Next Episode: Asylum of the Daleks: Intensive Care
Game version played: 2.3
We’re pushing deeper into the asylum so expect things to get
a little more intense. Asylum of the Daleks: Corridor 5L is marked again as a TV episode with
Red and Black Time Fragments to be won. That suggests Red and Black enemies, so
maybe Black Puppets and Red Daleks? Let’s see.
Wave one is made up of 2 Red Daleks, of the Bronze variant. Identical to those you beat in the Graveyard so fear not. Still cool and cobwebbed these fellas should get their own wallpaper. I managed to bag them both with one shot and got a Red Time
Fragment as reward. It’s worth noting that I’m replaying these episodes after
hours of play at higher levels in my main game. I don’t remember how I did the first time, but there is a learning curve. I would have had more smaller gem combos and done less damage each turn. Genuine first time players
will take a few more moves to get though each wave, but I’m sure you’ll still
get this far without a loss.
Wave two is a bit more meaty, with 2 Dalek Puppets and 1
cool Dalek. These puppets are a bit different than the ones you met previously.
They do twice as much damage but fire half as often, plus they only stun you
for 1 turn. Personally I’d face off against these chaps if I had a choice. They still go
down quickly enough so you will soon be expecting wave three.
 |
| Cool as der cucumber - as Wulf Sternhammer would say |
You don’t have to look far, they’re on you quicker than shale off a shovel. Hang on
though, 2 Puppets and 2 Cool Daleks? That hardly seems fair, the odds are even for once. This is where you need to start looking for combos of 5 gems or more. Any less and you damage just one enemy at a time. Overkill does splash to the next enemy but it can still take a few turns to
get through all of them. In the meantime they will have stunned and damaged
you to an irritating level. Get a 5+ combo and all enemies are damaged, probably
enough to see them off altogether. I managed exactly that and so got to the Boss
wave.
The New Paradigm are back, but this time it’s no mere Drone,
it’s the Supreme Dalek. His casing is white, but his gem colour is as Black as
his mutated soul. He’s also extremely tough. I’d be impressed if you can
beat him (her? It?) in one or two shots. I laid into him hard but he
still managed to get a few good digs in. Not enough to put me in danger but
my pride was hurt. He also managed to use his Distort power, which allows him
to convert Yellow gems into Green. This is smart, as
Yellow hits him hard and you’ve no Green team member. They
don’t call him the Supreme Dalek for nothing.
If you do get a lot of Green gems in play then don’t panic. They still create combos despite doing no direct damage. They act as a boost to other attacks in the same round, count towards
the Doctor’s cool down, and clear the gems from the board letting other
non-Green gems drop in.
It took me three hits plus a charge from the Doctor to get rid of this Boss. He’s a tough nut, but not as tough as me and my team. After it was all
over I had my Red Time Fragment and enough experience to promote Jenny Flint to
Lv. 4 and Porridge to Lv. 3. I stuck with my strategy and boosted Porridge’s HP
to 132 and Jenny’s ATK to 68.
 |
| Vastra lags behind |
Just a minute though. How is that Jenny is on Lv. 4 while
her wife Madame Vastra is still at Lv. 3? Vastra took part in the tutorial
before Jenny was recruited, so surely she should be ahead if anything. How does
that work then?
The answer is ExperienceTracks, ably explained by the wiki. Vastra progresses along
Track 4, so needs 2626 experience points (XP) to reach level 4. Jenny Flint is
on Track 2, so needs just 2298xp for 4th level. Why? Well I assume it’s a
balancing mechanism, so that some characters can have higher starter attributes
and stronger powers, but have to pay the price through slower advancement. On the
other hand it could be just to mix things up. I’m not the type to trawl over
powers, stats and Experience Tracks to see if it’s all fair. Enjoy the game and don’t worry too much about the
mechanics.
Asylum of the Daleks: Corridor 5L is the first episode in the game where the opposition starts to get durable. Nice.
Asylum of the Daleks was the opener for the 7th Season of New Who, Matt Smith's last, and I thought it was a
solid start. Jenna-Louise Coleman’s debut
as the annoyingly attractive Soufflé girl was unexpected, and I enjoyed being
puzzled about how they were going to explain it all. The Ponds were good value
as ever and I crushed on Anamaria Mainca. I have a thing about noses you
see.
I think that the Daleks need a season off, but here they did
excel and deserve their star billing. It was like a design gallery in the
Asylum with all of those different makes, shapes and colours. Like most people
I was especially delighted to see the Special Weapons Dalek, now there’s a model I’d like to build. Rory’s ‘Eggs-Eggs-Eggs’ Dalek encounter was wonderful and I doubt if we’ve seen the last of
the Dalek Puppets. They look quite ridiculous but are creepy at the same time. They also allow the Daleks to indulge in infiltration and other subterfuge. The atmospheric Asylum set was well used and it elevated the Daleks to their scariest since Dalek.
Having Oswin delete all record of the Doctor from the Daleks' memory was interesting, but it seems to have been a bit of a waste of time story-arc-wise. By the time they meet next, the Daleks have re-learned all about him. It seems the only point of the exercise was to have the whole Dalek Parliament chant "Doctor Who?" at the end of the episode. Still, no harm done.
A significant episode in the history of the show and a good set up for the departure of the Ponds and the Eleventh Doctor. Is it really nigh on 2 years since this first aired?
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