My thoughts on the difficulty (Updated 6/14).

[TsubakiCalamity]

Original Post (6/5) For updates, see below:

 

So far, I've been enjoying this game during and after finishing the main mode (Normal run), I decide to try out Survival mode. I originally thought it might not be as hard as I thought, but I was wrong. Personally, I don't care how difficult the game's trophies is, but oh, boy I find Survival to be extremely brutal yet unbalanced, even the game's difficulty is set to Normal. I've been trying for two hours and I seriously cannot earn a single 5-star rating. I only end up earning 3 to 4 stars average per run. I hate when unbalanced difficulty in any game takes away my skill and strategy, and end up wasting time hoping to be lucky. It's so frustrating. When it comes to challenge we like to play usually we use skills (sometimes luck needed). However, this is not the case. I know I love to challenge myself into a relatively hard difficulty, but the developers seems to be aware that the Survival in Sparkle 2 is almost too easy so they decide to bump it up in Unleashed. And to top the things off, they made some gameplay changes: you only select one power-up on each column. What I mean is that you cannot enable all power-ups in the game. Basically, you just make your own preference and/or strategy. Despite of this feature, I can't find out which power-ups works the best for Survival mode.

 

Now, if someone is reading this and finds out I said something wrong, I do apologize. I'm not mad, but I'm just saying. Maybe Survival is the only mode I disliked so far. I haven't completed Hard and Nightmare difficulty in the regular mode as of yet; when I finish it, maybe I can share my another opinion whenever I have a chance. If someone has a good tip(s) or a guide on how to score 5-stars per stage or if they the developers released the patch (to tone down the difficulty), let me know by posting a reply. Thanks for reading. I know the game's community is small, but I'm sure there some dedicated players who can help others out.

 

UPDATE (6/14): All stages with 5-star (perfect) cleared. Finally got the Survival mode done! I can tell you that this is a lot more harder than I thought, but I manage to nail it. I tried using Color Wipe on last two stages (Cold Hollow and Ephemeral Mirage), but it didn't worked too well. Instead, I use Color Blast and it worked very much well on these two stages that took me a long time to score a 5-star. I think my playtime increased when I left idle or sleep, so I don't count on it. Note that my no. of hours requirement for Survival completion is not accurate, but I'm suggesting 5-20 hours or so, depending on player's skill, strategy, and luck. Still, there are a lot of things for me to do: completion of Hard and Nightmare difficulty in main game and video recordings of Survival 5-star runs per stage. Feels like I'm addicted to this game already despite a lot of bad luck. (^ _ ^ ; )

 

UPDATE (6/11): I have 12 out of 21 stages completed w/ five stars earned in Survival. If the trophy is attainable and not glitched, I'll update my thoughts. I gotta be honest that Unleashed is a lot more time consuming and probably more difficulty than Sparkle 1 and 2 to 100%.

 

UPDATE (6/10): Okay, so I was pretty much wrong that the game's difficulty asks me to have both skill (right power-ups and strategy) and luck. I happen to 5-star three stages today which quickly change my thoughts regarding the difficulty. The power-ups I use for this mode: Spark Blast, Backwards, Orb of Decay, Color Wipe, Enchanted Fireflies, and Frost Ray. My advice is make a lot of combos! That way, you can get a better chance of winning if used the power-ups correctly with enough luck needed. I'll post the videos sometimes soon.

Edited June 14, 2015 by TsubakiCalamity

[Ichiban-Hybrid]

So your saying unleashed is harder than the 1 and the 2 due to its unbalanced system? Wow thats 1 more problem I need. That explains why no one 100% this, its taking a while. The 2nd game was a tad harder than the first but reading this from you Im gonna need to prepared for the worse.

[tatepasternak]

TsubakiCalamity I agree with you that this one was a bit harder at first than 1 & 2. What Platform are you playing on? I started on PS4 and it was quite brutal at first but since it has a shared trophie list ( and cross buy ) with PS3 PS4 & Vita I switch to the vita and used the touch screen and it was so much easier . On the Vita you can just press where you want the ball to go instead of using the analog stick back and forth (which felt way to slow & unresponsive to me). To me BACKWARDS & ECHANTED FIREFLIES were a must. If you have a Vita, try it on that and you can beat it

Edited August 25, 2015 by tatepasternak

[dmsleight]

yeah, I'm playing on the vita and I am getting my butt kicked.  On normal, I got 4 stars on the first survivor level and 3 stars after that.  I have logged a lot of playing too.  I barely beat 101+ levels on normal too.  I can't imagine getting 100%.  This game is addictive but so annoying.  Too freaken hard.

