Hello all, I'm Soul Cake, and well..this is my guide on Savant - Ascent.

The following could, in all respects be considered '' spoilers '' by those who care about such things, yada yada, I won't be using spoiler tags or anything of the sort, because honestly, this game has no plot or '' big twist '' to speak of. If you want to figure out some of the things like ''Ultimate Power '' by yourself, then just.. go.. now, and don't complain about me telling you about the game in a guide of the game.

If you don't mind the fact that my guide of the game is infact, a guide of the game with all that entails, well then without further delay, continue.


And yes, I suck at intro's... This was the best I could do... shush.

You'll start at the title screen, as one would do with most games.


If this is your first time playing the game, your title screen will look different, as in it'll be missing most of everything except for Options, Story Mode and the Quit Game button, you'll get more stuff later, more on that then.

To start, just select Story Mode.

After a brief introduction cutscene showing our protagonist, Savant, getting tossed out of this tower by a magical orb, you'll find yourself here: The Bottom of the Tower




As you can see from the picture, along the bottom are displayed a few key peices of information. The bottom left shows your current health, out of three hearts. Upon being hit by an enemy, you will lose a heart but become invincible for a few seconds afterwards.

To my knowledge, there is no way to recover hearts once they have been lost. Unless you happen to be using one of the handheld versions of Savant -Ascent.


To the bottom right, is your score indicator, this shows how much score you have from killing various enemies, it will also display your current score multiplier if you have one.

As for bottom center, that would be your Charge Meter, if you're new to the game you won't have this yet. But you'll get it soon enough.


You may be wondering, '' But how do I control this monstrosity of a game? ''

Its quite simple really.

The ''W'' '' A '' and '' D '' keys control your movement, with A and D shuffling you horizontally between two platforms, and the ''W'' accomplishing the same task albeit with a jump in the air.

To fire your magical blasts at your enemies, aim the cursor where you would like to shoot, and hold down the Left Mouse Button.





Occasionally after defeating an enemy, you may see a hovering object laying about afterward, these are CD pieces, if you click on them, Savant will lash out with his chains and grab them.



Collecting CD Pieces confers many advantages. Firstly, they give you a nice injection of score. 100,000 to be precise, note however that this score is unaffected by any multipliers.

Secondly, they confer you a brief few seconds of immunity to damage, signalled by your character model blinking rapidly during the effect.

Thirdly, if the CD Piece happens to be Golden, collecting it will further your progress to unlocking your next musical track and power. Note that only a finite number of 28 golden CD peices exist in the game. You cannot collect the same Golden CD twice, once the piece is collected, it will turn blue for all subsequent runs, and will only confer the first two effects.

Fodders are the most prolific enemies in the game, spawning in regularly every few seconds. They have very low health and are easy to deal with. If left alone, they will hover for a few seconds before giving an audible cue, and beginning to roll. This means they are about to attack via charging you. This is however easily avoidable by jumping out of the way or simply killing them before they make it to you. One well placed Burst from SavantISM should destroy a group of them.


Unlike regular Fodders, Golden Fodders spawn alone, and don't attack, they simply hover there. They have rather high health, but killing one yields a CD Piece. They can be killed quite easily with a super attack.




Ironcopters spawn in occasionally, albeit only in the Ascending Elevators sections. They spawn from the left and right of the screen in groups and slowly move in a Zig-Zag fashion towards the elevators. I reccomend priorisiing these over any fodders in the area, unless they attack, as Ironcopters can get troublesome if let too close to the elevators, as they can prevent you from dodging.










Bluebladers spawn somewhat irregularly also, similar to the Ironcopters in that regard. They will spawn slightly above either the left or right elevator and hover there for a moment, before beginning to spin and coming down in a U-Shaped Arc towards you.

I reccomend dealing with these things as soon as they spawn, as they can make dodging troublesome.





Wyrms are the most troublesome enemies in the game, they have high health and are very large. They will usually dive in towards you slowly, however moving early will not work on them as they will correct their course to follow you. The only ways to avoid them are to dodge them right before they hit you, or to use a super blast against them. A Super Blast will deal a large amount of damage to them and redirect them in the direction of the blast momentarily.

The Wyrm will only be encountered once in Story Mode/ Time Attack, however can be encounter multiple times, with multiple Wyrms in Endless Mode

You'll start here at the bottom floor of the tower. If you're new, and lack any of your powers, or any experiece of the game, this can be somewhat challenging. After a few seconds Fodders will begin spawning with the occasional Golden Fodder also, your goal early game should be taking out the Golden Fodders and collecting their CD Pieces to unlock new powers. Chances are you may die a few times in this process, however as you unlock your abilities, this should become quite simple fairly soon. In all there are 8 Golden Fodders on the first floor, collecting all 8 CD pieces will unlock your first 2 abilities and soundtracks.


