Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon took me for a chilly ride

Some two months after getting it, I’m almost done with Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, which is good seeing that Animal Crossing: New Leaf drops in just a few days and will continue to take up most of my portable gaming time for both the near and far-flung future, but I came very, very close to taking the cartridge out of my 3DS and never looking back. Why? Let’s blame the possessor ghost boss fight from the Secret Mine mansion, and let’s blame it coldly.

While the main levels within a mansion all follow a formula of slowing making progress to the house’s final area, ghost by ghost, piece by piece, there’s definitely not one tied to the boss fights at the end. Each has been drastically different, and the one hoarding the dark moon fragment in Chilly Ride took me by surprise for its difficulty and unrealistic expectations.

For starters, the game switches to a first-person shooter perspective, having you toss bombs at a looming monster face covered in slabs of ice while you race down a slippery ice tunnel. Once you break away each slab, you then have two chances to toss a flaming bomb into the monster’s open mouth; do that, and you return to more traditional grounds, sucking up the possessor ghost as usual in third-person perspective before being thrown back into the shooting formula two more times. Each subsequent time adds more slabs around the monster’s face, and you only have so much time to clear them off the boss before your sledding/shooting machine malfunctions. If that happens, you have to redo the entire fight from the beginning. Which sucks.

Trust me, I know. It took me eight attempts to finally beat this boss, roughly around 40 minutes. That’s the equivalent of two missions in Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, wherein you are collecting ghosts, finding gems, earning money for unlocks, and seeing story beats unfold. I definitely have more fun exploring rooms than tossing bombs down ice tunnels and hoping for the best. Luck and a lot of timing played into this boss fight, which is what makes it so frustrating. When I finally did take down the possessor ghost, I didn’t feel like it was through genuine skill, just something I managed to sneak by.

But whatevs. I beat the Chilly Ride boss–cue Luigi’s adorable line, “I do it!”–collected the fourth Dark Moon fragment, and moved on to the final mansion to see this story to a close. Which I hope to do tonight or tomorrow. No really. I’m almost there, and I’ll probably have some final thoughts on the game, as there is, just like with Paper Mario: Sticker Star, a lot to enjoy here, but the frustrations are truly that, and this boss fight was almost bad enough to drive me away. Hopefully the final boss fight won’t kick me out for good.

Samus Aran is not the boss of the bosses in Metroid Fusion

I know I previously made the bold claim that Metroid Fusion wasn’t really worthy enough for further musing over, but here I am, eating my typed-up words, writing more about Samus and her attempt to stop the X infection on SR-388. It’s what I’ve been playing since my time of running errands in Little London came to a close, as well as after I realized just how much freaking grinding I’d have to do to get my team of Pokemon up to decent snuff to even attempt the final fight(s) with confidence. If anything, with it being so linear it is nice to have confident direction. Yeaaaah.

Man, I sure do love linking things in my opening paragraphs.

Moving on, I hate the boss fights in Metroid Fusion. I think they are initially unfair and frustrating. I think they are unclearly communicated. After I lose each boss battle, I put the game aside for a few days, just not wanting to deal with it all. Granted, I probably thought–and still do to some extent–the same way about the boss fights in the fantastic Super Metroid. Phantoon and Botwoon proved to be tricky, and I absolutely remember tearing up in frustration when Draygon would constantly pick Samus up and drain her life, with me just watching it happen, helpless and mad. Oh, and Ridley–the second time in Norfair–was no walk through the lava-themed park. But those are that game‘s bosses, and when you defeated them, that was mostly it. You didn’t have to then fight a second enemy immediately after while still low on health and missile ammo and nowhere near a save spot.

See, in Metroid Fusion, the Core X has infested and mimicked different monstrous creatures kept on the station. As you battle Core Xs, they’ll use abilities stolen from Samus against you, and when you defeat them you’ll recover these lost abilities. Makes sense, really. But first you must defeat the monster the Core X is hosted in. Then you must destroy the Core X right after. The problem I keep running into is that I just barely make it through that first portion of the fight, and then have to deal with a zig-zagging Core X blob that is hard to hit, but loves hitting Samus. When she dies, it’s back to your last save spot, wherever that might be. Mine are never that far away, but far enough that it’s annoying.