And I can never get the powerups because it always goes appears above the path blocked by the @#$! orbs!!!

Edited September 5, 2016 by dmsleight

[dmsleight]

I managed to beat hard mode and Survival with difficulty (and a lot of time). I tried out nightmare mode, and even on the very first level it moves so fast.  I think I have more than met my match.

[ladynadiad]

I know this topic is old, but I imagine this will help someone.  Survival mode is actually quite easy with a simple trick.  Either tackle it very soon after starting the game or make a second profile in the game.  Play on normal until you unlock enchanted fireflies, frost ray, and the one with the butterflies (or keep backwards if you prefer it instead).  Do not move any further on normal difficulty and unlock further powerups.

 

Then play on survival with just those few powerups and on a normal run obviously.  How hard survival is definitely depends on the difficulty you are playing on, but on a fresh profile with limited powerups you're going to find it easier   Definitely keep a chain of combos going so you get powerups, but with the limited stash of powerups, you're always going to get something useful.

 

Sadly, nothing can be helped for hard or nightmare.  The game absolutely doesn't allow you to disable certain useless powerups or choose not to unlock them and some sets of powerups are definitely full of worthless stuff that rarely helps.  Those definitely boil down to luck of getting orbs in a pattern where you can get powerups, getting the colors you need to deal with the orbs, being able to reach the powerups, and getting stuff that is useful.  Every time I beat a level it's because the game was nice and gave me lots of enchanted fireflies and the right color of orbs at the right time.  Beating a level in nightmare comes down to just having a lucky run where you can keep a chain going the whole time.

[remtalemta]

On 2020. 01. 03. at 8:55 PM, ladynadiad said:

I know this topic is old, but I imagine this will help someone.  Survival mode is actually quite easy with a simple trick.  Either tackle it very soon after starting the game or make a second profile in the game.  Play on normal until you unlock enchanted fireflies, frost ray, and the one with the butterflies (or keep backwards if you prefer it instead).  Do not move any further on normal difficulty and unlock further powerups.

 

Then play on survival with just those few powerups and on a normal run obviously.  How hard survival is definitely depends on the difficulty you are playing on, but on a fresh profile with limited powerups you're going to find it easier   Definitely keep a chain of combos going so you get powerups, but with the limited stash of powerups, you're always going to get something useful.

 

Sadly, nothing can be helped for hard or nightmare.  The game absolutely doesn't allow you to disable certain useless powerups or choose not to unlock them and some sets of powerups are definitely full of worthless stuff that rarely helps.  Those definitely boil down to luck of getting orbs in a pattern where you can get powerups, getting the colors you need to deal with the orbs, being able to reach the powerups, and getting stuff that is useful.  Every time I beat a level it's because the game was nice and gave me lots of enchanted fireflies and the right color of orbs at the right time.  Beating a level in nightmare comes down to just having a lucky run where you can keep a chain going the whole time.

 

That someone is me, I guess, thanks for the update. This means that you, too, believe that orb patterns depend on what power-ups you have. I'm not alone with this crazy theory then.

 

Are you still trying to finish the nightmare campaing?

Edited January 5, 2020 by Swithop

[ladynadiad]

2 hours ago, Swithop said:

 

That someone is me, I guess, thanks for the update. This means that you, too, believe that orb patterns depend on what power-ups you have. I'm not alone with this crazy theory then.

 

Are you still trying to finish the nightmare campaign?

 

It's not so much that I believe the orb patterns depend on what power ups you have but more that the times I'm able to beat a level on nightmare were because I can get a chain going and get useful powerups that help me keep it going.  Increasing your chances of getting fireflies means increased chances of keeping that chain going.  With the limited stash of powerups it only took me one try per survival level to get 5 stars.  Plain and simple, the game is easier if you can limit yourself to only useful powerups and becomes harder when more powerups are available because some actually worsen your situation other than reducing the total number of orbs left.

