“Arcus Odyssey” — Taking Down Castomira!

In my first session with Arcus Odyssey, I played through the first three Acts of the game, but in this video, I play from Act 4 all the way to the end. I’ll tell you right now – there are some very difficult and frustrating parts in some of the stages here. I did end up save-state abusing in places to conserve health, but in the boss fights I normally just toughed it out, loading only to start the fight over without redoing the entire stage. Just like with the stages from earlier in the game, there are some interesting mechanics in these ones, such as one that requires you to activate floodgates and destroy barriers so that water can flow and put out fires that block your path deeper into the dungeon.

What’s interesting to me is that the final boss, Castomira, isn’t really too tough at all. In fact, she’s very easy compared to a couple of the bosses that precede her, and honestly, her stage is harder than she is (designed, I’d guess, to weaken you prior to the final battle). Act 6 is pretty crazy though, as it is all an endurance challenge and some of the enemies you face there are simply brutal (like the four worm things that are on the same screen).

Anyway, I managed to finish the game, so that’s something! Pretty soon, I’d like to do a showcase (probably not the whole game, just a couple stages) of the prototype for the English Super Nintendo version of the game (from 1993), so that’s something for you to look forward to! 🙂

Jessica Brown

Retro Games and Technology Editor. She'll beat pretty much every Mega Man game without breaking a sweat.