So, last night, the stupid spider boss Gedo X just slapped Samus away in the above mentioned manner, and that was it for my gaming time. Which is a shame, as I had just stumbled upon not one, but two fantastic nods to Super Metroid that got me smiling and reminiscing all the same. Oh well. I’ll try again. You hear that, Gedo X? Samus will return, and this time, she’ll be planning for victory. Two of ’em.

Magus and his castle of crazy

I don’t know what I expected to find in Magus’s Castle, but certainly not references to tone-deaf rock stars, traitorous loved ones, and a boss fight that required an attention to reading. But that’s Chrono Trigger for ya, always charming and never without surprises. Shame on me for waiting so long to get into this game.

Right. That castle. It’s 600 A.D., and the gang, having secured Masamune, are now ready to go after Magus and his goons. One’s first stroll through the castle’s hallways is particularly eerie, with loved ones and little children turning into monsters which you must then murder. No questions asked. Hopefully those really weren’t people we knew, but rather just illusions. After exploring for a bit, Magus’s henchmen show up, and they are named Ozzie, Slash, and Flea; yeah, this game was totally made in the mid-1990s. Flea and Slash are not too tough, each requiring a wee bit of strategy, but with Frog and Crono swiping away and Marle holding back to heal, heal, heal, they were all torn asunder in time.

However, getting to Ozzie is a laborious affair. First, there’s a gauntlet of enemies to burn through, then a room with giant blades to avoid, stairs to climb, and then another room full of trapdoors that, when you cross them, Ozzie will pull a switch and send your team falling to a room below. Oi vey. Actually, this wasn’t too terrible, as it was a good way to grind, with Crono earning Lightning II by the end of it all. The sparkly enemies in this room can’t hurt you, meaning free experience and Tech Points. After that, it’s more stairs and another gauntlet of enemies. And then we finally get to battle Ozzie, which is amazingly simple; never attack him, but instead target the switches around him.

Finally, we get to the legend himself, Magus. On my first attempt, I completely flubbed and lost within a few turns. My bad…I wasn’t reading the text below. See, I thought he was just casting spells, but he was actually announcing the type of spell he was currently weak to until he switched it up again. So, when he says, “Absorbs all but water!” you should have Frog cast Water on his magical ass. However, it took me far too long to realize that when Magus announces he will absorb all but light, he really means lightning. I think the developers couldn’t fit the full word in the text box? Silly me was searching every menu for a “light” spell.

With Magus defeated, another portal appeared, sucking Crono and team back to the past. At what point should I try to fight Lavos again? Is there a canon ending I should go after? I’m kind of confused about all that.

One-punch Pauly takes down Jaron Namir with ease

I hated the fight against Lawrence Barrett; I loathed the battle against Yelena Fedorova; and yet, to the surprise of me and all of y’all, I have no rage-inspired emotional response to the third boss battle against Jaron Namir. It was over too fast. I snuck up behind Namir as he was hopping over a wall, triggered the stealth punch button, and…punched his lights out. One hit, ten seconds…boss fight done. I have no idea if this is a glitch or if I’m a gaming god or ultimately if I was doing it wrong–whatever the case, I don’t care. The less time I spend on boss fights in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the more I like the game.

Mmm-mmm good. I can hear Colonel Campbell screaming his name now:

The Snake (25G): You defeated Jaron Namir, Leader of Belltower’s Elite Special Operations Unit.

And here I was, all prepared and ready to spew hate upon hate upon hate over this third boss fight. Nope, not today. However, the game’s not over yet. Jensen still has one last mission to do. You know, save the world and all that. I’m excited to see the credits roll, and I think if you’ve been reading all my rants about this game lately you’ll know why. However, even on a second, shooty playthrough, I’m still going to one-punch Namir to death…unless it is a glitch and gets patched before that chance pops up again.

One-punch Pauly. He only swings once, but he makes it count. POW!

Achievements of the Week – The Welcome Home Edition

Oh look, another week at Grinding Down coming to a close. These things just sort of creep on me. Like creepy creepers. Like your hairy uncle that drinks too much at family gatherings. Um…

Right, moving on. Did I play more Deus Ex: Human Revolution and scour China for all of its secrets? Nope. Did I continue on with Mafia II to sneak into some government building and steal gas stamps? Nope. Did I get back into Bastion after going silent on the game for many, many weeks? Nope. Did I play the latest DLC for Fallout: New Vegas? You bet your sweet buttocks I did. And that’s basically all I played. Still dealing with a lot of stress and lack of time/energy. Hopefully, after the next few weeks, that will all be in the past. Hopefully.