 

And yeah, still working on nightmare.  I'm on level 51 out of the 100+.  I only play it off and on when I have nothing else to play now though.

[remtalemta]

50 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

 

It's not so much that I believe the orb patterns depend on what power ups you have but more that the times I'm able to beat a level on nightmare were because I can get a chain going and get useful powerups that help me keep it going.  Increasing your chances of getting fireflies means increased chances of keeping that chain going.  With the limited stash of powerups it only took me one try per survival level to get 5 stars.  Plain and simple, the game is easier if you can limit yourself to only useful powerups and becomes harder when more powerups are available because some actually worsen your situation other than reducing the total number of orbs left.

 

And yeah, still working on nightmare.  I'm on level 51 out of the 100+.  I only play it off and on when I have nothing else to play now though.

 

I played through hard mode with a fix set of spark shot, backwards, double wild orbs, color blast, fireflies and frost ray and they worked out just fine on every level without the need of replacing any of them. Day 103 was tough but that had nothing to do with the power-ups, you just can't do anything about so many lava orbs coming at you in one chain. I'm curious how this setup will work on nightmare.

 

I started survival mode after the normal playthrough but I was stuck on the third level, so I thought hard mode will be a decent training in order to go back and beat survival too. Not true.

[ladynadiad]

1 hour ago, Swithop said:

 

I played through hard mode with a fix set of spark shot, backwards, double wild orbs, color blast, fireflies and frost ray and they worked out just fine on every level without the need of replacing any of them. Day 103 was tough but that had nothing to do with the power-ups, you just can't do anything about so many lava orbs coming at you in one chain. I'm curious how this setup will work on nightmare.

 

I started survival mode after the normal playthrough but I was stuck on the third level, so I thought hard mode will be a decent training in order to go back and beat survival too. Not true.

 

So nightmare starts off not too bad for like a couple of levels.  Then it quickly becomes harder than the last few levels on hard.  The orbs move very fast and you have long lines of orbs to get rid of in a short time and very often the next pusher will come out before you even finish with the first one.  It will also very quickly escalate the number of pushers you have to eliminate.  51 is asking me to get rid of 10 pushers.  You also start with all the colors present from pretty much the start.

 

Maybe part of why I found survival so easy is that playing on nightmare will make you good at it.  But even so until I did the start a new profile and unlock a limited number of powerups trick, I couldn't get five stars in very many and when I did the limited powerup trick it was a piece of cake.  I personally prefer march of the butterflies to backwards, because backwards means you still need to deal with orbs, in nightmare you need them gone as quickly as possible.  It's also very erratic on whether a last minute powerup can save a failure and how many orbs can go in the hole before you get defeated.

[remtalemta]

13 hours ago, ladynadiad said:

I personally prefer march of the butterflies to backwards, because backwards means you still need to deal with orbs, in nightmare you need them gone as quickly as possible.

 

Butterflies is a great offensive but it may waste useful orb pairs, and that's why I avoid it.

 

I'll attempt a few more tries on hard survival and then leave it at that.

 

Anyway, whatever made you bring up this topic out of the sudden, it was a relief. Struggling with a hard game that practically no one plays anymore is quite depressing.

[Satsarn13]

Just started on nightmare, let's see how long it takes ?

[PanBeskosty]

On 4.10.2020 at 1:47 PM, Satsarn13 said:

Just started on nightmare, let's see how long it takes 

Whoa! Almost all series complete

[AmazingNoeder]

Anyone can answer me how hard this is?

I mean 0.17% is extremely low and a lot of insanely hard games have more % than this...I m honestly afraid haha by this number on this style of gaming

[Satsarn13]

On 2020-10-09 at 2:24 PM, AmazingNoeder said:

Anyone can answer me how hard this is?

I mean 0.17% is extremely low and a lot of insanely hard games have more % than this...I m honestly afraid haha by this number on this style of gaming

I guess you'll find out since you started it yourself

[AmazingNoeder]

3 hours ago, Satsarn13 said:

I guess you'll find out since you started it yourself

Yeah,I hope this isn't insanely hard,and just hard haha

[Satsarn13]

Day 55 on Nightmare was the hardest so far, guess it's not getting easier from here.

