit you in the back of the head, all that kind of thing.

It’s nice to see someone else using our time abilities against us.

It was a little annoying.

[00:01:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Yeah, it was a little annoying, but I don’t know. I think I was slightly upgraded enough that they weren’t too bad to take on.

[00:01:46] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.

And you, fairly quickly, you come up on another alternate Sargon. I’m assuming you found this one. Yes.

And you know, at this point, I think we’ve, after the first and a little bit of the second, kind of really figured out his whole deal since he’s us. So I haven’t really had much trouble after the first two with the alternate Sargons, but I, you know, it’s nice to have another way to get another Athrasurge. And this guy gives you the type of God mode in many other games where you just become nigh on invincible for a while and extra powerful.

Yep, it’s. It’s fun enough to try out, but I’ve seen this concept elsewhere, so I didn’t plan on using it as much unless I was struggling with something.

But then I realized that his.

This, this after surge actually gives you a kind of teleport dash too. So I used it more than I thought.

[00:02:39] Speaker B: Well, okay, you have. I don’t think I’ve used it yet.

[00:02:41] Speaker A: I’ve been trying. I use it a little bit. I mean. Yeah, it just makes you stronger, a little bit higher defense, and then you can kind of really zip around the fight when you’re dashing, so.

[00:02:50] Speaker B: Oh, okay.

[00:02:51] Speaker A: I enjoyed it enough. I was swapping it in and out here and there.

Used it at least on one of the bosses, I believe, so.

[00:02:58] Speaker B: It was cool.

[00:03:00] Speaker A: Variety is the spice of life, right? So it was good to try something else out.

[00:03:05] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.

[00:03:07] Speaker A: As you continue to explore through here, you can find an enormous tooth of Aishtaha, which is what it was called.

And then you find the stele that tells about Aishtaha, which is typically the. Or no, definitely what the darkest of souls is. That’s been referred to before.

The fact that they set the stage here of the eternal sands and all the sand flowing in the pillars and everywhere else down in this area that they are all the individual infinite universes or grains of sand that the Simurgh used to defeat Azhdaha.

Yet again, doing a really great job of bringing in the mythology and having a purpose behind the level design beyond. Just sandy ruins look cool.

[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah, Sandy ruins look cool. Here’s just pillars of sand to travel.

[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I feel like. And, you know, not even just getting beyond Metroidvanias, but it seems like so many games just design a level around looking cool, which.

[00:04:05] Speaker B: Great.

[00:04:05] Speaker A: Totally appreciate it. If it looks good, it looks good. But I super appreciate this kind of extra layer of context built into it. And they just tell you it too, right? You don’t.

And I appreciate. And. And I feel like I mention souls games in pretty much every episode of this podcast, which is kind of annoying, I’m sure, but they do a very good job at the contextual environmental level design that doesn’t tell you anything at all, and you have to infer everything, and I like that too. But this is perfect because it kind of lets you just flow along with the story and really kind of embrace it.

[00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it does.

[00:04:39] Speaker A: This is also, like, this level of detail that this bit of lore gives you around all the sand and the Azhdaha is a reminder of why I love ancient mythology so much. You know, the. The gods and myths were all just people’s ways of explaining the mysteries of the world they lived in. Like, even just things as simple as the weather, since science was hardly a thing, or at least hardly understood.

And it simultaneously highlights the creativity humanity can have as well, as well as the wild imaginations that can influence that creativity. So I love mythology.

It kind of has a weird context in the modern world based on, you know, the fact that we do have science and can explain things and yet people still believe some unusual things, but.

[00:05:28] Speaker B: Very true. Very true.

[00:05:30] Speaker A: Everyone can do as they wish.

[00:05:32] Speaker B: Yes, they can. Yeah.

[00:05:36] Speaker A: Now, the snake enemies with spears were interesting. Once I got strong enough, you kind of just wipe them out. But the attack variety was.

Caught me off guard a number of times.

[00:05:52] Speaker B: Mm.

Yeah, they caught me off guard a couple times.

Yeah. Popping out of the sand.

[00:06:02] Speaker A: Popping out of the sand. Yeah.

And they’re kind of tough.

[00:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:06:10] Speaker A: I think that the. The one thing that kind of has got me here is that a lot of the flying enemies, and this is obviously not a flying enemy, but when it jumps out of the stand, it kind of stand. It lingers there for a bit.

But what kind of gets me about all these flying enemies is that they. They happen to move right when you jump up. And there’s not enough.

There’s not enough jump attack variety because it’s only like an upward swipe. Or if you’re high enough, you can go sideways and get them into a combo. But.

Or shoot an arrow at him. But like, I don’t know. I wanted a bit more mobility once in the air, which I didn’t feel like there is here.

[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I totally agree. You’re totally right. There’s many times where I jump up to hit an enemy and they’re like

[00:06:54] Speaker A: right there, they’re just like sway out of the way.

[00:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah, they just sway a little bit and then you can’t do another jump. Or what are you using?

[00:07:04] Speaker A: Which is.

Yeah, like, I don’t know. I mean, you. And then you jump again and then you move out of the way again. And so you’re just kind of like wasting time basically. And they’re not really. They either. They attack you a second afterwards and you have no way to dodge it because you’ve already double jumped. Like blah, blah, blah.

I don’t know, like arrows are cool and all, but give me some better jump attacks. This is also why I had the Athra search that does that vertical upward swipe with both swords.

Almost always equipped. At least when I was exploring. Not necessarily in boss fights, but super useful exploring because it’s just one way to get rid of these. Especially like those mages too. Man, I can’t stand those guys.

[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:07:41] Speaker A: Or the gin. The jinn too. The one that steals. Steals most of your health part.

Just leave me alone.

So just instant wipeout whenever it’s possible.

And also, what. What’s with the random flying spikes?

You know how there’s some parts of this eternal sands where you just like doing things or jumping around, there’s no enemy in sight, but then just. Oh, you know, a spike materializes out of thin air and flies at you?

[00:08:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

[00:08:15] Speaker A: You have to be.

[00:08:15] Speaker B: Yeah, A lot of them I was able to parry, but sometimes they came quick and I was not able to.

[00:08:21] Speaker A: It’s convenient to have a free Perry heal with the right amulet on which I pretty much my. My exploration build of amulets is almost always everything parry related and healing rated. But. But you always have to be on your toes because of these weird floating spikes.

And you know, when you’re midair, you can still parry, which is nice, but it’s harder to time it, right?

Yeah, yeah, it is. But also, I mean, unless it’s related to Aztaha, I didn’t really understand why it was happening.

