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^.^;

They're doing their best. ^.^

Heh, so many failed runs before this one, though... ^^;; Still, I had a lot of fun with this! I don't play Starch as much as some of the other characters, but IMO she can be pretty fun. ^_^

Glad it was helpful! ^_^

Yeah, they're each somewhat rare, so encountering them both is even more so. ^.^ I think I have actually seen them both on the same run before... but definitely not this early in the run! ^_^

- Yeah, IMO NecroDancer is a lot of fun! The learning curve is pretty steep, but a lot of that is the gradual process of learning enemy behaviors and patterns (and figuring out what behaviors and patterns you should be using to deal with them!). - Oh, and although Mary is currently my favorite character, she's probably not the best character to start with... I'd probably recommend starting with Cadence (or possibly Bard), since almost everything you learn with Cadence (default gameplay) can be applied to some degree to the other characters. =) - Yeah, the youtube "Chapters" feature has a number of limitations (including character count limitations that can vary, depending on what platform you're viewing a video on... and not showing some ascii characters at the beginning or end of the Chapter name... and sometimes not showing a Chapter name at all(!), if it's too close to another Chapter, or if there's too many Chapters in total), so for descriptive timestamps, I'll often just leave them in the video Description, rather than subject the viewer to incomplete timestamp-based descriptions. ^^ - I do use the Chapters feature on some videos, though (including some (but not all) of my NecroDancer speedruns), where my timestamp-based descriptions are generally fewer and shorter. =)

Short answer is: life events eating up most of my free time. I did record a bunch before things got busy, though, so I've mostly been posting from that backlog of pre-recorded videos. =) Hopefully things should be getting more or less back to normal soon, though, I think? ^_^

Yes, definitely! ^_^ Just not immediately. ^^; Non-youtube things are keeping me a bit too busy still, so I'm going to be continuing mostly with the previously-recorded backlog for at least a little while. Hopefully things settle down soon, so my free time will be freer. ^_^

Definitely still an enjoyable game! ^_^

Heh, yeah. Not quite having enough money to cover those extra purchases that aren't absolutely necessary, but still would be nice to have... yeah, definitely relatable. ^^;;

Ensemble Mode requires the "Synchrony" DLC. If you have Synchrony, Ensemble Mode should appear in Extra Modes for both Solo and Co-op. If it's in Extra Modes, but it's locked, I think bumping into it should tell you how to unlock it. If it's not in Extra Modes, make sure you didn't accidentally disable the Synchrony DLC, whether through the game page on Steam (right-click on the game in your Library, select "Properties" then "DLC" to check whether your DLC is enabled or not) or the Options in-game (I think this was in the gameplay options in Custom Rules). Oh, also, if only one of you has Synchrony, make sure the player who has Synchrony is the Host of the Multi-player session. Hope that helps!

@@cavalcadence awesome, thanks for the response!

^_^

Definitely among my favorites. Pretty safe weapon for pretty much any character. ^^

Heh, yeah. It can be interesting to look back upon older videos. Overall, I've definitely improved since back then. ^_^ Though I think the Sword and the Fists are still my weakest weapons... and they do still give me some trouble every once in a while. ^^;

Aiming quickly with the quick slash chains should become easier with practice. I've... had a lot of practice. ^^;; Though, sometimes it can still be better to delay a little on the second or third slash, in order to get a bit more accuracy. ^^

Heh, yeah. =) Hmm, Electric Blunderbuss might be interesting. It has a range advantage over the dagger, but both reload and recoil-knockback disadvantages... so it wouldn't be quite as overpowered as something like an Electric Bow (no reload/recoil) or Electric Rifle (extremely long range). ^.^ Hmm, Electric Melody would probably be a lot of fun... but probably much too powerful! Electric Aria would probably be a lot of fun too, come to think of it. ^_^

^_^

Yeah, AAC's a very well-crafted game. I like it a lot. ^_^

Hmm, not sure. I suspect she could probably adapt one of Aria's strategies somehow, though. ^^

Thanks! Yeah, there's a lot to handle in that first phase, especially if you're trying to keep the Chain unbroken. ^^; Though personally, I think some of the later phases (like the phase with the blue laser turrets!) are probably harder overall. ^.^

^_^

Heh, yeah. ^^;

Thanks! ^_^ For roguelike games, I think I prefer runs to be short enough to complete without having to save and exit. So... probably less than 60 minutes, maybe less than 40... though it depends on the game, I think. Being able to save and exit is nice, and I've definitely used the option before in Hades... but sometimes when returning to the middle of a game, I tend to play worse, because I'm not used to what's going on and what the current build is... and there's very little time to figure things out, since it's the middle of a run, and things are no longer as easy as they would've been at the beginning. =) For non-roguelike games, though, I don't think it matters as much for me (I've definitely played and enjoyed both short and long games!)... though for games like MMORPGs, I can definitely see that shorter dungeons would make it easier to get players together at the same time. ^^

I'm pretty sure getting all the win messages isn't something the devs intended to be an actual goal... because if it had been intended, there probably would've been an easier way to keep track of which ones you've gotten and which you haven't (also, "Nose for Nectar" probably would've been adjusted so that it wasn't quite so dependent on an extreme amount of luck). ^^; By the time I had enough resources to purchase all the Titles from the Resources Director, though, I was reasonably close to 500 wins, so really, it wasn't too much more effort. =) Of course, given the large amount of resources (especially Darkness!) required, I suspect getting all Titles probably wasn't intended as an actual goal for most players, either... It was probably intended as just a late-game resource sink for people who liked playing the game a lot. ^^ But yeah, long road. But if you enjoy the gameplay, it doesn't feel quite as long as it actually is, though. =)

