Hurrah!
The Abyss wasn’t as hard as it seemed at first, as you could just sail through it ignoring many of the baddies. Found a save point right before another boss, who threw bats or something at me. He was reasonably easy to kill, although he did take millions of hits. It seems using the laser beam thing on him was the best way to finish him off.
Plowed further on into The Abyss, and found a warp point (so went back to the village and stocked up on potions and stuff), and then saved before what was to be the final, final boss. Dmitrii was overcome by loads of demon souls, and a four-screen-high monster called “Menace” was born. And he was nasty! He was in two forms, and although his first form was time consuming, it was really simply to defeat. His second form, however, was much harder. There were two “damage” points – his knee, and his face. Progress was hindered by assorted stomping and punching attacks, but more importantly by strange flying mouth things that really kill you quick and knock you off platforms and into Menace itself.
After several goes, I realised that a good tactic to use was activate the soul gained from Death, which throws sickles at baddies. That kills off most of the mouths, so you don’t have them to worry about, and also damages the knee and face a little. It was a little heavy on the magic points though, so I used almost all my Mind Up potions. Thankfully, after a few more attempts with this tactic, I’d killed him, and the game was completed!
Now there’s Julius Mode and Boss Rush Mode to play. Had a go at each for a while, and although Julius Mode seems great, I’m not sure I want to play the entire game through again just yet, even if it does play differently…
