It's time to explore the rest of Absu
in Axiom Verge.
Once again, we wake up in an egg.
Lovely.
Previously, you will recall, we explored basically the left half of Absu there, to the extent that we can reach it.
Fought the boss; came down here.
And there's still some stuff over to the
right of the large room next to me there,
that I still need to get through here,
that presumably takes us to progress, whatever that is.
Progress, as far as I've been told, involving fixing a power filter for a giant robot head.
Which seems like a good idea.
You actually can't get down to
that quadrant right there for now.
So this door up here is the only
one you can currently take.
And that takes it into a greener part of Absu. Spiders.
And also these Green Glider things. We saw these in Eribu previously, but now we can actually hack them.
What happens when you hack these things: Every other one in the same room gets hacked.
If you destroy one of them there's an explosion. And if you time it nicely it'll damage other things, including you,
so be a little careful with it.
That is how they work. 
Anything up here? Doesn't look like it.
And currently no way to get through there.
So what's over here? More green.
Let's see. In this area, we have these long shafts we go down, and also have these purple jellyfish things.
If you hack them, they just kind of float around and stop shooting, so it's probably helpful to do.
You can also use the purple platforms for cover and hit them with the Kilver. If I use the correct button.
Let's see. There's nothing in this shaft.
There is less in this room than you would
think, coming from Metroid.
Down here, you can see over to the left there is a note that one can get.
There's a kind of obvious path of
blocks towards the bottom there,
but, doesn't appear we can get there from here.
Not quite.
What are those things actually called in the wiki? I don't have it offhand. It'll be in the video description.
Can't get anywhere from the bottom of this shaft either.
Also, those things can't hit you when
you're underneath them. They can only fire upwards.
And here is actually where you get in there,
but, again, axiom still cant crawl.
So for now, we can't get in there until we gain a rolly ball or some other means of getting through short spaces.
Come on, float into my Kilver.
Thank you. And there's nothing down here
either, I don't believe. Nope.
So, there's something in there we can't get yet.
How about this room?
Okay. In here, I'm going to carefully avoid the gliders for the moment, because there actually is an item in here
we can get right now.
There is a save point up here that I can hit
up first, though. So let's do that.
I don't want to hack or kill any of the
gliders yet or else this won't work.
Why is that blinking?
Well, I'll get back to that in a moment here.
Because the first thing I want to do down here:
Remember: I hack one of the gliders; they
all get hacked. I destroy one; they all blow up.
So if I time that one there by the switch it'll hit the switch when I destroy it.
And I can come over here, and there's nothing.
Or is there?
I get another Health Node Fragment.
Now, there was some blinkiness up here. What's this about? And why is the screen suddenly darkening?
Well, if you look carefully, you will notice there are some scan lines that appear on the screen the closer I get to that area.
It's most obvious around the health meter, but you can see it over the entire display when I get right up next to it
And if I hack my way through there, those blocks disappear, and...
What was that?
What Breach?
Well, as we all know, if a giant robot face tells you not to do something, you must therefore go do it.
So let's see what's in here.
This is the "secret world" mechanic of Axiom Verge. Every time you start a new game, there are five locations
that will be randomly picked for secret world entrances,
varying in difficulty depending on what area they appear in.
They are, to some extent, procedurally generated. The actual rooms are predefined.
They're more or less copies of rooms from
the actual areas of the game.
But the way they connect to each other,
the broader layout of the map here—
which you can actually see here—that is
generated randomly each time you enter one.
it's pretty straightforward once you get in here. There are no secret pathways for anything; it's just the doors.
In fact, some doors are not even functional.
See, I got too close to the glider there
when I blew it up. That was a bad idea.
Okay, that just takes me back to where the
entrance was. I won't go that way.
There are a lot of branching paths in these things, but they usually loop back around to connect to each other.
So just keep an eye on your map to figure out where you actually need to explore, and where you've already been.
And what this is referencing, of course,
is the supposed secret areas of the original Metroid.
Basically, people playing the original Metroid found that, by clipping through walls and exploiting other bugs,
they were able to access mysterious 
areas that were strange-shaped,
vaguely resembled other parts of the game, but also just looked kind of garbled in some places. Much like this.
And the more people explored those areas,
the more sprawling and complicated they got.
And people figured they must have been
something that the developers put in,
as an additional secret as part of the Metroid gameplay.
Once people were actually able to go back and look at the Metroid game data with emulation,
those secret areas were, basically, people were leaving the defined map and accessing garbage areas
of the game ROM that were being interpreted by the game engine as area data.
And the way the data format of Metroid was,
even garbage data got interpreted as somewhat understandable data.
So this is a callback to that
bug/feature of the original Metroid.
There will be others.
If I can jump properly.
Oh, by the way, apparently... Can you hack those little pod platform things? I thought...
I guess not. I thought you could. Maybe just not in here. I'll check that once I get back out.
Go away, broccoli.
Those projectiles they fire are really hard to see.