That’s one piece of lore I would have appreciated a bit more. Like, just tell me why there’s a spike flying in my face from. From nothing.

[00:09:03] Speaker B: From nothing. Yeah, yeah, I remember that happened. And I like turned, changed the view to see. Like, is there something hidden that I could see if I.

Oh, yeah, by

[00:09:15] Speaker A: moving the right stick around. Yeah. Nope. Nothing at all. Nope. Nothing. Yeah, I was expecting like a djinn or something or you know, a gin with a new ability or something like it that can.

No, no, no.

Anyway, they. You come up on the old man and the fact that he and all the Steli tablets around say that no mortal has ever entered the right. The bit of the pit. Are you saying, old man, that maybe, just maybe we’re an immortal?

Bad jokes. Maybe we are part of the immortals? I still don’t necessarily understand what that even that title even means. I guess it’s just the name of the little army you’ve got.

Man, that breakup is a little unfortunate because it was a good team.

[00:10:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it was.

[00:10:09] Speaker A: And you get to the bottom of the pit near the wakwak tree and homa statue, and. Oh, joy, another seal to unlock.

Didn’t we just go through this?

Silver lining. I guess it’s only two unlocks this time. I suppose.

Did you go left or right first, if you remember.

[00:10:33] Speaker B: Oh, I do not remember.

I want to say.

[00:10:38] Speaker A: Okay, I can tell you which direction it was based on.

Which one? Did you go to the centipedes first or the.

What was the other section? Actually, I think it was just more spikes. Maybe I’m wrong.

[00:10:59] Speaker B: I think I Did the spikes first? I don’t think I did the centipedes first.

[00:11:02] Speaker A: Oh, no, sorry. It was not spikes. Sorry. Centipedes. Or the giant slamming snake rock platform things.

[00:11:09] Speaker B: Snake rock platform. Wow.

[00:11:11] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, if you. If you jump in front of the red circle on the wall.

[00:11:14] Speaker B: Oh, yes.

[00:11:15] Speaker A: No, no, not. Not the red circle. Maybe it is those same things. Those are the ones from the sacred archives. The snake ones are the ones where you see a giant, like, indent in the wall, and then they’ll shoot out at you. Yeah. You went that way first.

[00:11:27] Speaker B: I went that way first.

[00:11:28] Speaker A: All right. I did the opposite. I went left to the centipedes.

I really enjoyed the slamming snake rock platform environmental puzzles in that eastern path after I realized and got smashed to oblivion multiple times.

[00:11:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[00:11:46] Speaker A: But it was. I mean, it’s kind of, as a platforming challenge, a lot of fun, like, once you realize what you got to do and obviously you get, like, one.

One portion of the puzzle further every time before getting smashed again. So you just keep, like, acquiring knowledge and of what kind of jump or dash you need to do at what moment, and then eventually get to the end.

Yeah, but it was. It was fun. Did you pick up the legend from the Pit Lore tablet that you have to read backwards?

[00:12:18] Speaker B: I think so. I’m not going to lie. I’m pretty sure, yes. I probably picked it up. But. But I usually, like. I don’t read them, like, instantly there. I usually read them after. And I think I like to go through.

[00:12:29] Speaker A: I usually just. I hate notifications, so when I open the menu and see them there, I’m just like, all right, I’m going to read this thing.

[00:12:35] Speaker B: Yeah,

[00:12:37] Speaker A: yeah. It’s at the bottom of one of the sand pillars, kind of in an unusual place. It mostly just tells you what you already know from other spots, but, you know, nice to know that someone is taking the time reversal seriously around here.

[00:12:48] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:12:52] Speaker A: And okay, you. You go through that. You go through the centipedes. The centipedes, you know, they don’t actually actively attack you. They’re just kind of in the way and knock you off of the sand pillar.

[00:13:03] Speaker B: Yeah, they’re just. Yeah, they’re just in the way. You just have to time it.

[00:13:07] Speaker A: Yeah, you just gotta time it. They help you clear the path a little bit.

But, you know, it’s nice that it was two different types of puzzle, like environmental puzzles, and not just doing the same thing twice in two different areas.

[00:13:18] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:13:19] Speaker A: And, yeah. So you unlock the seal, and once you drop into Azhdaha’s Pit. There’s a boss fight, of course.

[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:13:28] Speaker A: And a very fun one at that, if you ask me.

[00:13:31] Speaker B: Yeah, this one was. Yeah, this one was a lot of fun.

Yeah, I enjoyed this. I was able to.

I don’t know how many tries. Probably took me maybe three or four tries, but once you kind of got the skill set and figured it out, it wasn’t. I was able to dodge.

[00:13:49] Speaker A: I actually somehow beat this first try, but I was a little shocked by it once I realized the yellow parryable attack baits you first with the eye glint to hit the parry, which a lot of the times when I see that eye glint, I panic, parry, and then I get hit by it because I’m too fast.

But once I. I figured it out that the. That baits you to parry, you know, you just don’t do it. And then it sweeps the tail before the actual blockable one that you do in midair.

I was able to get a few of those large chunks of his health down. And then my. I. You know, whenever I explore, I have the overhead Athra surge, so I use that.

I always have it equipped, but it came in extra handy this time, considering you can only do damage to the head of Azhdaha, the giant snake. And half the time, it’s in midair, not on the ground. So that plus my usual parry build amulets for healing and whatnot. I only had to use one potion when I got a little too careless and a few times. And since we just acquired multiple new abilities on the way here, I had to figure that using them specifically would be a part of this boss. So the dimensional claw for the dropping red wall bombs, which.

Where’s a snake getting bombs from? Okay.

[00:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn’t think about that. I just was like, I’ll take the little bit of damage.

[00:15:10] Speaker A: Oh, you just tanked it through.

[00:15:12] Speaker B: Okay. Shield it. Yeah.

[00:15:13] Speaker A: Also a reasonable approach, but, yeah, there’s really no. You can’t jump high enough.

[00:15:17] Speaker B: No.

[00:15:17] Speaker A: And I think it covers the whole screen, so that’s the only option, really.

[00:15:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

[00:15:24] Speaker A: But, hey, you made it through, so.

[00:15:26] Speaker B: I did. I did.

[00:15:27] Speaker A: If anyone’s listening to this before they play for whatever reason, or is gonna go do the challenge room version of it that you can replay the boss fights. Yeah. And you haven’t done this before. Don’t tank it. Just use the claw.

[00:15:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s what I would do.

And I’m not gonna go. Probably go do the challenges of boss fights again.

