Difficulty / Accessibility Options?

[Andrew R]

I'm assuming there are none?

Is this game on the easy / medium side? Thank you.

[Lightbearer]

None that I am aware of and if you're an average player (like me) I'd categorize the game as "medium" difficulty with a distinct spike after you get access to the broader map.

The difficulty can be taken down if you explore more, eat all the meals, consistently upgrade your talent tree, and find better gear as your level is not the best indicator of your strength. The game greatly rewards exploration and this is one of the largest Metroidvanias I have ever played.

There are a series of boss fights towards the end game that you might find extremely tough until you learn their patterns. Once you do you'll be fine.

[Andrew R]

Appreciate the answer. Will give it a shot. :)

[JustMK]

I'm very concerned about difficulty, 'cos I always play in leisure mode.
On a scale between
[Shantae ... BloodStained: Ritual of the Night ... HunterX ... Hollow Knight]
Where would you place it?

'cos I fail to pass bosses in both HunterX\HK (over 100+ tries on 4th-5th bossess and no win for last half of year).
I don't want to waste another $25 on the game I will never beat.

Thanks in advance

[Lightbearer]

I wish I could give you a clear answer, but the experience is entirely subjective. I would say that of the games you listed it is most similar to Hollow Knight for me. Meaning, I beat 90% of the bosses with zero problems, but there were a handful that took me multiple tries.

In this game there were 3-4 end game bosses (70+ level) that took me at least 5-6+ attempts and really required me to be patient and learn their move sets. Now I can handle them no problem even though the true final boss is still a pain mostly because of the number of back-to-back fights. But, you do get 13 health charges (glyphs) so that really helps drawn out battles, plus food you can eat for temporary stat boosts.

Overall, I think the game is accessible to the vast majority of players if you remain persistent and proactively study any boss battles where you are struggling. Also, thoroughly exploring areas provides you with better equipment and that can easily turn the tide of most boss battles early-to-mid-late game.

[JustMK]

Originally posted by Lightbearer:

I wish I could give you a clear answer, but the experience is entirely subjective. I would say that of the games you listed it is most similar to Hollow Knight for me. Meaning, I beat 90% of the bosses with zero problems, but there were a handful that took me multiple tries.

In this game there were 3-4 end game bosses (70+ level) that took me at least 5-6+ attempts and really required me to be patient and learn their move sets. Now I can handle them no problem even though the true final boss is still a pain mostly because of the number of back-to-back fights. But, you do get 13 health charges (glyphs) so that really helps drawn out battles, plus food you can eat for temporary stat boosts.

Overall, I think the game is accessible to the vast majority of players if you remain persistent and proactively study any boss battles where you are struggling. Also, thoroughly exploring areas provides you with better equipment and that can easily turn the tide of most boss battles early-to-mid-late game.

Thanks! I have poor "in the moment" reaction, so all these perfect dodges and parry mechanics are way too tough to me, so I can't beat or master it.
Hunter Chaser in HunterX is unbeatable for me, no matter how many times I tried - its count reaches now over 120+. I'm deadly serious. ON EASY.
And... My friend killed this boss on second or third try. But he able to finish all the Soulsborne games, he has a good reaction. I believe, he's what you can call "an average player".
And I haven't - my progress in any Souls stops on first or second boss. Just because my reaction and ability to recognize moveset pattern right in time is way too poor.

P.S.: Any Shantae game is perfect for my skills. Despite my failure with HunterX and first bosses of Hollow Knight, I finished COGEN: Sword of Rewind on easy. It took me about 30..40+ approaches on the last boss. And it's easy. And there are 3-4 more difficulties. I don't know how people manage to play these games on something higher than easy) And that's why I prefer to have very easy modes with wide timings and reduced damage to the player.

[Lightbearer]

For what it's worth I don't think I parried once in this game. In fact, I had no idea this mechanic existed until I read about it in another thread and I've definitely played this game for more hours than the average player. Getting good at dodging, identifying attack windows, and not being greedy is what worked for me. There are no i-frames until later in the game, so that seems to be an adjustment for a lot of people.

I play Metroidvanias primarily for the exploration and try to 100% most games. If it has good-to-great combat even better. This game really delivers on exploration and secrets. It's one of the best in years in my opinion. If you're similar to me, then I wouldn't let boss battles prevent you from enjoying a phenomenal game.

Worst case, if you're on PC, there are a few Cheat Engine tables floating around that give infinite HP. And, overpowering bosses has more to do with your equipment (via exploring) than your level (although extra talent points never hurt).

I think I'm now officially entering shilling/fan boy territory, so I'll leave it at that!

