by Doc – Owner, Founder, Learned How to Survive Desert By Dying in Desert
Bored of Forest? Good, grab CL4NK and beat the second stage of Tier 2 Forest to unlock Desert. There’s… a lot to take in. I’ll avoid most of the spoilers and just provide you a few screenshots from the earlier parts of my runs.
First, Strats
In Forest, you often have a ledge you can drop down from or a shrine within visible distance. Desert does not have such conveniences. In Desert, it’s flat… and spacious. If you’re slow, you’re going to be far away from everything that you might need. Basically, Desert is the place where movement speed is even more important than it is in Forest, because a 10% increase in movement speed means you have all that much more time to grind upgrades.
And the upgrades you get make a significantly larger difference than they do in Forest. In Forest, you’re rarely far from a potion, shrine or NPC. In Desert, you’ll often run for ten to twenty seconds before seeing one. And the whole time you’re running, you’re leaving enemies trailing behind you that eventually catch up…
Projectiles, for the same reason, are that much more effective than melee weapons. You’ve got no corners to back your enemies into and they’re not going to be all that close to you, anyway. Couple that with the numerous bosses in the area and you’ll soon realize how great it is to keep your enemies at arms’ length… or longer.
Second, the Mechanics
See these?
The Bandit you can avoid fighting by simply not interacting with his statue, much like Bush in Forest. He’s not easy to beat until the lategame, so you may want to dedicate runs specifically to beating him.
Scorpionussy (I can’t believe I just wrote that) is another miniboss who activates when you are in his region. I’m not sure if he spawns in every Desert map or just sometimes. Scorpionussy’s two attacks seem to be shooting airborne lasers that are clones of the Sniper Rifle, and covering the entire area in foliage that can only be dodged by jumping. When Scorpi shoots lasers at you, you can hide behind the desert pillars for cover and they’ll typically help. By the way… sometimes there’s two of them.
Expect to expect Scorpionussy to appear. Seriously, I don’t know if he even has conditions on his appearance besides being in Desert. Sometimes he shows up a single minute into my runs. He’s a run-killer if you can’t handle him, and if you’re early, you can’t. He’s just a force of nature you sometimes can’t contend with.
If you’re having a hard time jumping, you’re in luck. Tornadoes populate the landscape and have very wide reach, giving you a high vertical lift. You can basically float over the enemies while you shoot them in some scenarios. Do be careful of fall damage though, as they don’t cover your butt in that way.
Otherwise, it’s not too different from what you’re used to. The boss section is next, so spoilers going forward from here.
SPOILERS OF BOSS AHEAD
These puppies will shoot a sniper rifle-type laser at you from a significant distance, and it chews through your health pretty quickly. As this game is still new, I don’t think anyone’s found a way to tank through it yet. My impression is most people haven’t even unlocked Desert yet! So check back periodically to see whether we’ve figured it out.
Amiibo Doctor 