Raptor: Call of the Shadows (DotEmu 2010) Elite Walkthrough

I mentioned this one a while back in my Road Ahead post.  It's certainly not been one of my high priority games, but I've been feeling the need for a break with something different lately, and a shooter fit the bill.  And since it's honestly not that long or hard of a game, even on Elite, I decided to go ahead and knock it out.

I originally got the shareware version of this game with some other game I purchased way back in the 90s and had a lot of fun with it.  I believe I downloaded an abandonware copy of the full version some time in the 2000s.  This walkthrough is with the 2010 DotEmu version available on GOG.

It's not terribly long or complex of a game (it is a shooter, after all), but I've still put together a Gameplay Guide for it, explaining some mechanics as well as describing the reasoning behind the upgrade strategy demonstrated in the videos.

Here's the link to the playlist, and I promise this is in no way me avoiding facing Beheader's Seat Iron in my Impossible Hero series (</sarcasm>):

Raptor: Call of the Shadows Elite Walkthrough

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Beheader's Seat Heroic

Unfortunately I did not write my blog post when I did my recordings for this map.  It's been well over a month since I did so at this point, and a lot has happened in my life in that time period, so I don't remember anything of my impressions.  Fortunately I am a stickler for writing down my grades and best choice as I'm doing it, so I do have that.

I will say that the most obvious thing about the grades is that they're almost identical to the campaign mode.  Only Xin, Durax, and Lynn had different grades - lower in each case - so obviously the heroic mode is very similar to the campaign mode.  All that said, we'll just skip right to the grades this time.

Final Grades

• Eridan - C
• Arivan - B
• Catha - C
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - B
• Razz and Rags - C
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - C
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - B
• Lynn - C
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - A
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

As said, I write down my Best Choice candidates as I go, and so Phoenix and Wilbur tie the honor yet again.  Given that this map is obviously similar to the campaign mode it shouldn't be surprising they're the Best Choice again.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Beheader's Seat Heroic

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Beheader's Seat Campaign

I was worried about this map going into it.  Not so much for the waves themselves, although they're no slouch, but for the boss.  He has the shortest boss path in the game, and DPSing him down before the exit is non-trivial - especially for our DPS-poor heroes.  However, in the end he proved no match for our superior tactics.  The key proved to be stalling him with troops and our hero in between two Wild Magi, as well as investing in Golden Longbows around the rest of the map that can also contribute to the effort.

These tower selections are pretty crucial for this map, not just for the boss, but also for the waves, as it lets us invest in both Eldritch Doom and Crimson Sentence on those towers, giving us several insta-kill abilities spread across the map.  In the last few waves the number of big enemies - Ettins, Blood Ogres, and Ogre Magi - gets overwhelming, and you really need to take several of them down with insta-kills.  It's not really possible to set up a "normal" choke point with an artillery tower on the right exit lane.  For one, you need towers that can target the multiple waves of Perythons, and for another, a single Bladesinger tower plus an artillery tower is just not going to be enough to take down all those mobs.

Impressions

While challenging, this is yet another map in the "standard hard" category.  Hero performance is important here, but slightly less so than perhaps on other maps, so most of our heroes ended up with 'A's.  Having a ranged attack to help with the Perythons proved the difference between 'A' and 'B' for some heroes.

In the end only Eridan, Catha, and Razz earned 'C's, and again it's their low DPS that put them at the bottom.  This is one of those maps where there are a few areas where you really need to burn down some mobs before more appear (like killing a continual stream of Blood Ogres so they can't transform gnolls), and they really struggled with them.  Maybe it was just good RNG, but I had less trouble with Arivan, so he managed to pull a 'B'.

Final Grades

• Eridan - C
• Arivan - B
• Catha - C
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - B
• Razz and Rags - C
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - B
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - A
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - A
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

Phoenix and Wilbur tie here for Best Choice.  There are lots of heavy streams of mobs on this map, so Phoenix's AoE is fantastic, and Wilbur just DPSes everything into oblivion as usual.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Beheader's Seat Campaign

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Blood Quarry Heroic

This is another just ugh map.  It's a high RNG map, which I really dislike for a lot of reasons.  Actually, let me rephrase that: I don't mind maps with a bit of an RNG factor - it adds a degree of uncertainty and challenge.  What I don't like though is maps like this where the RNG factor is so high that it can mean the difference between winning and losing, regardless of what strategy or hero you're using.