And your goal here: There are additional items in these things. They are actually not even counted towards your
100% item achievement; they are just
bonus on top of that.
And each one of these secret areas is
going to have two items.
Can I get up there? No.
Kilver? Yeah, that's better.
Is that a functional door there?
It is.
What's that? There aren't supposed to be
Norfair bubbles in Absu, are there?
Interesting bug: The bubble animation
stays red even when the bubbles are being recolored.
!!!
I'm not going in there with low health like that.
Let's see if I can get some health from the
diatoms before they kill me.
I see that platform.
Not that it matters that much.
Curses!
Maybe I should be using the spread or something
else to get at these things better.
Well, this isn't going very well so far.
Ah, health. Excellent. That helps a little.
Okay, these things I can take out pretty easily, and they should give me a pretty good supply of health.
Anything else in here?
Oh dear, it's a spider.
Argh.
Okay, because I'm getting hit by the
splash from the drop there.
I think... nope. Okay, we'll be right back.
So, on my way back to that secret area, I realized that there actually is an item over here I could have gotten,
and should be getting now, while I can.
Except the spider respawned.
All right. There's actually a drillable
patch of the wall right here.
And we find a note back here. What does it say?
щфйћљіҙљцжјѕњ
...What?
Okay. Well, this is actually a different character set used as a code for some notes in the game.
It is intended to be written in a language other than English, by someone else, basically.
This is just a substitution cypher; you can kind of vaguely see how you would translate it, I think.
I will actually throw up the translation on the screen here, just in case anyone wants to know what it actually says,
because you could actually put the effort into actually solving the substitution cypher.
There will be an easier way of reading notes like this later in the game, though,
so don't worry if you don't feel like it, if you encounter any more like this.
So that's all we can do up there.
I'm just going to head on back into that secret world where I died and continue. Meet you there.
Okay, let's try this again.
If I take out that spider before it gets too
close, I think...
Okay, that's that one. I think there's a
second one over here, right?
Don't hear it anymore; maybe not.
By the way, the colors you see in here—they're kind of random, but it's actually unique tilesets that it just
switches between multiple ones.
I'm actually a little bit surprised that the developer didn't use palette-based effects to make this even more
random and procedural, the way original
consoles from this era would have.
You can actually see all the color variations in the sprite sheet for the game data, if you look at it.
Ugh.
And I think this is a duplicate of a
route layout that I went through earlier, notably.
More? Nope.
Except that one. I see you.
Goodbye.
I see the platforms there too; it's not like they do anything.
Again, no secrets in here. When you do find an item, it's on top of a giant axe motif with honeycombs, like this.
And we get an extra upgrade to our range.
It's really just an endurance challenge to get through as much of the area as you can,
and actually get to the items.
Let's see.
That probably just takes me straight
down through there, where I came from.
Which is not really useful to me right now.
Because I am guessing the other item is over to the left where the ghoul right outside the door was earlier.
Why are you running away from
me, spider?
Let's stay under this platform, so you can't get me.
There we go.
This time everything's giving me plenty of health.
Okay, can I dodge the diatoms?
I'm going to escape this way.
And there are more diatoms.
And it was still there; two-screen rule. Whatever.
Kilver, and...
...ghoul death!
Okay, I survived that one. Should be okay.
When you have a hollow like that, you can kind of position yourself so they'll keep jumping over you.
Any more? Nope.
Hello, broccoli. What are you doing up there?
What is that? Health?
That is the fifth Health Node Fragment I need. That's actually a slightly early health bar increase; excellent.
So, as I said, there are only two items in each of these things. Once you get the second one, just wander on out.
I'm not certain, but I think the algorithm that generates these areas also avoids putting dead ends in them,
unless there's an item there. That is, as long as you're going in a direction that you haven't been yet,
you're eventually going to find your way to an item.
And that was exciting.
The actual game world looks a lot brighter after you come out of the static-y hidden areas.
Okay, let me remember which way I go here first.
Okay, let's check the door at the top here.
If I remember correctly it rains broccoli in here, and there are some hacked platforms there that you need to reveal.
But you actually can't get in here,
because you have this type of garble,
and we are not able to do anything with
that yet.
The ones that are solid garbage can't be hacked;
the ones that are flickering can,
I think is basically the visual 
signal you're looking for there.
So, nothing we can do in there. There's obviously some architecture that looks like an item  room behind there.
Now up here...
Okay, I guess you can't hack those pods.
You can come up here and just drop down,
avoid this whole room.
There's nothing in here, so don't worry about it.
There is, however, something over here. And the game is very accommodating about showing me where it is.
Up this way, I think?
I could drill you to death, but the Kilver's faster.
And that's a Power Node, right?
Yay. Every bit of damage helps.
And we see the arrow indicating that we are about to transition into a different area.
The different area we are about to transition into happens to be called...
...if I can get my game window up...
This area is called Zi, and it has much calmer music.
Zi looks like that. You can see it's just to the right of Absu there.
And it's blue and green, and has steam vents.