[00:15:47] Speaker A: Probably not like it was fun enough the first time. Yeah, I’M good and right. I also use the Shadow of Simurgh or the kind of for the sweeping laser beam.

[00:15:58] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah.

[00:16:00] Speaker A: All in all, quite fun. Love the boss fight.

[00:16:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a good boss fight.

[00:16:04] Speaker A: It’s both floor wise and it, it just continues to add on to this to the list of giant animals that we’ve been dealing with.

[00:16:16] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:16:17] Speaker A: Which is cool.

Bit different. Not like weird monsters all the time. Is a nice change of pace from other games.

And I think the best part of all is you don’t actually kill Azdaha.

Maybe because she’s a God. I might be mistaken on that exact detail, but I believe that’s a correct description.

But instead of dying or fighting back and killing you, she’s just ready for a chat after a good battle.

And she decides you deserve a chance to try to reach your goal after all of that. And gives you four Celestial arrows to shoot at the sky in various areas.

And by doing that, you can potentially change the past or change your fate. I, I, I laughed when I read the arrow description that says gift from Azhdaha. Or is it?

[00:17:08] Speaker B: Or is it?

[00:17:10] Speaker A: Yeah, she also hints at maybe you being of royal blood too.

So maybe Sargon is a prince of Persia after all.

[00:17:21] Speaker B: Maybe

[00:17:23] Speaker A: by the end of this session, we still do not know that, at least about Sargon.

Luckily, Celestial Garden Satavis is deep underground near us. The map markers say that by summoning all four, you can try to save Ghassan inside a bubble from the past.

You know, at this point, curious how that works, but yeah. Did you jump off the ledge after shooting the first arrow?

[00:17:56] Speaker B: Oh, that’s a good question. I don’t think I did.

[00:17:59] Speaker A: Okay, don’t worry about going back to do it. But I opened the map in that room, and because the map looks like it curls down and around, I jumped off hoping there was some other treasure there.

Nope, Bad idea. You just respawn, but fortunately don’t take any damage. You just end up back on the end of the ledge. So. So yeah. Nope.

And then we finally find the double jump.

Yes, the gravity wings. So once I find the Celestials, I’m going on a cleanup of the map run through to all of my memory shard screenshot spots.

The real question, though, is why is Azhdaha, the immortal enemy of Simurgh, giving you a Simurgh feather to begin with?

She’s got her own secret stash.

[00:18:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess.

Yeah.

[00:18:52] Speaker A: You know, and what I’m really curious about is what? I’m curious about where this ending is going To. Because clearly Azdaha is not doing something just for your benefit. And so I wonder.

I wonder where it’s going.

Yeah, she also.

Yeah, go ahead.

[00:19:14] Speaker B: No, I was gonna say, seems like there’s other motives or something.

[00:19:18] Speaker A: There’s gotta be, right? I mean, I’m sure not being imprisoned in a pit of sand is a good start for her. Maybe doing something about the simmer would be good too. But we can only speculate at this point.

She also says something along the lines of the end is near and hints at finally being free. So, yeah, I think you know it. There’s potentially some route out of that pit for her.

So I. The other question is, are we somehow doing damage to the Simurg by shooting the Celestial Guardians and trying to save the prince?

Time will tell.

[00:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say time will tell.

[00:20:00] Speaker A: After double jumping out of the pit, the old man finally introduces himself.

The old bastard kept us hanging the whole time like that.

[00:20:07] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:20:09] Speaker A: But I will say, Al Qadda is a funny dude.

[00:20:13] Speaker B: Yeah, he is.

[00:20:15] Speaker A: Speaks in riddles, runs away, always knows what’s going on.

Seems like a good ally to have. At least he does.

[00:20:23] Speaker B: I don’t know why.

To me it’s. I feel like Al Kara is like Sargon in the future. Future, Future.

Oh, I don’t know. It’s just something that came now.

[00:20:37] Speaker A: That’s a theory.

[00:20:39] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:20:40] Speaker A: Which is why he’s all, like, messing with himself. That’d be funny.

[00:20:44] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:20:44] Speaker A: I mean, we have already seen a kid version of Varam and have no idea who Fariva is yet.

Or the mage. What if the mage is an old version of Farima?

Or I wouldn’t be that one.

[00:21:02] Speaker B: Or.

[00:21:03] Speaker A: I mean, there’s clearly like. There’s a very clearly a multiverse situation on Mount Kafka and obviously every time something different happens, it splits off.

So if we’ve already seen what, like five or six alternate Sargons, So there’s. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many more and. Okay. Anyway, so there. There sure are a lot of tricky platforming sections with crazy hazards in this section of the game.

Did you go doing much exploring after getting the double jump or. Or let me just move on.

[00:21:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I did some.

I did do some exploring, the double jumps to get some of this stuff done.

[00:21:46] Speaker A: At this point, I went through pretty much every section that we were able to get through in the Pit of Eternal Sands. You know, lots and lots of retries and crashing into spikes and all that was able to get through all of them.

But, you know, at least at this point in the game, we have enough potions and health bars now. Hopefully you’ve upgraded things, everyone, to make all those retries less annoying, because, you know, getting hit by the snake or whatever else only takes, like, a portion of a health bar, not a full chunk.

And then you get some potions and you can, like, survive through hopefully enough times to finally reach the end of each puzzle section.

So I didn’t have to at any point retry and run back over there, which would have probably made me bail on the thing in the first place.

[00:22:33] Speaker B: I agree.

[00:22:36] Speaker A: What do you think of the Hanging Gardens upper left? Oh, I guess. Okay, this is a good point.

[00:22:43] Speaker B: This is a good.

[00:22:44] Speaker A: At this point, we. We both took different routes. I know we mentioned, so. Curious what we obviously have. We’ve already acquired one guardian constellation, and we have three more to hunt down.

And you can. At this point, it’s, you know, open world. It’s a weird way to describe that, but you can go whichever one you want to next. There’s no defined order,

[00:23:08] Speaker B: so.

[00:23:09] Speaker A: Spoiler alert. I went to the Hanging Gardens, upper left first, if you hadn’t noticed.

Which way did you go?

[00:23:18] Speaker B: I went to. I went bottom right, which was like Sunken harbor and then Raging Sea.

[00:23:25] Speaker A: Raging Sea. Okay, so you. Okay, so I.

I went from Raging Sea.

[00:23:32] Speaker B: You went where from Raging Sea. I then went top left, top left,

[00:23:38] Speaker A: and then to the middle, top right. Okay, so I went. I went Hanging Gardens and then top right and then down to the Raging sea at the end. So basically, did you go from the pit and then just pretty much go straight to the sunken harbor?

