Part 17: Rescue Colbor: Sage Harpuia
Extra Stage Thoughts
This is a very well done stage, for all its shortness. The enemy placement is extremely deliberate, and serves to perfectly get in your way without being needlessly annoying. You can see by how I breeze through in Hard Mode how even the big turtles are never an impediment, how the biggest missile spam can be avoided by just taking out the shooters that are exactly in the way of your sword if you go fast enough. This stage is a perfect example of the sheer flow I value so highly in my games, you don't have to stop for a single second if you know what you're doing.
Even without a focus on doing it as efficiently as possible, the enemy placement has a lot going for it. The turtles will try to shoot you off ladders, into the abyss by having their fixed mortar arc perfectly utilized, but again, it's never unfair; with the correct timing, you can easily get up. It's especially important going back from the two Cyber Elves that so sneakily hide out at the bottom. Those hidden caches and the shortcut/easy route at the end reward you for exploring even such a short level, so there's a surprising amount of meat to it. Will always prefer such a stage to an endless slog through the fucking desert.
Boss Comments
Attacks
- High Swoop + Crescent Blade: Harpuia dips a little in his flight and fires out a purple energy blade. Dodge this by having him intiate the attack in one corner and just hanging out in the other. Actually really difficult to dodge (if not even impossible!) if he sends out the blade closer to the wall where you're standing - which happens when he intiates it in the middle of the arena. As you can always knock him back to where he needs to be, this shouldn't be a concern.
- Low Swoop + Piledriver: He attempts to pick Zero up and slam him into the ground which hurts. Dash under him or just knock him out of it; I prefer to always dodge first, because it'll leave him at the wall, reason see above.
- Option Attack: Harpuia sends out one of his flying electro...things. It'll fly in short bursts towards Zero three times and while travelling put up an electric shield to make it invincible. This should never be a problem because you can knock Harpuia out of using it in the first place (the animation is very slow), or destroy them immediately after it spawns with a sword slash (again knocking Harpuia back, just a little later).
- Sonic Boom (that's the actual name, by the way): The triple slash combo of his two swords (sadly, those don't have ridiculous names). Up, down, up. Well, jump then not then again. Really not hard. He'll always use a crescent blade then, so get away, for safety jump. Always does this after having been knocked out...meaning that you can cheese the fuck out of him by, well, using an ice charged Buster, for example. He'll never do anything but this.
- Lightning Tornado (EX Skill): Summons two options to trap Zero in an electric cage, then a giant maelstroem comes from one side to try and push him into the barriers. You have to dash through that, back and forth. It becomes progressively easier to avoid, I don't know why really. Of course Harpuia's invincible during the entire attack so fuck it, it just wastes your time. Once you know that dashing is the key, you'll never get hit by it. Fortunately he's so fucking easy otherwise that it doesn't at all matter.
Sadly, Harpuia is basically a joke because you can dance circles around him. If he wasn't so absurdly manipulatable, this would be a really really cool fight. It's still fun, but mostly for the abuse potential.
Despite me making fun of his motif, I actually really like the guy. His design is pretty cool, what with the two swords, and his personality is pretty interesting. It's already hinted that he is basically a Neo Arcadia patriot, and believes that what he does is just keeping order and therefore only the right thing. He's more than just a mindless zealot, though; even though his subordinates are definitely more unhinged than he (which might be why he's the leader), there's a dark side to him that doesn't really try to hide how much he enjoys battling, at least Zero specifically. And those colleagues of Colbor surely didn't kill themselves, either. As the games progress, we'll see more of him, and I like what's to come.
Ranking High
I think I covered everything in the video itself. If you've at all practiced to try and do well on the previous missions, this is an absolute joke. Maybe the Shield Boomerang strategy will help you out, if you can do it more consistent than I, but overall, this is the last stage you should have problems on.
God fucking damn it it's the Resistance Base track, I hate that. What's that upbeat and forgettable elevator music got to do with a rescue mission? At least I don't have to listen to it for long.