Part 62: Challenges D

We're going to do more missions today because I'm REALLY not looking forward to Mission 78. It's definitely even worse tham the Leechgrave mission.



This is not a great start. We're just plain not strong enough to kill the Dual Blade in time.



Level cap means swapping the Level Up panels with magic.



I brought in all elements just because I have space for them.



Use Fire to instantly kill the Minute Bombs. There's just 5 of them. However, make sure to cast it from far away so they don't explode in your face.



I feel that Dual Blade is only vulnerable to magic when it's knocked down. I don't know if that's actually true, but it feels like it.



We can get hit only once. Not hard at all.



This is what we're going to be using for the most challenges.



This mission is piss-easy.



So let's continue with the Lite's Play.



Last time, U-1 and Puma fell into the middle of nowhere.



If you're watching the story on Brass Monkey's LP, you'll know that this is the first enemy who's sent by the main villain.



Pictured: U-1's reaction to the man-bee hybrid. Also pictured: My reaction after looking at the mission restrictions for the lategame missions



At least I don't have to deal with those yet! This mission is easy, at least. Just grab every emblem on the way and go back to the Bizarre Room through the Lotus Forest shortcut.



And here we see the main issue with Wonderland timed challenges: The potion. It's not actually as bad as I thought it would, though. Thundaga works great for them.



2:25. That's plenty of time.



Another easy mission, so let's check back to the forest.



There's the earlier frogs...



Some bats...



A bear and a cub. Along with King Bee.



Not just a normal King Bee, a trumpet-wielding king bee.



This level is where it gets hard. The prompts are now so rapid that button mashing is the best method for them.



You know, unlike the mission itself.



3:30. We finish a full minute earlier than the time limit.



This one, however, is actually pretty tough.



The Commanders are pretty easy, although I should've used Blizzara instead of Thundaga.



This is the part that takes up the most time. If we're caught at any point, there's no chance of getting three sigils. Good thing I have savestates!



1:25. Yeah. I lucked out by having Luxord freeze the final Commander, leaving me with barely enough time. I probably would have more time if I used Blizzara myself, but it works out in the end



This is probably possible to do now, but after 5 minutes I just didn't bother. It's very tedious.





The Battle Phase are also much harder than the previous levels. It is a very large jump from last level.



Both Guard and Attack Phase are affected by the jump. But more importantly, there's also owls and mushrooms here. All of them moves along the beat here .



Back to the challenge, just imagine doing this three times. We're completely ignoring the Tailbunker here.



2:10. The difficulty of these challenge missions are definitely not balanced.





No attack magic means the return of Rage Gear+ and Limit Recharge. We can buy Champion Gear+ which has even higher strength, but its aerial combo sucks.



Back to Gitaroo man, we move on to the second battle phase. Mojo King Bee jumps to a lily pad. Which can sustain his weight somehow.



The reason I used screenshot format for this is to see all the neat little details. Like the huge Deku tree in the background there.



Even weirder than the extremely strong lily pad is the disco ball suddenly appearing from the tree. Okay then.



Not as weird as the disco ball, but the sudden water spray is also weird.



I guess you can blame it all on the power of MUSIC!? :science101:



The challenge itself can be done easily with Limits.



1:25. It's a very strict time limit.



No attack magic AND a level cap?!



Just hit it, being careful to avoid its attacks. Don't risk it when it shoots ice, though.



Let's go back to Gitaroo Man so you don't have to see the slog for that challenge. You can see the Deku Tree much clearer here.



Somehow the Deku Tree has plenty of smaller bats. Okay then.



The bears then pounds the tree. I have no idea why. They don't pound to the rhythm, nor do they pound the tree Mojo's in.



This level is the first one with 3 variations. The one I'm using here is the easiest one, with the jukebox one being the medium one. I can't actually get these variations reliably, getting the jukebox version most of the time.

I don't really know the requirements for getting the various variations. I'm pretty sure that the points matter, but there's also some randomness involved. Unfortunately, no one has ever posted the exact requirements.



We can only get hit once. It's such a slog that it's much longer than the Gitaroo Man level here.



I'm not even going to bother with this right now. The main problem is that the Hover Ghosts in Round 2 took forever to defeat. Not to mention the Guard Armor after that. We can't even use limit because we can't get hit.



Nor will I for this one. I don't think we're strong enough for this one.



Here's our rewards. Rage Gear is useless while Haste LV+ isn't that bad, I guess. Not really anything noteworthy, though.



Unlike those final challenges, the final part of the level is extremely easy, even compared to previous levels.



It only have a few long notes and we're only penalized if we miss the beginning of them, so we don't even have to maintain the line.



Eventually Mojo King Bee is defeated, but he's still holding onto a vine.



However, the vine is weaker than the lily pad, so it brings him down.





Mojo King Bee is too good to this world...



New reports:

Whoever writes (and narrates) this report is a jerk


This one is the enemy for the next level, which I won't cover in this Lite's Play because there's no variation there.