This Old Neon Forum

Yasume wrote:I don't know, I might try for the platinum trophy. That entirely new achievement (it wasn't present on Steam) certainly is brutal, but I think it's doable once you've reached a certain level. I might be able to do it on my Steam file, since I'd reached LVL 400 on it.

You wouldn't be able to reach level 400 without some deaths. You can't do that achievement on NG+.

I'm definitely going for the platinum. The way I see it, boss mastery and a little luck mitigation are the tricks for the under 15 trophy. Low level, speedrun-style through the areas, and then expect to need to kill the bosses with little or no damage taken. Tough, but doable. Kong, your Dark Souls Master run would likely be similar to what I'm thinking here.

[EDIT]

Dev. tips on obtaining the trophy: http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/28/594545 ... natophobia

I've now killed three of the main bosses, and I've just sunk about 30-50 deaths into The Infinite Herodotus. My best run was a dwarf Spellsword with flame circle and the trait that makes you not trigger spike traps. I was able to stay on the ground level and just keep the flame circle up, recharging my mana as it went. Hard to say how much progress I made since that boss doesn't have a HP bar.

VictorViper wrote:Dev. tips on obtaining the trophy: http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/28/594545 ... natophobia

That's all well and good, but most of those tips still translate to complete fluke: "Be lucky."

Delve into the dungeons and tower early, and try to get some chests. If you can get a tier 5 sword drop, it's worth dumping like 10 points into Equip Up in order to carry a sword which will buff the crud out of your stats.

I have ~20 hours in and probably about 100 lives, and I don't have a tier 5 sword. For the record, I also have about 25 runes, maybe a handful more, and I still don't have a single limbs rune. All sword, head, chest, and cape.

Kill mini-bosses often. They give you a lot of gold, and they're the easiest way to get gold chest drops if you can beat them consistently.

I have seen three mini-bosses, and I've killed two of them. Mini-bosses aren't a great method of "consistently" getting a lot of gold if you only see about 3 every 20 hours.

Are you ever venturing outside of the castle when grinding? I get at least 4 mini bosses per new run (new castle build), about one per zone. I've also got all but two runes and a huge selection of weapons and armour. I'm still getting mid-level gear from Maya and The Dark, but that's because I was too cowardly to venture in there until recently.

VictorViper wrote:Are you ever venturing outside of the castle when grinding? I get at least 4 mini bosses per new run (new castle build), about one per zone. I've also got all but two runes and a huge selection of weapons and armour. I'm still getting mid-level gear from Maya and The Dark, but that's because I was too cowardly to venture in there until recently.

Yep, usually fully exploring all four areas until I die. I fought & killed another mini-boss tonight, bringing me up to a total of 3/4. When I played the PC version, I saw them a lot more frequently.

Just an update because I've made some excellent progress the past couple of days. I collected all the journals and beat all the bosses and mini-bosses. My sneaky clown strategy also worked (which kind of surprised me!):

Spoiler

I rolled a character with Clumsy as a trait and just happened to find an axe-clown right at the start of the castle. Even though the targets didn't break when I walked into them, I was able to attack them with my sword.

I've also maxed out a couple key manor abilities, particularly the wealth-related ones (Bounty and Charon's discount), and I have all but one piece of Bounty+ equipment.

I took a couple stabs at the final boss, and I got him pretty damn low, but then I messed up and died, so I'm pretty confident I can beat him if I'm careful and use the right setup.

There's not much chatter going on here at the moment, so I thought I'd take some time to expand upon some of the famous names that appear in the game by way of certain characters.

Khidr is a reference to al-Khiḍr, a character in Islamic mythology who serves as a kind of Islamic analogue for Gilgamesh or Elijah, a proto-messiah who was taken up into Heaven without dying first. He's a wise sage and godly man who (by various mechanisms) is ageless—he was granted immortality in some versions of the myth, and stumbled upon the Fountain of Youth in others.

Alexander is a reference to Alexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great, who lived in the 4th century BCE. He is known as a great conqueror, who had taken over much of the known world by the time he was 30 years old, including becoming Pharaoh of Egypt and King of Persia. In Iranian Islamic versions of the "Alexander Romance" (folkloric versions of his story), Alexander and a servant character identified with al-Khiḍr cross through the Land of Darkness into the Forest of Abkhazia, also known as Hamson, where they discover the Fountain of Youth. (Abkhazia and Hamshen are real locations in south-western Caucasus and north-eastern Turkey, respectively.)

Ponce de Leon is a reference to Juan Ponce de Léon, a Spanish explorer and conquistador and first Governor of Puerto Rico. He was a member of Columbus's second voyage to the new world in 1493. According to folklore he inspired in the 16th century, he had heard legends from local natives about about the land of the Maya and a Fountain of Youth that was supposedly located there. His destination somehow became associated with Bimini and the Bahamas instead, and it was on one of these expeditions that he discovered Florida in 1513.

Herodotus was a Greek historian (often credited as the first historian) who lived in the 5th century BCE. Despite a flair for the dramatic, he is the primary (and generally the most reliable) source of historical information about the ancient Greek and Persian worlds. As an example of his more sensational side, one passage describes a kingdom of tall and beautiful people living in the extreme south of the world (in the Horn of Africa) who were known for their longevity (with the average person reaching the age of 120), which Herodotus attributed to a Fountain of Youth.

Johannes is a reference to Presbyter Johannes, perhaps more commonly known as Prester John. He was a mythical figure in European Christendom during the Crusades and the incursions of the Mongol hordes at the eastern borders of Europe. The European kingdoms were anxious about the powerful, growing Islamic empire(s) and imagined that there was a great Christian king behind their ranks in the east who would arrive to relieve them with his great army. In popular imagination, Prester John's kingdom became associated with an idealized paradise on Earth, containing (among other legendary features), the Fountain of Youth.

And I might as well follow that up with a progress post too, until we hear from some of the other members who are also playing this game (Vic, Kanti, Yasume). I've now beaten all the super-bosses, collected all the blueprints, and beat NG+. My best run was around 120,000 gold—I fully emptied the castle of every enemy, and had to suicide on spikes to avoid killing the end boss. The only thing I have left to do to complete the game is try for the Thanatophobia trophy (!!!) and max my levels/stats. I'll probably be streaming a couple practice runs this week.

Speaking of streaming, I did manage to capture videos of a couple of my super-boss victories. These aren't really spoilery, but you may not want to watch if you want to try to figure out how to beat these bosses on your own first:

Kong Wen vs. Neo Khidr:



Kong Wen vs. Ponce de Freon:

My compliments, KW. I just spent the last hour tackling Neo Khidr and that vid makes it look easy.

VictorViper wrote:My compliments, KW. I just spent the last hour tackling Neo Khidr and that vid makes it look easy.

Thanks Vic! It took me about 2 hours, all told. Here are some tips:

• You want to spend most of your time on the ground. Just use the platforms to manoeuvre, and drop off them when you're done. It's harder to evade his attacks from up there.
• You need to practise 4 main evasive moves: left-spinning spiral while you're on the left side of the floor, right-spinning spiral while on the left side, left-spinning spiral on the right, and right-spinning spiral on the right. Believe it or not, they each take their own finesse.
• Use your spellsworded-up magic every chance you get. It eats his HP up. It costs 30mp per use, and you get 10mp back each time you hit him with your sword, so 1-2-3-triangle, repeat. You'll notice in the vid, it was my spell that killed him while I was being hit. It probably saved me.