Iji

I think there's a time difference with what counts as a kill or not. For example, kicking a turret when a Tasen's right next to it counts as a kill. But if they're far away enough when you kick a turret down, it doesn't count. Running down Tasen on a Shredder counts as a kill, but if you jump off of it while it's still in motion, if you're far away enough from the target, it won't count as a kill.

EDIT: Oh, and Sabbo, you don't need to break ALL the ceiling lights. You just have to let Iji jump into enough of them. I don't know the exact number though.

edited 22nd Apr '09 10:08:05 PM by Starbound2

I was of the impression that anybody killed by a shredder that you'd been the last pilot of was automatically your kill. Are you sure it's not?

edit: Oh, by the way: For the record, the level 8 supercharge DOES have a skill requirement: 6 cracking for a door. But mostly it's killing the two annihilators.

edited 22nd Apr '09 10:18:28 PM by Brickman

Very sure. It took a bit of timing, but I got the Supercharge where you have to run over the two Tasen without getting a kill during my 0-kill run. The room the shredder is in has two. The first one drops down, the second one you can use to get the Supercharge.

edited 22nd Apr '09 10:19:43 PM by Starbound2

It isn't that hard to get the Level 4 Supercharge on a pacifist run. Just use the shredder as normal, let the first turret kill one of the Tasen, wait for the second Tasen to go to the right side of the platform he's on, edge past him, then go left as normal. Just tried it then.

EDIT: I thought the Level 8 supercharge had a skill requirement of 5 Crack with that door, not 6. :/

edited 22nd Apr '09 11:25:31 PM by Sabbo

I'm not good enough to try a pacifist run, but I shall say that I am trying a "martial artist" run where I take almost everyone out through kicking and the resonance reflector.

It's damn fun. I strongly reccommend it.

Question. As someone who does most of his fighting with the shotgun and occasional MPFB, what are the pros and cons of each weapon and combination?

Shotgun: Useless most of the time if you have better weapons. Ammo's not that tight. Acceptable against assassins.

Buster gun: Deals much more damage than the other level 1 or 3 weapons. Pretty good for assasins, since you'll be ready for them every time they appears. Ammo vanishes in the blink of an eye.

Detonator: This one's special. If you invest in enough strength, dropping down, detonating and jumping back up is a safe way of dealing with Berserkers or soldiers on a different floor than you who won't back away from the spot you have to enter. It's much faster than the kick and complements it well if you use this to be the "first hit" and either run to where they land or back up and wait until it recharges. Also good for killing turrets and, if you're in a hurry, doors. Mostly though it's free.

Reflector: Actually not that useful. There's very few locations in the game where you find yourself standing half your height below an enemy who isn't on a ramp and thus about to close that distance, so using this almost always carries the risk of being hit if you miss. It's free, but the risk to health is high.

Machinegun: Effective at long range and even against enemies who can duck or reflect. At least to the limited degree to which it's "effective" at all. The machinegun always works but always does pitiful damage.

Splintergun: This one deals damage fast enough to immobilize the victim and kills him pretty quick. The only people it's not super-effective against are Berserkers, who will reflect part of the barrage, and Annihilators, who don't flinch (but you can still do them if you're brave). Ammo doesn't last forever but doesn't vanish like the buster gun either, and in theory it actually does more damage per unit of ammo than the machinegun (if everything hits). Ideal target is Tasen Elites, who have a lot of health and good attacks but can't reflect like the berserkers. Be careful with the splash damage, it's easy to misjudge what's a safe distance and blow yourself up.

Pulse thingy: Does more damage than the machinegun, with worse range. It's safe to use at close range, or at least safe from your own splash damage, and can't be dodged or reflected, but your enemies will have time to attack back.

Hyper Pulse: If you have high strength, this weapon's very good; you can take on anything but Annihilators head on at close range. Not many weapons let you do head on or close range in this game (at least not on higher difficulties for the former). Other than the plasma cannon it's the only method of killing a berserker on extreme that doesn't test your patience. If you ignore strength, it's a slightly faster but less efficient version of the normal weapon.

