Set in the original region of Arciel, Legends Rising is a route-inspired, but not strictly route-based, Pokemon roleplay. Pick a faction, pick a class, and strike out into the wild to take on the League, master Contest coordination, research the mysteries of Pokemon and Arciel, and much, much more. Will you be a classic trainer? A criminal? A farmer? Choose your destiny on Legends Rising.
Josh winced as he heard the sound of a whinnying horse superimposed over itself seven times. First of all, what were half-horses doing in a jungle on an alien planet? Second, why were they where the items were? The sudden noise messed up his timing for a trick needed to collect items in front of a rapidly-closing gate, the bounty hunter's curled-up self bonking the gate. Falling through a crumbling overpass, he found himself on top of one of the half-horses, triggering a text box reading "BLUE ARMOR". It seems like the items were still there - just the wrong graphics were loaded. Someone didn't double-check their pointer addresses! Maybe transitioning the room would fix it. Using a Mini-Nuke to explode the bomb block keeping him from otherwise leaving, Josh left the room and headed back in, running and jumping through the door transition...
9gHPLSELp_
{20 + 13 = 33 - FAIL}
Nope! Back through the crumbling bridge he fell, needing to use more high-yield explosives to escape. Hopefully the Speed Booster didn't turn up, because if it did, he might need to come back there. Utilizing another big explosion to break another bridge beneath, he fell all the way down the jungle's entry shaft, locating the Barrier spell. That would be very helpful in exploring late-game dungeons back in Link...once he returned there. With so much of Super Zebbo open, he didn't foresee shifting back for quite some time.
He had a predicament on his hands, though - there were no solid platforms at the very bottom of the shaft. He would need to perform a series of wall jumps to get out. Luckily for him, there were a trio of adorable, green-furred, monkey-like creatures that could help teach him if he didn't know how.
p_ {85 + 13 = 98 - PASS}
With great timing, Josh was able to ascend the bounty hunter up the shaft, bouncing between the walls and making it back up to the red-shielded door leading into the section of the jungle nicknamed Big Pink for its bright pink foliage. After getting grabbed by two giant, spider-like creatures, he dropped another bomb to make them go away. He did need to watch his ammo count, though - he only had 9 left, and he needed to use 7 of them to be able to obtain all of them items there. The first order of business would be navigating a room nicknamed Mission Impossible. There were very dangerous enemies guarding two item locations there - wall-clinging Hoppers that could deal massive damage with Josh's lack of defense. With his current energy situation, two hits and he was done.
Oof, that's a bug. All of the Wall Hoppers have been replaced with one of the game's selling points: a massive, screen-filling boss that was one of its most impressive set pieces on release date. It was a lot less impressive when there were multiple of them and they were all superimposed on one another, giving barely any space to maneuver between. How the hell was Josh supposed to even play this?
Transitioning into the room known as "Mission Impossible", the door locked behind Josh, and the camera locked in place as not one, not two, not three, but four instances of an enormous, four-eyed lizard as tall as the screen rose from underneath the pink foliage, three large spikes embedded along its belly. A little rattled by seeing four instances of the alien lord's general slowing the game down to a mere 15 frames per second, Josh tried to set up for the well-known phase 2 skip, with his large quantity of Rockets. If shot into the boss' open mouth at the right time, it would skip an entire health bar and bring it down. Then it would be a simple matter of repeating this three more times...right? But what would happen to the others? And what about the normal location for this boss?
55MeHbR5p_ {Gaming: 92 + 13 = 105 - PASS}
...Or he could do just that - four quick-kills. He was very surprised the game didn't just totally crash from how much was going on, taking a hit or two from spikes from not paying attention in his excitement. The second hit left him very low on health - low enough to trigger one of the most obnoxious low-health sirens in any '90s video game. He tentatively marked that boss as defeated, heading down into the next room to discover...the Earthquake spell! Good thing he was able to (barely) handle it. The notes Josh typed down about the multiple bosses in a room not designed for them were hastily made, full of spelling errors. All he wanted to do was keep playing and make that DAMN BEEPING STOP.
