On the level select screen, a portal has appeared in the corner. It looks just like those the demons from chapters 1 and 4 used in their invasions. When you select it, the portal expands to consume the entire screen before we enter an otherworldly sky. It’s dark and shiny, but not quite outer space. While you take in the alien visuals, Cruxis’ voice can be heard:
“Eons ago, before this war, before Black Doom, before the planet itself, Master Hand had a mighty foe. Her name was Vertigo, the Goddess of Insanity. With her followers, Vertigo conspired to erect a palace spanning multiple dimensions. Her armies attempted to trespass on our own world, but Master Hand was steadfast in his defense of our home. In the end, Vertigo was driven back to where she came from, but Master Hand was able to forge her residual magic into a new power source. You know them as the Chaos Emeralds, befitting their origin…”
The Bunker 
Congratulations, you just read the most reworked Chapter in the game!
In the original Playing God, this chapter was praised for its creative boss fights, but the story was rightfully criticized for being too basic. It was pretty much “Characters from Chapter 1 go through platforming levels, characters from Chapter 4 go through platforming levels, they fight Vertigo.” That’s not even an exaggeration, the cutscenes were all some variant of them seeing Vertigo’s palace in the distance and running to the next level. This would have been ok if this Story Mode didn’t turn into an overzealous fanfiction novel with actual narrative arcs, but it did so this wasn’t.
At first my plan was simply going to be adding the Cruxis voiceovers to provide a bit more context and give the chapter some unique flair, but that did nothing to solve the fundamental problem of how it was structured. My next step was giving Vertigo some actual screentime besides her boss fight, which also served to give Death, Dimentio, and Shaman some reason to exist beyond losing a couple of fights then joining the heroes. Of course, to accommodate that, I had to add a new Death fight to 8-5, remake nearly all of 8-7 from scratch, and add 8-? into the mix. 8-? is a completely new level for this edition. It was nice getting to write new scenes for [WEAPON NAME REDACTED].
While the bosses have indeed aged well, they both received a few new tools, the most notable being Vertigo’s cow fatality. I can’t believe I missed that in the original!
By: hyperridley on October 14, 2023
at 3:40 pm