Holdover (Custom "Plus" Text) Playthrough Part 4: Climbing to the Natural Truth
21YouTube impressed me, here! One of the thumbnails it gave me for this video looks EXACTLY like the custom thumbnail I made for it!
There's going to be a lot of literal ups and downs in this part of the playthrough, mostly ups, because now Marie has to climb upwards from the laboratory to reach Networks B & C, and hopefully have at least one of them online for her to send her SOS signal for help out of there.
Near the start of this video, things start getting creepier, as Marie will walk past, and over, piles of skulls and bones. She may not be the only one that was stuck in the lab, but so far, it seems she may be the only one to do so and live...
At around 1:25, you'll save some time and air if you just sink through the spikes, letting them take out the bottom half of Marie's swimsuit "armor", but as all of the blood and tell you, I didn't really figure this out too well, at first.
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After climbing higher upwards against tall walls of nasty spikes, and a platform that can actually crush Marie to death should she not jump off from it in time, you'll eventually reach a different terrain of the lab, one that's actually more in tune with nature, such as grass, plants, and stone. There’s no lasers, here, but there’s still spikes and deep water.
First, go to the door on the right where that starts. Another machine is in there, as well as a healing capsule and some blue hearts underwater.
The machine is another hologram of Tanner. This isn't specifically aimed at Marie to hear, but apparently something pretty bad was happening during the time the hologram was made. Looks like he and his team were bracing themselves for an incoming missile while preparing Marie's capsule. Next, leave that room, go to the door to the left and keep going upwards from there.
The music suddenly changes to something more hopeful and encouraging. It's pretty nice to listen to, and at least one of my own original songs is inspired and based on it. It's officially called "Message", which is pretty much a lot of what Marie has to read from the holograms in this game.
There's another big underwater pit in one of the more open areas, here. Don't drop down into it, yet, even though it has some blue hearts in it. Marie will get stuck and helplessly drown there, too. Instead, go up to the door at the very top. You'll find another important machine, there.
It's Network Room C (ah... and I forgot to capitalize the "Room" when I edited this game's text), and sadly, the machine in that room doesn't work, either...
Marie gets devastated, and suddenly realizes that all of the bones she passed by are the bones of people that tried and failed to escape the lab themselves. She starts to give up...
But then... the hologram starts up and Tanner's final message explains the full details of his situation and why he had to leave Marie in this lab by herself...
The world has suffered from a nuclear World War, and Tanner and his lab crew were caught in it. He had to seal Marie away in such a way to keep her safe from the outbreak, but there was little to no chance he'd survive, himself. He still urged his daughter to try all 3 Network Rooms for help. At the very end, it even looks like that Marie’s father was trying to tell her that he loves her one last time before the hologram cuts off.
It very likely appears that Tanner was killed from the nuclear war...
Despite Marie’s grievance over this realization, that message from her father motivated her with hope and spirit to keep pushing forward on her escape from this hellscape of a facility she’s in.
You now have to backtrack down to Network Room B, but first, get to the door under the one to the room where Tanner's last hologram was. That's what the Infirmary Key is for. There's yet another machine there that gives Marie another upgrade.
This upgrade de-numbs her arms, so now she can grab and climb up any ledge. Remember that big water pit from before? Now you can grab all of the blue hearts in that pit and get out of there safely without drowning!
This climbing ability will help you backtrack down into the lab, and let you reach the door to Network Room B. It's the Central Network Room, the most important one of the 3, but its door is locked. It doesn't have its own key. Based on another Tanner hologram, it is instead unlocked through the Administration Room which is deep underground.
The next video will focus on putting Marie through the hardest area in the flooded facility, and the last main area to explore in the entire game.
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The buzzing silence at 10:14 - 10:19 after Tanner's "final" message to Marie was actually edited in by me, to make the moment a bit more tense. But also, I put the buzzing in this video as a hint to a another game that it came from. One that I'm going to start on very soon after Holdover...
Can you figure it out?
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Answer: The buzzing was actually from Sonic Mania, from the end of Studiopolis Zone right after its Act 2 boss.