Thankfully, there was a Zoa nest that would spit out endless critters for Josh to farm for energy and ammo. The beeping stopped quickly--and more importantly, safely, once he was back into the pink, highly poisonous jungle's large room. While filling up his ammo, he remembered there was a certain trick to skipping an upcoming mini-boss. The fight would be easy - just tedious. Why not try to skip it? The trick looked cool, too - it involved a camera manipulation to hit an off-screen block only destructible by a Rocket. There were a few specific places he could stand - it was just a matter of finding one. A couple of quick ChuTube searches later, he had an idea of how to execute it. But of course, seeing and doing were a different story...
p_ {Gaming: 30 + 13 = 43 - FAIL}
No matter how he lined up, he just couldn't seem to find one of the positions that worked. After going through fifteen Rockets, he gave up and made his way over to the bottom section of the ping jungle, using yet another screen-clearing bomb to access a small tunnel containing...his first sword! This would be really helpful when he returned to Link...but he didn't see himself going back there for a while. There was so much to do still. The bottom-right exit to the large expanse was sealed with a green door, but that was not a big deal - a single Rocket from his healthy supply of them would take care of the Blast Shield covering that door. Past that door was a nice pickup - the Charge Beam. In addition to increased weapon damage on the Zebbo side, it would make executing that quick-kill much easier if that misplaced boss was still in its regular place.
Making his way through a one-way gate, the next door transition led to a stark change in scenery - instead of a lush jungle, he was greeted with a wet, almost swamp-like environment, the red soil rich in metals. He was also greeted with a haunting tune...yet a beautiful one. "Man, I forgot how atmospheric this game's soundtrack is," he remarked, descending to the marshlands below, where he would have a rematch with (hopefully) just one of the boss he had just defeated...
As you descend down, you wander through the area, easily jumping here and there to clear it until you find an area with a seemingly hidden object. You can't push it, jump over it, or get around it. There is another platform you can use to get around it but... that is a weird object none the less.
At the far end of the red-soiled swamp was an area nicknamed the "Warehouse", even though it looked nothing like a warehouse. What it did have, though, were a few scattered pickups as well as the game's first intended major boss. He had already fought this boss before - four of them. With his equipment, especially that Charge Beam, the rematch would me a mere formality, Josh thought.
Making his way across the bog to the large island containing the Warehouse, Josh entered, and was greeted by more of the mantises from the jungle. With several well-placed rockets, they went down, one by one. At the edge of the cove they were guarding was...the X-Ray Visor! While mildly useful on its own, he now had two of the three components to perform a glitch that could destroy most of the bosses in the game in one shot. Now where was that Nova Beam...
On the way to the boss room, Josh's run suddenly stopped...but there was nothing visible in the way. "Um...what?" He couldn't move further right. He tried firing beams and even missiles at it, all of which disappeared right in front of him as through there was something there. Flipping on his X-Ray Visor, he could now see an invisible wall, stretching almost all the way up to the ceiling of the room! "Wait, what? That's not there in the base game!" He brought up the pause menu to take notes on this new oddity before ascending it with a series of simple wall jumps.
In the following room, the giant lizard he had previously encountered was gone - the game had flagged the boss as already defeated. Again pausing, he made an addendum to his previous set of notes, stating that the misplaced boss affected the room state of the normal boss room. Man, there was going to have to be a lot of work done on this before it became public...but he was having a blast so far. Nothing he had played had made him think so hard before!
The items in the Warehouse wound up being a waste of time - almost all of them were ammunition for his Bow back on the Link side. Now it was convenient to make his way to the Lava Caverns. With the Heat Shield, it was simple enough to navigate the furnace-like environment, Josh's eyes catching a golden medallion floating atop a small pool of magma. "Heh," he chuckled. "Fitting for the Inferno spell to be down here. Well, time to clean up the rest of the mountain."
Back to the Link side it was, through the inter-game portal there. Emerging back on the mountain, he entered the cave network there, this time with a Lantern so he could actually see. This time around, there was absolutely nothing unusual - perhaps the trouble he was having before was due to a feature, and not a bug? He stepped outside the cave and sounded his flute for his avian ally to pick him up. "Wait...Construction Zone! I forgot to go back there!" In the middle of the giant falcon swooping down to grab him, he interrupted the game with s Save and Quit, doing a console reset to return to the Zebbo side.