Rockets: Deals 2 damage at any range. Try to shoot in the back, or while they're attacking at medium to close range (at least for troopers; berserkers will cancel their attack to reflect it). Its splash damage is more damaging than the shockspinter, so if you're firing into a wall at the enemy's feet (such as happens in level 7 a few times) use this. This is your default weapon for killing Komato Troopers and Beasts and possibly the stronger variety of Tasen. Damage isn't that special.

Spread rockets: Mostly superfluous, because the devastator still does more damage. The only thing this is good for is surprise attacks (if you sneak up behind a berserker you only get one shot of explosives), but as I said, the devastator does more damage. You can take out unaware Komato troopers in one shot. Eats ammo too fast.

Shocksplinter: An alternative to the rockets. The splash damage does less damage but over a wider area; it'll do some extra armor damage to the victim as well but likely not enough to do HP damage and you're not likely to capitalize on it. You have to be more careful about that splash damage than the rocket's. Mostly it's just the functional equivalent of rockets though.

Plasma Cannon: Poor man's nuke. This weapon is very useful, because it zaps everyone in front of you, no matter how many, for 3 damage (enough to kill Komato troopers in one shot, using the same ammount of ammo), and doesn't give them a chance to dodge or reflect. It reloads fast enough that you can attack again before berserkers have time to retaliate, but it'll take a good deal of ammo to kill them like this. Anytime you see multiple berserkers, a berserker with friends, or just a large number of troopers, use this. Also in theory should beat the snot out of assasins, but I'm not sure anymore if it works (I remember doing it before, but last time I tried it failed).

Devastator: The most powerful weapon in the game, damage per ammo or damage per shot. Knocks weak players off their feet, but same to your enemies. Don't be fooled: On extreme this will still be reliably dodged or reflected, so you have to attack from behind, but it does the job admirably. Can hit more than one enemy if the first shot is lethal. Big blast radius. Throws berserkers pretty far. If it doesn't kill outright it'll come close. Against bosses it's the only weapon that does enough damage to shave cycles off of whatever method you're really supposed to be using to kill them, which is useful since you spend a lot of time waiting otherwise (except on Iosa).

Nuke: This is the nuke. It kills everything in sight. It doesn't damage as much as the devastator, actually, and won't kill berserkers or elites, but it'll wound them and kill the rest. You don't need this explained.

MPFID: I didn't find this too useful. I guess it does a lot of damage and can't be dodged or reflected, but if you're getting this it's really just because you want the Velocithor.

Velocithor: It's like the plasma cannon plus the nuke, but more ammo efficient. You can and should shoot through walls for much cheaper than the nuke, and like the plasma cannon efficiency depends entirely on how many foes are in front of you. Does ridiculous damage and can't be dodged or reflected. Ammo efficiency is better than you'd expect but not too good.

????: The best weapon in the game. Every shot does so much damage that the game doesn't even bother telling you how much, and hits the entire screen in front of you. Makes the final boss much easier.

edit: Can you really do that in level 4? How? Do you just have to tap the button lightly enough?

edited 23rd Apr '09 7:54:30 AM by Brickman

edit: Can you really do that in level 4? How? Do you just have to tap the button lightly enough?

Yeah. Slow shredders don't kill, and you've still got enough room to accelerate to almost top speed before the jump.

EDIT: On a totally different point, The start of Sector X in sudden death mode sucks. It's almost pure luck if you want to take the top route, and taking one hour on the bottom route really tests my patience. (WHY WON'T THE BEASTS DIE GODDAMNIT?!)

edited 23rd Apr '09 10:47:21 PM by Sabbo

I'm trying the Extreme pacifist non-reboot run, but I can't seem to get enough Nano in Sector 2. Tips? I've had a few rocket-shooters die (by me standing next to them), but it's not quite enough. (If you want to know, I'm 20 nano short of what I need.)

