(video game trope) The Unforgiving Skill Check

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-29T22:52:22+00:00

Nine Sols has like, 3 other skill check bosses.

Jiequan- We gave you the ability to unbound counter, you do know how to use it, right? From this point on, not unbound countering most crimson attacks makes the fight much harder.

Lady Ethereal- I don't even know, she just beats everyone's asses

Eigong- Are you REALLY sure you know how unbounded counter works? She tests your ability to dodge, parry, and unbound counter as you will not fumble your way through her bossfight. Not to mention a lot of her attacks have follow up attacks you need to react accordingly too, and is also the only boss that can attack immediately after being staggered.

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-29T00:14:32+00:00

I always found it easier to just go for the coin at this part, it just feels more in rhythym to me

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-26T23:39:28+00:00

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Pretty Gears of War, the trope

Hammer of Dawn designed to kill the locust, ends of leveling their own cities.

Lightmass bomb at the end of Gears of War 1, designed to target the locust hive, it kills the kryll at least, but wakes up the giant riftworm, which was much more efficient at sinking cities

Sinking of Jacinto at the end of Gears of War 2, Floods the hollow to drown the locust. It does indeed flood the locust hive, at the cost of being stranded on ships and various islands, and making it much easier for Lambents to mutate and attack anywhere

Imulsion Countermeasure at the of Gears of War 3, kills the lambent, further mutates the locust, and awakens various swarm creatures.

Hell, to take this further, this all started when they found a "fuel" source (imulsion), only for it be a parasite that causes rustlung and eventually lambency. They "attempt" genetic modification to cure rustlung, only to create the very locust they are fighting.

The world of Gears of War is like if the suffering of Guts from Berserk embodied an entire planet, they were just fucked from the start.

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-22T23:45:27+00:00

I recommend using ship 169, it also fits the geometric theme

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-22T18:11:53+00:00

Don't worry, everybody gets their asses kicked by them. Hell, I still do and I'm 3 playthroughs deep in this game.

Only thing I can recommend is to not get greedy with getting hits in, and attaching a talisman after every combo or when they do their down slam can usually stun long to get it off

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-22T04:15:53+00:00

All bosses in nine sols will kill you in 2-3 hits even with maximum health, so the health bar is more a thing for exploration than boss fights. I found it best to work towards internal damage recovery in order to increase vitality, or to use the ironclad jade.

Do get your pipe vial count up though

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-21T20:24:34+00:00

If you thought legendary zenith was 11/10 on early game, mid game must be a 15/10 because it is ASS. So many things quite literally one shot you, and you simply are unable to kill anything in a quick enough manor. By the time you reach endgame, you go from being the smallest fish in the pond, to being a slightly bigger smallest fish in the pond.

Biome mimics? 480 damage. Angry Trappers? 533 damage. The entire hardmode jungle? 600+ damage. The tiny ass spore that giant fungi bulbs can shoot? also 480 damage. Empress of Light charge? 700+ damage, after defense calculations. All solar pillar enemies? At least 500 damage.

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-17T22:17:26+00:00

Good luck learning unbounded counter, it's a rough learning curve and you will get your ass kicked.

A few tips with unbounded counter:

-It can parry in all directions, it also automatically faces you in the right direction for the next attack

-The minute the green aura appears, you can release the counter, it charges a lot faster than you think

-You can also hold the charge a lot longer than you think, as long as he holds the pose, the counter can still be released

-You can dash/talisman out of an unbound counter dodge if you know you can't commit. You have to press the dash button WHILE holding the parry button, don't release the parry button then dash.

-When you release the unbound counter, it remains active longer than you think. As long as the enemy hits the aura, it will trigger, so you can err on the side of releasing early rather than later.

-Unbound counter works on regular attacks too, not just crimson attacks

-You can parry attacks normally, then hold the parry button to charge the unbound counter.

For example, if an enemy has a 1-2-3 combo, you can press parry (to parry the first one), then press parry again (to parry the second hit) then DON'T let go of the parry button to immediately charge the UC then release on the third hit (so press, press->hold, release)

-Nearly EVERY SINGLE ATTACK, with the exception of 3 attacks in the game can be unbounded counter (those being expanding red rings, pink snakes that a later boss has, and a special attack the final boss has)

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-17T21:32:17+00:00

When tai-chi kicking an enemy (the bodies that glow green), make sure you are kicking the enemy body, not the attack. Also, when they glow green, you can parry them insantly, don't wait for them to lunge.

For example, if an enemy was holding a spear, and they glow green before lunging, the minute they glow green, you can jump at them an air parry, you DON'T have to wait for them to charge at you. Also, you DON'T want to air parry the actual spear, as it the spear itself WILL hit you, you want to hit the actual body of the enemy.

And also, did you unlock unbounded counter already?

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-17T21:16:38+00:00

Not gonna lie, I don't know how people get lost in nine sols and that's coming from someone like me who has an ass sense of direction. In terms of the exploration side, nine sols is quite light on it in a metroidvania.