[Asakura Shinichi]

Honestly id say its one of the easier metroidvanias, Hollow Knight and even Ender Lilies are much more challenging, this game would be challenging if you go follow the story only and never ever try to explore, but thats actually not what the game expects you to do. The game actually expects you to explore and find new equipments and skills, which in the end makes the game kinda similar to how hard was Elden Ring when compared to Dark Souls. Because of how open the map is and how you can go to areas with higher level mobs and get a huge boost in levels, you can easily get overleveled and stomp bosses. The only challenging bosses i had were bosses that i did way below the required levels, rest of the bosses were just brute force them without worrying about healing cause i could easily do more damage to them then they to me without me even trying to dodge.

[Asakura Shinichi]

Originally posted by Lightbearer:

For what it's worth I don't think I parried once in this game. In fact, I had no idea this mechanic existed until I read about it in another thread and I've definitely played this game for more hours than the average player. Getting good at dodging, identifying attack windows, and not being greedy is what worked for me. There are no i-frames until later in the game, so that seems to be an adjustment for a lot of people.

I play Metroidvanias primarily for the exploration and try to 100% most games. If it has good-to-great combat even better. This game really delivers on exploration and secrets. It's one of the best in years in my opinion. If you're similar to me, then I wouldn't let boss battles prevent you from enjoying a phenomenal game.

Worst case, if you're on PC, there are a few Cheat Engine tables floating around that give infinite HP. And, overpowering bosses has more to do with your equipment (via exploring) than your level (although extra talent points never hurt).

I think I'm now officially entering shilling/fan boy territory, so I'll leave it at that!

Why would you suggest cheating in a game, if someone is so bad that he would need to cheat why waste money to buy a game in the first place? Cheating in a game literally is just becoming passive, at this point you would be better to just watch someone else play this game, because with cheats your not playing but just watching anyway.

[JustMK]

Originally posted by Lightbearer:

For what it's worth I don't think I parried once in this game. In fact, I had no idea this mechanic existed until I read about it in another thread and I've definitely played this game for more hours than the average player. Getting good at dodging, identifying attack windows, and not being greedy is what worked for me. There are no i-frames until later in the game, so that seems to be an adjustment for a lot of people.

I play Metroidvanias primarily for the exploration and try to 100% most games. If it has good-to-great combat even better. This game really delivers on exploration and secrets. It's one of the best in years in my opinion. If you're similar to me, then I wouldn't let boss battles prevent you from enjoying a phenomenal game.

Worst case, if you're on PC, there are a few Cheat Engine tables floating around that give infinite HP. And, overpowering bosses has more to do with your equipment (via exploring) than your level (although extra talent points never hurt).

I think I'm now officially entering shilling/fan boy territory, so I'll leave it at that!

Thanks. Your words were encouraging. As for platfrom... I thought about buying the game for Switch, 'cos it's my primary platform in order to play "small" or "niche" games. They're just overwhelmingly perfect on its 7" OLED.

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

Honestly id say its one of the easier metroidvanias, Hollow Knight and even Ender Lilies are much more challenging, this game would be challenging if you go follow the story only and never ever try to explore, but thats actually not what the game expects you to do. The game actually expects you to explore and find new equipments and skills, which in the end makes the game kinda similar to how hard was Elden Ring when compared to Dark Souls. Because of how open the map is and how you can go to areas with higher level mobs and get a huge boost in levels, you can easily get overleveled and stomp bosses. The only challenging bosses i had were bosses that i did way below the required levels, rest of the bosses were just brute force them without worrying about healing cause i could easily do more damage to them then they to me without me even trying to dodge.

Urk. I'm always running for the ending credits, i.e. I prefer to play only following the story. So my playstyle can be a problem here... Thanks, I hope the game will not be boring enough for me to explore it +/- thoroughly.

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

Originally posted by Lightbearer:

For what it's worth I don't think I parried once in this game. In fact, I had no idea this mechanic existed until I read about it in another thread and I've definitely played this game for more hours than the average player. Getting good at dodging, identifying attack windows, and not being greedy is what worked for me. There are no i-frames until later in the game, so that seems to be an adjustment for a lot of people.

I play Metroidvanias primarily for the exploration and try to 100% most games. If it has good-to-great combat even better. This game really delivers on exploration and secrets. It's one of the best in years in my opinion. If you're similar to me, then I wouldn't let boss battles prevent you from enjoying a phenomenal game.

Worst case, if you're on PC, there are a few Cheat Engine tables floating around that give infinite HP. And, overpowering bosses has more to do with your equipment (via exploring) than your level (although extra talent points never hurt).

I think I'm now officially entering shilling/fan boy territory, so I'll leave it at that!

Why would you suggest cheating in a game, if someone is so bad that he would need to cheat why waste money to buy a game in the first place? Cheating in a game literally is just becoming passive, at this point you would be better to just watch someone else play this game, because with cheats your not playing but just watching anyway.

