Difficulty spike

[Mathieumatic]

Let me start off by giving a little review as I just finished the game. Beautiful story and probably the best platform game I've every played in my life. The graphical style is also quite soothing and the way the game nudges you to learn how to use certain mechanics is spectacular. I've never seen it so well done in a game before. I did a blind playthrough first: completed chapter 1-8 and a couple of b-sides/crystal hearts a long the way, roughly got 70% of strawberries too. Then I went through the whole game again with a guide to find all the remaining collectibles (so many hidden paths) and after that I finished all the B-sides. At this point I was pretty satisfied with my game experience and I think I put a total of 30-35 hours into the game. For me, the strawberries and especially the B-sides were the sweet spot of fun and challenging without demotivating you. The whole game I spent wondering: "why the hell does this have assist mode?" Oh boy was I naive...

 

...Because then I tried the C-sides and Chapter 9. In my opinion, this takes the difficulty level from fun and challenging to 'FUCK YOU PUSSY, EAT SHIT AND DIE!'' levels. I wouldn't call myself a platform rookie, but for me that difficulty spike was unbearable. I tried the C-side from chapter 1 for a full hour before giving up, as I hadn't even defeated the first part. Don't even get me started on chapter 9! The first part was alright, but after the wavedash mechanic is introduced I was basically fucked as I can't hit that consistently. It felt like the whole chapter was based around wavedashing and wall jumping from that point on so I had to quit there too. And yes, as you can see on my profile, I used assist mode to complete the C-sides for the platinum and chapter 9 for the cutscenes. Maybe I'll come back to the C-sides and ninth chapter some day and try to do them without assist mode, but for now I can't see myself getting the necessary skill without putting literally double (triple?) the amount of hours into the game. 

 

What did you guys think of the difficulty spike from B-sides to C-sides and Chapter 9? To the people that did them legitimately: are you still sane?

Edited January 26, 2021 by Mathieumatic

[Neocarleen]

I would not have been able to complete this game without assist mode. I think 99% of the platinum achievers were the same.

[Vyzie_Taur]

I finished this last weekend without the use of assist mode, but I poured a LOT of hours and deaths into it, 7B and 7C especially (8 hours 3000 deaths and 10 hours 2500 deaths respectively). I think I'm still sane...if I was sane to begin with lol
So far I haven't found a big difficulty spike (I say so far because I've yet to make it very far into Farewell). This is NOT because I'm good at the game, it's because for me, all levels from B sides onwards were tough, so I think I very slowly got better as the game got harder, rather than finding B sides easy and then jumping to super hard C sides. I think persistence is absolutely the key, but not at the expense of your enjoyment with the game of course

[MrManiacB]

On 1/26/2021 at 2:32 PM, Vyzie_Taur said:

I finished this last weekend without the use of assist mode, but I poured a LOT of hours and deaths into it, 7B and 7C especially (8 hours 3000 deaths and 10 hours 2500 deaths respectively). I think I'm still sane...if I was sane to begin with lol
So far I haven't found a big difficulty spike (I say so far because I've yet to make it very far into Farewell). This is NOT because I'm good at the game, it's because for me, all levels from B sides onwards were tough, so I think I very slowly got better as the game got harder, rather than finding B sides easy and then jumping to super hard C sides. I think persistence is absolutely the key, but not at the expense of your enjoyment with the game of course

Likewise, I told myself I was going to Plat it without assist mode and I did, and it was indeed hard. 7B and 7C are nails. 7C probably the hardest of the 2 for me.

I also completed chapter 9 without assist, even though it doesn't give trophies. I think I just wanted to punish myself at that point, lol.

I'll say that I'm by no means a great platformer, but I do like to challenge myself, even if it does take a lot of attempts. I'm not saying everyone could do this without assist mode, but I think quite a few could eventually with perseverence. With all that said though I also wouldn't blame anyone who didn't have the patience to bash themselves against the wall over and over until they finally succeed. I'm probably just weird

 

Edit: Also OP - Interesting comment about wavedash. It took me a lot of tries before I finally "got it" and could do it reliably, and I think if you can't reliably do it then Chapter 9 is probably next to impossible, a lot of screens involve doing it, sometimes multiple times in a row. For me, while I eventually got wavedash down, I still can't do the Mega Jump? (The one you're taught and have to use in 8C) reliably, which is part of the reason I found 8C so difficult. Several times I got to the last bit and then screwed up the double Mega Jump bit.

Edited January 29, 2021 by MrManiacB

[Mayonaise85]

Just Platnuimed the game today without using assit mode. C7 just about drove me insane with 1009 death before I finally got it. Some of those C-sides were brutal and frustrating but finally getting that platnuim the legitimate way felt really good. I'm just glad we didn't need golden berries to platnuim or I never would have gotten it.

[NOWITSREYNTIME17]

I played this game on my Switch and the regular game and B-sides I could handle but the C sides and Farewell DLC, well it's just bonkers. So if I plat this game, I will most likely just do assist mode on the dlc and c sides, and I feel no shame if I at least beat the main game and b sides legit.