Dead or Alive, You Spin Me Around
I'm not sure I like the layout of these spaceship ruins very much. I spent something like half an hour trying to figure out how to get past an electrified barrier. I backtracked to see if there was something I might have missed. I looked at the rooms where I had to solve a puzzle to get through, and replayed the puzzles when possible to see if something noteworthy happened. I left the dungeon and explored the environment around it to see if I'd missed anything (I had, but it was just a chest with a small treasure, not a much needed clue.)
Finally, I realized it was a matter of perspective. There was one room where you have to climb up and down a series of stairs. And what I thought was a dead end by this barrier actually had a staircase leading down. I'd been staring at it for 15 minutes and hadn't realized I could use it. I suppose it's possible that it was just confusing to look at, so I'm going to blame the game designers rather than admit the possibility I'm an idiot who doesn't know what stairs look like.
Also, as is appropriate since I'm getting somewhere in the game, the monsters are no longer pushovers. They're not really tough, but you can no longer be completely careless in the fights. If nothing else, many of the creatures in this board have an ability that paralyzes you for a few seconds, which prolongs the fight at best.
Fortunately, things got interesting soon after I figured out how stairs work. For one thing, I learned a new celestial brush technique -- one which had no analogue in the first game. And it was from the trippy sort of creatures I'd come to expect. I haven't been really happy with the photos I've been taking. In this case, my camera software acted up during the scene I really wanted to capture. But I'll show you my distant second choice.
Chibi is being greeted by two baby whales with yin-yang symbols on their blowholes. The two whales speak in rhymes. And their parent is really impressive; huge and imposing and majestic. These two young whale-gods give Chibi the power of magnetism. Now, I admit that my knowledge of Japanese mythology is very sketchy, but I don't think that the gods were known for their amazing ability to create Tesla coils.I may be misremembering the original Okami, but I don't think it was quite as anachronistic.
Still, it's a cute ability. There have been puzzles where you need to manipulate charged balls, attracting or repelling them from each other.
Unfortunately, I've come to another spot I don't quite know how to advance from. Maybe I'm missing something obvious again. We'll find out tomorrow.
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