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 finishing the story of the main game, but stopping before the Mask of Darkness DLC expansion reminder. As always, we go into spoilers sometimes for the main story up to the credits rolling. So if you want to avoid that for now, start at a previous episode, play along and come back to this one once you’re caught up.

Salaam, Alex.

[00:00:26] Speaker B: Salaam.

[00:00:28] Speaker A: That’s the best part of talking to Fariba all the time is the friendly greeting.

[00:00:33] Speaker B: Salaam, Sargam.

[00:00:35] Speaker A: Now, while life got in the way of us recording this episode, we actually both finished this section of the main story within two days of the last episode release.

Now that’s just about an indicator of how engrossed we are with this game as any, I would say.

It was of course also a much shorter section after the two very long previous ones, which makes a major difference.

But by the end of last time, I was so ready to see it through to the end and glad we did.

[00:01:01] Speaker B: Oh yeah, definitely.

[00:01:04] Speaker A: Did you do much exploration and backtracking now with the fabric of Time on your waist or just beeline it to the Tower of Silence?

[00:01:11] Speaker B: Um, I did backtracking.

I definitely did some backtracking of going through, finding some extra little treasures, kind of upgrading, getting enough crystals to upgrade stuff for potential.

The last bit of the game it was coming up, so it’s probably gonna be somewhat tough. Yeah. Upgrade my swords fully. Upgrade.

Upgrade the amulets that I wanted to use to full. So yeah, so I did that and yeah, just found a few other little treasures and went through some little gray areas I hadn’t been to on the way.

There were a few of them where there were like coins and I was like, I tried a couple times. I was like, nah, I’m good. I’m not getting all these coins.

[00:02:00] Speaker A: I, I did go after a lot of the coins that I saw and I think I got almost all the ones that I saw. I know there’s some parts of the map I haven’t gone to, but I, I, by the end of it, like I have, I used a handful of them to upgrade amulets, but I think I have like 15 coins available to use, but I just don’t have enough crystal cash to use it.

[00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:02:24] Speaker A: Which is kind of annoying. Like there’s it. The enemies don’t drop enough crystals in the end game, I think is what I’m trying to say.

[00:02:31] Speaker B: No, I know that there is an amulet. I think that you can upgrade that?

I think so. Yeah. That increases the amount that’s dropped and you can probably.

[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I recall that too, but.

[00:02:42] Speaker B: But still, I never used it. It wasn’t. It’s not one I’m gonna use as a space on my necklace, like, to be honest.

[00:02:48] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. No, it’s.

[00:02:51] Speaker B: Unless I guess you’re doing the. It’s. I guess if it’s like the. After you beat the game and you just want to explore around and get it to upgrade, then I guess.

[00:02:59] Speaker A: I mean, I feel like at that point it’s just a grind and I start. Stop losing it. Start losing interest in. In the grinding for. For currency. Like, it would. I think it would make a lot more sense for. You know, it’s fine if the lower city has the regular old currency drops, but by the end game biomes, you know, in the Tower of Silence, they should be dropping a lot more currency so you can actually do something with it.

[00:03:24] Speaker B: I agree.

[00:03:25] Speaker A: It was nice, though. After you continue after rolling the credits, they give you. I think it’s around 20,000, so.

[00:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah, they do.

[00:03:33] Speaker A: So that’s convenient. But it would have been useful a lot earlier.

[00:03:36] Speaker B: Yeah, a lot earlier, yes. Yeah, they do give you that. After you roll the credits, you get a huge spike, which is. Which is definitely nice.

Yeah, I would say, like, for the Xerxes cons, like, I went for them. If I. If it took me five or six tries and I hadn’t got it, then I was kind of like, you know what? I’m okay. Like, I don’t need to.

[00:03:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I don’t need to push it a little bit farther past that. But I hear you.

[00:04:00] Speaker B: I don’t need to stress myself out because I said I still have a good amount left still too. So.

