Just finished the game. It's funny when the first solution I think of is also a platinum solution :D I keep waiting for something unforeseen to go wrong, and then Big Stars. It was particularly odd having that happen on the last level.
Like the game. I've use one of three strategies that have gotten me through every level, depending on what I'm facing: 1) Wall and/or Giant Monster up front with as many ranged units behind as I can find. 2) Giant monster with lots of HP + the Vampire regen spell keeping it alive. 3) Lot and lots of little units and the occasional wall to keep an enemy in place while my ranged units kill it from afar.
It's a little frustrating that my biggest challenge to any quest is just finding the objective in the time limit, even the kill quests. Turning right instead of left might be all I'm doing wrong.
Here's my strategy against the last boss: Upgrade Counter and Defense to highest level. Rage and Health upgrades are good too. From highest to lowest priority moves: x4 or more combos, defense, counter, eliminating the last Purple or Grey attack, rage, healing. Energy should not be a problem. If all you have is energy or healing moves, consider letting the timer run out, and make him make that move. All too often making a move brings in new gems that open up an attack. Your basic goal is to wait for combos to show up using Defense, make him hurt himself using Counter, and fill up your Rage bar for a big hit. Don't max out Rage if he has defense or counter up. Grey and Purple moves are too slow to kill him by themselves, and Greens will never keep up with the damage he deals you, so if those work into combos, great, otherwise the only reason to grab them is to keep him from doing it. Hope this helps people that are viewing the boss as impossible. Luck is still a factor, so good luck!
Sorta weird the commentary going back and forth here between people that think the boss is too hard and people that think he's fine. I've beaten him 3 out of 7 tries now with all three characters, none with full upgrades. Still using the +Defense, +Counter strategy.
I got through the last boss in three tries also without full upgrades. Probably partly luck, but my strategy was to always go for Shields if I could, waiting for a combo to come up. Block + Counter generally did more damage than any attacks I had.
Man, I should _not_ have gone right for the Excalibur. That thing freaking broke the difficulty curve. The only vaguely difficult fight for the rest of the game was the final boss. Kinda took some of the fun out of playing then.
After playing some not-so-good games recently, I think I've figured out the secret to Nerdook's consistent quality: Every level introduces something new to deal with or something new to use (in this case it does both). So you're not just going longer and harder stretches, you actually have something new to adapt to, which keeps it engaging.
I guess you need to ask yourself sometimes if a game's mechanics are interesting enough that basically just making the levels progressively longer is enough to pad out the game. Because it doesn't matter to me what new turtles you add as I go along, I'm still just waving my mouse around picking up balls the entire time.
This game doesn't feel like it grows at any point. I get more slots, I get a larger grid, but it's pretty much the same at the start as it is at the finish.
@ Argon: It's atmosphere is much thinner than ours, but saying it has no atmosphere is just wrong. If it had no atmosphere any picture from Mars' surface would have a black sky, like the Moon. Here's an entire wikipedia article about it's composition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars
I really tried to like this, but this is more frustrating than fun. I hit enemies at slightly the wrong angle and die. I bounce off an enemy and fly into something and die. It's just not worth it.
The stars seem to be willing to give you super powers. Also: you already have a dead parent, the favorite reason anyone has to become a super hero. Basically what I'm saying is this kid gave up a golden opportunity.
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Grats!