After a quick stop at the ship to refill his ammo, Josh dove into the main shaft of the alien planet's surface once more, opening a tunnel he could not before thanks to now having the ability to use those screen-clearing explosives. Now with a way through the tunnel, he shot at the door on the other side to open it, revealing some blue, webbed footgear. "The Flippers! Thank Arceus I remembered to come down here."
The flippers aren't supposed to leave you perpetually stuck dealing with the game's water physics, are they? Cause, uh, you sure seem to be doing your best impression of Michael Phelps now. If this was Spyro you'd probably be able to pull off some disgusting sequence breaking, but it might not be as useful ehre.
The moment Josh dismissed the "Flippers Acquired" text box, a bubbly texture filled the foreground, as though he was in the Planetary Aqueduct. When he started running toward the exit, he ran very slowly, as though he was underwater. Not only had the Aqueduct's underwater textures suddenly showed up, the game had treated him as though he was underwater. Without the Immersive Suit, all acceleration values would be halved - including his jump height. This was a big problem - if he missed the jump to the door containing the inter-game portal, he could very easily be trapped.
4VJzs56Pp_ {Gaming: 55 + 13 = 68 - PASS}
He had to take his time on every jump, but was able to make it to the portal back to the Link side. "That Immersive Suit better come up soon..." Josh mumbled as he appeared outside the lake fortune-teller's house. "Oh right, there's an item left over in the castle's sewers. Let's grab it." Armed to the teeth now, he was able to easily hack and slash his way through the guards, most of them going down in a single cut. Certainly the original developers did not expect going through such an area with nearly end-game equipment. Down in the darkness was a single treasure chest containing...a pack of Rockets. No help. He gazed into his Mirror to quickly leave the sewers, wandered into the courtyard, and played his Flute.
A giant, white bird dropped him at the entrance to the lake's dam. While this wasn't exactly where he needed to be, it was close enough. He entered the Lower World through a nearby warp tile blockaded by some large tree stumps - his hammer would take care of those. With clever use of traveling between worlds, as well as his newfound Flippers, he was able to dive beneath the waves and enter the Lower World's Sunken Ship. After clearing out a few jellyfish guarding the entrance, he kicked open the first of several treasure vaults within and found...the Immersive Suit! No more dealing with terrible water physics on the Zebbo side - that suit upgrade would let him have perfect movement underwater.
"Now I have a decision to make..." Josh mused aloud, stopped on the inventory menu with the cursor over his Mirror. "The Sunken Ship isn't a required dungeon this time. Do I leave now and abandon the rest of the dungeon...?"
---
{WC: 391} {PC: 10}·
Last Edit: Jun 18, 2020 3:42:46 GMT by Josh Devlin
After mulling over it for about ten more seconds, he left his menu, Mirror selected. Taking a deep breath, he depressed the "action" button, warping back to the beginning of the dungeon and leaving. He gazed into it a second time to return to the Upper World, able to collect the rest of the items around the lake and mermaids' areas with his new swimming gear. There were also a pair of whirlpools in those areas, forming a nice shortcut with one another if Josh were to swim into the center of one.
Picking up a third bottle on the cliff at lake's edge, he dove straight into the whirlpool afterward, emerging at the mermaids' domain. He wasn't interested in speaking to the fish-people again, though; he was interested in a faerie who made her home behind the nearby Waterfall of Wishing. He disappeared into the mist, and found himself in a cave with a small pond a screen transition later.
Josh took out all of his empty bottles and let them sink into the pond, the faerie guardian appearing before his eyes and asking, "Did you drop these?" Josh answered in the affirmative. "Your honesty will be rewarded!" When she presented them to the young man, each one of them was now filled with magic-restoring, green potion. At first he was disappointed. The faerie then came back with two additional treasures: an upgraded sword and the Tractor Beam from Super Zebbo!