Perhaps I should re-try and go for the Komato route? I'm not sure.

Tried the Komato route. Having trouble with Tor, as I only have Level 5 health. Level 6 health was probably reachable, but I have my doubts on Level 7. The only other stats I have any levels in are Crack, Tasen, and Komato of course.

And sorry about the triple post, but I felt it was worth a bump each time. :/

are you trying to hit the nano cap on each stage? I think you can miss it on a few stages- and hit it later- Sector 5 is a pretty good place to get Nano on a pacifist run, due to the enemies killing eachother.

Nah, I didn't hit the nano cap on every stage, but I did on most of the earlier ones (including Sector 5) and got retty close on the rest. My current level (while I fight Tor) is 27, so I only missed three, including the one I'm only twenty nano off getting to. I got all four reasonably reachable supercharges, if you were wondering.

edited 25th Apr '09 2:22:56 AM by Sabbo

Nanomaster was easier than I thought it would be. I was afraid I'd have to do 400 successful cracks minus failures, so I went nuts hacking every enemy I could in the early stages and getting anxious about "only" getting 20 or 25 cracks per stage. Enemies never sit still! You have to sneak up on them, and hope they don't walk away or turn around. In the end, par was 100, so I was okay.

Going to try an Immortal run now. Any advice?

Take some speed.

Holy crap I have no idea how the hell someone would pull off an immortal run without tool assistance. Even Remar himself can't really do it.

Tool assistance? Is that similar to Save Scumming? Because that's what I'll do what I get to it.

Eh... I thought Immortal was just the rank you got when you took <100 damage, not a literal no-damage run. That would be crazy talk.

Yeah, it's <100 damage total. An absolutely no damage run would be... well, expect to be redoing sectors a lot.

Anyway, max out Health ASAP, the damage reduction helps. Skip the boss fight with Krotera. Try to keep from having to fight anyone, in general (meaning go for the route that lets you sneak past them or something, if there is one). Use heavy weaponry as necessary.

Ah OK, I forgot what all the rankings meant.

As for what tool assistance is, well it's like Save Scumming on steroids. It's typically associated with emulators.

An in-depth explanation is here.

But in short, a good tool assist emulator would allow you to dictate the exact commands to give in every single frame. This allows for all sorts of exploitation of Good Bad Bugs and Sequence Breaking to do some pretty freaky stuff.

That's pretty much the sort of thing that would be required for a no-damage run of Iji. Since it's a Windows game, however, there's no such toolset. I have seen some no damage videos vs General Tor on Youtube, however.

Remar himself did a video where he defeated an overcharged Tor on Ultimortal difficulty. However, despite the video being the best of about 20 attempts (according to annotations on the video) he still took a few hits.

There is however a video of a no-damage Tor battle on Extreme difficulty. Naturally, it was done by a Japanese guy.

edited 25th Apr '09 4:37:29 AM by Korgmeister

I would like to report that I just beat the self-imposed challenge of Extreme pacifist with no rebooting, via the supercharge in Sector 3.

I think I'll either edit or make a new post with tips for fighting Tor, depending on if somebody else posts after this or not.

.

Oh, and I may have said it before, but I love the ending credits music.

Friggin' hell, I don't even think I'd survive a pacifist run on Normal, let alone Extreme.

I have no idea how the hell people become that good at games.

EDIT: I lie. Yes I do know how. It's just that it's at odds with my limited attention span.

edited 25th Apr '09 4:56:35 AM by Korgmeister

Korg, Pacifist is easy (although admittedly not as much so on Extreme, due to the lack of nano). It's Immortal which is hard. Pacifist also makes the game nowhere near as much of a downer as non-pacifist does.

.

...