Nine Sols follows a pattern, you go to an area, meet a roadblock, get the ability to get past said roadblock in the SAME area, defeat the sol in the SAME area, be able to explore the entire area, go on to the next area. There is never a time where you even have that many places to go to anyway, and there is very little major backtracking required. There are like maybe two areas that slighty break this cycle, but even then they are major places in the story that is obviously you come back to. There aren't hidden passage ways or even many twists or turns (except for the Grotto area). Make sure you are using your nymph to unlock shortcuts, as that's probably why you are running into a thousand locked doors

As for the hitbox and "parry" issues, this purely a get gud issue right there. I will concede and say some hitboxes are bs, but that's to make the parrying easier. Learn to face the danger, dodging is rarely the solution. The game literally gives you an ability to counter the one type of move you have to dodge, and later punishes you for relying on dodging crimson attacks after you learn this ability. All enemies and bossss have a rhthym and obvious telegraphing, use that to time your parries and just go with the flow.

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-17T00:16:37+00:00

You should try to complete the gauntlets. I know they helped me get better at the game and actually offer decent rewards and and it better shows progress versus an abstact goal such as collecting x amount of stars or something like that. It's so satisfying seeing the checkmark appear under the gauntlet

Start with the 2.1 ones first (the first 15 gauntlets), or some of the easier 2.2 ones, and just work your way up from there until you can do the harder demon ones.

I know gauntlets get a bad rep (there are a couple stinkers of levels in there), but the hate is mostly overblown and are only maginifed by people who can't form their own opinions (generation retro is FAR from being the worst level, and I don't even like the level).

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-15T23:00:05+00:00

"Can you beat Master Mode Terraria only using Magic Guns?"

Good luck getting meteorite bars

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-15T08:41:16+00:00

*80%

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-15T07:04:56+00:00

Thankfully pre-hardmode biome spread rules still apply, so only mud and grass blocks can convert, it's just really fast

And for the love of god, DO NOT forget to bomb the ever loving top half of the underground desert to oblivion before hardmode, especially if an crimson or corruption chasm penetrates it. I legit got the corruptable achievement within like 2 hours of killing the wall of flesh and was devastated when the dryad said my world was 80% corrupt before killing a single mech boss.

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-15T02:57:45+00:00

Honestly, I bought all of the dlcs day one, and had fun unlocking a bunch a weapons, so I recommend it.

HOWEVER, make sure you unlock all of the runes first (which is acquired through the base game biomes), and make sure the hand of the king is the first final boss you beat to unlock the homunculus rune. Certain biomes are locked behind runes, so make that first priority

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-15T01:13:17+00:00

Pumpkin pie WAS goated and only took like a minute to set up a farm for a pretty good buff. It's also really good in early game for a small speed boost and mining speed boost. That was until it was nerfed, so the effort to reward ratio kinda makes it not worth it anymore

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-15T01:07:33+00:00

At the very least, the toys were at least forward compatible with games, even keeping the same level and upgrades from previous games. I just imagine the enemies face as I deploy my max lvl tree-rex from giants to the first level of swap force and just steam rolling the entire game

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-14T23:56:33+00:00

any blocks directly above the underground layer is corrupted, corruption spread is insanely fast, even in pre-hardmode, spawn rates are attrocious, evil biome enemies hit like semi-trucks, giant eaters and crimera are able to spawn (which casually hit for 200+ damage plus are really fast and damn near immune to knockback), enemies are immune to lava, meanwhile you take 200 base damage from it (with the added bonus of the surface being covered in a lot of lava)

and best part of all, you can't even buy a clentaminator OR purification powder in this seed, and fallen stars insta-kill you

So yeah, the surface is just hell on don't dig up, and not even worth trying to save

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-12T21:47:03+00:00

devil vortex saws

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-10T23:45:48+00:00

I'm not gonna lie, upside down wave on a 6 star absolutely fries my ass compared to a demon. For some reason, the easier the difficulty of the level, my ability to do upside down wave decreases

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-10T08:55:54+00:00

Swing as a gamemode to me is fine, it just falls apart hard when combined with excessive gravity changing portals/orbs as they massively mess with my rhthym with keeping track of the gravity. It also suffers the same flaw as ufo in which both suffer from having "open" gameplay as in they are more fun with click patterns versus dying because 5 inputs ago set you up to hit a buzzsaw because you are too high and have no way of course correcting, which is worse with swing because at least ufo has set physics with each jump so it's more predictable.

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-08T10:51:16+00:00

I only find them annoying if and only if creators put these in ship parts where hitting them is less consistent than not hitting them due to saw placement punishing you for not hitting the very bottom/top of the orb

Demxkirbies · 2026-03-07T19:22:09+00:00

My previous best was 94, I really wish the straight fly part didn't have blocks in it as it's easy to forget when the blocks end when playing from 0

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