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

[AmazingNoeder]

Finally got my 100% 

 

In fact day 79 was the hardest,day 55 was normal,maybe i got lucky,some of the last levels were pretty hard and others  easy

You need to be perfect and super fast,and yes.....even if you do everything perfect,you will still fail a lot only cuz the game wants to...

Soo many times i lost only cuz the desired color never shows,or cuz i only get shitty power ups

And sometimes the level was  basically already lost , but every color and power up the game gave me helped me to survive a bit more

You need a lot of patience and you must be good,super fast and put all balls on the exactly place that they need to be, specialty when you are in the middle of a combo

Edited January 13 by AmazingNoeder

[pinkrobot_pb]

I hugely enjoyed Sparkle 2. Yes it was hard but I was always enjoying myself with that one. With Unleashed they have made the game so hard that it takes away much of the fun for me.

 

Hard mode was difficult but still felt fair. Nightmare mode however has been designed to stack the odds as much against you as possible it seems.

 

Yes, the speed is crazy and the maps themselves can be hard as well. You need to be super fast, perfect with your decisions and orb placement and able to find the right loadout for each level. But that is skill based difficulty that I am fine with.

 

However, what really annoys me are the design decisions that are unnecessary and only seem there to hamper your play. The way the game actively fucks you over by constantly giving you orbs you need the least can be infuriating at times. Up to a point you can work around that though. But the way the orbs take time to get into your plunger is incredibly annoying. Even if you want to play fast, you can't, because you do not know what orb you would be shooting. Seemingly small things like that can absolutely ruin the experience, and to me it does here.

 

All in all, Nightmare mode in Sparkle Unleashed has turned the game into an RNG grind fest. You're just waiting for the right spawns and the right power-ups for pretty much the whole level. And then you need to be absolutely perfect once that magical combination arrives, or it's back to the grind.

 

Edit: I have been at it on Nightmare for a couple of months, for at least one or two hours each day. I have reached level 32 now. Some levels were cleared within half an hour, while others have taken up to a week or more to complete. I have reached a whole new level of both skill and also annoyance with the game. But by golly, I will beat this bastard even if it takes me a lifetime.

Edited July 5, 2023 by pinkrobot_pb

[NuclearManager]

I've been stuck on level 8 Nightmare difficulty since May on the PS4 version. I have the completion of the PS5 version, could it be the difficulty was downscaled on PS5? I seem to get the worst luck on this level. I would have 90% of a sling consist of black orbs and only 2 or 3 loose orbs of different colours and even if I quickly shoot the orbs away into the void, I still don't get black.

[AmazingNoeder]

On 1/3/2024 at 2:19 PM, NuclearManager said:

I've been stuck on level 8 Nightmare difficulty since May on the PS4 version. I have the completion of the PS5 version, could it be the difficulty was downscaled on PS5? I seem to get the worst luck on this level. I would have 90% of a sling consist of black orbs and only 2 or 3 loose orbs of different colours and even if I quickly shoot the orbs away into the void, I still don't get black.

How much easier do you think the ps5 version is?