Anybody else stuck on The Crook?

[Blupoh]

I seriously been at this for an hour. The problem is that I am finding it difficult to aim into the funnel when you bounce over him...and doing it like 10-15 times without getting hit twice is quite an ordeal. I know you can get armor from the hopping enemies, but I find it quite risky to do and end up getting myself killed. Tips?

[Kian]

Sorry to hear that you've had so much trouble with the boss! It is a hard one, I admit!
Once you hit a jump pad I'd start holding down to be ready to drop a gem into his funnel (there's no need to hold left or right as you will get the exact speed to hit the next jump pad).
I'd drop the gem when directly above the funnel since your movement won't affect the movement of the gem when dropped and the boss doesn't move too much horizontally.

A pro tip is to also throw a burst beam gem at the same time as you throw the gravity beam gem for double damage!

Good luck! :)

[DPB]

I can't do it either, like you I've been trying for at least an hour. Even if I do get lucky and manage to take out a significant chunk of his health the bullets speed up and my reflexes aren't good enough to dodge them consistently, and then it's back to square one for the hundredth time. I've managed to beat other games known for their difficulty, like La-Mulana and Dark Souls, but this is beyond me and it's only the second boss.

[Kian]

:S The Crook is probably the hardest boss, or let's just say that the other bosses are hard in a very different way.

When the bullet patterns appear I'd place Kurt in the very center of the stage. Then jump over two bullets at once as they overlap coming from opposite directions.

[DPB]

I still can't do it. I've played the game for 6 hours now, about 2.5 hours of which was fighting this boss. Dodging those bullets isn't something I can do reliably, not when you have to dodge three times as well as making sure you don't jump too high into another bullet.

I've given up now, the game is simply too difficult for me.

[Kian]

Aw man :'(

Tap the jump button and you won't jump as high? That way you can safely jump over the lowest bullets without hitting those above. I totally understand if you don't want to go back and give it another go :( Sorry.

[DPB]

Actually, I just went back another time and finally defeated him!

[Kian]

Hooray!!! :D Hang in there, it gets better and better imho! :)

[Blupoh]

I did it! It took me one try...a break was all i needed I guess. Games designed to be challenging always drew me in after beating Dark Souls. I still need to play through La Mulana...its right there on my desktop. I think i gave up more easily on the Crook because Pid came across as a casual game, then it slaps you in the face.

[mast]

DPB, awesome! Blupoh, yes in retrospective we probably should have marketed the game towards the more hardcore audience. I am trying to collect all the walk through videos I find on youtube on our channel http://www.youtube.com/user/MightAndDelight

[timeformime]

You've got a good overall point Barf, and I was thinking a few of these things while I desperately tried for about 30-40 minutes to beat this boss. The boss feels so, so, so cheap compared to the rest of the game. Mostly because you have to make 5-10 runs above the guy's head and your character dies in one hit, and the mechanics of a nice meditative platformer don't even fit a fight this frantic. I don't have a huge issue with the bullets, but I must admit I didn't get the skills to watch out for and dodge them from this game.

I'm okay with "retro hard" games that require concentration (I'm also a huge fan of Demon's Souls/SMB), but The Crook is just retro cheap, and I know when I beat him it'll just be dumb luck. He's a bastard, and he doesn't fit this game at all!

[mast]

I'm copying something I said earlier in another forum:

In retrospective I wish we would have given some hints when it comes to the boss battles. Take crook for example, we could have told the player to stay above the ground (in a beam) or jump to avoid the bomb damage. And that it is easier to press down, the second you are over his head, so the gem drops straight down into his funnel. If you time this right you can't miss. Also that you can throw a burst and a regular gem at the same time to give him double damage. And to avoid the bullets, you can be in a beam at the highest point and just jump over the bullets. Since you fall down without seeing the ground many times in the game, the standard procedure should be throwing a gem downwards so it will catch you before you land on something evil.
I can not, however, agree that luck is a factor.

That said we are working on something that will make things easier for players but it all comes down to sales right now. We are taking your critic very seriously and appreciate that you share them with us.

[Curzhos]

I had issues with this boss too, but I blame myself for not figuring out the tricks sooner.

The enemies lose so much ammo, more than you need for the few times you manage to hit him with a yellow bomb, so it should've been obvious to me to do the double damage thing, which I only figured out after 2 hours of trying.

I did not use the beam for the bullets. You just have to learn the bullet patterns, there are only about 5 different ones, and they're easy to dogde if you don't jump straight up but in the opposite direction the lowest bullet is coming from - or if they come from both sides at the same time, into the direction of the bullet that's farther away. That's what worked for me anyways.

For the occiasional bullet make sure you're on the ground, you can't dodge in mid air, so you want to be on the ground and jump only if the bullet is actually coming in at ground level.

Also the jumping enemy loses a protection suit - I died a lot trying to off the jumper and collect it, later on I simply picked it up when it happened to be there anyway (because the crook offed it for me using bullet or bombs). It's better to concentrate on just staying alive.

Before I figured out the double damage thing I only managed to fill him up to 75% before dying. With double damage I finally beat him.

I very much like the new game mechanics introduced after the Crook. The game is still fun and I loved the crook style wise. It simply gets boring when you basically know how to beat him and just didn't manage to live long enough to actually do it.

It's a great game, I'm glad I bought it

[Landy]

This boss frustrated me, but like any good challenge, you have to figure out the tricks. I was failing hard at bouncing from spring to spring, so that I wasn't bouncing back and forth easily. If you can't do that, you'll only get maybe 1-2 hits in per cycle. Once I got the spring action down, I was able to damage him 4 times in 1 cycle, and it only took about 3 cycles to kill him. Besides that it's just paying attention to when he shoots his gun, and the rest is predictable enough to avoid damage.

[mast]

Hi guys, this is our 2 hour speedrun of Pid. We are working on something that will makes things easier for you guys but maybe this will help. More episodes will come.

WARNING SPOILERS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXcVUt5ASu4&feature=plcp

[Grey Area]

I was very frustrated with this fight myself. What I think made the difference was turning off NVidia 3D...whilst Pid for the most part makes a very good game with the system, on this level in particular I was getting a lot of ghosting on the enemies at the edges of the screen, making it impossible to react swiftly enough.

If the Dev's do want to makes this level a little easier...allow the player to land on the Crook's head for a short period of time and then have him shake you off...better than just the constant bouncing that happens currently.