What’s On The Shelf | Games, Music & Culture

Welcome back to the Race to Git Gud, where the goal is to conquer the From Software catalog with all the confidence of someone playing Risk for the first time. Today, Princess Katia braves the sweltering heat of Mount Jarndunn and makes one very important mistake inside the Ruh-Arok Temple. Let’s get into it.

Barely limping away from the nightmare that was Lake Bestriel, Katia sets her sights on the looming mountains in the distance and the active volcano of Mount Jarndunn. Before the climb begins, there’s one mandatory stop: the Apothecary. A few cards get upgraded, some extras get sold off, and Gurd receives a much-deserved slap upside the head for that miserable side quest from last time. With a refreshed deck in hand, Katia heads for the mountains.

Well, “mountains” might be generous. Mount Jarndunn is less of a climb and more of a collection of narrow walkways suspended over lava. This is where Lost Kingdoms really starts to stumble a little. Some of these late-game levels feel less like actual environments and more like glorified hallways with molten death underneath them.

Pushing through the lava fields, Katia quickly encounters a series of warning pillars basically screaming, “Turn around now unless you want to become a smoking crater.” Naturally, Katia ignores all of this immediately. Waiting at the end of the path is the Red Dragon, guarding the entrance to Ruh-Arok.

At this point, the game is starting to lose a little steam. Some of these endgame areas just don’t have the same creativity or atmosphere as the earlier portions of the adventure. Frankly, I’d rather watch Red Dragon than fight the Red Dragon. Despite the intimidating appearance and screen-filling fire attacks, the fight itself goes down pretty easily. Dragon Knight continues to be hilariously overpowered by this point in the game, and after three chances, the Red Dragon itself ends up joining the collection.

Now we arrive at Ruh-Arok Temple, a level that is permanently burned into my memory. There honestly isn’t much here mechanically, but the atmosphere works well enough and it features one of my favorite enemy types in the game: the Steel Skeleton.

The objective is simple. Katia must retrieve two orbs hidden in opposite corners of the temple. Activating both causes the central barrier to fall, opening the way forward. After leaving a mountain of skeleton corpses scattered across the temple floor, Katia reaches the final hallway of the level.

And this is where things get weird.

Sure, you can simply proceed to the end of the level like a normal person. But hidden along the sides are two branching hallways containing four elemental chambers: Wood, Earth, Fire, and Water. Each doorway requires a certain number of cards aligned with its respective element before it will allow you to pass.

Naturally, I head straight for the Earth door.

Inside, a magical talking torch asks if Katia wishes to meet the “master” of the element. Totally normal behavior. Absolutely no red flags whatsoever. Katia agrees, and suddenly she’s ripped out of Ruh-Arok Temple entirely and dumped back onto the world map with a brand new level unlocked.

“What the hell?” is probably the correct response here, but let me explain.

Each of the four elemental doors unlocks a hidden level associated with that element. Completing them rewards Katia with some of the most absurdly overpowered cards in the entire game. The Earth route unlocks the Temple of Amentankh, and completing it grants access to the Great Turtle.

Unfortunately, Temple of Amentankh is also probably the single worst level in Lost Kingdoms.

The gimmick here is brutal. You have to fight your way all the way through the dungeon, only to then backtrack through the entire thing again before finally reaching the boss with a heavily depleted deck. To make things even more irritating, nearly every major room ends with a Zombie Dragon encounter. Thankfully, Zombie Dragon is mostly all bark and no bite, but that doesn’t stop the level from becoming a gigantic pain in the ass.

By the time Katia finally reaches the Great Turtle, resources are running thin. The Turtle itself barely moves, but it compensates by launching massive volcanic rock attacks that can cover huge portions of the arena. Still, with enough patience and a little luck, Katia eventually walks away victorious with the Great Turtle card now in hand.

And when I say this card is game-breaking, that is not an exaggeration.

The Great Turtle has absurd health, ridiculous defense, and enough attack power to bulldoze through most encounters by itself. This thing immediately gets shoved directly into the active deck rotation because at this point in the game there is absolutely no reason not to abuse it.

Unfortunately, with one elemental trial completed, Katia now has to march all the way back through Ruh-Arok Temple and clear out the exact same enemies she already fought before making this discovery.

Stay tuned.