"Well, that gets me into the Wrecked Ship. Time to head there," Josh's voice cracked as he leaned over to reset his console after saving. "Health's a little low for Fannie, though..." Appearing atop the bounty hunter's vessel cross-game, he made a beeline right for the planet's surface to the Erusian Sea, where the G.F.S. Thoth lay in ruin. The impact created a steep, aquatic crater that could be crossed with several combinations of items, but the only way he had to cross was the Tractor Beam...though the blue beam was more like a futuristic grappling hook than anything. On the other side of the crater was the Fire Sword - yet another sword upgrade! When he went back to the Link side, he was going to be armed to the teeth, able to clear out dungeons with ease! On top of that, there was another Energy Tank, only his second one! Considering there were fourteen across the games, he was very surprised it took him this long to run into a second one.
Entering the half-submerged vessel, Josh found it completely dark inside, the only light coming from a cone in front of his character. Unlike in the rest of the game, where doors would automatically open if shot with any weapon, these doors had to be manually operated with a specific button command. As he entered the main deck, one of the doors he opened clicked shut behind him, eight eerie, blue flames illuminated the abandoned deck. A one-eyed, green and brown ghost winked into view, brandishing a pair of long tentacles toward the bounty hunter. Nicknamed "Fannie" by the original game's community, this ghost was arguably the game's most difficult boss relative to your expected equipment. While the cutscene was playing out, Josh's eyes drifted to his health total - with only two energy tanks, this was going to be one tough fight, even with the added defense the Immersive Suit gave.
---
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{WC: 568} {PC: 11}
Last Edit: Jun 23, 2020 1:29:15 GMT by Josh Devlin
As soon as you go for it, the battle is smooth and incredible. Did the processing speed kick it up a notch just to have such nice and smooth animations compared to normal? That was rather nice! Looks like the developer perhaps spent a lot more time on this boss fight than other parts of the game.
There were a lot of things to react to - will-o-wisps dropped from the ceiling in random locations across the small room, the speed at which the boss attacked and became vulnerable was one of three random options, and it also had a rage phase that occurred if the boss's weakness was exploited. Thankfully, with the Charge Beam, that would be much less of an issue: in addition to letting him fire a charged shot that dealt triple damage compared to a normal attack, it could also be used to deflect or phase through certain enemies' projectiles as long as the charged shot was held. This was one of them, and probably the most useful instance in the game.
Gaming roll:
Cd|f_ZMLp_
The flames could also be snuffed out with a single shot from any weapon, and they dropped pickups on occasion as well, letting Josh keep his health up throughout the tedious battle. After three cycles of the lengthy rage phase, a well-placed rocket was able to take down the ghost. With an eerie cry, it faded from haunting the G.F.S. Thoth, its power suddenly restored.
With the power back on, there were a number of small storage rooms that could be pilfered of their contents. One of them on the lower level contained the Frost Wand - one of the keys to entry into the Black Omen fortress back in the other game. Josh took a quick save before heading to his next destination; he was happy to be able to do so, now that the power was on! He would be required to cross a hallway with a large number of spikes, and it didn't start well, what with him mistiming his first jump. Beep-beep-beep-beep... one more touch from those spikes and he would need to retry the room. In a small closet on the other side of the spike-filled mess was a pair of Jet Boots - one of the most valuable movement items in Super Zebbo. With it, he could jump in mid-air as many times as he wanted, as long as each jump was properly timed. This would certainly make it much easier to cross the spiked pit back...
They work! They actually work! You are not unceremoniously dropped into a pit of spikes, and you're able to jump through the air with relative ease. Where will you let this new power take you?
Josh new item seemed to work as intended. Though he couldn't just spam the jump button to rise into the air quickly (except while underwater), he could now cross large gaps and ascend as far aloft as the map was drawn, as long as his timing was good. The controls were largely improved, much to his surprise - not only was the timing for jumping again very lenient, but if he fell a certain distance after missing one, he could re-activate it!
"It's nice to see they've included quality-of-life improvements too - those go a long way to making the game more enjoyable. Game design theory in general has changed a lot since 1994." Even Resheph was excited, gently cooing and stretching her tail behind Josh as he made his way through the wrecked vessel. The only other item of note within the confines of the G.F.S. Thoth was the Cryo Beam. With it, he could freeze enemies and use them as platforms. It would be most helpful in the home stretch - they were one of only two weapons the titular Zebbos were vulnerable to.