 

Edit: Day 79 on Nightmare hardest so far.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Satsarn13

[AmazingNoeder]

On 09/10/2020 at 9:24 AM, AmazingNoeder said:

Anyone can answer me how hard this is?

I mean 0.17% is extremely low and a lot of insanely hard games have more % than this...I m honestly afraid haha by this number on this style of gaming

Well..I can confirm that this shit is insanely hard, nightmare speed is a sadistic joke,a lot of levels on hard are anoying,i don't even want to think on nightmare

And is funny that I spent more than one hour on day 103 on hard,but i pass the last day on first try and was pretty easy,this game doesn't follow a straightforward difficult by how high the level will become and how hard it will be,now is suffer and get my patient tested to get this fuckin 100% 

[Vanzinho]

Just started the game and trying to beat Survival. First 2 levels done. I did Sparkle and Sparkle 2 three times on all consoles. I would say im confident with this game but this will take a while to complete.

[giggs_amos]

This game tests your patience and limits. I'm stuck on hard, day 87, it seems impossible the further i try. I like to think that i'm good with reflex games, got the platinum for Slime-san, Velocity 2X and Raiden V, but this game is just brutal. I can't even imagine what horror nightmare mode offers. When i was starting, i was thinking this is gonna be a relaxing game, but damn, it pinches the nerves, it's so masochistic at times.

 

As far as the mechanics goes; i would love if they created the option to choose specifical power ups based on the situation, and disable the rest, it would make things so much more strategical, depandable on skills and control instead of randomness spread across the luck factor. I think more control is what this game needs to be fully enjoyable; if anybody got tips, would appreciate it, but for now as it stands, i'm about to quit... and salute to anyone who managed the hundered yards. 

[remtalemta]

On 2020. 11. 26. at 2:14 AM, giggs_amos said:

This game tests your patience and limits. I'm stuck on hard, day 87, it seems impossible the further i try. I like to think that i'm good with reflex games, got the platinum for Slime-san, Velocity 2X and Raiden V, but this game is just brutal. I can't even imagine what horror nightmare mode offers. When i was starting, i was thinking this is gonna be a relaxing game, but damn, it pinches the nerves, it's so masochistic at times.

 

As far as the mechanics goes; i would love if they created the option to choose specifical power ups based on the situation, and disable the rest, it would make things so much more strategical, depandable on skills and control instead of randomness spread across the luck factor. I think more control is what this game needs to be fully enjoyable; if anybody got tips, would appreciate it, but for now as it stands, i'm about to quit... and salute to anyone who managed the hundered yards. 

 

Switching power-ups level by level will only make progress more difficult because you not only have to deal with the orbs but also with adjusting to your new arsenal every time you make changes. It's better to stick with a permanent power-up setup you are comfortable working with from Day 1 to the end.

[Vanzinho]

Yes, i managed to complete Survival Mode yesterday. Took me about 20 hours. Now on to Quest Mode

 

[giggs_amos]

On 2020-12-2 at 2:58 AM, Swithop said:

 

Switching power-ups level by level will only make progress more difficult because you not only have to deal with the orbs but also with adjusting to your new arsenal every time you make changes. It's better to stick with a permanent power-up setup you are comfortable working with from Day 1 to the end.

I was more thinking in a way; would be good if they let us decide and carry, two, three power ups into a level, instead of automatically carrying them all. 

 

. .. And I got a confession to make, i played the game without the cursor for aiming, didn't know it was a integrated part of the experience, didn't fiddled around with buttons until i accidentily turned it on, then i took a pause from the game and stared some time into nothing, contemplating my own stupidity and no permanent solutions came into mind.

 

All jokes aside... i'm long over the game; hard to get back into the motion, thanks for the tip though. Peace. 

[AmazingNoeder]

Idk if im pretty bad or not but i finally got pass the day 31 on nightmare and it was ridiculously hard and lucky based ,i let this game aside for 1 year only by this fucking level,i have probably around 46 hours of play 

[Vanzinho]

I finally managed to get the 100% after 248hours of play time