So, Flame Whip is now an item-crash-esque upgrade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSuwahPE73A(Dailymotion appears to have harsher copyright rules, and the video was rejected entirely. Little pissed I had to go back to GoogleTube to upload it, but oh well)
A flame powerup will be hidden in each stage. The powerup, once collected, allows for unlimited access to the Flame Whip for the rest of that stage, and it has to be re-found on the next one. Pressing the 'D' key activates the upgrade with an item crash animation, during which you are invincible; but there aren't any big flame waves or anything, I don't know how I feel about that idea just yet.
The duration of the powerup is roughly thirty seconds (I believe it was around 32-33 when I counted, but I doubt I'll change it to be EXACTLY thirty just because the crash animation takes up a little bit of that time), and a little flame will appear next to the heart total on the HUD to let the player know they've still got the powerup. Activating the Whip costs 20 hearts.
So, on that note, should I add anything else to it? I entertained the idea of the whip producing a fireball if it's extended to the end of its animation, but seeing as the flame whip does nearly as much damage as the Sword, I don't know if adding a fireball would balance or imbalance the two. If I made it really, REALLY hard to find the powerup, d'ya think that would balance out its insane damage output?
Oh, and on a semi-related note, I did try to do a forward, forward, attack combo and only have the whip cost like five hearts. It didn't work very well(the whips kept reversing direction and using the wrong animation, and their damage output wasn't what I should have been because the obpHero.fire variable checks kept interfering with other shit), but I think this is a better method anyway.