By the time Josh had returned from the downed ship, the storm pelting the planet's surface had subsided, and with it a change of music, an upbeat theme flaunting the bounty hunter's growing power. With the Jet Boots, Josh could now access a pair of remote caves high above the landing site...though without the Moon Jump, it was a bit more tedious to use than in the normal game. Where the #$&% was Moon Jump, anyway? He had been playing for hours, and it still hadn't turned up!
While taking a much-needed health and ammo refill at his ship, Josh pondered his next routing choice. "Oh, I should get that Shapers' Cane at the back of Gauntlet. There won't be another convenient time to do so." The cave was called Gauntlet for a reason - the bottom half was filled with rising and falling acid so corrosive that even the Heat Shield and Immersive Suit together did not offer full protection from it. Furthermore, there were worm-like giant insects that could reach above the acid and drag him below.
With the Jet Boots, though, he could easily stick to the top of the screen and make his way to the back, picking up the cane. It would grant him passage to the dungeon in the Bog of Evil on the Link side...once he found those gold gloves. That was another thing missing for way too long. "Oh, I can get to Ripley's Hideout," Josh mused. "And isn't there a portal connected to the Bog of Evil down there? Wouldn't it be something if gold gloves were down there and you had to use the portal to get them?"
It was a long trip - even with the shortcut to Lava Caverns through the Red Tower, it took several minutes to get to the entrance. There were some nice items in the Red Tower, though, including the Silver-Tipped Arrows, the only weapon Horthos the Evil King was vulnerable to. There had been some nice finds recently - at this point, Josh only needed a few items to finish both games: the Golden Glove, the Staff of Flame, and whatever spells were needed to break the seals on the Bog of Evil and the Black Omen. He hoped everything left would be in his direct path.
Actually entering Ripley's Lair required many items: in addition to being able to reach the room, both the Heat Shield and Immersive Suit were needed to survive a dive into a lava lake. The Jet Boots were required to climb out of the lake as well - the high viscosity of the bubbling magma meant that even with heat protection, simply swimming up the lava lake was not an option, either. Luckily, Josh had all of those items. He emerged on the other side of the lava lake, his suit dripping magma as he descended the elevator to the purple dragon Ripley's acid-filled hideout. "Not gonna lie Resheph, I'm a bit nervous coming down here with only three Energy Tanks..."
Josh Devlin What luck! It seems coming this far gave you access to a great treasure chest of riches! Seems things are running smoothly for now and it looks like it'll be easy to complete the few tasks remaining.
As if hearing bubbling acid and seeing walls glowing reds, oranges, and yellows from the intense heat wasn't enough, a driving beat backed by ominous chanting told Josh he was near the end of the game. The most dangerous enemies in all of Super Zebbo were down here, and could only spare a few hits with how ill-equipped he was...at least in terms of defense. In terms of offense, he was ready to go, armed to the teeth with stacks and stacks of rockets - more than were available in the normal game.
The lair was filled with strong, seahorse-shaped dragons whose scales resisted the highly corrosive acid even the Immersive Suit wouldn't fully protect against. Even the screen-clearing mini-nukes wouldn't take care of them - nearly every enemy in the depths of the planet was like that. Without all of this endgame equipment, he wouldn't have a chance of survival.
After avoiding a treacherous encounter with aliens that fought much like ninja, and taking a couple of painful bops, Josh made his way into the exit to the lair's mini-boss to build up speed for an upcoming room that flooded with acid over time once he entered it. To his surprise, the one-way gate was not there! "Is this a bug, or a feature?" Josh wondered. The gate could be opened from the wrong side with a well-known glitch that allowed a rocket to clip through the gate when combined with a lot of momentum, letting the explosive hit the switch on the other side. No need for that, though!