And those Green Rollers, I think is the
term for them in the wiki.
They just kind of wander back and forth until you get too close, and then they roll at you.
I think hacking them just slows them down, I guess. Make sure you hack one.
And then these things up here, the wiki calls them Scorpiants.
Hacking them just makes their shots not spread out, and they become a little bit less aggressive.
So, advisable to do where you can.
And, very carefully, over here you have
to come around this way.
I don't think any of those Scorpiants are really placed in areas where they're terribly hard to avoid, so that's good.
Pay no attention to our eyeball friend here, by the way. There's nothing you can do with that; it's just decoration.
Go ahead and roll over me.
Now, this jump right here: It's not telegraphed to you, but this is actually a point of no return for a while.
If you jump down there, you cannot go back to Absu or Eribu until after you get quite a number of
additional items, so make sure you've done everything you want to do over there before you come down here.
I'm okay, so I'll do it.
I know that looks really suspicious to the left, but I don't think there's anything over there. Don't worry about it.
Or over there.
Those might be possible locations for a secret
world to spawn or something,
but I don't see any evidence of that in my save.
Can't jump up there.
Secret world locations, by the way, are re-randomized every time you start a new save,
So the ones you see will be pretty
different from the ones that I see.
This sure looks suspicious, and, indeed,
there is a pathway up here.
I wonder.
I hadn't thought about it previously, but
I think you might be able to get that
with the items you have right now.
So the area you drill there is two tiles wide.
If I carefully drill those out, and leave just
this one, can I jump up there?
Okay, I can jump up here but I still can't jump up to where you can kind of see the next ledge is. So not yet.
We will be coming back there later.
And nothing in here except more Scorpiants.
Just hack and destroy them very slowly.
Just like Russia's doing with our democracy. Hey!
Yeah, thanks, Green Roller. I deserved that.
I think I have to come up this side, right?
Sure would be nice, with all these jumps I can't make, to have something that allows me to jump higher.
Say, high jump boots?
There's some more of the solid garble over here, and I can't do anything
with it.
And I can't jump up there, so what's over here?
Well, these things are called Orb Walls, I think. You can't hack them yet.
If you're not reading the wiki, you'll
probably just call them Zebetites.
And then there's a different type of spider.
It's just as terrifying.
And then these things.
They just trigger when you're standing underneath one of the tunnels up there they come out of.
And I don't remember the names of either of these. Tunnel Hoppers or something?
And Orb Walls are pretty uninteresting.
And I don't think there are very many
Orb Walls in the entire game.
That's one of the few places you actually encounter them.
Now, note here the game is going to show me I can't make that jump. Which may seem like this is a dead end.
But there's really nowhere else to go. So you have to note that the purple coral stuff there
is actually reducing your jump height.
Okay, what's down here?
This looks spookily like some areas of
Absu. Are ghouls going to jump out at me?
Just the skeletons?
Oh another giant robot face. Great.
This is Veruska, yet another giant robot
face who needs repair drones.
And it's lovely to have dangerous people as your ally, I suppose. Better than as your enemy.
I'm sure that'll never happen.
And the robot faces call themselves "Rusalki." Meaning "water machine"? Something.
And they also want repair drones on top
of the power filter. Great.
Now the word Rusalki, I believe, is basically a type of mermaid from Slavic mythology or something?
I'm not entirely sure. But it actually is from a different real-world source from all of
the Sumerian names.
The name Zi, by the way—I forgot to mention—is actually Sumerian for "breath" or "life,"
which reflects the fact that there's all
those steam vents in there, I think.
It also makes you wonder if all this machinery might indicate we're getting close
to the power filter that we're looking for.
Those coral worm shooter things up
there, we can't hack those yet.
Just shoot them from a distance as best you can.
I believe this room, I can't jump high enough to
actually get up to the top area there.
It's just ghoul death in here, so I'm going to avoid it for now.
So what's over here? Save point.
Trace's conversation with Elsenova about supercomputers, by the way—
that is one thing I like about the writing in this game. Trace is not just some goofy guy—
"Huh? What's going on?
You mean this is inside a computer?"
He is thinking about what's going on,
trying to understand it,
much the same way that probably the viewer is, and in a way that's credible for the way a
brilliant New Mexican scientist for 2005 would be thinking. So I do like that aspect of the writing.
Now this room, if you get to the top fairly quickly and trigger something, there is actually a small Easter egg .
I may try reloading a couple of times
to make sure I get it on video here.
Let's see. I'm just going to jump quickly, Kilver this one.
Let's see. What was that up there?
I don't know.
Looked almost like another me,
but that would make no sense.
In any case, that's pretty much the end of Zi, and I will save the next area for the next session, I think.
I just wanted to get through that bit.
Note that you can't actually jump up there and follow whatever that thing that looked like me was,
if indeed I did see that.
So I'm just gonna go back to the save point, and we will pick this up and find out where the power filter is,
and how we get to it, and maybe what
that apparition we saw was, next time.
Thank you for watching, and good night.
