Panzer Paladin - Playthrough Part 5 (Bad Ending)

The last couple of levels were pretty challenging, especially the final one, which had some cheap insta-kill lava pits of death. Even the final boss seemed easy in comparison thanks to good utilisation of weapon spells. In general I'd advise to activate defence and attack buffs at the start of the battle and have a couple of healing spells if things go wrong. Then I got the bad ending because I picked up Ravenous' weapon, but it wasn't clear if I would have the option to destroy it. I thought the Ultimate Sword that you have the option to use against him was the corrupting force, but apparently it's the other way around. Oh, well. I may eventually try to get a different outcome, but that means replaying the entire Inverted Tower again.

Overall I really enjoyed the game, despite some of the cheap platforming deaths. The battle system and the countering mechanics are really interesting and I wish there were more regular enemies that challenged those. This makes the boss battles the best part of the game. The spells aren't explicit in what they do, so the only way to learn their usefulness is to test them. For example I didn't know Absorb killed most smaller enemies and healed some of your health. Managing your arsenal is a big part of the experience. When your mech is destroyed it's nice that you have a second chance of survival with the pilot, but in some places playing as her is a death sentence as it may have enemies or obstacles you are unable to go around. The story is pretty basic, but I do like the 80s anime aesthetics. I would recommend it to fans of 2D platformers who enjoy the 8-bit era games.