Nefarious - Part 11 - A Razin' in the Sun
5There. I have now named a video a pun based on a theatrical play. I think I've now covered every form of mass media. Maybe I still need to do one for opera, if that counts as its own thing. In any case, though, this is it, the last standard stage in the game, and it is quite a doozy. Mack realizes he can no longer afford to ignore Crow, recognizing him as the threat to the world he is, and organizes all of the heroes together in a direct assault. They begin with the destruction of The Sovereign, Crow's airship, forcing him to land in Bramble Flats. This is the location of Crow's home base, but Mack, Dash, Guryon, Kaptain Man, Crosh, Fallon, and Rosstin have gathered their own forces of good and have overrun the entire place.
And indeed, this stage is really tough because it has a lot of enemies everywhere throwing all sorts of stuff at Crow, and the stage geometry is designed to leave Crow vulnerable to those attacks while turning that moment of stun into your greatest liability. I mean, look at how many times I had Crow fall into whatever that black liquid is at the bottom because they combined tiny platforms with enemies with projectiles which knock Crow back and into the drink. There is something about the jumping in this game that, frankly, doesn't feel very tight, and it's my biggest downfall in this stage. I mean, conceptually, it's pretty neat that enemies from different stages have been mixed together to suit whatever is least convenient for Crow at the time, but man, this was harsh.
I think it's the animation of Crow's jumping. It's neat that everyone and everything is animated with squash-and-stretch, but the fact that Crow drastically crouches as he's in midair make it hard to judge where his feet will land. The game might be tighter if Crow kept his posture during his whole jump.
Another tough section is Crow escaping his own ship, which is rapidly sinking into that fluid. This time though, it's because I didn't realize the platforms added to the elevator shaft that lets you move to the next part of the stage. That was all on me.
There is another set of small platforms with enemies that can inflict knockback toward the end too, this time with the platforms rapidly collapsing. I think this would've been better had the platforms spent more time wobbling before falling, but then again, you're given an antepiece to show what's going on.
We end this stage with a boss rush in the form of a set of rematches with the heroes Crow had fought before. The first is a rematch against Dash the Bee, which is held In the remains of Crow's armory. This is a much smaller space than the first match, and it's just as tricky as ever. This time though, you can pre-emptively hit Dash when the wrecking ball is still buried among the rubble. Otherwise, Dash behaves exactly the same as in the fight near the beginning of this game, including the fact that destroying a stack of honeycombs (not cookies, as I had thought) while Dash is still on it will make him dizzy and prevent him from moving until you hit him.
The next is a rematch against Guryon the Righteous, and again fought with that big mech with the arms. Unlike the Dash fight, the Guryon fight is completely unchanged. I wasn't keen on the details, but I realized that Guryon can be exploited by letting him throw his axe. As long as he misses, he will be unable to move until his axe returns to him, letting you smash him as many times as you like. Actually, I think this time, Guryon switches to different weapons more rapidly. He begins with an axe, then switches to a trident, and finally to a broadsword, each of them dealing more damage and stunning Crow for longer than the last. So I guess it is different after all.
After that is a rematch against Crosh, Fallon, and Rosstin. I won't say much about them. It's best seen for yourself.
Lastly is a rematch against Mack, and Crow has that death ray ready once again. Specifically, it's Chekhov's Death Ray, which can fire mid-conversation and defeats Mack without a fight. (It is named after Anton Chekhov, a playwright who coined the term Chekhov's Gun. Specifically, his rule was that in a story, if there is a gun on a table, someone is going to fire it, as otherwise, there's no reason for the gun to be on the table. In a more general sense, Chekhov's Gun means that anything in a story with attention drawn toward it will have to have some importance in the story. This has since become one of the most important pillars of writing a story, which, essentially, is to minimize unimportant details.)
This is not the last well see of Mack though. Right beyond this area is the Doom Howitzer, which Crow has finally been able to make operational. And Mack is certainly not going to take that lying down! The next video will feature the the final boss, the last time Mack and Crow will face off.
(You may notice Kaptain Man never fought Crow. It's never made clear what he is actually up to...)