The Catacombs is the 3rd portion of the game that you are going to encounter in my new favorite game Ender Lilies and i spent ages in the area with a lot of that time being very confused as to where TF I am supposed to go. This is to be expected in a Metroidvania game and I will admit that I finally figured what I was supposed to do completely by accident.
I ran round the entirety of the Catacombs searching far and wide and had been to what appeared to be every single part of it multiple times. I wandered so much, in fact, that I had killed everything in the zone and yet still couldn't figure out where to go next. Often in this game you will see a lever of the other side of a wall that you simply cannot reach nor can you figure out how the hell you are meant to get over there.
Unlike previous regions up to this point, The Catacombs is relatively massive and at certain parts of it you will actually fall to areas that make it impossible for you to get back up to the top. This is frustrating but not to worry, you can always "warp" back to your last respite / safe area and these are always, at least up to this point in the game, located in areas that make all areas accessible again.
The main problem that you run into is a relatively crucial area that eventually leads to the level's boss isn't terribly evident and it was only by jumping all over like a madman that I actually found it.
In this one room there are multiple water pits that have underwater enemies, which is annoying enough on its own because a great many of your attacks do not work underwater so on a side note, make sure to bring some water skills with you for the journey otherwise you are just gonna get thwacked hard by the fish-frogs that live in there. Thankfully, non water dwelling enemies are unable to attack you even with their ranged attacks for the most part, if you are underwater.
At the far left of this room is a barely noticeable waterfall the likes of which most people have already forgotten about because it has been probably an hour since you have seen one. Because of the background it is actually a bit tough to even notice this one. Go ahead and try to spot it in the pic. Pretty difficult to see it, right?
There's several more on your way up that are also barely even visible but at this point you are on the lookout for them so you'll probably hone in on the rest of them pretty easy.
When you jump into these things you are able to rise up them to reach areas that are above you. At the top of all this is a rather difficult area that will eventually lead you to an unlock switch that makes getting to the area's boss really easy. Please don't make the mistake of heading to fight the boss before unlocking this gate lest you will have to complete the entire arduous process all over again.
While this was frustrating, and what I would consider to be a near design flaw, it still wasn't all that bad because all the running around that I did kind of honed my skills against the rather difficult enemies that are specific to this region and I ended up getting a few levels in that I probably wouldn't have accomplished otherwise. So in that regard, I guess it wasn't so bad. I just want to help anyone else that might find themselves stuck in the same position.
I am still really loving this game and highly recommend it to anyone out there that is a fan of Metroidvania games with amazing side-scrolling graphics and fantastic musical scores.
