After getting the Chapter 4 boss challenge, Floor is lava, out of the way pretty easily, I pressed on. I decided to skip the achievement for not touching the water in the interest of making progress - I have another save right there anyway, although I only took one bath towards the end of my boss kill this time so was confident that one wouldn't be too bad, especially with more health and stamina to work with. Chapter 4 went pretty well once I found my flow, and I put my nemesis Mekadragon down quickly. I still wasn't playing my best at first, although the quick-fire rinse/repeat nature of dying in two hits and having to do a section again helped shake off some of the rust. That, and you may recall that I managed to make it all the way to Chapter 4 with only a couple of stumbles, so I had high hopes of doing alright here. Even with minimal health and SP, there's no limit to how many times you can retry a section, so it's not as bad as it seems. That will likely be the first and only time I describe a 0% run of a difficult game as 'lenient,' but compared to the instant fail condition I'd been banging my head against, it's accurate. That one could wait, as I needed something a little more lenient to get my groove back. This took the wind out of my sails a little, especially after coming so close last time, so I decided it was time for a change of tack. You know, the one thing you shouldn't do in a deathless run attempt. Unsurprisingly, this led to me getting bumped into a pit late in Chapter 2 by one of those damn flies (I'd say that they'll be the death of me, but they already have countless times at this point), and the next few attempts went even worse as frustration set in and instead of playing it safe, I tried to rush things. Execution was sloppy, mistakes frequent, and bosses way messier than they should have been. A few days had passed since I last booted up the game but from the standard of my play, you'd have thought it had been months. Once again, I started a new game in slot six (right next to the 'delete save' option for maximum efficiency) and jumped in. Solid 8/10.After coming so close to unlocking Live forever last time I played, I decided that was where I'd begin - getting one of The Big Three out of the way seemed like a great mental milestone to pass early and get me in the right mind space to take on the rest. I hope the developer learns from this game, because I think a fine tuned sequel or new IP has a lot of potential. And sometimes I tried to progress my character to the next area on the map only to realize I was already where I needed to be. I know they were going for an old school Castlevania/Mega Man type of thing, but I didn't know if I was supposed to be looking for branching paths. I am playing it for the gameplay experience, so don't make me think too hard about the story or I am just going to skip it.Īlso, I didn't quite follow the structure of the map. I think for this type of game you want a really basic story line and then a few memorable characters. I absolutely loved the cut scene Ninja Gaiden style story telling, the problem was that I gave up on the story itself really quickly. There is often a fine line between frustrating and satisfying with these harder games and Cyber Shadow is definitely walking that. I did feel like there were some balancing issues with regards to difficulty. I really enjoyed it, especially the final boss and some of the later levels. A lot of you are way more talented than me. It took me 12 hours and 300+ deaths just to beat the regular game. The dpad on the pro controller is just garbage, but I really like the four separate buttons on the joycons and they work great for this game. *edit2* I also had trouble with the dash, so I stopped playing with Switch Pro Controller and went to joycons. I think the devs also did a good job of mixing easier checkpoints in with harder ones, so you struggle with one, but then maybe clear the next one in 1 try. Definitely felt like I was mastering something to overcome those chokepoints, and sometimes I would only play 2-3 checkpoints in a session. *edit* I kind of liked the "replay 2-3 screens to get to checkpoint" vibe. I never went back and replayed any earlier stages. Final clear time was 7 hours 40 minutes, 60% (I don't have my death count). I usually only played in 30-45 minute sessions because the intensity was so high I would start getting tired and sloppy. Personally felt the difficulty was tuned great and ramped at a good pace. I don't think I've ever finished one before this. I adored this game, and I'm not usually one for these difficult sidescrollers at all. Wow I'm really surprised to see all the negativity in here.
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