[00:23:57] Speaker B: Close. I did.

I did some exploring upgrades and then went. And then I started. I started to go up left, and then I was like. And then we were talking about it, and I was like, oh, you know what? I was like, I don’t know if there’s an order, but, you know, I’m just gonna go from bottom left to bottom right to top left to top right.

[00:24:17] Speaker A: And so I went.

[00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I traveled fast travel back down to Sunken Hogger, and then made my way through.

[00:24:24] Speaker A: All right. Yep, solid plan.

Yeah, I took the. I think it was an elevator. Oh, maybe. I took a fast travel. I went back to the Haven, got some upgrades, and then just said, all right, top left. We were in the Sunken harbor pretty recently.

[00:24:36] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:24:37] Speaker A: So I felt like.

Like going back up, up to the city for a little bit, and. Well, I’m following my own notes, so I’m going to go in my order.

[00:24:47] Speaker B: That’s fine.

[00:24:49] Speaker A: Well, yeah, so Hanging Gardens. You’ve. The enemies are fairly standard. There’s some interesting platforming. It looks really nice.

Seems like a place that the elite.

[00:25:00] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:25:01] Speaker A: Would hang out. Right.

[00:25:02] Speaker B: I will say getting up there. The enemies with the fire bows that aim onto you.

[00:25:07] Speaker A: Oh, yes. This sniper dudes off because it does.

[00:25:11] Speaker B: They do a good amount of damage and they, like, don’t miss and like, you try to.

If you try and like, dash and hit them quickly, like they seem to get an arrow off quick. Like they’ll shoot even faster. And then. Yeah.

[00:25:23] Speaker A: Question. Did you at any point? I don’t. I have no idea where I found it, but there’s an amulet called Holy Fire.

[00:25:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Does burning effect or something or like

[00:25:32] Speaker A: it reduces the burning effect or the burn damage. So that helps with that. They still do, you know, like the Poison resist amulet still do damage and not an inconsequential amount. But I did have it equipped. Of course it was.

Those guys were annoying for sure. You can.

Can you parry those arrows? I don’t recall.

But they’re always, you know, just out of reach that you got to do a handful of platforming to find each one.

[00:26:01] Speaker B: Exactly. That was the.

[00:26:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I will. I. I don’t disagree. It was not an enjoyable experience to get around or to them, especially because they can hit their snipers. They can hit you from real far.

[00:26:14] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:26:15] Speaker A: There’s one part. There’s one part where, you know, I took them all out. Like, there’s four of them around a platform and I took them all out. Like, this is one of the sections with the clairvoyance ability, which I feel like isn’t used all that much.

But there’s some clairvoyance platforms, so you have to, like, do that and then switch around. And then if you screw up, then you’re falling through the hole into those spikes. But I took all four of them out. And then you get to the left and there’s this giant monstrosity of an enemy with a shield and all that who I couldn’t take out quickly. So I died. And then I went back and said, f the F the snipers and went straight to the big person.

And while trying to fight it, the sniper from, like, the far left portion of that set of four was still hitting me. So I just ran away.

I don’t want to deal with those snipers every time. So, yeah, no fun.

But Menelaus. If only he saw the truth, you know, there’s a fight to be had.

What did you think about this fight?

[00:27:30] Speaker B: This fight was this fight Took me a bit.

Yeah. I’m trying to go back through his.

[00:27:38] Speaker A: He had to die, though, so he’s gonna put up a hell of a fight.

[00:27:41] Speaker B: Yeah, he did.

There wasn’t much that you could like.

I could parry some, but not much, really.

[00:27:47] Speaker A: Yeah. That’s what I did notice, too. In these boss fights, later stage boss fights, there’s not a lot of parry opportunity.

[00:27:53] Speaker B: No.

[00:27:56] Speaker A: And so.

Yeah.

Okay. After making the mistake of my first try at this boss being on the PS Portal, when it had been lagging quite a bit that play session, I moved over to my TV to give it the fight what it deserves and actually finished it that first try there. But because the first time around, I realized there weren’t really any parry options, I swapped out almost all of my amulets.

[00:28:21] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:28:24] Speaker A: And used a couple. So I. I used one called the Spear of Something, which, when you teleport to your shadow, the. The lot, there’s a line between you and the shadow, according to. And it turns into, like, a laser attack.

It would stagger him.

So that was useful. And I used one called Grah. What is it? Um, I forget what it’s called, actually, but it’s the one where every. Every once in a while, when you do your first attack, it launches a kind of a beam, a sword beam out. So just, like, sneaking in a little extra damage from far away helped me quite a bit here. But, yeah, they’re just the lack of parry options kind of threw me off in terms of my play style most of the time.

Mm.

Did you just kind of eventually just tank it and power through sort of, yeah.

[00:29:24] Speaker B: I mean, I. No, I think a lot for him is I used a lot of dodging. Like, I was dodging a lot. A lot of, like, jumping dash, dodge, or dodge backwards, especially on.

I was able to figure out the pattern where he kind of does the three snipe arrows where he goes high, low, high or whatever. And I was able to, like, jump, but then fast travel. Like, not fast travel, but you just hold down and X or whatever, and you can jump down quick. And so right as he shot. So then I was able to dodge all that and then get a few hits on and on him. And then the arrow. That.

Is it an arrow, whatever he shoots, that kind of comes up and then kind of comes back towards you or goes up in like a sort of like a curve. If you can just jump and dash over that. And then. Yeah, and then I was able to, like, if I was above him, slam down on top of him and do some More damage.

[00:30:15] Speaker A: Okay.

He also, like many bosses, throws out, like, a handful of, like, trap orb things.

And I had switched those lights. Yeah, they just kind of hang in the air there.

[00:30:27] Speaker B: God, those are. Yeah.

[00:30:28] Speaker A: So I. I had. I had also switched in my amulet. Shuffle.

Put the one that shoots. I think it’s called peacock. Something that shoots three arrows at the same time for the, you know, one arrow’s worth of ammo. So I was just using that to clear those out.

[00:30:47] Speaker B: Oh, smart.

[00:30:47] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:30:52] Speaker A: But, yeah, I mean, kind of tricky to figure out, but I enjoyed it overall.

[00:30:58] Speaker B: White peacock, white fire.

[00:31:00] Speaker A: Three.

[00:31:00] Speaker B: Three arrows. If you upgrade, I think it goes up to five.

[00:31:04] Speaker A: Oh, geez. Yeah, I’m not going to do that. I’m not wasting my upgrades on that because I don’t use arrows all that often. To be honest, it feels like a pretty niche application of it here.

