Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Catacomb Apocalypse: Invisible Touch

Computer Core, huh? Wonder how this level's going to end. I'm not used to starting areas having stuff right behind you, something, something, three games of that. Four doors, one of which is unlocked. The corridors are free of enemies. Weird, is this some kind of level with very few enemies? Oh...and they take health off in 15% chunks. They just won't die either, the entire corridor seems to be dedicated to cleaning out this one group of...robots? Whatever, I get a green key for my trouble.
Another unlocked door, my mistake, you don't check to see if there's another when you're already going someplace. Eyes? The maze kind. After another thousand missiles against the 'bots. I check further. Then, oh, a million bots. Like legit slowing down DOSbox. They're guarding treasure, the kind that's difficult to get if I'm interested in actually killing my enemies. Another green and a blue key. I guess that's everything. Green must be the way out, ergo blue is the way forward for now.
Which is kind of a mistake. The enemies behind the blue door are the eyes, this time they're actually attacking. No, what's the mistake is that I need another blue key.
Green door...good. Slaughtermaps. Done first by Catacomb Apocalypse. Every idea anyone's ever had has been accomplished here first. Reaching under ten cures, this could be bad. At least I have the key forward. The last room? Just more robots. Straight shot basically.
Chamber of the Invisible Horror...sigh...a non-hostile eye spins around me as I contemplate the level ahead. I can see something flashing on the screen. This is going to be good. I can imagine how they did it, just make some funky sprites, maybe have them pop out like the swimming monsters.
No, just invisible walking sprites, followed by semi-visible attacking and attacked sprites. My journey around the opening hallways consists mostly of me getting hurt and spraying magick missiles like candy. You know, its sad that I consider this crap, I don't like constantly having to hammer down the ctrl key. Which is not a good sign.
After clearing out the halls, the first door I open takes a red key, the spare I've had since the hub level. Its a group of enemies. Joy. Two side chambers, full of more enemies. Its telling about this level that even in an empty green key room, I'm still hammering the ctrl key.
Right, normal unlocked door. No real groups of enemies. Just scattered. Still throwing out a grouping of missiles each corridor. Let me make it clear that this is not just me making fun of the game, this is genuinely a problem in a game series already having problems hammering away at the ctrl key. This does nothing to solve the real problems Catacomb has. This just increases them. I actually do get killed by them, but at this point its not really because I've been outsmarted.
The exit section has a small horde of the invisible horrors. Full of things that block my shots. Oh, there seems to be some kind of floating magick missiles throughout the level. The way out requires a green key, have to go back and get that. Far, far too tedious a level.
The Encounter Chamber, or the return of the previous robots. There's a big chamber and two obvious other chambers. The tanks, as I previously didn't fight much, eat up a ton of missiles. I guess the treasure behind them is worth it. I wonder where I'll go next, nothing obvious. The sound of a portal. Aha.
Nemesis. The final battle. And this is the final battle. More invisible demons. Are you serious? At least there's treasure. I can't believe this is the kind of crap that Nemesis is going to go out on.
Nemesis, buddy, you look like crap. More invisible horrors, they're all dead. This was too easy, I'm going to hate the rest of this level. One nemesi, two nemesi, four nemesi. Same thing as the last game, minus the teleportation. Except I legitimately run out of healing potions. If only I had a spare red key. Or, I could just use god mode. Either way I'm taking advantage of things. On the other hand, four nemesi at once is some bull.
So, I do that. Winning not by skill, but by a spare key. I don't have enough items to win. Seems cheap on the developer's end, but what do I know? So, you deserve to see this as much as I do. There's a couple of secret levels, but I'm not touching those. I am so done with this game.

This Session: 1.5 hour

Total Time: 4.5 hours

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