From Fallout: New Vegas…

Condemned to Repeat It (20G): Decided the fate of all the Divide Dwellers

Hometown Hero (30G): Completed Lonesome Road.

So far, until more FAQs come out and the wikia is expanded, there are two ways that I know of for dealing with Ulysses, the final boss of Lonesome Road. And they are…

::SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS::

You can talk your way through it, first needing a speech skill check of 90, and then who knows what else after that. Or you can kill him. But to do so, you must first deal with a swarm of medical eyebots that are constantly healing him and constantly respawning, as well as a seemingly endlessly attack from marked men. Chances are you have ED-E with you, but he goes down very fast. Trying to take on Ulysess, two to three eyebots, and at least two marked men at once eats up a lot of stimpaks. There are machines that will stop the eyebots from spawning, but you need a 100 in either Repair or Science to do so. Guess which three skills my character Kapture neglected to focus on during this playthrough? Speech, Science, and Repair.

Basically, I was screwed, and this became even more evident after failing the fight over ten times and trying every tactic in the book. Actually, there was one final tactic left: I changed the difficulty from Normal to Very Easy. Sigh. Not ideal, but it worked; I used Pew Pew to weaken Ulysses farther than ever before and then turned him to ash with a well-timed V.A.T.S. headshot.

After that, there’s some choices involving a nuke, which, even though I clearly labeled this section as spoilery, I will not go into. Maybe another post. They’re pretty interesting, and from what I can tell, actually have a lasting effect when returning to the Mojave Wasteland.

But yeah, between Ulysses and Deus Ex: Human Revolution‘s Barrett, I’m not having a great time with boss battles lately. Why can’t we all just eat cake and talk about how great The Beatles are and then end the night with songs around the campfire? I mean, really.

—

That’s it from me. How did y’all do this week? I’m guessing many of y’all played Gears of War 3 since that was the big name to drop recently. Let everyone know what Achievements you unlocked in the comments below!

Lawrence Barrett is no more, and that’s no bull

“Bulls do not win bull fights. People do.” – Norman Ralph Augustine

That’s right, Grinding Down readers. I did it. I did this:

The Bull (25G): You defeated Lawrence Barrett, elite member of a secret mercenary hit squad.

After failing time after time after time–his grenades kill you instantly on the middle difficulty and are quite hard to avoid, considering he throws them in groups of three and the room is small, cramped, with few choice hiding spots–I decided to look up some walkthroughs online to see how others tackled this annoying fellow with a machine gun for a hand. No, not that one. That Barret cusses more. And he would be on my side to begin with, making this boss battle a non-necessity. Anyways, I found a video of someone beat him by tossing a gas canister at him, then an exploding barrel, and then did that twice more, all under sixty seconds. Whaaaaa. Not a single shot was fired, which means that this would be the best way for me to go about it, considering running into the room and trying to equip a lethal weapon was clunky and a waste of time.

Well, it took me three more attempts to figure out the best way to move around the room and toss these deadly items, but I did it. I got him caught in a gas cloud, choking, growling, saying something repeatedly about “playing dirty.” Whatever. You have a gun for a hand. I was so pleased to have finally gotten past this roadblock–and yes, for stealthy players, that’s exactly what he is–that I exclaimed loudly that I had conquered he who seemed unconquerable. Tara was upstairs watching Cheers, but she responded and even gave me some kudos love via Twitter:

According to forum grumblers, there’s a few more of these sorts of boss fights to look forward to. Great. Freaking superb. I can’t wait. However, I do like that this boss battle had two vidoegame references tied to it: Final Fantasy VII and the Metal Gear franchise in calling these elite soldiers The Something. I just didn’t like how it fit into the grand scheme of playing the game. For now, I’m off to China, I think. Well, not me. Jensen is. Place your bets below in the comments on what part I’ll get stuck at next.