Especially when they break. ^.^

Oh, it showed up just from Transcendence III? Interesting! Hmm... Okay, I did some testing, and apparently, the condition for Transcendence S was changed at some point! Based on the testing I did back in 2015, you originally had to complete all three Transcendence levels without hitting a wall. But based on the testing I just did... it looks like now, you only have to complete Transcendence III without hitting a wall, nice! =) Thanks for mentioning this, and congrats on perfecting Transcendence III!

Thanks! ^_^ Yeah, Acid Nerve is a pretty small devteam, and I think they only have two games on Steam so far: Titan Souls (a remastered and vastly expanded version of a "game jam" game that was originally created for the "Ludum Dare 28" game jam) and Death's Door. Of the two games, I personally liked Death's Door better... but there are definitely people who liked Titan Souls more. =)

Yeah, IMO Cactus is a pretty good character for Boss fights. =) Though of course, there were still some scary moments in this run, especially in Phases 5 and 7. ^.^;

In general, it's probably easier to remember character-specific strats when switching characters (9 characters), than level-specific strats when switching levels (25 levels), so... For efficiency, sticking with a level and switching characters is probably more efficient. =) As for which is more fun... hmm, hard to say, but... maybe(?) sticking with a character and switching levels, simply due to the wider variety of levels. ^^

Heh, yeah, I don't think I've seen "Hangover" as a status effect in any other game... but a lot of games do have "Poisoned", which works in a very similar way. ^_^

Heh, thanks. ^.^ Yeah, I'm definitely more comfortable dealing with Mary's Curse now, compared to when I first started playing her... but I've played Mary quite a lot since back then, so... ^^;;

Heh, even with Crystal Clarity, the Crystal Beam doesn't aim fast enough to keep up with all of the small rats. ^^; But yeah, the beams were doing a LOT of damage by the time Zag got to the final Boss. =)

I'm pretty sure it depends to some degree on how good a player is with a particular weapon. I'm definitely not as good with the Fists as I am with the Spear... and the Spear gave me a lot less trouble. =)

Yeah, in Randomizer Mode, it's generally a good idea to try to get extra damage on your weapon, because you never know when you might encounter an enemy with an unreasonably-high amount of health (e.g. Coral Riff's 10-health brass instruments definitely would've been a lot more troublesome if Mary only had a 1-damage weapon)! ^^; Heh, yeah, Bow is one of my favorite weapons for safety, due to its range... so I'm pretty happy I managed to find one in this run. =) In general, I think Warhammer might be a slightly safer choice for Randomizer (if you're facing multiple fast-moving enemies, the bow can only hit one at a time)... but the Bow is pretty nice too. ^_^

Yeah, the Thief is similar to the Leprechaun, except he drops a semi-random item instead of a Lucky Charm, and instead of stealing your gold, he steals one of your items (you can get your item back by defeating the Thief)! Once you get used to fighting him, a Thief encounter is basically a free item... kind of the same way a Monstrous Shopkeeper means free items, once you get used to fighting him. ^.^

Hmm, at the higher levels of play, I think Aubergine and Shiitake probably(?) benefit the most from Accelerate... though of course, it depends a bit on your playstyle. ^_^ Interestingly, after I started doing Accelerate-only runs, Cactus turned out to benefit more than I originally thought she would (mostly due to the Accelerate + Flamethrower combination being so useful against large crowds of low- and mid-health enemies). ^^

Yeah, if you're aiming for a specific win message, you kind of have to adjust your run strategy a bit (e.g. things like "don't do more than 1 Trial of the Gods", "don't visit more than 2 region-specific NPCs", etc, etc) in order to avoid the conditions for other win messages. ^^; Having more than just 2 priority levels would help, I think (so that something difficult can't get randomly replaced by something easy). Or if the game could list more than just one win message, that'd also work (and this wouldn't require having the devs spend time figuring out a "tier list" for win message difficulties)! =) For example, increasing win messages from 1 to 3 means you can accidentally (or on purpose!) do 1 or 2 extras... and even if you accidentally do 3 extras, you'll still have a 75% chance of getting the one you want. =) And even increasing to 2 would help (+1 margin for error, 66% chance, even if you go to +2). ^_^ Honestly, though... smoothing out the win message process should probably be a fairly low priority while working on the next game, compared to things like gameplay flow and balance, performance issues and crash bugs, etc, etc. If the devs do have the extra time to work on smoothing it out a bit, though... ^_^

Heh, yeah, normal runs are definitely a lot easier than 0-gold speedruns. =) With Mary, though, you do still have to be careful, due to the nature of her Curse. ^^ Yeah, even after all these years, NecroDancer is still one of my favorite games to play just for fun. =)

Yeah, I've never really liked Achievements that require an excessive amount of essentially pointless grinding, like "fail 1000 times" or "walk 1000km" or "level up your character to LV1000", etc, etc. Things like that don't seem like they'd be too much fun for any player, IMO. ^^;