[00:04:07] Speaker A: Yeah, like, if you were running out and still needed to upgrade something you wanted, then I can definitely see why you would continue to press on.

[00:04:13] Speaker B: But yeah,

[00:04:18] Speaker A: yeah, I guess I did just some exploring and found some inconsequential but neat little hidden areas. There’s the one place that I placed a memento shard in our first gameplay session, which is at the right edge of the forest after fighting the boar. And then you see Orah jump across a giant gap that you can’t do anything about.

[00:04:39] Speaker B: Yep, I went there. Yeah.

[00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah, so. So with the fabric of time sash, now we can fling ourselves across. And you end up landing at the herbalist last camp before he died.

Did you see his notes, his lore notes all over the forest when we were way back there.

How he was searching.

He was searching for a way to make medicine to help cure his wife’s disease.

[00:05:02] Speaker B: To help cure.

[00:05:03] Speaker A: There was like a.

A bunch of dropped breadcrumb notes there about that kind of backstory. But, yes, turns out he didn’t quite make it. He got stuck at this camp very.

In the middle of nowhere, though.

[00:05:16] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:05:17] Speaker A: Kind of pleasant, at least.

Yeah, didn’t get bothered. You know, we probably just succumbed to the world and not. Didn’t get eaten alive by something, so that’s kind of convenient.

There’s also the hidden village and the Athra lighthouse, far east from the Soma tree where Chamraj is hanging out. Now, Fariba is, of course, on the roof of the lighthouse to sell you a tiny map again.

[00:05:44] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:05:45] Speaker A: Same price as all the rest, though. And she doesn’t even discount her prices or anything this far into the game. I thought we were friends, girl.

[00:05:53] Speaker B: I know.

I still buy all our maps, though.

I’ll give her the map.

[00:05:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I buy all the maps for map completion, but I don’t buy the treasure maps, I can tell you that. Not yet. Oh, I did, but I guess I can support someone just trying to make some money off the tourists, though.

And yeah, if you jump off the other side of the lighthouse to the right, as you know from last time, I enjoy jumping off the guardian balconies, even though that kind of just respawns you.

In this case, you actually land on a ghost pirate ship floating in the air high above the raging sea.

And better yet, it has a soma pedal inside, guarded by some enemies.

[00:06:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it did. That was cool.

[00:06:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a cool little section. I mean, not that the enemies seemed all that different because there are a lot of ghosts in that space anyway, but, you know, still cool to see a floating pirate ship.

[00:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.

[00:06:45] Speaker A: And then you jump off that again and land back down in the main part of the raging sea and can fast travel back to where we need to go or wander there.

Did you do any. Anything else in this segment before moving on? Because from here, I finally went on to the Tower of Silence.

[00:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. So ours was a little different. I had basically almost gone through the Tower of Silence by the time we stopped last episode because I didn’t exactly know where we were stopping. And then we figured it out, but I hadn’t gone. I was about 3/4 of the way through, and then I was like, oh, no, I’m supposed to stop.

[00:07:24] Speaker A: That’s pretty far.

[00:07:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I was a good amount throughish. I didn’t realize either.

But what I did do here was finish, which was with the hidden village and the lighthouse was I did the side quest.

Oh, I forgot what it was called. It’s where you had to get all the jars of sand and it takes you back to the prophecy.

[00:07:45] Speaker A: Yes, the prophecy.

[00:07:46] Speaker B: Yep. On the wall.

[00:07:47] Speaker A: Did you do all of those?

[00:07:49] Speaker B: I got all of them. Yeah. So I got. I think it’s 30 total.

And the last one I needed was in the hidden village or.

Yeah, or lighthouse one around there. So I got all those, which I think in the end, I think it gives you a soma petal or like a full.

[00:08:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it’s one of the two I didn’t get. I think I was missing about six pieces by the end and didn’t feel like tracking them down anymore. So I looked it up, the whole prophecy, which is quite interesting.

[00:08:21] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:08:22] Speaker A: Yeah.

