[Click here to start from the first progress log]

Chapter 5 is actually a good one, even if the writing has to stretch a very little amount of story content over several conversations. This leads to some weirdness when two parts happen back-to-back without a single word of dialogue between them. Given the writing, though, everyone shutting up is a marked improvement.

A new boulder-type trap was available, so obviously I had to buy it. I also bought a bear trap that freezes enemies, and the reason for that is mostly versatility; not knowing how to armor break enemies means it’s valuable to have a wide array of attacks that do different things. Equipping it required unequipping the blast bomb, but that’s not much of an issue given how inconsistent the thing has been already.

I also did another side mission, and the requirement in this case was to land a four-hit trap combo. You’d think this would be easy, but the new boulder has knockback that I didn’t account for. My second attempt was a near-failure, too, because something I’m noticing is that enemies sometimes get knocked to the side just enough to land out of reach of your next trap. Previous games were better about snapping them to the center to make this more predictable. Still, I learned something valuable about the new boulder in the process: this thing bounces off of walls. That opens up some intriguing possibilities as far as followup hits are concerned.

Forget everything I said about Vale being threatening. All of that generic anime foreboding ultimately means nothing because everyone in it for love automatically becomes a redshirt. Virginia is for lovers, and Deception is for killing lovers.

The game’s being really coy about who this “her” is that Vale needs permission from.

We start out with a giant (that’s literally what his occupation is claimed to be) and a creepy doll-collecting storm mage, and while running to my preferred staircase, Raspberry tasks me with shooting someone into lava. While I’m perfectly fine with ignoring the fruit salad’s demands, there’s no reason not to indulge the easy/amusing ones like this to gain some extra trap-unlocking experience. Then it’s straight to the staircase, where a bunch of pathetic enemies are dispatched without too much trouble. You can really see how perfect the new boulder is for this room at the end against “Lynn” (7:44), as it hits her twice while going down the stairs, then bounces off the wall for another two hits. That thing can inflict a lot of damage.

As mentioned before, the first and second parts of chapter 5 are back-to-back, so there’s no dialogue between the two. The whole second part consists of thieves and archers, which are a pain to deal with because of their ranged attacks and tendency to avoid floor traps, and things get worse at 5:57 when I fail to account for a boulder bounce and knock myself into a multi-hit trap. On the bright side, it worked well!

Shrug. Silver linings and whatnot.

Vale finally shows up and not only knows Lae by name, but also knows that her helpers are daemons. However he knows that, he makes it clear that he wants to steal our pieces of the Holy Verses, and that means that he has to die.

He’s really annoying. Not only does Vale refuses to run in front of my wall trap, but he spawns right in front of Lae rather than in a different room like everyone else, giving him two free shots at her. He can also dodge boulders unless he’s busy attacking or dodging something else, which would be fine if not for an enemy who comes along to spray gas and throw fire grenades that have to be avoided at the same time. The stupidest example of this is at 7:20, where the trap icons and camera make it hard to see her. Then Lae gets hit with a fire grenade, which is total BS since she started moving and this thing must have arced in the air to land on her.

There’s also this dark mage whose attacks inflict the dark status that makes it hard to see. Stupid mages are the bane of my existence. Also, he’s supposedly blind (or maybe not!) and keeps his eyes closed, but the character model they went with keeps its eyes open like everyone else does. It’s a bit of a weird disconnect.

As he dies, Vale insinuates that Lae is merely a pawn in a bigger game, suggesting that things aren’t going to work out as she expects. No details, as always.

Later on, Vanilla realizes that Lae is spacing out again. I don’t know if this is significant or not, but everyone notices that she’s been absentminded lately.

I don’t remember previous games having fall damage. It’s possible they did, but it’s hard to tell given my propensity for following all falls with a boulder. Whatever the case, it’s hilarious that gravity dealt the killing blow to Vale. So much for threatening.

The maximum number of traps that can be chained together increased again, allowing for even larger combos. I’m still not sold on the new mechanics—for one thing, the numbers showing which trap happens when reduce visibility and turn into a mess that can’t be easily parsed anyway, totally unlike the colored circles of previous games—but large trap combinations can be endlessly amusing regardless.

[Click here to go to Deception IV log #4]

The post Deception IV – The Nightmare Princess: Progress Log #5 appeared first on Killa Penguin.