Game:

Steven Universe: Attack the Light (2015)

Duration: 23:38

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8

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Red Temple
Stage 5-Gauntlet:

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Screen 1:
Treasure Chest:
-Cookie Cat Bites

Treasure Chest:
-Together Breakfast

Treasure Chest:
-White Star Fruit

It might seem at first glance that the point to taking away all your items is to make you rely on your own hard-earned power, stop relying on little crutch props thrown at you here and there in case you're finding the journey too difficult... but to that, I say... and have said on record before... STEVEN is the most powerful party member. (Or was it the Cheeseburger Backpack, and Steven merely carries it around, doing its great works?)

So, to eliminate item usage altogether would be a great disservice to the cohesive whole of the team... instead, we're just minimizing the extreme snowball effect that is the backpack's capacity to accumulate extra uses of powerful effects, and that's even WITHOUT grinding encounters and shops for even more.

So we carefully control what items Steven gets and tailor them to the level of challenge anticipated. (Did they remember that the most basic enemies in this area can drop White Star Fruits, though?)

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Screen 2:
Treasure Chest:
-Lucky Crown

Treasure Chest:
-Beefy Sweatband

So that's TWO treasure-filled rooms in a row... although, at the same time, it's also far less generosity than what we've seen in prior Gauntlet stages in fewer chests. Somehow, it feels more like the game is trying to make a point rather than actually GIVE us FREE STUFF. Shucks.

Unfortunately, we're already as beefy and lucky as we need to be for the task at hand, so I don't actually use the sweatband... and Cookie Cat Bites are too slow-acting to be of any use at this point in the game. The only reason a certain equivalent badge is of any use is because it's ALWAYS on doesn't need to be used or kept in battle to take full effect.

The MOST effective turn of regeneration is the first one in a battle... and then maybe also the last one. Even better if they're one and the same.

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Screen 3:
BATTLE
-Scorpion x3
-Giant Sea Jelly

I wouldn't really call greater difficulty or anything, but the greatest inconvenience of not being able to bring in our collection of various hoarded sundry items is that you can't just pop a quick Star Fruit in case an attack you thought would wipe out a bunch of enemies leaves you with a bunch of mostly-defeated, but they're all standing just as offensively powerful as ever nonetheless.

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Screen 4:
BATTLE
-Beetle
-Tortoise
-Giant Sprout

As noted previously, making this particular enemy larger doesn't really make it any stronger... just harder to knock out. Which means more burns for us, which is a bit of an annoying situation to micromanage HP under... but that's about it.

I was secretly hoping near the end that the Beetle would eject Amethyst from battle so that I wouldn't have to obsessively cure another round of burn damage and just finish the job.

In case you were still in any lingering state of uncertainty, defeating the enemies while a party member is booted offscreen still allows them to return to the victory screen lineup for full XP gains.

...even though we no longer actually gain anything, because everyone had rammed hard into theirs prior to the final boss fight.

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Screen 5:
BATTLE
-Scorpion
-Beetle
-Giant Scorpion
-Giant Sea Jelly

You ever make a move with no actual confirmation and just... have to watch it act out without any way of taking back what you know is just plain wasted action? Yeah. Those are fun.

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Screen 6:
AMBUSH
-Scorpion x5

THIS one might actually be the odds-on most dangerous encounter in the whole bunch... five sudden attacks and nothing you can do but block each one. If they felt like being serious jerkwads, they'd all go after the same target, and again, there'd be nothing you could do about it.

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Screen 7:
BATTLE
-Beetle x2
-Sea Jelly x2
-Sprout

Just in case you thought there was minimal threat in any of all this, especially given how handily the final boss was dispatched... basically because of an easy button and a bunch of easily-deployed barriers, you should know that the numbers you normally see flash onscreen as far as damage is concerned is by no means outpaced by my late-game decision to beef up on team Harmony.

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Screen 8:
-Scorpion x2
-Sea Jelly
-Sprout x2
-Giant Beetle

The number of targets alone would make this a good candidate for using one of those White Star Fruits to bring in Alexandrite, but if you don't FINISH each battle in top form, that's not going to be an option.

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Oh, well the Lucky Star Badge, um... sounds nice and all, especially since my luck-based run with status ailment badges didn't really keep up with the scaling caused by Diamond Mode (plus it halved all passive damage inflicted on enemies), but the game really IS over now. There's no one to try it out on!

At least we didn't have to go through all that to get the Lion Badge, the ACTUAL most overpowered one in the game. (Weird that Pearl's was hidden behind a Gauntlet.)

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