Asterix and Cleopatra level 3 Asterix no damage
1I barely remembered this level being a thing.
It’s time I touch on what the playable character’s movesets are.
Yo got land punches and air punches.
Land punches are simple punches. Depending on how close you are to the enemy or structure, you do more damage and enemy recoil. More exactly, your character does either a light, medium, or heavy punch animation. It also applies different levels of recoil to enemies (sometimes leading to enemies being knocked and stunned to the ground).
As you can see, you aren’t truly in control of your punches. The game decides that for you, probably to make up for the fact that each land punch animation are mostly of the same length, so there would be no reason not to do heavy ones all the time. This punch sorting system is overall fine, but it’s not infallible or devoid of bugs. Against static objects while standing still, the game can sometimes make you do different punches.
There are no combos you can pull off, much like you cannot buffer punches. You also cannot move during a land punch until it’s over.
Air punches happen when you press attack while in the air. Your character gets in an air punch state that only stops once you land. In this state the character deal as much damage as the heavy punch, unconditionally to distance, in both the left and right directions with decent range. Though you can only hit a target once per air punch. You can move during the entirety of the punch.
Air punches are pretty good in this game.
Obelix is much of the same.
Much like other enemies, crocodiles can counter air punches by hitting you through them. Land punches are usually the way to go for them. At least they die in one hit no matter what.
The rest of the enemies in this stage are definitely tougher than those in level 1, but they remain reasonable and fun to fight. The long rod men are the main threat as they attack fairly quickly and have a long range. But nothing problematic, especially if you know where the enemies spawn.
The bushes (0:21) need to be destroyed to progress, and the enemies infinitely respawn if you don’t. Though you still need to kill the remaining ones after you’re done. They’re a bit convoluted.
Once destroyed the bush drops a wooden club. This is the only equippable weapon in the game, although it shows up often. You equip it by simply touching it.
Here though you can see me gracefully avoiding it like the plague, not without reason : it’s so shitty it might as well be planned sabotage.
You hit slow, you do pebble damage, you do yawning knockback. Its only advantage is long range… except with air punches, where it gives you no range !
Adding insult to injury, it has a big hitbox and is very easy to pick up by accident. And even more egregiously so around those bushes. The club will spawn as soon as the bush is destroyed, and will auto-give it you if you’re vertically aligned. The only way to avoid it doing that is to hit the bush from as far back as you can. It will spawn, but its pick-up hitbox will shrink back to normal after that.
You instantly lose it upon hit. It’s too bad I can’t afford to do that for this challenge… so instead you have to waste your time using it in the wind until it goes out. Because it doesn’t have a timer.
Still, I probably went overboard with my efforts to avoid it, and probably added more risk to myself for the fun of it.
The pickaxe guys coming to the left at 0:48 behave in a weird way. Instead of coming to you they just waddle around the edge of the screen. It makes them difficult to take out safely. The slope ground doesn’t help.
Autoscrollers like the one at 2:35 in this game are static, the enemies spawn in the same way everytime. That means you can memo the way through.
And thank god for that. If they were randomized, then this stage would be the hardest one of them all without question. Indeed, this autoscroller is a nightmare on a casual/blind play, and you are guaranteed to lose a life, perhaps two. Multiple things are at play here :
It’s the longest autoscroller, there are lots of enemies.
You can only move slowly.
Movement is extra weird because of this “slope” like river you are surfing on.
The camera is bad and you can’t see in front of you. This is a big problem, especially with crocodiles who are barely visible yet can jump at you instantly.
You are armed with the infamous wooden club from earlier. It’s almost impossible to hit anything with, as the timing is both odd and precise. You’re way more prone to getting hit. Not to mention you have no hitting priority against things coming towards you. If you attack something that also is currently attacking, you’ll still get hit.
Just memo it. It’s not like you gain anything for killing enemies there, it’s a pure survival section.
The rest of the stage has nothing relevant to say so I’ll cut it there.
Despite being the shortest level, it’s definitely a step up from level 1 because of the autoscroller and the overall harder enemies.