A game with extremely dangerous orcs – part 5

(Originally posted on Saturday, 23 January 2021)

The present post is just a continuation of these posts:
A game with extremely dangerous orcs
A game with extremely dangerous orcs – part 2
A game with extremely dangerous orcs – part 3
A game with extremely dangerous orcs – part 4

Please read them first. In the first one I described what skills I develop and what gimmicks I use. Generally I try to beat the game avoiding as many gimmicks as possible. It makes the game much more difficult, which actually confirms my belief that a warrior with hardly any magic spells should NEVER be better than a half-warrior-half-mage.

In the first post above I showed gameplay movies from Chapter 5 – by far my favourite game chapter ever! In ANY game! In the second post above I showed gameplay movies from Chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 6 is not so fun, but Chapter 7 is almost as good as Chapter 5! In the third post I showed gameplay movies from Chapter 8 – an extremely creepy, yet very good anti-necromancy level. In the fourth post I showed gameplay movies from Chapter 9 – this chapter is still very hard, but a little easier than the previous chapter.

Now it's time for Epilogue that is definitely the hardest level of the whole game while playing with hardly any gimmicks!

ATTENTION! There is a strange bug that “disables” your charge attack permanently! I think it happens during some fights against vampire knights, but I have no idea exactly when. After this bug occurs any later game save will be “corrupted”, which means that you have to reload an earlier save to be able to use the charge attack again! What a weird bug! If you missed it and don't want to reload a much earlier save then you can use the jump attack as an alternative (it can knock down an enemy), but you need the skill Melee Combat 3 (instead of Melee Combat 1) to do it.

To disarm an enemy during a sword-lock quickly click mouse buttons: left-right-left-right-left-right-… (the skill Melee 2 is needed), but it seems NOT to work against vampire knights. It doesn't really matter because sword locks are very rare against them anyway.


Epilogue

This chapter is quite creepy, but also quite stunning – you go through an underground necropolis with very high cliffs. What a unique level design!

I don't help Ishtvan, because a lich fighting on your side is just another gimmick. This is why I ended up with 2 less skill points than the max.


First enemies are easy, but when you encounter a vampire knight it's best to backtrack a little and knock him off the cliff.


Save at the end of this movie!


A lich and a necrolord!


The last cyclops to kill (of any kind), but there are also vampire knights and zombies! A nightmare!


A standard, but very long fight against a cyclops.


A little climbing.


Two necrolords to kill.


A trap leading to a secret place.


Another trap.


There are 4 vampire knights down there! Better to stay up here.


It takes time, but it's totally safe.


A little more time.


I want to have only one vampire knight left alive.


Black guards appear when there is only one vampire left.


Two vampire knights more.


This is what happens when the bug occurs. The last uncorrupted save was too far back, so I just went ahead.


Save here:


My original plan was to stun a particular lich, knock him down and impale him. The jump attack works a little differently, but it can also knock an enemy down.


Second lich down, two to go. There was a zombie at my hiding place, so I couldn't save the game earlier.


Third lich down, one to go.


When I was starting this gameplay with hardly any gimmicks I thought that I won't be able to beat the four liches. But I was wrong!


Save here!


You have to kill the necrolord right away, because there are also 2 vampire knights close by. This time one of them “arrive” a little later than usual.


A necrolord and a vampire knight.


Do NOT go into that crypt because there will be several additional enemies when you go out.


The jump attack is sometimes hilarious. This time it catapulted a necrolord high into the air above me!


A little exploring without any enemies.


The blond girls caught up with me!


You can see Arantir down there, but there are also his two bodyguards.


I used the “high place” gimmick.


First you have to “defeat” Arantir one-on-one. Very hard without hardly any gimmicks.


When Arantir uses the spell Sanctuary you can't kill him. I had no strategy against the bone dragon, so I wasn't sure what to do. So I hid.


I have tried many different strategies against the bone dragon, but with hardly any gimmicks only one strategy worked. Please notice that I had 17 spare skill points, just in case. In fact during some other recording I used 10 of them to develop the skill Magic Affinity 3, but as I re-recorded this moment again and again and again I forgot to do it during the final recording. I used magic mushrooms to replenish my mana reserves, but this little gimmick didn't change anything, except that it saved my time. Without them I would have to simply wait for my mana reserves to replenish automatically.


This is the only place where you are close enough to Arantir to hit him when he is temporarily vulnerable. But save the game before that (after several hits at the bone dragon).


You have to sprint to Arantir before he gets invulnerable again. Rinse and repeat.


And again.


And finally!


The good ending!


I beat the game with hardly any gimmicks on Hard (medium) difficulty setting! I impressed myself. :)

And it all started with the Hobbit movie trilogy, followed by the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy! Well, actually it all started with my daughter reading the Hobbit novel as her required reading for school and bugging me about the Hobbit movie just because her teacher mentioned this movie at school. The weak orcs in these movie trilogies made me remember this awesome game with extremely dangerous orcs.