No sneaking past those boss fights in Deus Ex: Human Revolution

From the very beginning of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I neglected all lethal weapons. Sneered at them, in fact, as I crept on by. A tranquilizer rifle and close-quarters takedowns were my tools of destruction. And, if need be, a flash grenade to confuse and create chaos. Surely those guards that I knocked unconscious were a bit confused to find their shotguns and deadly assault rifles still by their sides when they came to, but that’s just how my Jensen rolls: secretively, silently, stealthy.

Unfortunately, you can’t sneak past everyone. Specifically, the game’s bosses, and the first one, Lawrence Barrett, that meathead with a machine gun for a hand, has proved extremely troublesome so far. Upon entering the door that starts the fight, I realized that my wholehearted dismissal of all lethal weapons was going to hurt me here. Hurt me hard. I tried hitting Barrett with a few tranq darts as he blew my cover to shreds. Nothing happened, and by that I mean he came up, grabbed Jensen, and punched half his health away. A few more shots later, and I was reloading my latest save. Which, sadly, is right before I go through the door that starts the boss fight. Sigh…

If I run over to the left, in a small side room is a pistol and some bullets. However, before I can pick it up, I need to rearrange my inventory to make room for such a murderous entity. And then comes the arduous task of trying to shoot somebody, with a gun made for shooting on repeat; see, with the tranq rifle, it was pop out, fire, pop back into hiding spot, wait for body to drop. That strategy doesn’t work here. Barrett has to reload his machine gun-hand thing, giving you precious seconds to either fire or move to safer cover. Staying in that room for too long isn’t wise as he eventually begins tossing grenades your way.

I’ve tried beating him now three times with no luck. Contemplating backtracking far enough to maybe pick up a better weapon. Or maybe giving up my dream of being a sneaky Jensen, restarting the game, and putting all my Praxis points into combat skills instead of hacking skills. That would be lame, but if I can’t get past Barrett soon, it’s my only option.

If the developers wanted this to be the next Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, maybe they should have played that game and saw how awesome boss battles should be crafted. Specifically, The End. One day I’ll talk about how I tackled that fight. One day.

Remember, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a game that lets you play any way you like, except when it’s time to take down some cheesy super soldiers.

Please leviathan me alone

It’s time now for another rousing edition of…True to Life Phone Calls, starring Paul and Tara and brought to you by a cup of mediocre Green Mountain coffee.

Tara: So, what are you doing for the rest of the night?
Paul: Playing Dragon Quest IX. I’m trying to beat this one boss before I go to bed.
Tara: Ooooh.

Yup. Only…I failed. I did not beat said boss, and I still went to bed. Talk about being a quitter. Actually, no. I was really tired. I had a day of work and then an evening of Scott Pilgrim mania, as well as food and coffee drinks and musing about comics and slushing stories for Clarkesworld and so on and so on.

But I did try to beat Leviathan twice in a row, and that should count for something; he’s a boss you’ll come across shortly after you complete the vocation quest in Alltrade Abbey, and basically, he’s a pain in the ocean-butt. At least, he is for my team of scrabblers. See, he only attacks once per turn–unlike that jerk Jack of Alltrade–but two of his main attacks are the kind that target all four of my team members at once. There’s a tidal wave attack and tail sweep attack, both of which do a good amount of damage. The biggest problem with this is my lack of healing, and I don’t have any group heal spells or buff spells save for Accelerate. I was hoping my mage would’ve learned one by now, but I guess he’s more aggro than anything. Looks like I will have to put Andy on the back burner and create a new character with the priest vocation. Please submit name suggestions. Since my martial artist and thief are both women, my priest character will be a hardcore dude.

I actually don’t mind the fact that I will have to create a new character and grind him/her up to a decent level to help beat Leviathan. Why’s that? Well, for one thing, the grinding isn’t terribly annoying in Dragon Quest IX. Each battle gets you more XP, more gold coins, and the possibility of more items for the alchemy pot. Plus, upon returning to previous towns, you’ll find new characters there ready to give out sidequests. Now, some of these are absurd and difficult-sounding, and others are of the “kill X monsters” breed. Also, rumor has it that previously visited dungeons now host new treasure chests like mini medals and harder enemies. It’ll be good to take these missions on and build up my priest at the same time. He better get a heal all spell, and he better get it fast, as it seems I can’t go forward with the actual story until I take down Mr. Fishface.

And if this tactic doesn’t work, I’ll just recruit my sister this Friday as we give local co-op a chance.