Josh descended the shaft on the other side of where the gate was supposed to be, finding a treasure trove of valuable items! Wait, there was only supposed to be one item here! Why was everything he needed still here? "Umm..." Josh said aloud, frantically typing that the shaft after the Golden Hawk mini-boss he skipped was full of what he assumed were duplicates of items he needed. Almost everything he needed was here - the Thunder spell, the Bow, the Flame Staff, and even an extra copy of the Shapers' Cane! "...Well then. Maybe I'll be able to get off a little early. The spoiler log will certainly be interesting to look at..."
Resheph seemed happy, too - though she was expressing excitement, the Dratini was growing bored on the inside and wanted to do something else. Josh peered over at the clock on the other side of the room. He didn't realize he had been playing for nearly four hours!
After giving his position in the game some thought, Josh realized there was only one item stopping him from completing both games. That item was the Golden Gloves, which would bestow immense strength upon his Last Link self - enough to lift even the heaviest rocks that would not budge before. He hoped the search wouldn't take too long. If it did, he would be having one late supper...probably late enough that only bars would be open!
In addition to the treasure trove that wasn't supposed to be there, the one item that was supposed to be at the bottom of the shaft made him laugh; it was the Energizer, unmoved from its normal position! It was certainly a welcome upgrade, and the ultimate weapon against nearly any non-boss enemy. It turned Josh's very body into a deadly weapon as long as he was in the air, creating a high-voltage electric field that would zap nearly any enemy to death on contact.
With the most powerful offensive tool in the game, making it down to Ripley would be trivial, though Josh still had to be on his guard - his health capacity was still very low, and the Energizer was useless against the upcoming boss. Without High Jump (how has that not turned up, anyway?), dodging Ripley's swooping attacks and fireballs would be much more difficult. The upcoming battle would become a war of attrition that needed to be completed as quickly as possible.
Still lacking in standard Beam weapons, Josh spent quite a bit of time farming ammunition all the way up to full before the fight. He had some to spare, but it wasn't a lot - this would require him to be both fast and accurate, and his last save was all the way back at the beginning of the lair. He took a deep breath, opened the door, and initiated combat with the purple, highly intelligent dragon, arm cannon ready to unload rockets as fast as he could...
Believe it or not, things aren't going as planned with Ripley. Rather than ammunition, your arm cannon is currently shooting out money! At least your currency is going through roof but that'll be a small comfort if you don't live to tell the tale!
At the beginning of the battle, Josh stood right in front of Ripley and aimed at the dragon's schnoz. Just as the music kicked in, he started firing, only for a "You found 200 Gold" prompt to come up every thing he pressed the weapon button. The young man rolled his eyes and nonchalantly tossed the controller up a foot or so, promptly taking a bop from the boss's elongated snout before he caught the controller again. 40 damage for just that one hit. Nine more of those would spell curtains for him...not to mention Ripley's other attacks, some of which could knock him into the deadly acid below.
Thankfully, not all was lost. With the Charge, Ice, and Wide Beams, he had an alternate way of handling the boss. It would be slow and treacherous, but 100 charged shots would get there. Of course, that was a lot easier said than done - with a lot of different movement options and the most complex AI out of any boss in the game, the battle would keep Josh on top of his game.
UgyikmJ4p_ {Gaming - 24 + 17 = 41 - FAIL}
Things were not going at all well for him - through a combination of mistimed jumps and bad patterns, he was taking far too many hits. By the time half of Ripley's health had been depleted, the game's low health siren had kicked in - one more hit and Josh was toast. He immediately focused more on playing defensively than simply getting damage in, drawing the fight out more. After making a narrow dodge, his sweaty thumb slipped over too far, the bounty hunter falling into the acid. The screen faded to black as his character's armorsuit exploded, a bloodcurdling scream accompanying it.
GAME OVER - Continue from last save?
"...We're gonna go a different way," Josh sheepishly remarked, his last save at the beginning of Ripley's Lair. Somehow, the items he had found at the bottom of the Energizer room were still in his inventory, despite taking an untimely death. "Let's clear out the Bog of Evil and the desert areas completely. Maybe we can find another Energy Tank or two..." With that, he made his way back to the shaft the Energizer was in, entering a door that was to transport him back to the Last Link side, outside the entrance to the Bog of Evil. He had never had the chance to test this portal - hopefully it worked. If not, he would need to wait until he had the Golden Gloves to get there...
