Spelunky 2: Plasma+Eggplant to Cosmic Ocean, 7-24 (Volcana - Tide Pool)

A funny run! This was actually supposed to be a Temple attempt, but my Olmec fight was so stupid I spaced out at the end and went through the wrong door, lol. Didn't regret it though: I often find the Cosmic Ocean somewhat lifeless and boring, and my final setup gave me an engaging session. It was my first time having a Plasma Cannon in the Cosmic Ocean. I found it to be an immensely useful tool: its ability to essentially terraform levels and remove traps and obstacles is incomparable! However, it definitely requires time and practice to get used to. Despite the advantages I noticed myself ironically taking longer than usual to think my way through levels. I suspect I was using the gun too much where I didn't necessarily have to. I'm also still learning to aim correctly, estimate the explosion radius, jump and shoot, and so on, and therefore I made some mistakes. For now I should maybe learn to use the Cannon more sparingly, where it's actually needed, and focus on traversing the level at a more decent pace—unless something is in the way in an area I have to stay in longer (exit, orbs, upcoming time Jelly etc.). When it comes to Eggplant Crown, one of the problems I have is getting it to properly throw diagonally: for some reason, a lot of the time the controls don't listen and even though I could swear I'm pressing up/down the eggplant still flies straight, which can result in a disaster if it loops or hits something dangerous. Overall I find it to be a very cool item, but I lose the ability to whip and really miss it. Having a Machete, Excalibur or Mattock can fix that and give me some flexibility, but that's impossible if I'm carrying a gun. So in this run, instead of having a "whip + horizontal projectile" combo I kind of ended up with a projectile-only setup, and it was a bit of a pain. I believe that—at least for starters—I should pick either the Eggplant Crown or a Plasma Cannon for my Cosmic attempts, but probably not both. The amount of focus it took me to juggle the extra item while also keeping in mind that I cannot whip, projectiles hit enemies differently and there are other such specifics was a bit too much, and distracted me from the main objective. That made my run more short-lived than it could have been. My preferred path so far is Volcana - Temple thanks to its Elixir and Alien Compass. Especially the compass! Without it I get lost so much easier. I will likely continue to aim for Temple whenever I can, and then I'll try to bring the Plasma Cannon again, or maybe the Scepter. When Temple is not feasible, I'll go Tide Pool and see if I can do another Eggplant run (and if that's successful, I should probably ditch the Cannon if I did get one, or maybe try bringing the Excalibur instead). The run had some facepalm moments. In the Dwelling, I made sure to pick the freshest Turkey with the highest HP, only to curse it right after because I forgot bonking the Curse Pot does that... xD On 2-3 I sacrificed all my Hired Hands but one, and then on 2-4 the only one remaining launched himself into lava during the few seconds I was distracted by a crate, lol. Tusk was missing on 4-1 so I didn't have much hope for managing the Ankh skip and chain if I was going to gamble. Lost Ankh on 4-3 anyway—although not in the way I thought I might, hahaha. I am so used to having Madame's shop on 4-1 that I forgot there would be lava underneath it. That was pretty silly, but I decided to continue with the run. My attempt to retrieve the Plasma Cannon in the Ice Caves was successful despite the missing Alien Compass, and by some miracle I still had it in Sunken City. Hired Hand saved the day on 7-1 (I should have carried the Clone Gun to Tun and left the Bow further down, what was I doing?), and the Eggplant Child remained with me to carry what I needed. The Hundun ascent was decent and the Child did a good job, but unfortunately she got scared of a Fire Frog I had failed to activate on my way, and I was too slow to properly escort her at the end. I had to leave her and the Cannon behind and try to have the latter not get squished; we were almost at the top so luckily it worked out for the gun, but not so much for the Child. Cosmic Ocean had some large and crowded levels; I could see myself getting lost for good in one of those Dwellings with a normal setup... It's a shame I didn't manage to dispatch that one Cat in the last level (and those Sorceresses and their aggro range are something else); wonder how much longer I could have lasted, as I've been getting more chill about the time Jelly. All in all, not bad. :) Aaand I wrote a wall of text, oops. 00:00:00 Previous death and Dwelling 00:10:11 Volcana 00:23:48 Olmec 00:31:24 Tide Pool 00:41:49 Ice Caves 00:46:23 Neo Babylon 00:51:05 Tiamat 00:55:00 Sunken City 00:58:30 Eggplant World 01:03:46 Hundun 01:08:19 Cosmic Ocean 01:20:02 7-10 01:38:36 7-15 02:02:08 7-20 02:12:55 Last level