Here it is. I guess I have it written down. So it’s Fates decree. A king’s murder unstoppable. The God Simurgh disappears from the skies. Power stolen, time shattered. A world cursed. Only then will the story of the princes begin. I think that’s us.

A boy thought dead, but resurrected. Anger simmers in silence. Another raised upon the third. A prince born in secret. Only one can cure the curse of Mount Qaf.

Three princes raised with secrets and lies. An endless time of war. A strong woman hides her tender heart while another craves legacy of power. As Persepolis weakens, a scheme is made. Cursed winds blow across the battlefield. Two princes stand immortal.

Pawn prince taken against his will. Loyalties tested, dark hearts revealed. Within the realm of broken memories. These three lives entangle. Powers gained, powers lost, true selves revealed. Fate marks one prince to die. Chaos of time unlocks a second chance. A final battle sees the hero prince slain. And the Simurgh is gone forever. Celestial judgment passed. The cosmos will collapse. The vengeful prince will be king of all gods.

That doesn’t sound great. By the end of it. No. Obviously. Talking about Varan there. Vengeful prince.

[00:09:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[00:09:42] Speaker A: But, you know, it’s a good thing that we have a video game on our side and a hero’s role to inhabit, because we were able to kind of ditch that and make things better. But we’ll get to that in a sec.

[00:09:54] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:09:56] Speaker A: Very cool that you can kind of unlock all this and it gives you some rewards along the way, but it’s a pretty cool kind of little level of detail there.

[00:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.

[00:10:06] Speaker A: So. Yeah. From. From. Oh, sorry. Was there anything else besides the prophecy you were Gonna chat about?

[00:10:12] Speaker B: No, I think that was kind of the main little bit of questing I did. As I said, just upgrading stuff.

And then I got all the soma petals as well.

The last one I needed was in the Sacred Archives. It was like one of those puzzles where you have three opportunities or whatever. Yeah. So you go, not three opportunities, but, you know, you do three different sargons.

[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yes. It’s the. It’s the. Did you find the architect over in some corner somewhere?

[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yes, I did that one.

Yes, I did that one too. That was her nine, I think.

[00:10:52] Speaker A: Oh. So those are the treasure chest things that you had to do a puzzle for in most cases.

[00:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So I got all nine of those as well.

I forgot what the last one was.

[00:11:02] Speaker A: I did Cleaning up everything.

[00:11:03] Speaker B: It was most of most of them. Yeah, I was kind of cleaning up because most of it I had found by just roaming around during the playthrough.

[00:11:10] Speaker A: Yeah, right.

[00:11:11] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:11:12] Speaker A: So did you use the treasure maps from Fariwa to track down the rest?

[00:11:17] Speaker B: I.

I did.

Yeah, I did. I got all the treasure maps and I tracked down. And when I saw, I was like, there’s one. There’s one puzzle on the secret. On the elevator. The secret floor on the elevator, if you buy the key.

That puzzle is insane. Yeah.

And it is very long. It’s like one of the ones earlier where it, like, comes out of the wall with different spiky things, and it’s different patterns and. Oh, my God. I tried multiple times, and I got very frustrated. And then I realized that at the end of it, I looked it up, and at the end of it, it’s just like, your prize is a piece of clothing. And I was like, yeah, no, I’m good. I’m not doing that.

I don’t care about the outfit. Like, I’m good.

[00:12:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s also. There was a challenge in.

In the upper right corner, kind of near the ending, where there’s a guy who has three bells floating around. I forget the name of the side quest for that.

[00:12:16] Speaker B: It’s called the Impossible Climb. I.

[00:12:18] Speaker A: That’s it. Yeah. I gave it a couple shots, and then, yep, realized it was literally endless.

So I just stopped trying.

[00:12:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I gave it a few tries. I watched a video of someone do it and completed it. And I was like, I’m not doing that.

I was like, yeah, I’m not having the patience right now. Like, no, it’s cool. But it’s. I forgot what you get. I think maybe you get an ore or something. But I was Like, I’m. I’m okay.

