RGR003 - The End of Sutekh

With this, another game comes to a close. Sutekh is a little bit tricky at first, but his patterns aren't too bad. He shoots a fireball, he teleports next to you three times for quick hits, and then he summons a statue or mummy to fight for him. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Once Sutekh is defeated, that's it. The city is saved, all is well, and then you get your completion percentage. It seems to be based on a specific set of tasks, like sealing the artifacts and gathering the Scarabs, so 100% is easy to obtain without doing absolutely everything. But it is possible to beat the game with less than 100% (I wound up beating it twice, with 88% the first time, and 100% the second).

Here goes nothing...

Yeah, bring it, mysterious animal-head guy!

When'd he get behind me?

Low blow, eh?

Yay, I saved the city!

Mommy always told me I was legendary.

So that's another one down. You know, this is pretty fun!

RGR003 - The Bosses

Welcome to the latest installment of Retro Gamer Ryan: Nightshade Edition! Today, I'll be detailing the bosses who guard the Scarabs. I've already explained their roles and the whole artifact-sealing thing, so all that's left is to show them and give some tips on how to beat them. So here they are, in no particular order:

Ninja Mistress

Before

After

Ninja Mistress is easiest to beat if you've found the Urn, which makes all ninja in the game, including her, weaker. She basically fights just like the rest of the ninja, but she has an extra weapon in the form of a floating bomb... thing. She tosses it in the air and it floats above you until you stand up and let it explode all over you. To beat her, just try to pin her into a corner, duck and let your fists fly. If you're lucky, you can keep her in the corner without ever getting hit.

Rat King

Before

After

Rat King's style can be pretty random, which makes him overpowering in some fights, and a complete pushover in others. The thing to watch out for is his tail attack, which he tends to use after dashing around the room. Just cross your fingers and hit him when you can.

Lord Muck

Before

After

Lord Muck has a strong defense in his spinning cane, which he'll mysteriously slide around the room swinging. His weakness lies in his special attack, which has him raising his cane in the air to bring pieces of the ceiling down on you. Whenever he does this, he leaves himself completely open to attack. So let him do it, then get in close and hit him with a combo, and he'll go down in no time.

Goliath

Before

After

Goliath is easy once you get the hang of fighting him. He follows you around, ramming into you when he gets the chance. And if you put enough distance between you and him, he'll charge at you. But he's so dumb that he'll gladly ram right into the wall. When this happens, he'll become dizzy and let his guard down; a quick kick will take a chunk off his energy meter. So once you've got the pattern down, four or five passes will do him in, and the Scarab will be yours.

Okay kids, that's it for now. Tune in next time for the final battle with Sutekh, and the ending!

RGR003 - The Traps

All right, so I've beaten the game, but I've still got more screenshots to post, so I'll stick with that for now. Next up is the traps. As I said before, the game starts with a trap, and each time you run out of energy, you're placed in an increasingly elaborate trap. All but the last are escapable. Here's a rundown of the traps:

• Trap 0: The game-starter trap. I've already described it, so you know to hide behind the wall until the bomb explodes, and then back into the candle to burn your ropes.
• Trap 1: You're tied down to a conveyor belt that is carrying you over to a hydraulic (or maybe pneumatic) press. To escape, wait until Nightshade's feet are between the two levers, and then operate the left-hand lever. Operating the right-hand lever will only speed up the conveyor and kill you more quickly.
• Trap 2: You're stuck in a chamber with a spiked wall that is closing in on you. To escape, take the second and fourth pieces of pipe, head back to the left wall, and use one piece of pipe on the other. You'll create a pole to stop the spiked wall.
• Trap 3: You are tied to a chair as the floor separates below you, potentially feeding you to the dog below. To escape, you must inch your way over to the torn metal panel on the wall and operate it, freeing yourself to walk. Then, jump over the hole in the floor and operate the switch on the right (but wait until the hole has gotten bigger). Finally, when the dog passes below you to the left, drop down and head out through the door.
• Trap 4: You are tied to a platform below a large metal weight which slowly drops onto you. To escape, you must immediately use food on the mouse on the floor. It will come to you and chew through your bindings. If you have no food, you can't escape.
• Trap 5: Fed up with you, Sutekh places you in a freeze ray chamber. There is no escaping this trap.