Completing your first CD unlocks Kali 47 and the ''Power Trip'' ability, giving you your Charge Meter. As I dissussed earlier, filling this meter allows you to perform Super Attacks, that kill almost anything they hit.


Completing the second CD unlocks ISM and the '' Savantism '' ability, With Savantism, whenever you start shooting, your first shot will split into five shots, dealing damage in a cone in front of you. This ability is very useful for clearing enemies quickly, and can be abused to some degree by rapidly dodging side to side and firing a Savantism burst each time.

With your new abilities, clearing the first floor should be much simpler now, and after killing the final fodder, a small cinematic will play, showing the elevators beginning to work and busting out from the floor, taking you to the next level.

After bursting from the floor, the elevators will begin ascending the tower, with our protagonist stood atop them defending himself.



The start of this level is fairly simple, and similar to the first floor with nothing but Fodders and Golden Fodders spawning, again I advise focusing the Golden Fodders to obtain more powers, although it isnt quite as urgent now that you arent as helpless as before. Nonetheless during the start you should be able to kill the 4 Golden Fodders early on and gain access to your third power.


Unlocking the third CD unlocks Bach to The Phuture, and the '' Premonition '', ability. Premoniton gives you a warning flash on the screen whenever an enemy or group of enemies spawns out of your screen view, giving you a heads up on enemy numbers quickly. Useful for not getting taken by suprise.

Eventually new enemies, the Ironcopters and Bluebladers will begin to spawn, when they do, you should prioritise them, as they offer more threat than the Fodders ever will, therefore dealing with them early minimises the risk of failure later on.

Be sure to still keep an eye out for Golden Fodders, there is still one more ability to be unlocked in Story Mode by collecting the Last 4 Gold CD Pieces here.


Collecting the 4th CD unlocks Butterfly and the '' Metamorphose '' ability. Metamorphose raises your charge meters capacity, from 3 units to 5 units. This allows for more devastating Super Attacks as well as having another bonus. While the meter is fully charged at 5, your normal missiles do double damage. This ability is all around very useful, as it is essentially a direct buff of your damage output.


Nearing the end of the elevator level, your screen will flash rapidly, a loud alarm will play and your camera will focus in on a newly appeared Wyrm. The Wyrm may appear before you have a chance to unlock your 4th ability, infact it most likely will. Without the 4th ability it could be abit tricky to deal with him and the rest of the enemies around you, but don't panic. Do your best to redirect the Wyrm with your super attack, while destroying the enemies around you as the Wyrm is distracted, making sure to collect any CD Pieces you find.

Eventually, whether the Wyrm is dead, or not, you will encounter your final hurdle of this floor.

The Ring.


Nah, don't worry, this bit isn't really difficult, its just a ring of Fodders surrounding you, it should prove to be no issue whatsoever if you've dealt with the Wyrm, and with that, we head to the top of the tower.

So, you've made it to the Top, good for you, now you need to deal with the Orb that kicked you out of your tower.





Upon reaching the top, you'll look up to see the Malicious Orb, glowing ominously. Some would be afraid, but you're Savant, so you should start shooting it, immediatly, and get in a few good hits. Eventually however....


THE THING STARTS SHOOTING WYRMS AT YOU.

Now this is where some people would panic, but not you, oh no, you're gonna pull up the man pants and keep shooting, and you're gonna redirect the Wyrms away with your Super Attack.

The Orb will keep spawning Wyrms until its health has been depleted, at which point, it will begin to crack and break, and a figure will slowly rise out of it.


ITS'A ME, VARIO.

The music will abruptly change to Vario 64 as you must now deal with this little hellspawn.

Vario attacks in a few ways, His primary method of attack is diving at you either horizontally... or vertically..

It's important to dodge his dives, either by jumping over his horizontal dive, or moving out of the way of his vertical dive.

Vario also spawns cubes after each of his dives.



These cubes once destroyed give you a single charge of your charge meter, aka, you need to kill five of them to fully charge yourself. However if left alone, the cubes will begin to slowly float towards you, making dodging Vario's attacks tricky.