[00:12:48] Speaker A: So I don’t blame you.

[00:12:49] Speaker B: Like, that’s not a side quest I’ll complete.

That’s all right.

[00:12:53] Speaker A: You know, But I’ve enjoyed all the. All the warriors as well.

[00:12:59] Speaker B: I did. Yeah. Again.

[00:13:01] Speaker A: Yeah. I think I was. I’m missing, like, one.

[00:13:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I found, I think seven. Six or. I think there’s eight total. Right.

And I found, like, six or seven of them just. Yeah. Roaming around. And then the eighth one, I.

I looked up because I had to find, because I was just curious, and it was in, like, a small gray spot I hadn’t gone to, and I was

[00:13:22] Speaker A: like, oh, okay, that’s probably where mine is. Yep. One of those gray spots. Yeah.

[00:13:26] Speaker B: So, yeah, those were fun. Actually, they were a little tougher.

[00:13:30] Speaker A: I really enjoyed those. Those fights, for sure.

Yeah. There was a lot of. Kind of very entertaining mini bosses all over the place.

[00:13:39] Speaker B: Yep. Otherwise, that was all I did. And then went through the Tower of Silence, so. Yeah.

[00:13:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And after lots and lots of navigation through the ice of the Tower of Silence, we still have to ring three gongs to open a door.

That’s after doing a whole bunch of platforming and fighting. So following the Nintendo rule of three tasks to move forward concept here, you know, can’t blame them if it works. It works.

[00:14:07] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:14:08] Speaker A: I did think it was a pretty cool biome design overall, with having to launch yourself across chasms, tons of ice caves, the giant boulders that smash you into the ground, but also nothing truly remarkable after everything we’ve been through. So while fun and a different kind of thing to look at in the background, I think there were some other cool areas. Raging Sea, one of them for sure, in my book.

[00:14:32] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Raging Sea definitely was now the boss

[00:14:37] Speaker A: of the Tower of Silence, though. King Darius. Wow.

[00:14:40] Speaker B: Yeah. This was a sick fight. This was like the beginning of it. Just the little movie. It was. This was a cool fight.

[00:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s. And, you know, the interesting thing is I wasn’t.

Although I probably should have. I wasn’t even actually expecting a boss fight in this area.

It’s kind of. It would be weird if there wasn’t because of how large it is, but I was planning to just waltz in, snatch the Key of Kings from the top of his coffin, or pry it out of the corpse’s fingers if they wanted to be morbid about it, and then head on back to the upper city. But I’m sure glad that they chose the boss route instead.

[00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:15:17] Speaker A: I guess Sargon deserves it for disturbing his eternal slumber. Though, to get attacked by a giant zombie.

[00:15:23] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. This was very Games of Thrones esque to me.

[00:15:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s like for sure, obviously the Night King, but as a giant, I mean, I am curious why he’s so huge, because wasn’t he just a king?

[00:15:42] Speaker B: Wasn’t he just a regular king? Yeah. Why is.

[00:15:44] Speaker A: He could be his whole body stretched out for some reason? It doesn’t make any sense at all. And if someone has an explanation, I want to hear why.

[00:15:53] Speaker B: Yeah.

But overall, it was such a sick fight.

[00:15:56] Speaker A: But overall, it was so cool.

And for the umpteenth time, I’ll reference bloodborne here because the cold, icy setting combined with his art design reminds me so much of Martyr Logarius from Cainhurst Castle. Except that Logarius wields a scythe instead of a giant sword.

But even better, Darius holds his own against Logarius with a very, very cool battle.

Definitely sucks for him though, because on top of being murdered, the celestial guardians that guide the soul to the afterlife couldn’t do that. So he was just stuck waiting for who knows how long.

You get that bit of lore right after fighting him.

Yeah, but I. It was so cool, like the fact that, you know, I know I mentioned at one point there’s the holy fire that I was saying, hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we got a fireball ability from the holy fire and. No, Darius gets the gift from Arash instead and lights his sword on fire.