[00:31:16] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:31:19] Speaker A: But I enjoyed the fight. But overall, definitely not a nice feeling by the end of it because they were very clearly bros. Menelaus and Sargon.

[00:31:29] Speaker B: Yeah, they were.

[00:31:32] Speaker A: I also was a bit curious why he didn’t just stay a corpse leaning on that pillar and instead vanished into the air. Like Thanos snapped him out of existence.

[00:31:42] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I honestly thought, like, at the end of the fight, you weren’t gonna. They weren’t gonna die. He wasn’t gonna die. I thought it was just like. He’d just be like, oh, okay, I’ll join your. Okay, I’ll join your side. I realized, like.

[00:31:54] Speaker A: Well, either just like, retreat and run away.

[00:31:57] Speaker B: Yeah. He, like, loses the fight and he loses his power or whatever, and it goes to you, but he’s still, like, there and still on your side. I don’t know.

[00:32:05] Speaker A: But obviously, I guess there’s a lot of routes that could have gone with it. I suppose it has more emotional punch to it if they do die.

[00:32:12] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:32:13] Speaker A: But, yeah, the disappearances. I mean, I guess, now that I think about it, don’t all of the enemies die into just the ether instead of corpses?

Okay, fine. I guess I can buy it now.

It’s just because it’s a human, it felt more.

[00:32:28] Speaker B: Yeah, true.

[00:32:30] Speaker A: I certainly do enjoy his after surge counter, though.

I. Have you tried it? No, I mean, you tried it. You do it. You do it. Obviously, he does use it on you, and then you use it to end the fight. But I would say that Ryu from Street Fighter must want that ultimate ability version of his Hadouken, because it’s pretty much just that. It is, but it’s a counter, so you can’t just launch it off. It has to be when someone’s about to attack you.

[00:32:55] Speaker B: About to attack you.

[00:32:56] Speaker A: So it’s. It can’t. You can basically just waste. I think. Is it two or three? I think you can waste three after surge of a meter if you screw that up. But when you use it, it’s great, obviously.

[00:33:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I will say just quick on the ather surge meter thing, it took me a little bit to figure that out. I didn’t realize that, obviously, because it’s like level one, two, and three, Some

[00:33:16] Speaker A: of them require two, two meters.

[00:33:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So that took me just a little bit to realize, like, oh, if I have a 2, 2 on and a 1 on, I can use both, actually, if I want at the same time. It’s like the healing one I’ve had on the whole time is only a one, so.

[00:33:30] Speaker A: Oh. Oh, you’re still using that. I don’t. I took that off almost immediately.

[00:33:33] Speaker B: Oh, no, I like it. It helps me in fights. It. It helps. I. I like it.

[00:33:38] Speaker A: All right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so it’s their own if it.

[00:33:41] Speaker B: Yeah.

Even if I can’t get, like the full amount of it, but it gives me a good amount, it means I can get still a good amount more damage back on and then I. I don’t have to waste a potion right there.

[00:33:52] Speaker A: So. Yeah, okay. No, that’s why I like it.

[00:33:54] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:33:57] Speaker A: So you take out Menelaus and then going up towards the Upper East Guardian, it’s.

Oh, obviously I jumped off the edge of that platform after that Guardian too, by the way. Same thing happens. No secret treasure.

[00:34:10] Speaker B: There’s no treasure.

[00:34:13] Speaker A: It’s kind of a bummer that the gate is closed to us, but.

But not for future Sargon. So current Sargon has to do all the legwork.

That’s us gotta go the long way around to the hall of Divination. And it was pretty cool to walk from pure daylight into pure twilight, literally on either side of a building.

It definitely gives off a bit of vibe from, like, some movies and things. Um, the.

This was not a combat heavy section, which was a good change of pace. I needed it last after two boss fights, so it was probably a nice kind of breather. Um, it was a break in between for me, but I. I enjoyed the astrolabe puzzle. It was kind of interesting with the dimensional batteries and the timing of things. Um, it. It is funny that after the door opening cutscenes, Sargon was just kind of chilling on the ground, waiting for it to end. Even though it was a really short One because, you know, do you idle at all? Like just like take your hands off the controller to do something else and then he’s just like stretching or you know, takes a seat.

[00:35:23] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:35:24] Speaker A: And my parrot that follows me around everywhere doesn’t get any rest at all. It just keeps floating in the air.

[00:35:31] Speaker B: Nope. Just keeps going.

[00:35:33] Speaker A: Which, yeah, we’ve realized obviously is like a deluxe edition upgrade. Which, you know, even for obviously it’s helpful that it flies over to where a secret is hidden or a hidden door or whatever.

But even without that actual function to it, I would have enjoyed having like, if we played the base game, just enjoyed having a pet parrot to fly around with you. Like, it’s kind of touch.

[00:35:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.

[00:35:57] Speaker A: But yeah. So, and then, then as we move through after this puzzle, we see Anahita at the next guardian and she doesn’t tell us the story, but pretty suspicious that she claims Queen Tomyris gave the order to kidnap Ghassan.

Gave me shifty eyes to hear that story.

She does offer her help to make things right, but there’s no chance at that now. This relationship was built on one thing, Anahita. Trust.

[00:36:31] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:36:31] Speaker A: Trust. And you broke it.

[00:36:33] Speaker B: She did. She definitely broke it.

[00:36:37] Speaker A: Did you play I’m moving into the sunken harbor at this point. Did you play Chakram Tic tac Toe?

[00:36:44] Speaker B: Yes, I did.

[00:36:46] Speaker A: And it rewards you with a fight against a mimic?

[00:36:48] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:36:49] Speaker A: Instead of just some treasure. Yeah, it, you know, I thought about it after. I was like caught off guard, but then I thought about it afterwards. It had to happen.

There are, we’ve already found mimics in this game.

Treasure chests are the most pirate thing ever. And we hadn’t fought a mimic in the pirate biome yet. So I accept, even though I got chomped.

After going past the dry docked pirate ship, you run into Orod, who is woefully misinformed again. And surprise, surprise, the guy with giant double anchored staff wants to fight out at sea, so he just runs off. It should make for some nice views though. Or a raging thunderstorm and some seasickness. My bet was on the latter.

The you get past. Obviously we spent a lot of time in the sunken harbor last time, so it was nice to go into a sort of extension of that. And the raging sea sure had its bite taken out of it though, didn’t it? Um, what with the being frozen and all.

[00:37:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it was cool. It was a cool effect. Um, yeah, I liked it.