Vario himself is completely indestructible, the key to beating him is the orb. The broken orb will still be floating around in a circle slowly, however only super attacks will be able to damage it. Therefore to beat Vario, you need to dodge his attacks, kill his cubes to charge your meter, and unleash Super Attacks on the Orb until it is destroyed.



And with that, Story Mode is now complete.

Upon completing the Story Mode, and marvelling at your score, however good or bad it may have been, you are then ejected back to the main menu, it should look something like this:
You'll notice a few new things here, Time Attack, Endless Mode, and a curious face in the bottom right corner. We'll deal with Endless Mode later, for now, the other two options.



Clicking the odd little face in the bottom corner will trigger '' Vario Mode ''

You may be wondering.. '' What -IS- Vario Mode? ''

Well. toggle it on, and head back into Story Mode.

Things will start out as normal, except the first thing you'll notice is that you're now wearing the mask of Vario, the boss you just defeated.



Yeah, but whats it do?

Well, if you begin shooting, you'll notice a few differences.



Instead of the beams you're used to, you are now shooting mini Vario's at your enemies, complete with annoying sound effects. These projectiles have a limited range unlike your normal beams, however they make up for this in doing significantly more damage.

You'll also note that instead of dashing from side to side, in Vario Mode, you instantly blink from one spot to the next. Jumping upwards between spots functions as normal however.
A thing worth mentioning about Vario's dash/teleport from side to side, is that it will not reset your attack, meaning you won't get your Savantism Burst each time you do it.

In addition, your Super Attack is also different, instead of a high damage burst, you spawn an amount of cubes, dependant on how charged your meter is, clicking and dragging with the cursor,will make the cubes move, destroying anything in their path except for Wyrms.


A noticable exception to this is the Level 5 special, while in Vario Mode, your level 5 special becomes the most amazingly broken move in the entire game.

The Level 5 Special will spawn 5 cubes, however instead of having to slowly drag them, the cubes go where your cursor goes, instantly, meaning if you use this move, and then spazz wildly with the mouse, you will most likely destroy every enemy on the screen.

Vario Mode also features a slightly edited line of dialogue from Vario at the end, as well as altered ending cinematics.

Vario Mode can only be used in Story Mode.


Time Attack is exactly as the name implies, a challenge to speedrun the game in the quickest time without dying. In this mode, enemies spawn in the same patterns as Story Mode, but at a much much faster rate, effectivly spamming your screen with enemies. The whole affair is usually over in about two minutes assuming you can survive it.

You can choose between Local and Global, to have your score pitted against yourself, or the entire world, but honestly,There is no reason not to do Global.

To those of you who have gotten through without a hit, bravo, you are a better man than I...

After all your fun with Vario Mode and Time Attack, head back to the main menu.

From here, now enter Endless Mode.
As with Time Attack, there are the options of either Local, or Global, of which Global is the more sensible choice, because hey, if you do well you may as well flaunt it.

Endless Mode is as one would expect it : Endless.
There is no end, you cannot complete it, you can only perservere for as long as you can, racking up as big a score as you can before succumbing to the horde.

The start of Endless mode is rather tame, just a few Fodders, Ironchoppers and Bluebladers begin to spawn at some point after the first 20-30 seconds, and usually repeat that pattern of spawning every 30 seconds or so from what I've experienced. A Golden Fodder will also usually spawn in this time, killing it will yield a new Golden CD Piece.

At some point between the 0:40 second - 1:00 minute mark, the first Wyrm will spawn in, try to make a note of what time the Wyrm spawns at, because all subequent Wyrms waves will spawn in roughly a minute after each other.

During/After the Wyrm encounter, depending on how long it takes for you to destroy it. Another Golden Fodder will spawn, along with yet another Golden Fodder about thirty seconds before the next Wyrm wave.

The rest of the enemies will also continue their spawn pattern, albeit their spawn sizes will grow steadily over time,eventually you may have groups of 10 Fodders and 8 Ironcopters spawning in simeltaneously.

The next Wyrm wave will spawn, this time consisting of two Wyrms at the same time, this number of simeltaneous Wyrms will only grow as the waves progress.



In order to obtain the amount of CD Pieces needed for your final two powers, you'll need to survive until the 4th Wyrm Wave to get the final piece. How you get there is ultimatly up to you, I can't make you better at the game, I can only give advice and pointers.


Completing the 5th CD unlocks Melody Circus, and the ''Trapeze Shuffle '' Power. Trapeze Shuffle boosts your charge meter, and the speed of your dodges with each consecutive dodge. The Charge benefit is permanent until spent on a Super Attack or otherwise. The Speed benefit is only active until you make an attack however.