[00:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that was sick.

[00:16:55] Speaker A: It was. Yeah. The ice and fire thing, you know, another game of Thrones.

[00:16:59] Speaker B: Game of Thrones? Yeah. Song of Fire. And like, it’s very, very Game of Thrones esque. But it was. Yeah, it was cool.

[00:17:05] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, at this point, I pretty much had my two different loadouts while playing, so I had my exploration loadout, which was highly parry focused, and then I had my boss fight loadout, which was, you know, using the.

What’s it called? The Void Sword or whatever it is, and the spear thing. So the teleport damage attack and then a couple other things, but I don’t know if you. Did you use anything in particular here to beat Darius?

[00:17:35] Speaker B: Yeah. So for Darius and the final battle, I had the same amulets. So actually coming out of the dare, I did the Darius fight. I think it took me about three tries, maybe four tries to beat Darius. But after the first one or two, I changed something. Like I took the Shield of Mithra off. For me, it just ended up actually,

[00:17:53] Speaker A: yeah, yeah, I think I kind of stopped using the shield of Mithra in these boss fights. Because there’s not enough opportunity to actually.

[00:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And the thing is, like, when I. Yeah.

[00:18:01] Speaker A: Glue the spot.

[00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah. When I would parry and like the circle’s there, but then his second attack comes so fast and once the circle’s gone, I can’t. I don’t have enough time to parry again. I’m getting hit, so I might parry

[00:18:13] Speaker A: the first swing and. And on top of all that, it takes up three slots of your amulet, so.

[00:18:19] Speaker B: Mm. Yeah. So I swapped it out for a few different.

Yeah. For different amulets. So. Yeah. And then whatever. As I said, what I had for this fight, amulet wise, I had for the final boss fight as well. And it worked pretty well for me.

[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I think. I think between these two sections because you kind of just can move on to that. Unless you wanted to do exploration. You can just leave the same set of amulets on.

[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:18:43] Speaker A: And. Yeah. But I really enjoyed this boss fight.

Probably possibly my favorite of the game.

It’s really tough. I really liked fighting Orad as well, and I don’t know. I don’t know if I can choose a favorite. Do you have a favorite fight so far? Yeah, it was good.

[00:19:03] Speaker B: This one was definitely up there. I think also the. Not the first one, but Jahandar. That was cool. Just like.

[00:19:10] Speaker A: Yeah, Jahandar was pretty cool too. When you’re, you know, pretty underpowered and have to just work things out. Yeah. I don’t know if I can rank them. That’s pretty tricky.

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

[00:19:23] Speaker A: But definitely up there. In terms of both Metroidvania boss fights and boss fights in this game, after you win, you get the Key of Kings. Right. Which turns out to be just a part of the sword and you start moving back towards the upper city. And Neith is awfully concerned about you being corrupted, but Sargon just shrugs it off as well. This is what it takes.

I did also quite like right after that Alcaraz explanation of the multiverse being like a tree makes sense to me and a bit different from what you typically see, especially considering how much multiverse content is out there these days.

And yeah, you can move on. You get like a little sending off from Prince Cassan and Al Qara and Neith. And then you get to move on into the final bit and you see boy version of Varam trying to say, hey, save the other me.

But anyway, you walk into the.

I don’t know, what is it? The tower, the final room.

And since Varam asks for your powers yet again and Sargon says no, he Just goes psycho mode and it eliminates the entire universe except this heart of the simmerg space we’re in. Not sure why Sargon survived it, but since there’s nothing left to save, might as well get revenge, right?

[00:20:54] Speaker B: Exactly. Might as well.

[00:20:57] Speaker A: And you know, after a heart to heart pep talk pregame speech with the Simurgh, you just gotta be the universe.

That’s it. Just be the universe.

[00:21:10] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:21:12] Speaker A: Simple, easy, kind of a tall order.

[00:21:14] Speaker B: But yeah, if.