Like the campaign mode, the danger here is getting too many extra Blood Gnolls.  Unlike the campaign mode, however, you simply don't have the resources to put together a defense that can proactively keep all (or at least most) gnolls from turning into blood gnolls.  That means that even if things are going great, just getting a few extra Blood Gnolls at the wrong time instantly turns it into a loss.  It feels like a dirty and cheap tactic in terms of design, and it makes your wins feel less earned when you're relying on getting decent RNG no matter what.

Impressions

On the one hand, high RNG makes grading rather difficult, because it's always hard to estimate to what extent the RNG made your hero's performance seem better or worse.  On the other hand, the high RNG meant that I ended up doing the map multiple times with most every hero, giving me more data points to judge by.  Regardless, this was a hard map, and the grades reflect it.

Starting at the bottom this time, I'm sure no one will be shocked to see that Razz and Rags got a 'D'.  As I've already explained, every hero requires getting at least not horrible RNG, so you could argue they all deserve 'D's.  However, Razz and Rags require not just 'not horrible' RNG, but outright good RNG, which I feel is the true definition of a 'D'.  Catha and Prince Denas join him in our dunce group, which I was rather shocked by for Prince Denas.  However, he suffered from the same problem as Catha on this map: while Catha may be able to stall enemies with her sleep abilities and Prince Denas with does the same with blocking, both lack the DPS to take down enemies in a timely manner before the next batch appears, which is crucial on this map.

Eridan and Xin earn the 'C's here.  Eridan shouldn't be shocking, since he too suffers from DPS problems, but I really don't know why Xin scored so low.  Usually he's a very solid 'B' at the least, but man I struggled with him, and honestly he just barely avoided getting a 'D' himself.  I lack the ability to identify exactly what it is, but something about this map just really brought out his weaknesses.

Somehow Arivan managed to earn a 'B' here, even though he is firmly on the low DPS team.  Maybe it was just great RNG, or maybe it was the opposite of Xin, where the peculiarities of this map's design just played well to his strengths.  Vez'nan got a 'B' as well, but know exactly why with him: the Blood Ogres' and Ogre Magi's high magic resistance means he less suited for dealing with him.

The rest of the 'A's and 'B's hold no surprises, so we'll wrap it up and get to the list.

Final Grades

• Eridan - C
• Arivan - B
• Catha - D
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - D
• Razz and Rags - D
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - B
• Xin - C
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - A
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - B
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

Wilbur continues his streak with another Best Choice here.  Again, it's all about the DPS.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Blood Quarry Heroic

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Blood Quarry Campaign

This is definitely not my favorite map.  All in all we got through it with only a fair amount of difficulty, but it's not exactly a fun map.  The bloodsydian stones add a high degree of RNG to the difficulty: get too many extra Blood Gnolls - or just a few at the wrong time - and things can go south in a hurry.  As usual the tactic is to try to manage the Blood Gnoll population, either through containing the Blood Ogres or keeping regular gnolls away from the bloodsydian stones as much as possible.

I will say that I do like having Malik as an extra hero on this map.  And not just that, but I like how he levels up from 1 to 10 just like heroes did in the original Kingdom Rush.  It's a nice throwback nod as well as lore addition.

Impressions

This is another "standard hard" map, and the grades are largely what you've come to expect on such maps recently.  I will say a fair amount of the grading was affected by whether the hero has a ranged attack that can help with the Perythons, which are actually the greatest danger for leaks here.  I know I made it sound like Blood Gnolls were above, but the real danger those pose is occupying your soldiers and reinforcements at just the wrong time so they can't attack the Perythons.

It was for this reason that Bravebark earned a rare 'B' here, which is really the only surprising grade.  Razz and Rags pull a 'C' yet again despite having the ranged attack I mentioned above.  It wasn't truly as hard to finish the map with them as a 'C' might normally imply, but their performance was definitely worse than our other 'B' students and I wanted to make that apparent.  As usual it's the combination of low DPS and few good opportunities for Changeling.  While not a major factor, their slow speed was definitely also an annoyance here, as this map does require a lot of lane dancing by the heroes.

Final Grades

• Eridan - B
• Arivan - B
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - B
• Razz and Rags - C
• Bravebark - B
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - B
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - B
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - B
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

This is another instance of Wilbur kind of winning by default.  His crazy DPS is a good solution for maps like this that have a mix of hordes and tough enemies.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Blood Quarry Campaign