Anyway, my tips for fighting Tor:

• Start with a Plasma Cannon before Tor jumps into the background at the start. Only it, the Nuke, and the Velocithor can hit him at that point and the Plasma cannon does the most damage while still being ammo efficient. (admittedly, I forgot to check the Massacre, but I think that's too slow.)
• Stick to the far left. Only go to the right when he shoots his long-range blue beam attack (but try to be at least halfway to the right when he does so). Or if you need to get rid of a charge attack which you didn't reflect, but be careful with the timing of doing that.
• Jumping is unnecessary for evading many of his attacks. Jump over the shockwaves he makes on the ground, the five-way Devastator, and the missile barrage. Jumping is a bad idea against the purple stars and the meteor shower.
• I don't like his combo attacks, and I doubt you will either. It would unfortunately be a bit bothersome to name all of the combos he does and how to avoid them, so I won't.
• The Devastator is useful to use after getting up from being hit, as there is no recoil while you are flashing.
• The Velocithor has a super-fast load time, so it's good to use after you've reflected his charge shots.
• On the matter of reflecting, only reflect the charge shots. Reflecting the Devastator does pitiful damage, and should only be done if you cannot avoid it. It's better to be hit by a meteor, purple star, shockwave or missile than be hit by the Devastator. And even better to be hit by nothing.
• If you end up needing to dodge his charge shots, reflect them ASAP. The attack he uses them with later is unavoidable (although notable in that it's his only attack which does armor damage, not health damage directly).

I think that's it.

Oh, and no, I did not check how much damage Massacre, Retribution, or the Banana Gun deal.

.

EDIT: Damn, beating Asha the second time on Ultimortal is hard. I wish I could go the quick way through that level.

edited 25th Apr '09 7:14:47 AM by Sabbo

Immortal is easy if you put any effort into it. If you replay a couple times you'll find yourself finishing many stages with five or less (sometimes zero) damage. By the time you get to the hard part of the game, you'll stop having to care because you'll be way too far below the limit to possibly screw it up. I think I've got 20-some at level 9 right now, and I took all kinds of needless risks and made a point of getting most of the supercharges even when some required rocket jumps or great risk. Oh, and DO NOT bother with level 10 health, or being a pacifist. If you invest in health yeah you'll quickly take less damage per hit, but with your crappy arsenal you'll take more hits (and pacifism will lead to even more hits). You want Plasma Cannons, Nukes, Devastators and Velocithors (among other things) to utterly obliterate the opposition before they have a chance to hurt you. Upgrade health to two or three so you don't have to restart if you take a hit, maybe four eventually, but your priority is Tasen, Komato and Cracking, in whatever order, so they won't get a chance. And you obviously need one or two in Assimilate to back it up eventually, but that's a no brainer. That said, do remember to hold back on levels one and two—you're allowed up to five kills per level without sacrificing pacifist conduct, and you want to skip Krotera.

Seems Brickman and I have different approaches, then. Probably because I put more stock in my not-getting-hit-by-projectiles skill. But whatever works...

(Though admittedly, I finished my Immortal run with 90+ damage, so Brickman's method is probably a lot easier than whatever it was I did then.)

edited 25th Apr '09 7:56:29 AM by Kyler Thatch

currently up to level 5 in an immortal run.

took 1 damage near the very end yesterday. I'm gonna leave it for now.

I'm currently getting all the ribbons and doing a pacifist run. I couldn't pull of a pacifist run last time because I ended up having to kill Asha.

I don't know why, but when I did an Immortal run over the last few hours, I got hit so much by Tor. Perhaps I just wasn't used to the slow speed of his blue shockwave attack. (I got hit by it a few times:/)

In other news, I'm now doing a Nanomaster run, and I'm annoyed that I can't crack anybody on the first level.

EDIT: And now the Nanomaster run is complete. All that's left to do is the Ultimortal Sector X. Asha is super hard to beat.

edited 26th Apr '09 6:40:59 PM by Sabbo