[00:21:15] Speaker A: If you’re the only hope, you just do what you got to do.

Now, the Varan boss fight is four phases.

[00:21:24] Speaker B: It is brutal. I’m not gonna lie. This was brutal to me.

[00:21:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s.

[00:21:32] Speaker B: It took me less tries than maybe some others previous battles, but it was still difficult.

[00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah, Like I. I think the fact that we knew a handful of his movesets from previous versions of this fight and then you’ve got.

It just has some evolutions to some of the movesets. Like it just took some time to adjust and adapt to the new versions and the speed of it especially.

But we had some of the education there already, so that was good. The other thing too is you do way more damage than you should.

[00:22:06] Speaker B: Way more. Yes.

[00:22:07] Speaker A: Which should be an indicator that something is up.

Mm.

[00:22:14] Speaker B: When I realized that, I.

[00:22:17] Speaker A: You’re like, wait a minute, how is he almost dead? Isn’t this the final boss?

[00:22:20] Speaker B: Exactly. And then I realized there’s something I need to save and make sure if I can get to certain points with certain amount of potions and everything left, I was like, I know I can beat this.

[00:22:33] Speaker A: Right, Right, Exactly. So it’s, you know, it’s a bit of that. It’s.

But yeah, I obviously multiple health bars here. The first phase was, in hindsight, quite simplistic and his attacks move pretty slowly. Like there’s the one with the two orbs that come in at you and you just kind of launch yourself up and attack.

[00:22:54] Speaker B: Oh, you just. You can parry. I was parrying those once I was able to get there.

The fire. Is it the fire orbs or whatever that come down that he shoots down?

[00:23:02] Speaker A: Oh, you want this? You mean the one that he shoots out in like a sun shaped like circle at you? No. Yeah, those. Those I definitely paired. I’m talking about the two giant orbs that kind of try to squeeze you, flank you on both sides.

[00:23:12] Speaker B: Oh, never mind. Yes, I know.

[00:23:13] Speaker A: You mean you gotta launch something up and either attack or dodge or whatever.

[00:23:16] Speaker B: I just like, yeah, I would launch myself down.

So it got closer. Like you just. If you just held down an X, you just launch yourself down faster.

[00:23:26] Speaker A: Oh, yep, I hear you. No, I would literally just wait for them to close in on me and then right as they were about to hit my feet, I would launch myself up and attack and they would disappear.

But yeah, you know, so everything is really simplistic in the first phase and then he starts bringing in clones and wild attacks in the second.

[00:23:46] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:23:48] Speaker A: And I guess somewhat skipping ahead, but the time I beat him, I had no potions left and four health bars when I finished the third phase and was so glad they topped me back up to max health for the fourth phase.

But even without that, it’s clearly meant to be a moment of catharsis since Sargon awakens his full power and can dash all over the place like endless God mode.

So it was a lot of fun to go toe to toe at full speed with Vara in that fourth phase and make him just whiff every time.

Because we also know his moveset now. But yeah, especially the clone, the clones that came in and he would make like 10 copies of himself across the entire screen and he got a sprin.

Man.

[00:24:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that one was. Yeah, I was trying not to get caught on that. I. I figured a slight way to do it, but it didn’t work. A hundred percent.

[00:24:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say I did finally get very good at dodging the, you know, all the lines across the screen attack, even though he used it a lot more often.

[00:24:50] Speaker B: Yes. I got better on this one at dodging it. Yes. And getting away from it.

Yeah.

[00:24:57] Speaker A: But, yeah, definitely.

I enjoyed this fight a lot too.

I think overall it’s not my favorite because there’s just context around other ones that I found more enjoyable, but it was a really nice way to kind of end the combat of the game.

[00:25:13] Speaker B: No, it was.

Yeah, it was definitely not my favorite. It was very quite frustrating, but I was very proud of myself when I beat it because there were multiple times I got to that fourth. Fourth phase and had him down low, like one or two hits, and I was like, okay, I know I’m going to.