So it's like you have at most five lives.

The old "bomb and candle" trap.

Left is right, right is wrong.

The pipes, the pipes are calling...

The real threat here is tetanus.

A bit convoluted, methinks.

Yeah, this one's going to suck.

Good thing there are ways to heal throughout the game; some of the bosses can take you out easily, even when you start out with full power.

RGR003 - The Mystic Artifacts of Boss Prevention

After your popularity gauge reaches a certain point (specifically, the blue part), operating the phone booth grants you access to Vortex's secret hideout. There, you obtain four energy domes which can be used to seal certain magical items from which Sutekh draws his power. Each of these items is actually connected to one of the Scarab-guarding bosses in two ways:

• Sealing the item prevents the boss from appearing in Sutekh's lair.
• Defeating the boss normally before sealing the item gives Sutekh a chance to steal the item.

See, once you have all five Scarabs, you place them in the base of Sutekh's statue in the graveyard, and a passage opens leading to Sutekh's lair. In this passage, Sutekh will have revived the bosses and placed them in your way. But each sealed item prevents him from reviving a boss. So if you seal no items, you have to fight all four bosses again before facing Sutekh. But if you seal them all, the passage will be clear.

The Scroll

The Crown

The Diamond

The Statue

Believe me, you don't want to have to fight any of these guys more times than you have to.

RGR003 - A Plethora of Silly

I'm making good progress through the game, and have been steadily taking screenshots of some of the silly bits of dialogue scattered throughout the game. Like I said, Nightshade is known for its dialogue, so there's plenty of ammo.

Vortex welcomes you to his lair.

Nightshade has... unique taste.

Yeah, me too.

And of course, he speaks seagull.

This stuff is par for the course.

My favorite classic Nightshade line.

I'll be detailing the traps a little in my next post, as well as introducing the bosses. But beyond that, there's not much left to the game. I've actually already made it to the final battle with Sutekh once, so by the time I make the next post, I may very well have already beaten the game. Yay!

RGR Game #003: Nightshade

Part 1? Of 1?

The action-packed intro!

All right, folks, it's time for a new game! This time around, I'll be taking jaynova's suggestion and playing Nightshade for the NES. Nightshade is an adventure game with side-view action fighting sequences. The story follows the titular investigator/superhero-to-be as he works to avenge the death of Metro City's previous superhero, Vortex, and to become the city's new superhero.

However, things don't start smoothly for Nightshade, as he is quickly captured by the city's creepy Anubis look-alike crime lord, Sutekh, and tied to a chair in a sewer next to a bomb... and a candle. Of course, you can nudge yourself over to the candle to burn the ropes and set yourself free, but not before the bomb goes off. It won't kill you, but it'll do enough damage to make the near future really tough. So the trick is to hide behind a thin sliver of wall until the bomb explodes, and then make your way back to the candle.

Nightshade was known primarily for two things: its goofy dialogue and its series of its series of increasingly difficult but not inescapable traps. When Nightshade runs out of energy, he doesn't immediately die, but is instead knocked unconscious and placed in a trap. Each has a specific method of escape that must be figured out in order to continue playing (except for the fifth, which actually is inescapable). Failure to escape any trap actually does result in Nightshade's death. This happens often.

In order to beat the game, I'll have to gather the five Scarabs along with a few other items, and make my way to the final battle with Sutekh himself. It's not going to be easy, as each Scarab after the first is guarded by a boss. But the game is easy enough to break down into a series of steps, so that the fights are the only tricky parts.

Some hero we are!

It's a really sturdy wall. Yeah.

Awesome logo.

I see this a lot.

But man, are some of those fights tricky.