Hero Core

And hard mode 100% complete. Take that Tetron.

The hardest rooms in the game are probably the ones with an annihilator and other tough enemies. Those things can spam so many bullets that they are harder than the boss fights (even grand mother). They get much easier when you get double defense, so the room with 2 annihilators wasn't all that hard. Also, I can't believe I had to kill a sentry.

In other news, just finished Hero Core on Normal, 100% completion. Got both hidden moves. I suspected the twist at the end, but you pulled it off beautifully nonetheless. Of course, by that point it was more of an un-twist.

If you're talking about Hero being a machine and/or Tetron being his master, I dropped some hints, one of the last bosses you face is a very obvious hint. :p I wanted the player to figure it out themselves somewhere along the road.

Two: unlocked Reallyjoel's Dad difficulty. I'm not even sure what to say about it, it has to be seen to be truly understood. I just have to ask you... is it even possible? reallyjoel's dad being awesome at games is an injoke, it started when my friend reallyjoel commented on my Ultimortal Maximum Charge Tor video of Iji, saying his dad could beat the game on a much higher setting. So this difficulty is not meant to be taken seriously in any game it appears in.

edited 8th May '10 3:53:57 AM by Ulti

I assumed as much. It was hilarious even after I'd died three times, but with that door to the right . . . :p

Someone cheated and finished Reallyjoel's Dad mode. The next room is empty.

I knew people would try cheating there; it's very easy with Game Maker games.

edited 9th May '10 9:24:46 AM by Ulti

So, just played through the game on normal (completion time 1.5 hours). First I decided on a whim to try and see if I could beat Tetron at level 6, and I actually don't remember if I did beat him the first try or if I needed to return for a second try to beat him. Then I went back for 100% completion, and got it. I also took the levels a bit out of order; mostly I insisted on exploring every inch of the Annihilator Factory I could the moment I reached it because I liked the music and the name and the other areas available at the time weren't challenging enough.

This game is quality stuff, man; the Bullet Hell is very fun and the level design very good. I smiled greatly when I reached Rock Crusher and realized that the fight was supposed to take place inside the boss, and smiled even wider as the fight raged on. He wasn't the only boss you go inside to kill, but he was the first I found and the only one where the entire fight happens inside. I think your bosses actually became worse as the game went on; the ones with a lot of weak points to destroy in sequence were fun, but the ones with one tiny weak point that keeps moving around were just plain annoying, and as the game went on it shifted from the former towards the latter. That includes Annihilators, who look freaking cool but are trivial to beat if there's nothing else to distract you and you're patient enough.

And you can bet I shouted "LAME!" at my screen at the Title Drop at the end. As if it being the main character's name and job description wasn't enough. But it was the good kind of shouting at the screen, the kind that's used to make sure you don't chuckle by mistake instead.

Brickman: try it on Hard. You won't be complaining about the "ease" of taking out an Annihilator when you're dodging that much chaff.

Quick question. Are those maps in the bonus menu actual zoomed out images of the game world, or are they stylized a little?

I mean, if that's really what they look like zoomed out, then very nice work. Annihilation is actually the most impressive to me, since, at least from vague memory of tiny background objects, it does very much resemble a Tasen ship.

edit: do I really need to spoiler tag that? huh...

edited 12th May '10 9:18:48 PM by AC

Komato ship.

Are you sure about that?

So I've beat all but three or four bosses on Hard mode. Wow, what a difference the difficulty level makes. Rock Crusher is now one of my favorite bosses ever in anything (I killed him first, though I tried a dozen times to do reaper drone first before giving up and killing Rock Crusher instead. It was kind of ironic that my reward for the epic Bullet Hell Rock Crusher battle was the boring level-one knife while my reward for the strategy-over-reflexes Reaper Drone battle was a doubling of my attack power). Currently I'm stuck partway through the Annihilator Factory with a hell of a gauntlet to run through if I want to move any further forward, and have spent a dozen continues dying at the hands of the Guardian boss (though I whittled him down to the last health pip of his second form on one try). The giant shrimps are a horror to behold, and somehow he keeps catching me off-guard with his laser (I always misjudge where he's going to fire it). Oh, and I've unlocked Tetron's room but refuse to kill him until I've got 100%. And I obviously can't reach the last area yet.

Just beat the game on normal. Great game, Ulti, worth the download a hundred times over. I really digged the metroidesque exploration.

Did anyone else find Tetron surprisingly easy compared to some of the other bosses? I think I had more trouble beating Rock Crusher or the various Annihilators. Still, I loved the ending. Flip's death made me a bit sad. The health bar draining and the "death" sound playing were a nice touch. The Tommato in the Mirror twist caught me by surprise. Apparently, I wasn't perceptive enough to notice the foreshadowing.