I know I’m going to beat him.

[00:25:34] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:25:35] Speaker B: And then, yeah, I did. So.

[00:25:37] Speaker A: Yeah, with an athe.

Oh, solid. You know what? You know what? Yeah, you just made me remember. I.

I got him down far enough, so I. Because I was about to die before the Force phase started and just barely got through there.

And then I saw that my health was topped back up. No potions, but health was back to max.

And I just thought, okay, oh, wait, I can move Faster. Oh, okay. I can actually. I know these move sets enough to just dodge most of this. I got hit a couple times. I actually got in a couple parries with just his regular slashes, which was shocking to me considering how fast he attacked. And then I got him down to enough damage. I think I used an Athra Surge. And then it was like the sliver that you mentioned and I was like maybe three quarters of the way of the screen away from him and I killed him with a single arrow.

[00:26:34] Speaker B: Oh, nice.

[00:26:35] Speaker A: I was like, will it work?

And it did. And it was great. It was like of all the things one simple arrow is what took. It took him down.

[00:26:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I will. So I’ll. I’ll say for like my fight what I had like my amulets wise that I had on. So I had the. What is it? The Vera for Rethragnos Wrath.

Yeah.

[00:27:01] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:27:01] Speaker B: I. The one that greatly. It greatly. I have it maxed. Everything was maxed. So it greatly increases Athra surge attack damage.

[00:27:07] Speaker A: That was massive.

[00:27:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I had the Will of Rostom, which increases. It greatly increases the power of the standard sword attacks along with the swords being maxed out.

[00:27:17] Speaker A: I never found that one.

[00:27:19] Speaker B: Oh, that one was useful.

[00:27:20] Speaker A: I had my swords maxed out. I did not find a Will of Roth.

[00:27:23] Speaker B: So I had swords maxed out and I did more power with standard sword attacks.

[00:27:27] Speaker A: All right.

[00:27:28] Speaker B: I then had blessing on plus two, so I got three extra.

I had Mount Damavand, which greatly decreases the power of incoming melee attacks.

[00:27:39] Speaker A: Oh yeah, that’s one of the things you can buy from the mage. I bought that after I finished the game because I just thought, well, nope, I guess I could just buy things.

[00:27:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I bought that like just before the Tower of Silence or during the.

[00:27:51] Speaker A: Now see, I really, really liked the Void Blade. So you just every. You know, I don’t know how long it was in between recharges, but every time you’d slash, you’d send a long distance slash, basically.

[00:28:06] Speaker B: But. And then also Rukshana’s gift.

[00:28:10] Speaker A: Ruxana’s gift. Yeah, I used that.

[00:28:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Which time restores health after parrying. Yeah, that was big.

The ir.

The IR Amulet, which greatly increases after buildup for each successful attack.

So. And then I have the prosperity.

Yeah, so I had all those. So that like helped me build up my Athra surge. And then I had for Athra, I had the Bamut rage like the large one. And if I could catch him, the parts where. Yeah, the circle like comes in while you’re. He’s. You’re hitting like the. The rock or whatever to break it.

Um.

[00:28:48] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I think.

[00:28:49] Speaker B: I guess it’s a simmer or whatever. The power to break it. Um, when I would break it, if I could get to it in time, break it. And he, like, then sits there for a second and I had the surge available, I’d just use it.

Just.

[00:29:01] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:29:02] Speaker B: Or catch him on a parry where he’d stumble back and then boom, I’d use it. And that’s how I finished him. I think I caught him on a parry and then. Yeah, that’s what I had.

[00:29:12] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:29:12] Speaker B: The.

[00:29:12] Speaker A: As well are super helpful.

[00:29:14] Speaker B: Definitely.

Yeah.

[00:29:16] Speaker A: And especially all the ways that you can build up your meter there, which is awesome.

[00:29:22] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:29:24] Speaker A: But, yeah, you know, you finish. Finish him off. And I guess all it took for Varam to see the light of reason was to be beaten by someone he underestimated.

