Re: Prelude
Oh the arrows are nothing. Just wait until you get to the bosses. The first one heals nonstop from the little slimes and the 2nd one has a huge shield you have to take out before you can even damage it, and this I remind you is on easy mode. It honestly wouldn't be as bad if the bosses had a pattern, but they seem to attack randomly with virtually the same animation for every attack. I'm personally just gonna wait until someone posts a complete save since the difficulty on this is more unfair then Ghouls & Goblins.
Alright, first of all, if you're having trouble with arrows spam your charge attack because not only will you dash THROUGH the arrows/rocks/whatever IGNORING THEM ENTIRELY but you'll also painlock the enemies who shoot them on hit.
Also, hold down the block button. Always. It will save you tons of health and keep you alive for much longer. Note however that blocking only affects the front; turn to face what you want to block or it'll hit you anyway. You can turn without lowering your block.
The bosses don't have set patterns so much as set moves. The first boss, the slime, only has two attacks; it either bounces around the field trying to hit you, or it spawns tons of little slimes that will deal small damage when you walk over them. To deal with the bouncing, just run around and avoid it, don't try to attack. To deal with the small slimes, use the charging attack; it kills all the little ones in a single blow. Also, while the big guy's splitting into small blobs, his core is exposed, meaning he takes almost 3x damage if you hit that grey sphere. So basically just avoid him while he's bouncing and shred him apart when he lands and splits up.
The second boss, the golem, only has 3 moves; A ground pound that causes falling rubble, a charge and a rock throw. To avoid both the charge and rock throw (which have the same animation of him striking a superman pose before attacking), just get behind him. Jump dodge, charge through, whatever, so long as you're behind him when he starts the attack, it'll miss entirely and you can get a few hits off as he comes to a stop. As for the ground pound, just avoid the shadows. He'll do a HULK SMASH kind of pose before smashing the ground underneath him; if you're on him, you'll get hit. Then debris falls; stay out of the shadows and they'll all miss. Hit the golem enough to break his shield and you can his his core - the blue orb under the stone - some before it regenerates. If you maximize your damage, you can kill the core in 2-3 barrier breaks. To kill him, stay at one edge of the map and jump front in front of him on the ground to behind him on the ledge, avoiding his attacks in the process, and landing usually one full combo before needing to dodge again. Then just go all-out when his shield drops.
Also note for the magic charge (that causes wind slashes behind you), you can turn on a dime while using it, meaning you can dash through the same enemy twice with the same cast, hitting them multiple times with the wind slashes and insta-killing most smaller enemies.
Yes the game is hard, but if you're patient, careful and attentive, you can progress. I got to stage 5 (frogs) before I stopped, but it's 3AM here, so I stopped for bed.
EDIT: And as for the GoR, yes, it's only after you're dead, but that's not how you get it in the gallery. Every time you complete a level, you unlock that level's GoR and spritesex animations in the gallery automatically, e.g. clear the first stage, goblins unlocked, clear the second stage, slime boss unlocked.. so on. So there's no need to suicide for animations, just continue progressing.
EDIT2: Also, everytime you clear a screen, pushing the border over heals you a bit. And by the way, every non-boss attack is blockable, even the giant fucking lasers the beholders shoot at you; just keep holding down block untill the beam fades and you won't take damage (assuming you were facing the beam of course)
