Immercenary

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Martin III
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Immercenary

Post by Martin III » Sun Jun 16, 2013 6:22 pm

Since this forum's servers went down, I've plugged some 10-15 hours into this game. Sadly, I have to go with the most popular view and say that no game is worth the amount of work you need to put into Immercenary just to reach the point where you can start enjoying it. Constantly saving and loading just to build up a couple extra points of stats is a real pain, especially when you have to go through that tedious jacking in animation every time you save or load.

It's a pity, because it really is a cool game. The 3D world of the Garden looks wonderfully surreal, being able to converse with bosses in a casual manner is a nifty idea, and it's impressive that the 3DO can regulate so many enemies at once without considerable slowdown. The game as a whole reminds me strongly of Virtual Hydlide, mainly in its graphical style and the concept of a single open world with no towns. (Good memories; I really need to pop Virtual Hydlide back into my Saturn some day.)

It's kind of funny how the game itself provides absolutely no context or explanation for what the story is about, and the regular manual is scarcely better. You need to read the "New Recruit Manual" to have any real idea of what is going on. Wonder what percentage of players even took notice of that little pamphlet?

Anybody know what the deal with weapons is? The manual describes certain ones as "single use", but I've been able to fire all of these multiple times.

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Re: Immercenary

Post by sneth » Sun Jun 16, 2013 11:03 pm

You could grind up some stats real quickly if you know the right locations. The problem was this game needed an FAQ at launch to be enjoyable. I never sunk that many hours into it when I first picked it up.

I think it's one of the hidden gems now. The concept reminded me a little of Paradriod, where you had to slowly level up to take on the bigger guys. I got into this one weekend, and was really surprised.

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Re: Immercenary

Post by goldenband » Mon Jun 17, 2013 3:16 am

Yeah, I think it took me more like 4-5 hours to level up enough to hang with tougher opponents. It takes a while, but once you break through in this game, everything starts moving pretty quickly.

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Martin III
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Re: Immercenary

Post by Martin III » Tue Jun 18, 2013 12:21 am

Well, one of the things is that I can't seem to strafe. I push the right shoulder button - nothing. I push the left shoulder button - nothing. Is this normal?

I've cleared Medusa and Tesla. The Tesla fight is very cool-looking with all the generators flashing around, though Tesla himself looks like a guy whose wife caught him showering with another woman and is now chasing him across the neighbors' lawns with a baseball bat. :lol:

I'm hoping to take down Silva next, but unlike the other bosses, I haven't been able to figure out how to confront her. I took a shot at the Fly, but no luck. Man, that Fly is one weeeeiiird boss fight. I mean that in a good way.

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Martin III
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Re: Immercenary

Post by Martin III » Wed Jun 19, 2013 2:10 am

Wiped out Silva, the Fly, and Chameleon. I found Silva when the game temporarily froze for loading at the fountain; I figured she must have popped up. :) Looked around and there she was.

As a general note, it's amazing how easy the bosses are compared to the pandemonium out in the Garden. The Fly's ability makes it tough to get a draw on him, but otherwise it's just seek and unleash the awesome power of Boomerang. I feel ready to take on Chance now.

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Re: Immercenary

Post by NeoGeoNinja » Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:52 pm

As is often the case with gaming forums (it's a good thing though), all this discussion surrounding Immercenary makes me want to acquire and play this game. Seemingly, it's a little less common at the moment that it once was (I only buy PAL titles where possible btw. Long boxes... for the lose :| )

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Martin III
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Re: Immercenary

Post by Martin III » Wed Jun 19, 2013 2:10 pm

I ended up going for Balkan next instead. Hoo-boy, is that guy hard. Took me about seven attempts to beat him, and had to waste an Annaballs and a Chaff to narrowly win. Afterwards, I took a look at the hints for him in the New Recruit Manual, and immediately realized why Balkan is three times as hard as any other boss (and is ranked one of the lowest, to boot). The hints say you need to take out his duplicates one at a time so that he doesn't split into so many that they overwhelm you. Apparently Five Miles Out simply overlooked the fact that the player has no way of telling which Balkan duplicates are going to split when you shoot them! :|

Anyway, after that, Chance was ridiculously easy. I couldn't figure out how you're supposed to "Switchya" him outside the church, but it didn't matter because his followers are no threat, and once I located Chance himself, he went down very quickly. Although I must say, it seems like very few of the special weapons in this game work the way they're supposed to.