[00:29:33] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:29:33] Speaker A: And. And his parting words are that you should be what Persia needs. And then he proceeds to cleave a hole in the ground and goes and vaporizes himself when he returns the heart of Simurg to the void.

I. You know, I don’t. I just don’t know what to say

[00:29:52] Speaker B: to that martyr esque. I don’t know. I guess he’s then trying to be.

[00:29:56] Speaker A: I guess. Yeah. Like trying to redeem himself.

[00:29:58] Speaker B: Trying to redeem himself, yeah.

[00:30:00] Speaker A: Couldn’t you have just done that without dying? I don’t know.

At that point, you return to Queen Timuris.

Prince Ghassan renounces his royalty, and she says, you brought back the Simurgh, so congrats. But Sargon goes and spills the beans to the people in the queen’s court and then just walks out like a boss.

[00:30:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep.

[00:30:24] Speaker A: And as you sit down at a pool or reflection pool and look in your reflection in the water, we learn that the colorful bird companion that those of us playing the Deluxe edition have had with us the whole time isn’t actually a parrot, but another type of bird. The prosperity bird has its name on the amulet.

Says so. Yeah, I don’t know. Just because it’s farther away in the gameplay, it’s harder to tell.

And when you look at your reflection in the water, turns out the bird was actually the old man, Al Qara.

Not sure how that all works out, but thanks, dude. I know he’s been flying around with us the entire time, which also makes sense how he gets everywhere.

[00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah, very true.

[00:31:08] Speaker A: You know, I guess now that I think about it, I’d be curious to know if our prosperity bird amulet disappears when he shows up. Probably not.

[00:31:15] Speaker B: I don’t think so.

[00:31:17] Speaker A: Probably not. Because I think it’s just a, you know, a DLC or a deluxe edition perk rather than. But that would have been a very sneaky little detail to incorporate.

[00:31:28] Speaker B: Yeah. What if. That would have been cool.

[00:31:31] Speaker A: And yeah, as the credits roll, you get dumped right back into Mount Khaf, ready to clear out the map and gather any other collectibles you want. But at this point, I’d had my fun with the main story, so I decided against that. And I don’t intend to push for 100%, which probably requires you to find everything and upgrade everything fully, which at this point feels like a slog to me a little bit.

[00:31:54] Speaker B: I know you did.

[00:31:55] Speaker A: You did clean up a number of things.

[00:31:56] Speaker B: I cleaned up a number of things, but not. I’m not 100%. There’s a lot of. There’s a couple things I’m not going to be able to get and I’m not gonna. Yeah, as you said, slog through it. I’m good.

[00:32:07] Speaker A: Well, on to the dlc.

And now that I think about it, after she said how much Varam was meant to lead Persia, Rajen just kind of disappeared.

Yeah. And now it makes sense since tracking her down seems to be the focus of the DLC Mask of Darkness.

A little cynical to view it this way, but kind of sounds like they, they being Ubisoft, planned ahead to just carve out her segment from the main game. So instead of fighting her like we fight Menelaus and Orad, they can charge extra for it as dlc.

I wouldn’t put it past Ubisoft.

[00:32:44] Speaker B: I wouldn’t either.

[00:32:46] Speaker A: Compared to other studios that seem to have additional fresh ideas that just won’t fit into the base game and make DLCs because they have new ideas, Ubisoft is definitely just a money grabber.

So anyway, I guess it was only $5, so it’s.

That’s not terrible.

And time to go. Give it a shot.

[00:33:07] Speaker B: Yes. Yes, it is.

[00:33:10] Speaker A: So for next time, play the Mask of Darkness DLC expansion if you want to, and we’ll catch up about the full game and our final thoughts about the game as a whole, including a little bit of review next episode.

[00:33:24] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely hope you all enjoyed the last section of the main story and the bosses and the boss fights.

And yeah, looking forward to talking overall about the whole game after the next episode. So yeah, thanks for listening.

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.