A notable mention of this ability is the ''4 Jump Shuffle'', whereby if you hold down your '' Jump Up '' key, in many cases, that will probobly be '' W '' for you, and wait for your character to jump 4 times in quick succession, your charge meter will instantly be completely filled making it extremely useful in all circumstances, and also making it synergize well with the 6th power.



Unlocking the 6th and final CD unlocks Organismical, and the '' One Collective '' ability. One Collective allows you to lash out at your enemies with a Chain Attack. To do this, you will need to be at full charge, and then continue to '' spin '' via your Trapeze Shuffle ability, to do this most effectively, hold down any -ONE- of the movement keys to spin.

As an additional note, jumping using your ''W'' key in the same manner as the '' 4 Jump Shuffle '' detailed above will charge your Chain Attack much faster after only 4 jumps.

Your character will glow brightly with a triangle emanating from them when the attack is ready.


To launch the attack, simply click as you would to fire normally while fully prepared. Savant will lash out with his chains on the enemies, dragging them in and destroying them. This ability also confers a brief amount of immunity to damage upon being completed.

With that, the summary of Endless mode is basically complete, however there is still room for more power in the Alchemists arsenal...

Now that you have obtained all of the powers your Golden CD's can possibly confer to you, you may ask
'' What is left..? I'm already quite capable, skilled and powerful... what more can possibly be offered..? ''

What is left.. is to succeed in the Alchemists original plan..

With your new, potent repertoire of abilities and powers, it is now time to head back to the main menu, and back into Story Mode.

From here, you should proceed as normal, albeit at this point, Story Mode should be trivial for you, and will most likely be cleared in a few short minutes.

When you get to the top however, this is where things shall change. Upon discovering the orb, you must quickly charge up a chain attack, and once ready launch it at the orb. The orb will then be pulled towards you and begin to glow brightly.




Eventually you'll get a message saying you have obtained the Philosophers Stone, and the current game will end without a boss fight.




Upon entering a new game, be it Story, Time Attack, Endless or Vario Mode, performing a chain attack will now have an additional purpose, each time you pull enemies in, the Philosophers Stone will appear above your head, a circular bar will also surround it.



'' But what does the bar do..? ''

Well, performing more chain attacks and absorbing more enemies will charge the bar higher and higher until....


Charging the bar high enough will cause you to enter Overdrive mode, this is where you are at your most powerful. While in Overdrive mode, your attack speed is increased tremendously, eventually approaching ludicrous levels with higher levels of Overdrive.

There are five Levels of Overdrive, each is visually distinct from the others, through character model colour and attack beam effects.

Level 1:



Level 2:



Level 3:



Level 4:



Level 5:

Ohboy, I knew I'd have to cover this monstrosity once it came out, so without further ado, let's get down to it.


The void update adds two whole new stages, one of them being a nice boss battle, a new Golden CD Power, and a new ending to the game.

To begin these new stages, we'll have to fight our good friend Vario, whereupon defeating him...

The top of our tower begins to crumble and float ominously, the two platforms floating upwards into the sky with you. Only to eventually be surrounded by enemies, both old and new.

In additon to the usual Fodder and Golden Fodder enemies spawing in groups, we see two newcomers.




Drills are enemies much like Fodder in behavior, but sturdier and their goal is not -your- destruction, but rather the destruction of your platforms, yes, these platforms can be destroyed, by both the drills and your own shots, so watch your aim!









Bladeshrooms are enemies, that remind me of Bluebladers in their method of murdering you. Instead of going directly for you, these guys begin to quickly orbit around the edges of the screen, slowly circling closer and closer until you are hit.







Upon reaching this stage, your first priority should -not- be getting through the stage, it should be killing the golden fodders, for their precious Golden CD pieces, because the 7th ability the update provides is gamechanging.

If you already have all of the previous Golden CD's the first few golden fodders will only yield blue CD's but eventually you will find those bearing the Gold Pieces you seek.


Completing the 7th CD unlocks Starfish and the Suction Coup ability.
This ability essentially allows you to build Overdrive levels -just- by killing enemies, removing the necessity to use your chain attack to build Overdrive.

( As a side note, this also now allows you to obtain Overdrive Levels in Vario mode, admittedly I am not sure if this was possible before, but my attempts to do so without this ability in Vario mode were unsuccessful given the nature of Vario's blinking and the inabilty to perform a " 4-Jump Shuffle "


Once you have this ability, -now- it is time to get through this stage, as for advice on how to do so, this stage is so chaotic that I would just reccomend spamming SavantISM bursts all the way from start till end, that usually works for me.