Although, funnily enough, while playing around with the shapeshifting technique mid-way through my first run, I did consider doing a playthrough as a Soldier, pretending I was one of Tetron's mooks after a Heel Face Turn.

EDIT: Oh look, possibly the first peice of Hero Core fanart.

edited 13th May '10 3:17:50 AM by Gaunt88

AC: Considering that the story of Ciretako is that a Komato Annihilator turned on its own species, yes, I'm sure that Ciretako is a Komato ship.

But it wasn't. Ciretako was a Tasen ship. The Komato were testing new weapons while they wiped out everyone on board an enemy ship, and then either an annihilator became consumed with bloodlust and began killing his own when he ran out of enemy targets, the experimental Massacre blew up in their faces, or both.

Oh, right, I'm an idiot.

Quick question. Are those maps in the bonus menu actual zoomed out images of the game world, or are they stylized a little?

They're complete dumps of the game world, minus certain things like save points.

Brickman: I intended for the story to be Troperiffic rather than a Cliché Storm, but it's hard to make the distinction evident, especially since it's so different depending on the viewer. :p I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway.

edited 15th May '10 4:04:25 AM by Ulti

On you wanting to create WMG-ing relating to where Annihilation takes place... because of that, I'm almost tempted to make Flip Hero an actual person in the alternate universe of my MSPA. I've already established the Hero games as being all made by Yukabacera, but now I'm thinking of having it so that they're based on an actual person who's basically the intergalactic equivalent of Chuck Norris - a Memetic Badass celebrity who inspired a list of "facts" about him ("Flip Hero once used a Komato Sentinel to play basketball. He performed a Chaos Dunk". Also, "In the history of the universe, only one person has survived an Alpha Strike. That person is Iosa Sakera. In this case, "an" means "one", which is why Flip Hero, who survived five consecutive Alpha Strikes, isn't included"), and making Annihilation mode in this universe an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny with Yuka sticking his idol into the most infamous battle of the war.

Is this the best idea ever or the worst idea ever?

edited 17th May '10 12:49:47 PM by MasterHand

That's awesome.

Three questions: First of all, what does the threat level do?

Second, how does one make a spoiler tag on this forum?

Lastly, if you know how, spoil more of the things you say! I was browsing this thread about half way to finishing the game, and now regret it. :P

Spoiler tags: [[spoiler:text]]

The threat level is just a ranking of how hard the levels are, or how hard they're supposed to be. You'll find nastier enemies and a nastier boss in the higher ranked areas than the lower ones (excepting the boss of the first area, who you can't reach until you've beat someone else or learned the secret move and is thus allowed to be awesome). Since you've got infinite lives feel free to explore anywhere, but you're going to have some trouble if you try to beat a rank 8 or 9 area at level 2.

Just tried Annihilation mode out. I gotta hand it to you, I'm impressed by how fair you are with this. I mean yeah, you have to fight hordes of enemies and what I'll assume to be all the bosses without gaining any levels or upgrades, but you still include a steady supply of save points and of obstacles that can be permanently eliminated (cores, "kill everyone" doors, bosses, even that battle door thing). It's not some survival mode or such crap, it's just an even harder level. With all the bosses. On Ciretako.

edit: Also, I gotta say I'm impressed with how much harder and more strategic that first boss is with a smaller room. Though you can hide in the upper left corner and make the fight something of a joke; did you do that on purpose? Also, hydra is still a total joke haha. Seriously, I think an individual "Mother" enemy is more of a threat than that boss. I'm trying to come up with a compromise between "eyes closed" and "physically possible" to let myself humiliate him even more, but I can't think of one.

edited 17th May '10 4:06:21 PM by Brickman

Master Hand: reallyjoel's dad is more of a memetic badass though, but only when it comes to skill at videogames.

Brickman: Only some of the bosses are present in Annihilation, it'd be tedious trying to whittle down the later bosses with no Blaster upgrades...

I didn't intend for you to be able to hide in the corner on Silencer, but I don't see why I'd change it either, it's a neat find. There are a couple of boss tricks involving Blade and Expel. Plasma Hydra is never that difficult, just before release I halved the health of its "laser heads" because the fight felt drawn-out. The difficulty of the bosses was also tweaked by making the boss rooms more or less cramped.

edited 18th May '10 4:12:12 AM by Ulti

I just played a game on Normal where I tried to uncover as much of the map as possible and open as many doors and forcefields as possible at 0% (I'm pretty sure I got everything that's possible without the knife, which includes 5 computers). Considering I seem to be the first person to even mention it, am I the only one to have found the, err, extra boss and extra special reward? I honestly wasn't expecting him.

Extra boss?

:)