Nefarious - Part 10 - Back on Track
4Crow is back with Princess Ariella, and now they're going to stop a train from the Ogre Kingdom from raiding Crow's home territory. To that end, Crow dresses up like a cowboy, Ariella gets a matching outfit, and the two hop on Colonel Apricot, Crow's steed that we hadn't seen before...or since. (Is there an explanation for Colonel Apricot? She just kind of shows up out of nowhere for this stage, and never again, not even in the sequel webcomics.)
Since this is a train stage, that means everything's constantly moving in one direction, which works out, as Ariella's effect of not allowing Crop to stop in exchange for boomerang axes in place of grenades is constantly active. Of course, this time, you can have Crow decelerate and accelerate so as to dodge stuff.
One important thing to note, gameplay-wise, is that this is an autoscrolling stage. Yeah, it's grown to some degree of infamy especially in light of how Super Mario Maker and its sequel allow you to add autoscroll to your courses, which only highlighted how easily a course's enjoyability can come crashing down if not designed just right. A brave move here, I'll say that, but at least, there is no platforming in this one, just fighting off lots of enemies, making it something more of a beat 'em up game this time around.
...Just what is Colonel Apricot anyway? Is she a horse?
In any case, we got lots and lots of enemies here with projectiles, which makes it quite tricky to play this one because of Colonel Apricot's limited jumping height. I think the idea is to have offense be your best defense, which basically means I should've opted for the grenades upgrade so we can have a fifth one flying around. Also, those guys throwing sticks of dynamite have very good aim! I had enough trouble defeating one by himself; with other enemies around, I really got messed up.
And at the end, Crow and Ariella (and Colonel Apricot) encounter Raijin, who apparently is the enforcer on this train. If you were expecting Princess Tephra, it seems that she's somewhere else and had pretty much left this job for her minions. Raijin is a very simple boss battle, but it's rather irritating because Raijin's lightning is always on, and you need to use the moving platform as cover. This platform, however, is jet-propelled, and touching the exhaust will inflict damage too. It's not a hard boss battle, just a long one because it's hard to find where you're protected while throwing those axes all the time.
Raijin's defeat allows the two (or three) of them to destroy the train, but apparently, we needed the conversation to end first. Unlike in Winterdown, I was able to advance the text boxes this time around, but man, was I confused about if I was even making any headway!
After this is Bramble Flats, the area in which Crow's lair lies. Something has gone very wrong here, and you'll see for yourself in the next video.