Part 15: Video 12
Goes great with Ice Cream!
Stage notes!
100 pt. Requirements:
-Clear time: 2:10
-Enemies killed: 28
-Mission: N/A
This mission is simple as sin in or out of hard mode! However, Rainbow devil’s huge healthbar, small hitbox, attacks that take half your hp, and lack of an elemental weakness make him potentially one of the hardest bosses in the game. HAVE FUN.
The Neo Arcadian temple is very boring and also very orange!
Really though it’s basically the Residential area reskinned with a less interesting background and exactly 13 less dead Resistance soldiers. There’s also a couple of branching areas, but they all dead-end in E-crystals or related junk. BORING.
Honestly the most interesting thing is the return of the Pantheon Launchers.
I love these guys
But yeah that’s basically it, bit of platforming and spikes, but no gimmicks. Short and sweet. I’d place it lower in interest-level than the Residential area, except we get a cool unique boss here instead of MORE GOLEMS so I prefer this one.
EX Skills!
=Filter Shield=
The only EX skill the poor, forgotten shield boomerang gets. Also the last EX Skill in the game!
The filter shield’s odd in that it’s not really an attack. When equipped, the skill gives you the ability to transform bullets shot at you back into a pure, crystalline form, ripe for the collection. You can only convert bullets by bringing your shield up JUST as they’re about to make contact (preventing you from just standing in place and reaping the spoils), but you can just press whatever button you have the boomerang mapped to really fast and get the desired result every time. It also makes a very satisfying “ping” sound whenever you do it that I can’t recall being used anywhere else in the game. Weird.
Now, E-crystals come in two varieties: small (worth 4 crystals) and large (worth 16 crystals). When you use this skill, you’ll only ever get the ‘small’ version, at least as far as I can tell. I’ve tried using it on shots other than normal Pantheon pellets (like the Pantheon Launcher shots) to no effect so I’d say you can only get small ones out of this.
Don’t let that discourage you, though, because this is hands-down the best way to farm for E-crystals in the game. Using it against a normal Pantheon trooper will net you 12 E-crystals every 2 seconds, with absolutely no limit barring the stamina of your button-mashing finger. This, in combination with the fact that the requirements for leveling Cyber-elves has been slashed to less than a third of what they were in the first game, makes 100%ing your Cyber-elf slaughterfest a much more bearable grind.
As such, here’s me sharpening the axe. This was an undertaking necessary for the true completion of the let’s play and not, in fact, me dicking around in Vegas with whatever I had on hand for an hour just because I felt like it. Regardless, the end result is we have 7540 E-Crystals now
(Doing this made me realize that Pantheons imperceptibly move a pixel towards you every time they fire and it kinda creeps me out)
Character bios!
Rainbow Devil MK2
Moveset:
- Sludge slug: Compresses itself into a low to the ground, slug-like form, and quickly scoots across the ground to the other side of the room. If the move connects, it’s immediately followed by…
- Constrict: Curls up around Zero and constricts him. If you don’t button mash quickly to escape, he’ll deal further damage to you. Damage is equal to normal contact damage and is thusly devastating; each tick will take ¼ of your life, or ½ in hard mode. Simply jump over the slug to avoid dealing with this.
- Iridescent tempest: Converts itself into a whirlwind of goo, lobbing out 4 chunks of himself on either side of his body. Chunks will stick to whatever surface they land on (producing a minor explosion on contact), sit for a moment, then slowly gather back to the main body. The Devil will only revert back to its normal form upon the return of all parts.
- Taste the rainbow: The Devil launches itself high in the air, converts into a terrifying gooey-fanged maw, and hurtles itself towards you. Upon contact with the ground, the head will remain at the landing point whilst 3 large pieces of itself explode outwards and upwards at varying angles, bounce out walls, and then crawl back to the main unit. Wall jump out of the way.
- Nightmare blow: Winds up, then punches directly in front of himself. Moves forward a body length in so doing, giving the move a decent amount of range.
- EX Skill: Super sludge: Raises his arms above his head and executes what is presumably meant to be a bellowing war cry, albeit a silent one. Proceeds to heavily stomp his way across the room, completely invincible. His steps are strong enough to dislodge debris from the room, and while the smaller bits won’t hurt, getting smacked with a big piece will leave a bit of a dent. Dodge the larger debris, and jump over the devil when it’s safe to do so.
Devil-series robots have been a staple of Mega Man games since the very first title, and continue to poke their slimy, mono-eyed faces into the series every once in a while. And whenever they do, it’s best to prepare yourself for what usually ends up being a hell of a fight.
The Rainbow devil is the Zero series’ multi-colored answer to this legacy, with this particular encounter actually being the second time our protagonist has faced off against its gooey might. Initially encountered at the top of an enormous elevator extending into space and leading into Copy X’s lair, it was thought to have been destroyed, but has since been revived in a new, stronger, MK2ier form. Apparently a secret weapon of the Cutting Shadow Squadron, its body’s actually composed of liquid metal, which helps explain the power and durability contained in its gelatinous frame. It looks the same as before, although it does have a slightly altered moveset. Pics of the arena from Zero 1 and 2 for comparison:
As for the fight against it, it’s actually not as bad as it could’ve potentially been. Devil robots are known and notorious for only being vulnerable in a small part of their bodies, parts which only become vulnerable for short periods of time, and while the Rainbow Devil does indeed fit the bill on the first point (you can only land hits on the Pantheon head contained within), it never actually ceases to be vulnerable any more than other bosses encountered. This makes it probably the easiest Devil to date.
Don’t go thinking it’s a pushover, though. The Rainbow devil sports a whopping triple health bar, the first of its kind seen within Zero 2. It also lacks any sort of elemental weakness, meaning the fight is long and grueling compared to other bosses.
Rainbow, like most Devils, attacks primarily through contact with pieces of itself. It’s capable of launching bits all over the room, relocating itself at high speed, and just generally being a pain to dodge. UNlike most Devils, though, it’s not adverse to moving as one solid mass, or just straight-up punching Zero if it gets the opportunity.
Speaking of that punch, I’d like to note a few differences between the MK1 and MK2. In Zero 1, Nightmare blow (the wind-up punch) held the coveted EX Skill status, but strangely enough said skill has been slapped into its normal arsenal of moves and replaced with a separate skill. A couple other moves got tweaked too; tempest now creates small explosions upon contact between blobs and surfaces (whereas they used to just kinda plop there), and its enormous maw attack now automatically bursts into a bunch of pieces when it hits the ground. That latter one’s actually interesting in that it makes the fight significantly EASIER, as in Zero 1 it functioned more like a bouncy game of Asteroids where the Devil would bounce around the room, split into two when you hit it, and then split into four when you hit it a second time. It was superhard to dodge, but for whatever reason the new version is comparatively easy. Odd.
The skill replacing Nightmare blow as acting EX is Super sludge, a far more visually impressive move whose name I made up because all this thing’s bios only list Nightmare Blow’s name. It involves him monstrously shuffling across the screen and making things fall from the ceiling, but apart from the total invincibility it affords him it’s honestly not all that dangerous. This thing hits hard, but attacks slowly, and isn’t all that hard unless you get a bad angle on one of its projectile attacks. Cool cameo though.
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Music played in the stage is just Neo Arcadia II, same as the residential area, so that’s all for now! Next few stages do get their own unique tracks so look forward to that. They’re also longer, so we’re probably out of the 5-minute video range~