Ancient legends tell of a treasure, lost to the annals of
time. They tell of a sacred text that was buried beneath the sands for untold
generations. Some weeks ago, our world’s top archeologists unearthed these very
ancient texts. They marveled at them, estimating that they’re surely dating
back to thousands of years ago, at least! They carefully placed them in an
exhibit at a local museum, and news spread and eventually reached the papers.
Some days after, a young man was browsing through the newspaper when an article
caught his eye. “Oh”, he said, “they’ve found the Sphinx Let’s Play series. I
should really consider updating that again.”
Hey! Do you get it?!
Do you get the joke?! Do you get that the joke is that I haven’t updated in a
long period of time?! Huh?! Do you?!
So yes, we’re back to adventuring in the land of ancient
Egyptian laser beams once more. When last we left off, our hero Sphinx had just
received the Wings of Iblis, an artifact that allowed him to double jump.
Earlier on we had tried to get into Anubis’ lair only to discover that the
ledge to reach it was slightly higher
than we could jump. You don’t have to be very intelligent or good at solving
puzzles to figure that one out. If only I had some manner of image or snappy
in-joke with which to describe that sensation in visual short hand. Does anyone
else feel like I’m forgetting something? Oh well…
Anyway, we return to the entrance to Anubis’ place and make
use of our slightly higher jump to get up on the ledge. It’s too bad Sphinx
can’t move certain types of boxes, or this would’ve been a lot quicker. When I
get inside, there’s an absolutely massive chamber in front of me. It stretches
as far as the eye can see on both sides. There doesn’t even seem to be anything
to fill the space either, just some platforms above a huge drop. Apparently
Anubis subscribes to the fashionable ‘nigh-bottomless pit’ style of interior
decorating.
“Pits with visible
bottoms are so yesterday! Nothing
entertains house guests like the threat of severely broken limbs and/or death!”
Heading
forward, I travel across a wood bridge to central area with a pedestal and two
fire armadillos. The pedestal has a hole shaped like an ankh key. I recall that
at the other end of the bridge where I came in there were a couple wood boxes, and
it’s not like I have any other leads. So I tediously lure the armadillos back
over the curiously fireproof wooden bridge to the boxes. When the boxes are burnt
they reveal, who would’ve guessed, an ankh key. Back across the bridge I insert
the key, activating an elevator up to a central area. There’s a stone bridge to
go forward but it’s un-extended.
Behind
me there’s another Simon Syndicated Security Solutions Statue, and completing
it opens a door to a room with a chest. Inside is the Hero’s Bow
Blowpipe, which serves as a ranged weapon aimed in first person. There’s also a lever in the room that extends
the stone bridge forward slightly. Back outside there are some targets in the
distance that I can hit with my blowpipe. So let me tell you about these
targets…
The targets in Sphinx are typical bulls-eye style ones
that trigger various things when hit with a projectile. The problem lies in the
fact that these targets are mostly red colored. You know what else is red
colored? Your aiming reticle. Furthermore, said reticle gets smaller when aimed
at things far away, and in some cases, like this first one, the targets are
pretty far away. So you’ve got a tiny red target you must aim at with a tiny
red reticle in low-definition. It’s never a distraction for more than a second
or two, but it’s an annoying thing that’s easily fixed.
This is the only image
I could find containing the targets on short notice. I’d apologize for how
small they are, but I’d rather pretend I don’t know what irony is.
Using my
new blowpipe I hit a target on the opposite side of a pit, which triggers a
moving platform. When the platform reaches me I board and hit the target again
for it to bring me to the other side. There are some enemies to fight here, and
after I defeat them I encounter a locked door. There’s a switch that opens the
door, but when I step off of it the door locks again. Hm…I remember seeing a
statue I could pick up back in the center area where I rode the elevator up.
I go and
get the statue in the center and ferry it over to the switch. There are two
reasons this is annoying. The first is that you can’t jump with the statue,
only throw it a set distance away. If it’s too close to the edge of the
platform when it moves it’ll fall off and respawn where it started, forcing you
to do things over. The second problem is it involves hitting those tiny targets
over and over. When I go through the locked door, I’m one short fight away from
another lever, which moves the stone bridge a bit more.
Being a
master of Really Obvious Pattern Recognition, I rinse and repeat the whole
moving-platform-fight-switch thing on the other side of the room, extending the
bridge to its full length. However, something gives me pause during one of
those aforementioned fights. One of the enemies I fight here is a cat-person.
Really? This is the lair of Anubis.
Y’know, the one with the head of a dog?
Although given that
everyone seems to be part animal in this universe that might not be such a big
deal. Maybe he just makes racist jokes a bit too loudly while s/he’s near or
refuses to give promotions until their union starts acting up.
So I use
the extended stone bridge to head into the next room. There a statue of Anubis
tells me to step above a giant pit of lava as a test of faith, and when I do
I’m supported by a magic invisible floor. For some reason, this is all done in
cutscene, kind of defeating the point of a test of faith. At any rate, Anubis next
tells me to go back and capture some fire armadillos as my next test, an
arbitrary challenge no doubt only there to give me a tutorial on the monster
catching device he gives me.