[00:38:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I, I think all in all, I think after doing it and we still have an Area or two left. But I think this was my favorite biome of the game visually at least.

[00:38:16] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:38:17] Speaker A: Because you see all the kind of battles in mid middle of progress, people flying explosions and all that and they’re all just frozen and it’s super.

Yeah, it’s really cool to look at and walk through.

The mysterious fisherman on the ledge there. Just didn’t see anything wrong with it at all. No, he’s just waiting and he doesn’t care if a giant tsunami wave comes and hits him in the face.

I guess if you’re sitting in frozen in time for that long though, you probably just want it all to end.

[00:38:49] Speaker B: Probably.

[00:38:52] Speaker A: But yeah, I’d say overall this is one of my. The coolest Metroidvania biomes that I’ve seen in my time with the genre so far. Not, not the best, but very, very fun to navigate.

And then you know, you go through, there’s some interesting enemies. There’s like these mermaids and there’s even that point where you can unfreeze the well unfreeze all the waves and stuff and you get attacked by some pirates.

The rain starts coming down some more and then you eventually reach the which

[00:39:25] Speaker B: ones the mermaids were annoying with like the laser beams out of their eyes. It goes forever. Like it has a long distance on it.

Run some.

[00:39:33] Speaker A: And there’s some gin over here too.

[00:39:35] Speaker B: Yeah, there was some annoying bosses. Jellyfish lining you up and everything.

[00:39:40] Speaker A: Yeah, they’ll. Oh, okay. This is a good point. Did you, did you find the lightning resist amulet?

[00:39:49] Speaker B: I did, but I don’t have. Yeah, I didn’t have it on during this time. But yes, I did find it.

[00:39:53] Speaker A: I. I put it on the soonest I possibly could because of those jellyfish.

[00:39:59] Speaker B: I’m gonna have to go back in this area because there’s a section I don’t think I got to. And I’m gonna.

[00:40:03] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Oh.

[00:40:04] Speaker B: After like exploring wise.

[00:40:05] Speaker A: But yeah, yep, good call.

And so okay, we reach Orod and I will say at this point he is such a badass.

[00:40:14] Speaker B: Yeah, he’s cool.

[00:40:15] Speaker A: After you barely challenge him even a little bit. Like it was like a quarter of his health bar. He just goes full Kratos.

[00:40:23] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:40:24] Speaker A: But while Kratos has some measly blades, Ohrod uses literal full sized anchors on chains in the exact same way.

[00:40:33] Speaker B: Basically.

[00:40:34] Speaker A: I’m a fan. I’m a fan.

[00:40:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it was cool.

It was a good fight.

It took me again a few tries. I mean it’s going to for me just getting used to them. But his One attack. There’s the one attack where he’s standing on the ledge and yeah, he throws both anchors to the side and it creates like a barrier and if you have to jump and I don’t know, kind of dash or jump.

[00:41:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I time yourself backwards

[00:41:08] Speaker B: or whatever, but sometimes I just still got caught and I just couldn’t.

[00:41:12] Speaker A: There are so many things that hit like most of the ground in a lot of these boss fights that I just really abuse. The shadow move.

[00:41:18] Speaker B: Yeah, the shadow.

[00:41:19] Speaker A: And so I would like double jump and then dash and then hit the shadow and then as falling like hit the shadow and immediately hit the shadow teleport so that you can, you know, get some more hang time and hopefully the effect’s gone. From the ground he had.

[00:41:35] Speaker B: There was one move, I think it was a tornado move that he did that I had no idea how to not get hit by it to be fair. I just, I didn’t know and I couldn’t think in my mind of how. And luckily it didn’t take too much damage so I was like I’m just going to take the little hit and then just get as much damage off on him like I just don’t know how.

[00:41:53] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I think I tried to double

[00:41:56] Speaker B: jump and shadow and I just. I don’t know, maybe I was timing stuff wrong. Shadow was kind of hard because you couldn’t really unless you were close to him. Right when he puts it off and you Shadow instantly and then run and then shadow back through it.

Usually I was too far back where I couldn’t.

I was going to get hit. So.

[00:42:15] Speaker A: So yeah, I guess at this, by this point I had fully upgraded swords and bow as much as could as well as potion quantity and efficacy and upgraded amulets equipped same as well as that lightning resist one which was a godsend. So while I took some damage learning his moves, I was actually able to get through it first try. Although I was basically like a bar and a half away from dying by the time I finished it.

I will say, I think the one time I just kept.

I just kept the heat on him and didn’t really stop. I think the one time he used the tornado move, I had just by pure luck happened to use the armor piercing Athra surge which has some invincibility to it. So I interrupted his tornado so that I saw the tornado. Basically I used the move and then when the move finished, the tornado was going was already past me. So I didn’t take any damage. Okay, so just luck.

But yeah, I.

I Guess a couple. Like, it was interesting because the health bar was gone and I was like, oh, okay, I got him. And then he just starts picking stuff up and walking towards you, like, no big deal. And I was like, oh, is there another full health bar to this? Yeah, I know, but no, he just kind of chats it up and gives you some advice and says, you know, ride the current or something like that, something nautical themed, and then disappears while walking. So he’s a strong dude, obviously.

I. I will say I want to see his anchors as a Blades of Chaos upgrade in the next God of war game that stars Kratos.

[00:43:57] Speaker B: That would be sick.

[00:43:59] Speaker A: It won’t happen. But it would be the sweetest. But that would be crossover of all time.

And with that, we have awakened the four celestial guardians in their constellations.

Obviously, I jumped off the ledge in the upper city too near the previous puzzle. And I jumped off the edge here, and instead of just falling into some clouds and respawning, you fall into the ocean and respawn.

[00:44:23] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:44:26] Speaker A: So yeah, they made it relevant.

[00:44:29] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:44:30] Speaker A: Before pushing on to reverse the past, I decided to go back and sweep through the prison in the sacred Archives, which you had done last time.

And despite having both one of the warriors and a demon of some sort in two of those cells, at this level of power, it was just a cakewalk. Honestly, didn’t really give him much of a chance to do any damage.

Then explored the small old road section of the map that you mentioned. And those giant war birds mean business.

[00:45:03] Speaker B: Yeah, they do.

[00:45:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. It was cool. Like they. Okay. With a dimensional claw. I just launched some barrels, explosive barrels at them and then shot a few arrows. But it still. They can do some damage. And they have tornado attacks too.

[00:45:16] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:45:17] Speaker A: It was cool to go back to the starting part of the game though, and especially the whole now you’re trapped sequence where when you try to walk to the front gate, it moves you back and you’re like, what? What’s going on here?

