Grolla Seyfarth (RKS)

Grolla Seyfarth is the alternate playable character in Rosenkreuzstilette. The code to unlock her is ← → R L during the introduction screen or the cinematic (not during the menu screen). Compared to Tia, Grolla gains no weapons or upgrades and generally takes 2 more damage.

General Mechanics and Miscellanea
Grolla plays very much like Zero from the Megaman X series, wielding a sword and being capable of dashing and wall kicking. Dashing is performed by either the dash button or by double tapping in a direction. Double tap dashing can be prevented by holding the right weapon switch button. In addition to making Grolla move quickly, dashing shortens your hitbox vertically and widens it horizontally. The wider hitbox allows Grolla to move and jump further away from a ledge before she starts to fall compare to walking. Additionally because of this delay in falling, if you’re trying to move to an area below the ledge you would want to preemptively dash jump and move past the corner of the ledge at terminal fall speed. In terms of moving horizontally, it should be noted that dash jumping will stop your horizontal movement for 2 frames while dashing off a ledge will stop your horizontal movement for 1 frame.

Grolla can slowly slide down the wall by moving against it. Wall kicking is performed by pressing the jump button when within a certain distance from the wall (it’s possible to kick without physically touching the wall) regardless of which direction Grolla is facing. Upon wall kicking, Grolla is pushed away from the wall. Wall kicking up is faster than climbing a ladder. However, ladders cannot be grabbed offscreen nor can you transition to a higher screen without using the ladder. When grabbing a ladder it’s possible to let go with the jump button then immediately press the dash button to dash off of them. This is useful not only for descending and maximizing your horizontal movement but also to reach a wall that isn’t adjacent to the ladder to wall kick up.

Grolla's slash has different hitboxes/properties depending on what movement (or lack thereof) you are doing. Slashing while standing still or climbing a ladder will completely prevent Grolla from moving. When standing still, Grolla can chain her attacks into a 3 hit combo. The second hit has a vertically low hitbox in front of Grolla while the third hit has a large hitbox that extends forward the furthest of the 3 hits, as well as doing the most damage.

Holding down the slash button will cause Grolla to charge. Taking damage while charging will not reset the charge but rather interrupt and delay the charge. Releasing the slash button when fully charged will cause Grolla to unleash a charged slash. Generally, the charged slash has two hitboxes: Grolla’s sword and the extended wave. Additionally, releasing the charged slash on the ground or on a ladder will completely prevent Grolla from moving. To maintain mobility, you can release the charged slash during the rise of Grolla’s jump. The properties of the charged slash depend on her HP value. At above half HP, the wave is weaker than a regular slash but has greater horizontal range. At half or below half HP, Grolla’s HP bar will become red and she will immediately have a fully charged slash ready (hold the slash button down to keep it stored or don't press anything and she will release it immediately after hitstun). During this state the wave of her charged slash becomes vertically larger and does more damage, as much as a third hit of a combo. Be wary that the sword hitbox at this point would do less damage than the wave.

Charging takes a long time, so the preferred method to killing bosses is to get as many third combo hits in as possible. This is made more complicated because the first two hits of the attack cannot hit the boss, otherwise they will enter a flashing invulnerable state. Therefore the very first hit must be spaced well in which only the third combo hit would reach the boss. Once the boss is in the invulnerable state, you can also use the first two hits of your combo during this period and time the third combo hit to when the invulnerable state expires.

Damage table:

Speedrun Routing
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Spider and Devil are the biggest jerks.