Heading back to the DOAsys, I had a huge shock when I spotted a rithm I'd never seen before. I immediately thought, "Oh, my. I've never seen that one running around, and it doesn't look like it could possibly be Loki... Could it be..." I moved my scanner over it... And yes, it read Rank 1. :shock: Didn't think you could meet him before the final conflict. I was tempted to test what he's like in battle, but I'd just beaten two bosses in a row without saving, so I had to forego taking that chance.

Healed up, saved, and got a surprise cutscene with Raven. I went back to meet with her, and yet again "Where is Perfect?" is a dialogue option. Why did Five Miles Out get such a kick out of coming up with 15 different ways for characters to say "Uh, it's right here, stupid." ? Weird how she tells you it's time for the final battle when I still haven't taken out Riberto.

Took out Riberto no problem, and now my stats are maxed out (so uh, excuse me Dr. Rand, but why exactly do I need to huffmann Raven if I'm already at maximum power?). The only trouble is, I'm still at rank 130! Do I actually need to work all the way to rank 4 before the finale? For that matter, do I need to beat all the bosses in order to complete the game? And while I'm at it, is it possible to meet Medusa in the DOAsys? I visited there many times before beating her and she never showed up, but I see she is listed under "cast" in the manual. Do you have to find her at some other location? More questions that will never be answered, I suppose.

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Martin III
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Re: Immercenary

Post by Martin III » Thu Jun 20, 2013 1:49 am

...and I beat it. Immercenary really is the 3DO's shortest RPG. Very dense, though... You see a LOT over those three hours. The scenery and atmosphere is quite incredible, too. It genuinely feels spooky during a storm, what with the cool lighting and strange music. While I wouldn't recommend Immercenary to most gamers, but I'm very glad I got it. It's a memorable experience, and feels like a defining game for the 3DO.

The buildup to the final battle is superb. Great little musical theme. The 3DO's constant reading from the disc had me worried a bit, and it wasn't until a second play that I realized why it has to constantly read the disc. When I did, I just stared at the screen for two whole minutes. Jeezus, those guys in Five Miles Out must have been totally crazy.

I like that they added a time limit, although 20 minutes is ridiculously long. 5 minutes would have been plenty. Anyway, I drew the Perfect Female, who turns out to be by far the easiest form. I had to recharge my ammunition a couple times, but otherwise it's a pretty boring fight. Tried it again with the Perfect Robot, and that was much more fun and intense, though I also beat that form on my first try. Finally, the Perfect Male... hoo golly, that one is hard. After my first two deaths, I tried using Pushya for the first time just to get him away from the recovery spire, but he seems to be immune to it.

Very good ending. The subtle foreshadowing of Immercenary 2 is a nice touch; it's a shame that game never got made.

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Martin III
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Re: Immercenary

Post by Martin III » Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:32 pm

Hmm. I thought I got the link to this interesting article about Immercenary on these forums, but I can't find the link here using the search function, I can't find it using an outside search engine, and I can't even find it by scanning recent topics (since I know it was posted after I beat the game). So just in case I actually found it somewhere else (I can't imagine where), here it is. Some great information there, plus very cool black-and-white photos of the production for the digitized bosses. It's also interesting to read why Five Miles Out never made any more games.

Anyway. I meant to ask this a while back, but I kept forgetting: is it possible to destroy Perfect1 when you see it running around the Garden? In other words, can you beat the game without visiting the stadium? I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work, but the Immercenary walkthrough doesn't cover it, and I haven't heard of anyone else doing it.

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Re: Immercenary

Post by goldenband » Thu Aug 08, 2013 4:26 am

Martin III wrote:Hmm. I thought I got the link to this interesting article about Immercenary on these forums, but I can't find the link here using the search function, I can't find it using an outside search engine, and I can't even find it by scanning recent topics (since I know it was posted after I beat the game).
It was indeed linked on the forums -- the link was posted by GammaDev here.

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