[00:45:28] Speaker B: Yeah, what’s going on? Yeah, I did that.

[00:45:32] Speaker A: But it was a very small section of map. Like, I think what’s cool about this thing is like before you get to the areas, it has kind of this, like faintly penciled in outline of the, you know, what the biome looks like. And the road has this long winding path kind of down left. And I thought it was going to be a larger area based on that, but it just kind of ended at the gate.

Quite all right. You know, not everything needs to be huge, but.

Okay, well, now A tiny spoiler spoiler alert. In case you stopped playing this session after just shooting the celestial arrows at the guardians in the sky. Because, you know, even we weren’t sure if our instructions were meant to start here or after truly opening the path to the upper reaches of the mountain. So if you stopped after shooting the arrows, pause this episode, go to the next boss fight, and come back here for a few more minutes related to this section. Yep, I guess we’ll give a quick 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And now some spoilers.

So finally, onto the celestial altar and we face off against Varum again.

[00:46:39] Speaker B: Yes, we do.

[00:46:40] Speaker A: But this time with a little help from our friends.

Or rather a little help from ourself.

[00:46:45] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:46:47] Speaker A: Wow. What a fight.

[00:46:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a.

Yeah, that was a fight.

[00:46:55] Speaker A: I was gonna say it was a great.

No, overall. Overall amazing battle.

[00:47:01] Speaker B: It’s a great fight. It is tough. It is tough.

[00:47:05] Speaker A: It’s what you want out of a. Out of a late game boss fight, though.

[00:47:08] Speaker B: Exactly. I agree. So, I mean, it took me. I don’t.

I mean, it took me under 10 tries, so I’ll give myself credit on that. For a late game, like, it probably took like six, seven tries maybe. But yeah, he was tough. He. He’s fast as hell.

[00:47:24] Speaker A: Fast. Can reverse time and heal himself.

[00:47:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that.

[00:47:28] Speaker A: Oh, that pissed me off.

[00:47:29] Speaker B: Because I used a health potion and if he reverses time, it uses another one.

[00:47:35] Speaker A: Oh, that sucks.

[00:47:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that was.

[00:47:37] Speaker A: I don’t think I got caught in that.

[00:47:39] Speaker B: Oh, that pissed me off. Hell, I was like, oh, I did not notice that. So I was trying to be very cautious of then when I. After I noticed that, like, oh, I gotta be cautious.

[00:47:47] Speaker A: The thing is, there’s no way to predict when he’s gonna use it.

[00:47:50] Speaker B: I know.

[00:47:50] Speaker A: I. Like, it’s not necessarily just after you did a bunch of damage.

[00:47:53] Speaker B: No, it’s not.

[00:47:55] Speaker A: What amulet and Athra surge loadout did you have for this?

[00:48:00] Speaker B: So I had. I think it’s usually my same amulets.

I did have parry with the parrot, with the. With the bubble. Then parry that. If you parry, you get health back, which is helpful.

[00:48:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Shield of Mythra. I. I kept that one on.

[00:48:13] Speaker B: I had one that does greatly. Because I have all of them upgraded now. So I had one that’s greatly increases the damage of your ather surge.

[00:48:25] Speaker A: I have all the ones that you use regularly. You mean.

[00:48:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I have one that increases your swords. I also have my swords increased to the.

Yeah, they might be to the max or one below the max.

[00:48:36] Speaker A: That’s. Yeah, it’s plus two. I think there’s one more, actually, that we unlock after this, but.

[00:48:40] Speaker B: And then.

Yeah, and then what else? The health. The extra health one, which gives me three extra bars.

I have that fully upgraded. And then. Yeah. And I forgot something else. Maybe I have all.

I think I have all amulet slots on the. I have 12. I can hold 12.

[00:48:57] Speaker A: Oh, geez. I don’t know.

I don’t actually. That’s a good point. I don’t know if I have. I don’t know how many I have.

I don’t think about it. It’s a lot now. Like, I can get a good. Good amount of, you know, kind of

[00:49:10] Speaker B: when I was using them, they. They were definitely. They helped. They. They did help.

[00:49:14] Speaker A: Which atherosurgist did you have equipped?

[00:49:16] Speaker B: Uh, I used the. My heel one, which I had. And then for him, I had.

Cause I had it on. I forgot to change it, and I just kept retrying. But it was the.

Oh. Who gave it to me. Is it Bahmat? The Bahamat one?

[00:49:30] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

[00:49:31] Speaker B: The really powerful one.

[00:49:32] Speaker A: The one from. From Aurad Orad.

[00:49:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it was from Orod. So I used that. Which actually helped. It did that helped me on the time I won because I used it like perfect timing. I had tried a couple fights before, but he was so fast, and I

[00:49:48] Speaker A: had missed a couple times.

[00:49:49] Speaker B: Yeah. But I got one perfect. And it did a lot of damage, and it got him down just a few slivers, and I was like, oh, my God, I just have to get a couple hits in instead. And I luckily got it. But, yeah,

[00:50:04] Speaker A: when I finally killed him, he. He used something. I don’t remember what it was. And I was, like, kind of close to death. And he had literally. You could barely even see that he had health left because I thought I had killed him, and he was still there.

And I think I just shot an arrow at him and it killed him.

[00:50:20] Speaker B: There you go. Yeah.

[00:50:22] Speaker A: But, yeah, I had. Okay. So I guess I had gone in with my normal loadout of amulets because you got to try things out the way that you’re used to.

[00:50:29] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:50:31] Speaker A: And then I. Yeah, I. I realized I needed some other stuff. So I got the thing that launches the swipes or launches a swipe every once in a while from far away.

I kept Shield of Mithra on, but I took off even. I even took off Blessing for the first time just to get more kind of power out of my amulet. And took off most of the ones that give you Athra surge bonuses from pairing and all that. So I went into it and my Athra surges were the very first one. You get the armor piercing strike forward and the kind of God mode, one that lets you go all out. And I was super excited to use that because it lets you move around really fast and Vara moves really fast. So I was trying to counter speed with speed without my, My. Without my Athra surge build up amulets on. I didn’t even get to a second bar. I only had one.

So when I used it, I just used the regular armor pierce attack.

[00:51:31] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:51:31] Speaker A: Which is disappointing. So I just had to really learn his moveset.

But I. Yeah, like, I. I don’t know. What. What do you think of the. His moveset outside of of all of that? Like, I really.

It really annoyed me. His like the, the lines across the screen. That kind of.