Another strategy that I've found useful for completing this stage is to simply allow the Drills to destroy one of the platforms, while doing so makes you unable to move, on the plus side, enemy spawn patterns and locations seem to become much more manageable and easier to react to, and you no longer have the concern of accidently jumping into a pack of drills as they attack the other platform.

Once you have killed all of the enemies, you arrive floating up in space itself, before being greeted by an ominous figure, staring at a nearby planet.



























Eventually he'll notice us, and decide that he really doesn't like us.. Jerk..
































He'll start by slamming into our platform, knocking away any Overdrive levels you may have acrued previously, before coming back to strike us, you'll want to dodge away from that to the newly appeared platform.




While he's slamming into that platform, take a few good shots at him for some early damage, after destroying that platform he will curl into a ball and begin to bounce back and forth rapidly between the two platforms.



Dodge out of the way each time and if your timing is good you can hit him with SavantISM bursts after each " Bounce" for extra damage and the potential to get into Overdrive Level 2 if you're good enough.


After bouncing for a while he will destroy one of the platforms and begin flying around for a while, eventually landing himself on a new platform. From here, once more, you should be taking a few shots at him for extra damage.



Eventually however he will detach the upper half of his body, which will begin to float ominously towards you, sword in hand.

The way to deal with this is with a super attack, which forces him to re-materialise somewhere else and try again until you super attack him again.

Charge your super attacks by holding " W " to perform a " 4-Jump Shuffle" to instantly fill your power bar.


Hitting him with a super attack does a nice chunk of damage to his health, even more so if it hits both halves of him in one attack.

Eventually however he will tire of this method and fly off, he will come back however quickly, striking the lower of the two platforms as he goes, so get to the higher one.

From this point he will zoom past back and forth destroying platforms as he goes, forcing you to jump -immediately- to any new platform that appears during this sequence, his fly-by's are signified by the accompanying music.



He will do this a total of eight times before flying off for a few seconds, giving you some time to breath as the music tones down a little bit, I would advise doing a " 4-Jump-Shuffle " during this time to raise your power bar to 5 quickly for what is to come next.


Eventually the planet from before will come back into view, the Samurai sitting off in the background, before suddenly.


You are attacked by the Laser Sharks!

The Laser Sharks appear following a distinct musical cue, firing a beam which engulfs the entirety of one platform, forcing you to retreat to the other one.

After dodging each of the initial first four blasts, you should attack the Laser Sharks as they appear, this will not do any damage to Samurai, but it will give you more Overdrive Level, enough to get you to Maximum Overdrive at least.


After the fourth blast by the Laser Sharks, Samurai will decide to join in, making this stage even harder, because in between your dodging the Laser Sharks you will have to charge your super attacks.

Now whatever you do, I strongly advise against using the " 4 Jump Shuffle " to charge your meter, this technique has gotten me killed too many times inadvertantly jumping into the beam, of the Laser Sharks.

What you should instead do, is stay on the platform you are on currently, and hold down " A " if you are on the left platform or " D " on the right, to spin on -THAT- platform to charge your super attack, it is slower, but safer.

Obviously if the Laser Sharks begin to aim at your platform, move to the other one and change button accordingly, timing might screw you over a few times, but this is the most effective method that has worked for me.



After deflecting the Samurai and dodging the Laser Sharks for a while, the Samurai will take off from his perch and slam into your platform again, knocking you out of your Overdrive and from here the fight is a loop.

Rinse. Repeat. Kill.

• Every attack in this fight is instant death, health is immaterial at this point, so don't panic if you go into the fight with only 1 heart.
  
  
• Do NOT attempt to attack the Samurai with your chains, it ends very badly for you.
  
  
  

So, you've just killed the Samurai, right?











So, this is the new ending, huh..

I will be mildly disappointed if there is not a new update after this eventually that features " Rise Up " from Protos.

You've gotta Riiiiiiiiiiiise up, Like a Pheonix through the flames..!

Seriously tho, devs, do it, you know want to..


From what I've seen it is impossible to take Vario Mode into the two new Void Update Stages, which was kinda a let down, I wanted to see if there was an alternate ending for Vario and how the fight would work with Vario's mechanics, but alas beating the Vario boss as Vario just ends the game.

And there we have it, this concludes my guide to Savant - Ascent, that I was insane enough to do without a plan, in one sitting....
Hopefully it proves useful to the two of you who'll probobly read this thing.

Also, feel free to point out if I missed anything ^^