Nah. I can't agree. I HATE watching the gameplay. I really hate it, 'cos it feels like wasting time. I need some involvement, to control, to see it my way, not the way it is in someone's walkthrough.

If you can't overcome some bosses due to lack of ability to do it, it's a huge frustration. You know, after I tried to kill Hunter Chaser (something around 4-5th boss) in HunterX, it was around my 126 (I'm deadly serious) try per day, or something, I almost threw my Switch against the wall with all my might.
In the end, I dropped the game, it was a waste of my $20 or something around it, and, what's matter most, my time. I tried again and again and failed. You know, if the game would let me just to play through the bosses, without that amount of unneccessary (for me!) challenge, I would be glad. But, they decided to make "easy" as hard as they can, so I'm still frustrated, despite last time playing the game in july 2022.

If you can't overcome something and use something to help you, like cheats, there are a lot left for you to experience: feel of the game mechanic and impact from actions, atmoshpere, music, and above all of this - feel of adventure and, of course, the story.
I doubt HunterX is any decent in terms of story, music or atomsphere, but it doesn't matter.

And Imagine you can't feel this "satisfaction of overcoming the challenge" just like me(I'm also dead serious). You have no ability to feel it. AT ALL. All you can feel is what I listed above.

I hate challenges 'cos I don't feel enjoyment from it, it feels (for me) just like a waste of time approaching same "wall" again and again in order to somehow overcome it. If I can't beat it - just let me pass. Don't give me an achievment as a punishment - I don't need it. I just want to see the game through. Let me do it legally through the game mechanics. Or, at least, give me legal cheats to see whole story.

There are a lot of ways to enjoy the games. For example, I played and completed all the Xenoblade Chronicles (all three + DLCs) not for challenge, but for its awesome cast of characters, its engaging story, its rich lore, its unbeatable worldbuilding, its unique and wonderful, beautiful music, its awesome art and character design. I really love it.

Sorry for any mistakes in my English, still studying it.

[JustMK]

Got the game for Switch. I hope it worth it and I will not drop it due to unreasonable difficulty of the bosses.

[Asakura Shinichi]

Originally posted by JustMK:

Got the game for Switch. I hope it worth it.

It's a top tier metroidvania. If this would be not worth then none would be.

[JustMK]

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

Originally posted by JustMK:

Got the game for Switch. I hope it worth it.

It's a top tier metroidvania. If this would be not worth then none would be.

I'm afraid of any unreasonable difficulty due to trend to make metroidvanias like soulsborne in terms of difficulty. This means I'll drop the game in frustration (If it's too hard, 'cos it don't have any difficulty settings) and spent money are going to waste like it was with Lost Epic and HunterX.

[Asakura Shinichi]

Originally posted by JustMK:

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

It's a top tier metroidvania. If this would be not worth then none would be.

I'm afraid of any unreasonable difficulty due to trend to make metroidvanias like soulsborne in terms of difficulty. This means I'll drop the game in frustration (If it's too hard, 'cos it don't have any difficulty settings) and spent money are going to waste like it was with Lost Epic and HunterX.

I dont know what you mean trend in difficulty, back in the days metroidvanias where hard games, the trend was making easy handholding metroidvanias for some time like what they make with most games nowadays just to ramp up sales but water down the quality of games. Finally we get metroidvanias back to where they should be, being challenging games.

[SuperBearCat]

Originally posted by JustMK:

Got the game for Switch. I hope it worth it and I will not drop it due to unreasonable difficulty of the bosses.

You can just... you know, play the Demo? or at least get PC version so you can use cheats or even refund if you dislike it.
COGEN is as hard as Gunvolt and this game is harder than that. Still easier than Hollow Knight, but you will die a lot trying to learn the boss pattern.

[JustMK]

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

Originally posted by JustMK:

I'm afraid of any unreasonable difficulty due to trend to make metroidvanias like soulsborne in terms of difficulty. This means I'll drop the game in frustration (If it's too hard, 'cos it don't have any difficulty settings) and spent money are going to waste like it was with Lost Epic and HunterX.

I dont know what you mean trend in difficulty, back in the days metroidvanias where hard games, the trend was making easy handholding metroidvanias for some time like what they make with most games nowadays just to ramp up sales but water down the quality of games. Finally we get metroidvanias back to where they should be, being challenging games.

Castlevania were hard only due to necessity to find some gimmick to pass to next door. I don't remember them being THAT hard, even in terms of bosses. Recently I finished Order of Ecclesia on my NDS. It's way easier than HunterX, Lost Epic and other modern metroidvanias. Original Metroid on the other hand was harder, that's true.

And I don't agree with "water down the quality of games". Shantae, for example, is way easier but its quality since Pirate's Curse is really high (especially Half-Genie Hero, my favorite).