Here we
enter Pokemon: Sphinx/Mummy version, wherein we use our newfound Capture Beetles
to capture 3 of the infinitely respawning fire armadillos in the lobby. You
have to weaken them until they’re low enough health that they start sparkling,
and then release one of your limited supply of Pokeballs Capture
Beetles. Controlling it with the C-Stick, you guide it into the weakened
monster and bam, monster captured. It’s a bit fiddly considering the monsters
don’t stop moving and the C-stick still
controls the camera, but it’s still fairly simple once you get the hang of
it. Really, a child could do it. We return to Anubis and he praises us for our
task, mentioning that Horus couldn’t do it.
Oh that’s what I was forgetting earlier!
I guess
Horus was more of a Digimon kid himself. Anubis then rewards me with 2 gems
that can be used to free a couple people in the Cursed Palace. So, what, we’re
just going to settle for two? Isn’t this guy the evil dick who cursed them in
the first place? Ah well, I suppose it makes sense that we comply, it’s not
like we even know where the physical version of Anubis is. So, all done for
now, we promptly leave Anubis’ place.
As we
walk outside we see our old buddy Horus again. Oh boy, I can’t wait to hear him
whine and…complement our bravery and compassion? That’s right, Horus is
actually acting positive towards you this time, which instantly makes me
suspicious. He says we’ve proven ourselves his equal and wants to offer us a
gift. Specifically, the Dark Stone of Invisibility. Hm…my suspicion continues,
because it has dark in the friggin’ name, but still, I’m sure we’ll need
invisibility to progress regardless. Horus apologizes for his past arrogance
and leaves, so even though I think I’ll pay for it later I suppose I have no
choice but to take the-
Mystic
Monkey Magician teleports right next to me, in person no less, and immediately
says it’s a trap. Wow, the writers really left us hanging there, huh? It seems
that the Dark Stone of Invisibility has a side effect. That side effect being instant motherfucking death. Yeah, you’d
think that would diminish it’s usability a bit. Not sure why they’d even bother
making the invisibility part work if it’s just a trap to kill suckers. How can
anyone even tell it works? Does it turn the corpse invisible? If that’s the
case, then how do you know that they died while invisible? And how does anyone
use it more than once?
“Mwahaha, now that my
nefarious murder is complete, I need only retrieve the stone from the corpse.
Now there should be an invisible body around here somewhere…wait…fuck.”
Admittedly
we only have Triple M’s word on the whole dying thing, but even though it would
be silly to do everything he says in real life this is a video game so we know
he’s correct and trustworthy because he’s the all-knowing good magician. Well…and
the alternative is trusting Horus.
Man of Magical Monkeys then realizes that the Mummy could use the stone without
danger. Convenient! He then cautions
not to trust Horus in the future, as if we needed him to, mentioning that his
survival in Uruk might not be just good fortune…(so…he’s evil, in case that
wasn’t clear).
I then
head back to the Cursed Palace, where the first person I release is a book
writer, who last remembers coming here to write the pharaoh’s biography. Before
he heads back to his home in Abydos, he decides to reward me with a book. The
Book of the Dead. Okay, hold on what?
I had completely forgotten that was a thing, but that’s not the issue here.
Didn’t we think Anubis had info on this, and it was just kinda’ dropped? And I
don’t care if this dude’s a writer, that’s no excuse for him to be carrying the
freakin’ Book of the Dead around with
him. What, did he keep it on his person for some light reading? And what was
the point of arbitrarily making the book another requirement if some guy just
was going to give it to us along the way anyway? Argh!
I bet this guy keeps
the Necronomicon in his back pocket when he’s looking for something upbeat to
read.
The
other person I free at the palace is a farmer. When I go outside he meets up
with his brother who was hanging by the entrance, but sadly they can’t get to
their farm due to those Eyes of Ra posts. Unsure of what to do, I decide to
stop before doing anything else and hit some targets nearby with my new
blowpipe. Doing so rewards me with a gold ankh piece, four of which will give
me another unit of life. Sound familiar?
Well
back on task, I need to destroy those laser death posts, so I decide to examine
them up close. Or I would, except that these are the lazy-design style
teleportation lasers that screen transition me all the way back to the docks
when I’m hit by them, lest I get the wrong idea. However, I discover that my
shield can deflect these lasers. So I get up close enough to confirm my
suspicions that yes, the bottom of the posts are cracked.
Given
that my new items are the blowpipe and capture beetles, I think I know what to
do. (I give the blowpipe a shot just for giggles, but of course it doesn’t do
anything). I fly over to the other side of the area with the eagles, and find
the hole that expels exploding animals. I capture a whole bunch and use them to
destroy the Ra posts, catching some extra while I’m here realizing that they’re
basically the bombs of this game.
I almost feel bad that
using these irritating critters as ammunition slaughters them by the dozen.
Almost.
When I
walk back over to the farmer brothers, they thank me for removing the posts and
say to visit them at their farm for a reward. That is, the farm I was visible
from here that’s only like a 30 second walk. I feel we could have cut out the
middle man here, but whatever. I head over to the farm. At the farm the two
brothers decide to give me my reward. It’s something they reportedly just found
while farming. Something…vase-shaped.
You have
got to be shitting me.
But no,
it really is another Canopic Vase. Random farmers just happened to have
accidentally found a rare artifact that contains part of the dead prince’s
soul. This is a stupid contrivance that is also dumb, but oh well, life moves
on. Especially for the Prince/Mummy, as Bas-ket chooses this moment to pop in
and ferry the vase and Dark Stone of Invisibility to Castle Uruk. To find out
what whacky adventures occur there next, be sure to tune in for the upcoming
installment next week fortnight month unspecified amount
of time!
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