[00:51:50] Speaker B: That was the most annoying thing.

[00:51:52] Speaker A: They tear you a new one in the world.

[00:51:54] Speaker B: There was like the first one, if you’re close enough to the edge, you can dash out and get out of it quickly, but then they get bigger and bigger.

[00:52:03] Speaker A: Well, I think the thing too is that I don’t know how your luck turned out for it, but for most of the time, for me, they were the. The good bubble to be in was in the middle of the air.

[00:52:13] Speaker B: Yeah. But the thing is, you had to time it perfectly because even if you’re in the middle of the air, if it’s when it like it does.

It’s when it goes. When he like sets it off and it goes like king and like. And if you’re. Any bit of you is in the line when it makes that noise and it like goes off and it catches you. So like I would jump in the air when all the lines come out, but then as I’m falling, if like a toe catches the line, it catches me and I was like. And it does. It takes like three and a half health bar. It takes a lot of health.

[00:52:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I probably spent like 60. No, maybe more like 80% of the B. Of the battle in the middle of the air and like just constantly jumping.

And so I, I, most of the time when he launched that attack, I would be in the middle of the jump.

Fortunately have like the. The second to land. And because it does like a. It makes a show of it right before when he loads up that attack. So I was able to jump like instantly find where the hole is, jump up, and then I would double jump. And then right at the top of it, of the good space, hit the shadow, immediately hit the shadow again. So that by the time, you know, you don’t get caught, it goes off.

[00:53:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.

[00:53:22] Speaker A: So I eventually got pretty good at it, but the time that I beat him, I think it still caught me in it at least once.

And then, like, yeah, like, he goes through the whole.

At the beginning, he does the vertical swipe, like, vertical slam downwards.

And then at the bottom does the spin move attack.

So you gotta dash to the side and then jump up.

And then eventually, once he gets kind of pissed off, he starts doing, you know, five downwards before the side.

The side swipe. And I was fairly good at dodging that.

I was just constantly jumping and dashing, though, just non stop.

[00:54:03] Speaker B: Yeah, same.

[00:54:04] Speaker A: I. I credit that with probably why I was able to get through in the first place.

I did enjoy, you know, even though he gets knocked out by the hilt of his sword really quickly, I did enjoy having our little buddy version of Sargon to help out, to distract him at the. The first section of the fight.

[00:54:24] Speaker B: Yes, that was helpful. It was actually. It was helpful at first.

So, yeah, it was helpful. There were a couple times I did it where he then got knocked down to his knee and they just sat there for however long. And I was like, okay, though, that now you’re not being helpful to me.

[00:54:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Well, it was. Overall, it was. It was fun. I. You know, I. By the time I finished it, I was just like, well, that put me to the test.

I think the interesting part, though, is we don’t actually kill Valram. So are we gonna fight him again? I would wager yes.

Hopefully we’re stronger and he’s not, because I don’t even want to imagine what a more difficult version of that is.

[00:55:07] Speaker B: Yeah, same. I don’t know.

[00:55:12] Speaker A: At the very least, we find out some new interesting tidbits of information. Turns out Varam is the rightful prince as well.

He is the son of Darius, who, by all accounts, so far, had been a very good, righteous king.

And I’ve been saying it wrong this whole time. Tomyris was the betrayer that killed Darius and led the Simurgh to leave and screw everything up.

So we’ve been on the wrong side this whole time, but what does that mean for us now?

You know, we’ll have to find that out next time.

Now, just because Faram is actually royalty doesn’t mean he isn’t off his rocker, since he wants to become, like, a God by recovering the powers of the Simurgh and says it’s not over.

So, yeah, I really doubt this is going to end without Us killing him.

[00:56:04] Speaker B: Oh, I’m sure. Yeah.

[00:56:07] Speaker A: The sash grappling hook ability is quite cool.

[00:56:11] Speaker B: Yes, that is a useful ability because I’d seen the things around and it is now nice to have that ability.

[00:56:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s nice to know what they are.

[00:56:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I’m gonna now have to test that out, so.

[00:56:25] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I guess.

I guess that gift from Tomyrus is coming in handy for more than just fashion now.

[00:56:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.

[00:56:36] Speaker A: And yes, the Fabric of Time is such a great name for it. Just. Just a genius level pun right there.

And I really do love using it. The traversal element of it is standard, but fun. But it’s so great in combat, and a little bit I played before getting to the next save. So both flinging yourself up to flying enemies like the warbirds and then pulling them to you is even cooler. It made me immediately think, you know, I hope. I hope that ability is included either as an unlockable or by default in the upcoming Castlevania Belmont’s Curse game being made right now. Because that’d be cool.

Your whip is a standard weapon. Right? Gotta include it.

[00:57:19] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:57:21] Speaker A: Anyway, Ghassan explains we’re now chasing Varam to hopefully beat him in finding the heart of the Simurgh, but gotta go find the Key of Kings in the Tower of Silence first, which is the area far above the Soma tree that I only barely walked into earlier.

[00:57:35] Speaker B: Same.

[00:57:38] Speaker A: Okay. How are you doing, Alex? Are you energized? Are you ready to go fix the past and figure out the next layer of mystery waiting for us?

[00:57:44] Speaker B: I am. I’m ready to fix the past, see the outcome, everything. Yeah, I’m excited. I’m looking forward to it.

[00:57:54] Speaker A: Yeah. I think there’s maybe something far darker based on all these ominous things people have been saying around Mount Kophyl. Are you fatigued at all or nearing burnout?

[00:58:02] Speaker B: No, actually, I’m not. I’m not going to lie. I’m not. Not at all.

[00:58:06] Speaker A: Sweet. This is exactly what I want to hear. This is somewhat on the longer side. There are some extra long outlier Metroidvanias, but many tend to be around 10 hours to complete, and we’ve gone far beyond that here already.

There’s quite a bit more. Not tons and tons, but quite a bit more left to go. Plus, we’ve been hitting it hard the last two sessions with tasks that take us all over the mountain.

Plenty of backtracking included. So I just wanted to check in. I’m glad you’re doing good.

[00:58:33] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I definitely am.

[00:58:36] Speaker A: So, for Next time, play until you have beaten the main story of the game and rolled the credits. Then save and quit and hang on for the following episode where we’ll jump into the full Mask of Darkness DLC from front to back.

Thanks everyone.

[00:58:49] Speaker B: Yes, thank you very much. Looking forward to seeing the ending of this game and I hope you are as well. So yes, thank you and let’s get to it.

So thanks everyone for listening. Have a good one.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of native games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram account under the same name. Thanks.