Aria/Bolt tips/discussion

[Magical☆Melody]

Heya, I just beat the Monk run and now the only achievements left are Aria and Bolt, I figure practicing them will just make other classes easier later, so I may as well start this :)

Any tips for playing through with Aria and Bolt? I've been playing Aria a bunch and it seems like the only shrine that's worth anything is the Shrine of Space, and the biggest goals are getting a shovel and being able to do 3+ damage (either by an infernal torch, spell or boots+ring)

[Cypher]

Hey,i've been playing with Bolt for a while now,and altho i didn't yet finish hardcore,i can tell one thing or two from my experience. The hardest thing to do with bolt,imo,is to beat the bosses on the 4th level. Metal guy and king koga are quite difficult 2x speed,as they can either summon alot of guys or already have alot of them on playfield. I'd say get as many bombs as you can and save them for bosses (or red dragons,good strategy when in closed quarters). Also try to get weapons that have a good range,NEVER use a 1 range weapon,it will eventually make you get yourself killed. Be very careful when opening doors,a monkey eventually will jump on you and a skelleton can easly kill you. Try getting a good armor (or any at all) early,that and an average/good weapon should get you trought most things. Oh,and also,knockback. Best.Thing.

For Arya...well,aside she's my favorite GoT character,not much to tell here. The fact that you can't miss a single beat makes me sad already,heh.

[Magical☆Melody]

I tried a bit with Bolt but it was too stressful going super fast, so I'm back to Aria, I feel like I can probably do it if I can get a good run and maybe find a heart to kill Death Metal? I just can't keep the beat for Death Metal :P And that you get absolutely no warning for which boss you'll see so you can't prepare :S

[Gelaflax]

When you have the "Ballet Shoes" equipped with Aria, will you still die when you miss a beat?

[Magical☆Melody]

Ballet Shoes NEVER EVER drop with Aria, I'm pretty sure that's not a bug either :P You can get any of the other boots though, but I'm finding the Boots of Damage drop a whole bunch! Maybe that's just luck, but it's SUPER helpful, since between that and the ring of might, you can open crates!

On that note, cool trick! Infernal Torch or Fireball Spells mean you can generally open crates easily without worrying. Transformation spell is lovely, but it doesn't take long before you have all the items you want anyway, so *shrug*, replace it when you need/want.

I know the Boots of Speed can drop for Aria, That's probably SUPER helpful? Especially in the Death Metal room since you can probably just mash movements and survive somehow then? It's definitely the room I would want the Heart for ideally.

But then, how you're supposed to deal with boss rooms for Aria, especially on no item rooms....

I would STRONLY endorse the first 8 beats not counting for beat keeping, even if only on bosses... geesh :S At least normal rooms I can know what's coming with practice...

[velkito]

Uh, I also have only Aria and Bolt left and I've kinda given up on Bolt. The biggest issue with him is that the default music does not correspond to his movements, so it'd be easier to find yourself custom music to match his movements. What music though, I don't know yet. Cypher's advices look sound.

As for Aria, well, she has two achievements, so go for the more difficult one to begin with, since you'll get the easier one as well, some day, 6 years later :P. Kidding aside, while a missed beat kills you, that's only true after you start moving. So with bosses and such you can take a few moments to calm yourself at the start of the level. Also, for the low% you can't pick up anything, but you can still use your one and only bomb, and, since recently, you can also throw your dagger, just be careful to be able to pick it up as well afterwards. For Deep blues, Remember the figures' patterns and movements. The rooks, the queens, the pawns, the king aren't scary. The others are, since they move faster, and are a bit less easily predictable. For Death Metal, once you get him down to 6 hearts it's a race to kill him before he summons too many minions (before he summons more than once I guess). And beware of the rhythm, Finally, king Conga..I have No Damn Clue. Should be easy, but I guess not. If you have your bomb you can try bombing his throne but I haven't tried that a lot. I still screw up killing the shopkeeper with bombs, and I have a lot more experience in this than with bombing Conga's throne.

[Breed]

I've beaten the game with both Bolt and Aria, and I can safely say that Bolt is way harder than Aria in my opinion. They're two completely different playstyles as well.

Finishing the game as Aria means mastering three things: the beat pace of each level, the use of dagger, and avoiding damage.

The first one just takes practice, so that you don't miss a beat even in your dreams. The hardest one of them is definitely Death Metal where you can die before you even get used to the pace of beat. I sometimes just beat the boss repeatedly by generating the level in the level editor to get used to the beat. Remeber also that Potion will let you miss a beat once, and The Scroll of Need will always grant you a Potion as Aria (so you can get double Potion in one run as her).

