Smelter - Playthrough Part 19-2 (Ending)

My struggle against Smelter's 2 forms continues. Eventually I opted to use the air element since it has the best reach and the best way to avoid most of his attacks with the temporary invincibility even though it's not as high damaging as the lightning one. The 2nd form is mostly about survival until you have full energy to unleash a series of attacks, which actually damage Smelter finishing with a Kamehameha type move. I finally managed to defeat him once I learned how to dodge all of the attacks from the second form. Now Eve had to escape the castle in yet another platforming level, which I don't think was good design since at this point players should be tired from the boss battle. In any case Eve managed to do so and she, Rivel and Adam witness the destruction of Smelter's castle, while the villain is punished by his mysterious devil-like father.

I had fun with Smelter thanks to it's tight controls, beautiful pixel art and fun challenges. The overworld RTS was pretty simple and felt mostly like busywork. Unfortunately the game is held back by some pretty serious design issues like the save system, which cost me a couple of hours of progress when the game crashed several times. The world is intriguing, but never fully realised - the game poses more questions than it provides answers as characters are simply dropped into the plot. Some of the challenges require too much precision and certain elemental upgrades, but are fun overall. The last level was a bit too much - don't go for it until you have fully upgraded Eve. Despite the occasional hiccups I would still recommend the game, but not at full price.