This was the third different game-crossing portal Josh had traveled through successfully - it seemed like the code to switch games on the fly was solidly written. Impressive, considering the two games ran on completely different engines. Emerging in the Bog of Evil, Josh saw his health situation on this side was much better, what with the second layer of his health bar just barely showing over the first. The image of a lightning bolt was inscribed on a dais in front of the dungeon's entrance. "Oh, right. That's another thing I need to look for," Josh moaned. "Need the Thunder spell." There was still plenty to do in the area, though, including another dungeon near the Upper World's desert.
Swamp water splashed around his feet as Josh entered a small cave to the west of the bog's dungeon entrance, a small maze standing in his way of two treasure chests. Thank Arceus for top-down perspectives! He kicked both of them open and broke out in hysteric laughter when finding the Thunder spell in one of them, not even paying attention to the health capacity upgrade that was also rather helpful for the endgame to come. Resheph was floating around him like a deflating balloon in mid-air, also lost in laughter. "I guess...the key...was under...the mat!" he managed between breaths, taking a short amount of time to catch his composure and open up the way to the bog's depths using his newly-unearthed magic.
The subterranean swamp was full of dangerous enemies found nowhere else in the game, including slugs that excreted waste as explosive as Josh's own bombs. There were a lot of locked doors, as well; though he found one of the freestanding items quickly, the rest was a slog. One key led to another, to another, and to another. He had passed through the swamp's main tunnel several times before finding the Big Key needed to head to the basement and fight Hecteyes, a boss comprised of eleven eyeballs each capable of shooting lightning bolts. Armed with the Silver-Tipped Arrows, though, the battle was little more than a formality, each of the eyeballs fading after a single hit.
The imprisoned maiden he rescued had her hair recolored red. "Right," Josh said as he was whisked out of the dungeon and back to the enclosed swamp. "That's a really nice feature, coloring them red to indicate they gate the fairy at the Pyramid. Wait - if Black Omen is the other red maiden, then the Golden Gloves can't be at the Pyramid, because you would need them to rescue her. Where are these things?!" He still had another dungeon to complete at the desert, which also ended up being a formality, given how grossly overpowered he was on this side. He dispatched the trio of Sand Worms in the depths of the desert in a similar fashion to Hecteyes, taking them down with one arrow each. In addition to the maiden, he was rewarded with another valuable Energy Tank. This put him up to five. While Ripley would not be an easy battle still, this gave him a bit of extra wiggle room.
He made his way back to the depths of Ripley's Lair, able to breathe a little easier with that extra bit of energy. He had a little bit of extra ammunition from his trip through the dungeons, as well. After taking advantage of nearby respawning enemies to farm up to full energy and ammo, Josh took a deep breath, entered the door to Ripley's chamber, and readied himself for a second attempt.
With all this extra ammo, Josh started firing rockets toward Ripley as rapidly as the game would allow. Able to afford far less accuracy now, he decided it would be better to end the fight as quickly as he could. The two traded blows, Josh briefly knocked into the bubbling acid underneath once from being unable to anticipate when Ripley's attacks would get faster. In the end, that extra Energy Tank made the difference in surviving the boss battle. Beyond the dead space dragon's lair was a hall full of broken stasis cells, as well as the Golden Gloves he had been searching for!
With those strength enhancers, Josh had everything he needed to complete both games. While a couple more Energy Tanks and a second armor upgrade on the Link side would be helpful, they weren't strictly necessary. He still had quite the task ahead of him, though - even after escaping Ripley's Lair and transitioning between games, there were still five maidens were scattered throughout the Lower World, waiting to be rescued. He would start with the Dead Woods and the Thieves' Den in the northeast corner of the Lower World, two dungeons he felt he could check off in about five minutes if everything went well...
The entrance to the next dungeon looks normal enough... but then suddenly the world becomes pixelated and seems to turn into a scene from Donkey Kong? Uhh... I guess avoid the barrels for now! Maybe try going back the way you came.
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