What makes the second one hard is not the damage, but the range. You just have to get used to fighting at the range of 1, since there is nothing you can do about it, and it's most likely also the reason why you end up taking damage. Some of the worst enemies as Aria are those who move every beat towards you or randomly (those appearing ghosts, monkeys, red bats, skeleton riders, etc.), meaning that you have to spend one beat digging a wall or something to fix it. Damage, on the other hand, can always be amplified. Items such Karate Gi, Boots of Strength and Ring of Might are your best friends, since even 2 damage makes enemies a lot easier.

The last one isn't as bad of an aspect as the other two, in my opinion, but still something that makes the character even harder. I mentioned about the Potion earlier, but another life saver is, of course, Glass Armor. I have to admit that at times it can get pretty hard to not get hit by enemies while staying on beat, especially in zone 3. Also, try to avoid those purple mushrooms in zone 2 altogether, I didn't even bother with them.

Also, some tips on bosses:

Death Metal: The thing that makes this boss quite hard is the pace of beat, as I mentioned earlier, so getting used to it is the key. The second problem are the second and third phases of the boss: you can't let him summon too many skeletons or you might get easily overwhelmed by them, so try to hit him as fast as possible, maybe using the bounce traps to your advantage. You can also finish the fight by throwing your dagger at him.

King Konga: I would say bombing the throne is the best way to beat this boss no matter what, especially at the higher levels of the fight. Mind the fact that he moves to every direction every beat when he's onto you, try to avoid the other enemies in the arena, and finish the fight maybe by throwing your dagger, and you're good to go.

Deep Blues: You can either beat this boss traditionally, or a new way with the throwing introduced. This involves you entering the chessboard, instantly throwing your dagger up, cornering the King, and bombing him. The toughest part about this is the fact that where he teleports is semi-random, and some locations are harder to deal with than others. I'd suggest trying this out in practice before trying it in a run.

I think that's about it for Aria.

As for Bolt, I dislike her. While Aria gameplay feels like finding the true balance, order and perfection, Bolt feels like an utter chaos with the double speed.

One way to play as her is to let enemies come to you and hit them when they're in your spear's range. That's what I did at least. Try to find a good weapon (I would say Titanium Bow would be the best and safest on her) and a good armor. Potion also helps a lot. Bosses are the worst on her, especially Death Metal.

I just don't have a lot of tips for her because I just SOMEHOW beat the hardcore mode with her, but I just have no idea.

[Magical☆Melody]

Wow, that's wonderful, thanks BreedPineapple! Also Crown of Teleport can help too! But I knew that I'd gotten the potion twice with the scroll of need, but didn't know it was a certainty, that's wonderful!! :D I have a friend who did Bolt but not Aria. And I don't even want to think about Aria Low % run :S :S So mean!!!

[this first-draft dream of mine]

Do the achievements count if you use custom music, per velkito's comment? Something with a very regular, strongly defined beat that easily divides into twos (rather than threes, as someone on the official forum has pointed out for some of the default songs).

[Breed]

Publicado originalmente por Magical☆Melody:

Wow, that's wonderful, thanks BreedPineapple! Also Crown of Teleport can help too! But I knew that I'd gotten the potion twice with the scroll of need, but didn't know it was a certainty, that's wonderful!! :D I have a friend who did Bolt but not Aria. And I don't even want to think about Aria Low % run :S :S So mean!!!

Oh yes, I forgot about the Crown of Teleport. That's a good item to avoid damage as well, but it might be a bit risky because it teleports you anywhere on the level. In most cases I'd say it's still better to have it than not.

Aria low% is simply a step further to the perfection. It won't affect your gameplay much in the first zone. However, in zone 3 the game gets WAY harder in low%, mostly because the zone has so many enemies that move towards you at different paces and most of them take several hits to kill. I'd say it even requires a bit of luck that you don't get a bad swarm at the beginning of zone 3 levels.

Oh, and one thing to mind in Aria low% runs is not to pick up even bombs, that's something that you may easily forget or do out of habit.

[Magical☆Melody]

At least it isn't money death too :S (though, I hear Coda will be :/)

[velkito]

Coda is a thing of Nightmares, PLEASE don't add achievements to "playing" with it.

@Skriek, while I don't know for certain, I don't see why custom music should be a problem.

[Magical☆Melody]

So, I just tried custom music, I used the games own soundtrack (not the default music, but used the soundtrack files), and then slowed it down to half speed. That worked for Coda, and I presume it'll work for Aria too. I'm going to keep trying to do her in slow-mo with no items, but I'd heard that picking up bombs with her, ruins that achievement. What I'm not sure about is whether using her single starting bomb wrecks it too (Would use that against King Conga)